by Anne Dayton
45
Ms. Moore has her hands wrapped around the mug I made for Father’s Day in sixth grade. It’s weird to see her here, in my kitchen, drinking peppermint tea, but I’m glad she came. I couldn’t have done this without her.
“Thank you all for coming.” I’m not sure what else to say. I clear my throat. This is so awkward. “As you know, I asked you here to talk about Michael.”
My brother sits in his regular chair, but his eyes are glazed over, and he stares straight ahead like he can’t see or hear any of us.
“Riley,” Mom says, clasping her hands together. “I’m not sure this is the best—”
“I know we’re all concerned about what’s best for Michael,” I say, cutting her off. “And I know how hard you guys have worked to make sure Michael gets the best possible care.” Maybe this isn’t entirely true, but they did try, and Mom’s shoulders relax a bit. I glance at Ms. Moore, and she nods. “But over the past few months, some things have changed, and I wanted to readdress the situation. Things have been difficult this year for all of us. Mom, you’ve been making yourself crazy homeschooling Michael.” Mom bobs her head. There are dark circles under her eyes. “And, Dad.” His arms are crossed over his chest. “You’ve been working to keep this family afloat. But I didn’t really realize how hard this has all been on Michael until I talked with Dr. Matt last week.”
Mom sucks in her breath, and Dad presses his palms against the surface of the table.
“You talked to Dr. Nguyen?”
I cast a pleading glance at Ms. Moore. She lifts her chin but doesn’t say anything.
“I got in contact with him after I realized that no matter how much we want Michael to get better, we simply aren’t able to give him the help he needs. I saw that he was regressing. I saw that I couldn’t protect him even when I tried. I started reading this book about how autistic kids learn, and I realized we’ve been doing a lot of things wrong. And”—I glance at Michael, who is still pretending he can’t hear a word of our conversation—“I talked to Michael about what he wanted.”
I tap my brother’s arm. “Michael.” He doesn’t acknowledge me, so I tap him again. “Michael.” He shrinks away, but finally turns toward me. “Would you please tell Mom and Dad what you said to me?”
Michael doesn’t say anything for a moment. As he sits there, rocking back and forth silently in his chair, I start to panic. If Michael flakes out on me now, this is never going to work.
“Michael?”
He’s flailing his arms in his chair. Please, God. He can’t have a tantrum now. Not when everything is on the line.
I can hear the clock tick above the kitchen sink. Ms. Moore clears her throat.
“Well, Michael and I talked about it,” I start, “and he wanted to tell you—”
“I can speak for myself,” Michael blurts out. I freeze. He is glaring at me. “I just needed some time to think so the words wouldn’t come out wrong.” His voice is angry, and I smile at him, trying to encourage him. “You’re always in such a hurry. Sometimes I just need more time.”
I start. Does he think I rush all the time? I think back on the past year. Well, sure, I didn’t always have time to wait around for him after practice or whatever, but what sister could honestly have done better?
“Michael, I—”
“Riley—,” Dad starts.
“I didn’t like Marina Vista.” Michael’s voice is flat and emotionless, but it doesn’t hide his pain. “The kids were mean to me, and the teachers treated me like I was stupid,” Michael says, glancing at me. “I’m not stupid.”
Mom sniffs, and I see tears glistening in her eyes.
“How do you like being homeschooled, Michael?” I ask.
“Mom doesn’t know how to teach like Dr. Matt.”
Mom sniffs again, and I can see that the words sting, even though we all know Michael doesn’t mean things like they sound.
“I miss Dr. Matt. He helped me not feel so bad.”
Ms. Moore reaches for a box of tissues on the counter and pushes it toward Mom. Mom pulls one out and dabs at her eyes.
“Michael,” Dad starts, then stops. “We know Dr. Matt helped you, but you couldn’t stay at the program forever. We’re your family, and we want you here because we love you. We want to help you too.”
“I know you do, Dad,” I say quickly. “I was with you guys on bringing him home, and I really thought we could do as good a job as the clinic, but what I’ve started to discover is that we can’t. We can’t help Michael like the doctors in the program can. I know you didn’t want him there, but I think he needs to go back and work with Dr. Matt again.”
Dad reaches out and lays his hand on Mom’s arm. Tears are streaming down her cheeks.
I bury my head in my hands. What am I doing? This was a terrible idea. Is there any feeling in the world worse than knowing you’ve made your mom cry? My legs twitch, and all I want to do is run upstairs and hide in my room, like I did when I was a little girl.
“Riley.” Slowly I look up and meet Ms. Moore’s eyes across the table. She’s trying to stay out of the way, I know that, but she’s also encouraging me. Knowing that she thinks this is the right thing, that I’m doing something good—for some reason, that means more than I can say right now.
“We need to do this for Michael,” I say as calmly as I can. “The best way we can help him is by letting him go.”
Dad pushes his chair back and stands up. “We’ll talk about it.” He shoves his chair in and steps away from the table. “Your mother and I will talk about it.” He puts his hand on my mom’s shoulder and helps pull her up, and together, without a word, they disappear down the hall.
No one else moves. Michael’s staring off into space again. Ms. Moore sits still, her chin up. I wait, trying to figure out what to do. I feel horrible—selfish, mean, awkward. But also, if I’m honest, kind of proud.
46
The nylon is thin and hot, and it feels like I’m wearing a plastic bag. I smooth the maroon gown down, trying to imagine what it will be like to march out of that stadium and leave Marina Vista forever. I place the thin cardboard hat on my head and start to hum that stupid song they always play at graduations.
I shake my head. I can’t picture it. It’s like trying to imagine your own execution.The vague echo of the doorbell rings out through the house. Mom’s busy washing the dishes after a silent dinner, but I hear footsteps and know Michael has it under control. I turn back to my reflection in the mirror. The gold tassel falls over my eye, and I brush it back. The minute everyone throws their caps into the air, it’s all over; we’ll all be scattered across the globe. And I’ll—well, I don’t know what I’ll be doing exactly, but I have an idea. I pull the cap off and toss it onto the bed.
“Riley?”
I turn toward the sound. Zoe. I take a step back and grab at the billowy fabric of my graduation gown, my cheeks flushing. “I was making sure it fit.” I unzip the gown, pull it off, and toss it onto the bed.
“I tried mine on too. It’s way too short.” She lets out a breath and leans against the door frame.
I narrow my eyes. Something isn’t right. “What’s wrong?” I gesture for her to come into my room. She follows me across the room and sits on the edge of my bed. “Spill it.”
Zoe looks down at her feet, her long, thin legs making an awkward triangle against the bed. When you see someone every day, you don’t really notice the subtle ways they change, but I think Zoe’s transformed the most of all of us. When we first met her in detention, she was this shy, overweight band geek who only wanted everyone to get along. Somehow, in the past few years, she’s blossomed, and now she’s not afraid to speak her mind or go out and get what she wants. It’s weird how things shift, a tiny bit at a time, until one day you look up and realize your best friend has grown up.
“Zoe?”
“Nick bought me a horse.”
I grab her knee. “She’s so adorable. I was there when he did it.” I search her face, wondering why sh
e isn’t smiling. “He told you that, right?”
“Yes, but . . .” She threads her fingers together. “Well, anyway, I was out in the barn with Ophelia.” Her voice is flat, and her eyes show that she’s far away. “Cleaning out her stall, putting hay down and stuff, and I heard voices. It was Dreamy and Ed. They were fighting again.”
“Oh no. I’m sorry.” I edge closer to her on the bed, but she doesn’t seem to notice. Zoe’s parents went through a really rough time last year. They ended up staying together, but Zoe’s dad moved out for a while. If they go through that up again, it will kill her.
“They obviously came down to the barn because they didn’t want me to hear, and I didn’t want them to know I was there, so I ducked down low and tried to stay out of sight.” She leans back and crosses her legs. “They were fighting about how to pay my tuition. Ed got a little more money out of the financial aid office, but not enough, so he wanted to take out another mortgage on the house—” Zoe shakes her head. “But Dreamy said there was no way they could make the payments on a second mortgage, and they’d probably end up losing everything. She thought the only way to make it work was to sell the stable—the land, the horses, everything. Give up on the whole dream.”
“But I thought—”
She holds up her hand and keeps talking. “I can take out student loans, but they only cover so much, and I’ll be paying them off until I’m forty. So I realized what I have to do.” She takes a deep breath. “I have to say no to USC.”
I lean in close to her, but she doesn’t react. It’s like she doesn’t notice. I watch her stoic profile, silhouetted against my bright-white closet doors. She’s eerily calm. “Are you sure?”
“I can’t do that to Dreamy and Ed. I know they’d find the money if I asked them to. They’d give up everything for me. But I can’t let them.” Zoe pulls her legs up under her.
“I’m so sorry.” I feel so dumb in situations like this. I know I should be able to say something that sounds less stupid, but I have no idea what that is. “I know how much you wanted to go to USC.”
Zoe doesn’t say anything for a moment. “Ana wasn’t going to go anyway, not after she got into Princeton, but I don’t know how to tell Christine. I made her apply, talked it up so much, and because of me she didn’t apply to New York schools, and now…”
“Christine will understand,” I say, but as the words leave my mouth, I’m not really sure I believe them. “She has to, when you explain the situation.”
“Eventually she will.” Zoe leans back, resting her elbows on the mattress. “I know she won’t be mad forever, but . . . I don’t know. I pushed the whole thing on her, and now she’s stuck with it. I should have known it was never going to work.” She leans back all the way and stares up at my ceiling. “I just wanted to find some way to keep us all together.”
I touch her shoulder, and she sits up again. I put my arms around her. “So what’s Plan B?”
“I guess community college,” she says into my shoulder. “Living at home. Gus was saying something about being an assistant manager at El Bueno Burrito.”
My heart aches. I’m not going to college next year because I screwed up. I freaked out, made some bad decisions, and chose a different path. If I had wanted it, college was mine for the taking. But Zoe worked so hard for this. For her to come so close and still find her dreams out of reach is gut-wrenching. I pull her in closer. I think about all she’s been through these past few years—how hard she tried to save her parents’ marriage, how she fought to bring Ms. Moore back, how she made her future a priority and turned her schoolwork around. How she finally, after so many fits and starts, fell in love.
I pull back and study her face. “Is Dean still going to go to USC?”
Zoe takes a deep breath. She closes her eyes for a moment, then opens them again. “I broke up with Dean.”
“What?” I shriek. “When?” My heart pounds in my ears. “Why?”
“It wasn’t going to work,” she says simply. I wait for a moment, then nudge her. She sighs. “I don’t know, Riley. Things have been weird for a while. You guys have seen that. Maybe I wanted USC partly because I thought if we stayed in the same place we could make it work. But once that was out of the question, it seemed obvious.”
She wraps her arms around her legs again. “When I think about you guys being so far away next year, I hate it, but I don’t worry. I know we’ll be okay. What the four of us have is stronger than anything on this earth. It’s enough to keep us together when we’re apart. But with Dean, I don’t know.”
I can hear the pain in her voice, even though she seems perfectly calm and controlled. I’m struck once again by how different she is from the overly emotional, sentimental girl I knew freshman year.
“When I think about him being there, and me being here, I can’t see it. Ultimately we don’t have enough in common to stay together when we’re apart. I had to let him go.”
47
“I’m delighted, obviously,” Dr. Matt says, nodding at my parents across his desk. “I really do think bringing Michael back for another summer is best for him. But I will admit, I am surprised. Are you sure about this?”
Mom’s fingers curl around the arm of her chair. “Yes,” she says quietly. She presses her lips together; her face is pale. Dad places his hand on top of hers.
Dr. Matt watches them for a second, then reaches into his desk and hands Dad a folder. “I’m sure we have a lot of this on file, but we’ll need his information updated for him to be readmitted. Now, after the three-month program is over, we’ll want to see Michael twice a week for therapy.” He goes on to explain the costs and logistics of the program, and my parents listen, even though Mom looks like she’s about to cry. Dad flips through a couple sheets and nods as Dr. Matt explains liability coverage and insurance forms. I’m only half-listening. The other part of my brain is busy trying to figure out how to make sure Dr. Matt says yes to my idea. I don’t know what I’m going to do if he says no.
“Melanie can help you if you have any questions about the forms,” he says, picking up a thin gold pen. He rolls it around in his palm and clears his throat. “And I’ll say again that I am so glad you’ve decided to do this. I’m anxious to see improvement with Michael, and I know you are too.” He smiles at my parents.
Mom sighs and pushes herself out of the chair. “Thank you,” she says simply. She turns toward the door. “We’ll let your office know if we have any questions.” She lifts her purse onto her shoulder, and my parents disappear into the hallway without another word.
I stand like I’m going to follow them, but I stop and wait until they’re gone and turn back to Dr. Matt. “Hey, can I ask you something?”
“Of course, though if it has to do with Michael’s—”
I shake my head and hoist up my bag. “I read this.” I reach into my bag and pull out the thick, heavy book he gave me about teaching autistic kids.
Dr. Matt looks at me over the tops of his glasses. “This isn’t light reading.” He reaches out and takes the book from me. “What did you think?”
“I loved it. I wish I’d known to give this to Mom six months ago.” I shove my hands into my pockets and try to steady my voice. “There’s a lot of good information in there.” Dr. Matt nods and waits for me to go on. “I wish I knew more about this kind of thing—how to help kids like Michael learn, I mean. So I was thinking.” I gulp. “Do you know of any kind of internship or anything like that? In this field, I mean?” I realize I’m speaking really fast. “I kind of a have a year off, and I didn’t really know what I was going to do, but now I think I do if I can find a way to make it work.”
Dr. Matt lays the pen down on his desk and leans forward. He cocks his head and chuckles. “You’re looking for an internship? At the program?”
I nod.
“We don’t have any official internship program, but like most facilities, we’re understaffed.” Dr. Matt smiles kindly. “I’m sure if I ask around I can probably find
something for you to do at the clinic, if you’re willing. I don’t know if we can pay you anything, but—”
“That’s okay,” I say quickly. “I’ll get a job or something too. I’m just looking for a way to learn more about this stuff. I don’t know for sure, but I devoured that book, and I really want to help kids like Michael. I think this could be something I’d like to do, you know, as a career or whatever.”
“Riley?” Dad pops his head back into Dr. Matt’s office. “We’ve got Michael. We’re waiting on you.” He glances from me to Dr. Matt and back to me, his eyebrows raised.
“I’ll ask around, Riley, and be in touch soon,” Dr. Matt says. “I’m confident we can figure something out for you.”
Dad waits for me to explain, but I smile and brush past him into the hallway. I don’t quite know how to tell them they’re going to be moving two kids up to San Francisco this summer.
48
The youth room is buzzing tonight. It’s the youth group’s gradation party, and, unbeknownst to us, Fritz asked our parents to bring in baby pictures and plastered them around the room. Everyone is walking around looking at the photos and guessing which cherubic toddler turned into which teen. Some of them are obvious: the pale, chubby girl with the wild shock of red hair is Zoe; the adorable Asian baby scowling at the camera is Christine. Dave, Ana’s ex, is posing with a guitar, his two-year-old smile proud, and baby Ben basically looks like a miniature version of himself.
Mine is pretty easy to pick out as well. It was taken behind our old house, the one we lived in before the whole dot-com thing. I’m bent over, my diapered bottom stuck out, pointing at a flower. I’m trying to show the flower to baby Michael, but Michael is staring off toward the right, not really looking at anything.
“Nice outfit,” Ben says, elbowing me out of the way to get a closer look at my picture.
“Hey. I’ve always believed that less is more.” I shrug, even though I feel my face burn. The least my parents could have done was pick a photo in which I was fully clothed. I glance around the room. “Asha didn’t make it tonight?”
