CHAPTER 28
SUPERGIRL
I WALKED THROUGH the kitchen, dining room, and living room. Everything was exactly the way I’d left it this morning, but I felt bigger somehow. Because they needed me. And being called Supergirl really did make me stronger. And I was going to Fresh on Friday with Rob. Because I asked him. I breathed in deep, holding on to this. I decided to do something, and I did it. I was in charge of my life. I could change things. I realized that was what Sef had always known.
Jack was sitting on the couch in the spot where Mom usually sat. He stared at the blank TV screen.
“Come on, Jack, let’s make some Christmas decorations. Those salt dough ones. You get the flour and salt out. I’ll Google the recipe.”
When I returned, Jack was sitting at the table with the silver mixing bowl on his head. I shouted, “Supergirl is here!”
Jack smiled at me.
“That’s right. You heard me—Supergirl! I can leap onto the highest counters.” I jumped onto the counter under the baking cabinet to get the salt and flour. I held them high, spread my arms, and flew down. I ran to the table and set them in front of Jack. “I’m faster than a speeding bullet.”
A noise cracked between his lips. He clapped his hands over his mouth.
I dashed back and forth again. “The one and only Supergirl!”
A rolling laugh exploded out of Jack’s mouth as if it had been waiting there for a long, long time. I felt my insides swell, and my heart nearly exploded. I waved my arms and leapt up and ran back and forth in the kitchen. “I’m Supergirl, and you’re going to start talking and tell me what happened. That’s what any good marine would do.”
I waited. “You’ll be happy again, Jack. Are you happy?”
Nothing.
“You can tell me later. For now, let’s mix this dough up.”
We mixed the flour and salt, and then added water. We kneaded and rolled out the dough on the floury table. We cut out angels, stockings, and Santas, and rolled candy canes and wreaths until we heard Mom’s car pull into the garage. Her door slammed, and next thing, she was in the kitchen with the remote in hand.
“Hi,” she said as she clicked on the TV. “What do we have here?”
“Christmas decorations,” I said. “Mom, when are we going to get a tree?”
“Oh, we have plenty of time, don’t worry. We’ll get a tree,” she said.
“When?”
“Closer to Christmas.” She squinted at me. “Do you have to wear that old sweartshirt every day?”
I tucked the ends of the sleeves, which were beginning to fray, into my palms. “It’s Sef’s.”
“It doesn’t look like Sef’s anymore. His clothes were clean. I want you to wash that, do you understand?”
I didn’t answer.
Mom started clanging down the pots and pans.
The man on CNN said, “—for the first time yesterday that the United States is not winning the war in Iraq and said he plans to expand the overall size of the US armed forces to meet the challenges of a long-term global struggle against terrorists.”
Click, click went the remote control, the volume going higher.
“Asked in an interview with Post reporters if the US is winning in Iraq, President Bush said, ‘You know, I think an interesting construct that General Pace uses is, We’re not winning, we’re not losing.’”
Mom slammed the remote down. “Do you remember right before the election, you said, ‘Absolutely, we’re winning’—do you remember that, Mr. President? I do! Because we have to win this stupid war!” She marched out of the kitchen.
“I don’t know if we were ever winning,” I said to Jack. “But don’t tell Mom. She doesn’t want to know.”
Jack stared back at me.
“Don’t forget I’m Supergirl and you’re going to start talking. When you talk, you can do whatever you want. You can be anyone you want!”
His eyes widened.
“What about when Sef calls again?” I said. “You’ll want to talk to him, right? Give him the update. He’ll probably call on Christmas.”
His mouth opened.
We heard Mom padding down the stairs. I leaned toward him. “And don’t you want to call us to supper again? I miss that. It’s not the same when Mom does it. That was your job. Please talk again, okay? You’re going to take charge, champ. I know it.”
Jack stood straighter and breathed in deep. Then he pulled his toy soldiers out of his pocket and stuck them in the lump of salt dough.
• • •
Later that night I tried to find my hoodie. I looked through the piles of clothes in our room, in the blankets and sheets of my bed, the laundry basket in the bathroom. I checked Jack’s and Sef’s room, then ran to the laundry room. I could see it in there with all the clothes going around and around in the soapy water. Washing Sef away.
“Mom!” I yelled. “Why did you wash my hoodie?”
“Because it was disgusting,” she said. “And it’s not yours.”
“It was good luck the way it was.” I ran up to Sef’s room and slammed the door. Jack watched me open each of Sef’s drawers, throwing T-shirts and sweatshirts out of their neat piles. I smelled them all, then opened his closet and tore down the piles on the shelf. Mom must have washed everything in here.
I sat down on the floor and held my face in my hands with my eyes closed. When I opened them, Jack was standing there with a long-sleeved Baltimore Orioles T-shirt. Sef used to wear it running. It smelled of sweat and sweet spice. I held it to my face, then put it on. I would sleep in this one every night.
CHAPTER 29
HAPPY
MOM WAS MAKING a special dinner. She was washing portobello mushrooms at the sink, wearing the leopard-spotted apron that Dad gave her. Her heart-attack-in-a-pan casserole with sausage and cream was sitting on the stove, ready to cook. On the counter were a bottle of wine, a baguette, and salad.
“Can you get the potatoes ready, Cassie? I’m going to put on my face. Dad’s coming home early.”
“Put on your face for supper?” I asked.
“It’s our anniversary,” she said.
I scrubbed six potatoes, the same number I always scrubbed, one for each person, including Sef. I felt Jack behind me, heard his feet shuffling softly in and then out of the kitchen. The phone rang. It was Kim, calling to tell me that her mom was donating shaving cream and chocolate to send to Iraq. When I hung up, all the cleaned potatoes were gone.
“Jack, what did you do with the potatoes?” I called.
Of course he didn’t answer, and I couldn’t find them anywhere, so I took out six more potatoes from the ten-pound bag. I scoured the dark eyes behind each pocket of dirt on their skin, and Mom put them in the oven with the casserole. Her eyes were outlined in dark pencil, and her lips were cherry colored. She wore her high heels with her jeans and apron.
When Dad came home, he called out, “Smells good in here, honey,” and gave Mom a dozen red roses.
“Let’s have a glass of wine before dinner,” she said. She popped the cork and poured two glasses. “Cassie, call everyone for supper, would you?”
I marched through the living room. “Jack, where are you? I know you’re hiding in here somewhere.”
He was sitting behind the couch. His hands were fists on either side of his head. The picture of all of us that Mom had taken the day Sef left for Iraq was propped up in his lap. Mom had blown it up and set it in a gold frame. Everyone was smiling except me, but Mom’s eyes were red and puffy, and Van’s eyes were wide, like she’d been blinded by the flash. I hadn’t noticed before, but Sef seemed swallowed up in Dad’s big leather chair.
It suddenly made me so mad that Sef seemed all alone. Even though we were standing close together, no one was actually touching. I picked up the framed p
hoto. I wanted Sef back, and I wanted the old Jack back, the one in the photo. I dropped the photo hard on the ground, and the glass cracked into hundreds of tiny pieces. I stood over Jack.
“Supper, Jack!” I called. “Supper, Jack! Supper!”
A low gurgling sound rose from Jack’s chest. He jumped up. His eyes, bright and hard, darted around the room. He ran to the kitchen, picked up a plate, and flung it like a Frisbee across the room. It smashed against the wall. Mom screamed. Jack started kicking and flinging whatever else he could reach, including the creamy sausage casserole. I got behind him and held his arms to his sides.
Dad stood behind me. “Okay, Cass? Need help?”
“I think I’m good.”
Jack tried to free his arms. I pulled him down to the ground and tried to make a shell over him. He grunted and breathed hard. He wriggled his body over the floor, his arms and legs flailing in the air. Then he closed his eyes and started punching his own head, face, and chest.
“Stop, Jack,” I begged. “Please, please stop.” I wrapped my arms tighter around him from the back. The black rim of his glasses was cracked. He jerked around and threw his head back into my face. I pressed myself into his neck until I could feel him start to give in. “Shhh, Jack. It’s okay, it’s okay.”
Slowly he stopped struggling and let his arms and legs go. Even when he was still, the house seemed to be rocking back and forth. Mom tried to take him in her arms, but Jack clung to me. Dad picked up broken plates and glasses and food and dropped it all in a garbage bag. I half carried, half dragged Jack back to the couch. He stuffed White Kitty in his shirt, and his eyes rolled back in his head like he was dead.
“So much for our anniversary dinner,” Mom said, looking at the mess. “Looks like we’ll try plan B. Layla’s Pizza?”
“We’ll have them deliver,” Dad said.
Just before we sat down to eat, Mom called out, “For crissake, what’s the matter with the toilet? It’s all backed up. Where’s Jack? Joe!”
Dad spread the toilet parts across the porch floor. From the kitchen we watched him pull six scrubbed potatoes out of the pipes. He held them up in the air, shaking his fists.
“Happy anniversary,” Mom called to Dad. “Twenty years!”
Dad raised a potato to her. “Happy anniversary.”
Mom laughed and drank her wine. Her lips were tinged red like her teeth. Dad started belting out, “Fly me to the moon. Let me sing among those stars—”
“Dad,” Van groaned, “really, do you have to sing?”
We laughed and ate our pizza. I told Mom that Kim and I had set up a donation table to collect things for the troops.
“You did?”
I nodded.
“What can I do?”
“Nothing, unless you want to donate something. We’re going to send the box at the end of next week so it gets there in time for Christmas.”
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For doing that.” She smiled at me like she used to, and I knew that after all these days of it, the Deep Freeze was officially over. At least for now. Maybe Jack’s silence had shown her how it felt when it happened to her.
“Mom?”
“Yes?”
I wanted to ask her why things were so messed up and why people never seemed happy even when they had everything, but I couldn’t remember the last time she had smiled at me like that. I said, “Oh, nothing.”
• • •
Later when I was doing my homework in the kitchen, I heard Mom ask Dad, “It’s been five days. What are we supposed to do about Jack?”
He turned the football game down. “It’s not like we can make him talk,” he said. “What can we do?”
“I don’t know.”
“What about the speech therapist at school?” Dad asked.
“You think he can make him talk? I doubt it. Jack’s so stubborn.”
Then Dad asked, “What about Van?”
“What about Van?”
“Well, she’s getting into trouble with Finn. She was drinking the other night, remember?”
“Van’s got a good head on her shoulders. She’ll be fine,” Mom said. “Honey, let’s take one thing at a time.”
Dad sighed. The TV volume went up, up, up.
It seemed to me that it was never one thing at a time. Things piled up and up and up until Mom couldn’t stand it anymore and in her Mom way pulled everything crashing down like the Saddam Hussein statue.
• • •
After the toilet had been reassembled and Jack was in bed, Dad and I sat in the living room. Outside I could see the tops of the spindly dark branches of the trees against the sky.
“How’s school going?” he asked.
“Pretty good.”
“So, you’re collecting things to send to Iraq.” He popped a chocolate macaroon into his mouth.
“Yes.”
“You’re a good kid.” He leaned back in his leather chair.
“Dad, what’s up with Mom?”
His eyes closed, and his head dropped.
“The toilet overflowing was a nice anniversary present for you,” I said.
He smiled. “I don’t know what happened. She snapped on me.”
“Everything seems so messed up”—I took a deep breath—“since Sef decided to leave.”
“Yeah, I know.” His eyes filled. He wiped underneath them with the back of his hand. “I miss that kid.”
I’d never seen him cry before. I didn’t want to. His heavy cheeks seemed to sag, and for the first time, I noticed little gray hairs near his temples.
“What are we going to do, Dad?”
“I don’t know. We’ll figure it out.” He sighed. “Your mother and I are working it out, don’t worry. It’s not your fault.”
“You’re not going to move out or anything?” I tried to laugh, but it sounded more like choking.
“No, I’m not going anywhere. At the rate I’m going, I’ll be too fat to go anywhere.”
We laughed. I felt a sudden stab of relief.
“Everyone seems to think I look good fat.” He sighed and rubbed the top of my head. “Things will get better soon, kiddo.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
“Okay, thanks. Good night, Dad.”
He went upstairs. Outside was dark and frozen. I sat there for a long time.
• • •
The next night, Mom’s makeup lights were on. She was smoothing foundation over her face. She glanced in the mirror at me in the doorway, then rubbed blush along her cheekbones. The tiny gold cross around her neck swung toward me like a blade of sunlight. Dad had given it to her last Christmas. She hadn’t worn it for so long, I thought this was a sign that things were going to be normal again. I wanted to reach for it and feel the cool, delicate gold slip through my fingers.
“Come in, Cassie,” she said.
On the corner of the table was a photo of Sef as a baby. I picked it up. He was fat and bald and smiling. Mom leaned to the light and plucked out a gray hair with tweezers.
“I want you to do something for me, Cassie.”
“What?”
“Don’t worry about everything. Dad and I will take care of us. You don’t need to.” She squeezed my chin between her finger and thumb. “Will you do that?”
I nodded. “I will, but it still doesn’t make it okay.”
She turned back to the mirror. “I didn’t say it was okay.”
“Sonia hasn’t talked to me at all. What am I supposed to tell her?”
Mom glanced at me. “Tell her it’s nothing to do with you or her.”
“Sounds easy.” I sighed.
She breathed out. “No one said it was e
asy. But we’re still going to be the family we always were.”
CHAPTER 30
YOUR FAMILY IS BREAK
To: Blue Sky
From: Cassie
Subject: Re: hi again from USA
Dear Blue Sky,
I talked to my dad tonight. I’ve never seen him cry before. Have you ever seen your dad cry? It was awful. Something is going on with my mom. She was totally flirting with my friend Sonia’s dad right before Sef left. I don’t understand it. Of course it was Sonia’s dad’s fault too. She’s so messed up. Everything is messed up and I’m trying to hold our family together. But Jack’s not talking, just like your little brother, and Van is still drinking. Sometimes I think I’ll wake up and Sef will be home and everything will be like it used to be.
I can’t find any reporting that we used chemical weapons in Fallujah. I feel so sick writing and thinking about that.
How is your family? Is your brother talking? Any news about your uncle? I hope your electricity is on and you can write soon. I am going to try to be strong and hopeful like you.
Your friend,
Cassie
To: Cassie
From: Blue Sky
Subject: Re: Re: hi again from USA
Dear Cassie,
Electricity is off and on in small connection. Most off.
Try to honor your mother and father. No matter what they are your parents.
Later I try to write.
Blue Sky
To: Cassie
From: Blue Sky
Subject: Re: Re: Re: hi again from USA
Dear Cassie,
I respond to the email you send. Your mother flirt with another man? That can not happen here. Your family is break. It fix soon I believe. They want to break my family too. My father was English teacher but he lost job after war start, so he become interpreter for American military. Pay well and he like people and work. Now he has threat. They call on the phone and tell us to leave Iraq or else. He think America will help him. Not much time. We leave or stay. Iraq is everything for us. I am afraid for life. How to leave before we find Uncle???
Dear Blue Sky Page 12
