Jane In Bloom

by Deborah Lytton

  “Was that something of Lizzie’s?” my mother asks me as my father reaches for the trash can.

  I shrug. “Nothing important, Mother. Not to worry,” I say with a harsher tone than I mean. My mother turns and walks out without another word. My father follows her.

  And so my summer begins.

  Chapter 9

  On the first day of summer break, Mom has a new agenda. She doesn’t get out of bed. She keeps the shutters closed and the covers up over her head.

  Dad and I eat cereal. Instead of commenting on Mom’s behavior or my pyrotechnics show yesterday, Dad sticks with the off-the-wall vacation game. We go back and forth throwing out new vacation ideas. Dad suggests a safari in Africa. I tell him I’d like to go ride ponies in Iceland.

  Other than our jokes about outlandish summer vacations, the meal is silent. Just the sound of the spoons against the china. It’s a very sad sound.

  The silence gives me time to think. I think of Zoe on her way to tennis camp and Misty packing to leave for Europe. Grandma and Grandpa already home in Arizona. Mom’s place sits empty. Lizzie’s place sits empty. And even though we don’t talk about it, I know we are both thinking about it.

  I spend the entire day channel surfing. And eating. Everything I can get my hands on. Dad comes home early with Chinese food. Again, the two of us sit at the table. Dad offers me a trip to Disneyland. In Paris. I suggest scuba diving in Fiji. The rest of dinner is composed of the sound of plastic forks scraping on paper plates. I skip the fortune cookies and head right for bed.

  The next day is my second day of summer. Yippee. Dad leaves early for a breakfast meeting. Mom doesn’t get up again. So I sleep late. When I wake up at noon, I don’t bother to get dressed. I fill a mixing bowl with every kind of cereal. Frosted Mini-Wheats, Fruit Loops, Cheerios, Special K, and some kind of organic whole-wheat diet cereal of Mom’s. I pour a layer of sugar over the whole thing and drown it in milk. I take my trough into the TV room and settle into my new favorite spot. For I have found something to occupy my summer days—soap operas. I used to hate them with a vengeance, but things are different now. I’m different now. I feel better about my own life when I’m watching other people’s lives fall apart. Even if I know it’s all fictional.

  By the end of day two, I am an official couch potato. Game shows, talk shows, music videos, my beloved soaps, even the occasional infomercial. I consume endless bags of chips, pints of ice cream, and licorice. I spend all day in my pajamas. I figure I have no reason to get dressed—I’m not going anywhere.

  Mom stays in bed. She keeps the room dark and she refuses to speak to anyone. Not that I care. I’m happy with my snack foods and remote.The days move so slowly, sometimes I think time is standing still. Just to mess with me. I spend so many hours watching detergent commercials, I know all the ads by heart.

  When I can’t stand another minute of infomercials for exercise equipment, I drag myself up the stairs to my bedroom, where I sit in front of the mirror counting my freckles. I stack lint balls. And I eat. A lot. I won’t go anywhere near the swimming pool or the bikes in the garage. I refuse to do anything fun—or even remotely amusing. I don’t return Zoe’s texts. I ignore Misty’s e-mails.

  Every night, when Dad comes home and sees Mom in bed, they have a fight. When she’s still like that after a week, they have a gigantic fight. A World War-category fight. Their door is closed, so the words are muffled, but I can hear that they are angry. It’s in the response time. When people are fighting, their words come quicker than when they are listening to one another. I creep out of my room and place my head against the door to listen.

  “Just leave me alone,” Mom begs. “I want to be left alone.”

  Dad sounds really mad. “What do you think is happening to Jane all day while you’re hiding in bed? Do you know what she’s been doing all week? Eating junk food. Oh, and watching soap operas. She doesn’t even get dressed. You think that’s a good way for her to spend her summer? We might as well just buy the coffin now. Because you’re putting her in it. Just like you did to Lizzie.”

  When I hear Dad’s words, I start to shake.

  He thinks I am going to fall apart like Lizzie did? I would never do that. I wouldn’t. But then I think about it. Isn’t that what I have been doing all week? Staying in my pajamas, refusing to talk to my friends, eating myself sick. I’ve been acting like my mom. Like Lizzie.

  “I want my Lizzie back!” she shrieks. Then, “Get out!” Dad opens the door suddenly. And I jump back. I am embarrassed to have him find me there listening.

  We stare at each other for a second. “I’m sorry you had to hear that,” Dad tells me as he collects himself. I’m so surprised that he’s not angry with me that I blurt out what I’m thinking.

  “I’m not like Lizzie,” I tell him.

  “I know that,” he tells me. And he gathers me in his arms and holds me tight.

  I fall asleep in my own bed that night.

  I wake with a start. My clock says 3 A.M. I’m soaking wet. I go into the bathroom to splash water on my face. That’s when I hear something in Lizzie’s room. I hurry over to the bathroom door and walk through to the adjoining room.

  I am horrified by what I see. Packing boxes are in the center of the room. Mom is opening the closet and taking out Lizzie’s clothes.

  “What are you doing?!” I shriek.

  Mom glances at me briefly as she lays the clothes on the bed. “Packing.”

  There is no emotion in her voice.

  I step in front of her with my arms out to protect the clothes from further touching.

  “You can’t do that. These are Lizzie’s clothes.”

  My mother sighs. “Jane. Lizzie doesn’t need these clothes anymore. She’s dead.” Her voice is flat. “Other people can use these things.”

  My mother is going to give away Lizzie’s things. I look at her like she is a complete stranger.

  Mom turns back to the closet to pull out more hangers. My mind whirls, trying to think of something I can do to stop her. Anything.

  And then I seize on it. “Does Dad know about this?” I say in my parent voice.

  Mom freezes.

  “I’m calling Dad,” I threaten. Mom shrugs and goes back to her work.

  I run down the hallway and into my parents’ room. Only Dad isn’t there. His side of the bed hasn’t been slept in.

  I run down the stairs, taking the steps two at a time. I find him sleeping on my sofa in the TV room. I shake him. “Dad, Dad, wake up!”

  Dad opens his eyes. Squints at me. “Jane, what’s wrong?” He asks. I can hear the fear in his voice.

  “Mom’s packing up Lizzie’s room. She’s going to give her things away.”

  He doesn’t say anything. I wonder if he has understood me. Then he speaks in a tight voice. “Jane, go to your room.”

  I return upstairs to my room and close the door. But I can still hear the fighting. Bits and pieces, when they’re loudest.

  My mother: “Well, you want me to move on. Here you go.”

  My father: “Not like this.”

  My mother: “That’s easy for you to say. You’re never home.You try spending all day in this tomb, walking back and forth in front of her door. And you know how much time Jane spends in here? God only knows what she’ll burn next!”

  Then everything goes silent. The next thing I hear is the door to Lizzie’s room opening and footsteps in the hallway.

  After the quiet settles over the house, I creep through the bathroom and open up Lizzie’s door.The room is dark. I can still see the boxes in the center of the floor. The heap of clothes on the bed.

  I gently pick up Lizzie’s things and carefully hang them back in the closet. I fold her T-shirts and line them back up in her drawers. I pick up the boxes and take them out to the garage. Mom is outside in the dark, consoling herself with nicotine. We don’t speak to each other. I go back inside and climb into bed.

  Dad wakes me up at noon.

  “I was won
dering, ahem ...” He clears his throat as though he’s nervous. Nervous about what, I think. Me? “... if you’d like to go somewhere with me this morning,” he finishes.

  I look at him with raised eyebrows. “Not really, I’ve been waiting all week to watch Saturday-morning infomercials” is the answer on the tip of my tongue. But there’s something in his eyes. And so instead, I shrug.

  “Okay,” I say. It’s the best I can do right now. He seems to understand that.

  Twenty minutes later, we’re on the Pacific Coast Highway heading north. My dad is playing my favorite radio station, which I know he hates. It makes me soften a bit since I know it’s just for me.

  We don’t talk. I don’t ask where we’re going. He doesn’t tell me. Not that I care. I’m actually happy just to be out of the house. I gulp breaths of air. I fill my lungs with life. And I try to empty my brain of all thoughts. My heart still feels heavy in my chest like a sponge soaked with water. But I’m getting used to the fact that I can’t do anything about it—that it just is.

  Dad pulls off the highway near Santa Barbara. I see antiques stores, clothing shops, cafés. Everyone looks so happy and carefree. I wonder if they really are. I wonder if any of them didn’t want to get up this morning.

  Dad turns up a narrow road and weaves into the hills and away from the ocean. After a few minutes of checking his directions and turning right and left, he pulls up in front of a white adobe house with a red tiled roof.

  “Here we are,” he announces proudly.

  All of a sudden I think of this kid, Dennis Randall. I used to hear Lizzie and her friends talk about him. One day, his parents decided he had psychological problems and they had these men come and take him away in a straitjacket, to one of those military schools where they break you down so they can build you back up. Even though this house looks like anything but a military establishment, the thought unnerves me anyway.

  I get out of the car and follow Dad, slowly, to the front door. I hang back a bit, in case the straitjacket men come running out. I can hear a lot of dogs barking inside the house. Dad rings the bell. More barking. Then the door opens.

  There’s a small person standing in front of Dad and me. Blond curls frame her cherubic face. Round, sky-blue eyes stare at us. She can’t be any more than five.

  I instantly relax. Dad isn’t sending me away. Behind the girl hovers a pretty blond mother with her hair swept back in a loose ponytail. She wears a denim shirt bearing embroidered puppies. She smiles at the two of us.

  “Hi, you must be Harold. I’m Lillian. And this”—she picks the child up in her arms—“is Sophia.”

  “Hello,” says Dad. “This is my daughter—”

  “Jane,” Lillian finishes for him. I suddenly have the face-burning sensation of having been discussed before, and behind my back. But there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it. I manage a bit of a smile. For Sophia.

  I wonder why we are here, with Sophia and Lillian. Until Lillian says, “Come on in and see the puppies.”

  Puppies.

  But of course, puppies. Now the barking makes sense.

  But a puppy? My mother doesn’t do pets. Not even a goldfish. Too messy. Too much work. Dad seems oblivious to this fact as he follows the woman into the other room. I see eight—no, nine—blond bits of fluff cavorting on the kitchen floor.

  Sophia is set down by her mother and scampers into the fray like a puppy herself. She reaches for one of the pups and scoops it up gently. It licks her face with a petal-pink tongue. She holds the puppy out to me.

  “This one is my favorite. Want to hold her?”

  The old me would have already been on the floor, holding at least two puppies. But I’m not the same me anymore. I am the new me. So instead, I shake my head no. Sophia tosses her head and pouts a little, as if she can’t understand why anyone wouldn’t want to hold her favorite puppy. But I can’t explain it to her. I can’t even explain it to myself.

  I remain near the door, watching. Dad sits on the floor in the middle of the puppies. He crosses his legs and the puppies tumble over them. He lifts them in the air one by one, bringing each one close to his face so he can look them in the eye. He talks to them softly. So softly that I can’t hear a word he’s saying. I’ve never seen my father like this. He seems so . . . fun. And nice. And relaxed. I notice then that he’s not wearing a tie today. He’s wearing a golf shirt with light blue stripes and jeans. Jeans! I didn’t even know he owned jeans. He looks over at me and our eyes meet. He raises his eyebrows at me and holds up one of the puppies.

  “Jane?” I shake my head. I can’t. It’s not that I don’t want to touch one of the fluffy balls. I do. But I can’t. It wouldn’t be right to have fun.

  And anyway, I don’t want a dog. No one asked me. And I don’t want one. A little tiny voice in the back of my head reminds me that I have always wanted a dog. I sweep the thought back into the far reaches of my mind with the other things I’d rather not think about.

  An hour later, Dad and I are packed into the car with a puppy in a carrier, bags of dog food, and peepee pads.

  “What’s Mom going to say?” I ask as we pull back onto the Pacific Coast Highway and head for home.

  Dad’s jaw tightens. His eyes narrow and his voice is suddenly brisk. “It’ll work out.” Then he turns to look at me with a smile on his face. “Don’t worry.”

  I’d like to believe him, except that I know Mom. And a golden retriever is not exactly a neat kind of dog. It’s an energetic, jump-in-the-pool kind of dog. A muddy-feet kind of dog. And I know that this will not sit well with her.

  Mom is in the kitchen when we get home. Still in her nightgown, but at least she’s out of bed. Mom takes one look at the puppy, gives Dad a look of death, and stalks off to the garage without a word. I head up to my room. Dad is left to take care of the dog. It was his idea after all.

  About an hour later, I make my way to the kitchen for a drink. I pass by Dad’s study. The door is closed, but I can hear yelling from inside. I resist the urge to press my ear against the door and listen in. Still, I can’t help hearing my mother’s raised voice.

  “But you know how I feel about animals.”

  And then my father’s reply. “This isn’t about you.”

  My mother suddenly flings open the door. I dash away just in time to avoid a collision. She runs out of the room and up the stairs. “Of course it isn’t about me. It’s never about me,” she says.

  I don’t want Dad to catch me lurking in the hallway, so I hurry to the kitchen. The puppy crate is in the corner. I can see blond fur sticking through the slats in the side of the cage. I pour my juice and then step closer. I still haven’t even touched the puppy. I can tell it’s sleeping. It must be tired, I think. If the puppy knew about the trouble it had just caused, I’m sure it would want to go and live somewhere else. Anywhere else. I wouldn’t blame it one bit if it hated the Holden house.

  Chapter 10

  When I wake up in the morning, the house is completely silent. It’s not the silence of my parents sleeping, or even of everyone being outside. It’s an absence of sound that makes my stomach clench and my adrenaline start to rush. It’s stillness that can only mean one thing. I feel it in my bones.

  Something is wrong.

  I brush my teeth and pad down to the kitchen in my bare feet and cloud pajamas. The puppy watches me from her cage. I can see one brown eye peeking through the carrier.

  “Hi,” I say to her as I open the fridge for the orange juice. She just stares at me.

  The silence is deafening. I have to get out. I head for the hammock and settle in.

  My mind turns instantly to Lizzie memories. I remember one time we found a stray dog, a little white ball of curls. We fed it and bathed it. Dad put up signs around the neighborhood, but no one called to claim it. So, of course, we begged to keep the dog. We even named it. Cleo, after Clifford the Big Red Dog’s best friend.

  Mom said no. No dogs.

  No dogs, no cats, no birds,
no hamsters, no fish.

  The vet said he would find a home for her. And just like that, Cleo was gone.

  I realize suddenly that we don’t have a name for this new dog. But it’s not really right to give her a name when she won’t be staying. I think about her, all alone in there. I wonder if she’s scared. I wonder if she misses her brothers and sisters. Just then, Mom surprises me with a visit to the backyard.

  “Hi,” I say. I notice she is all dressed up in one of her church suits. Red with a strand of pearls around her neck. The red makes her look really washed out. She looks old. And tired. Really, really tired. Her mouth is all pinched around the edges, which usually means she’s irritated about something. I smell cigarettes. The smell clings to her.

  I decide not to speak first. I have no idea what I have done.

  “I’m leaving,” she says in a burst of exhaled air.

  I don’t know what this means. Is she going to church, to the grocery store, to the dry cleaners?

  “I need a break. I’m driving to Arizona to visit your grandparents for a few weeks.”

  Okay. I’m processing this. Like what “a break” means. We all get to take breaks from school, from work. But do you get a break from your life? From your family?

  My grandparents live in Sun City, Arizona, this retirement community located near the center of the earth. It’s like 150 degrees there in the summer.You have to get up at five in the morning to do anything that doesn’t involve air-conditioning. And the average age is ninety-eight—and a half. That doesn’t exactly sound like a “break” to me.

  Then it occurs to me. Maybe she needs a break from me.

  “You can come if you want.” She says this like she’s obligated. Like she’s obligated to like me. Even if she doesn’t. I can tell from her tone that she hopes I won’t actually take her up on it.Which I won’t. Because as bad as my summer at home seems, Sun City sounds even worse.