Another couple squeezes past us, and Gibs and I huddle closer, glancing at them apologetically.
“We really should go back inside,” he observes.
I take a deep breath and blow out through my mouth. “Ready for round two?” I nod toward the door.
He stands up and extends his hand. I take it and he pulls me to my feet.
“Bring it on,” Gibs says.
Seven
I’m settling into bed, still stuffed from Japanese food, but I’m not turning off my light just yet.
I glance at the journal on my bedside table, pause a second, then pick it up. I take a deep breath, open it, and start thumbing through the pages.
Shannon’s plump, bouncy handwriting scrolls from top to bottom, from margin to margin, page after page after page. Jesus. What exactly did she have to write about? Was she attempting a cure for cancer in between volleyball practices?
No … the random words my eyes settle on eliminate the possibility of intellectual heft, her perfect grades notwithstanding. Cheerleading … mall … boyfriend … Jeez. Did my sister have anything in common with me at all?
But I keep thumbing through the pages, smiling in spite of myself. I feel … connected. I mean, Shannon wrote these very words right down the hall from where I’m lying right now. Granted, she was in a puffy pink bedroom while I’m surrounded by Death Cab posters, but still, there she was … just a few feet away. Did she hear Mom gossiping on the phone with Aunt Nic while she was writing? Was she lulled by the same hum of the dishwasher that I listen to every night? By the ancestors of the same crickets, chirping in the back yard?
A chill works its way up my spine, but a gentle chill, a cozy chill, like a familiar finger lazily grazing my back. None of Shannon’s pictures or certificates have ever had this effect on me. In fact, they’ve had the opposite effect, making her soulless and one-dimensional. Her handwriting, in all its juvenile glory, is adding shades and dimensions.
A lump suddenly settles in my throat. I wish I could run down the hall and shake her awake.
Stupid. You can’t miss somebody you never knew.
I swallow the lump, shake my head impatiently, and keep thumbing through the journal.
Like I said, most of the pages are packed with words, so when I reach a page toward the end, it’s noticeable for its sparseness. Just a few words, written in heavy black ink, all capped, centered on an otherwise blank page.
I press my thumb against that page to hold it open and narrow my eyes for a closer look. At first, the words don’t quite register in my brain. I still even have that same silly half-smile on my face. But then I read the words again, and the smile fades. My lips mouth the words as my eyes widen:
I want to kill myself.
I want to kill myself.
I want to kill myself.
Breathe, I remind myself as my mind keeps processing the same five words in an endless loop. I inhale, then hold my breath. Exhale.
I close the journal, then grab the cell phone from my bedside table and fumble over the keypad. But just as I’m about to press Gibs’ number, I snap my phone shut.
What would I say? Gibs, remember the car accident I mentioned that killed my sister? Accident being the operative word? Yeah, well, maybe not …
Tears sting my eyes.
“Did you kill yourself, Shannon?” I whisper to nobody. “Did you drive into that tree on purpose?”
A tear rolls down my cheek. What do I really know about this sister of mine? Was her life not so perfect after all?
My head is spinning, but there’s one thing I know for sure—the only way to find out is to keep reading. And the beginning, I decide, is the best place to start.
Eight
I turn to the first page of Shannon’s journal, fluff a pillow, sit up a little straighter in my bed, and settle in for my first real introduction to my sister.
Thursday, June 3, 1993
Mom gave me this book so I could “journal” this summer. I swear to God, that’s what she said. I wonder if her book club verbed the word journal. Gotta love Mom’s book club. Gotta love Mom for giving me a summer assignment to remind me that I’m never quite good enough. Apparently, straight A’s in honors courses don’t earn you the summer off.
Oops! Here I am, busting Mom’s chops knowing full well that five minutes after I put down my journal, she’ll be reading every word of it. Right, Mom? You’ve snooped around long enough to find it, right? Keep up the good work. Your PTA friends don’t call you Sue the Sleuth for nothing.
I peer closer at the words and squeeze the journal’s faded cloth cover. I have to remind myself that Sue the Sleuth is my mom, too. A book club? The PTA? Since when was Mom such a joiner? And since when did Shannon hate her? None of the certificates on the Wall of Fame tipped me off about this.
Well, Mom, the joke’s on you, because you’re never getting your hands on this. Kills you, doesn’t it? You buy me this journal specifically so you can sniff around in my business, and what do I do? I hide it in my … well, now, that’s my little secret, isn’t it?
But if you DID find it, Mom (which you won’t), here’s a heads-up about how I plan to spend my summer:
I’m not breaking up with Chris.
I’m not ditching Jamie.
I’m done with church. I spend enough time with hypocrites in this house. (Good luck explaining the whole “daughter as heathen” development to the choir, Mom.)
I’m done with Eve. I’ll love her til the day I die, but I can’t handle her lectures anymore. I’m sorry she’s envious of my relationship with Chris, but that doesn’t excuse the awful things she says about him. Maybe if she ever gets a boyfriend of her own, she’ll finally understand (get a life, Evie!). And here’s a newsflash—it’s possible to be a good friend and a FUN friend at the same time (quit judging Jamie, Evie!). And while I’m at it: real friends don’t pump people for information only so they can earn suck-up points by blabbing the news to parents (quit ratting me out, Evie!).
I may even dye my hair purple this summer, or get a tattoo of a water buffalo. Sorry to cramp your style, Mom, but I’m living dangerously this summer. Get used to it.
I close the journal and suck in my breath. Who is this person? Up until five minutes ago, Shannon had as much depth as a picture on a cereal box … a smiling, overachieving cardboard cutout. But the person who wrote this journal … this sarcastic Mom-basher … this person is a stranger. Geez, and I thought I was hard on Mom. Sure, she’s a pain in the ass, but you gotta cut some slack for anybody who’s lost a kid. Oh, right. Shannon’s mother hadn’t lost a kid. Yet.
Still, Mom thought Shannon hung the moon, and here’s her daughter ripping her to shreds. Where are those odes to kittens I was expecting to find?
I gingerly reopen the journal and turn a page.
Friday, June 4, 1993
Okay, I’ve stopped crying now.
Granted, I jumped to conclusions, but what was I supposed to think when Chris stood me up last night? I’d gone to all the trouble of arranging a perfect alibi. Jamie, AKA “Mrs. Collins,” even left a message on our answering machine reminding me of my “Youth Recycling Committee” meeting. Master stroke, if I do say so myself.
But after all that trouble, Chris was a no-show at the park. I waited there for over an hour.
I spent the rest of the night trying to call him, but he didn’t answer, so I cried myself to sleep. Every time Mom knocked on my door asking what was wrong, I told her I was watching a sad movie. (I went seventeen years without telling her a single lie; now it seems like I tell her seventeen lies a day.)
Anyhow, happy ending. It was a total misunderstanding. Chris called this morning and said he thought we were supposed to meet TONIGHT, not last night. He was at his grandparents’ barbecue last night. I tried to be mad at him (he’s such a space cadet!) but he was so sweet when he realized how upset I was. When I told him how worried I’d been—that he could have been dead for all I knew—he said he’d rather be dead than
make me worry. Awwww.
My jaw drops. I was savvier at age twelve than Shannon apparently was at age seventeen. Could she really have been as naïve as she sounded? I keep reading.
The upshot is that my tears are dried, Chris is alive and well, and my heart is happy.
God. She really was that naïve.
So I’m ready for a rockin’ weekend. Oh, and one more thing—I’ve decided I’m going to talk to Mr. Kibbits about Dad.
Dad? My dad? What about our dad? I swallow hard.
Nobody in my family ever talks about anything that matters, and if I don’t talk to somebody, my internal organs are going to explode. Thank heaven for Mr. Kibbits.
I lie there for a good five minutes, the journal frozen in my hands. I’m staring at Shannon’s words, but my eyes aren’t moving. I don’t know what to make of the sister I’ve just officially met. My ceiling fan whirs lazily and casts angular shadows on my bedroom walls.
I toss the journal aside, grab my cell phone, and text Gibs:
R U awake? Call me.
My phone rings a few seconds later.
“What’s up?” Gibs asks.
I press a fingernail against my mouth. “I’m reading Shannon’s journal.”
“How far have you gotten?”
“Just a few pages … a couple of entries. The first two—June third and fourth.”
“What do they say?” Gibs asks, trying to suppress a yawn.
I make a split-second decision not to tell him about the suicide threat. I just can’t go there now.
“Um …” I sigh. “I don’t think I can keep reading.”
“Why not?”
I pull the covers closer to my chin. “This isn’t stuff she intended anybody to read. I feel like a peeping Tom or something.”
“But it’s not like she’s around to be ticked off about it,” Gibs replies.
“That almost makes it worse … to be reading her private thoughts when she’s not even here to defend herself.”
Gibs pauses. “So she needs to be defended?”
My eyebrows knit together. “I don’t know … kinda. She’s all … snarky. And sneaky. She was mad at Mom when she wrote it, and she sounds like some kind of spoiled princess. Nothing like the way people talk about her.”
“But you just read a couple of entries,” Gibs reminds me. “Maybe you just caught her in a bad mood.”
“Shannon didn’t have moods,” I say testily.
Gibs laughs. “O-kay.”
“I mean …” I sigh, then let words tumble from my mouth. “I don’t know what I mean. This journal is making her seem like a real person. And not a particularly likable one, at least so far. I’m not sure I can handle that.”
“What kind of person did you think she was?” Gibs asks cautiously.
“The kind who won awards.”
“On, like, a full-time basis?”
I smile wanly. “I guess I never thought it through. In my head, Shannon was always bringing awards home and making Mom and Dad convulse in ecstasy over her fabulousness.”
“Snarky sounds more interesting than that,” Gibs observes reasonably.
“Yeah … but she’s telling secrets, too. She says in the entry that she’s going to talk to Mr. Kibbits about Dad. What about Dad? It’s all just too weird.”
Pause. “Whoa,” Gibs finally says. “It’s getting interesting.”
“Interesting unless it happens to be your dad.”
“Mr. Kibbits,” Gibs says to himself. “The AP English teacher?”
“Oh. Right.” I knew that name sounded familiar. AP teachers and I don’t exactly travel in the same circles.
“I’ll be in his Honors English Comp class next year,” Gibs says. “He’s in this writers’ club …”
“Club,” I interrupt him. “That’s another thing. Shannon talks about my mom being in clubs, like a book club, and belonging to all kinds of groups, like the church choir and the PTA, and …”
“And?” Gibs prods.
“And since when was she such a joiner? She’s totally neurotic about my schoolwork and always sucks up to my teachers, but she doesn’t do clubs.”
“But apparently she did at one time.”
“Whatever.” I don’t know why I’m snapping.
“Anyway, Mr. Kibbits’ club,” Gibs continues. “They meet at the library on Sunday afternoons. I’ve been a few times. They talk about books and sometimes read stuff they’re writing to the rest of the group.”
“And?”
“And tomorrow’s Sunday. We should go. We can stay afterward and ask him what your sister told him about your dad.”
My stomach tightens. “How is he supposed to remember a conversation from eighteen years ago?” I ask.
“Depends on how juicy it was.”
Another pause.
“Sorry,” Gibs says softly.
“It’s okay.” I can tell Gibs anything, right? I do tell him anything. So why do I suddenly feel so exposed? That settles it—I’m definitely not mentioning the suicide threat.
“Tell ya what,” Gibs says. “We’ll go to the writers’ club tomorrow. I’ll introduce you to Mr. Kibbits, then make myself scarce so you can talk to him alone.”
I open my mouth to speak, but realize my throat has tightened. Tears sting my eyes.
“Summer? Are you there?”
I nod and try to speak, but the words are still stuck in my throat.
“Summer?”
“This is all just a little … weird.”
He pauses. “Are you crying?”
I shake my head quickly. “I’m fine.”
Gibs pauses again, then says, “Maybe you’re right. Maybe you should just forget the journal.”
But the instant he says it, I know there’s no turning back. It’s like I’ve been strapped into the roller coaster, the ride has started, and the car is inching up the incline. I’m terrified of getting to the top and hurtling down the hill, but there’s no going back.
“I’ll be okay,” I say, chopping the last syllable short to calm the quake in my voice.
“Just pace yourself,” Gibs says. “Maybe just read a little at a time. Then it won’t be a big deal. It’ll just be a few minutes out of your day.”
“Okay.” I smile at his earnestness. “Thanks, Gibs.”
“So we’re on for tomorrow? I’ll pick you up around three?”
Stupidly, I nod, afraid my voice will break again.
Somehow, Gibs gets that. “Around three, then,” he says gently.
I nod again, and he says goodnight in the sweetest voice I’ve ever heard. Never in my whole life have I felt as grateful to have a friend like him.
And God knows I’ve never needed one more.
Nine
“Morning, honey.”
Dad’s face is buried behind the paper again. He’s sitting at the kitchen table in a white T-shirt and flannel pajama pants, eating leftovers from the Japanese restaurant.
“Stir fry for breakfast?”
“Mmmmm,” Dad says, still not looking up.
I don’t know if his mmmm means the stir fry is good or if he’s totally ignoring me. Actually, I do know. I join him at the table and playfully thump the paper. He puts it down and smiles, his glasses still balanced against the tip of his nose.
“Did you have a good birthday?” he asks, taking another bite of leftovers.
“Mmmmmm.”
He nods. As a chemical engineer at a paper plant, Dad is brilliant with a protractor and a calculator, but irony flies right over his head.
Shannon’s words are still swimming in my head. Was she as snarky to Dad as she was to Mom, particularly considering whatever secret about him she was hiding? And what could that secret be? Dad is as predictable, and about as exciting, as the numbers he crunches on his calculator. So what could Shannon have possibly known? That he threw caution to the wind one day and read the sports section before the news?
I shudder a little. I mean, what the hell do I know? From
the couple of journal entries I’ve read, Shannon is already starting to sound more like a Sylvia Plath character than a pep squad leader. What do I really know about anything, especially considering that my family is about as open and accessible as Fort Knox? Do I know them at all? Do I want to?
But I don’t want to tip my hand about Shannon’s journal, and I don’t want to freak Dad out by going from zero to ninety, communications-wise. (Hey, Dad, I know we’ve never talked about anything of substance before, but do you think Shannon committed suicide? And do you have any juicy secrets from your past that you’d like to share?)
Still, I have to dip my toe in the water. My habit of following my family’s game plan—shutting down and making nice—is why Shannon’s words have gobsmacked me. I don’t think the game plan will work for me anymore.
I sneak a glance at Dad. He notices and gives me a wary smile.
I take a deep breath. Okay, here goes—Introduction to Dad 101. I decide to start with what seems to be the most innocuous information I’ve learned from the journal.
“Did we used to go to church?” I ask Dad.
Try answering that question with an mmmmmm.
“We?” Dad asks, running a hand through his gray-flecked brown hair.
“Yeah. Our family. You and Mom … and Shannon, I guess. I don’t remember ever going to church, but did we? Did you?”
Dad absently scatters the food on his plate with his fork. “Your mother was raised Catholic.”
“I know that.” I don’t mean to sound impatient; at least he’s talking. But Grandma and Grandpa are so Catholic, their house is practically decorated in Contemporary Crucifix. Mom’s being raised Catholic is virtually the only thing I already know.
Dad rests his fork on his plate. “I grew up Methodist,” he says. “I converted when we married. Well, not technically. I just started going to church with your mother. We went for several years, until …”
I lean subtly closer. “Until Shannon died?”
Dad’s lips tighten and he stares at his food. “I guess it was around that time that we stopped going. Your mother kind of calls the shots in those matters.”
Then I Met My Sister Page 4
