Last Summer

by Holly Chamberlin

  I got the second book in HIS DARK MATERIALS from the library, but I can’t seem to start it. It’s like suddenly I have no interest in it, which is odd because I was really looking forward to reading it. I think I’ll just return it tomorrow so it’s there for someone else who wants to read it. I don’t want to be unfair.

  R.

  March 27, 2012

  Dear Diary,

  People are still ignoring me at school. Not boys. Just girls.

  I remember seeing a documentary on TV about the Amish people, and it talked about how the community shuns someone who breaks a law of their church or someone who does something really wrong, like steal or have an affair. The person is forced to live with the community, but at the same time he isn’t really an acknowledged part of it. I remember the presenter using the phrase “social avoidance.”

  I remember thinking how awful and frustrating and maddening that would be, having nowhere else to go and being virtually invisible to everyone around you. It sounded like a cruel, cruel punishment.

  I think I know a little of what that feels like now. It is awful and frustrating and maddening. I was right. It is a cruel punishment, especially for a crime I never committed. At least in the Amish community, the person being shunned actually chooses his punishment by refusing to apologize or change his wrong behavior.

  But what did I ever do to hurt anyone? And if I did do something wrong, why won’t anyone tell me what it was so that I can apologize?

  I’m so tired lately. I go to bed as early as I can without making Mom and Dad wonder if I’m okay, but I still can’t sleep for hours and when I do, it’s never enough. I’m always tired, always. I don’t know what to do. I thought about seeing if Mom had some old sleeping pills in her bathroom cabinet, but then I was afraid that she might need them and find out they were missing. I don’t know if I could lie well enough to keep me out of trouble with her if that happened. She would be so disappointed in me. So would Dad.

  And then they might find out everything.

  I would die of embarrassment if anyone knew that I cut myself. I keep my sleeves pulled down and on days when we have gym I wear a long-sleeved T-shirt under my clothes. No one has said anything about why I always wear long sleeves, probably because it’s still really cold and lots of other kids are still wearing their winter stuff. I don’t know what I’ll do when the weather gets warmer. My heart is racing really hard right now.

  I’m back.

  I had to put my pen down for a while and take some deep breaths. My heart isn’t racing too badly now, but it still doesn’t feel right. I’ve heard that young people can get heart attacks, too, not just old and overweight people. What would Mom and Dad say if I had a heart attack? I wonder if our health insurance would cover the cost of the hospital and medicine and all. It would probably be a big disaster. It would probably be better if I just died right away.

  Mom’s going to call out soon that dinner is ready and I’ll have to go downstairs even though I have no appetite. I don’t care about food anymore. She’ll watch me like a hawk watches a mouse and keep pressing me to eat more so I’ll be forced to eat something. I don’t think she knows I have to use two safety pins to help hold up my pants now. At least, she hasn’t said anything to me, just that I don’t eat enough.

  She just called for me to come down.

  I wish I never had to leave this room.

  19

  Meg sat at the kitchen table in the Pattersons’ kitchen. It was a little after two in the afternoon. She had been pruning in the little Giroux garden when Rosie had come outside and called to her from her own yard. Meg had seemed happy to come inside and out of the hot midday sun. Rosie had never known Meg to be an enthusiastic gardener. Rosie wasn’t that into gardening, either. She loved to look at flowers and enjoyed arranging them in a vase—she had put together the bouquet of miniature white roses that sat on the living room coffee table—but as for growing them, well, that didn’t interest her so much.

  “Do you want some chocolate milk?” Rosie asked. “For some reason my mom’s been buying it lately. I think she’s trying to get me to gain some weight.”

  “Sure,” Meg said. “My mom never buys it. She says it’s too expensive or something. Thanks.”

  Rosie got the carton from the fridge and poured two glasses of milk. “It’s full fat. It’s like melted ice cream.”

  “Yum. By the way, I haven’t told my mom that we talked the other day,” Meg said as Rosie handed her a glass.

  “I haven’t told my mom, either,” Rosie said. In truth, she was a bit angry with her mother for having told Mrs. Giroux to keep Meg away. Rosie knew her mother had meant well, but it annoyed her to be treated like a helpless child. She had talked to Dr. Lowe about the incident and Dr. Lowe had assured her that her feelings were valid and that her anger toward her mother didn’t make her a bad person. Just normal.

  Meg took a long drink of the milk before carefully putting the glass on the table. “Can I ask you something?” she said.

  “I guess.”

  “Why wouldn’t you tell someone what was going on? Especially after what happened at Valentine’s Day. Or when all those girls started to ignore you.”

  Rosie put her own untouched glass on the table now. She had talked about this with Dr. Lowe, and then, a little bit, with her mother. “I don’t know,” she said finally, which wasn’t strictly true. “I was scared, I guess. I didn’t want to make a bigger deal out of it. I didn’t want everyone pointing at me.”

  “But didn’t you want it to stop?” Meg asked. “The name-calling, the snubbing? And that disgusting text. I’m sorry. I guess I don’t really understand.”

  “Of course I wanted it to stop,” Rosie said forcefully. “I know I made a mistake in not reporting what was going on. But I kept imagining that Mackenzie would deny everything and not get in trouble and that then she would hate me even more. And then everyone, all the other kids, the teachers, and my parents would think I was a liar.”

  “Your parents are cool,” Meg argued. “They would have believed you.”

  “Maybe.” Rosie finally took a drink of the chocolate milk. She didn’t think Meg would understand how she had felt that telling her parents about being pushed around would only result in their being disappointed in her.

  Meg sighed. “It was all such a huge mess. You know, after I ... after I did what I did, they didn’t even look at me. It was like I didn’t really exist for them. I was totally unimportant to them after I told them about—”

  “Did you want to be important to them?” Rosie asked. The question was a bit of a challenge. “Was that why you told my secret?”

  “No!” Meg cried. “I mean, I don’t know what I expected. I just didn’t want them to start bullying me, too. I just didn’t realize that with people like that, well, I don’t think anyone is safe. They could have started in on me, too, no matter how I had ... how I had helped them.”

  “There’s no honor among thieves.”

  “What?”

  “It’s something my dad says,” Rosie explained.

  “Oh. I think I understand.”

  Rosie finished her milk. If her mother really was trying to get her to gain weight, she thought, all she had to do was keep buying this stuff. It was delicious and in a weird way was helping her to get through this difficult conversation with Meg. Maybe chocolate did have some real, positive effect on people’s mood, like the ads claimed it did.

  “Can I ask you something else?” Meg asked now.

  Rosie nodded. She could always choose not to answer Meg’s question. Dr. Lowe was helping her learn how to say no. She was helping her to consider her own feelings, as well as the feelings of others.

  “Why didn’t you want me to say anything to someone, like my mom or Tiffany, about what was going on?” Meg asked. “That might have taken some of the pressure off you.”

  Rosie’s temporarily elevated mood plummeted. How could she tell Meg that she hadn’t wanted her to speak up because a ti
ny part of her had felt that maybe she deserved the bullying? It was too embarrassing an admission to make. With Dr. Lowe’s silent approval, she just shook her head.

  “I was wrong not to tell,” Meg went on, almost as if to herself. “It would have been the smart thing to do. It’s what we’re told to do in all those courses and pamphlets and stuff about bullying prevention.”

  Both girls were silent for a moment. And then Rosie became aware that she was feeling ... angry. It felt weird. She had been sort of angry with Meg before, not often, but she had never actually acted on the anger. But now, she couldn’t seem to stop the words from coming out of her mouth.

  “You could have stood up to Mackenzie and the others for me,” she said. “I would have stood up for you if you were the one being pushed around.”

  “Really?” Meg half laughed. “Those girls are bad, Rosie. No offense, but I’m way tougher than you are and even I ... even I didn’t try to stop them.”

  Rosie felt the blood rush to her face. “Well, if you were the one being harassed,” she said, in a voice much louder than her usual, “trust me, I would have done something.”

  “You begged me not to tell anyone!” Meg cried. “I know I should have told but I was trying to keep my promise to you!”

  “No, you weren’t,” Rosie snapped. “You were scared of Mackenzie.”

  Meg fiddled with her empty glass for a moment. “You know what?” she said finally. “You’re right. I was scared of her and of Courtney and of Jill and even of Stella a bit. I didn’t want to be their victim like ... like you were.”

  Yes, Rosie thought, her anger at Meg sliding away. A victim like I was, she thought. So much of a victim that I took a razor blade to my own skin. So much of a victim that I wanted to die. And maybe I would have died if ...

  “I guess I should get home now,” Meg said suddenly, standing up from the table. “I need to pick up Petey from camp soon. Thanks for the chocolate milk.”

  Rosie half smiled. “Sure. Say hi to Petey for me.”

  At the back door Meg turned around. “Do you still hate me?” she asked, her voice a little bit wobbly.

  Rosie was surprised. “I never hated you. I don’t think I’ve ever hated anybody.”

  “Not even Mackenzie and them?”

  “No. Not even them.”

  “I think I hate them,” Meg said with a small smile. “And I’m the one who goes to church every Sunday.”

  Rosie smiled back. What could she say to that? She had never heard that going to church turned you into a perfect person. From what she understood, going to church was about trying to make yourself into a better person than the person you were when you came through the door. But maybe that wasn’t right.

  When Meg had gone, Rosie put their empty glasses into the dishwasher and went up to her room. Once there, she sat in the big comfortable armchair she used for reading and sometimes, for thinking. She had been lying to Meg when she said she didn’t hate anybody, because there was one person she did hate. Well, maybe not so much anymore, but there was one person she had hated, and badly. And that person was herself.

  Not that she had understood the self-hatred until Dr. Lowe had helped her to identify it for what it was. Dr. Lowe had suggested that maybe, just maybe, Rosie was clinging to her anger over Meg’s betrayal and Mackenzie’s bullying because on some very deep level she had not yet accepted her own role in, her own responsibility for, what had happened. Not that she was in any way to blame for her victimization. But maybe, Dr. Lowe had suggested, Rosie was angry with herself for not having handled the bullying in another, better way. Like, by respecting herself enough to tell her parents after the very first incident last fall. And, Dr. Lowe said, before she could really and truly forgive her friend—if not those other girls—she would have to really and truly forgive herself. She would have to learn how to love and respect herself for who she was, flaws, strengths, everything.

  She would even have to forgive herself for the cutting. She would have to say, “Rosie, I’m so sorry I didn’t love you like you deserve to be loved.” That idea had seemed frightening and kind of weird, but slowly and gradually Rosie had been coming to see the sense in Dr. Lowe’s words.

  Rosie absentmindedly touched the scars on her left arm, then, realizing what she was doing, took her hand away. It had felt odd, arguing with Meg before in the kitchen, but nothing terrible had happened, the world was still turning on its axis, and as far as she could tell, Meg still liked her and still wanted to be friends.

  Rosie realized that she was smiling. She was actually glad that they’d had that argument or conversation or whatever it had been, exactly. She felt a little bit proud of herself and not even guilty for feeling proud. She thought that might be progress.

  20

  Jane pulled open the door to the dishwasher and slid her empty cup into the top rack. Her afternoon cup of strong black tea was a habit she couldn’t imagine giving up. Her dental hygienist routinely scolded her as she worked to remove tea stains from her front teeth, but Jane was adamant. It was, she countered, her only vice. She had never smoked and she had given up drinking alcohol during the years she had struggled with getting and staying pregnant. Afterward, even a glass of wine with dinner held no appeal.

  She began to close the door of the dishwasher when she spotted, on the other side of the top rack, two tall glasses, the bottoms of which were coated with what could only be chocolate milk. She wondered. Maybe Mike had come home for lunch or to pick up something he had forgotten to take to the office. Well, even if he had, that didn’t explain the chocolate milk. Mike was lactose intolerant.

  Jane heard Rosie coming into the kitchen and swiftly closed the door to the dishwasher. She turned to face her daughter and hoped her voice wouldn’t betray her internal turmoil and suspicion. “Rosie?” she said. “There are two glasses in the dishwasher. Both have the remains of chocolate milk.”

  “So?” Rosie replied with a shrug. “You told me not to leave dirty dishes and glasses in the sink.”

  “I’m not worried about that. Was someone else here while I was out?”

  Rosie’s didn’t answer at once. Instead she went to the sink and poured a glass of filtered water. “Are you spying on me?” she finally asked.

  “Of course not,” Jane protested. “I just want to know if someone came over while I was at the store. I know you would never let in a stranger, so—”

  “Meg was here.” Jane could not ignore the note of defiance in her daughter’s voice.

  “Oh,” she said calmly, though the flash of anger that coursed through her was intense. She had told Frannie to keep Meg away from her daughter! She had demanded it.

  “We’ve been talking a bit lately,” Rosie went on.

  “Oh.”

  “You don’t sound very happy about it.”

  Jane thought that sounded like an accusation. She attempted a little laugh. “Well, I—I’m just surprised, that’s all.” Shocked was more like it.

  “I thought you would be proud of me,” Rosie said. “You’re always talking about forgiveness.”

  “I know, and I am proud of you, of course I am.” Jane put her hand on Rosie’s shoulder and felt her daughter tense. She took her hand away.

  “Then what’s wrong?” Rosie asked.

  Be careful, Jane, she thought. Don’t blow this conversation. “Nothing’s wrong,” she said. “Rosie, how do you feel about Meg? Do you want to be friends with her again?”

  Rosie paused for a long moment before replying. “I don’t know,” she said. “I think so.”

  “As long as you don’t feel forced to do anything you don’t want to do, that’s all that matters.”

  “No one is forcing me to do anything,” Rosie said carefully. “I make my own decisions.”

  That, Jane thought, was Dr. Lowe’s doing. “Good,” she said.

  Rosie picked up a home decorating magazine from the counter and began to flip through its pages.

  Jane busied herself with making an
other cup of tea. The occasion seemed to call for it. She took a fresh cup from the hanging rack and a tea bag from the canister underneath. She poured filtered water into the teakettle and waited for the water to boil. And while she waited, she surreptitiously watched Rosie browsing through the magazine.

  Whatever Rosie thought, Jane wished that she, too, could feel confident that Meg was truly sorry. She wished she could fully trust her. How exactly did you encourage your daughter to forgive while at the same time to exercise caution? Real friendship required absolute trust and was incompatible with doubt. Jane didn’t expect easy answers, but she very much wanted them.

  But wanting something didn’t mean getting it, like her desire to keep Meg away from Rosie. That wish hadn’t been granted, as maybe it was fated not to be. If you believed in such things, and Jane did though she wouldn’t admit as much to her husband, you might say there was a powerful force working to bring the two families back together whether they liked it or not. Witness what had taken place the day before.

  She had gone to Mike’s office to pick him up (his car was in the shop). His assistant was gone for the day, as was the family practitioner who worked from the office across the hall. Perhaps taking advantage of their being totally alone, perhaps suffering from a guilty conscience, Mike had told her that he had approached Frannie about spending time with Petey. Jane was furious with him for having talked to Frannie in the first place, as well as for having kept the conversation a secret from her for so long. Mike retaliated with his knowledge of her having kept from him the fact that she had demanded Frannie keep Meg away from Rosie.

  The argument had rapidly escalated into one of the worst, most cruel fights of their marriage. Jane had accused Mike of being a dishonest husband and he had accused her of being a negligent mother. The fight had ended with Jane in tears and Mike stony and silent. If Rosie had noticed her mother’s eyes later that evening, still slightly swollen and red, she had kept quiet about it.

  They had apologized sincerely but were both still a bit tender. It seemed that the process of reconciliation had unexpected pitfalls and could cause collateral damage. Somehow, if only for a short while, Jane and Mike had become enemies, fighting on opposing sides of the war that was supposed to be about the two neighboring families. Well, war never made sense and there never was a winner, not really.