by Sarah Dooley
“When you first rented,” she said, “you told me she was better. After last time, I thought . . . but you told me she was better, and I took you at your word.”
“She is better,” Karen said quickly, as though offended about something.
“She doesn’t sound better.”
“It doesn’t happen overnight, ma’am,” Simon said. Anyone else might have thought he was calm, but I could hear the venom in his tone. “She’s better, not cured. There haven’t been any miracles, but she’s grown up a lot and she has more self-control than she used to.” I sort of felt like I had swallowed something cold. I didn’t like hearing them discuss me this way.
“Well, see that she manages to control herself at this hour in the future,” Janna said stonily. “Half the neighborhood is awake and if they complain to me, I’m going to have to complain to you.”
“Have a nice night, Janna,” Simon said firmly, and I heard him close the door behind her. Immediately, he began to swear, running his hands through his graying hair over and over. I knew he was doing it because he always did. My mother shushed him and got the broom.
“You’re all right,” she said softly.
“I’m going to start looking out of town,” he answered, beginning to pace the length of the kitchen. I could hear the linoleum creaking under him, back and forth across the darkened room. “I’m going to have to.”
“Oh, we’re not there yet,” Karen said briskly. I heard stitches pulling and knew she was picking at her robe. It had almost no embroidery left anymore.
“Are we going to wait until we are there before we deal with it?” Simon asked tiredly. “If we lose this place, we’re not going to find another one in Nabor. We’ve burnt all our damn bridges.”
I waited for Karen to tell him he was wrong. Not finding a place in Nabor meant living someplace else. Not acceptable.
“But Livvie loves it here, Simon. We all do.”
His voice got longer like the shadows down the hallway. “I can’t always make everybody happy. We have to eat, Kar. We have to have a roof. If it’s a roof in another town, well, it’s still a roof and we still have to have one.”
She didn’t answer and I wasn’t sure I knew how to, either. The tiles and the floorboards and the sidewalks of Nabor had been my home my entire life. I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. Slipping quickly back into my room, I burrowed under my nine blankets and had a serious discussion with myself.
“Livvie, you cannot do this again,” I whispered. “You have to control yourself.”
From deep inside me, a response wisped up like smoke, but it was only another question.
“Shush,” I answered in the darkness. “I don’t know how. You’re just going to have to do it.”
Chapter 2
Heavy blankets were what Karen would call “a mixed blessing.” Heavy was good because it held me down to the bed and made me sleep. It was also bad because it made it difficult for me to jump awake in the morning and escape my scary dreams.
This morning my kicking feet made me remember quick that one of them was hurt. The events of the night before came flooding back, and my fingers clenched involuntarily as though trying to recapture my coffee mug.
“Oh, crap, what am I going to drink my yogurt out of this morning?” I mumbled to the plastic fish swimming circles by my ear.
It was my experience that whatever sentence I happened to say upon waking set the tone for the rest of the day. If it was a good sentence—something like “No school today” or “Wow, Lanie, you look like you’re in a good mood”—I could count on having a good day.
But if it was something bad—something like “Lanie, get out of my face” or “Oh, crap, what am I going to drink my yogurt out of this morning?”—I could pretty much count on a crummy day to follow.
I started blowing through pursed lips, hard. Sometimes doing breaths like this made the frustration stop building up inside me and the pressure never got big enough that I needed to let it out another way. As long as I could remember, the pressure had been there, but it got a lot bigger the year the whistle stopped blowing. Miss Mandy liked to talk with me about it, insisting that by talking, I gained ownership, which I think meant I was supposed to be able to make the pressure go away when I wanted.
“A lot of people who have autism,” she said, “have something similar to this pressure of yours. But they learn to control it and you can do the same. Just breathe with me.” She would take several deep breaths, blowing out through her lips. Her breaths made her teased bangs wobble. When I did it, my tangles got tangled up further and my bangs brushed my forehead, making me shiver. “There now. Isn’t that better?”
I said the words to myself as I worked on getting calm. “There now, Livvie. Isn’t that better?” After a minute, I was calm enough to peel off my nine blankets one at a time. My bandage had shifted a little in the night and blood had seeped onto my sheet. I covered it up quick with the blanket so I wouldn’t have to look at it; I didn’t like seeing spots on things. Squirming out of bed, I limped across the flattened carpet to stand on the metal heat vent on my one good foot. The metal dug stripes into the bottom of my foot, but it was worth it to catch every breath of warm air the aging trailer could cough out.
Properly warmed, I stuck my good foot in its slipper and adjusted the bracelet on my wrist. The bracelet used to be a kitten’s collar, back when Orange Cat was little enough to fit into it. The jingling ID tag was still attached, and my remaining cat, Gray Cat, came skittering out from under the bed, hoping for a jingle toy. Halfway across my room, her claws caught the carpet and she skidded to a stop, staring in horror at the fuzzy slippers that I wore every single day. She never stopped being afraid of them.
“You’re silly, Gray Cat,” I informed her, stretching my arms above my head to get awake. Hopping on my one good foot, I headed for the kitchen, where I found Lanie pacing tiny circles on the green linoleum. Lanie spent a lot of time in the mornings getting ready, for a kid who was only in middle school. It was my first year of high school and I didn’t spend half as much time, preferring to use my time wisely, petting Gray Cat or thumbing through a real estate catalog.
Lanie cleared her throat and faced the sink, which I think was her imaginary audience. “The reason I chose this topic for the science fair is because I wanted to make a difference in the way people perceive mice. Mice are not such bad creatures once you get to know—would you stop hopping? Once you get to know them.” She cleared her throat importantly. “Meet Bentley. Bentley is a mouse, but that doesn’t stop him from being a caring and considerate friend. Bentley is also quite smart. He is—would you stop hopping, please?—he is able to find his way through a complicated maze to get to the—Mom! Make Olivia stop hopping! She’s driving me crazy!”
“I have to hop!” I hollered back. “I cut my foot last night and I can’t walk on it! How am I supposed to get to breakfast if I don’t hop?”
“You could always starve,” Lanie snapped. “Mom, make her stop hopping so close to Bentley! If you knock over his cage, he’ll get loose and your stupid cat will eat him, and then I’ll have to eat your stupid cat!”
“Karen!” I bellowed. “Lanie’s going to eat my cat!”
“Girls!” Karen came into the kitchen, also hopping, pulling on her slipper with one hand and balancing herself on the door frame with the other. “Please get your breakfast and sit down without killing each other. Just one morning I’d like to not have to plot how I’m going to hide the bodies. Simon! Natasha’s not awake yet and it’s your turn!” Slipper in place, she lowered her other foot to the floor and shuffled to the counter to start the coffee.
“But, Mom, she almost knocked over Bentley!”
“No mice at the breakfast table,” Karen said firmly without looking. Then, just as firmly, “No cats at the breakfast table, either.” I didn’t know how she knew I had just picked up Gray Cat and snuck her onto my lap, but I quickly set her down again and folded my hands on the table. After last
night’s adventures, I didn’t want to get myself into any extra trouble.
My father came stumbling out of the bedroom moments later, his glasses crooked and his chin dark with stubble. His hair stood up on the pillow side and his eyes were rimmed with red. Pulling his sweater on over his head, he shuffled toward Natasha’s room with an audible yawn.
It would be a while before he returned. I never understood how Natasha managed to sleep so soundly, sharing a room with Lanie as she did, but then Tash was the quietest of all us Owens, anyway. Especially lately. She used to break her silence long enough to laugh and joke sometimes, and always to yell at Lanie if Lanie was mean to me. But lately all she did was read and eat, mostly in that order.
Her reading used to be a good thing. She used to read to me every day, the same three books over and over. She said it was like visiting an old friend, sweet and familiar. I could read to myself, but not very good. Mostly just -at and -op and -ug words and they didn’t make much sense when you strung them together in a sentence. My parents read, too, but they did the voices and the faces as if I was a little kid, stringing words into a story even Lanie was too old for. The way Natasha strung words together, they painted beautiful stories on the insides of my eyelids. They made me feel like I was part of the story, as if I was one of the pages turning. I could feel the warm words, the way they felt as they were read, released from the pressure of their pages.
But Natasha hadn’t been reading to me lately. I wasn’t sure why, but it had something to do with Orange Cat.
Natasha stumbled in to fix herself a bagel, plopping half on the table in front of me. Crumbs scattered and I wrinkled my nose, meticulously wiping them away. Orange Cat’s baby collar jingled on my wrist and I caught Lanie glaring.
“What’d you do to your foot, Liv-long-and-prosper?” Natasha asked. It was one of her goofy nicknames for me that made me uneasy when I was a little kid and made me giggle now.
“I broke my mug and stepped on it.” I picked at the bagel. I really wanted yogurt, but there was nothing to drink it out of.
“Your mud mug?” She gave me a quick glance. I think the look there was called sympathy. “I’m sorry, hon.”
“It was stupid.” I shrugged. “I shouldn’t have been climbing on the chair, but also the whistle shouldn’t have blown.”
“Yeah, that was weird, huh?” Natasha agreed. “Somebody must have been fooling around at the old factory.”
Eyes roved around the table—mine, Lanie’s, my parents’—everyone but Natasha’s. Hers stayed cluelessly on her book, just above her bagel.
“You mean you—you heard that?” I asked faintly when it appeared the rest of my family was not going to ask.
“Yeah, it was weird. It sounded just like it used to back at the Sun House. It was like old times.” She smiled quickly up at the table, then looked up again at length when she realized we were all still staring at her.
“What?” she asked with something funny in her voice that I thought might be called guilt. “Livvie always says she misses the Sun House. Why can’t I?”
“I guess there really was a whistle,” Simon breathed to Karen.
I felt something bubble up in my stomach too suddenly for me to put a name to it. My hands clenched up and I wrinkled my forehead. “How come you believe it when Tash says it? I told you I heard it, but just because Lanie didn’t—”
“That’s because they know I’m sensible,” Lanie said in what she pretended was a helpful voice. “You’re fanciful. That’s something different. It means you might be making up a whistle, but I would tell the truth.”
I slapped my bagel back down on my plate, making Natasha’s fork jump out of the cream cheese tub and clatter on the table. “I always tell the truth! And Tash heard it, too, so who’s the liar now, huh? You must have heard it! You share a room with Tash and she heard it!”
“The only thing I heard was you banging and hollering in the middle of the night when Bentley and I needed our sleep!”
“You and stupid Bentley!” I stood up and slammed my chair back so hard it hit the counter. Bentley’s cage rocked dangerously. “Why don’t you just go marry him?”
“Olivia!” My father fixed me with a stare that made my insides feel like I had swallowed something slimy. “Have a seat, young lady.”
“But—” I stomped and pointed at Lanie. She stomped back and crossed her arms over her chest, turning her back squarely to me. Usually Lanie proclaimed herself too old for such behavior, but I seemed uniquely able to bring it out in her.
My father held up his hand to silence both of us, then turned to Lanie. “Melanie, please stop picking at your sister.”
“But she—” She pointed back at me.
Natasha grabbed Lanie’s pointing finger and folded it back to her side, under the table so Karen and Simon couldn’t see. “Honey,” she said to me calmly while Lanie struggled to get free. “What time did you hear that whistle?”
“Precisely nine-fifteen,” I said in kind of a small voice. With Natasha’s calm gaze on me, I remembered how important it was now not to have outbursts. I was forever remembering things too late.
“Well, that’s funny, ’cause I was asleep,” Natasha said. “But I definitely heard it.”
Lanie yanked her hand away with a huff, but she didn’t point or say anything else. This, coupled with Natasha’s words, finally made it possible for me to settle back into my chair. If Natasha believed me, it didn’t matter what Lanie thought. I scooted my chair farther away from Lanie’s.
“So, what are you doing at school today, Livvie?” My mother was halfway through her coffee and still blinking sleep out of her eyes. She looked eager to steer the conversation in a new direction.
“I don’t know, not much,” I grumped. “The new sub is stupid. But the speech therapist said she would come and get me and we can play UNO.”
“What’s wrong with the new sub this time?” Lanie asked. “Is her hair the wrong color, or does she just not like putting up with all your—”
“Melanie Elizabeth!” Simon sat back with a thump and pointed at the sink. “Get your dishes rinsed. Get your mouse. Get going. Now.”
“But I’m not finished with my—”
“Now!”
Lanie sighed a loud, dramatic sigh, the kind Miss Mandy used to say was impolite when I did it to her and Mr. Raldy. “Fine,” she grumbled. “Don’t mind me. I’m going to go win one for science. Just see if I share my prize money with any of you crazy people.” She banged out of the room with Bentley swinging in his cage.
I took a last bite of my bagel—bringing the grand total of bites I’d taken to three—and dumped the rest in the trash. Turning back to the table, I caught Natasha staring.
“You used to eat,” she observed drily. “Do you remember those days?”
“I eat,” I said defensively.
“Three bites. When you were a baby, you always finished first. Then you launched yourself mouth-first at whatever was still left on my plate. Usually pumpkin pie.” Turning to our parents, she added, “Does it seem like we had pumpkin pie a lot back then?”
“Your grandmother gave us about eighteen cans of pie filling that winter.” Karen drained her coffee mug and rolled her shoulders to wake up. “I think it must have been on sale. Either that or expired. We used to eat it on crackers. It was better than the canned meat—that’s the other thing she gave us.”
My father whisked his plate and coffee cup to the sink. “I’m going to pretend I don’t hear you talking about my mother,” he said in a joking sort of voice. Joking voices, I was pretty good at recognizing, after years of growing up with my parents and my sisters. It was the more serious emotions I had a hard time labeling. The ones my family didn’t talk about.
Chapter 3
Simon eyed Lanie and me warily as we piled into the car, but we were finished fighting, mostly. Lanie grabbed the front seat and I huffed a sigh and settled into the back, next to Simon’s Walmart apron. Karen was off today and would
pick us up on foot, me from the high school and Lanie from her car pool. These were my favorite days because Karen never made us walk straight home. We roamed up through the pinewoods or down to the swings at the elementary school. Sometimes we wound through downtown Nabor to buy an ice cream at the U-Save.
Natasha waved a peaceful-looking good-bye from her bike as she pedaled down the drive. Even in winter, Natasha loved to bike to school if we lived close enough. I watched her go, wistfully. I would love nothing more than to bike to school—my hair, which I pictured longer and thinner in my daydreams, drifting back in the gentle wind, eyes watering with the cold, but in a good way. It would sure beat sitting here in this backseat behind Lanie, listening to her huff and sigh and yawn giant fake yawns that made my ears dizzy.
There was a time, way back—not quite as way back as the Sun House, but almost—when Lanie and I were friends. Not when she was a baby. When she was a baby, she was so loud she hurt my ears, and she always had Karen’s and Simon’s attention when she wanted it, while they told me to be a big girl and they would help me in a little while. Sometimes I bounced Lanie on my knee with Simon’s help, and sometimes Karen let me hold her in the rocking chair, but mostly she was a change in my life that I just didn’t feel ready for.
Around the time Lanie was born, I pulled out such a big chunk of my hair that my scalp bled. My parents were horrified. They rushed me to the hospital, like there was anything the hospital could do about a stupid missing chunk of hair. For a while after that, they made me keep my hair cut short. It was only lately they started letting me grow it out again, long like Natasha’s, only too thick and not as pretty.
But when Lanie was one year and five months old, something changed in our relationship. Around that time, she started speaking a language I could sort of understand, all about the colors and the motions of things. Her speech was visible. I could see the words she said because they made so much sense to me. It surprised me to learn that my family couldn’t understand her. Her words were like pictures painted on the air. We spent all our time together.
