Rules for Life

by Darlene Ryan

  “Yeah, right,” I said. “How big was the glass?”

  “Oooh, good one, Iz,” he said, smirking. “Tell me something, do you ever have fun? Or are you always Little Miss Perfect?”

  “Let me see, drug addict, drunk, liar.” I made a show of counting on my fingers. “Are you always a total freaking screwup?”

  He closed his eyes for a moment and shook his head. “Heard it, heard it, heard it, Isabelle. For once, stay out of my life.”

  I looked at him, sprawled in the chair, and I realized that I didn’t want to clean up his puke anymore. I didn’t want to listen to his excuses or make excuses for him. I didn’t want to be around Jason. I didn’t like him. I wasn’t sure I could even love him anymore.

  “I am out of your life. Things are bad enough here, Jason. I didn’t say anything. And I won’t.”

  The toast popped then and the water was boiling in the kettle. I made the tea, buttered the bread and arranged things on the tray.

  “What do you want me to do?” Jason asked then. His tone had gone from pissed to whiney.

  “I don’t care what you do,” I said. I just sounded tired. “Leave me out of it.”

  I picked up the tray and moved past him. It wasn’t my job to look after Jason. Besides, I hadn’t managed to save him the last time. I couldn’t save anyone. I could barely take care of myself these days.

  27

  The funeral was on Thursday. It was nothing like the memorial service for my mother. That day there were too many flowers, too many people, too many fake smiles.

  This was just the opposite: just Anne, Dad, Jason and me, along with Anne’s minister friend. And a tiny brass urn that seemed way too small. Anne stood silent and stiff next to a hole in the ground draped with too-green fake grass. Her skin was so pale even the wind didn’t bring color to her cheeks.

  I stood to her left, back a little, clutching three yellow daisies. It was as far away as I could get from that brass container. I listened to the minister talk about eternal life and I laid my flowers next to the others when it was time.

  The sky was a deep, endless blue and the sun was warm on the back of my head. It felt wrong. The sky should have been full of dark, heavy clouds. It should have been raining.

  Dad, Anne and I drove home in silence. Jason had said he would walk. Maybe he was going off to get drunk. I didn’t care. Life went on, sort of. We were walking, talking, breathing, Dad and Anne and I, but we were like those mannequins you see in a department store window: there was nothing inside. Rafe’s mother filled the refrigerator with food nobody ate.

  I hadn’t cried since the hospital. Whenever Rafe put his arms around me I pressed against him, hoping that somehow I could fill myself with his warmth. “What can I do?” he’d ask. I didn’t have an answer.

  Every few days Mrs. Mac called to check on me. The conversation always ended the same way. “If you need anything, please call me,” she’d say. I always promised I would.

  In class I was on autopilot. I studied notes I didn’t remember taking and handed in assignments I didn’t remember doing. Sometimes I caught Lisa watching me. I knew she was worried about me, but I didn’t know what to say to her.

  I started taking long, roundabout routes home from school, mindlessly putting one foot in front of the other. One afternoon I passed Keyes Deli. A man was at the counter in the window eating noodle soup, and I stopped on the sidewalk, remembering the first time Anne had made soup for us.

  That night I took Anne’s cookbook, the one that had belonged to her grandmother, down from the cupboard over the sink. The next day after school I took the shortest way home. I stopped at the grocery store and carried out two plastic sacks of supplies.

  The soup smelled wonderful and tasted almost as good. I filled a bowl and arranged some little fish-shaped crackers on a plate.

  Anne was in the living room, curled in the wing chair, staring out the window. “I brought you something to eat,” I said.

  She turned her head. “Thank you, Isabelle,” she said.

  I set the tray on the table to her left. She looked over at it and then turned back to the window.

  When I went back to get the tray about half an hour later, she hadn’t even picked up the spoon. I started back to the kitchen.

  “Isabelle?”

  I stopped and turned partway around. Curled into the chair, Anne looked swamped in her sweatshirt, as though it were a couple of sizes too big. It probably was. She hardly ever ate.

  She gestured at the tray. “Thank you,” she said. “I’m just not hungry right now.”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “Maybe I can get you something later.”

  “Maybe.”

  I went into the kitchen and set the tray on the counter by the sink. I was just so sorry. But I didn’t know how to say it so Anne could hear me.

  I was sitting at the table with my own bowl when Dad came in. “Where’s Anne?” he asked.

  “I think she went for a walk,” I said. I’d heard her go out about ten minutes before.

  His shoulders sagged and he let his breath out slowly.

  He hadn’t shaved, I noticed. And he needed a haircut. It was like he was sleepwalking most of the time, like he wasn’t aware of what was happening. I couldn’t help wondering if he and Anne would make it through this. Once he had asked, “Are you all right?” And I’d said, “Yes,” even though I wasn’t. We pretty much avoided each other, and when we couldn’t, we slipped past one another and didn’t make eye contact.

  “I’ll be in the office,” Dad said finally.

  I nodded. A part of me felt sorry for him—the baby was his too. But a part of me hated him for starting it all. I didn’t want to hate my own father, but I had to walk a wide circle around him because otherwise I might start screaming, and I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to stop.

  28

  “Do you know where Jason is?” Dad asked.

  I knew by the tightness of his jaw and the way the words squeezed out of his mouth that he was upset. “No,” I said, shaking my head as I spread peanut butter all the way out to the edge of a piece of toast. “It’s Friday night. He’s probably downtown outside the liquor store doing old sixties songs.” Or inside looking for something to drink, I added silently.

  “He said he had a job.”

  “Jason thinks singing in front of the liquor store for change is a job.” I took a big bite of toast so I wouldn’t have to talk about Jason anymore.

  Dad rubbed the back of his neck. His hair was down over the collar of his shirt. Was he ever going to get it cut?

  “I loaned him the truck to move some equipment. He was supposed to have it back here by six.”

  I sucked in a breath in the middle of swallowing and almost choked. I started to cough, spraying toast crumbs all over the counter.

  “You all right?” Dad asked.

  I waved him away. “Sorry,” I gasped. “It went down the wrong hole.”

  It was ten after seven by the clock over the refrigerator. Was Jason stupid enough to drive when he was drinking? Maybe. He was stupid enough to be drinking in the first place.

  I knew this was where I was supposed to tell Dad about finding Jason drunk. And if he’d been the old Dad and I’d been the old Isabelle, that’s what would have happened. Instead I mumbled and shrugged and escaped upstairs to my room.

  But I couldn’t stay still. All the questions I had about Jason—Where was he? Was he drunk? Had he had an accident?—were jumping around in my mind. I looked out into the hallway. The cordless phone was lying on the table at the top of the stairs. I darted out and snagged it.

  Rafe picked up on the third ring. I could hear him smile when he knew it was me. “Can you pick me up now?” I asked. “There’s something I have to do. I’ll explain when I see you.”

  “Sure. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

  “No, no. Pick me up at the end of the street. At the corner.”

  “What for?”

  “Because I asked you to.�
��

  For once I was glad that Rafe wasn’t like anyone else’s boyfriend. He didn’t say, “Are you crazy?” or “Is it that time of the month?” He just said, “Okay.”

  I pulled my blue polar fleece sweatshirt with the hood and the kangaroo pocket over my head. It took a couple of minutes, but I managed to find a pair of gloves that matched each other and a red knit beanie hat on the floor of my closet.

  Dad was on the phone downstairs. I gave him a quick wave and escaped out the door. I hadn’t wanted to stand around waiting for Rafe because I didn’t want to have to lie to Dad about where I was going. I didn’t want to talk to him until I knew what was going on with Jason. I waited at the corner, shifting from one foot to the other and watching the cars for Rafe.

  “So where are we going?” he asked after he’d kissed me and I’d buckled my seat belt.

  “Jason’s apartment.”

  We drove for maybe a minute in silence. Then Rafe spoke. “You gonna tell me why I had to pick you up at the corner?”

  “I don’t want anyone to know where I’m going.” I pulled at a piece of dry skin on my bottom lip. “It just seemed easier.”

  “Why?”

  “Look, you can’t tell anyone.”

  “That’ll be easy,” Rafe said, glancing over at me for a second. “Because I don’t know anything.”

  The only way to say it was all at once. “Jason borrowed Dad’s truck, but he didn’t bring it back and he’s not answering the phone and the thing is, he’s been drinking—getting drunk—and—” I let out the breath I didn’t even realize I’d been holding. “And maybe … and maybe other stuff. I don’t know.”

  I waited.

  Rafe kept his eyes on the road. “I thought you weren’t going to do this anymore,” he said finally.

  “What do you mean? Do what?”

  “Cover for Jason.”

  “I’m not covering for Jason,” I said.

  Rafe didn’t say anything.

  “I’m not,” I insisted, twisting in my seat so I could see more of his face. “This is different. How could I tell Dad? It was when Anne … I went over to Jason’s apartment and he was drunk. Dirty, gross, drunk. And then when I got to the hospital …” I laced my fingers tightly together “ … Dad told me … about the baby.”

  I looked out the window. We were at a red light. “What was I supposed to do, Rafe?” I whispered. “Say, ‘Hey, Dad. Jason’s drunk’? How could I do that?” I pressed my laced fingers against my mouth and took a couple of shaky breaths.

  I knew by how stiff Rafe was that he was pissed at me. “So why didn’t you tell me?” he said.

  The light changed.

  I opened my mouth, but at first nothing came out. “I couldn’t ask you to lie for Jason,” I said finally. “I’m sorry. I was just trying to do the right thing for everyone. Now it’s worse.”

  We drove a block in silence. Then Rafe laid his right hand, palm up, on the seat between us. I put my hand on top of his and he folded his fingers around mine.

  We parked in front of Jason’s building. The truck wasn’t on the street. I jabbed the doorbell with my thumb as we passed it.

  Upstairs I pounded on Jason’s door, the same way I had the morning I’d found him drunk. Nothing. Rafe reached over my shoulder and beat on the door with his flat hand. But there was no sound from inside.

  Slowly, silently, I counted to twenty. In my head I saw Jason, stoned, sitting on the kitchen counter, talking so fast the words didn’t make sense. I saw him sprawled on the bathroom floor, head against the upturned toilet seat, flecks of puke on his T-shirt. I saw him straddling the top crossbar of the swing set in the same park my mom had taken us to when we were little, swinging his legs as he sang “I’m a Little Teapot”.

  I tried the doorknob. It turned. I pushed, and the door swung open a couple of inches.

  Rafe’s arm snaked around my shoulders. “I’ll see if he’s in there,” he said.

  I shook my head, reached up and clutched the hand on my shoulder. Then I nudged the door open the rest of the way with my foot.

  We both gagged at the smell, a mix of BO and garbage that hadn’t been taken out for days. I felt along the wall for the light switch.

  “Holy shit,” Rafe said when the light came on.

  The only piece of furniture was a peeling brown vinyl recliner in the middle of the living room. A grubby blue blanket was wadded up on the seat. There were five beer bottles standing on the floor next to the chair and a bigger bottle of something else—vodka, maybe—lying empty on its side.

  The sofa was gone, and the big wooden cupboard Dad had built that Jason used for his TV and stereo. Where was his sound system, his keyboard, the answering machine? My mother’s rocking chair. Where was Mom’s rocking chair?

  I stood there cold and numb while Rafe scouted around. “Jason’s not here,” he said, reaching for my hand. “And this is it for the furniture. C’mon. Let’s go.” I let him lead me back down the stairs.

  Outside I looked up and down the street again; still no sign of the truck. “Can we just go down the alley and see if the truck’s maybe in the back somewhere?” I asked.

  Rafe shrugged. “Sure.”

  “Be there. Be there. Be there. Be there,” I repeated under my breath.

  Jason had knocked over two garbage cans when he parked, but the truck was there, next to the building’s fire escape. My knees went wobbly with relief. Rafe slowly circled the truck, looking for damage.

  “It looks okay as far as I can tell,” he said. “What do you want to do?”

  “I want to beat on my dumb-ass brother with something really hard,” I said. “Maybe one of those big hammers that construction workers use to tear down walls.” I folded my arms across my chest and tucked my icy fingers into my armpits for warmth. “I hate him, Rafe,” I said. “He uses everyone. He uses me like I’m some kind of cash machine. He doesn’t care about me. The only person he cares about is himself. And I should just—” I stopped, swallowed hard as tears filled my eyes.

  I looked past Rafe, out toward the street, half expecting Jason to come swaggering up the alley. “I know it doesn’t make sense. Why do I care about what’s happened to him? He wouldn’t if it were me. It’s just … I can’t stop thinking, what if he’s had an accident? What if he passed out somewhere and choked on his own barf? I can’t … I have to do something.”

  I was shaking. Rafe pulled me into a hug. “The truck’s here, so we know he’s not driving,” he said. He paused. “I’d like to pound his head on the back bumper about ten times.” He made a growling noise in the back of his throat. “Your brother’s an asshole, Iz. You gotta go home and tell your dad what’s going on.”

  “I know,” I whispered. And I would have done anything to get out of it.

  29

  I stood in the driveway, thinking I might heave my toast and peanut butter under the Chinese gooseberry. I’d convinced Rafe to go drive around downtown and look for Jason while I talked to Dad. I guess I was holding out hope that somehow this would be a mistake instead of another one of Jason’s screwups.

  “Just tell him,” Rafe had said. “Do it fast, like pulling off a bandage.”

  Why did people always say that? As if doing something quicker was easier, as if it didn’t still hurt.

  I went in, peeling off my gloves and hat. Dad was in the living room with the phone stuck to his ear. I stood in the doorway, wiping my sweaty hands on my jeans. My feet wouldn’t go any farther. Dad pushed the disconnect button. “Where in hell are you?” he muttered, dropping the handset on the table. He turned and caught sight of me. “Hi, what did you forget?”

  For a second I wasn’t sure the words would come out. But they did. “I think Jason’s in trouble,” I said, almost choking on his name.

  “You got that right,” Dad said, doing the hand-hair thing again.

  “No, Dad. I mean … Jason’s … drinking.”

  He froze for a moment. His hand slid over the back of his head in slo
w motion and hung on his neck for a moment. “What do you mean, Jason’s drinking?”

  “When Anne … the baby … he was, he was drunk when I went over there in the morning.” I couldn’t seem to stop rubbing my hands on my pants. I jammed them in my pockets.

  “And you’re just telling me about this now?” He was across the room, in front of me, in a flash. “He’s an addict. For God’s sake, Izzy, use your brain. Jason could be out there right now, driving around drunk. He could kill someone. He could kill himself.” With each word he got louder.

  “No, no he’s not. The truck’s behind his apartment and, and it’s okay, I swear.”

  “How do you—” He stopped. A tiny muscle twitched at the corner of his left eye. “Is that where you were?”

  “Yes.” Something sour and acidic burned at the back of my throat.

  “Is Jason there?”

  I shook my head.

  “How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

  “I am. The apartment was empty.”

  “You’ve been lying for weeks, but now you’ve decided to tell the truth.”

  “I wasn’t lying.” My own voice was getting louder. “I didn’t tell you Jason was drinking. That’s not the same as lying.”

  “Oh, c’mon. He’s a drug addict and now it turns out he’s a drunk, too. And you just keep covering for him.” Dad was right in my face now.

  I took a couple of steps backward.

  “Don’t walk away from me,” he warned, his voice hoarse with anger. “What’s the matter with you? Don’t you remember what it was like at the hospital the last time with Jason? Tubes jammed up his nose and down his throat and in his arms. He looked like the bones would rip through his skin, he was so thin. You want to put us through that again?” He grabbed both my arms and I didn’t know if he was going to shake me or drag me into the living room.

  “Marc, stop.”

  We both turned. Anne was on the second step from the bottom of the staircase. I hadn’t heard her come down.

  Dad loosened his grip on me. I yanked away from him and took another step back.