Even this journal is driving me crazy. Sometimes it feels like my only true friend. At the same time I feel as though I’m chained to it (emotionally).
All right. That’s it. I’m going to go to school today. Dad will call me if anything changes.
9:40 A.M.
What a mistake. I shouldn’t have come here. I can’t concentrate. I haven’t even been to class yet. I feel like everyone’s staring at me. The ones who know me well are thinking, “There she is. Poor Sunny.” The ones who don’t know me well are thinking, “Is that her? Is she the one whose mother is dying?”
Mom is dying kind of dramatically. Maybe that’s why Dad seems so dramatic these days. This is like nothing you ever hear about in real life. I thought people only died this way in the movies. Like Beth in Little Women. Just made-up people. I thought when real people died you sat around in the hospital waiting room until finally the doctor came out and said, “Well, it’s over.” And then everyone cried and started to make funeral arrangements.
My head is swimming.
Tired. No sleep.
Very mad.
10:32 A.M.
Still haven’t been to class. Not even sure what period this is.
First I sat in the library. Then it started to fill up. Moved to an empty classroom. A class came in. Moved to a spot outside the front doorway.
Warm today.
A million teachers have seen me and not one has said anything. I mean, said anything to me about not being in class. Mr. Hackett said, “How’s it going, Sunny?” like he was asking about a social studies project, and I said, “Fine.”
10:50 A.M.
Still sitting out here. No one is bothering me.
I think I can smell the ocean.
Once, when I was five, I was invited to a birthday party. Some kid in my kindergarten class was turning six. I didn’t want to go. I knew we were going to play pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey, and I hated that game. I hated being blindfolded and spun around. It was embarrassing and humiliating, everyone watching you dumbly look for the donkey, the stupid cardboard tail clutched in your hand. And for what? So you could win a set of markers or a plastic charm bracelet? I told Mom I didn’t want to go to the party and she made me go anyway.
I told her I hated her.
11:11 A.M.
You know, this is kind of nice. I’m still sitting by the door. Just me and my notebook. That’s it. No books, no Walkman. Don’t even have my purse. I stuck some change in my pants pocket this morning, grabbed the journal, and left.
11:13 A.M.
I didn’t say good-bye to Mom.
11:25 A.M.
I feel like I’m Alice, down the rabbit hole. Everyone here is living in a different world. I think I’m a visitor from some other place. The people here — they walk around so easily. They don’t know how awful life can be. And me — I can’t escape from it.
1:12 P.M.
Dawn found me and snagged me at lunchtime. She looked kind of wary of me, but at the same time she insisted I go to the cafeteria with her. I was expecting that she would drag me to a table with Maggie and Amalia. But she led me to an empty table and we sat alone. I wasn’t going to eat anything, but Dawn handed me something. A week or so ago this would have driven me crazy. Today I didn’t mind. I feel numb. I ate whatever she gave me. I’m not even sure what it was. A sandwich?
Saw Ducky in the hall after lunch. He actually shied away from me. Everyone has been keeping their distance, but nobody else is doing what Ducky does. Then again, I haven’t done to anyone else what I did to Ducky. I know I was unfair — really unfair — when I called him a wimp, and said he never stands up for himself, and basically that most kids think he’s a total dweeb. But I don’t have the energy to work up an apology. Not even to Ducky.
1:22 P.M.
Back in my spot. Now that it’s later in the day and even warmer, a few kids were sitting here when I returned. I sat a little distance away from them. And they scattered. I’m like insect repellent. Very effective insect repellent. These kids could talk about almost anything — drugs, drinking. And they act so cool, swaggering around with their cigarettes in their pockets. But bring up the idea of their parents dying and they can’t handle it. And I’m the reminder of what they don’t want to think about.
So they scattered.
And I’m alone again.
I remember this one time when Dawn, Maggie, and I—oh, and Jill. Jill was there too. Hard to believe. When was the last time I saw her outside of school? I wonder if she knows how bad it’s become with Mom. Of course she does. Everybody knows. I live under a microscope and everyone is lining up waiting for a turn to squint into it and look at the poor odd creature exposed on the glass slide.
Anyway, Dawn, Maggie, Jill, and I were having a sleepover at my house and it was almost 4:00 in the morning and we still couldn’t go to sleep. We couldn’t even settle down. We were giggling hysterically in my room and finally Mom came in. We thought she was going to separate us or something, but instead she told us about this sleepover she had when she was our age. Told us about her friends and the boys they talked about.
Dawn always remembers that. She mentions it a lot.
1:45 P.M.
Ms. Krueger found me. She sat with me for a few minutes. Ms. Krueger is cool, I guess. She said to me, “How are you doing, Sunny?” which isn’t so different from “How’s it going, Sunny?” But it felt entirely different. She said it with such warmth and sincerity.
I said, “It’s really hard.”
And she nodded. She didn’t say, “Well, obviously,” or anything. Then she took my hand. “Come to me anytime. You know where my office is. And here. Let me give you my home phone number.” Which she did.
After she left I decided to go home. I felt all watery, like I was going to spill over.
But guess what. I didn’t. Go home, I mean. Not yet. There I was, about ready to spill over, and suddenly I felt like lead. I just kept remembering all these things.
I remembered when Mom first got the diagnosis. It was so unexpected. We really didn’t know anything was wrong with her. Mom had gone to the doctor for a regular checkup and the doctor had run all these tests, but just routine tests. No one was even thinking about the doctor or the checkup when the phone rang that day. We weren’t sitting around waiting for it to ring, waiting to hear news of some sort.
And so it was a phone call that changed everything; changed our lives. The doctor said he had noticed something abnormal in her lungs and he wanted to run more tests. I remember that Mom said, “But I feel fine.” Even so, she had to go back to the doctor, then to the hospital, and ever since, my life has been a parade of hospitals and treatments and waiting rooms. I mean, Mom’s life has been.
God, it’s hot. When did it get so hot?
You know what? I have to get out of here.
2:13 P.M.
I couldn’t stay in school. I had to leave. It was so hot in the sun and the sun made me think of sunny and sunny made me think of sunshine and sunshine made me think of how my name came from my father and my mother. All thoughts seem to lead back to my mother.
My brain is no longer my own. It’s been hijacked by Mom.
I hate you, Mom.
I love you, Mom.
I’m sitting on this rock under this tree that is halfway between our house and Vista. In third grade Dawn and I actually counted the steps from the end of my driveway to the front steps of the school. And the rock and tree are exactly halfway between.
Third grade. That was a lifetime ago. Or maybe it was someone else’s life. Did I ever go to third grade? Was I ever so young? I don’t think so. I’m old, old, old.
My friends. Dawn, Maggie, Amalia, Ducky. There for me. Especially Dawn. Ever since I moved next door to her. A long time ago.
I don’t want to go home. I didn’t want to be at school, but now I don’t want to be at home. Waiting, waiting, waiting. The vigil.
I cut the end of school and nobody said a word. I walked out of
school right under everyone’s nose. It was the easiest cut of my life.
I am so tired. Will I ever not be tired?
I wonder what cancer feels like. I asked Mom once, but she didn’t have an answer.
Just now, I looked at my watch. School’s out. Any minute, kids are going to start streaming past me. I wonder where else I can go. Where else I can be private.
All right. I give up. I know I should go home. I’m just killing time here, putting off having to see Mom again.
God, did I really write that? I did. I just wrote that I’m putting off having to see Mom again.
I am a horrible person.
3:09 P.M.
I knew it. I knew that if I came home my life would no longer be my own. And I was right.
Aunt Morgan has only been here since yesterday and already it feels like she lives here. She says she’s just trying to keep the house in order. Okay. Fine. Keep the house in order, Aunt Morgan. But keep it in our order, not yours.
Aunt Morgan is a control freak. How can she be Mom’s sister? The first thing she said when I walked through the door this afternoon was, “Sunny, you’re not sorting the laundry properly.”
You know what I say to that? I say, “Screw the laundry.” Why is she even thinking about laundry at a time like this? It’s not as if we don’t have other clothes to wear. Considering what’s going on at our house, we could probably run around naked and no one would notice.
A horrible thought: Aunt Morgan is not married, which shouldn’t come as any surprise. But what if after Mom dies, in the turmoil, she and Dad decide they’re attracted to each other, and Dad asks Aunt Morgan to marry him and she leaves Atlanta and becomes my stepmother?
Oh my god. I can’t believe I just wrote “after Mom dies.”
3:35 P.M.
Grandma called. She and Grandad want to come by. They used to just drop by. Since when do they call first? Dad said to her, “Now isn’t a good time.” He really said that. To his own mother. When is it going to be a good time?
Also, couldn’t Dad have consulted with me? I love my grandparents. Maybe partly because they’re the only two I have left? Anyway, I wish they would come over. Grandma is all soft and powdery and understanding. When I was little I used to call her up after school almost every day to tell her what had gone on. I’d tell her everything — what I ate for lunch, who hit whom, what Dawn and I talked about on the way to school, answers I got wrong, answers I got right. I’d chatter and chatter away and she would make little murmuring noises. Every other Saturday I would spend the night at their house. I felt like a princess. A very grown-up princess.
When I was six Grandma and Grandad took me to a fancy restaurant for dinner. They let me order shrimp cocktail and didn’t mind at all when I decided I didn’t like it. Grandad ate it instead. (I think he knew I wasn’t going to like it.)
Grandma and Grandad love me enough to let me make mistakes.
So does Mom.
I guess I should go downstairs and see Mom. She was asleep when I came home, but I know she’s awake now. I can hear Dad and Aunt Morgan going in and out of her room.
More later.
4:04 P.M.
Saw Mom. We talked a little. Aunt Morgan gave us space. Dad tried to give us space but kept interrupting. Mom not really awake.
4:10 P.M.
Well, that was stupid. That last entry, I mean. I just reread it. It doesn’t say anything. I’m so confused.
This diary is my friend. It is my confidante, even more than Dawn is. Like, I actually couldn’t say just anything to Dawn. Not sure why. But I do say absolutely everything to my journal. Or at least I used to. I don’t think I’ve been doing that so much anymore. I feel closed up, like a sealed bottle. I need to open up. Or to be opened up.
I’m going to try that last entry again.
Okay. Here goes.
For starters, Dad is at home (as I said). He’s been at home for several days straight. He’s pretty much abandoned the bookstore. He stays with Mom just about round the clock. He even sleeps in her room. And of course a nurse is usually here, and one doctor or another checks in on her every day. When I went downstairs, Dad was sitting with Mom, and a nurse was just outside the room. Aunt Morgan was in the kitchen. In other words, no privacy.
“Hi,” I said to Dad. “Can I talk to Mom?”
“Sure, honey.” He was sitting on the end of her bed.
“Maybe I could talk to her alone?” I said this like it was a question.
“Oh. Oh, of course.” Dad stood up and walked into the living room. I could hear him talking to the nurse in a very low voice.
I sat at the foot of Mom’s hospital bed and gazed at her, trying to figure out if she really was awake. It’s hard to know these days. You can’t tell by her eyes. Sometimes she’s awake with her eyes closed. I think it’s too much effort to keep them open for long periods of time.
“Mom?” I whispered.
Mom’s eyes fluttered open. “Hi, sweetie,” she said.
“Hi.”
“How was school?”
“Fine. How are you feeling?” I knew this was a dumb question, but I didn’t know what else to say.
“About the same.” Mom licked her lips.
“Do you want some water?”
“Just some ice. Please.”
I brought Mom some ice chips and put a few of them in her mouth.
“Thanks,” she said after a few moments. “That’s better.”
I didn’t know what to say then and I was embarrassed. How could I not know what to say to Mom? To Mom?
While I was still trying to dredge up a little piece of conversation, Mom said, “You are a very strong person, Sunny.”
I bit my lip. I don’t feel strong.
“Maybe you don’t feel that way,” Mom went on as if she’d read my mind, “but it’s true. You can survive anything.”
Well, that didn’t make any sense. Mom is a strong person too, and she isn’t going to survive cancer. “I don’t know,” I said.
Dad poked his head into the room then. “Can I get you anything?” he asked Mom.
Mom shook her head. “No, thanks.”
Dad just stood there in the doorway, looking at Mom. I stared at him. Finally he went away.
After Dad left, Mom said, “Sunny, when I’m gone —”
And I gasped. Right out loud. I don’t know whether Mom heard me, but
HOW COULD SHE START A SENTENCE LIKE THAT?
“When I’m gone,” Mom was saying, “you and Dad take care of each other, okay?”
“Okay,” I whispered.
“You’re going to need each other.”
I nodded. Then I realized Mom’s eyes were shut again and she couldn’t see me nod, so I whispered, “Yes.”
“You’ll have Grandma and Grandad, of course. And Dawn. But you and Dad—you’ll have to take care of each other.”
Soon Dad stuck his head in the room again, and I wondered if he’d been listening at the door. I frowned at him. “Dad—” I began to say.
“Oh, sorry.” He pulled his head back like a turtle, and this huge feeling of disgust washed over me.
I looked at Mom again. “Mom?”
No answer. She had fallen asleep. She does that a lot these days. She can fall asleep in the middle of talking to you, right in the middle of a sentence. So I tiptoed out of the room. I nearly ran into Dad.
“Were you eavesdropping?” I asked.
Dad’s mouth dropped open.
And in a flash, Aunt Morgan appeared. She’s like an evil witch in a fairy tale. “Sunny,” she said in a warning tone.
I didn’t answer her. I pictured her in her big office in Atlanta, ordering her assistants and secretaries around. I bet she yells at people.
Dad stepped in. “It’s all right, Morgan,” he said.
I let out a breath I’d been holding. I knew we weren’t going to fight. We’ve been much too subdued for fighting lately. We don’t fight. We don’t hug. We don’t yell. We don
’t have long late-night chats. We just tiptoe around each other. It’s like we don’t have the energy for a fight. Or for any kind of big emotion. Any big emotion between us, I mean. I think we’re saving all the big emotion for Mom.
6:35 P.M.
It’s almost dinnertime, and I’m delaying going downstairs and facing Dad and Aunt Morgan. I’m rereading what I wrote a little earlier.
I am so lame. I am such a coward. Even here in my journal I’m not being honest. I left out a whole big important part of my conversation with Mom. I couldn’t bear to write it down.
But now I will.
After Mom said Dad and I will have to take care of each other, she said, “Do you know something? Since the moment you were born I have been looking forward to your wedding day. Isn’t that silly? What if you don’t want to get married? Lots of people don’t. But still, I’ve looked forward to that day. I’ve dreamed of you wearing my wedding dress.”
“Mom—”
“And I want you to know where it is.”
“Mom—”
“It’s in a box in the attic. The box says WEDDING DRESS on it.”
“Okay.”
And then Dad stuck his head in the room again.
I don’t understand. Why do people have to die? All right, that’s a stupid question. They have to die because if everyone lived, and babies kept on being born, the world would have become overcrowded a long, long time ago.
Okay, why do good, young people have to die? Why does Mom have to die now? Why couldn’t she die when she’s really, really old, the way most people do?
I AM NOT READY FOR MOM TO DIE, AND THERE’S NOT A THING I CAN DO ABOUT IT.
THIS IS UNFAIR, UNFAIR, UNFAIR.
I DON’T WANT MOM TO LEAVE YET.
Diary Three: Dawn, Sunny, Maggie, Amalia, and Ducky Page 6
