After Ever After

by Jordan Sonnenblick

  Mom rolled her eyes. “Ragú. Now tell us about Lindsey, Jeffy.”

  So much for Dad’s change-the-subject ploy. “Uh, she’s … very nice.”

  Mom looked happier than I’d seen her in a long time. “Honey, look! Our baby has a little girlfriend! And he’s blushing over her. This is just like the time when Renee Albert came over to tutor Steven in math. Do you remember that, Jeffy? You were five, and you kept asking your brother whether he was going to kiss her. I thought he was going to curl up in a ball and die of embarrassment. But then when she got to the house, she had a cold and —”

  Yeah, I remembered that one. My immunity was wrecked from the chemo, so Steven didn’t let Renee into the house. It is freaking uncanny how every single memory in the world ties back into having cancer.

  But at least I didn’t have to talk about Lindsey anymore.

  I was going to kill Tad the next time I saw him.

  “Speaking of tutors, Mrs. Ibsen also told me that Tad is going to be helping you with math this year. I’m so proud of you!”

  I gulped. “You are?”

  “Yes, for taking the initiative like this. You’ve always been so passive about school. It’s nice to see that you’re taking matters into your own hands before there’s a problem.”

  Hah! “Uh, thanks, Mom.”

  Dad looked up from his plate, where he was busily cutting pasta and veggies into little separate piles. It used to drive Steven crazy, but that’s just how Dad rolls. Aw, who am I kidding? It kind of makes me want to scream, too. “That’s great, Jeff. Very responsible of you.”

  Holy cow. Getting called “responsible” by my dad is like getting called “intelligent” by Albert Einstein.

  “Oh,” my mom said, “you’d better finish up your dinner, Jeff.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Mrs. Ibsen is bringing Tad over at six-thirty. We figured there’s no time like the present.”

  Geez, it was the second day of school. How much tutoring could I possibly need after only two math lessons? As I got up to put my plate in the dishwasher, the doorbell rang. Apparently, I was about to find out. I went down to the garage and opened the door; we had a bell installed there just for Tad because the front step is a problem for him. He rolled in, made his way to the desk in our family room, and immediately booted up his computer.

  “Uh, some people say hello when they barge into a friend’s house.”

  “Yeah, and some people waste time and fail math. Sit down, young Jedi. It is time to begin your training.” Whoa, boy. It was going to be a long year.

  As soon as the computer was ready, Tad slid it over to me. To my horror, he was starting me right off with word problems. The more I read, the more horror I felt. Here was the first one:

  Lindsey is on a train that leaves Grand Central Station at noon. Jeffrey is on a bus leaving from Port Authority at 1 PM. They are both going to Love City, 120 miles away. If Lindsey is traveling at 60 miles per hour, and Jeff is moving at 45 miles per hour, how long will she have to wait for him in Love City?

  I looked at Tad. “Where did you get this?”

  He smirked. “Easy. There’s this Web site called Mathlibs. They’re just like Mad Libs, but with word problems. I decided if they can do it, I can do it, and boom — here we are. Now get to work!”

  By the end of an hour with Tad, I felt like my brain was going to explode in a gooey, slimy spray all over the keyboard. I asked for a break, and he grudgingly granted one, so I went upstairs to get some drinks. When I got back down, I said, “So why are you obsessed with Lindsey Abraham?”

  He raised an eyebrow as he set himself up with some milk and an organic fig bar. We’re used to some odd snacks; both of our moms seem to believe that if they just keep our lives nontoxic enough, we’ll never get sick again. Anyway, when his mouth was as revoltingly full of mush as possible, he said, “Dude, I am not obsessed with Lindsey Abraham. I am the total opposite of obsessed with Lindsey Abraham. If obsessed with Lindsey Abraham were the sun, my feelings for her would be Pluto — so far from obsession that they’re not even a planet in the same solar system.”

  I think Tad and I might be a little bit obsessed with Pluto.

  “Aha!” I said. “So you admit your feelings for her revolve around obsession!”

  “Uh, that’s a rather tortured metaphor.”

  “You started it.”

  He sighed. “Jeff, I am not obsessed with Lindsey. You are.”

  “Am not.”

  “That’s very mature and logical. I’d imagine Lindsey would be highly impressed.”

  I forced myself to take a deep breath. There have been many, many times in my life when all that stood between me and strangling Tad was one deep breath.

  “OK, I think she’s attractive, all right? It’s not like I’m going to make a move anyway. I don’t even know how to make a move. And I don’t see why you have to make a whole stupid math workbook about it.”

  “What if she likes you back?” he asked.

  “Then she’ll have to wait in line for me behind your mom.”

  “No, I’m serious.”

  “She doesn’t like me back. Lindsey, I mean. Your mom is totally into me.”

  “Ha-ha. I think Lindsey might like you. Why not? She was checking you out in gym. I could tell.”

  “Oh, because you’re such an expert. Thanks, Doctor Ruth Dorkheimer.”

  “Look, Jeff, when you’re all the way at the edge of the action, in a wheelchair, you see things.”

  “Oh, so all of a sudden having bad legs turns you into the Girl Whisperer?”

  “No, it’s just — everybody is afraid to stare at me, so they try not to look at me at all. While they’re not looking at me, I can study them. And believe me, I think you have a shot with Lindsey.”

  “And this is your business why?”

  He took a deep breath. Which was odd; that was my job. Tad never stopped to get control of himself. “You know, after my bone marrow transplant, when I was in isolation, I used to wonder about all kinds of stuff. Am I going to graduate from high school? Am I going to drive a car?” He looked away from me. “Will I live long enough to kiss a girl? But I never thought about whether there was a girl in the world that could ever be interested in kissing me. Now I wonder that.”

  I was stunned. Tad never opened up like this. “Don’t worry, buddy. The next time I go out with your mom, I’ll ask whether she has a friend for you.”

  He threw a number two pencil at me. Then he busted out with a pack of flash cards and started dealing. Apparently it’s a bad idea to mock the tutor’s mom. Fun, but bad.

  In phys ed a few days later, it was my time to put Tad to work. Just getting dressed in shorts is a chore for him, but he eventually came out onto the floor. I think a couple of kids noticed that he was prepared, for a change, because there was definitely some whispering as he wheeled his way across the gym.

  When we went into the workout room, he asked me, “So what’s the plan, Jeff? Do I just jump on the treadmill and start running? Or are we doing calisthenics first? I do a mean jumping jack, except for that part where your feet are supposed to leave the floor. OK, it’s more like I’m miming along to ‘Y.M.C.A.,’ but still….”

  I stopped him. “Listen, the important thing is that we start you off slowly, with low-impact activities. The key is to build your aerobic capacity, while developing the major muscles in your legs, without exerting too much stress on your joints before they can handle it. Oh, and we have to work on your flexibility. You’ve probably lost some range of motion.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “What?” I said. “You think you’re the only one who can use a computer? Plus, I talked to Mrs. Roling.” She used to be our physical therapist at Children’s Hospital, and I knew she was constantly preaching to Tad about the importance of forcing himself to walk. “Anyway, let’s begin with a few stretches, then get you on the exercise bike.”

  We got into position on the canvas mats in the corner, and I tried to g
et Tad to stretch his hamstrings and quad muscles. Needless to say, he complained. “Dude, this hurts! Is it supposed to hurt?”

  I gave him my best Dalai Lama smile. “All progress is painful. Now reach for those toes!”

  After a little while, Tad declared himself ready for the bike. He looked like he had just swallowed a cockroach, but I guess he thought the bike sounded better than doing more work on the mat. At least until he started pedaling. I had it on the lowest setting, but it had just been so long since he had tried to do anything major with his legs that he got tired super-fast.

  By the end of the first minute, Tad was panting, “Can’t you turn this thing down? It’s brutal.”

  “Dude, if I made it any easier it would just spin in the breeze like a pinwheel. Keep going for one more minute.” Just then, I happened to look up at the big plate-glass window that separated us from the main part of the gym. There were several kids peering in. One of them was Lindsey. Tad looked up and saw, too. He muttered, “Watch this!” Then he started moving his legs faster, and proceeded to pedal a whole extra minute before he leaned forward and hugged his knees until his breathing slowed.

  Three minutes of even the lightest possible pedaling was a huge accomplishment for Tad, and I told him so when he finished. “Don’t patronize me,” he snarled. “Now it’s your turn. Let’s get you going with some free weights.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “What do you mean, my turn? It was my turn when you tutored me in math the other night. That was the deal: You tutor, I train. So why should I —”

  He tilted his head toward the big window. “Chicks dig muscles,” he replied. “So get over here, you little doughboy. This won’t be so bad. I’ll even do it with you.”

  That sounded fair, but I knew Tad had massively strong arms from pushing his wheelchair around. Meanwhile, I had twitchy, chubby little sausage arms. I sighed and picked up the lightest pair of dumbbells for curling. They weighed five pounds each. Tad grabbed a fifteen-pound weight in each hand. He counted me through three sets of twelve repetitions, matching me rep for rep, and by the end my muscles were shaking uncontrollably. Sweat was pouring into my eyes. Tad had recovered completely, and looked like he was out for a casual little wheelchair jaunt in the park.

  “Are we done yet?” I gasped.

  “Sure,” he said. “Except for the push-ups, the sit-ups, the reverse curls, the lat pull-downs….”

  I groaned. Tad barked, “Fine, Mister Bird-chest. Have it your way. You think it’s easy for me to work my legs? You think I’m hanging out in this wheelchair because it’s some great fashion statement? Go ahead, keep your wussy spaghetti arms. See if I care.” Then he zoomed out of the room.

  I didn’t understand what I had done wrong, but I felt guilty anyway. I did a set each of push-ups and sit-ups, and staggered to the locker room. I hoped Lindsey hadn’t been able to read the numbers on my weights.

  In English class, Miss Palma told us we would be starting a unit on reading and writing biographies. She told the class that “in order to get us in the biographical frame of mind,” we had two journal assignments for the week:

  Write down, as closely as you can remember, a conversation that you have heard.

  Write a letter to a person you admire.

  I knew exactly what to do for the first one, and I got started before Miss Palma even finished speaking.

  The one conversation that has been rolling over and over in my head all summer is the argument my brother, Steven, had with my parents when he told them about his plan to take a break from college and travel around Africa playing hand drums. I’m not proud to admit this, but I heard every single word by eavesdropping. There’s a big, square ventilation pipe that goes from the kitchen right through the corner of my closet, and I discovered a long time ago that if you put your ear against the cold gray metal of the pipe, you can hear whatever anyone is saying down there.

  The secret pipe has always served me well — I haven’t been surprised by a Christmas present since I was seven years old — but on this night I shouldn’t have listened. At the peak of the argument, my mom said, “Steven, you’re being ridiculous. Don’t you know that there are people counting on you?” And Steven went off:

  “Don’t you get it, Mom? That’s why I have to leave. I want to find out what it’s like to worry about myself for a change. I want to do what I want.”

  “You get to do what you want. You chose your own college. You chose your major. In another year, you’ll be choosing a career. So what in the world are you talking about?”

  “Mom, I chose NYU because Annette was going to Juilliard, and she told me we should be in the same city for college. Plus, I wanted to be close to Jeffrey, just in case he … just in case. And I thought about going to the Berklee College of Music in Boston anyway, but Dad wanted me to minor in accounting so I’d have something to fall back on. Right, Dad?”

  “Yes, but —”

  “So I kind of chose a college. I kind of chose my major. I guess I’ll kind of choose a career. But I’m sick of kind of having a life. Plus, no matter where I go, it’s not like anybody ever leaves me alone anyway.”

  “What are you talking about, Steven?” Dad asked. “We’ve only visited when you’ve asked us to, and we —”

  Steven cut Dad off with a sigh. “It’s not you, Dad. And it’s not you, either, Mom. It’s just … look, I want to know what it’s like to go through one day of my life without getting three text messages from Annette. How am I supposed to figure out my future if I can’t even think on my own for one single day? And then there’s Jeffrey.”

  “Steven …” my father said in his scary-dad warning voice.

  “No, listen, Dad. I’ve always done everything for that kid. Right? When he was in the hospital, I always — well, you know all that stuff. But he’s been past the five-year point since the beginning of my sophomore year, and I’m still, like, his human crutch. He e-mails me every day, Dad. Every day. ‘Steven, what’s the answer to this math problem?’ ‘Steven, do you think the Beatles are cool?’ ‘Steven, what should I wear to a middle school dance?’ And he expects me to answer in real time. You know how many nights I’ve come home tired after a long day of classes and band practice, and then had to e-mail Jeffrey back before I could start my three hours of studying? So many times I’ve thought about just blowing him off for a day, just until after the big accounting exam or until I finish the huge paper for English or until I just get some freaking sleep. But then I picture him the way he looked the first time he ever came home from the hospital, when he threw up on my shoes. Remember that?”

  It was silent downstairs for a while, and I thought really hard about leaving the closet, closing the door, climbing into bed, and covering my head with my pillow so I’d have no chance of hearing any more. But I stayed.

  Dad broke the silence. “Steven, we all remember that. But it was a long time ago, and … listen, why don’t you just take the semester off and stay around here? Don’t roll your eyes, son, I’m serious. I could get you a job at the firm, and you could get an apartment in town. You could earn some money, get a head start on paying back your school loans. We could promise to leave you alone, and Annette … well, she would be in New York, wouldn’t she? So you could live your life for a while.”

  “No, I couldn’t. Being in town is the worst. Every single person who ever sees me says, ‘Hi, Steven. How’s your little brother feeling?’ Or ‘Hi, Steven. How’s Annette? Have you popped the question yet?’ Nobody ever says, ‘Hi, Steven. How are you doing?’ I just want to be in a place where people look at me and see me without all this baggage around my neck. Is that so terrible?”

  Mom said, “No, it’s not so terrible. But … Africa? That’s so far away.”

  “That’s the point. No computer. No cell phone. Just me and the drums.”

  Mom’s voice broke then. “Steven, I understand why you’re upset. We should have understood it a long time ago, I guess. But I don’t know whether I can handle this.
You, out of touch, in Africa? You were the child we never had to worry about.”

  “Well,” Steven said, “maybe you should start worrying.”

  My family has always been big on the italics.

  The letter assignment was even easier. I banged it out in one sitting a few days later.

  TO: drum_master@jerseynet.com

  FROM: dangerous_pie@jerseynet.com

  Hi Steven —

  I know you don’t want to hear from me, and that you probably won’t even be reading your e-mail until God knows when. But I have some stuff going on, and I just want you to listen. Or at least I want to pretend you’re listening.

  If you were around, I would have a million questions for you. I feel like this is the most confusing year of my life, and it’s only the second week of school. I mean, you know I’ve always had trouble with the actual school part of school, but this year everything else is upside down, too.

  I guess the first thing I want to know is, have you ever lied to Mom and Dad? Or not exactly lied, but didn’t tell them something really big? I don’t want to tell you about it, because you would probably kill me, but I sort of have that kind of situation going on. Anyway, I’m writing to you because Miss Palma is making us write to someone we admire. I picked you, and one thing I have always admired is that you always tell the truth, even when it’s hard to do. I can’t imagine you would ever keep anything secret from M&D. But then again, I can’t picture you breaking up with Annette and running away to Africa, either. I mean, I’m not mad or anything. I’m just wondering if maybe there’s other stuff I don’t know about you.

  Speaking of people who always tell the truth, even when it hurts, Tad is being all weird. He made me make this deal with him: He would tutor me in math and I would train him so he could walk across the stage at eighth-grade graduation. But now he seems all mad at me about it. Plus, there’s this new girl in school named Lindsey, and he keeps trying to, like, hook me up with her. I keep telling him that A. I barely know the girl, and B. Why would she go for me? But then he gets all mad at me for that, too. It’s almost like he’s jealous of me for getting together with her, even though I HAVEN’T EVER GOTTEN TOGETHER WITH HER. Not to mention that if I ever did get together with her, it would be BECAUSE he’s pushing me into it.