Sara and the Search for Normal

by Wesley King

  “Oh … yes,” my mother said.

  “Call him over,” my father said. “John, right?”

  John waved and smiled a fake smile and ordered a cone.

  “He’s going to leave soon,” my father continued calmly.

  My mother waved and said hello, but her back was rigid. And that was all I needed. The roses and the fighting. It all fit together now.

  A lot of things went through my head. My parents were going to get a divorce. Where was I going to go? What would my dad do? Why would my mom do this to us? Was it my fault?

  John walked over to us, but he clearly didn’t want to. “Ice cream break?” he said.

  “Yeah,” my mother said in a small voice.

  “You?” my father asked.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Just on a break.”

  He seemed to think about that, and my father just smiled and said, “Where do you work?”

  John paused, but he probably knew he was beaten. “The car plant. I’m on the line.”

  “Ah,” my father said. “Good pay there, I hear. Nice pension.”

  “Pretty good, yeah,” he replied quietly. “Well, I won’t keep you guys. Enjoy.”

  “Bye now,” my father replied. My mother nodded and went back to her water.

  I didn’t say anything. I just ate my ice cream and nobody spoke anymore.

  * * *

  That night I lay down in bed. I was finishing up Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone for the eleventh time because I wanted to remember that people can look normal even when they’re not.

  “The truth.” Dumbledore sighed. “It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution.”

  My door was open and my parents were talking. Well, yelling.

  “It’s always my fault, isn’t it?” my mother said.

  “Of course it’s your fault! Who else?”

  “It takes two!”

  “Or three!”

  “You drove me to this!”

  “Keep your voice down!”

  “Like she doesn’t know.”

  “She doesn’t need to know anything else.”

  There was a hard laugh. “She knows just about everything around here. You know that.”

  “Not everything.”

  “And whose fault is that?” he said.

  “Oh, I forgot,” she replied. “Everything is my fault.”

  “When was it? When did you decide to stop trying?”

  “A long time after you did,” she snapped.

  There was silence for a moment.

  “How long can we go on like this?” my mother asked.

  “Why don’t you ask your date tomorrow?”

  “How dare you. Where are you going?”

  “Out for a while,” my father said.

  The door slammed and it was very quiet.

  I read on, because that’s all there was to do, and stopped at a different line:

  If there is one thing Voldemort cannot understand, it is love.

  “That makes two of us,” I murmured.

  CHAPTER 17 PIRATES

  The weekend went by quickly. Lots of reading and ice on the head and reflecting on whether or not that counted as my first fight and if I was basically now a warrior queen. I decided yes.

  On Monday, Ms. Hugger and I just went right back to our routine and didn’t talk about her leaving or getting punched. I had one round of False Alarm in the morning, but Ms. Hugger just said it was “understandable” and gave me some extra quiet time. We stayed in the Crazy Box for lunch, though, even on Tuesday and Wednesday. I was back in solitary confinement.

  I still didn’t say anything to Mom and Dad about John. I decided to pretend I didn’t know anything. Maybe I didn’t. My parents were staying together. They loved each other. Period.

  I still wasn’t very good at lying, especially to myself. But for this, I wanted to try.

  On Thursday my mom woke me up and went to make breakfast. Mornings were supposed to be a “finely tuned machine,” according to her, but it was more like a dance. Daddy was long gone to work, so it was just us, and we sort of circled around each other, always a few minutes behind the other one. She ate breakfast first; I showered first. She went to check emails after that, and I brushed my teeth. She showered; I packed up my homework. We didn’t talk or interact, except when it was time for me to take my pills.

  The day went by okay. Ms. Hugger and I still didn’t talk about the fact that she was leaving. There was no memo or anything, but it seemed like a good idea. And the day was just math and geography and reading right until I was sitting in group therapy. Erin was sitting close enough that our shoulders were touching.

  “Who punches people?” she asked incredulously. “Boys are the worst.”

  “I’m right here,” Peter grumbled.

  “Case in point,” she replied.

  Dr. Ring sat down and opened his notebook, looking around the circle.

  “How was your week, Peter? Anything to discuss?”

  “It always comes to me first,” Peter muttered. “I wish I was mute like Sara.”

  “So do we,” Erin said.

  “That will do,” Dr. Ring cut in, frowning. “We can come back to you. Erin?”

  “No issues.”

  “Mel—”

  She was already shaking her head. Taisha wasn’t there this week, and Dr. Ring didn’t even bother with me. He just sighed and put his pen down, his eyes pausing on my Band-Aid.

  “Right,” Dr. Ring said. “We aren’t talkative this week, I see. Well, that says more than you might think. Why don’t we discuss silence as a coping strategy?” He gave me a knowing look. “Our voice is how we project our thoughts. But if we don’t trust our thoughts, we don’t trust ourselves to speak them. We are afraid of making mistakes. Of being vulnerable. Vulnerability is human … but it’s also scary. We want to be untouchable.”

  I didn’t meet his eyes. Dr. Ring had discussed this with me many times before. I protected myself by not speaking. I tried to keep control.

  Of course I wanted control. Half the time I felt like I didn’t have any. My parents fed me emotions in a bottle. For all I knew, the pills were making me this version of Sara. Who could blame me for trying to take whatever control I could get?

  “Of course,” Dr. Ring continued, “the problem when we don’t communicate with others is we become isolated. We need to connect with people. If we don’t, we begin to feel apart. Or, maybe, feel that we deserve to be apart.”

  I edged back my cuticles, listening but trying to act like today’s subject wasn’t my entire life plan.

  “And isolation takes a toll,” Dr. Ring said. “Can anyone think why?”

  It was silent in the room for a moment. Peter fidgeted.

  “Because you stop trusting other people,” he said softly.

  Dr. Ring nodded. “Yes. But, we can also choose to be open.”

  I went back to my cuticles. I couldn’t just choose to be open to everyone. It wasn’t that easy. People didn’t want me in their classrooms. They didn’t want to talk to me. They all thought that I was crazy. “How do you know if you don’t talk to them?” a little voice asked me. I ignored it.

  “How do we change this?” Dr. Ring said. “How do we build a door instead of a wall?”

  I looked up. Everyone was listening now. Even Peter. I think we all wanted that answer.

  “It’s different for each of us,” Dr. Ring said. “But I think it starts with trust. Of yourself, first.”

  I was disappointed … I had been hoping for a straight answer. A button or a voice command. There had to be an easy fix somewhere, somehow. But Dr. Ring just continued on, and he didn’t give us one. What I wouldn’t give to find that button.

  When the session ended, Erin fell in beside me. “Movies Saturday?”

  “Like … go to one?”

  “Yeah.”

  I tried to play that out in my head. I hadn’t gone to the movies in a very long time. Bu
t it was mostly just sitting in the dark being quiet. It could work. And it was definitely a normal thing to do.

  “Sure.”

  “Awesome. I’ll text you times and movie. Girls’ night out! Should we wear makeup?”

  “I—”

  “Yes. The answer is yes. I will be at your house an hour before. See you Saturday!”

  Then she was gone, and I climbed into my mom’s van, shaking my head. Sometimes it was hard to keep up with Erin. She moved at a different speed.

  My mom was reading a romance novel.

  “How’s the book?” I murmured, pulling on my seat belt.

  A part of me remembered I should be angry at her. I knew about John now. But that meant I had to stop pretending it was all fine. I didn’t want to do that.

  “Drivel,” she replied, putting it on the dash. “But nice drivel.”

  I grabbed the book and looked at the cover. There was a shirtless man with long hair on the bow of a pirate ship, and a woman as well, wearing a torn—yet surprisingly clean—dress.

  “Is this what romance is supposed to look like?” I asked.

  “I guess so. Maybe less abs.”

  “Pirates are also technically murderers and thieves,” I pointed out.

  She waved a hand as we pulled out onto the road. “Irrelevant.”

  “How do you know if …”

  I bit my lip. Don’t do it. Don’t do it. I did it.

  “If you like someone?” I finished.

  I think she almost drove us off the road, but she recovered quickly. “James?”

  “Unnamed,” I corrected. “This is theoretical only. Muscular pirate.”

  She nodded. “Well, first, you are twelve. So the obvious answer is no you don’t like anyone ever and please don’t tell your father or he will kill the boy. Second, you just know.”

  “Oh.”

  She reached out and squeezed my hand. “You went from no real friends to two fast. Of course you are going to be confused. For now, for years, a friend is what you need. Trust me. But it’s okay to have a crush. Lots of people get them around your age. It’s a completely normal thing.”

  A normal thing. Excellent. I could add it to my rules.

  I set the book down, wondering how the lady kept her dress so clean, and who had so neatly sliced it from her shoulder to the top of a lace corset. A master swordfighter, I presumed. She was looking at him with wide eyes, which could have been love or the realization that she was probably about to be murdered and thrown overboard. Maybe it was the same expression.

  I looked at Mom. I had to ask, even if I knew. “Do you still love Daddy?”

  Her smile went tight, like a line drawn on with a marker. “Of course. We’re just …”

  “Fighting a lot?”

  “Exactly,” she said. “Sometimes people fight. It doesn’t change the way they feel.”

  I nodded. She was saying what I wanted to hear, but I guess that was her job. She was right about James, though. A friend was nice. It was all I needed. Nice, normal friends.

  But we drove home and I stared at the book cover and thought about James anyway.

  NOTE (ON PIRATES)

  Yes, I may have taken the book when my mother wasn’t looking. Yes, I may have read the whole thing. Yes, I may have occasionally found it sweet despite the constant threats of murder.

  And what I learned is this: Even if I ripped James’s corset, he couldn’t just hang around with a pirate. He either had to become a pirate, or I had to become something normal. A cobbler, maybe. I had to become normal, and I had to hurry up.

  Oh, and don’t fall in love with a real pirate. The book may have left it out, but historically, pirate hygiene was simply awful.

  CHAPTER 18 BENEATH CONVERSATIONS

  On Friday night my family had dinner together. It was quiet as my mother put steaming plates down in front of us. She put a napkin in her collar and smiled. She was acting very formal lately.

  “How was everyone’s day?” she said, taking a bite of asparagus.

  I looked at my plate. Great. Now I would have smelly pee.

  “Fine,” my father said. He didn’t look fine. He wasn’t sleeping much lately. “Busy.”

  “What did you do after work?” she asked. It didn’t seem like a real question.

  He stared at her across the table. “Some errands.”

  Her eyes drifted to the beer on the table. The living room was full of empties.

  “I see.”

  I glanced between them and cut a piece of dry chicken. It was quiet for a moment.

  “I got called in to see my boss today,” my mom said. “I am getting a promotion.”

  “Congratulations,” my dad said.

  “More money, more time at the office. The usual. Might be some later hours.”

  She was already working later hours, so I wondered how late she would be now.

  “Sara and I can prepare dinner,” Daddy said.

  I glanced at him. Whenever my mom was away, he just ordered pizza.

  “Perfect,” she said, taking another bite of asparagus. “Starting Monday. I think I am going to go out with some colleagues next Friday to celebrate.”

  He stared at her for a long time, but I wasn’t sure why. It seemed reasonable.

  “Where are you going for dinner?” he asked.

  She glanced at him. “I’m not sure.”

  “It’s a surprise, then?”

  I put my fork down. I sensed there were two conversations and I could only hear one.

  “I guess it is,” my mother said.

  “Maybe Sara and I can come.”

  “It’s for work.”

  “I think it would be nice if we all celebrated your promotion.”

  She hesitated and my father nodded.

  “Maybe next time,” he said quietly.

  “Yeah,” she replied. “Maybe next time. We are all due for a night out.”

  My father picked up his half-eaten dinner and went to the kitchen, and I heard him dump it all out into the garbage. My mother and I ate in silence.

  * * *

  I went to the park the next day, but James wasn’t there. I waited for two hours in the cold and then went home disappointed. I knew his last name was Bennett from the contact he put in my phone, and I had looked him up and found an address the same day. I wrote it down and tucked it away, telling myself it was just for emergencies.

  Obviously, I couldn’t just go to his house. Could I?

  No. Of course not.

  This was all very confusing. I had never had a crush. Well, not on a real person. I’d had lots of fictional crushes, mostly the sad and forlorn: Severus Snape, Sydney Carton, even Piggy.

  But this was new. It was weird, illogical behavior. Why did I look up his address? Why did I go to the park today even though it was cold and damp? Why was I staring at my rules for being normal and reading the same rule about James over and over like it was the only one?

  I sat on my bed and toyed with the Star Child bracelet. I only wore it when I was seeing Erin, and mostly I just kept it in a drawer. A month ago, I was Psycho Sara. I hated her, but I understood her. Quiet. Afraid. Reclusive. Now I had made a friend, and had a crush, and things were confusing. I could hardly keep up. But it was good. It had to be, right?

  I slipped off the bracelet and tucked it back in the drawer. I really was grateful for the gift. But I didn’t need more made-up words and excuses to be different. I had enough of those.

  My dad was on the couch downstairs, surrounded by a little garden of beer bottles. He patted the spot beside him when he saw me, throwing a heavy, sagging arm around my shoulders.

  “Come to watch some football?” he said.

  “You know that I hate football.”

  He laughed. “Excited for the movies tonight? You know, you only used to go with me.”

  “I’m too cool for that now,” I replied, leaning into his chest.

  “I knew the day would come.” He took a deep swig of beer. “Will Jam
es be there?”

  “No,” I said quickly. “Just Erin and me.”

  “Hmm. Should we talk about boys? I.e., how I will kill any of them that come near you?”

  “Mom talks too much,” I muttered.

  “You’re twelve,” he said. “No dating until you are forty. Not a day earlier.”

  “Seems extreme.”

  “I thought fifty was unreasonable.” He sighed. “We are proud of you, Princess.”

  I glanced at him. “For what?”

  “For doing this group therapy. For making a friend.”

  “I think making a friend is pretty commonplace.”

  “For some,” he agreed. “But we all get to set our own goalposts.”

  I groaned. “You ruined it with the football reference.”

  He pulled me in and gave me a noogie until I was laughing and trying to get away. I ended up under his arm again, hair everywhere, exhausted, face wet from the tears.

  “You know, you can’t noogie me now that I’m cooler than you,” I muttered.

  “If anything, I think I have to do it more. Make sure you don’t get a big head.”

  I laughed. “Daddy?”

  “Yeah?”

  I was supposed to pretend. I was going to. But … I had to be ready. Just in case.

  “Are you and Mom getting a divorce?”

  He was quiet for a moment. “No. It’s just a bad time. Don’t you worry about it.”

  “I’m not stupid.”

  He snorted. “If anything, you are too smart for your own good. We’re fine.”

  When you want to believe something, it’s easier to pretend. I smiled and stood up.

  “I’m going to go do anything in the world except watch football.”

  “You know, you might like it one day. Some girls fall for football players.”

  I grunted and started for the kitchen. “I can assure you that I will never be one of them.”

  * * *

  Erin’s mom dropped us off in front of the theater. I had spent most of the car ride wondering where Erin had gotten her chattiness. It certainly wasn’t from her dad. Erin talked the whole way about school and boys and her outfit—she was wearing jeans and a new pink sweater—and about how much popcorn she was going to eat. My dad had given me twenty dollars. I hoped it was going to be enough.