“I would miss trees,” I say. “We need trees. To breathe and stuff. And also, stability.” Stability is a word the school counselor used when we all talked with her last year when Mom wasn’t doing well. She kept saying it over and over to Dad, until he started repeating it too. Their whole conversation was just a repetition of that one word. Pretty weird.
“Oh, you’ll like the trees there!” Dad says, missing the point entirely. “Very different! Sparse. Unique.” He nods. At least he agrees with himself. The rest of us clearly do not agree with anything he’s saying.
“We’re not going,” I say. It is not usually up to me to speak for all of us. That’s Eleanor’s job. But I’m older now. I’ll be twelve in two months and three days.
I want to explain why it’s impossible to leave: not only am I not ready to see Mom with her bracelets piled on one wrist and some new sunny attitude or something, but we also have the closets to worry about. And the girl who’s stuck inside. And the way they save me from how impossible every day seems otherwise.
If I really want to see Arizona, I’ll have Astrid make a diorama of it for Eleanor’s closet.
“I have postcards,” I say. “I know what it looks like. And how Mom is. We talked. So, I think I’m good. And I like the postcards.” I emphasize the words postcards like it is going to have some very deep impact on Dad. He laughs, but stops when I don’t laugh along.
“We’re a family, Silly,” he says carefully. He gives me another pancake. He is definitely convinced pancakes are the key. “Now, where’s Marla? I know she’ll be excited.” I look around and take count. It’s not like I have seventy-five sisters or anything. I’m not even one of twelve. But sometimes I have to list us out to realize who is missing. Silly, Eleanor, Astrid, I say in my head, making sure to count myself, because I am always the first person I forget.
I look up at Astrid and Eleanor, to see if they have been doing the same calculation I’ve been doing, but they’re quicker and faster and older, so they’ve already cleared their plates and run up the stairs, and Dad is looking like he wants to scold them, but can’t because they put their dishes in the sink like they’re supposed to.
“We better not have this very important conversation without Marla,” I say in the least-desperate voice I can muster, which is still very, very desperate. I run up the stairs and straight into Astrid and Eleanor’s room, because that is the one and only place everyone would be.
Eleanor is banging on the closet door. She’s jiggling the doorknob, yanking and pushing and trying to force the doorknob to turn. I am remembering the terrible paralyzed feeling from last night, and wondering why, why, why I didn’t jump out of bed and drag Marla kicking and screaming from Astrid’s bad closet into my good one.
“She. Last night. I didn’t. When you were. But she must have come out,” I say, and then realize I have mostly said words and not sentences. “She went in last night. I heard her. I assumed she came out after I fell asleep! I should have stopped her, but she was so mad at me and I didn’t want her to yell and—”
“You heard her go in again?” Eleanor says. She repeats herself, but screeching this time.
“Silly!” Astrid says. Silly. Not Priscilla. If I don’t get it together soon, if I don’t turn into a much better sister and person, like, ASAP, there will be no one left in the world who calls me by a real name.
Astrid’s the one who was asleep in the room when Marla went in. But I’m the one who will get all the blame. Astrid is allowed to be sleepy and spacey, but I’m not allowed to do anything wrong ever.
“What about getting stuck?” Eleanor says. Then they’re both banging on the door, and their voices are higher and scarier and scratchier, and I am banging too, and the closet is not opening. Dad knocks on the bedroom door. Thank goodness we closed it behind us.
“Girls? It’s a little loud. Are you being mean to Marla?” he says.
“We’ll be quieter!” Eleanor calls out. “We’re playing!”
“Well. Okay. But we need to finish our conversation,” Dad says. He still doesn’t open the door. It’s some kind of miracle, the way he trusts us.
“Totally! Can’t wait!” Astrid says. She sounds more like Eleanor than herself, but desperate times call for desperate measures, I guess. We stay quiet, listening to Dad make his way back downstairs. We start banging again when we’re sure he’s gone.
“I’ll come out when I’m done,” Marla says from inside the closet. “I’m almost done, I’m almost done!” Her voice is wet. Teary. Catching on itself and tripping itself up. “Let me be! Leave me here! Everything’s fine.” It’s a relief to hear her voice. All three of us stop for a moment, inhale and exhale deeply.
“Come out now!” Eleanor says. She cups both her hands around her mouth and leans in close to the crack between the door and the wall, like that extra bit of sound that will poke through could make all the difference in saving Marla.