Chapter Twelve
Eddie has never been inside my house before. You wouldn't know that by watching her bounce through the front door. She's still pulling me along behind her when we walk inside. My mother is sitting on the sofa, watching this stranger scamper toward her with a smile on her face, dragging her angry daughter behind her. I have to admit, the surprise on my mom's face is gratifying.
Eddie pulls me to the couch and pushes my shoulders down until I'm seated next to my mother. Eddie proceeds to take a seat on the coffee table directly in front of us, posture straight, head held high. She is in charge.
"I'm Eddie, your daughter's best friend," she says to my mother. "There, now that we all know each other, let's get down to the nitty gritty."
My mother looks at me, then back at Eddie and doesn’t respond. I actually have nothing to say either. I don't know where Eddie is taking this so all I can do is allow her to continue.
"Julia, right? That's your name?"
My mother nods.
"Julia, Layken has questions. Lots of questions. You have answers." Eddie looks at me. "Layken, you ask questions and your mother will answer them." She looks at both of us simultaneously. "That's how you do it. Any questions? For me, I mean?"
My mother and I both shake our heads. Eddie stands up. "Alright then. My work here is done. Call me later."
Eddie steps over the coffee table and heads for the front door, but spins on her feet and comes back to us. She wraps her arms around my mother's neck. My mother looks at me wide-eyed before she returns the hug. Eddie continues to squeeze my mother's neck for an unusually long time before she finally lets go. She smiles at us, hops over the coffee table and walks out the front door. And she's gone. Just like that.
We both sit in silence, staring at the front door-confused as to where exactly things went wrong with Eddie. Or where exactly they went right. It was hard to tell. I glance back at my mother and we both laugh.
"Wow, Lake. You sure know how to pick 'em."
"I know. She's great, huh?"
We both settle into the couch and my mother reaches over and pats the top of my hand.
"We better do what she says. Ask me a question, I'll answer it best I can."
I cut right to the chase. "Are you gonna die?"
"Aren't we all?" she replies.
"That's a question. You're supposed to just answer."
She sighs, like she's hesitating, not really wanting to answer.
"Possibly. Probably," she admits.
"How long? How bad is it?"
"Lake, maybe I should explain it first. It'll give you a better idea of what we're up against."
She stands and moves to the kitchen and takes a seat at the bar. She motions for me to sit with her as she grabs a pen and a sheet of paper and starts to write something down.
"There are two types of lung cancer. Non-small cell and small cell. Unfortunately, I have small cell, which spreads faster."
She is drawing a diagram. "Small cell can either be limited or extensive." She points to an area on a sketched pair of lungs. "Mine was limited. Which means it was contained into this area." She circles an area of the lungs and makes a pinpoint. "This is where they found a tumor. I was having some symptoms a few months before your father died. He had me go in for a biopsy and that's when we found out it was malignant. We researched doctors for a few days and finally decided our best course of action would be a doctor we found here in Michigan-in Detroit. He specializes in SCLC. We decided on the move before your father even died. We-"
"Mom, slow down."
She lays down the pen.
"I need a minute," I say. "God, it feels like I'm in science class."
I rest my head in my hands. She's had months to think about this. She talks about it like she's teaching me how to bake a cake!
She patiently waits as I get up and go to the bathroom. I splash water on my face and stare at my reflection in the mirror. I look like complete crap. I haven't even glanced in a mirror since before I went out with Gavin and Eddie last night. My mascara is smudged under my eyes. My eyes are puffy. My hair is wild. I wipe the makeup off and brush out my hair before I go back to the kitchen and listen to her tell me how she's going to die.
She looks up at me as I walk back into the kitchen and I nod, giving her the go-ahead.
"A week after we decided we were moving to Michigan to be closer to the Doctor, your father died. I was so consumed with it, with his death and the arrangements and everything. I just tried to push what was going on with me out of my mind. I didn't go back to the doctor for three months. By that time, it had spread. It was no longer limited small cell, it was extensive."
She looks away, ashamed. Her voice lowers. "I blamed myself-for your dad's heart attack. I knew it was the stress of the diagnosis that caused it." She stands and walks to the living room and looks out the front window.
"Why didn't you tell me? I could have helped you, Mom. You didn't need to deal with all of it on your own."
"I know that now. I was in denial. I was angry. I was hoping for a miracle, I guess. I don't know. The days turned into weeks, then months. Now we're here. I started Chemotherapy again three weeks ago."
"That's good, right? If they're giving you chemo then there's a chance it'll go away."
She shakes her head. "It's not to fight it, Lake. It's to manage my pain. It's all they can do now."
I drop my head in my hands and cry. It's amazing how many tears one person can have. One night after my father died, I had cried so much I started to become paranoid I was doing damage to my eyes, so I googled it. I googled 'can a person cry too much?' Apparently, everyone eventually falls asleep and stops crying in order for their bodies to process normal periods of rest. So no, you can't cry too much.
I grab a tissue and take a few deep breaths in an attempt to hold back the rest of my tears. I'm really sick of crying.
I feel my mother's arms go around me so I turn into her and hug her. My heart aches for her. For us. She eventually starts coughing and has to turn away. I watch her as she continues to cough, gasping for breath. She's so sick. How did I not notice? Her cheeks were even shallower than before. Her hair is thinner. I hardly recognize her. I've been so focused on my own misery that I haven't even noticed my own mother being swept away right before my eyes.
The coughing spell passes and my mother returns to her seat at the bar. "We'll tell Kel tonight. Brenda will be here at seven, she wants to be here since she'll be his guardian."
I laugh. Because she's joking. Right?
"What do you mean his guardian?"
"Lake. You're still in high school, soon you'll be in college. I don't expect you to give everything up. I don't want you to. Brenda has raised children before. She wants to do it. Kel likes her."
Of all the things I have been through this year. This moment, these words that have just come out of her mouth-I have never been more enraged.
I stand up and grip the back of the chair and throw it to the floor with such force that the seat comes loose from the base. She flinches as I sprint toward her, pointing my finger into her chest.
"She is NOT getting Kel! You are not giving her MY brother!" I scream so loud my throat burns.
She attempts to subdue me by putting her hands on my shoulders but I spin away from her.
"Lake, stop it! Stop this! You're still in high school! You haven't even started college yet, what do you expect me to do? We've got no one else," she walks after me as I head for the front door. "I've got no one else, Lake," she cries.
I open the door and swing around to her, ignoring her tears as I continue to scream.
"You aren't telling him tonight! He doesn’t need to know yet. You better not tell him!"
"We have to tell him. He needs to know," she says. She's following me down the driveway now. I keep walking.
"Go home, Mother! Just go home! I'm done talking about it! And if you ever want to see me again, you WILL NOT TELL HIM!"
I hear her sobs fade as I slam the door to Will's living room behind me. I run to his bedroom and throw myself on the bed. I don't just cry; I sob, I wail, I scream.
***
I've never used drugs before. If you don't count the sip of my mother's wine when I was fourteen, I've never even willingly had alcohol before. It's not that I was too afraid, or too straight laced. Honestly, I'd just never been offered anything. I never went to parties in Texas. I never spent the night with anyone who ever tried to coerce me into doing something illegal. I have frankly just never been in a situation where I could succumb to peer pressure. I spent my Friday nights at football games. Saturday nights my dad usually took us out to a movie and to dinner. Sunday I did homework. That was my life.
There was one exception when Kerris' cousin had a wedding and she invited me to go. I was sixteen, she just got her license and the reception had just ended. We stayed late to help clean up. We were having the best time. We drank punch, ate leftover cake, danced, drank more punch. We realized pretty quickly that someone had laced the punch when we both noticed how much fun we were having. I don't know how much of it we drank. Too much that we were already too drunk to stop when we noticed we were even drunk. We never even thought twice when we got in the car to go home. We got a mile down the road before she swerved and hit a tree. I got a laceration above my eye and she broke her arm. We both ended up being okay. In fact, the car was still drivable. Rather than do the smart thing and wait for help, we turned the car around and actually drove back to the reception to call my dad. The trouble we got into the next day is a different story.
But there was a moment, right before she hit the tree. We were laughing at the way she said 'bubble'. We just kept saying it over and over until the car started to glide off of the road. I saw the tree, and I knew we were about to hit it. But it was as if time slowed down. The tree could have been five million feet away. That's how long it took for the car to actually hit the tree. The only thing I thought about was Kel. The only thing. I didn't think about school, the boys, the college I would miss out on if I died. I thought about Kel, and how he was the only thing that was important to me. The only thing that mattered in the seconds before I thought I was about to die.
***
I somehow fell asleep in Will's bed again. I know this, because when I opened my eyes, I was no longer crying. See? People can't cry forever. Everyone eventually falls asleep.
I expect the tears to return once the fog clears from my mind, but instead I feel motivated, renewed. Like I'm on some sort of mission. I get out of bed and have an odd urge to clean. And sing. I need music. I head to the living room and immediately find what I'm looking for. The stereo. I don't even have to search for music when I turn it on, there's already an Avett Brothers c.d. inside. I crank up the volume to one of my favorites and get busy.
Unfortunately, Will's house is surprisingly clean for two male inhabitants, so I have to search hard for something to keep me busy. I hit the bathroom first, which is good. I know nine-year-olds don't have very good aim so I start scrubbing. I scrub the toilet, the floors, the shower, the sinks. It's clean.
I move on to the bedrooms where I organize, make beds, re-make beds. Next, I hit the living room where I dust and vacuum. I mop the bathroom floors and wipe down every surface I can find. I end up at the kitchen sink where I wash the only two dirty dishes in the house; mine and Eddie's glasses.
It's almost seven when I hear Will's car pull up. He and the two boys walk in the house and come to a halt when they see me sitting in his living room floor.
"What are you doing?" Caulder asks.
"Alphabetizing," I reply.
"Alphabetizing what?" Will says.
"Everything. First I did the movies, then I did the c.d.'s. Caulder, I did the books in your room. I did a few of your games, but some of those started with numbers so I put the numbers first, then the titles." I point to the piles in front of me. "These are recipes. I found them on top of the fridge. I'm alphabetizing them by category first; like beef, lamb, pork, poultry. Then behind the categories I'm alphabetizing them by-"
"Guys, go to Kel's. Let Julia know you're back," Will says as he continues to watch me.
The boys don't move. They just stare at the recipe cards in front of me.
"Now!" Will yells. They both jerk their eyes away and start back toward the door.
"Your sister's weird," I hear Caulder say as they leave.
Will sits down on the couch in front of me as I continue to alphabetize the recipes.
"You're the teacher," I say. "Should I put 'Baked Potato Soup' behind potato, or soup?"
"Stop," he says. He seems moody.
"I can't stop, silly. I'm halfway finished. If I stop now you won't know where to find…" I grab a random card off the floor. "Jerk Chicken?" It would be that one. I throw the card back in the pile.
Will eyes the living room, then stands and walks into the kitchen. I see him run his finger along the baseboards. Good thing I thought about those. He walks down the hallway and returns a couple of minutes later.
"You color coded my closet?"
He's not smiling. I thought he would be happy.
"Will, it wasn't that hard. You wear like, three different color shirts."
He glides across the living room and bends down; snatching up the recipe cards I've organized into piles.
"Will! Stop! That took me a long time!" I snatch them back out of his hands as fast as he's picking them up.
He finally throws them back in the floor and grabs my wrists and tries to pull me up, but I start kicking at his legs. "Let me go! I'm…not…done!"
He lets go of my hands and I fall back to the floor. I pick up the recipe cards and start re-organizing them back into piles. He completely took me back to square one. I can't even find the 'beef' card. I flip over two cards that are upside down but-
"What the hell!" I scream. I'm suddenly drenched in water.
I look up and Will is standing over me with an empty pitcher in his hand. I lunge forward and start punching at his legs. He backs away as I start hitting at him, trying to get off of the floor.
Why the hell did he just do that? I'm gonna punch him in the face. I stand up and try to hit him but he steps aside and grabs my arm and wraps it around my back. I'm flailing my other arm at him as he pushes me toward the hallway and into the bathroom. The next thing I know, his arms are around me and he lifts me up, pulls the shower curtain back and shoves me in. I'm still trying to punch him but his arms are longer than mine. He holds me against the wall with one arm while he turns the faucet on with the other. A stream of ice cold water splashes across my face. I gasp.
"Jerk! Jackass! A*shole!"
He continues to hold me back as he turns the other faucet on and the water turns warmer.
"Take a shower, Layken! Take a damn shower!" He lets go of me and slams the bathroom door.
I jump out of the shower; my clothes are drenched. I try to open the bathroom door but I can't because he's holding the doorknob from the other side.
"Let me out, Will! Now!" I'm beating on the door and trying to turn the doorknob but it doesn't budge.
"Layken," he calmly responds from the other side of the door. "I'm not letting you out of the bathroom until you take off your clothes, get in the shower, wash your hair, and calm down."
I flip him off. He can't see me of course, but it still feels good. I take off my wet clothes and throw them in the floor, hoping I get something dirty. I climb in the shower. The warm water feels good against my skin. I close my eyes and let the water trickle through my hair and down my face.
Dammit. Will is right again.
***
"I need a towel!" I yell. I've been in the shower well over half an hour. Will has a shower head with a jet setting. I turned it on and focused it on the back of my neck for the majority of the time. It really does relieve tension.
"It's on the sink. So are your clothes," he yells from outside the bathroom.
I pull the curtain back and there is definitely a towel there. And clothes. My clothes. Clothes he obviously just got out of my house, and somehow put in the bathroom. While I was in the shower.
I turn the water off and step out of the shower and dry off. I twist the towel around my head and put on my clothes.
He brought me pajamas. Maybe that means I'm sleeping in his comfortable bed again. I hesitate as I turn the doorknob, assuming I still won't be able to open it, but it swings open.
When he hears me open the bathroom door, he jumps over the back of the couch and runs toward me. I back up to the wall, afraid he's about to shove me back in the bathroom when his arms go around my waist and he hugs me.
"I'm sorry, Lake. I'm sorry I did that. You were just losing it."
I hug him back. Of course I hug him back. "It's okay. I kinda sorta had a bad day,” I say.
He pulls away from me and places his hands on my shoulders. "So we're friends? You aren't going to try to punch me again?"
"Friends," I say reluctantly. That's the last thing I want to be to him right now. His friend.
"How was the matinee?" I ask as we walk down the hallway.
"Did you talk to your mom?" He ignores my question.
"Jeez. Deflect much?"
"Did you talk to her? Please don't tell me you spent the entire day cleaning." He enters the kitchen and pulls two glasses out of the cabinet.
"No. Not the entire day. We talked."
"And?"
"And…she has cancer," I reply frankly.
He looks at me and scowls. I roll my eyes at him and put my elbows on the table, gripping my forehead with my hands. My fingers brush against the towel that's on my head. I bend away from the bar and pull the towel off and flip my head forward, brushing the tangled strands with my fingers to smooth them out.
After I remove all the tangles, I raise my head back up just as Will darts his eyes away from me and to the cup that's now overflowing in his hand with milk. I pretend not to notice the spill and continue to mess with my hair as he wipes up the milk with a rag.
He pulls something out of the cabinet and gets a spoon out of the drawer. He's making me chocolate milk.
"Will she be okay?" he asks.
I sigh. He's relentless.
"No. Probably not."
"But she's getting treatment?"
I've been able to go the entire day without thinking about it. I've been comfortably numb since I woke up from my nap. I know this is his house, but I'm beginning to wish he would leave again.
"She's dying, Will. Dying. She'll probably be dead within the year, maybe less than that. They're just doing chemo to keep her comfortable. While she dies. 'Cause she'll be dead. Because she's dying. There. Is that what you wanted to hear?"
His expression softens as he sets the milk in front of me. He grabs a handful of ice out of the refrigerator and drops it into my cup.
"On the rocks," he says.
He's good at deflecting, and even better at ignoring my snide remarks. "Thanks," I say. I drink my chocolate milk and shut up. It feels like he somehow just won our fight.
***
The Avett Brothers are still strumming away in the background when I finish my chocolate milk. I walk to the living room and put the song on repeat. I lie on the floor and stare up at the ceiling with my hands stretched out above my head. It's relaxing.
"Turn the lights off," I tell him. "I just want to listen for a while."
He turns the lights off and I sense him lie down beside me on the floor. A dancing green glow from the sound waves on the stereo illuminate the walls as The Avett Brothers put on a color show.
My thoughts drift with the music as we lay there motionless. After the song ends and loops around again, I tell him what's really on my mind.
“She doesn’t want me to raise Kel. She wants to give him to Brenda.”
It’s the only thing spoken during the hour that we lay in the floor. He finds my hand in the dark and holds it. He holds it; and I let him just be my friend.
***
The lights flick on and I immediately cover my eyes. We’re still lying in the middle of the floor. I sit up and see Will next to me, sound asleep.
"Hey," Eddie whispers. "I knocked, nobody answered.” She walks through the front door and sits on the couch. She watches Will as he snores, sprawled out in the living room floor.
“It's Saturday night," she says as she rolls her eyes. "Told you he was a bore.”
I laugh. “What are you doing here?”
“Checking on you. You haven’t answered your phone or texted me back at all today. Your mom has cancer so you decide to swear off technology? Doesn’t make sense.”
“I don’t know where my phone is.”
We both stare at Will for a moment. He's snoring really loud. The boys must have worn him out today.
“So, I assume things didn’t go well with your mom? Since you’re here, sleeping in the damn floor.” She looks annoyed that we weren’t doing anything more than just sleeping.
“No, we talked.”
“And?”
I get up and stretch before I sit on the sofa beside her. She’s already got her boots off. I guess going so long without a permanent home makes you feel like you’re at home anywhere you go. I pull my feet up and lay back on the arm of the couch, facing her.
“Last week in the courtyard when you were telling me about your mom and what happened when you were nine-"
“What about it?”
“Well, I was grateful. I was so grateful that nothing like that would ever happen to Kel. I was grateful that he was able to live a normal nine-year-old life. But now-it's like God has it out for us. Why both of them? Wasn't my dad enough? It’s like death came and punched us square in the face.”
Eddie turns her gaze away from Will and looks at me.
“It wasn’t death that punched you, Layken. It was life. Life happens. Shit happens. And it happens a lot. To a lot of people."
I don’t even bother with the worst of the details. I’m too embarrassed to admit to her that my own mother doesn’t even want me raising her child.
Will rustles in the floor.
Eddie leans over and gives me a squeeze and grabs her boots. “Teacher's waking up, I better get outta here. I just wanted to check on you. Oh, and go find your phone,” she says as she walks toward the door.
I watch her as she leaves. She’s in a room for three minutes and her energy is infectious. I turn back around to see Will sitting up in the floor. He’s looking at me like he’s about to give me detention.
“What the hell was she doing here?”
He can be really intimidating when he wants to be.
“Visiting,” I mutter. “Checking on me.” If I don’t make it sound like a big deal, maybe he won’t either.
“Dammit, Layken!”
Nope. He thinks it’s a big deal.
He pushes himself up off the floor and throws his hands up in the air. “Are you trying to get me fired? Are you that selfish that you don’t give a crap about anyone else’s problems? Do you know what would happen if she let it get out that you spent the night here?” A light bulb goes off in his head and he takes a step toward me. “Does she know you spent the night here?”
I press my lips into a tight, thin line and look down at my lap, avoiding his eyes.
"Layken, what does she know?" he says, his voice getting lower. He can see by my body language that I've told her everything.
“Christ, Layken. Go home.”
***
My mother is already in bed. Kel and Caulder are sitting on the couch watching TV.
“Caulder, your brother wants you to go home. Kel and I have plans tomorrow, so we won't be home all day.”
Caulder grabs his jacket and heads toward the front door.
"See ya, Kel!" He slips his shoes on and leaves.
I walk to the living room and throw myself into the seat beside Kel. I grab the remote and start flipping through channels, attempting to put the fact that I just pissed Will off out of my mind.
“Where were you?” Kel asks.
“With Eddie.”
"What were y'all doing?"
"Driving around."
“Why were you at Caulder’s house when we got home from the movies?”
“Will paid me to clean his house.”
“Why is Mom sad?”
“Because. She doesn’t have enough money to pay me to clean her house.”
“Why? Our house isn’t dirty.”
“Do you want to go ice skating tomorrow?”
"Yes!"
“Then stop asking so many questions.”
I press the power button on the remote and send Kel to bed.
When I climb into my own bed, I set the alarm for six o’clock. I want to be out of this house before my mother wakes up.
Kel and I spend the entire day Sunday blowing every cent of my savings account. I took him to breakfast where we ordered two meals each off of the menu. We went ice skating and we both sucked at it so we didn't stay long. I took him to lunch at a concession stand inside an arcade where we stayed for four hours. After the arcade, I took him to an afternoon movie where we had dinner that consisted of even more concession stand food. I would have taken him for dessert, but he's now complaining that his stomach hurts.
My mother is at work by the time we get home. My timing isn’t accidental by any means. I take a shower, pick out our clothes for school and put away a load of laundry. I’m so tired that I’m able to fall asleep, without confronting anything at all.
13.
”Shooting off vicious
collections of words
The losers make facts
by the things they have heard
And I find myself
trying hard to defend them."
-The Avett Brothers, All my mistakes