Things We Didn't Say

Chapter 37

Casey



The sun is like knives in my eyes, and my gut feels like a wave pool.

I deserve every bit of it.

Hangovers are just as bad as I remember, but now, new and improved! With extra shame!

Since Michael walked off and left me here, in the few minutes that have passed, I analyze last night. It seems clear that Mallory tricked me. Like the biblical serpent. Of course that sounds hollow to Michael. I’m supposed to be the not-Mallory. The anti-Mallory.

Maybe all is not lost. I can rally. Buck up. Show Michael how sorry I am by being the best stepmom ever, his ally in this time of crisis.

First. Need water. And a smoke.

I stand up too quickly and crumple to my knees on the wood floor.

Jewel is walking past. “Casey? Are you okay?”

“I’m feeling a little sick, honey. I’m okay.”

“Do you need some medicine?”

“Thanks, honey. No, I’ll be all right in a while.”

“Oh. I’m going to get my checkers set. Dylan said he’d play me!”

I’m not the only one trying for redemption. Dylan can’t stand checkers.

My phone is still in my pocket. It beeps softly. Must have missed a call.

First, I drag myself to the kitchen for water. Dylan is putting a pan in the sink. I stand in the entry for a moment, watching him, savoring the relief of his presence. He notices me at last. “Hi,” he says, points at the pancakes. “Want some?”

I shake my head, my stomach curdling at the very idea of solid food.

Dylan looks me in the eye, and I recognize that look because I just saw it in Michael’s eyes.

Disappointment. In me.

I take the water and my parka out to the back patio.

It’s shady back here, and the snow comes up over the tops of my unlaced boots. The cold feels like a tonic. Cleansing. I dab some snow on my face, in fact, to perk myself up.

I sit in a patio chair and check my messages while I light my cigarette.

Five texts and three calls, all from Tony, with increasing worry. We missed our early-morning call.

I text back: Dylan’s fine. I’m in trouble, though. I messed up.

A few puffs later, my phone chimes again.

Uh-oh. What?

Fell off the wagon. Hard.

Can I call?

Better not.

Want to meet?

Not now. Wish I could. GTG.

I let tears run down my face as I ponder how much I need to be around someone who would understand.


Upstairs, changing my clothes, I note that my side of the bed is rumpled. My side, the side I didn’t sleep in last night. Of course. Where else would she sleep? The wood floor?

I have to tell Michael the truth, I can see now. All the truth. Starting with my brother, and the drinking. He might not hate me if he knows why, not that grief is an excuse, I’ll make sure to say that. He’s had enough excuses, I know.

Trouble is, he’s got so much happening now with Dylan, and Mallory making herself at home.

If I can get just a minute alone with him, I can start to explain. I can fully apologize, tell him I have a lot to say, which will help explain it, and we’ll talk as soon as we can but I’m here for him, for Dylan, for all of them.

My hands shake as I button my shirt. I’m so dizzy I can barely stand. But no. A hangover now is not allowed. He needs me.

As I leave the room, though, I hear his low voice in Dylan’s room. They’re talking, no doubt, about last night and what else is going on that caused Dylan to do this crazy thing. Such a good kid, too, so we all assumed. Never gave us any trouble. Between Angel’s anger and dieting and Jewel’s stomachaches and the visitation drama we were so relieved that he was on cruise control.

Michael will handle it, because he’s a terrific dad.

As I descend the stairs, a memory worms its way out of my hangover fog. Mallory telling me that Michael won’t have another baby with me. This was probably part of her gambit, along with the booze and the fake girly friendliness.

But it is true he won’t talk about setting a date. And now I’ve fallen down on the one important job he gave me.

Angel is playing checkers with Jewel now that Dylan is having his talk with his father. But she’s texting in between moves. Jewel is chattering, waving at Angel, practically doing cartwheels.

“Your sister wants your attention,” I say to Angel. “Can’t you give the phone a rest?”

She sneers at me. “Whatever, drunk.”

Jewel’s hand halts in the air, hovering over a piece. She’s got an exciting double-jump all lined up, I can see. She gapes at me, her eyes wide with shock.

She shouldn’t need to know what drunk is, but she does, and she knows it’s something her mother did that got her in trouble. She knows it’s the reason her mother doesn’t live here anymore, much as Michael tries to convince himself that his explanations about how “people can’t stay living together happily” covered that part over.

Angel is smiling now. She puts her phone down. “Go ahead, J. Your move.”

Jewel looks down at the board, her face serious beyond her years, and barely picks up her checker as she jumps twice and takes Angel’s pieces.

I don’t see Mallory downstairs. I realize she’s probably in with Michael and Dylan. Of course, she’s the mother, and naturally she’d be involved in a serious conversation like this.

Jewel stands up, then. “I don’t feel like playing. I’m going to go read.”

Without glancing at me, she bounds up the stairs.

Leaving Angel and me alone.

I sit down in Jewel’s vacated chair and look Angel in the eye, doing my best to keep my face neutral and stay upright, though my head is hammering and I’m still hangover-dizzy.

“So, you think you know a lot about me, I guess.”

“I know enough. I know you’re a liar.”

“Not telling is not the same. And I’m going to tell your father. As soon as I get the chance, when things settle down.”

She slouches. “Yeah, that’ll go over well. You’re only ’fessing up now because I found your diary and you got drunk. That’s, like, a deathbed religious conversion. My dad’s a reporter.”

“That will be up to him, how he feels afterward. There’s context here you don’t know anything about.”

“Ha. Context makes it okay to call me a bitch.”

“I was venting. Getting out my frustration.”

“Whatever. You believe it, or you wouldn’t say it.”

I look up at the ceiling, as if begging God to help me. “You are awful to me sometimes. You treat me like a lackey. You roll your eyes so much I’m surprised you haven’t sprained them. You snort in disgust when I walk by wearing something you don’t like, and yet I’m expected to do everything you ask. I do it all, without complaint, and still you act like I’m some disgusting leper in your house. And that was before you ever saw a diary, so yes, I vented my frustration, in fact, my hurt, that you seem to hate me.”

“Oh, like you care how I feel about you.”

“Of course I do.”

“Because you have to, to marry my dad you have to win me over. You think I couldn’t see that, after you moved in, how you wanted to do my hair and take me for coffee, and act all buddy-buddy with my friends? It’s so fake.”

“It wasn’t fake,” I protest, but she is partly right. I stepped up my attention to her after I moved in. I wanted to make it better because I sensed a shift in her demeanor that day. I sensed her growing suspicion.

“And you’re so young you want to have another baby, and there I’ll be, a babysitter. Again. Like I practically raised Jewel.”

“I’m not like your mother.”

“No, you’re not. Because she loves me.”

“You just said yourself that you practically had to raise Jewel, and I’m telling you, I’m different, isn’t that a good thing?”

“Right, you’re so much better than my mother, tell me that again how she sucks. Please, I love hearing that.”

This conversation is speeding out from under me.

“Angel. I’m really sorry about what I wrote. I’m really sorry I got carried away last night. I’m sorry that I tried too hard and I’m sorry that I have hid things about my past I’m not proud of. I’m asking you a favor.”

“What.” Her arms are crossed, her ankles crossed. She couldn’t be more closed if she were behind a steel door.

“Just let me be the one to tell him.”

“Fine.” She stands up roughly, so that the chair clatters to the floor. “It won’t matter. It’ll all work out the same in the end.”

Footsteps on the stairs. Her parents coming down. Angel announces, ‘I’m going to study my lines,” and sweeps past us all grandly, taking the stairs two at a time.

I look at Michael. “What did he say?”

He shakes his head. “I don’t feel like repeating it all now. You better go upstairs and rest.”

Thus dismissed, I drag myself back up the stairs.

Dylan’s door is open. I can see him stretched out on his bed, staring at the ceiling.

I haven’t properly greeted him. Whatever else happens, I want him to know I’m happy he’s okay.

I knock softly, though the door is open.

He shrugs, so I take this as assent and come in. There’s nowhere to sit really. He shifts his legs on the bed, making room for me at the edge.

“I’m really glad you’re okay.”

He stares up at the ceiling. “Y-y-you read my e-mail.”

“Sorry. But we had to.” I try for some lightheartedness, but I’m also curious. “You made it pretty tough to track you down. We never did find your laptop. Are you in training for the CIA?”

He shakes his head. “Embarrassed.”

“Don’t be. Nothing to be embarrassed about.”

He sits up on his elbows and looks at me, his face saying, You’ve got to be kidding me.

I can’t help but smile sadly. “You’re fourteen. You’re allowed some embarrassing stuff.”

I put my hand on his ankle. Awkward gesture, but it’s a part of him I can reach without being invasive, intruding. “I wish you’d talked to me. About whatever it was.”

He shakes his head.

“You know I love you kids, right?”

He squints at me.

“Really. I do. If you hadn’t come home . . . It’s not just because I love your father. I want you to know that.”

“Okay,” he says. “I know.”

I take my hand off his ankle, the moment gone. I should have told Angel I loved her, but it would have been harder to say. She would have noticed, and it would have made everything worse, though that hardly seems possible.

“You gonna practice at all today?”

He smiles now, a real one. Nods. “Got time?”

“You bet.”

He hops off his bed and gets his saxophone case from the corner of the room. I scoot back on his bed so I’m propped against the wall as he tunes up.

The sax is going to destroy my throbbing head. But I’ll take it. For this kind of moment, it’s worth it.