CHAPTER TWELVE
Finding Solace
I glare at the fantastically ugly neon Jesus painting that is propped up on top of Estelle’s dresser and try to imagine what it’s like to believe that God is watching out for me, protecting me. It’s just not possible for me to believe that there are reasons for things. I once had faith and went to church with my family, but now I don’t know what to believe or how to believe. I imagine that anyone who goes through trauma like I have wonders the same things I do: how God can exist and allow such awful things to happen. There are no reasons for my parents’ death, and that’s that. There is nothing like trauma to make you see the world clearly, and now that I know there is no God, I cannot go back.
Maybe that’s part of why I am so uncomfortable with Estelle’s ridiculous Jesus painting. It’s a reminder of what I have lost and what she still has. Considering that Estelle spends significantly less time in our room than I do, it doesn’t seem fair that I am subjected to this piece of trash. Estelle describes the painting as the equivalent of fan fiction. “It’s an homage to his character,” she said once. “A fanciful play on ideology.”
Whatever the f*ck it is, I don’t like it.
Aside from the unfortunate decoration, Estelle is a great roommate. I even wish she were around more, but she tends to come home late at night. I haven’t asked where she’s coming from, but it’s obvious she’s seeing someone. Well, or f*cking someone. Since she’s made no mention of whoever this guy is, I assume that he is not going to pass the sibling-approval test Chris referred to.
I love how energetic, outspoken, and fun she is and how she routinely throws barely worn clothing in my direction, claiming the clothes aren’t her style. She brings home unusual food from the restaurant, so we always have something to pull from the mini fridge, and because of her relentless pestering, I now own more stylish running gear than I really need. If I’m not careful, I’m going to develop an addiction to online shopping, but Estelle makes browsing through Web sites fun. It seems that she has money to burn, and although living with her is getting expensive, investing a little in fashion and beauty after years of neglect feels right.
But the best thing about having her around is that I have a friend, and friends, I am learning, can change everything. For example, the fact that Thanksgiving is tomorrow and I am happy to be spending it here with the Shepherd siblings instead of going back to my aunt’s house.
To be honest, I’m especially happy to be spending it with Chris. We’ll be getting lots of time together thanks to Eric, who is organizing Thanksgiving dinner, because he paired me up with Chris to complete about six thousand shopping and cooking tasks. Things between us feel comfortable and much less weird since our talk.
And at least one thing is certain: Chris and I are inextricably connected. Do I have factual reasons to know this? Proof? Assurances? No. None.
Some people believe in God; I believe in Chris.
So I am not upset that we’re not a couple because, however idiotic it may sound when I tell myself this, I know, I just know, that our time will come. But it’s not now. For now, we are on hold. And it’s not a painful place to be. It’s the opposite in fact, because not only do I have him in my life now, I have something to look forward to.
Before I head downstairs to the dorm kitchen, where Chris and I will be baking pies, I decide to make one phone call. James. This will be the first Thanksgiving that I won’t see my brother, and while that feels awful, I also think it might be for the best. He texted me last week to tell me that he’s going to his girlfriend’s house, and I’m relieved that he’ll be with someone’s family, if not ours. Or what’s left of ours. We have no grandparents, no cousins … There is only our aunt, Lisa, and I’m pretty much done with her.
As I dial his number, I vow to rebuild our family, even if it’s just James and me. It’s not about numbers, it’s about quality, and somewhere, in the wake of destruction, we’ll recover the relationship that he and I used to have.
He answers on the third ring. “Hey, Blythe.”
“Hi.” My voice is chipper this time. It’s been weeks since we’ve spoken or communicated beyond short information-only texts and e-mails, and my only goal is to have this call end in something besides tears. “I just wanted to wish you a happy Thanksgiving.”
“Thanks. You, too.” He does not sound pissy, which is a good start.
“You’re going to your girlfriend’s house?”
“Yeah. She lives one town over, and her parents invited me since I didn’t have anywhere to go.”
I take a breath, feeling a wave of guilt even though I know he doesn’t mean to bait me. “I’m sorry about that. But it’s good you’ll have a real house to go to. What’s your girlfriend’s name again?”
“Angie.”
“Right. Angie. Have you met her parents already?”
“No. We’ve only been dating for a month or whatever. I’m kind of dreading it, but she promises me that they’re normal.”
“If she’s inviting you home, they can’t be that bad or she wouldn’t let you meet them.”
“That’s true.” He pauses. “Blythe, do you think I’m supposed to wear a suit?”
“I doubt it. Maybe a dress shirt and tie? You better just ask Angie. What if they’re all wearing jeans and football jerseys? You don’t want to show up in formal wear.”
He actually laughs. “True. I’ll ask. What are you doing tomorrow?”
“Having dinner with some friends in the dorm. It has a kitchen and a lounge, and we’re going to do what we can to make it festive. My friend Eric has a huge menu planned, so we’re just going to follow orders and hope we don’t get in trouble if we forget to fold the napkins into turkeys or whatever.”
“And definitely don’t forget to take the paper package of guts out of the turkey,” he says.
Now I laugh. “Remember how pissed Mom was when Dad did that? And to make matters worse, he cooked it upside down.”
“Right, because he said his instincts took over and he was positive it would produce a juicier dinner.” I can tell James is smiling, and it’s a great feeling.
“I don’t recall it tasting any different, do you?”
“No. Although it looked freaky when he brought it to the table.”
“And Mom threw a kitchen towel over it so that we wouldn’t lose our appetites!”
It’s the first time we’ve reminisced about our parents since they died. This is a small moment, yet a huge moment.
“James? I wish that Lisa had given us more notice that she was going to be out of town for Thanksgiving.” I pause. “I’m pretty pissed.”
He perks up. “I know, right? What the hell is wrong with her?”
“I mean, what did she think we were going to do?”
“She didn’t think. She never thinks about us.”
James and I have never acknowledged what a completely insensitive moron Lisa is. Until now. “Seriously. Did she … did she tell you about the house? Mom and Dad’s?” I ask.
“In an e-mail. Can you believe her? What a bitch.”
We spend fifteen minutes tearing apart our aunt. It’s mean, but awesomely fun because we are on the same side of something.
Then James surprises me with a question. “Are you ready to go back to Mom and Dad’s for Christmas? I think it’s going to suck.”
I’m honestly not sure what to say, but it hits me that while I am motherless, so is James. Lisa has done a shitty job not even trying to fill that role, and it’s something that I should do. That I can do. James is only nineteen years old, God damn it, and he’s still a kid really.
“No, it’s not going to suck. It’s going to be the best Christmas we’ve had since …” I suck it up and say it. “Since they died. I’ll take us out to get a tree, we’ll pull the old decorations out from the attic, and I’ll cook up a storm. Santa is going to fill our stockings until they’re spilling out onto the floor, and we’ll have cocoa and … and … and I don’t know. I’ll make weird reindeer appetizers out of marshmallows and pretzel sticks. It can’t be how it used to be, so we shouldn’t expect it to be. But we’ll have something new that is yours and mine. Okay, James? I promise you that it’s going to be great.”
“I don’t know.” He sounds so sad. “I’m not sure that I can do it.”
“You don’t have to do anything. I’m going to take care of it, and I’m going to make up for the lame job that Lisa has done on every holiday we’ve spent with her. Now we get to do things our way.”
“If you say so.” James is skeptical, but I can still hear the teeniest hint of excitement.
There’s a knock at my door as it swings open. Chris sees that I’m on the phone, and he waves furiously for me to come with him. He’s got flour on his sweatshirt, and the poor guy looks beyond frazzled.
“Help!” he mouths.
“James, I have to run. There seems to be a pie emergency.”
“No problem.”
“I’ll talk to you soon.” I go to hang up, but he stops me.
“Hey, Blythe?”
“Yeah?”
“Have a good Thanksgiving.”
“You, too, James. Watch out for the bag of guts.”
“Will do, sis.”
I toss the phone on my bed and head off to bake pies with Chris. I am outrageously happy.
It’s 11:30 p.m. before we have successfully made all of our assigned desserts. Well, maybe successfully isn’t exactly the right word. “These look revolting.” Chris has his hands on his hips and an extremely dissatisfied look on his face as he surveys our dessert spread. It’s true that each pie is either lopsided, slightly charred, or rather grotesquely discolored. The pumpkin pie appears to be all three. “Eric is going to kill us.”
“Tough shit. He was asking a lot of two inexperienced bakers working in a bare-bones dorm kitchen.” I look down at the food-stained recipe printouts in my hands. “And then tomorrow we’re supposed to make four side dishes? I can’t even read what these are!”
“Puréed squash, cranberry sauce, sautéed Brussels sprouts, and scalloped potatoes with three cheeses and heavy cream,” Chris recites.
I lower the recipes and watch as he continues to glare at the pies. He’s just listed the exact four side dishes that my mom used to make at every Thanksgiving. I smile as I realize that Eric is behind this; we’d discussed holiday food last month during one of our study sessions.
“Here’s the deal,” Chris says. “We’ll just dim the lights really low while we eat dessert so no one sees what these look like. It’ll be fine.”
“It’s going to be perfect,” I say. “Chris?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Is it weird not to go home for holidays?”
He turns to me. “No. It’s wonderful.”
I hate this answer from him. It breaks my heart.
“Don’t look at me like that. It’s smart to end relationships that are poisonous. It’s a good thing. Sometimes you have to cut people out of your life to make things better. So you can move forward. Being here, with my brothers and sister, and you and Zach? This is exactly the kind of Thanksgiving that I’d dreamed of.”
Maybe he’s right. I certainly feel happier being here than being at Lisa’s.
“What about you?” he asks. “You’re not going to be with your family. Are you okay?”
“Except for James, I don’t have a family.”
He steps toward me and swipes a floured finger across my nose. “You do now.”
I can’t begin to think how to respond to this, so I don’t. “You helped plan all of this, too, then? The dinner and stuff?”
“Yeah.” He smiles and leans in, putting his hands on my knees, making white handprints on my jeans. “Just because I’m not gay doesn’t mean that I can’t party plan.” Then he kisses me quickly on the forehead.
Nope, he’s definitely not gay. Something I’m happy to attest to.
“I still can’t believe Sabin and Estelle got out of helping,” I say. “But Estelle went out somewhere tonight, and I know that Sabin is at the bars.” I take Chris’s face in my hands and grin. “I know this because he was relentless in trying to get me to go out with him, but I repeatedly declined because I took my pie-partnership duties with you very seriously.”
He reaches over and turns up the volume on the portable speaker that has been blasting his playlist all night.
“Poor baby. Has it been that awful?”
I grin. “You’re a nightmare. Hey, we should probably start cleaning up. It’s already close to midnight.”
I move to slide off the counter and he stops me with his hands moving to my waist. He looks mischievous. “Just one dance.”
“Christopher! Look at this mess. I’m tired, and we’ve got so much to do tomorrow, too.”
“C’mon, Blythe. Dance with me!”
“You’re a menace, and I think you’re trying to get out of cleaning.” But with the goofy look on his face and the way he’s shaking his hips at me, I can’t resist.
So we dance.
We spin around crazily, we hold tight to one another and sway back and forth, we hold hands and scream out lyrics at the top of our lungs. We stand on the two chairs and lift our arms high while we move to the rhythm.
We don’t even think about the dishes for another hour.
***
When we’re finally done cleaning up, we’re both exhausted. For once, it actually feels okay to separate from Chris at the dorm stairs and head alone to my room to get some sleep.
The sound of the door shutting wakes me and I glance at the clock: it’s 3:26 in the morning. Estelle must really be into this mystery guy of hers. I haven’t asked her about him yet. It just feels off-limits for some reason. Maybe it’s that I’m still nervous about having a friend. I’m scared to push, unsure of the boundaries in our friendship. I roll over and peek out into the dark room. I just make her out as she strips off her clothes and crawls into bed. I am about to drift off again when I hear her whispering to herself. And I hear the tremble in her voice and the near panic.
“Forgive me my sins, O Lord, forgive me my sins; the sins of my youth, the sins of my age, the sins of my soul, the sins of my body; my idle sins, my serious voluntary sins… .” Her words bleed together in manic praying, and I am frozen in bed. “… I am truly sorry for every sin, mortal and venial, for all the sins of my childhood up to the present hour. I know my sins have wounded Thy Tender Heart, O My Savior; let me be freed from the bonds of evil through the most bitter Passion of My Redeemer. Amen. O My Jesus, forget and forgive what I have been. Amen.”
I have no idea what to do. My impulse is to wrap my arms around her, but I think that if she wanted my help, she would have asked. I feel like I am invading her privacy by hearing her prayers, especially since she hasn’t invited me into her emotional world. And I know what it’s like to want to be alone when you’re upset, so I do what I can to block out her words.
I squeeze my eyes shut, but then I hear a familiar phrase that pulls me from the possibility of immediate sleep.
“In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”
I roll over quietly. I really don’t want to hear this.
“I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord; Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary …”
I pray that Neon Jesus will fly across the room and knock her unconscious.
“Our father, who art in heaven; hallowed by Thy name; Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven …”
These words are recognizable to almost everyone, and I am swept up by their lyrical familiarity and romanticism. The moment is so dramatic I practically expect to hear a Hollywood movie sound track suddenly fill my room.
I hear a small clicking. It’s the sound of rosary beads.
“Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee …”
Suddenly, I am flooded with emotion by Estelle’s words, and I miss the hell out of my father. He loved the traditions and the rituals of the Catholic Church. While I never took to Catholicism as he did, I cannot help clinging to Estelle’s words, even though her voice is shaking.
“Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now, and at the hour of our death. Amen.”
She starts again, repeating the words over and over, and I am disgusted with myself for finding solace in mouthing the words along with her. Yet it’s a few minutes in which I feel close to my father, and I get to have a taste of what it’s like to lean on a higher power, to believe someone is watching out for me.
Tomorrow, however, I know I will wake up in more ways than one. I will again be grounded and know that there is no higher power in the real world, because it’s a place where there is no good reason why our souls are ripped apart or why we’re challenged in ways that nobody needs to be challenged.
For now, though, I listen to her prayers. Her voice calms and slows, and she falls asleep halfway through one of six thousand Hail Marys.
I, however, am left awake, wondering what the hell is making her run to Jesus for forgiveness.