Until today. “We need to talk,” she says.
I’m tempted to make a joke—Sorry, Mom, no more money for you to take!—but I only have so much fuel and that anger has burned itself out. Life could be worse, I’m learning. It could always be worse.
She taps her fingers on the table as I sit. “I know a few weeks have gone by, but you still need to know that I’m sorry I slapped you.”
“I know.” I pop some grapes in my mouth to avoid talking about it a few seconds longer.
“I have no excuse.” Mom studies the ceiling, gathering her thoughts like they’re balloons that have floated away. “But there are some things I want you to understand anyway.”
“Okay.” I open the string cheese. Peeling the plastic apart is very satisfying.
“I was very young when I had you,” she starts.
“I know,” I say again.
“Before your father left … he had a major drug problem,” she says. “He pretty well burned through everything we owned. He left us with … nothing, basically. Which you know,” she says, before I can. “But you were too young to understand how ruthless he was. He took all my jewelry. My grandmother’s pearls. The earrings his mother had left you. Everything.”
I use the grape halves to make the string cheese pieces into flowers. This conversation should hurt more, but I don’t explode or deflate anymore. The constant pain is too solid, and not even unexpected stabs of grief can puncture it.
Mom’s gaze moves to her hands folded on the table. “I should have told you that,” she says. “I should have told you my own mother slapped me when I acted up. That’s why I’ve always tried to use words with you. But I haven’t tried hard enough lately.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about Eddie sooner?” I ask.
She leans forward, reaching for my hands. I let her take them. “I was embarrassed too.”
“I’m not embarrassed anymore,” I tell her. “I’m proud of you.” It’s true. I’ve thought a lot in the past few weeks about my mom, and how she lost my dad but kept herself together for me. My grudging admiration comes with yet more guilt—for never realizing that before, and never thanking her for what she’s done.
But now’s not the time for that conversation. “I’m proud of you too, honey,” she says. “And I’m sorry if you thought you were the reason I didn’t bring him around. I am allowed to have secrets, but he wasn’t the right one to keep.” I sit back, digesting that fact. Her eyes start to fill up and I have to look away. “I feel unfairly lucky in all this.”
“Lucky?”
“Yes,” she says. “It’s hard to watch someone lose a child. To realize I could lose you.” She rubs her nose. “The Richardsons are good parents. So good I’ve always been jealous that they can give you what I can’t. But somehow, I did a bunch of foolish things, and my punishment is having you stay close to me for another year. And it makes me happy, even though I know it’s the last thing you want.”
“It’s not the last thing I want,” I say, trying to be funny. “I can think of tons of things I want less. The problem is that I already have most of them.”
Her sad smile fades, and so does mine. Just when I think there can’t possibly be room for more guilt, another stone hits the pile. No wonder I don’t explode or deflate. There’s no room for air.
MATT
For the first few weeks after Andrew died, I couldn’t believe time kept moving forward. I expected it to stop, to freeze at the point when it ended for him, but of course it didn’t. It keeps plowing forward, running over and over again.
My email and voice mail were both full at first. People said things like “No need to reply, just wanted you to know I’m thinking of you,” or “I’m praying for your family,” or “Let me know if I can do anything.” I know they meant well, but I wanted to reply, “Don’t. Don’t think of me at all.” Why should they suffer for no reason? It doesn’t do any good. If everyone who’s praying would get to work on a time machine, maybe that would be helpful. But I know what praying and thinking really mean: I took time to thank God I’m not you. And they don’t even know the whole story.
So I haven’t been answering, and now they’ve dried up. Everyone has stopped trying. My parents have their own crap to deal with, and Raychel just goes about her business like I’m part of the furniture. She’s spending less time here and more with Asha and Spencer. I guess she’s decided to be their third wheel for a change.
Of course, I always thought Andrew was our third wheel, but it turns out that was me. Or maybe we were a tripod and can’t stand on two legs.
I can’t wait until next year to leave. I have to get out of here as soon as possible. And if I can’t make time stop, maybe I can speed it up.
*
I catch Dad in his office before dinner, not that dinner is much of an event anymore. It’s always silent, except for clinking and chewing and the occasional “please” or “thank you.” “Hey,” I say, knocking on the open door.
He looks up. “Dinner?”
“I haven’t put it in yet.” We’ve eaten enough frozen lasagnas and casseroles to feed a small army for a year, but people keep bringing them because Mom’s department set up a Feed-the-Richardsons schedule but neglected to coordinate what they were feeding us. It’s kind of them, but I think it would do Dad some good to get back in the kitchen, though I’m probably not the one to be handing out coping tips. “Can I talk to you?” I ask.
I expect him to be relieved, to think I’m finally opening up, but he just seems tired. “Come on in.”
I close the door. “Did you ever talk to the lady at Rhodes?”
He rubs his forehead. “Matt, I’m so sorry—”
“No, it’s okay.” I rock back and forth on my heels, trying to work up the nerve. “When you do, could you … maybe ask her about this spring semester?”
RAYCHEL
I’m still reeling from my conversation with Mom when Asha calls, sobbing so hard I can barely understand her. I manage to get “Spencer,” “stupid,” “asshole,” and “broke up.” I’ve avoided campus completely so far by making her come to the duplex, but I head for her dorm immediately. Her roommate fled the sexfest weeks ago and moved in with a girl down the hall. I guess that was a premature move. “What happened?”
Asha blows her nose and flops across the beds. She’s pushed them together to make a king-size. It’s like the Hilton of dorm rooms. Or at least the Motel 6. “I don’t even know,” she says. “He won’t come to my sister’s wedding and then it turned into ‘We’re too young’ and ‘Why do we have to talk about marriage’ and ‘You’re insane.’”
“What did you say?”
She grimaces. “I told him if he thought he could keep screwing me through college and dump me at graduation, he should think again.”
Even I cringe. Everyone knows that’s not Spencer’s plan. He’s been hung up on Asha since kindergarten. “Why wouldn’t he go?”