Molly walks me to the parking lot to wait for my ride. She asks if I want to be alone and I say definitely not. She sits next to me but we don’t talk. Maybe I’m not petty but I guess I can be selfish.
Aunt Celia’s car arrives. I know Sheila’s driving since Aunt Celia texted that she’s at a parent meeting for Petey’s field trip to the tide pools tomorrow; I would’ve known anyway because the radio is really loud. I say goodbye to Molly and climb into the car.
Sheila’s favorite Alicia Keys CD is on full blast. It’s good but soulful and I’m not sure I can take it.
“Can we have the music off?” I shout.
“I want it on!”
Damn. “How about not so loud? Maybe turn it down a notch?”
I hear the music go from what sounds like volume 95 down to 92. I don’t know the name of the song but I’m wobbly and it’s starting to tip me over.
“Please, Sheila, I’m asking!”
It turns down to maybe 89.
“No, seriously, I can’t take it!” I reach out to find the knob though I’ve never touched it before in Aunt Celia’s car and have no idea where it is. I feel some buttons and move my hand to the left—Sheila’s hand bats mine away.
“We’ll be home in a couple minutes!”
“I don’t have a couple minutes! I’m having a shitty couple of days and I can’t stand it! You can live without your goddamn music for two minutes and when we get home you can crawl back into your room and lock the door and listen to whatever as loud and as long as you want!” I lunge out and drag my hand across all the buttons and the CD ejects—
“Hey!”
—and I yank it out and hold it to my right in case she tries to grab it.
She pulls the car over violently and we bounce against the curb and stop.
“Jesus!” I say. “What the hell’s wrong with you? It’s just a fucking song!”
Silence.
Well, not exactly. Over the idling car engine, Sheila’s breathing heavy. No, she’s breathing funny, like she’s trying not to cough, or sneeze, or…
Oh shit, she’s crying.
“I… I’m sorry. Here.” I hold out her CD.
It’s yanked from my hand and clatters against the windshield. She sniffles and coughs twice.
“I didn’t mean to…” To what? I didn’t really say anything personal. “It’s okay.”
She snorts and growls, “Fuck you, Parker.”
The car lunges forward—we’re driving down the street again. She’s not sobbing or anything but her stuttering breaths tell me she’s still crying.
“I wasn’t really yelling at you. I was just talking loud over the music. I didn’t mean anything—”
She coughs again. “God, Parker, you think this is because you yelled at me? Everything isn’t about you! Other people have problems and… and… fuck, whatever.”
I get it now, finally. She was crying when she picked me up. The music was so I wouldn’t hear.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“It’s not about you!”
“I know, I’m just—”
“Ha! What do you know? Tell me! Tell me what you know!”
“It’s not about me—”
“I hear the words but everything else tells me you don’t know! Yeah, you got big problems… You really are blind! You can’t see you’re not the center of the universe! That other people have lives and things happen to them all the time and you know nothing about it!”
“How can I if nobody tells me?”
“You think everyone runs around telling everybody everything? Or that we can all read each other’s faces? That’s not how it works!”
The car jerks to the left and we bounce into the driveway and stop hard enough that my seat belt locks down on my collarbone.
“No,” Sheila says, loud but hoarse. “You just don’t care. Say whatever you want but in your head it is all about you. Except it isn’t, Parker. It really, really isn’t.”
She kicks open the door and it crashes shut. Her footsteps trot to the door, keys hit the ground, get picked up, the door opens, and then it slams.
After a minute I slide my hands across the dash until I find her CD. It seems okay—no scratches I can feel. I search some more and find an empty case. I put the CD inside and stow it in my bag to give her later.
I know why I’m so sure of everything all the time; it’s because I can’t stomach the alternative, that I can’t be sure of anything ever. But when my breathing calms down and I think it through, honestly, the hard truth is clear. I was wrong about pretty much everything that happened in this car ride. And if I let myself think about it, I might be wrong about a lot of other things too.
NINETEEN
It takes me an hour to cane to Sarah’s house. It used to take less time but it’s been a couple years since I walked it. She would have picked me up if I called her but I needed time to think, to meditate even, which is what cane-walking can be like. Besides, I want to do all the work myself this time, just in case.