Sarah has these amazing black curls. Her mother’s Latina and has black hair, and her father’s Jewish and has curly hair (well, had—?he’s lost most of it now), and somehow she got the best of both. Her skin is this great light olive color that turns to burnished copper in the summer. She complains a lot about her nose (too crooked) and her eyebrows (too intense) and her thighs (not as thin as she’d like them to be), but I love the way she looks.
Anyway, she does have a point about my sucky home life.
Ivy was diagnosed with autism when she was seven. For a long time after that, that was all Mom and Dad could talk about—?what to do for her and whether they were doing enough. (The answer was always no.) Then Dad started having trouble swallowing.
Esophageal cancer moves fast: our lives stopped being about Ivy’s diagnosis and started being about all the medical stuff.
Then, after a couple of years of that—?about five years ago—?Dad died and Mom lost it. She plunged into this depression where she just didn’t want to get up in the morning, and Ivy and I had to learn to get ourselves out the door in the morning without her help.
Even when the worst was over, we never knew if Mom would be okay or not. Some days she was totally present and wanted to do everything right, but other days the smallest thing would unsettle her—?a leaky faucet, an old photo, Ivy freaking out about something—?and she’d slide back. I learned to be relieved on the good days and to just deal on the bad ones. She was always worried about money, too—?Dad had had some life insurance, but not a ton, and the work Mom got as a medical transcriptionist allowed her to be home all the time but didn’t bring in a lot of income.
And then Ron came along and Mom felt saved.
Me, not so much.
Maybe Sarah’s theory is right that everything evens out. School’s kind of easy for me—?not just academically, but socially too. The thing is, I have a dead father, a needy mother, and a sister who struggles to communicate, so getting into a clique or wearing the right clothes doesn’t even come close to making it onto the list of things I worry about. And when you don’t worry about that stuff, you seem cool without trying. Instant social success.
But I’m not sure that makes my life even with other people’s. Deep down, I still feel like I’ve been cheated out of something.
James drops me off in the parking lot of the mini-mall where Ron’s chiropractor practice is, and I run inside.
“I’m so sorry, Chloe,” Mom says, rising from behind the reception desk. “I wouldn’t have taken my car to work if I’d known I couldn’t pick up Ivy.”
“I thought Wednesday was your short day.”
“It is. But Ron—” She glances at a couple of patients who are sitting on chairs within hearing distance and lowers her voice. “He’s trying not to turn away any appointments, and we got a few last-minute requests.” She retrieves her purse from under the desk and digs out her keys. “Tell Ivy I’m sorry about the mix-up.” She drops them in my hand.
“She hates when she’s picked up late.”
“I know, but what could I do?” She shrugs, helpless as always.
The drive is stressful. I don’t mind picking up Ivy—?I’m used to it—?but I usually leave much earlier when I do. I’m already late, and there’s a lot of traffic. When I finally pull through the school gate onto the circular driveway where cars are normally stacked up at pickup time, it’s empty.
Ivy’s standing in front of the main entrance with a young female aide, who waves me toward them with obvious relief. Ivy’s hammering her fists against her hips, which means she’s upset.
“You see?” the aide is saying as she opens the car door. “I told you she’d be here any second.” She bends down and sticks her head in. “You’re the sister, right?”
“Yeah, I’m Chloe. Hi.”
“Pickup’s at four, you know.”
It was already past four thirty. I flashed my biggest, brightest Love Me! smile, the one with lots of teeth, a scrunchy nose, and wide bright eyes. “I’m so sorry!”
She relents. “That’s okay. I’m just glad I was able to stay late today.”
I thank her, she steps back, Ivy gets in the car, and I drive away.
“Where’s Mom?” Ivy asks. “She’s supposed to pick me up at four on Wednesdays.”
“She didn’t text you?”
“No.”
Argh. I had assumed Mom had taken care of that. She knows as well as I do that Ivy hates it when plans are changed without warning. “She had to stay at work and then I had to go get the car, and that’s why I’m late. But I’m here now, right?”
She doesn’t respond out loud, but I can hear her whispering to herself, something she does when she’s unhappy. I can’t actually make out the words, but the slight hissing sound gets on my nerves, and I have to bite my tongue not to snap at her to stop—?when I do, she always looks stricken and embarrassed.
The last person in the world I want to hurt is Ivy. But sometimes I do anyway.
“I’m hungry,” she says.
I glance over. Her curly fair hair is pulled back in its usual ponytail, so I can see her profile clearly: she’s sucking on her lower lip, and her slightly overgrown eyebrows are drawn together in concern.
Anxiety is Ivy’s constant companion—?she’s always afraid that there’s something she’s supposed to be doing and isn’t, some magic word or action that everyone else has figured out that she hasn’t, some catastrophe that’s waiting for a break in her routine to come crashing down on her.
But she won’t—?or can’t—?put these feelings into words.
“You want to stop at Starbucks?” I ask. “Get a muffin?”
“Yes, please.” Ivy is often oddly polite, mostly because she learned to talk by memorizing phrases and sentences and when to use them.
While we’re waiting in line at Starbucks, a barista turns on a blender. Ivy puts her hands over her ears and moans. Loud sounds cause her almost physical pain.
I see a couple of other customers stare at her.
I move closer to my sister and square my shoulders.
Four