Auntie Ruth helps Mommy out of the bathtub and wraps a towel around her. Mommy just stands there while Auntie Ruth dries her off, then leaves her to come back into the bedroom to get some clothes. Mommy is naked. A nudist, I think. One time when I got out of the bath and the towel dropped to the floor, Mommy laughed and said, “Nudist!” And I asked what was a nudist and Eden said it’s someone who doesn’t wear clothes, dummy, like she was so much smarter than me, which she is, but only ’cause she’s bigger, and Mommy got cross with her and told her not to call names. Mommy made Eden ’pologize and Eden said she was sorry, but I think she only meant it a little bit, not all the way.
Mommy looks really skinny, not like she did before when I would see her get out of the bath looking all pink and smelling of lavender. Her bones are kind of sticky-outy. Her boobies used to be round, but now they kind of flop down flat. And her belly that used to poof out just a little bit, which felt nice when I laid my head in her lap, kind of like a little warm pillow, is all sunken in and doesn’t look comfy at all.
Auntie Ruth comes back into the bathroom holding a pile of clothes. A pair of sweatpants that Mommy used to wear when she cleaned the house or sat on the couch with Eden and me eating popcorn and watching Dora and Diego, which Eden said was for babies but watched anyway. And the yellow sweater with the unicorn on the front, my favorite thing Mommy ever wore because the unicorn looked like it was about to fly off her sweater and into the room. Mommy said that it could happen and Eden rolled her eyes like that was never going to happen, but Mommy said it could if you believed hard enough, anything could happen.
I look up at Mommy’s face and her cheeks are wet, but not from the bath. Her eyes are crying again.
“That was Jonah’s favorite sweater,” Mommy says, but her voice is kind of choky. Auntie Ruth takes in a breath and throws her arms around Mommy, even though she’s still naked, and then Auntie Ruth’s crying, too.
I don’t want to hear the crying. I think of being nowhere and then I go.
EIGHT
EDEN
This has been the worst day in my entire life. I know I’m supposed to say that the Jonah Day was the worst, but it wasn’t. Not for me. Everything was crazy that day, not just after it happened, but before, too. And after it happened, there was a lot of yelling and sirens, and people rushing out of their houses and Aunt Ruth sent me up to my room so that I couldn’t see anything, even though I already saw it.
But today was way worse, because on the Jonah Day, nobody knew anything and today, everybody knows everything.
I’m so mad at Mom and Dad, but even more mad at Aunt Ruth, because she made me come to school, and I don’t think I’m ever going to forgive her for that. Mom and Dad wouldn’t have cared if I stayed home for another week or another month or even another year. They don’t care what I do or don’t do right now. Maybe someday they will again, but they don’t now. So why did Aunt Ruth have to think she was all parenty and knew what was good for me? She’s not my mom or my dad. She doesn’t even have kids. Like she knows what’s best for a kid. She’s not even married anymore.
I’m mad at my teacher, Mr. Libey, for looking at me all day with those eyes of his. Which were sad but also kind of afraid, like maybe he was thinking about his own kids and how bad things can happen no matter what and there’s nothing you can do about it. I heard one of my mom’s friends talking about that on the day of the funeral. “You just can’t keep them safe,” she said, dabbing at her bright-pink lips with her handkerchief that now had big bright-pink rings all over it. “No matter what you do, you can’t keep them safe.”
And Mr. Libey kept looking at me and then looking at his cell phone, which I know for a fact has a picture of his kids as his screen saver. I asked him about them once, when I was at his desk turning in my math worksheet and I happened to see the picture of the two curly-haired girls with matching dresses and matching missing teeth in the front of their mouths. He said they were Hailey and Shaley, and I thought Hailey was a cool name, but Shaley was stupid and that he’d named her Shaley just so her name would rhyme with her sister’s.
And he didn’t stop the other kids in my class from whispering about me and passing notes, even the ones I thought were my friends. He made some stupid speech about being kind and considerate of “your school companions,” which was code for “the girl whose brother is dead.”
But he didn’t seem to notice that everyone was still pointing and smirking and frowning at me. Well, everyone except Aimee Joyce and Corwin Kwe. They’re nice and don’t say anything mean about anyone, not even the kids who tease them.
And I’m mad at Mrs. Hartnett and Mr. Libey for totally poning me in kinder-readers. Because they didn’t think about the fact that, like, I had no one to read with because my kinder-reader partner was my brother and my brother was gone. Duh? And Mrs. Hartnett got really round owl eyes and then started sniffling and everyone turned and looked at me, everyone in my class, and also the kindergartners, too. And because the teachers didn’t know what else to do with me, they sent me up to see this lady in the front office called Mrs. P, who isn’t married, according to Kylie Barnard—“at least not to a man.” I’ve never talked to Mrs. P before, but I know from listening to teachers talk when they think I’m concentrating on my work, that Mrs. P gets the kids who have “issues” or “problems” or are on something called an IEP, which I think means they’re dumb or something.
Mrs. P smiles like she isn’t really happy at all, and that kind of creeps me out. She asked me how I’m doing and how it is to be back at school and if I need anything. I told her fine and fine and no. She told me I could come talk to her anytime, that she’d be here, and that I could talk to her about anything, and then she smiled that creepy smile and I knew right then and there that I was never going to talk to her about anything ever.
And then at lunch, I had to buy because my mom didn’t pack me a lunch because she’s taking medication that makes her not do any of the mom things she’s supposed to do. So I had to buy lunch but there wasn’t any money in my lunch account because my dad forgot to refill it, not because he’s taking medication, but probably because the crease in his forehead is causing brain damage or something. So the lunch lady kind of pats my hand and pushes a tray over to me and says I can pay the school back tomorrow. And I take my lunch over to the table where the whispering stops suddenly and everyone looks at me.