Author's note: Hopefully the structure of this one isn't confusing. I was trying to get in something about Natalie's childhood and explicitly establish her feelings for Gabe. I'm glad people are enjoying it!
Disclaimer: I do not own Next to Normal.
Chapter Four
Henry walked me home today. He always did, because he was—to use his word—a "gentleman" (although he said it half-jokingly). He kept pestering me to invite him in and I kept refusing, because I didn't want him meeting my nut-job parents; Mom and Dad's knowledge of his existence was bad enough. Not that my parents were upset by the fact that I was dating, it's just that I would have liked to keep the whole thing a secret. But that was impossible from the start, thanks to my spying mother.
After I said goodbye to Henry, I found her perched on the back of the sofa. She grinned and motioned with her hands, obviously wanting to know about the boy. I gave her a look and ran upstairs to my bedroom. God, I'd thought, doesn't she have anything better to do than watch her daughter make out? That's just gross. Dad, besides awkwardly trying to give me a sex talk (I cut him off with an eye roll and, "Dad. I'm sixteen. I know."), was surprisingly positive about it. I had expected him to find some reason for protest, but he seemed relieved that I was spending time with somebody…. Admittedly, it was even more surprising that he even noticed my lack of friends.
My dad hadn't always been so clued-out. True, for as long as I could remember, he had been catering to my mom, but he'd actually been quite involved in my life when I was younger. My earliest memory was of him and I building things out of brightly-coloured wooden blocks: A favourite game of mine was the one where we built a castle around me (the princess stuck in the tower), and then he'd (my knight in shining armour) come knock down the palace walls and rescue me. There are several pictures of us playing this and variations of it, and in every single one of them, we both look happy as can be. In fact, if someone went through the family photographs, they'd find loads of pictures of a much-younger me looking happy and Dad (also much-younger) looking happy and both of us together looking happy. Up until I'm about seven or eight, the evidence would suggest that we have a great relationship.
When it comes to the question of whether there was an exact moment our bond deteriorated (though I thought that was unlikely) or if it happened gradually, my memory fails me. I remember him being my beloved father, then cut to a few years later and we're engaged in the third fight of the day—all before 8:00 am. I looked through the photo album once, trying to figure out what happened, and all I could see was that I appeared progressively less content. By age twelve, I look indifferent at best and miserable at worst in nearly every frame. (There is one from the summer before grade ten where the entire family is smiling heartily at the camera, but if one looks long enough, traces of Photoshopping become obvious.)
As the snapshots of happy times dwindle, my mother becomes featured more often. In the first few years of my life, the photographic evidence of her presence is nonexistent. And if my mother is present, you can probably place a safe bet that something weird was happening: There are a couple, from two separate occasions, where my mom is sitting at the table catatonic, gazing at a chocolate birthday cake, and I look like I want the floor to open and swallow me up. (I remember that both times I wondered why on earth it was an event my father wanted to document); there's another of my mom in the pool, fully clothed, at one of my swim meets—again, I look like I want to melt into the floor. (That was only last year, and if I see people from the group—I quit after that incident—they still like to bring it up); and there's a picture of my mom asleep on the floor, surrounded by streamers and twinkle lights she was using to decorate with, in preparation for some phantom birthday party. And then there are photos of damaged property, which smack of my mother's doing: Our house on Walton Way after it was ravaged by the fire (the fire which my mother started by accident), or a dent in the hardwood floor that was created when my mother accidentally dropped a bowling ball. (I still don't know why she even had a bowling ball. I mean, seriously, a bowling ball? She was just lucky the damn thing hadn't broken her foot.)
I trace everything back to my brother. He was the catalyst for the Goodman family's start on the road to hell in a handcart. It was because of him that Mom went crazy, and because Mom went crazy, she was distant from me and Dad had to look after her a lot, and because Dad had to look after her a lot, he stopped looking after me as much as I wanted and needed, and because of that, etc., etc. The irony was that my brother had never lived past eight months old. He had been dead for longer than I'd been alive, and I hated him with a passion. Of course, I blamed my parents plenty, but it was easier to place the majority of it on Gabe, because I didn't have to interact with him every day.
"You okay?"
Henry's question brought me out my head and placed me back in the real world. I couldn't even remember what my original train of thought was; how had I gotten onto seething over my brother again? Oh, right. Dad actually knows I don't have friends, so he doesn't mind that I have a boyfriend.
Boyfriend. How strange. Certainly not a word I thought I would ever have any associations with. Even though I technically knew that Henry and I were boyfriend and girlfriend, I resisted using any language that even hinted at romance for quite a while. Whereas Henry was thrilled with this development and had no qualms about referring to Us, I was more wary of it. Not that I didn't want to be with him, but I always thought that the more officially there was an "Us," the more it would hurt when there wasn't. I had warmed up to the terminology, but its presence in my life still seemed odd.
"I'm fine," I said. "Why do you ask?"
"You've been really quiet since we left my house."
"Right. Just thinking." Even though I knew it sounded dumb, to prevent further questions I added, "About nothing, really."
As was routine, I turned around to face Henry when we got to the foot of my driveway. "Thanks for walking me home." He opened his mouth to ask—as he usually did—if he could come in, but I beat him to it this time with a shake of my head. "I'd invite you in," I said, "but it's too soon."
Henry gave me a look. "We've been going out for nine weeks and three days," he pointed out. "Don't I get to meet your family?"
I smirked. "You keep count?" I snickered. "You're so… the girl. And, no."
I should have knocked on wood, because it turns out Dad had just gotten home from work and seen us through the glass panel in the front door. "Natalie!" He called, stepping out onto the porch. He was still in his suit from work, and I could see his briefcase behind him on the floor. He beckoned to us, and with an inward sigh, I trudged over to him with Henry in tow.
"And this must be Harry." I supposed that the enthusiastic hand-shaking made up for getting the name wrong. He didn't give either of us space to correct him before saying, "Pleasure to finally meet you. Why don't you join us for dinner?"
Although my dad was in a brilliant mood, and my mom hadn't been acting so crazy the past few weeks (for once, she was actually being productive, instead of bouncing from unfinished project to unfinished project, or lying on the couch in a zombie-like state), I still didn't want Henry to spend any amount of time around my parents. Things could fall apart at any second, and the greater the time he spent at my home, the greater the likelihood of his being there when it happened. And I didn't think either of us wanted that.
"Dad," I said, trying to pull Henry back and shove him out the door, to no avail. "Henry can't really stay. He's got, um, homework."
"It's going to be good, Nat," Dad reassured me.
"He has surgery," I tried again. All it did was provoke laughter from Henry. "Rabies!"
Clearly, my desperation was being ignored, and the only thing I could do was to pray I came out of this situation unscathed.
My mom came out to greet us. She was wearing a nice red dress and a white apron with happy yellow smiley-faces plastered all over it (which I found extremely embarrassing, for some reason). "Dinner is almost ready," she said, giving my father a brief kiss and directing a wink to Henry and I. "Nice to meet you, Henry."
At least someone has his identity right.
Henry grinned at me as we sat down at the table. "Your parents are cool," he whispered.
But I had warning bells going off in my head. There were four places set at the table, and no way had Mom known that Henry would be here, and the last several times this happened, it ended in tears. Then again, maybe I was overly paranoid and Mom had just accidentally put out four of everything instead of three. The thought prompted a humourless smile.
As my mom crossed back and forth from the kitchen to the dining room, spooning food onto people's plates (when her productive streak began, she started cooking again, which absolutely floored me; homemade dinners had been a thing of the past for years), my dad engaged Henry in small-talk. Although I detested small-talk, Henry seemed fairly at ease and happily answered my dad's questions.
The chatter stopped when my mother turned all the lights off.
"Okay," she said. She appeared in the doorway, carefully holding a large cake. The icing was brown, indicating chocolate flavour. Eighteen candles illuminated her excited face. "It's someone's birthday!"
Despite having suspected that something was not quite right, I hadn't thought the spectacle would be quite so elaborate. This particular fuck-up hadn't happened in four years, and I'd blocked the memories out enough that I could pretend it wouldn't happen again.
Beside me, Henry giggled. "Whose birthday is it?" he asked innocently.
Dad and I looked at each other. His expression was sad.
There was a pause before I, my eyes fixed on a spot in front of me, quietly answered, "My brother's."
In my peripheral vision, Henry's eyebrows went up in surprise. "I didn't know you had a brother."
"I don't." My voice was louder this time. I brought it down again. "He died before I was born."
Henry's face crumpled and he reached out to comfort me, but I shook my head and brushed him away, propping my elbows on the table and hiding my face with my hands.
Mom apparently didn't notice our words, only the grim silence that greeted her entrance, because she asked, "What? What is it?" Her voice sounded too loud.
My dad's chair squeaked as he pushed it back and stood up. "He's not here," he said softly to my mom, in reference to the aforementioned dead brother. "Love, I know you know. He's been dead all these years; you've got to let him go. He's not here." This reiteration was said more emphatically than the first time, but still gently.
I shifted my hands so they cradled my face instead of covering my eyes. My dad had taken the cake from my mother and she was looking at him, confused.
"This is fucked," I growled.
"Language," Dad reprimanded me, sounding distracted.
Just to spite him, I swore again, at a higher volume. "Fuck this!" Then I got up and ran from the scene.
"Uh, it was wonderful to meet you both," I heard Henry hastily address my parents before scrambling after me.
My father could make all the excuses he wanted ("she's just not herself right now" was one of his favourites), but the point I made before was true: the whole thing was fucked.
And we all know it.
