A/N: This is very challenging to write. I have kept all dialogue involving Darry intact from the original "epiphany," but the point of view has completely shifted. I am very interested to hear from people who have read both, how am I doing? If you haven't read my first story, I hope you will, and comment on the contrast!
I watched Scout as she worked to put together something for us to eat. I had to give her credit, I probably would have forgotten about eating until my own hunger rose above all of the other pressing issues swirling around in my head. She seemed as concerned about making sure the rest of us ate as herself. She was even cooking enough to feed the whole gang. I wondered if that was a female instinct or something. It suddenly occurred to me how outnumbered she was now- the only girl in a house full of boys.
The boys pretty much stayed in the living room. Dallas had brought Johnny back and he hadn't said a word to me since he arrived. He hardly talked to anyone but Pony and Scout anyway. Steve and Two-Bit didn't have much to say either – I think all of them were trying to figure out what we wanted them to do, but they didn't have the common sense to just ask, like Scout had earlier. So they hung around, feeling uncomfortable and making the rest of us even more uncomfortable by association.
Scout seemed to know her way around the kitchen reasonably well for a kid, and, I have to admit, her dinner didn't come out half bad. In a normal situation, I'm sure the guys would have given her the business, tearing away at her cooking ability piece by piece, but they had the common sense to lay off- even Two-Bit, who pretty much lived for opportunities to harass and insult his closest friends.
We pretty much ate in silence. Nobody knew what to say. After dinner the gang made a quick exit, heading, no doubt for someplace less uncomfortable. Usually Johnny spent weekend nights on our couch, but even he chose the familiar abuse at his own house over the unfamiliar misery at ours. I spotted Scout at the sink washing out a pan and realized this was going to be my first test as guardian, trying to maintain some of the structure that we had previously so taken for granted. I called over to her.
"Scout, what're you doing? It's not your turn." It was Ponyboy's week to do dishes. Our parents hadn't made us do much around the house, but dishes duty was expected, and equally distributed. We each took a week, in descending age order. Pony was up.
Scout didn't hear me over the running water.
"Pony," I called into the living room, "It's your week for dishes. Get in here."
"Forget it, Darry," he said. "I'll do it tomorrow." Already I could see how Pony was going to be my biggest challenge in terms of being taken seriously. Scout didn't really ever argue with me, and Soda generally aimed to please everyone, not just me – but Pony, well, he just naturally resisted me. The problem here wasn't that he didn't want to do the dishes, it was that he didn't want me telling him to do them.
"That's not how it works Pony," I said. The rule with our parents about dishes was that, unless you were genuinely sick or incapacitated, or had legitimately traded a day with someone else, you were doing the dishes. Trades were written in on our family calendar, on the refrigerator, and there was no trade recorded for that night. The worst part is, Pony knew the drill as well as the rest of us but was already pushing the envelope as far as he could with me.
"Come on, Darry…" he started. I wasn't having it.
"Get in there, Pony. Scout's doing it and it's not her night, plus the fact that she already cooked for us." He glared at me.
I could see that Pony was weighing the benefits and risks of arguing. Soda piped up before he could argue.
"Come on, Pony. It's not fair to make Scout do it." I doubt Pony cared that Scout was doing it, or that I was on his case about it- he didn't get along with me or Scout all that well- but the fact that Soda was calling him on it clearly bothered him. He peeled himself off the couch and went into the kitchen, wordlessly taking the pan from Scout. She looked surprised and grabbed a dishtowel to dry her hands, coming into the living room.
The phone rang just then and I knew it would be someone from my team. At the back of my mind all night was the fact that I should have been at my game, Mom and Dad watching from the stands and the rest of my family partaking in their usual mischief.
I picked up the phone and was surprised to find that it was my coach. I had to call him that morning to tell him about what had happened and was mortified to find myself crying on the line. He had been close with my parents, my Dad having been a legend in his own time, and seemed pretty upset himself. But Christ, crying to my coach. Not so tough.
He told me that they had won, that the team sent their condolences and missed me. To my amazement, I found myself struggling to care that much about the game. Football, which at times had been my driving passion, had now taken a backseat to what was going on in my family. I looked into the living room at Scout, lying in Dad's chair, trying not to look uncomfortable although Soda had climbed onto the chair on top of her, and Pony, having just finished the dishes and crashed on the couch looking more miserable than fitting for any fourteen year old. I suffered through a few more of the requisite pleasantries with my coach, and hastened my goodbyes. I truly felt that my siblings needed me at that time more than any team ever could have. Finally I ended the call.
"We won," I turned and told my family, not because I wanted them or expected them to care, but I wanted to justify my time on the phone, away from them. "We're going to the conference finals."
"That's great, Dar," Scout said, in the most completely neutral voice I had ever heard from her. It wasn't happy, sad, accusing, judgmental, just nothing. She could not have answered me in that tone on purpose; it was impossible. This tone was possible only from someone who either had no energy left for emotion or had completely convinced herself that any emotion was futile. I looked at her and she was a shell, just a vestige of Scout. She was clearly exhausted by the stress of what had been going on.
Soda and Pony said nothing. The TV was on, but in my head there was a louder sound, the humming of all of us thinking at the same time, about what we had lost, about how we would get through it, about who we were to each other, now. I looked around. Pony was falling asleep on the couch. Soda was drifting off, on top of Scout, who was clearly uncomfortable under his increasingly dead weight but not giving in to complaint.
Finally I spoke up. "You guys need to go to bed. This is going to be a long weekend."
Scout looked at me like that was the most asinine thing I could have said, but she said nothing. She did, however, look relieved when Soda lifted himself off of the chair and her full lung capacity was restored.
"C'mon Pone. Lets go." Soda pulled him up and he begrudgingly followed him into the bedroom.
"'Night you guys. You know where I'll be if you need me." I didn't suppose those two would need me, though; they were all each other needed, most of the time.
"'Night, Dar." Soda said.
Scout and I were left alone in the living room. I wanted her to head off to bed, too; she probably needed sleep more than any of us, but she seemed wide awake.
"I should get those clothes…" She said.
"You don't have to do it now, Scout. The morning is fine." I knew she needed time. I didn't want to rush her. I hadn't dealt with getting Dad's clothes yet either.
"I have to do it now, Darry. Otherwise I'll think about it all night. Really. Come with me?" I didn't want her kept awake stressing about it. Plus, it might be nice to have someone in there with me when I got Dad's clothes.
"Alright." We walked together to our parents' bedroom. As I turned the knob and opened the door I could feel Scout freeze. I knew exactly how she felt; this was sacred ground, now, but we had to go in. I pushed her forward gently and we went inside. I didn't waste time, I went right over to Dad's closet and pulled out his suit. It was easy, for me. Men wear a suit when they die. But Scout was going to have to make a choice.
She didn't go over to Mom's closet right away. She stood at the foot of the bed, looking around the room. Finally, she walked over to the closet and opened the doors. She stood there looking at everything and for a second I imagined her as a woman, deciding what to wear on an important date.
It was clear that she was taking this responsibility very seriously. She was crying a little, and I thought about going to her, but it seemed like maybe that was just necessary to the task, a side effect of being able to make the right choice. She examined every possible choice, feeling the fabric, looking critically at each item, before finally picking out a pink outfit. It was nothing I would have picked, but it made me feel a little better about asking for her help, because it was the perfect choice. She came over and laid it on the bed.
"Perfect," I said.
"Do they need the…other stuff?" She was clearly embarrassed to ask me if they needed underwear, and who could blame her? What twelve year-old wants to discuss underwear with her older brother?
"Everything, I think." I told her. She went and gathered the undergarments and stockings for my mom and then looked critically at what I had chosen for my Dad. She walked into his closet and came out with a different tie than the one I had chosen. I had tried to pick the fanciest one.
"I gave him that one. Three Christmases ago."
"Then this is the one." She said. We both just stood there looking at what we had picked out.
"Thanks," I said. Really, I would have picked something terrible for Mom if it had been up to me.
"Well, I did my best," she said. "I hope it's OK." She sounded very unsure.
"You did great," I said. I wanted to tell her again that Mom would have been proud but didn't want to make her cry again.
"Darry?" I wasn't sure what she was going to say.
"What?" I was so tired, I hoped she didn't want anything too complicated, though I probably would have done whatever she needed.
"Nothing… Just… Goodnight." She obviously had read my exhaustion and changed her mind about asking whatever it was. I was grateful.
I squeezed her shoulder. "Goodnight. I'll come tuck you in in a minute."
"OK." She headed into her room. I went to use the bathroom, washed my face, brushed my teeth, and went into her room. I sat on the side of her bed and pushed her hair back off her forehead. How it must suck to be going through this at her age, I thought.
"It will get harder at first but then it will get easier," was the best I could manage to reassure her, right then. I was aching for the solitude of my room, my bed, just to be alone with nobody needing me for the moment. I had spent so much energy reassuring the rest of the family, I had nothing left to spare for myself. I crawled into bed and closed my eyes, trying to forget about everything that was happening.
