Author's Note, 02-16-03: Well, I wanted to add this on Valentine's Day, but
the friggin' site was down. *kicks fanfiction.net* Anyway, here it is.
Sorry it took so long. If I could ditch school and become a professional
"fanfictionist," I would - lol. Thanks for the reviews of chapter 7.
Chapter 8
YOU CAN COUNT ON ME
*
"Do you have a boyfriend?" Sharon asked. We were walking Audrey to the bathroom, both holding on to one of her hands. When Maxine decided she'd allowed enough time for our Wyczenski reunion, she'd stuck her head in the room and asked to speak with Jimmy and Julia. I could have kissed Audrey for announcing she needed to go to the bathroom right that minute and demanding I take her. It was a much needed escape. But it didn't keep me from fretting over what was being said while I was gone.
"Not really." I thought of Scott, a fond smile tugging at the corners of my mouth. "But there's a guy I like."
"I like somebody, too," Sharon confided.
"I know who it is," Audrey said in a sing-song voice. "His name's Kevin and he's fourteen and he's got an earring!" She wrinkled her nose, disgusted with the last detail. "I think he's weird. My boyfriend is a lot cuter."
"You have a boyfriend?" I tried not to appear amused, but it was tough with Sharon snickering the way she was.
"Yep. His name's Fletcher. He kissed me on the playground and now we eat lunch together," Audrey answered proudly. She added a skip to her steps, rocking my and Sharon's arms back and forth like she was rowing a boat.
"Wow," I nodded approvingly. "Be sure to invite me to the wedding."
We all giggled, the sound echoing as we entered the bathroom. Audrey took off to do her business while Sharon and I primped in front of the mirrors like we actually had somewhere to go. She was nice. Deep down I think we both felt a sense of competition with each other, both used to being the big sister, the eldest daughter. Had we lived together, I'm sure we'd have our share of squabbles. But for now we got along just fine.
"Sooo... what's the deal with your mom?" she ventured, leaning her hip against the sink, acting casual. I stiffened. I knew it was coming sooner or later.
"My dad-- Jimmy hasn't told you about her?"
"He says she's nuts," Audrey announced in her stall, her dangling feet the only thing visible under the door.
"Well, she's not." I held back the anger that wanted to surface and defend Maggie, no matter how harshly. I hadn't shown the same restraint during a recess in fourth grade when I pushed a girl off the jungle gym after she made up a song about "Abby and her loony mother." The girl was fine, but I got sent to the principal's office. I'd made my point, though. Neither my tormentor nor any of the other kids in my class teased me about Maggie again. Still, I was glad when we moved and I switched schools. Now I was cleverer, better equipped at hiding Maggie from my friends. The number one skeleton in my closet. "She has an illness that just makes her... moody sometimes, that's all."
Sharon kept looking at me.
"Like permanent PMS," I added, downplaying it with a smirk.
The toilet flushed and Audrey emerged from the stall, hiking up the waistband of her wool leggings then squatting, like a ballerina doing a sloppy plié, to adjust them. I pretended to be interested in watching her wash her hands. She looked at me seriously when I bent to help straighten her crooked skirt.
"You can come live with us if she's mean to you."
"Nah, she's not mean," I said, ruffling the girl's hair. How could I explain to a six-year-old that all the hurtful things Maggie had said or done to me didn't make her a bad person? That when she screamed and cursed at me it wasn't on purpose? Or that when she grabbed me by the arm so hard it left a red mark, it had only been an accident? Part of the disease. Sometimes I didn't even understand it myself. "Mostly just sad."
"It makes me sad when my mommy's sad."
I could almost see the wheels turning in Audrey's brain, piecing this together until she'd concluded that my mother's unhappiness must have a similar effect on me too. She caught me around the waist in a spontaneous hug. "I'm sorry your mommy's sick," she said, her head pressed into my stomach. I wanted to keep her. Maggie was the only other person I knew who was so uninhibited when it came to touch, willing to get close and forget the rules about personal space. It could be smothering at times, especially when she was in your face to argue, but I usually savored it. That superstition kids have about their mother's kisses taking away booboos still made perfect sense to me. Not many people could pull off the kind of pure, selfless intimacy that made a mother's affection so special. The same innocence was there in Audrey's hug.
Wanting to keep her close, I lifted her up on my hip, one arm around her for support. The way Maggie had carted Eric and me around until we were too heavy to be carried anymore. Audrey went right along with this, holding onto me and smiling happily. Sharon, very quiet since her question about Maggie, finally spoke.
"You're gonna have to do that every time you get around her now," she warned as if I'd made a mistake.
"That's ok." I honestly didn't mind.
"What's PMS?" Audrey questioned as we headed out of the bathroom.
Sharon and I were still laughing and dodging an answer when we neared Eric's room, only to meet up with Maxine as she stepped into the hall. Lovely. She looked displeased, unsatisfied with whatever was said while I was gone. I avoided her gaze, but she didn't let that stop her. She handed me a small, white business card.
"It appears I've overstayed my welcome," she said, her smile fixed in place and not as believable as before. "But if there's anything you need..." She paused to let the connotations of what she was saying, or not saying, sink in. "Don't hesitate to call me."
I brushed over the card, reading her name and number, knowing I would never dial the short row of digits. I would probably never see this woman again, unless she went out of her way to check up on me. From my experience, most people didn't do that. Doctors sent you home, teachers excused you for falling asleep in class, family members called once in a blue moon to "see how things are," but nobody really wanted to get involved. I liked it better that way. Other people just threw everything off balance. Nutso as it was, Maggie and I had a system, a familiar routine that we'd perfected through the years. We got bad, then worse, then better. It was the one thing I could count on from her. It kept me together, gave me some focus. Maxine Gray 555-1946 wouldn't understand it. I put her card in my pocket and told her thank you, like a good girl. She'd probably go home now to Amy and Vincent and the other boy. She was probably a good mom.
"Merry Christmas," I said as she walked away.
*
Dad had brought presents. Eric tore into his like a madman, shredding the fancy wrapping I assumed was done at the store. I worried about his head as he let out what can only be described as a war cry and pounded ecstatically on the box of his brand new dart board. He reminded me of a little Indian in a hospital gown. A nurse came in to check on him because she thought he sounded distressed. We all laughed at that and assured her that was not the case. Just a regular boy enjoying his Christmas Eve in the recovery ward.
My gift was a silver charm bracelet, already decorated with a small collection of tiny trinkets. I fingered each of them - the butterfly with blue wings, the ballet slipper, the little gingerbread house. I lingered on the skeleton key, letting it rest against the tip of my index finger. Jimmy looked at me intently and I knew he'd remembered. A few years back I had read The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett and, for whatever silly reason kids become so fascinated with such things, I fell in love with skeleton keys. I wanted to collect them, but they were hard to find. I'd always kind of hoped I'd discover one like Mary in the book, solving the mystery of what door it belonged to and opening up a secret world that was hidden from everyone else but the people I chose to let in. And I'd let them all in eventually, same as Mary. That's how it had to happen for the garden to work its magic. Stupid, I know. But it was a nice dream.
"You still like those, right?" my dad asked, tilting his head to see the expression on my face as I looked down at the charm.
I nodded, not chancing eye contact just yet. It was only a miniature key, but it meant something deeper. He thought about me. He remembered he had a daughter who'd liked skeleton keys when she was nine years old. It made my heart hurt, so I closed that part of myself off. Locked it up and threw away the key, you might say. My own secret garden.
"Yeah, it's great, Dad," I told him, smiling brightly and giving him a one armed hug. He mussed my hair then seemed to catch himself, smoothing it back into place. I bet he'd gotten into trouble for doing that to Sharon.
"I picked out the teddy bear," Audrey informed me, pointing to the dangling bear that had a curious resemblance to Winnie the Pooh. "Sharon picked the ballerina shoe-"
"Ballet slipper," Sharon corrected.
Audrey ignored her. "My mommy picked the butterfly. Put it on, Abby." She bared her wrist impatiently, satisfied when I did the same. My dad gestured for the bracelet and worked the clasp open clumsily. I watched his fingers as they struggled to re-hook it around my wrist, tickling my skin. I imagined that same look of intense concentration on his face when I was a newborn and he had to handle itty-bitty onesies with snaps, and diapers. I loved the story of how he and Maggie used to squabble over whose turn it was to hold me or give me a bath. They even flipped a coin for it. Heads - I get her; tails - she's yours. The rules hadn't changed since then, but now the stakes were much higher.
I jiggled my wrist when the bracelet was secured, making the charms jingle and dance. My wrist was too thin to keep it in place, so it slid up and down my arm when I moved. "Thanks everybody," I said, smiling at each of them.
"Dad?" The caution in Eric's voice grabbed my attention. He had each of his darts lined in a row on his bed, the board in his lap, but he wasn't toying with any of it. I absentmindedly began a new habit of twisting my bracelet around my wrist. He didn't look at me. "If they let me go home tomorrow, can we come stay at your house?"
Bull's-eye.
"Well..." Jimmy sent some type of silent signal in Julia's direction. She immediately gathered up her daughters, fudging an excuse that it was time for a snack. Their leaving concerned me. I took it to mean the answer would be no. They wanted to get out while they could, before things got ugly. Before Eric and I ruined their Christmas Eve completely. Fearful for my brother and what a negative reply would do to him, I spoke rapidly.
"We wouldn't have to stay long. He just means for Christmas." This time it was me not looking in Eric's direction. But if he had any objections, he didn't make them known.
"Actually, that's something I wanted to talk about with you kids," my dad said, nervously picking at an invisible piece of fuzz on his shirt. He wasn't even pretending to be easygoing. It made my stomach ache. "Julia and I discussed it on the way here... and that social worker's being here just enforced it-"
I tried to grasp what he was saying. I wanted him to spit it out.
"We'd like for the two of you to move in with us. Permanently. Not just for Christmas," he elaborated, managing a jolly expression now that he'd gotten through what he saw as the hard part. "You wouldn't have to switch schools. Unless you wanted to. I don't know if you guys mind sharing a room? We're remodeling the basement into a den; one of you could take that if you need more privacy. There's lots of great kids in our neighborhood, plenty of places to ride your bikes and play..." He lowered his voice like he was telling Eric a secret. "Just not in the street."
My brother and I finally exchanged glances, his shock as apparent as my own. We'd never been confronted with the option of living with our father, though during many an angry rant Maggie had threatened to send one of us there. We knew it was mostly talk; she barely tolerated sharing us with him as it was. But it kept us in line, walking on eggshells to prevent separation. Now it was being offered to both of us like a treat or a rescue. It felt weird. And tempting. Jimmy's house would come with a family and the kind of normal life my friends had. I wouldn't have to worry about returning home to find a dead body in the bathtub, or talk with angry landlords who hadn't received rent money, or think up ways to protect myself and Eric incase Maggie's new boyfriend of the week was a child molester. I could be thirteen and irresponsible. I could get grounded for talking back to Julia. I could actually invite Jennifer, Dorothy, Howie, and whoever else I wanted, to come over for my fourteenth birthday. The possibilities were endless. I jumped at a response before Eric got the chance.
"We can't."
Eric looked crestfallen. "Why not? I'd rather live with Dad. It'd be fun," he said, taking on that argumentative tone that usually meant a good old- fashioned sibling spat was about to erupt between us. "Why can't we??"
"Because Mom needs us," I answered with a bit more snap than I'd intended. It filled me with guilt. I understood his eagerness to accept Jimmy's offer, probably desired it even more than he did. But it would destroy Maggie. Nothing was worth that. Not even our happiness - at least not mine.
"She does not! All she does is leave. She doesn't care about us; she doesn't try to get better! I don't wanna take care of her anymore. We're the kids, Abby. She's s'pposed to take care of us."
His words stung. They weren't things I hadn't thought of myself, but to hear them said out loud by my brother, the one I counted on to stick by my side when it came to Maggie, shook me up inside. I was angered by his disloyalty, hurt by the truth in what he'd said, frightened that I was losing him, and suddenly more alone than ever before. "It's not her fault she's sick," I said heatedly. "She does the best she can. She always says we're what keep her alive. And at least when SHE leaves, she comes BACK."
"Shut up, Abby!" Eric leaned forward to yell at me, like that might block what I'd said from reaching Jimmy's ears. I saw the moisture in his dark eyes. He hadn't yet mastered holding it in the way I did.
"You shut up!"
"Hey, hey, hey." Gently, Jimmy seized both of us by the shoulder. He pushed Eric back against his pillow. If he felt me shaking, he didn't let on. I was glad he'd stopped us. I didn't approve of my behavior - despised it, actually. Making a big scene was Maggie's style, not mine. She didn't think twice about screaming or arguing in public.
For a seventh grade writing assignment, I'd submitted a poem called "Shame." The teacher praised my work, saying it was one of the most moving and expressive responses he'd seen from a student in a long time. I concocted some goofy story about how I'd gotten the idea, but truthfully it was taken from my experiences with Maggie. The shame I felt when all eyes were on the woman throwing a tantrum in the grocery store or on an airplane, the shame of them watching me try to control her, the shame of them knowing that person they considered a freak was my mother. It amazed and disturbed my friends that I could walk away from insults and fights so easily. They told me to be more aggressive, duke it out. They mistook my bowing out for timidity. But it was just me protecting myself, because nothing any of our snide classmates said or did could bother me nearly as much as chancing a breakdown like the ones Maggie had, to have people look at me the way they looked at her.
"Let's calm down a little bit here," he said, catching me by surprise when he lifted me, his hands hooked under my armpits, and sat me down on the end of Eric's bed. I crossed my arms and stared at the floor. But he made me look at him, raised my chin with his finger so I didn't have a choice. "Look, Abby, I know you love your mom. That wouldn't have to change if you came to live with me. You wouldn't have to stop seeing her or anything. I don't want to take you away from her. But she's a grown woman; she has to take care of herself. You and Eric are still young yet. It's not right for her to run off and leave you alone."
I swallowed the bitter words that seeped onto my tongue, burning it, burning my throat as I pushed them down, down, down. A retreating fire. I craved something that would quench the little flames of hate and sorrow that settled to burn inside me like they always did. Hypocrite, I wanted to sling at him. You can leave, but no one else can. Who was there to help me tackle third grade math? Who'd sat up with me all night, soaking washcloths in a basin and pressing them gently over my eyes because I had such a bad case of pink eye I could barely see? Who was the one that gave me a hug and showed me what to do when I'd gotten my first period? Maggie. My mother. I trusted her a million times more than I did Jimmy. It would have been so easy to say, to yank him down from his high horse and make him face up to the fact that he was no better than her. But I held it in, fearful to start a confrontation that might make him see in me those qualities he so abhorred in Maggie.
"I'll tell you what..." He tapped his fingers against my knees like he was playing a drum roll as introduction to his next sentence. "What if you and Eric stay for a regular visit, and by the time Maggie gets back, if you aren't happy and still don't want to live with me, you can go back to living with her? Sound fair?"
It sounded like trouble. Nothing ever went that smoothly, and whatever the outcome, someone would inevitably be hurt by my and Eric's decision. I could stop it all now with a flat out no; I knew Jimmy wouldn't force me to accept. To be honest, I doubted it was even his idea to ask in the first place. Julia was probably a sucker for a good sob story and talked him into bringing us home, a couple of stray pups to usher in from the cold. Playmates for her real kids. Eventually she'd get tired of us too. Either she wouldn't be able to handle my constant worrying, or Eric's tendency to cling would make her avoid him, or she would tire of the way we both nearly jumped out of our skin if someone moved too quickly or spoke too loudly around us. Whatever the reason, she'd end up wanting to run away from us. Just like everybody else.
"Please, Abby," Eric whispered, his anger replaced with desperation. I made the mistake of looking at him, falling into the trap of his pitiful brown eyes. Whether he meant for them to or not, they were able to manipulate me, cloud my judgment. My reasons for not wanting to agree with Jimmy were swayed by Eric's reasons for why we should. No matter what I said there was no way to completely shield him from being sad in the long run, I might as well choose what made him happiest now.
I focused on Jimmy again, my steady gaze making him uncertain. I think he wanted to back away, but didn't. He stood his ground, his hands cupped on my knees. But I'd already been defeated. "We can try it that way, I guess," I said slowly, quietly. "Until Maggie gets back."
I faked a smile for my brother and my dad, pretending to go along with their talk of how much fun we were going to have together and how it would be nice for Jimmy to have another guy around in a house chock full of females. By the time Julia and the girls returned, it was as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened at all. None of them recognized my guilt. I told myself I hadn't turned my back on Maggie, it was right and good for me to spend time with these people. But I felt like a traitor.
Chapter 8
YOU CAN COUNT ON ME
*
"Do you have a boyfriend?" Sharon asked. We were walking Audrey to the bathroom, both holding on to one of her hands. When Maxine decided she'd allowed enough time for our Wyczenski reunion, she'd stuck her head in the room and asked to speak with Jimmy and Julia. I could have kissed Audrey for announcing she needed to go to the bathroom right that minute and demanding I take her. It was a much needed escape. But it didn't keep me from fretting over what was being said while I was gone.
"Not really." I thought of Scott, a fond smile tugging at the corners of my mouth. "But there's a guy I like."
"I like somebody, too," Sharon confided.
"I know who it is," Audrey said in a sing-song voice. "His name's Kevin and he's fourteen and he's got an earring!" She wrinkled her nose, disgusted with the last detail. "I think he's weird. My boyfriend is a lot cuter."
"You have a boyfriend?" I tried not to appear amused, but it was tough with Sharon snickering the way she was.
"Yep. His name's Fletcher. He kissed me on the playground and now we eat lunch together," Audrey answered proudly. She added a skip to her steps, rocking my and Sharon's arms back and forth like she was rowing a boat.
"Wow," I nodded approvingly. "Be sure to invite me to the wedding."
We all giggled, the sound echoing as we entered the bathroom. Audrey took off to do her business while Sharon and I primped in front of the mirrors like we actually had somewhere to go. She was nice. Deep down I think we both felt a sense of competition with each other, both used to being the big sister, the eldest daughter. Had we lived together, I'm sure we'd have our share of squabbles. But for now we got along just fine.
"Sooo... what's the deal with your mom?" she ventured, leaning her hip against the sink, acting casual. I stiffened. I knew it was coming sooner or later.
"My dad-- Jimmy hasn't told you about her?"
"He says she's nuts," Audrey announced in her stall, her dangling feet the only thing visible under the door.
"Well, she's not." I held back the anger that wanted to surface and defend Maggie, no matter how harshly. I hadn't shown the same restraint during a recess in fourth grade when I pushed a girl off the jungle gym after she made up a song about "Abby and her loony mother." The girl was fine, but I got sent to the principal's office. I'd made my point, though. Neither my tormentor nor any of the other kids in my class teased me about Maggie again. Still, I was glad when we moved and I switched schools. Now I was cleverer, better equipped at hiding Maggie from my friends. The number one skeleton in my closet. "She has an illness that just makes her... moody sometimes, that's all."
Sharon kept looking at me.
"Like permanent PMS," I added, downplaying it with a smirk.
The toilet flushed and Audrey emerged from the stall, hiking up the waistband of her wool leggings then squatting, like a ballerina doing a sloppy plié, to adjust them. I pretended to be interested in watching her wash her hands. She looked at me seriously when I bent to help straighten her crooked skirt.
"You can come live with us if she's mean to you."
"Nah, she's not mean," I said, ruffling the girl's hair. How could I explain to a six-year-old that all the hurtful things Maggie had said or done to me didn't make her a bad person? That when she screamed and cursed at me it wasn't on purpose? Or that when she grabbed me by the arm so hard it left a red mark, it had only been an accident? Part of the disease. Sometimes I didn't even understand it myself. "Mostly just sad."
"It makes me sad when my mommy's sad."
I could almost see the wheels turning in Audrey's brain, piecing this together until she'd concluded that my mother's unhappiness must have a similar effect on me too. She caught me around the waist in a spontaneous hug. "I'm sorry your mommy's sick," she said, her head pressed into my stomach. I wanted to keep her. Maggie was the only other person I knew who was so uninhibited when it came to touch, willing to get close and forget the rules about personal space. It could be smothering at times, especially when she was in your face to argue, but I usually savored it. That superstition kids have about their mother's kisses taking away booboos still made perfect sense to me. Not many people could pull off the kind of pure, selfless intimacy that made a mother's affection so special. The same innocence was there in Audrey's hug.
Wanting to keep her close, I lifted her up on my hip, one arm around her for support. The way Maggie had carted Eric and me around until we were too heavy to be carried anymore. Audrey went right along with this, holding onto me and smiling happily. Sharon, very quiet since her question about Maggie, finally spoke.
"You're gonna have to do that every time you get around her now," she warned as if I'd made a mistake.
"That's ok." I honestly didn't mind.
"What's PMS?" Audrey questioned as we headed out of the bathroom.
Sharon and I were still laughing and dodging an answer when we neared Eric's room, only to meet up with Maxine as she stepped into the hall. Lovely. She looked displeased, unsatisfied with whatever was said while I was gone. I avoided her gaze, but she didn't let that stop her. She handed me a small, white business card.
"It appears I've overstayed my welcome," she said, her smile fixed in place and not as believable as before. "But if there's anything you need..." She paused to let the connotations of what she was saying, or not saying, sink in. "Don't hesitate to call me."
I brushed over the card, reading her name and number, knowing I would never dial the short row of digits. I would probably never see this woman again, unless she went out of her way to check up on me. From my experience, most people didn't do that. Doctors sent you home, teachers excused you for falling asleep in class, family members called once in a blue moon to "see how things are," but nobody really wanted to get involved. I liked it better that way. Other people just threw everything off balance. Nutso as it was, Maggie and I had a system, a familiar routine that we'd perfected through the years. We got bad, then worse, then better. It was the one thing I could count on from her. It kept me together, gave me some focus. Maxine Gray 555-1946 wouldn't understand it. I put her card in my pocket and told her thank you, like a good girl. She'd probably go home now to Amy and Vincent and the other boy. She was probably a good mom.
"Merry Christmas," I said as she walked away.
*
Dad had brought presents. Eric tore into his like a madman, shredding the fancy wrapping I assumed was done at the store. I worried about his head as he let out what can only be described as a war cry and pounded ecstatically on the box of his brand new dart board. He reminded me of a little Indian in a hospital gown. A nurse came in to check on him because she thought he sounded distressed. We all laughed at that and assured her that was not the case. Just a regular boy enjoying his Christmas Eve in the recovery ward.
My gift was a silver charm bracelet, already decorated with a small collection of tiny trinkets. I fingered each of them - the butterfly with blue wings, the ballet slipper, the little gingerbread house. I lingered on the skeleton key, letting it rest against the tip of my index finger. Jimmy looked at me intently and I knew he'd remembered. A few years back I had read The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett and, for whatever silly reason kids become so fascinated with such things, I fell in love with skeleton keys. I wanted to collect them, but they were hard to find. I'd always kind of hoped I'd discover one like Mary in the book, solving the mystery of what door it belonged to and opening up a secret world that was hidden from everyone else but the people I chose to let in. And I'd let them all in eventually, same as Mary. That's how it had to happen for the garden to work its magic. Stupid, I know. But it was a nice dream.
"You still like those, right?" my dad asked, tilting his head to see the expression on my face as I looked down at the charm.
I nodded, not chancing eye contact just yet. It was only a miniature key, but it meant something deeper. He thought about me. He remembered he had a daughter who'd liked skeleton keys when she was nine years old. It made my heart hurt, so I closed that part of myself off. Locked it up and threw away the key, you might say. My own secret garden.
"Yeah, it's great, Dad," I told him, smiling brightly and giving him a one armed hug. He mussed my hair then seemed to catch himself, smoothing it back into place. I bet he'd gotten into trouble for doing that to Sharon.
"I picked out the teddy bear," Audrey informed me, pointing to the dangling bear that had a curious resemblance to Winnie the Pooh. "Sharon picked the ballerina shoe-"
"Ballet slipper," Sharon corrected.
Audrey ignored her. "My mommy picked the butterfly. Put it on, Abby." She bared her wrist impatiently, satisfied when I did the same. My dad gestured for the bracelet and worked the clasp open clumsily. I watched his fingers as they struggled to re-hook it around my wrist, tickling my skin. I imagined that same look of intense concentration on his face when I was a newborn and he had to handle itty-bitty onesies with snaps, and diapers. I loved the story of how he and Maggie used to squabble over whose turn it was to hold me or give me a bath. They even flipped a coin for it. Heads - I get her; tails - she's yours. The rules hadn't changed since then, but now the stakes were much higher.
I jiggled my wrist when the bracelet was secured, making the charms jingle and dance. My wrist was too thin to keep it in place, so it slid up and down my arm when I moved. "Thanks everybody," I said, smiling at each of them.
"Dad?" The caution in Eric's voice grabbed my attention. He had each of his darts lined in a row on his bed, the board in his lap, but he wasn't toying with any of it. I absentmindedly began a new habit of twisting my bracelet around my wrist. He didn't look at me. "If they let me go home tomorrow, can we come stay at your house?"
Bull's-eye.
"Well..." Jimmy sent some type of silent signal in Julia's direction. She immediately gathered up her daughters, fudging an excuse that it was time for a snack. Their leaving concerned me. I took it to mean the answer would be no. They wanted to get out while they could, before things got ugly. Before Eric and I ruined their Christmas Eve completely. Fearful for my brother and what a negative reply would do to him, I spoke rapidly.
"We wouldn't have to stay long. He just means for Christmas." This time it was me not looking in Eric's direction. But if he had any objections, he didn't make them known.
"Actually, that's something I wanted to talk about with you kids," my dad said, nervously picking at an invisible piece of fuzz on his shirt. He wasn't even pretending to be easygoing. It made my stomach ache. "Julia and I discussed it on the way here... and that social worker's being here just enforced it-"
I tried to grasp what he was saying. I wanted him to spit it out.
"We'd like for the two of you to move in with us. Permanently. Not just for Christmas," he elaborated, managing a jolly expression now that he'd gotten through what he saw as the hard part. "You wouldn't have to switch schools. Unless you wanted to. I don't know if you guys mind sharing a room? We're remodeling the basement into a den; one of you could take that if you need more privacy. There's lots of great kids in our neighborhood, plenty of places to ride your bikes and play..." He lowered his voice like he was telling Eric a secret. "Just not in the street."
My brother and I finally exchanged glances, his shock as apparent as my own. We'd never been confronted with the option of living with our father, though during many an angry rant Maggie had threatened to send one of us there. We knew it was mostly talk; she barely tolerated sharing us with him as it was. But it kept us in line, walking on eggshells to prevent separation. Now it was being offered to both of us like a treat or a rescue. It felt weird. And tempting. Jimmy's house would come with a family and the kind of normal life my friends had. I wouldn't have to worry about returning home to find a dead body in the bathtub, or talk with angry landlords who hadn't received rent money, or think up ways to protect myself and Eric incase Maggie's new boyfriend of the week was a child molester. I could be thirteen and irresponsible. I could get grounded for talking back to Julia. I could actually invite Jennifer, Dorothy, Howie, and whoever else I wanted, to come over for my fourteenth birthday. The possibilities were endless. I jumped at a response before Eric got the chance.
"We can't."
Eric looked crestfallen. "Why not? I'd rather live with Dad. It'd be fun," he said, taking on that argumentative tone that usually meant a good old- fashioned sibling spat was about to erupt between us. "Why can't we??"
"Because Mom needs us," I answered with a bit more snap than I'd intended. It filled me with guilt. I understood his eagerness to accept Jimmy's offer, probably desired it even more than he did. But it would destroy Maggie. Nothing was worth that. Not even our happiness - at least not mine.
"She does not! All she does is leave. She doesn't care about us; she doesn't try to get better! I don't wanna take care of her anymore. We're the kids, Abby. She's s'pposed to take care of us."
His words stung. They weren't things I hadn't thought of myself, but to hear them said out loud by my brother, the one I counted on to stick by my side when it came to Maggie, shook me up inside. I was angered by his disloyalty, hurt by the truth in what he'd said, frightened that I was losing him, and suddenly more alone than ever before. "It's not her fault she's sick," I said heatedly. "She does the best she can. She always says we're what keep her alive. And at least when SHE leaves, she comes BACK."
"Shut up, Abby!" Eric leaned forward to yell at me, like that might block what I'd said from reaching Jimmy's ears. I saw the moisture in his dark eyes. He hadn't yet mastered holding it in the way I did.
"You shut up!"
"Hey, hey, hey." Gently, Jimmy seized both of us by the shoulder. He pushed Eric back against his pillow. If he felt me shaking, he didn't let on. I was glad he'd stopped us. I didn't approve of my behavior - despised it, actually. Making a big scene was Maggie's style, not mine. She didn't think twice about screaming or arguing in public.
For a seventh grade writing assignment, I'd submitted a poem called "Shame." The teacher praised my work, saying it was one of the most moving and expressive responses he'd seen from a student in a long time. I concocted some goofy story about how I'd gotten the idea, but truthfully it was taken from my experiences with Maggie. The shame I felt when all eyes were on the woman throwing a tantrum in the grocery store or on an airplane, the shame of them watching me try to control her, the shame of them knowing that person they considered a freak was my mother. It amazed and disturbed my friends that I could walk away from insults and fights so easily. They told me to be more aggressive, duke it out. They mistook my bowing out for timidity. But it was just me protecting myself, because nothing any of our snide classmates said or did could bother me nearly as much as chancing a breakdown like the ones Maggie had, to have people look at me the way they looked at her.
"Let's calm down a little bit here," he said, catching me by surprise when he lifted me, his hands hooked under my armpits, and sat me down on the end of Eric's bed. I crossed my arms and stared at the floor. But he made me look at him, raised my chin with his finger so I didn't have a choice. "Look, Abby, I know you love your mom. That wouldn't have to change if you came to live with me. You wouldn't have to stop seeing her or anything. I don't want to take you away from her. But she's a grown woman; she has to take care of herself. You and Eric are still young yet. It's not right for her to run off and leave you alone."
I swallowed the bitter words that seeped onto my tongue, burning it, burning my throat as I pushed them down, down, down. A retreating fire. I craved something that would quench the little flames of hate and sorrow that settled to burn inside me like they always did. Hypocrite, I wanted to sling at him. You can leave, but no one else can. Who was there to help me tackle third grade math? Who'd sat up with me all night, soaking washcloths in a basin and pressing them gently over my eyes because I had such a bad case of pink eye I could barely see? Who was the one that gave me a hug and showed me what to do when I'd gotten my first period? Maggie. My mother. I trusted her a million times more than I did Jimmy. It would have been so easy to say, to yank him down from his high horse and make him face up to the fact that he was no better than her. But I held it in, fearful to start a confrontation that might make him see in me those qualities he so abhorred in Maggie.
"I'll tell you what..." He tapped his fingers against my knees like he was playing a drum roll as introduction to his next sentence. "What if you and Eric stay for a regular visit, and by the time Maggie gets back, if you aren't happy and still don't want to live with me, you can go back to living with her? Sound fair?"
It sounded like trouble. Nothing ever went that smoothly, and whatever the outcome, someone would inevitably be hurt by my and Eric's decision. I could stop it all now with a flat out no; I knew Jimmy wouldn't force me to accept. To be honest, I doubted it was even his idea to ask in the first place. Julia was probably a sucker for a good sob story and talked him into bringing us home, a couple of stray pups to usher in from the cold. Playmates for her real kids. Eventually she'd get tired of us too. Either she wouldn't be able to handle my constant worrying, or Eric's tendency to cling would make her avoid him, or she would tire of the way we both nearly jumped out of our skin if someone moved too quickly or spoke too loudly around us. Whatever the reason, she'd end up wanting to run away from us. Just like everybody else.
"Please, Abby," Eric whispered, his anger replaced with desperation. I made the mistake of looking at him, falling into the trap of his pitiful brown eyes. Whether he meant for them to or not, they were able to manipulate me, cloud my judgment. My reasons for not wanting to agree with Jimmy were swayed by Eric's reasons for why we should. No matter what I said there was no way to completely shield him from being sad in the long run, I might as well choose what made him happiest now.
I focused on Jimmy again, my steady gaze making him uncertain. I think he wanted to back away, but didn't. He stood his ground, his hands cupped on my knees. But I'd already been defeated. "We can try it that way, I guess," I said slowly, quietly. "Until Maggie gets back."
I faked a smile for my brother and my dad, pretending to go along with their talk of how much fun we were going to have together and how it would be nice for Jimmy to have another guy around in a house chock full of females. By the time Julia and the girls returned, it was as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened at all. None of them recognized my guilt. I told myself I hadn't turned my back on Maggie, it was right and good for me to spend time with these people. But I felt like a traitor.
