Grief Girl (3 page)

         

“It's not a cyst.”

“Well, what is it, then?” Tracy asks.

Mum's just come back from the doctor. She's standing at the kitchen sink, and I can't tell if she's going to laugh or cry.

“It's a baby,” she says. “I'm going to have a baby.”

I'm in shock. Mum and Dad still do it? Ewww. It doesn't seem right. The last time they did it was probably when they had me.

“That's great, Mum,” I say, hoping the disgust I feel doesn't show on my face. I'm excited at the prospect of a baby brother or sister, but how it came about, I don't want to know.

“Hey, Dad, it might be a boy. You'll have a son!” I say.

“Well, we'll see, hey,” he says. I don't think he wants to get too excited in case he gets stuck with another girl in the house. First he hoped Tracy was a boy, then me, so I can sort of understand.

When I watch football with him, I think he can tell I'm not that interested. I just pretend to be. A son would probably care about the things Dad does, like fishing and sports and documentaries about tough men doing tough things like climbing mountains and diving for sunken treasure.

         

Mum's always been tired and unhealthy.

A few years ago, Dad forced Mum to go on a toboggan and she fell off and hurt her back. When checking to see if she was okay, the doctor found out she had kidney disease and had had it for a while. That explained her pale skin and the dark circles under her eyes and the fact that she's always so exhausted.

I suppose in a way Dad did Mum a favor. If Mum hadn't fallen off the toboggan, she would never have found out about her kidneys, and they might have gotten worse. Dad's always doing us “favors” like that. He always forces Tracy and me to do things we don't want to do. Like at the beach. We don't just relax on the sand and play in the surf. No, we do “activities,” with Dad screaming at us the whole time.

         

It's a boy! Dad finally has a son.

Mum's beaming, and Tracy and I are finally off the hook. We have an adorable baby brother, and Dad now has a fishing, football, and general adventure partner.

His name is Trent. Mum and Dad liked John, but Tracy and I convinced them that he deserves a more distinctive name for when he grows up. So Trent John Vincent he is.

He's the cutest baby to ever have lived, and that's not just because I'm his sister. I've never seen a baby like this before. All soft and warm and gentle and cuddly with fine blond curls. He's even got Dad all gushy.

The baby will get my room; I'm moving to Tracy's room, which I'm excited about; and Tracy's getting our old living room (we added on a couple of years ago and have a bigger living room at the back of the house). She's graduating from school in a month and is about to start work as a hairdressing apprentice, so she plans to decorate her new room in a style befitting her new position in the world.

“It's going to be all designer white,” she says.

Since Trent's arrival, Dad doesn't yell or throw things, and he smiles a lot more. And he doesn't stomp around with heavy feet and we don't have to walk on eggshells because of it. Probably because there's a baby in the house and he doesn't want to wake him. Whatever it is, I hope it lasts.

He's started singing a John Lennon song as Trent goes off to sleep.
“Close your eyes, have no fear…your daddy's here. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful boy.”

My dad's a big softie after all.

         

All my friends are going to a different high school. Because we live on the border of the school district, I'm stuck going to an all-girls' school with a reputation for drugs. I've heard that if you lift the drainage grates in the courtyard, you'll find syringes hanging there like ornaments on a Christmas tree. Apparently, this is the least of my problems. There's also the matter of pinning. Not the kind like the American movies from the fifties, where a girl wears a boy's pin to announce that they're dating, but the Australian kind, where you get a pin in your bum for being a new kid.

I'm in the assembly hall with all the other year seven girls—our first year of high school. There's a girl sitting next to me who doesn't look the least bit scared.

“Have you heard about the pinning?” I whisper to her as the principal drones on about what a great school community we're joining.

“Oh, I'm sure that's just a rumor,” she whispers back.

“I'm Julie.”

We are given forms that tell us which class we're going into: 7-1 is for the smartest, 7-6 is for the dumbest. Julie and I are in 7-2.

We walk to class together and quickly discover I was right and Julie was wrong. Pinning is alive and thriving at Beverly Hills Girls' High.

I feel a jab before I even get to first period. By second period, I'm walking with my back to the corridor walls.

“Erin, that's only going to make them notice you more,” Julie laughs. She hasn't been pinned yet.

It went on for a few weeks. But I didn't care. I had a best friend.

         

My thirteenth birthday party.

Living on crackers, Tab, and Popsicles has paid off. I'm skinny. So I decide to have a pool party. For some reason, I'm nervous. I keep going to the bathroom. Suddenly I feel like something has just dropped inside of me and come out the other end. I stare into the toilet.

“Mum!” I yell. “I think my friends have arrived.”

“There's no one here yet. They're not due till twelve o'clock.”

“Not those friends, the other friends. You know,
friends
friends,” I say in that “you know what I'm saying” voice.

Mum appears at the door. “Oh dear.”

My stupid friends have come and they're not invited—some friends! No one told me it would be like this. It's not like cutting your finger or anything. This blood is all dark and lumpy and gooey.

How can I have a pool party like this?

“Calm down, Erin.” My mother rummages under the bathroom sink. “Here, try this.” She passes me a big fat maxi pad wrapped in pale pink plastic. Some birthday present!

“I can't put that mattress between my legs!”

“Just put it on,” she says, trying to be sternly sweet.

I feel like I'm wearing one of Trent's diapers. “Mum, what am I going to do?”

Mum gets Tracy. “What is it? I'm going to be late,” Tracy huffs. She's going out and hasn't finished blow-drying her hair.

“Erin's friends have just arrived,” Mum whispers.

“Maybe you could show her how to use a tampon so she can still go in the pool today?”

“Tampon? I'm not sticking one of those things up me!” I protest. “How will I know where to put it? What if I put it in the wrong hole?”

“It's not such a big deal, Erin,” Tracy says, trying not to laugh. She shows me what to do. Tracy is being so nice about it, all helpful and sisterly. We finally have something in common: tampons.

I put it in the right hole. My real friends arrive. And the party starts.

         

I want a job. I want to be able to buy my own clothes and stuff. Mum says no one will hire me because I'm too young.

I decide to test this out. I spend a day walking from store to store at the mall Tracy works at. I strike gold at Cookie Man. A peppy man with blond hair hands me a gingersnap and tells me I can fill out an application.

I walked to the back of the store and see the cookie-making machine churning dough and dropping dollops onto a metal tray before rolling them into the oven and popping them out the other end.

This is the place for me.

I'm afraid to tell the manager my age, but I'm also afraid of lying about it. So I tell him the truth. “I know I'm underage, but I'm a really hard worker,” I confess hopefully.

It works. He asks me to come in next week and give it a try.

         

I've been asked to be part of the Shopfront Theater tour. Errol, Shopfront's founder, has chosen a cast of nine actors, ranging from ages eleven to twenty, to represent the theater by performing two plays in England, Scotland, and Wales next April, only ten months away.

“We're going to show the rest of the world just what kids can do,” he says.

Now I just have to get Mum to let me go. She let me get a part-time job at Cookie Man in the mall. So…

“Please? I'm fourteen. This could be the start of something big.”

But Mum isn't so sure. She shushes me each time I bring it up. “We'll think about it, Erin,” she says, which usually translates into no.

But surprisingly, this time she says yes. She'll let me go off to England to die. That's what the decision is for her. That's how big it is. She isn't just letting me go to England on a six-week theater tour. In her mind she's letting me go off possibly never to come back—to die before her in some terrible accident. Maybe I get my dramatic nature from her.

         

I'm at Shopfront after a long day of rehearsal. Errol is yelling at us.

“Do you think we can take these plays overseas the way they are? We've been going over this for months now and it's still not good enough. You all have to work harder.”

Errol yells and I love it, the drama of the theater. This is what it's all about.

I'm sitting on a dirty old green sofa with the foam popping out at the arms—very cool and artistic. Bright sunlight is coming in. Little specks of dust fly around, putting on their own little show. On the walls around me are photos of past productions and on the dirty red carpet are my bare bohemian feet.

My mind wanders. A daydream pops up out of nowhere.

I'll be sitting in this same chair a week from today and Mum and Dad will be gone. Tragedy will strike. Life will be ruined, changed forever. But the show must go on. I'll have to struggle on without them. I'll be up onstage rehearsing through the pain and everyone will think I'm noble and brave. Most people, if their parents died, would never be able to perform…but not me. I'm amazing and strong. It will be the best performance of my life. Everyone will say,
“Look at her! Isn't she incredible? A true star.”

I don't really mean it, God. Really, I don't. It's just some stupid scenario my fourteen-year-old brain came up with. It's the dramatic actress in me. Please don't listen to me, God. You wouldn't let anything like that happen. Of course you wouldn't.

October 23, 1983

I'
m running.

And they chase me. I run down the stairs, around the first floor of the house, and back up again. I'm running nowhere, really, but I don't know what else to do.

They stop chasing me. They probably don't know what else to do either. My whole body is a scream. I want to run away from what I've just heard. I want to run out of myself, out of the nightmare, out of the thoughts in my head.

Then Uncle Steele catches me. His arms are strong. The house is spinning like Dorothy's in
The Wizard of Oz.
He hugs me and I think I'm going to be sick. Auntie Connie, Theo, and Venise are crying and looking at me. None of us knows what to do.

“Come on, Erin.” Auntie Connie is leading me to Venise's room. “Try and lie down.”

I don't think I can. “What about Venise? Where will she sleep?” I feel sick.

Venise is standing in the doorway. “It's okay, Erin,” she says.

Venise's room is all white and pink and pretty. Flowers everywhere, on the walls and on the bedspread I'm now lying under. I'm in a sea of flowers. I've stepped into a bad painting, like one of Mum's cheap production-line oils that Dad hates.

Every inch of me is shaking. Even my insides are shaking. I can't seem to control it. I'm shaking like Mum did when Nanny died. Does everyone shake this much when someone dies?

“I think we'd better call a doctor,” Auntie Connie whispers to Uncle Steele.

Some time passes, but I don't know how much. A doctor arrives. He's old and gray and tall. He leans close to me. “I'm going to sedate you to calm you down and help you sleep.”

“No, you're not!” I yell.

“It will help you,” he tells me softly.

“Oh yeah?” My chin is trembling. “What, so I can go to sleep and wake up and have this start all over again? It'll be just as bad when I wake up.”

He's not listening to me. He pulls a needle from his brown leather bag.

“No way. You're not sticking that needle in my arm.” My voice is cold and determined.

So he doesn't. He leaves the room, followed by Uncle Steele.

I've got to stay awake. I've got to stay awake for when they finally find Tracy.

“Where is your sister?” Auntie Connie asks.

“Dancing,” I say.

Tracy's a total disco freak. She wears tube tops and satin jeans that are so tight she has to lie on her bed to zip them up with a wire coat hanger. She looks amazing in them.

What will Tracy do? I don't want her to know. Mum's everything to her. Mum's her best friend. Tracy won't be able to take it. She's always dreamed of the good life. Nice clothes, nice car, dancing all night. She's the fun, popular party girl with a lot of living to do. This will ruin her.

I don't want her to feel this. I don't want to tell her, but I don't want anyone else to. I should be the one to do it. That seems like the right thing, the best thing.

There's a screech of tires outside.

They found her.

When Tracy walks through that door, life as she knows it will be over. She charges into the house and I'm out of bed with somewhere to go. I have to be the one to tell her.

“What's going on? What's all this crap about Mum?” she yells to no one in particular.

We're all standing in the living room near the front door.

I start to cry. “Tracy, there's been an accident. Mum's dead.”

Just like that.

I've said it. Saying it out loud for the first time makes the horror suddenly seem even worse. Truer, somehow. I opened my mouth and out came the words I've always dreaded.

“That's ridiculous!” Tracy's laughing. “Where is she?”

“She's dead, Tracy. She's dead. Please believe me,” I beg, crying. “They went to Liverpool Hospital. Tracy, Mum's dead,” I blubber.

Now she's really angry.

“Liverpool Hospital? This is stupid, Erin. I'm going to the hospital to find Mum.”

“Can I come?”

“Stay here!”

“Please!” I'm still crying.

“No.” She seems mad at me. Like it's my fault, like I made it happen and have no right to go with her.

“Tracy, let me drive you,” Uncle Steele says.

“No. I'm fine,” she says, all composed.

She storms out. The shaking is starting again. “Here, Erin, wrap this blanket around you,” Auntie Connie says, trying not to cry.

The pale blue blanket is soft and warm.

I suppose I did make it happen for Tracy. I'm the one who told her.

         

Tracy's back. Her face looks empty. Mum's dead and she knows it.

I don't know what to do. I don't know what to say. I don't even know what I'm feeling. This can't be happening. I'm going to wake up soon and I'll be back home in my bed. Dad will be up, whistling to the radio as he makes breakfast. Tracy will be sleeping in, and Mum will be getting dressed while Trent stands next to her chatting away in his husky little voice.

“We've got to get Trent. He's still at Evelyn's,” I say, crying.

Although Evelyn is Mum's best friend and I know he's safe, I want Trent. We've got to get Trent. What are we going to do about Trent? What's he going to do? I want Trent.

It's now four o'clock in the morning. Everyone's talking so low.

“I guess we better go home,” Tracy says. I'm staring at one of Auntie Connie's tapestries on the wall. I guess there's no point in finishing mine now.

“You can stay for as long as you want, you know,” Uncle Steele says.

“No, we really should go,” Tracy says, determined.

“We're here if you need us,” Auntie Connie says, hugging me.

“Thanks, Auntie Connie,” I say, unwrapping myself from the blanket.

“No, Erin. Keep it.”

         

Tracy and I are standing at the top of the hill. The same hill we used to skateboard down.

I don't want to go home, but Tracy says we have to.

I'm walking wrapped in a blanket like those people in old movies on their way to the gallows. They know what's in store for them, but they don't
really
know. It's misty and quiet. I can almost hear the drum beating in the background. No, that's my heart. There I go again. Why am I always so melodramatic?

We're here. Our little redbrick house at the bottom of the cul-de-sac. I don't want to go in there. I can't.

“Do you have your keys?” Tracy asks.

“Yes,” I say, but I can't find them. This makes her mad, so I find them.

I knew it would all be different when we came back. I knew when I locked that door that I was shutting it all away.

We walk in.

Everything is different.

I go straight to my bedroom and scream into my pillow.