My Mother Got Married (11 page)

Ben started coming closer. As I heard his footsteps I drew my arms tighter around my hidden face. Somehow I forced myself to stop the tears.

He stood there a moment before sitting down next to me. When he did, our arms touched.

I pulled away.

I was still making quiet snuffling noises by then, but I was pretty much under control. I kept my head down, though. I felt uncomfortable as anything.

Nervously I shifted my feet. What should I do? What should I say? Did he know? Should I confess?

I rolled my eyes. Confess? Yeah, sure … right, Charlie.

Oh, by the way, Ben, I made Thomas fall off the roof and break his collarbone. He’s keeping it a secret so I’ll like him.

I felt more tears well up in my eyes. I was going to start crying again. I just couldn’t find a way out.

Without saying a word, Ben reached out for me. I felt his arm around me, and I buried my face in his shoulder. I didn’t even think about it.

We stayed like that until the crying stopped again. It wasn’t the noisy kind this time. Just the quiet, muffled sniffling you do when you’re finishing up.

Through it all, Ben didn’t say a word. Except for my sniffling and a little gulping, the two of us remained silent. The silence wasn’t awkward, though. Not like the strained silences we’d had on our trip to Lake Murky.

When I was finished, I lifted my face off his shoulder and wiped my eyes. Ben gave me one last pat and removed his arm. No sense overdoing the hugging stuff. Not when neither one of us was used to it.

I couldn’t think of anything to say. I guess Ben couldn’t either. The awkwardness was coming between us again. You could almost feel it start to separate us.

I couldn’t stand it this time. Maybe it was the guilt. Or maybe I just felt closer to Ben than I had before.

“Thomas fell off the roof,” I blurted out suddenly. “I was out there and he reached for me and I pulled away and he fell.”

I turned and looked him in the eye. “He did, Ben. I didn’t push him. I thought maybe I did at first, but I didn’t. I wouldn’t have done that. I know I wouldn’t have.”

Ben took his hand and brushed the hair back from my forehead. Then he looked at me and slowly nodded.

I waited for more, but it never came. He believed me, though. I could see in his eyes that he believed me.

We sat there another couple of minutes before Ben suddenly reached across my lap and picked up the photo of Dad and me and the sandbox. It was lying face down next to my leg. He turned it over and smiled.

The smile turned into a chuckle.

“Great picture,” he said, laughing softly. “That hoe was twice as big as you were.”

I sniffed and nodded.

He reached out and pulled the cardboard box of photos closer.

“Would you mind if I looked through the rest of these?” he asked, already digging into the carton.

I felt myself tensing up again. There was something about Ben looking into my box of pictures that felt wrong. I mean, the sandbox picture wasn’t really that personal. But to look through the whole box—I don’t know—it was almost like he was invading my family’s privacy or something.

I was still thinking it over when I heard Ben take a deep breath.

“Susan used to take a lot of pictures,” he said almost in a whisper.

It was the first time he’d ever mentioned his wife’s name. Susan.

Ben didn’t get weepy or anything. He just stared into space a second and then quickly reached into the box again. How could I say no after that?

The next picture was the most recent one that Mom and Dad and I had taken together. It was taken in a studio, the kind where the photographer gives you a choice of fake backgrounds to stand in front of.

I cleared my throat. “Those aren’t really the Alps,” I told Ben. “It’s just a picture of Alps.”

I wasn’t planning to explain every photograph. I just didn’t want him asking me a bunch of questions about Switzerland, that’s all.

The next picture was taken during one of our first family vacations.

Ben raised his eyebrows. “Disney World?”

“Land,” I corrected.

He pointed at me in the picture and smiled. “Thomas has one of those Donald Duck hats.”

My face turned red. I’ve never really forgiven my parents for buying me that hat. I know I begged, but they should have been stronger.

After another second or two, Ben dug deeper into the carton. I swallowed hard. Now we were getting to the personal stuff. My heart began to beat faster. I was almost positive which picture was next.

Maybe I should have warned Ben it was coming.

“Their wedding picture,” I blurted loudly.

Ben was surprised. You could see it in his eyes. The glass was smudged and dirty with fingerprints from all the times I’d held it. But he lowered it to his lap and stared through the smudges.

It was one of those pictures that you imagine seeing at the end of fairy tales. My mother was in this beautiful white gown and Dad was wearing one of those suits with a sash around the middle. They were standing in front of the altar in the church, kissing.

See? I wanted to yell. They really
did
love each other once!

I didn’t, though. I just sat there with my heart still pounding like crazy while Ben stared down at the picture. It took him a long time, too. I didn’t have a watch or anything, but it was definitely a while.

Finally he took a big deep breath and turned to me. Then he smiled this really sad smile.

“It’s really been hard on you, hasn’t it?” he asked me softly.

I didn’t answer.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I wish I could have made things easier for you. I just didn’t know how.”

He put his arm around my shoulders again and held me.

I didn’t pull away.

(twelve)

T

HOMAS GOT to take his sling off a few weeks ago. You can tell that he misses the attention it brought him. The other day he made a sling out of an old towel and wore it to dinner. He asked Lydia to cut his meat loaf. Ben told him to go upstairs until he could act normal.

I guess you could say the two of us are making progress. Thomas and me, I mean. The last time Martin came over to play Monopoly, he started making the top hat and the iron dance with each other.

“Stop it, Thomas,” I ordered.

He ignored me.

“I mean it. Put them down.”

He continued to dance them around the board. I had no choice.

“Okay, Thomas. That’s it. If you don’t stop, I’m going to make the hand come out of the closet and kill you.”

Thomas isn’t as worried about the hand as he used to be. He put his mouth on his arm and started making bathroom noises. He seemed to think this was really hilarious. He was still laughing when I dragged him into the hall and locked him out of the room.

Martin was very impressed. He said as soon as we get a little more violent, we’ll be practically normal.

I don’t want to make everything sound okay, because it’s not. This isn’t one of those “they lived happily ever after” endings. I don’t believe in those anymore.

Lydia still hogs the phone like crazy. She sits there for hours saying absolutely nothing of interest. I’m serious. I’ve had better conversations with a Mattel SEE ’N SAY.

Also, she still locks herself in the bathroom. These days I’m not as nice about it as I used to be. If I want to get in there, I just pound on the door and start screaming, “I gotta go! I gotta go!” When it comes to going to the bathroom, I have no pride.

The two of us don’t fight exactly. Mostly we just make fun of each other. Like the other night when I took off my tennis shoes, she held her nose.

“P.U.! What died?”

“Whoops, sorry,” I apologized. “I almost forgot. Big noses are more sensitive than normal ones.”

“There’s nothing wrong with my nose,” she snapped defensively.

“I didn’t say there was, Lydia. Noses like yours come in very handy. If we ever have a fire, you can spray it out.”

“Daaa-aad!” she screamed.

When Lydia tattles, she makes
dad
into two syllables.

Speaking of dads, mine took me to the zoo for the hundredth time last weekend. We don’t look at the animals anymore. Mostly we just have a picnic lunch and talk and stuff.

My father told me that he’d noticed a difference in me lately.

“You don’t seem to be as angry as you used to be,” he commented. “What d’you think? You think that maybe you’re finally starting to adjust to your new situation?”

“No!” I retorted quickly. “I’m not adjusting. Just because I’m not sulking all the time doesn’t mean I’m adjusting.”

I hate it when parents think you’re adjusting. It takes the guilt off of them or something.

I’ll tell you one person who’s finally started to change, though, and that’s my mother. I’m serious. She’s finally beginning to treat Thomas the way she should have treated him all along. The other day he called her a “giant poopy” and she marched him right up to our room and made him stay there all day.

Thomas still wasn’t speaking to her at dinner. Even though we were having hamburgers, he refused to eat.

I could hardly keep from laughing. It was great seeing someone else in trouble for a change. Just to be annoying, I stuffed a giant bite of cheeseburger into my mouth and grinned at Thomas with my mouth opened. Ben said for me to get down from the table until I could eat like a human being.

Speaking of Thomas, he turned six last week. I gave him my globe. No big deal. I just slapped on a bow and handed it to him during the ice cream and cake.

His eyes lit up like you wouldn’t believe. “Mine? Is this for me? I get to have your world?”

I just shrugged. It’s not like it cost me anything. And besides, I already know what the world looks like. It’s round and it’s bumpy and it spins.

But mostly it changes. Volcanoes blow up and the seasons go from winter to summer and every day turns into night. And people get divorced and then they get married again and the next thing you know, you’re sharing your bedroom. And sometimes you’re angry and sometimes you’re sad, and sometimes you’re so confused, you don’t know what you are.

And they say that time fixes everything, but it doesn’t. Not everything. Time can’t change what’s already happened. It can only help you accept it a little easier, that’s all.

And even if some of the anger starts to go away after a while, you don’t have to run around telling your parents how much better you’re feeling.

And you don’t have to eat fiber cereal either.

Oh, yeah, and you don’t have to keep your memories in a box in the attic. You can bring them down and put them on your dresser if you want to.

You can.

Ben helped.

Don’t Make Me Smile
by Barbara Park

The way Charlie Hickle sees it, there’s no reason to smile. His parents are getting a divorce, and there doesn’t seem to be anything he can do about it. Not that Charlie doesn’t try. He does everything he can think of to convince his parents that he’ll go nuts if they get a divorce. He threatens to spend the rest of his life in a tree. He refuses to eat his mother’s cooking. He causes trouble in school and makes rude comments about his father’s new apartment. With a little help from a new friend, though, Charlie finally starts to accept the inevitable changes in his life—but not until he makes a hilarious last-ditch effort to get his parents back together.

“Funny and touching—a good read.”

—
Children’s Book Review Service

“The author does make you smile, proving that there is still room for one more middle-grade problem novel on divorce.”

—
Booklist

BARBARA PARK
is one of today’s funniest, most popular authors. Her middle-grade novels have won more than forty children’s book awards. She is also the creator of the hilarious Junie B. Jones series. Barbara holds a BS in education from the University of Alabama. She has two grown sons and lives with her husband, Richard, in Arizona.

Table of Contents

Cover

Other Books by This Author

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

(one)

(two)

(three)

(four)

(five)

(six)

(seven)

(eight)

(nine)

(ten)

(eleven)

(twelve)

About the Author