Nest (9 page)

It’s not a good night for peeing behind a bush. It’s not a good night for pulling my pants down outside. Mom says it’s important for girls to move through the world with a sense of purpose so that they’re not
easy targets.
Swing your arms. Take up space. Show that you’re a strong girl
. Mrs. Newlon, on the corner, is bringing her pumpkin in off of the porch. I give her a strong wave and a strong shout—“Hello, Mrs. Newlon!”—but I guess she doesn’t hear me, because she closes her door and turns her porch light off.

The Graysons. The Bonazolis. Home. I’m just about home. There are people standing in the road. Joey and his two brothers, lit up by the moonlight.

“What’s up?” Vinnie says, and starts walking toward me. He’s wearing a beat-up leather jacket. He’s got something behind his back.

“What’s shakin’?” Donny says. He’s got something, too. Joey’s following them, looking down.

“Happy Halloween, Tweety Bird,” Vinnie says. He’s the oldest one. He jerks his chin up to get his stringy blond hair out of his eyes.

“How’s Dr. Dad, the headshrinker?” Donny asks. His face is all pimply, and he always looks mad, even when he’s pretending to be friendly. “Has he been shrinking your head lately?”

“I think I see something there on her neck.” Vinnie takes a step closer to me, stares hard. He smells like cigarette smoke. “Yeah, I definitely see a little round thing on her neck. Must be her head.”

He laughs. Donny laughs. Joey’s quiet, staring at the ground.

“Think fast, bro,” Vinnie says, and he tosses an egg, gently, to Joey. Joey catches it. “Maybe Chirp
would like to play ball, Joey. Why don’t you throw it to her?” He winks at his brother.

“Nah,” Joey says, and he tosses the egg back to Vinnie.

“Aw, that’s not very nice of you, leaving the girl out,” Donny says. He takes an egg from behind his back. “I bet the nice girl wants to play ball. Don’t you want to play ball, nice little Jewish girl?”

I shake my head. I start walking backward.

“I think she does,” Vinnie says.

“I’m sure she does,” Donny says.

“It’s the windup,” Vinnie says.

Donny winds up.

I don’t want to cry. I don’t want to pee. I don’t want to run back into the dark, away from home.

“It’s the—”

“Wait!” Joey says. “I thought we were on a mission. Leave her alone. Her mom’s really sick. I’ll catch up to you guys. Meet you in front of the you-know-what.”

“Hey,” Vinnie says, “it looks like Joey’s got a girlfriend.”

“Oh, Joey, you’re my hero,” Donny says in a squeaky high voice, but he lowers his pitching arm.

“Oh, Joey, you’re just the cutest little
freak
!” Vinnie says, cracking up.

They’re laughing their heads off. They walk away. I can’t help it. I’m crying. Joey’s looking at me. He’s shaking his head. He doesn’t say anything.

“Sorry,” I say. “Thanks for helping me.”

“
You’re
sorry? You didn’t do anything. Jerks.” He kicks the ground.

“It’s just that this has been the worst Halloween ever,” I say. I hand Joey a wing. I throw mine down in the sand by the side of the road and sit on it. Joey watches his brothers walking away. Then he gently puts his wing down. He looks at it and nudges it with his sneaker a few times, like he’s trying to get it lined up just right, but with what, I can’t tell. Then he sighs, dusts the wing off with his hand, wipes his hand on his pant leg, and sits down.

“What I wanted was to go trick-or-treating with Rachel, like I always do, and come home and share candy with my mom and dad, but she convinced me to go with her to this stupid party.” Words keep filling up my mouth and spilling out. I tell Joey about the cat woman and Nixon and the bacon roll-ups. I tell him about the grown-ups sitting around blowing smoke. I’m not even sure if he’s listening, because I’m not looking at his face, but I don’t care. I can’t stop talking. I’m about to tell Joey about my walk home when he interrupts me.

“Wait,” he says, “I have an idea. Give me a head start, and then come over to my house. Make it quick, ’cuz I’ve got to go meet my brothers,” and he tears off across the street.

I walk into our backyard and pee behind our rhododendron bush, because I’ll pee in my pants if I wait one second longer, and then I run back to Joey’s
house, since I don’t want him to be late for his brothers and have them punch his arm or throw an egg at him. I ring the doorbell. Joey opens the door. I stand there, waiting for him to tell me his idea. He looks at me. I look at him. I hear a TV upstairs. I hear his father yell, “It’s pretty damn late for the doorbell, Joseph!” Joey just stands there.

Finally he says, “C’mon, Chirp.”

“C’mon, what?”

“Well, what do you say?” Joey says, and lifts his eyebrows up.

Finally I get it.

“Trick or treat!”

Joey smiles. He grabs a bowl of Hershey’s Kisses and SweeTARTS and Dots.

I put out my hands and he tips the bowl and dumps a big old pile in.

“Happy Halloween,” he says, and punches me in the arm one, two, three times, so gently it’s like he’s patting me. I’m a good dog and he’s patting me. Then he pulls the door closed behind us.

“Stay out of trouble,” he says.

“Woof,” I say.

Then he runs off to meet his brothers in front of the you-know-what.

Our porch light is on. Our pumpkin isn’t out anymore. Mom and Dad’s bedroom light is on. I bet
they’re lying in bed, talking. Maybe Mom’s saying
Wow, Katie Henderson was a pretty snazzy daisy with that homemade costume
, and Dad is saying
Yes, she looked sweet, but what I really wonder is what’s going on with the older brother. Did you see how much candy he took? He just reached in, and when I told him to take one of each, he acted like he didn’t hear me, which suggests that he’s dealing with issues of boundaries and …

I open the front door. The full candy bowl is sitting on top of the wicker sweater chest. Mom and Dad said that they would pass out candy. Dad stood right here in the front hall when Rachel was tying on my seagull wings and said, “Don’t worry, honey. We’ll man the fort. Candy in every bag!” and Mom nodded from the couch and said, “Of course we will. Of course. It’s Halloween,” and I could tell she was trying hard to make her voice sound excited. But Mom and Dad didn’t pass any candy out.

When no one answers the door on Halloween, it means that the people hate kids or someone is very, very sick and can’t even manage to hold out a bowl of candy and say
Help yourselves
, or they might actually be stone-cold dead.

I know that I should knock on Mom and Dad’s bedroom door and say I’m home, safe and sound. But I don’t feel safe, and I’m not sure what
sound
means. Somehow I bet I’m not feeling that, either. I’m cold and quivery, like someone dumped ice water down
my back, so I creep up the stairs, quiet, quiet, and into my room, where I pile up my blankets in the middle of my bed, the warm, snuggy red one and the fluffy white quilt and the yellow Therma-Weave that I’ve had since I was a baby. I put a Hershey’s Kiss in my mouth. I’m burrowing under and curling up tight in my nest with just a little air tunnel so that I can breathe. With my eyes closed, there’s only the sweet taste of chocolate and the quiet ocean rumble of Mom and Dad’s voices through my wall.

“I’m sure you’re already aware that this is important, since we never call family meetings,” Dad says, the next day after dinner. He’s standing in front of the fireplace, and his face looks worried, even though he’s talking in his calm, slow voice and nodding, like he’s happily agreeing with something. It must be an emergency, since we weren’t even supposed to clear the table or put the leftover spinach lasagna in the fridge. Just come follow Mom and Dad right into the living room.

What I’m hoping is that maybe Dad found out about the smoke at Genevieve’s house. I want him to give us a speech about appropriate behavior and then say that we’re not allowed at Genevieve’s house if grown-ups are blowing smoke in each other’s faces. And I wouldn’t mind at all if he finished up by saying
that he
really
would have expected that Rachel would have walked me home so I wasn’t at the mercy of hoodlums on Halloween and he’s a bit
disappointed
and thinks it might be a good idea for Rachel to say she’s sorry. Maybe he’ll even say that
he’s
sorry for forgetting to hand out the Halloween candy.

I can’t tell what Rachel’s hoping for, since I can’t see her face, because I’m sitting in the green chair and she’s sitting on the floor, playing with the fringe on her bell-bottoms. Mom’s stretched out on the couch.

“Well—” Dad says, and Rachel interrupts.

“You know, I have a ton of homework that I really need to do,” and Dad looks at Mom like
Honey, can you give me a hand here?
but Mom’s staring into space, like she’s a zombie.

Dad puts his hands on his hips. “Mom and I got disappointing news yesterday evening,” he says. “We heard from the neurologist that a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis has been confirmed.”

Rachel mumbles, “See, I knew it,” and Dad says, “I didn’t hear that, Rachel. What did you say?” but she just shakes her head and waves her hand near her ear like she’s swatting a mosquito.

“Of course, I’m aware that this is a lot to absorb. The doctor said that usually it takes longer to diagnose MS, but in this case they’re quite certain,” Dad says. Mom looks pale. I want to hold her hand, but I’m scared that it will feel cold and clammy. Mom is
the least cold and clammy person I know, but maybe her MS has already changed that.

“Your mother and I are open to any questions that you may have,” Dad says. I don’t think he’s noticed that Mom’s closed up shop. That’s what she always says when she’s tired and needs us to leave her alone for a while.
Kiddos, I’m closing up shop now. You need to give me a little break here
.

“First, I’d like to explain a bit about the disease,” Dad says. “And then I’d like to hear about what you’re feeling. Does that sound good?” He doesn’t wait for an answer. Rachel is pulling threads out of her fringe. She’s piling up little white strings on her knee.

“For our bodies to work properly,” Dad says, “our nerves send out signals, telling our bodies what to do. Our nerves are protected by a coating, called myelin. In the case of MS, the myelin sheath deteriorates, and it affects the way the signals get through to the body.”

Tears run down Mom’s face and drip off her chin. She’s not wiping them away. She’s not making a sound.

“Remember how we always take the subway when we visit Boston?” Dad asks. Last time we were there, Mom and I rode the swan boats in the Boston Public Garden while Dad and Rachel walked down Newbury Street. Mom yelled
Yahoo!
when the boat took off, so I yelled
Yahoo, too!
and the man pedaling the boat, who
reminded me of Bert in
Mary Poppins
because of his good-looking dark hair and the sparks in his green eyes, started laughing, and he gave us an extra-long ride because it was a slow day due to a nip in the air and a blowy wind and there was only one other passenger, an old lady, who was reading her book and not even looking around. Mom and I had our hair down, and the wind stirred it all up. A bunch of mallards followed us the whole way. When the ride was over, Mom did a fancy twirl and a really low curtsy for the driver and he said, “You must be a dancer,” and I said, “You should see her,” and he said, “Ah, if only I could,” and Mom smiled and turned pink, and the driver said, “Come back and visit me sometime.” Then Mom and I held hands, crisscrossed like ice dancers, and sashayed up the dock.

“Remember the pull cord you yank to signal to the conductor that he should stop the train at the next station?” Dad asks.

Rachel nods. I nod.

“Well, think of the nerve as the wire of the pull cord. The myelin sheath is like the plastic coating that protects the wire.”

“And I’m the damn train wreck,” Mom says in a quiet, hard voice.

“Hannah!” Dad starts to walk toward her.

“Don’t.” Mom’s zombie eyes are gone. She glares at Dad, and he stops walking.

There’s a long silence. On and on and on. I see
Joey’s porch light flick on. I hear a car drive by. Then Rachel says, “Is it okay if I get started on my biology project now?” and she gets up and walks out of the room.

Dad’s got his face in his hands. I wait to see if Mom will open up shop. I watch her face. Finally she feels me watching, and she gives me a sad smile. When I touch Mom’s hand, it’s cold and clammy, and that’s how I know that everything’s changed.