The Chance You Won't Return (11 page)

“I’m not going to make you,” Dad said, “but if you want to come to the hospital, I’ll write you a note to get you out of school for the day.”

“For the emotional strain,” I said.

“Something like that.”

I unplugged the iron. Who was going to notice wrinkles now, anyway? Amelia Earhart probably didn’t have time to iron. “Fine. Count me in. I’ll make sure to get the straitjacket washed before then.”

Dad smiled and put his arm around my shoulders, planting a kiss on the top of my head. “I’ll iron it for you.”

Friday was two days away. I kept thinking about what it would be like to have to go pick up Mom. After not having seen her for almost a week, it had all started to feel unreal, like I’d imagined the whole situation. But then I’d remember seeing her in the driver’s seat, unable to figure out how to get home.

I went back to the library a couple of times a day. Just to look, I told myself. Maybe there would be some clue, some detail of Earhart’s life that would tell me why my mother had gone crazy. That would help me when I had to live with her again. One of the biographies was actually by Amelia Earhart, which I hadn’t noticed the first time around. I pulled it from the stacks and shifted it from hand to hand, as if I would catch whatever my mom had, just from being too close to the words.

She speaks directly to other young women,
the back cover read,
urging them to test themselves, to go as far as they can — and beyond.

What was “beyond”?

I slid the book back onto the shelf and took out the other biography, the one I’d torn pages from. Flipping to the index, I hoped to find some term that would stand out.
Friendship, flight across the Atlantic. Roosevelt, Eleanor. Putnam, George Palmer.
At least George was Amelia’s husband. It would have been too confusing if Amelia had never married — Mom might not have gone anywhere with Dad if she thought he was a random guy.

I turned to one of the pages about George. Amelia had written him a letter before they got married, saying she wasn’t exactly nuts about the idea, but she’d give it a try as long as he understood she couldn’t be tied down:
On our life together I want you to understand I shall not hold you to any midaevil code of faithfulness to me nor shall I consider myself bound to you similarly. . . . I must exact a cruel promise and that is you will let me go in a year if we find no happiness together.

Shit,
I thought.
Did they break up?

What would Dad do if Mom tried to leave him, thinking she was Amelia Earhart leaving George Putnam? Did Mom even know about this letter? I flipped ahead, trying to find some hint of marital problems. No section on divorce in the index. Maybe it had worked out all right for George and Amelia. Until she went missing, that is.

Even so, I didn’t want to leave the page with the letter behind. I could quote it, or something, and see Mom’s reaction. And then I thought I should take a few more pages, about George and Amelia’s relationship, just in case. I looked around — a group of kids was at the far table, sharing math homework. A few others were going over Spanish vocabulary in the corner. The librarians were at their desk. I waited until I heard the chanting of verbs —
viajo, viajas, viaja
— and tore.

What the hell was my problem? I could just check it out, like a normal person. But having the entire book on me would have been like admitting that something was really wrong. Besides, in the grand scheme of things, I figured this wasn’t so bad. If Mom could become another person altogether — a famous historical figure, at that — then I could become a vandal of school property.

I grabbed a random biography, just in case, and went to the librarians’ desk. The young librarian I’d seen before put down her coffee. “Checking out?” she said, taking the book. “Curie is fascinating.”

“What?” I said, then glanced down. I’d picked up a copy of Marie Curie’s biography. “Oh, right. Yeah. She’s great.”

She stamped the back of the book. “Due on the sixteenth of November. Interested in chemistry? Or just some fun reading?”

I shoved the book into my bag, on top of the ripped pages from the Amelia Earhart book. “No,” I said. “Research.”

At lunch on Thursday, Josh complained about the SAT prep class his parents had signed him up for. “Last night it was like, ‘Pass the chicken; here’s your prep book,’” he said, drowning his fries in ketchup. “It’s every Saturday morning. At eight. Who does that? They looked at me all happy, like I should throw myself on the floor and kiss their feet because now I’m going to get a perfect score.”

Theresa was pulling apart her chicken enchilada. She wrinkled her nose. “Is that supposed to be guacamole?”

“Thanks for all the sympathy,” Josh said.

“It’s not like they signed you up for boot camp or one of the rehab clinics out in Montana. And if you get a good SAT score, you can get into college and out of here.”

That was how Theresa saw a lot of our academic career at Oak Ridge — a means to an end. I hadn’t even picked up one of those prep books. Mom might have mentioned it over the summer, but she definitely wasn’t on my case now.

“And you’ve already memorized the SAT vocab list,” Josh said.

Theresa looked kind of smug but didn’t get a chance to answer, because Caroline Lavale appeared at our table. “Hey, y’all,” she said, smiling so it looked like her lips hurt. “How’s it going?”

“Hey, Caroline,” Maddie said. “Do you need a place to sit?”

Caroline shook her head and laughed. “No, I just wanted to tell you about the pep rally and game this weekend. We’re playing Franklin, and they’re, like, the team to beat, so we’re hoping to get a really good crowd.”

“Sorry, we don’t exactly do football. Or anything involving physical exertion and the accompanying cheering,” Theresa said. She’d either forgotten that I’d been on the soccer team until recently or had chosen to ignore that fact. “Besides, why do you care what the football team does? They’re not exactly good.”

“I do color guard,” Caroline said.

Theresa looked at Josh. “Another thing your parents could have done to you.”

I remembered how Nick and the other football players stopped me in the hallway and talked about my mom. “Um, hello, you were there,” I told Caroline. “I fucked up the football field. I’m the team’s worst enemy. Pretty sure no one wants me at the game.”

“They fixed it fine,” Caroline said. “I’m sure if you apologized —”

“Apologized?” My eyes hardened.

“Anyway.” Caroline kept smiling but the sunshine drained from her eyes. “I really hope you all show up. It would mean a lot to the players and all of us in color guard and cheerleading.”

“Yeah, well, they’d better hope I don’t do it again.” I didn’t really mean to snarl like that — usually Caroline was fine — but I couldn’t help it. At my side, Theresa grinned. “See you in driver’s ed,” I told Caroline as she rushed to the next table.

After my last class, I shoved my way through the crowds to get to Jim’s locker. He was there already, sifting through notebooks, and didn’t notice me a few feet away. For a second, I wavered — what if Jim was okay with the occasional phys ed conversation but not with extended periods of time together? Then I remembered the Amelia Earhart quote, about going to the edge and beyond. I was barely anywhere, let alone beyond.

“Hey, Jim,” I said. “Remember when you said we should drive again? Can we try that? You teaching me how to drive?”

He raised his eyebrows. “Now?”

“No, not now.” It would have to be soon, before I lost my nerve. “How about tonight? I can probably get my mom’s car again.” It wasn’t like she’d be using it anytime soon. Even when she came home tomorrow, Dad probably wouldn’t just let her drive off.

“Works for me,” Jim said, closing his locker. “Are you still doing straight lines?”

I hadn’t exactly practiced since that night in the parking lot. Whenever Dad wasn’t at work or at the hospital, he passed out in the chair at home. “How can I get out of straight lines if you haven’t taught me anything else?”

He laughed. “Fair enough. I’ll come by your place. Around seven?”

“Sounds great. See you tonight,” I said, walking away before I could talk myself out of it or say anything stupid. I wasn’t sure how it would feel to get behind the wheel of a car again. But even if I threw up or passed out or otherwise made myself look ridiculous in front of Jim Wiley, it was something I needed to do. And not so I could get my license or pass driver’s ed. Not even so I could stop being that dumb girl who couldn’t drive. I just didn’t need one more thing to be afraid of.

Teddy was at a friend’s house and Katy had gymnastics that afternoon, so I holed up in our room with the freshly torn Amelia Earhart biography pages. For the last few days, I’d had to look at the pages in secret, hidden in another book or after Katy had gone to sleep. Now I had the chance to spread them out on my bed so I could see all of them at once. There were nine in all — two that were just photos, the rest all text. I felt like an archaeologist who had excavated bits of clay pots and pipes and was now trying to figure out how it all fit together within the context of my mother’s own history.

One page was about Amelia’s first ride in an airplane — how she went up in a plane with Frank Hawks, and that was when she knew what she wanted to do with her life. She said,
As soon as we left the ground, I knew I myself had to fly.
Another was about a flight around the world, which didn’t work the first time she tried it. She and her navigator, Fred Noonan, couldn’t get off the ground in Hawaii. The next time she tried the around-the-world thing, she disappeared.

There was one picture of her sitting in a cockpit, turning her head to look back. She wasn’t looking at the camera, just at something or someone beside it. All the dials and knobs made me queasy, especially after reading about how Amelia probably died during her flight around the world.

I held up a page with a picture of Amelia and George. She was crouching on the wing of a plane and he stood in front of her, holding her hand up as if he were about to kiss it. The caption underneath said that they were saying good-bye in Miami, before her final flight. But neither of them would have known that about the “final” part. I wondered if the picture had been staged. Maybe they’d stood that way for fifteen minutes to get the right shot.

The door opened; Katy barged in. “What’s that?” she asked, tossing her gym bag on her bed.

I shuffled the papers together and pulled them onto my lap. “Aren’t you supposed to be at gymnastics?”

She kicked off her sneakers. “Amy had a dentist appointment, so we left early. What’s that?”

“Nothing,” I said. “Stuff for class.”

She smirked. “Uh-huh. Then why are you hiding it like it’s porn?”

“Geez, Katy, it’s not porn. Just mind your own business, all right?”

“Then why won’t you show me?” Katy lunged for the papers. I tried to hold her off, but she had stronger arms. (Stupid gymnastics.) She tugged hard and got a few pages, staring at them in confusion.

“These are just from a book,” she said, turning them over in her hand. “What is this, Amelia Earhart?” She looked at me. “Did you steal these?”

“No,” I said, standing and grabbing for them. If she threw them out or messed them up, I’d never have them to study again. “I found them like that.”

She held me off with her hand. “Then why are you freaking out about them? What did you do, tear them out at a bookstore? And it’s not even, like, a good book. That is so freaking weird, Alex. You are seriously mental.”

It was that word. Katy was almost laughing; I couldn’t help myself. “Maybe it runs in the family,” I said, pushing her away. “Where do you think Mom is? She’s not sick with pneumonia or exhausted or whatever Dad told you. She’s crazy. She thinks she’s Amelia Fucking Earhart. Now, just give me back those pages already!”

Katy handed them over. Her expression was numb — she might as well have been a mannequin — and it seemed like all the blood had drained from her face. In the next room, I could hear Teddy jumping on his bed, something Mom never let him do.

“What are you talking about?” Katy said, voice choked. “She’s fine.”

“No, she’s not.” I tucked the Amelia Earhart pages in one of my notebooks. Katy’s face started to tense, but I kept going. “We’re bringing her home because we have to, not because she’s a whole lot better. Remember when we saw her with those map printouts in the kitchen? That was because she thought she was Amelia Earhart, not because she wanted to take us to Florida.”

“She was tired.”

“Oh, come on,” I said. Katy’s eyes and cheeks reddened. “You had to know. I basically told you — before, that first night she was gone.”

Katy stumbled backward, meaning to sit on her bed but missing and collapsing on the floor instead. “Ow,” she said, rubbing her tailbone. She looked up at me. “What do you mean, she thinks she’s Amelia Earhart? That’s, like, the stupidest thing I ever heard. You’re making it up.”

“I’m not. That’s what she told Dad and me after she freaked out at my school.” I slumped to the floor as well. “I was there. She’s really gone crazy.”

“You’re such a bitch,” Katy said, wiping her nose with her forearm.

My sister never swore. Usually I liked to do it to annoy her. Now it was strange to her hear call me a bitch. It didn’t sound right, as if she weren’t sure about using the word and was trying it out. For a second, I wished I could take it all back, shove the words back in my throat, even though she’d find out the truth soon enough. Even though I was relieved that I’d have someone to talk with about Mom. But then we heard footsteps on the stairs. Katy bolted into the hall and threw herself at Dad.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she said, really crying now.

Dad pulled her into his room. I followed and closed the door behind me. He didn’t even need to ask what Katy was talking about, just looked at me, his face fallen behind his beard. “Alex —” he said.

“What?” I said. “You had to tell her today, anyway. It wasn’t like you could keep it a secret for much longer. Mom’s coming home tomorrow. What were you going to do, surprise them?” I felt like I could go careening off the walls with so much pent-up energy all coming out at once.