The Chance You Won't Return (23 page)

“I was trying to help,” I said, but my voice cracked on the last word. My face burned and throbbed as I struggled not to cry — not while she was staring at me so coldly, not like when we used to argue.
It’s not her,
I tried to remind myself, but a small part of me wanted her to wrap her arms around me so I could finally cry.

But that wasn’t going to happen. Instead, I rushed out of the room, thinking maybe she’d at least ask me to stay and look over maps, but she didn’t seem to notice that I’d gone. In the hall, I could hear her voice get calm and steady. I was sure she wasn’t talking to me.

Although I considered calling Dad at the post office, I waited until he got home to tell him about the stuff in Mom’s closet. After Halloween, it seemed like Dad was just waiting for me to mess up with Mom again. He had to leave me in charge when he wasn’t home, but afterward he would ask how things went, like he expected to find the house burned down or Mom having escaped in a prop plane. So I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to tell him about Mom’s stuff. But I figured he would probably have to know that kind of thing for therapy. (“Where did your wife learn about Earhart?” “Beats me, probably picked it up on the street.”) I waited until after dinner, when he had settled into his chair in the living room with the newspaper in his hand and Jackson at his feet.

He didn’t say anything at first, just stared at a spot on the carpet. I wasn’t sure he’d heard me until he said, “Do you think that was all of it?”

“I didn’t exactly get a chance to look around. She was really mad at me.” Mad seemed like the wrong word, but I didn’t know how else to describe how panicked and lost she’d been.

Jackson stretched and yawned, and Dad reached down to rub his ears. “I guess we know now,” he said.

“I guess.” I wanted him to thank me or say that it had been a helpful find, but he didn’t. “There was something else there, too. It was, like, test results.”

Dad looked at me and I knew I didn’t have to explain. “Your mom had some tests done a few months ago,” he said. “She’s fine. It was just something her doctor wanted to check on.”

“They thought she had cancer.”

He took a breath. “They wanted to make sure that she didn’t have cancer. Your grandma died of ovarian cancer, so they were just being cautious. Seriously. We didn’t want to worry you guys for no reason.”

I wondered how long Mom had to wait for the results. I didn’t even know what day she went in for testing. Maybe we’d fought that morning. Maybe she pretended to listen to Teddy repeat some joke he’d heard on TV while thinking about how something dangerous might have been growing inside her. But instead of asking Dad when it happened, I said, “What are you going to do? About the books and stuff.”

He jostled the paper. “Ask Dr. McGlynn about it.”

“But that’s not until the end of the week. Should we get rid of them? Or just leave them there? Do you think she looks at them a lot?”

“Alex, I don’t know. It can’t do any more harm to leave them there for a few more days, so that’s what I’m going to do. I think it’ll be worse if we try to move them — she’s probably worried about that, now that she knows that you know about them.”

The idea made me want to see if the stash was still in her closet. “But what if it just makes things worse?”

“I told you: I don’t know,” he said sharply. “I’m trying here, Alex, I really am, but I don’t have any of the answers hidden away. I’m trying as hard as I can to make the right calls. You’re just gonna have to trust me on this.”

I stood. “Fine.”

“Hey.” Dad set his newspaper aside. “You want to go over stuff for Mr. Kane’s test? That’s coming up.”

I paused at the door. “That’s all right. I got it.” When I was little, Dad would go over multiplication tables or spelling lists with me. And I really needed to ace this test. But now it seemed like he and I were fighting all the time, instead of Mom and me — a kind of trade. Trudging up the stairs to my room, I felt a thick emptiness in my stomach, like homesickness. Like I missed them both.

In gym class, we started the volleyball unit — the one sport that I couldn’t do. Whenever I hit the ball, it went in the opposite direction I’d meant for it to go. Since I was tall, Mrs. Harriott thought I’d be a star, even though I’d had the same problem for the past two years. After a few days of “Come on, Winchester, focus!” I wanted to send the ball at her head. Too bad I lacked control.

Maddie shared my frustration. She’d tried to get out of it on the first day, with a fake doctor’s note saying she had weak wrists and shouldn’t use them to hit anything. Too bad Mrs. Harriott recognized that Maddie’s “doctor” had the same signature as her “mom,” who wrote to excuse Maddie when she had her period.

“I think Edward Baker’s going bald,” Maddie told me as we lined up on the volleyball court. “Yesterday I was following him down the staircase from the English hall, and you could totally see it — bald spot. What is he, like, sixteen?”

I smirked. “By graduation he’ll have a comb-over.”

Maddie gagged. “Oh, God, at least we’ll have those funny hats to wear. He can cover it up so the rest of us don’t vomit.”

“Richards! Are you paying attention?” Mrs. Harriott was midcourt. She’d been demonstrating the proper technique for a good serve, but now she was giving us a death stare.

“Yeah, of course,” Maddie said.

Mrs. Harriott frowned. “We’ll see when it’s your turn. Now, everybody, if you keep your arm straight . . .”

When Mrs. Harriott’s attention was back on the game, Maddie rolled her eyes at me. “Want to go to the Cloverleaf after school? Josh got his first paycheck from the drugstore and wants to spend all of it in one go.”

Cloverleaf was the closest mall, half an hour away. Sometimes when we were in ninth or tenth grade, our parents would drop us off there on weekends and we’d walk around for a few hours, trying all the different scented moisturizers in Bath and Body Works, or sitting in the massage chairs at Brookstone, or pooling our money and getting huge pretzels covered in cinnamon sugar, which always smelled like heaven but were really disappointing once you actually took a bite. We hadn’t gone in a while, since Josh and Theresa were taking SAT prep and Maddie usually babysat for her neighbors on Saturday mornings. Or maybe I hadn’t been invited in a while. I didn’t remember that Josh had gotten a part-time job. It must have been mentioned at some lunch when I was with Jim, but I didn’t want to admit that to Maddie.

“After school?” I said. “Today?”

“Yeah, he can give us a ride. His mom’s actually letting him use her car. He says it’s because she’s happy with his SAT prep test scores.”

“I can’t today,” I said. Mrs. Ellis would be waiting for me to take over at two thirty.

“Winchester, Richards!” Mrs. Harriott was really glaring at us now. “If you know you’ve got the perfect serve, that’s great. Run a few laps and think about how you’re going to dominate today’s game.”

Maddie and I left the line and started jogging around the gymnasium. It was supposed to be a punishment, but I didn’t mind running, especially if Mrs. Harriott forgot about us and we didn’t have to play volleyball that day.

Maddie wasn’t as happy. “She’s such a bitch,” she muttered. “So what about tomorrow? Maybe Josh can rearrange stuff. I feel like I haven’t seen you outside of school in forever.”

“I don’t think I can this week,” I said. “I’ve got to pick up Teddy from school. Mom’s working overtime at the dentist’s office.”

“That sucks. We could go after your Mom gets back. That wouldn’t be too late, right? And we could get food-court food for dinner.”

Even without the need to be home that afternoon, I wasn’t so sure. Josh would have to drop me off. What if they wanted to come inside and hang out for a little while? It wasn’t exactly a rational fear, but the possibility made my head dizzy. “No, that’s okay. You guys go. I’ll join next time.”

She glanced over at Jim, who was still in line, watching Max Olsen’s pathetic serve. “Sure. Sometime.” She picked up her pace and we ran without talking, feet hitting the floor in time with each other, until Mrs. Harriott called us back to the group.

Later that week, after having lunch with Jim, I stopped in the bathroom to wash my hands before class. It was the girls’ room on the second floor, with the bad hand dryer, but it also had a huge window ledge, where three people could sit and hide out during class. So I didn’t think much when, opening the door, I heard laughter. Then I saw it was Theresa and Maddie perched on the ledge, cracking up over something. When they saw me, they took deep breaths and stared at me for a second.

“Hey,” Theresa said absently.

“Hey, guys,” I said. For a minute, I felt like I’d stumbled into a room of giggling cheerleaders who’d been laughing about me. But these were my friends. I strode to the sinks. “What’s up?”

Theresa shrugged. “Not much.”

“We were talking about tourniquets,” Maddie said, “and if you didn’t have arms . . .” She and Theresa started to laugh again, mouths wide open and eyes almost closed. I kept washing my hands, moving slowly and methodically, until the water started to burn. After a minute, Maddie breathed deeply again and sighed. “I don’t know. It’s kind of hard to explain.”

“I don’t even know how it started,” Theresa said. “Something at lunch.”

“Right.” I punched the air-dryer button and held my hands under its nozzle for a second, even though the air was cold and did nothing in terms of drying.

“You had lunch with Jim?” Theresa asked, looking at her chipped nail polish instead of me.

“Yeah. We ate outside the library.”

She looked up. “So he doesn’t let you hang out with
his
friends, either?” She hopped down from the ledge. Maddie followed.

The air dryer stopped. I wiped my hands on my jeans. “Come on,” I said, trying to sound exasperated rather than guilty. “It’s not like I’m hiding him from you. Sometimes I have lunch with him, and sometimes I have lunch with you.”

Theresa shrugged. “Whatever, it’s not a big deal. I just didn’t think you’d be that girl who ditches her friends for her boyfriend.”

“He’s not my boyfriend.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, almost laughing. “That’s a
huge
difference. I feel a whole lot better now.”

“I’ll have lunch with you guys tomorrow.”

Theresa slung her backpack over her shoulder. “Gosh, thanks so much. Can’t wait.” She brushed past me and fled into the halls. Maddie hung behind, fiddling with the strap of her backpack.

I hugged my arms around my chest. “What’s her problem?”

“Alex, you’re like the disappearing girl this semester,” Maddie said. “It’s like you’re spending all your time with Jim. And if it’s not Jim, you make some excuse about babysitting Teddy or whatever.”

“I’m not. I don’t.” Even though I could have asked Jim to join our table at lunch — he probably would have been fine with it — I didn’t want to, especially now that he knew there was something weird going on at home. Theresa was always pushing things — she needed to know everything about Jim, about my driving. If she thought anything was going on at home, she might push for answers there, too, and I wasn’t ready to explain it to anyone yet. I could barely explain it to myself.

“Come on,” Maddie said. “When’s the last time we really hung out?”

“I’ve been busy,” I said. Maddie crossed her arms and waited for me to go on. For a second, I thought it might be okay to tell her. “See, my mom —”

The door swung open, and I thought it would be Theresa, but it was a cluster of freshman girls, chattering in loud, high-pitched voices. They slid by us and stood in front of the mirror, reapplying their fruit-flavored lip glosses.

“Latin,” Maddie said, moving for the door. “I’ll talk to you later.” I watched her go, feeling like a balloon slowly deflating. It was something I’d heard her say a million times before, but now it sounded like a brush-off instead of a promise.

I didn’t want to rush home after school and babysit Mom, so I wasted time in the library, wandering through the stacks. Remembering Mom’s stash at home, I didn’t go to the biography section. The chess team was practicing at a large table in the corner, whispering insults at each other’s moves. Through the window, I could see the gymnasium. Behind it, the soccer teams were probably warming up. I wished I could have been there instead. When I was on the field, I had such a sense of purpose. It didn’t matter how good the other team was or how tired I was. All I had to do was get the ball where it needed to be, and no one could stop me. And even if I felt cornered, there was always someone to pass to. Together we were unbeatable, greater than the sum of our parts. I missed feeling unbeatable. Maybe if I’d stayed on the team, Dad wouldn’t have made me stay home with Mom after school.

The librarians had hung some student artwork on the walls. Apparently the new art teacher was really enthusiastic about student work and petitioned to have a place to showcase it. In the library, with the librarians always around, there was less of a risk of portraits being defaced.

I strolled along the wall of artwork as if I were in a museum. Mostly they were watercolors or oil paintings of fruit or someone’s backyard, and most of them were all right — the occasional lopsided apple or weird perspective or shadow coming from nowhere. Not that I could have done a lot better; I quit art after freshman year. But a few were actually pretty good. Someone had painted a close-up of a bird. From a distance, you couldn’t tell what it was, but up close you could see the curve of a wing and a smooth head. You could almost feel the texture of the feathers.

In the corner was the scrawl of a name:
J Wiley.

I stopped and looked around, as if he might have been there. Jim was the only Wiley in school. How was he so good at this? Aside from that one time with the spray paint and the mention of Banksy, he hadn’t talked about art. At least not making it himself. I didn’t even know that he was in art class. I studied the name again to make sure I’d seen it right. There it was:
J Wiley.

One of the librarians, the young one, strolled by with an armful of books and caught me staring. “That one’s my favorite,” she said, smiling.