The Chance You Won't Return (7 page)

But maybe I could drive. We had to get home fast, and Mom obviously couldn’t do it. I looked at the keys in my palm, trying to visualize the drive home. But my heart was pounding and my hands were shaking and all I could hear was Mom crying. I hated myself for not being able to help us.

“Let’s just go,” I said, throwing open the door. “Just come on.”

She followed with an odd obedience. I circled the car and grabbed her forearm in case she decided to run off again. Who knew what she was now? She said she wasn’t Mrs. Winchester. Did that mean she didn’t recognize me? That she thought I was some nice girl trying to help her? The idea made me want to leave her there to fend for herself. If she could forget me, I could forget her. But the seniors were watching and sneering from their own cars. I decided it was better to skip the rest of my classes and take her home myself. Not that I had any idea what to do with her once we were there.

It was only a couple of miles from school to our house, but it felt longer with my mother in tow. She was quiet as she walked, her arms hugging her chest as if she was afraid she’d fall apart. I kept my distance by a few feet.

She started mumbling. I could only catch little pieces of what she said. “. . . respond to the telegram . . . expecting . . .”

“Stop it,” I said.

“Pardon?” she said, forcing her lips to smile.

“Don’t talk to yourself.” I kicked a rock so that it skipped along the gutter. In front of a neat white house, an elderly woman was gardening, pressing large bulbs into the earth. When she saw us passing, she waved politely. My mother waved back with enthusiasm. I hurried Mom along in case she tried to start a conversation. She wasn’t upset or frantic, or even pensive. Her face was serene again. Maybe she was all right.

She drew a deep breath and exhaled slowly, walking with her hands clasped behind her back. “Beautiful sky today, isn’t it?”

Still stuck on this airplane idea. How far would she take it? What if she decided to open a window and jump? “It’s supposed to rain later,” I lied.

“Is it?” she said. “Well, bad weather can materialize in an instant. You need to be careful.” She adjusted her scarf so the ends fluttered in the breeze. “Funny interview, wasn’t it?”

“Funny?”

“Why even talk to me if he was going to be so judgmental and narrow-minded?”

I almost opened my mouth to argue. I wanted to tell her that the interview — which wasn’t an interview at all — was about me, not her, and it was true that I couldn’t drive a car, much less pilot a plane, not that that was ever up for debate. I was furious that she had embarrassed me like that, and terrified that this was something deep-rooted, not easily shaken by more rest. Fear kept my mouth shut.

Her mouth twitched, and she tried to inhale deeply but couldn’t seem to get enough air in. “I didn’t mean to get upset,” she said. “I shouldn’t have done that. I just can’t seem to . . .” She sighed.

“Are you sick or something?” I asked, not really wanting her to respond.

She shook her head vehemently. “No, just tired. It’s a demanding job. You know that. You’ll show him someday, won’t you?” she asked. Her smile was so genuine that I imagined myself behind the wheel of a car, as careless as I was supposed to be at sixteen. What she said should have been the encouragement of a mother, but her unusual outfit and behavior made the sentiment altogether different and unappealing.

I called the post office and demanded they contact my father, find him, hunt him down, anything. “It’s an emergency,” I told them. Postal workers probably imagined a sick child, broken bones, or a car accident. They didn’t think of my mother, talking about people she didn’t know and places she’d never been.

Mom dozed fitfully on the couch. While I waited for my father, I sat nearby, pretending to do my history homework but glancing at her every few seconds. Her face seemed strained even in her sleep. I thought about how happy she’d looked the night before, when Katy and I found her with those maps.

When Dad arrived, still in his postal uniform, he rushed into the house like he expected to find it on fire. I met him in the hall. “What happened?”

Suddenly the sight of him reminded me of how he’d missed the meeting. If he had been there, he might have been able to keep Mom under control. At least I wouldn’t have had to do it. “She’s just all weird again,” I said, voice rising with each syllable. “She flipped out in front of Mr. Kane, and I had to take her home. You should have been there.”

Dad rested his hands on my shoulders. “All right, all right,” he said.

I tried to steady myself; it was embarrassing that he had to calm me down when Mom was the problem. I told him about how she’d stolen his pants, how she insisted she wasn’t Janet Winchester, her fixation on flying, her maps, how she didn’t walk or talk like herself.

In the living room, Mom groaned as she woke. Dad knelt beside her and spoke evenly. “Are you okay?” he asked.

“I’m so embarrassed. I shouldn’t be napping now. There’s so much to do. I’ve barely started at all.” She sat up and tried to stand too quickly, then fell backward on the couch.

“I think we need to talk,” Dad said.

She brushed her hands on her pants as if she had gotten them dirty while asleep. “Only for a minute.” When Dad tried to adjust the pillows behind her, Mom wrinkled her nose at him. “For heaven’s sake, I’m not an invalid.”

Mom sat in the middle of the couch, one leg crossed over the other, arm draped over a cushion. She looked almost posed. Remembering her frenzy at school, I steeled myself for hysteria, dishes thrown against the wall. Instead, Mom smiled pleasantly at Dad, whose face was stolid as he asked simple questions.

“How’re you feeling?”

“Fine, fine. A little tired, but that’s the norm.”

“Why?”

She looked vaguely incredulous. “The meetings, the lectures, the interviews, the plans. I hope you’d know my schedule, Gip.”

“Gip?” My head felt heavy, filled with fog and sawdust. “What’s Gip?”

My mother stiffened, waving a hand in my father’s direction. “Not ‘what.’
Who.
George.”

“David.” Dad’s voice shook a little. “I’m David.”

Mom frowned at him. “I don’t know why you say these things.”

I wanted to catch Dad’s eye, but he wouldn’t look at me. Instead, he took a breath and leaned forward in his seat. “Jan, you’re not really thinking straight. Maybe we should take a ride over to the hospital and —”

“No. Absolutely not.” Mom shot to her feet and started pacing. “I can’t go to a hospital now. People need me. They expect things from Amelia Earhart. I can’t disappoint them.”

She said the name so naturally, I thought I hadn’t heard her right. But it replayed over in my mind until the name took shape. I remembered vague details about Amelia Earhart from elementary school — female aviatrix, a mysterious disappearance in the Pacific. Her fatal flight was in the 1930s; Mom wasn’t alive then. Earhart set world records and flew across the Atlantic; the only time my mother had been on a plane was when she was on her honeymoon. But Mom said her name with such reverence that it almost echoed throughout the house.

“Keys,” my dad said, patting his pockets. “Where did I put them?”

I followed him as he searched. I didn’t want to be in the same room as my mother, who was still pacing and arguing that Amelia Earhart had responsibilities. “Where are you going?” I asked. Since I didn’t know how to drive, I couldn’t follow him if he left without me.

“Hospital,” he said, turning on his heel to survey the kitchen. “Where the hell did I put them?”

I snatched his keys from the counter and pressed them into his palm. “What’s wrong with her?”

He didn’t look at me as he spoke. “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe some blockage in the brain. Or it could be Lyme disease. That happens sometimes; it messes with your head, makes you confused. If that’s it, she’ll be back to normal in no time.” I didn’t ask him what if it wasn’t Lyme disease.

From the front door, I watched him guide Mom to the car. She argued with him as she went, continuing to call him Gip, or G.P. “Just call me Amelia, please,” I heard her say. I wondered what she saw when she looked at him. Was it his face at all, or someone else’s? If she was Amelia Earhart, who did that make me?

The house was too quiet afterward. Even when my brother and sister got home, I jumped at every small noise. I told them Mom wasn’t feeling well, ignoring the details. Teddy wanted to know if she had the flu, while Katy retreated to our room without saying a word. At the sound of every car coming down the street, I rushed to the front door, thinking it would be them. Then I remembered my mother’s car.

“Katy,” I called. “Watch Teddy. I’ll be back in a little while.”

“What?” she said, incensed. “Where are you going?” I left before I could think of a lie to tell her.

Mom’s sedan was still in the school parking lot, now deserted except for a handful of other cars. It was just after dusk, and everyone had left various sports practices. From a distance, I could hear the plunking of a piano and a chorus singing, “Consider Yourself” from
Oliver!
Halfway through the second verse, they stopped and started over again. Overhead, the sky was clear but there was too much light pollution to make out more than a few stars.

I circled the car once before giving the front left tire a solid kick.
I shouldn’t even be here,
I thought. I should have been at home, or at Theresa’s, or, hell, finding some guy to make out with, not kicking my crazy mother’s stupid car.

The door was unlocked. I swung myself into the driver’s seat and slammed the door behind me.

I pulled the key out of my pocket and shoved it into the ignition.

The engine growled and shuddered into life. Heart thudding, I couldn’t control my breathing but tried to remember what Mr. Kane had taught us. Something about the gearshift. I yanked at it, trying to force it into place, matching the arrow on the dashboard up with something.
Please,
I thought. If I could only get this to work. Just let this one stupid thing work. Tears blurred my vision. The roof was sinking toward me. I would be crushed. I thought of Amelia Earhart, rotten corpse maybe under the weight of an entire ocean.

Screaming, I beat the steering wheel. The horn blared.

Then I saw Jim Wiley standing by the window. He tapped it with his knuckle.

“Hey,” he said. “That’s not exactly a fair fight.”

I wiped my eyes with the back of my thumb. “Yeah, sorry, I’ll stop.” Fantastic. Jim Wiley saw me freaking out alone in the school parking lot.

He took a step back, and I assumed he was leaving, but then he strolled around to the passenger door and let himself in, sitting as casually as if we’d made plans to go somewhere. For a second, I thought I was going crazy. I was even crazier than my mother.

“What are you doing here?” I asked. “School’s over.”

“I get tutored in chemistry,” he said.

It was hard to imagine Jim Wiley bent over a Bunsen burner, taking notes about temperatures and oxidation.

“So I hear you’re, like, the worst driver ever.”

“Oh, yeah, says the guy who bulldozed his house.”

Instead of being offended, Jim laughed. I made Jim Wiley laugh. “Yeah, good point. Have you ever driven right through a house?”

I imagined my own home, a pile of rubble. “Not yet.”

“Well, I guess you don’t totally suck, then. Yet.” He didn’t say anything for a second, and I wondered what I would do if he asked for a ride home. But instead he said, “Looks like you’re having some trouble.”

I chuckled. “Yeah, I guess.”

“First thing,” he said, “that’s the steering wheel. It steers things.”

At first I wasn’t sure if he was making fun of me again. But his voice was even and encouraging, something he might have picked up while getting tutored himself. He went on to talk about the pedals — an accelerator, a brake — and the mirrors, which I adjusted so I could see all sides around us. When I was ready, he said, I could press on the brake and shift the car into drive. And then slowly I could move my foot from the brake to the accelerator, and we’d drift across the parking lot. I tried to repeat everything he said in my mind but could only remember every other word.

“If we die,” I said, gripping the steering wheel, “you can’t blame me.”

He laughed. “Fine, I’ll take all responsibility for our horrific deaths.”

The chorus was practicing scales now. I forced myself to breathe in time with them.
It’s just a car,
I reminded myself. Wheel, pedals, speedometer — they all worked together neatly and efficiently — or at least they were supposed to. I ached for one thing to work perfectly that afternoon. If I could just do this one simple thing.

I touched the gas pedal, and the car inched forward. My stomach twisted, but Jim said, “Hey, that’s it.” I didn’t dare turn to see his expression, but his voice was soft and enthusiastic, so I imagined he was actually enjoying this three-mile-an-hour trip across the parking lot.

After a second, I was, too. We were coasting along effortlessly, toward the darkness at the end of the parking lot and the fields beyond. Jim rolled down his window, resting his arm on the edge. Air drifted in and out of the car. The steering wheel didn’t rattle under my hands. As long as I held the wheel and knew where the brake was, we wouldn’t hit anything. I could breathe again.