Read The Worst Thing I've Done Online
Authors: Ursula Hegi
The Worst Thing I've Done (15 page)
“It's the only time I shook our Mason.”
“He was taller than you.”
“No, he was still little. He didn't have that growth spurt till afterwards. Do you thinkâWhat if shaking him had something to do with⦔
“Absolutely not,” Jake says.
“You hear him?” Mr. Piano says to his wife.
“I think,” Annie says, “that you shook that growth spurt loose in him.”
Mrs. Piano starts laughing.
All along, Jake was taller than Mason, and he didn't like it when Mason, all at once, started growing. Coming to the height that had been Jake's alone till then.
“I should have shaken him sooner.” Crying, now, Mrs. Piano. “A good shake once a week.” Laughing and crying again.
“Once a week,” her husband says, “we'd make up some occasion to knock on Joey's door and say, âHello, Mrs. Robinson. Helloâ' ”
“Benjamin's first date with Mrs. Robinson's daughter is brutal,” Mrs. Piano interrupts.
“I think it's romantic,” Mr. Piano says
“Romantic? Dragging her to a strip joint until she cries?”
“That Dustin character is just insecure. Besides, Mrs. Robinson's daughter falls in love with himâ”
“Love? They don't even know each other.”
“We didn't know each other when we fell in love.”
“All that connects those two is that they are rebelling against Mrs. Robinson.”
“Plus they're in love.”
“That girl even believes Benjamin over her mother. And then he abducts her from her wedding.”
Jake wonders if they've forgotten about Annie and him.
In the meantime Dustin Hoffman is swinging a cross to fight off Mrs. Robinson and Mr. Robinson and the wedding guests.
“Cutting her off from her parents like that.”
“Forever. Becauseâcan you imagine family reunions at the Robinsons'?”
Jake laughs aloud, but no one else seems to think it's funny. “Familyâ¦reunionsâ¦atâ¦theâ¦Robinsons'?”
Hissed conversations. Then silences. Red faces. Closed doors at night. The only one moving through the house is Dustin Hoffman, traipsing from his wife's bed to his mother-in-law's bed.
“All that angstâ¦what will I doâ¦what will I be⦔ Mrs. Piano shakes her head. “And to think how I loved that movie.”
Dustin Hoffman is barricading the church door with the crossâ¦climbing into a bus with Mrs. Robinson's daughter, who is someone else's bride.
“That revolution against parents is no longer that interesting to watch,” Mr. Piano says. “Our conflicts are moreâ¦civilized.”
Mrs. Piano nods. “But for the young, like Annie and Jake, our conflicts are dull.”
“Oh no,” Annie says.
But Jake doesn't even try to clarify.
“It makes a case for living with people of your own generation,” Mr. Piano says.
“An understanding of each other's conflicts⦔
“How can that girl ever return to her parents?”
“Especially to her mother.”
Mr. Piano curves his hand across his wife's. “How about those Simon and Garfunkel songs?”
“Those I still like.”
“I'll get you the CD.”
“Get one for Annie too.”
Mason
âhe cried out. Cried out like a boy.
Did you imagine me when you took him inside you, Annie? When his big thighs braced your big butt? Your shoulder wings soared toward me while I was sucking in that scalding air, not fitting enough inside me. Like not enough yeasty bread at camp and chewing fast so I won't get caught. Swallowing the it's-wrong. Furious because you're with Aunt Stormy all summer, Annie, and Jake is not enough. Not enough. Kissing you in front of Jake when we swim in from the raft though I don't feel like kissing you but claiming youâNot enough. Chewing and swallowingâ
Jake could have said not at camp.
Jake could have said no in the sauna.
And you could have pulled me from the edge of dare, Annie, where you used to be with me till Opal was born and you became mother-bear protectiveâ
I'm not done yet searching for the collage I'll destroy. It's obvious you're working on some in secrecy. Like this stack of raft collages, facing the wall. I turn them so I can see them. Leave them there and pull out two more collages, their background old letters that are written in German, ticket studs, seeds, and flat stones, photos of Aunt Stormy and your mother as au pairs.
I open the drawers beneath your worktable, Annie. Search through the baskets on your shelves. What I still love about fixing up your studio is how we did it all together, building these shelves, painting the floor. Until you closed the door on me.
Why, Annie? When I'm the one who understands more about your work than anyone else? I can always tell when something snags you into imagining, when you get dreamy and intense all at once. I know. Because I have been there when you felt inspired.
That edge of dare. Last night, Annie, I dared you to pull me back from there, but you made me watch as you clamped your legs around Jake, risingâand that fast heat mine, mineâhis eyes squeezed shut, yours locked with mine as if you could only fuck Jake by imagining it was me inside you.
It was like watching that play the three of us saw in Morocco, Annie, not understanding a word and making up our own stories for what was happening onstage and comparing our stories afterwards. But I believed what I saw.
Just as I believed as a boy that the bank where my mother worked belonged to her. The guardian of everything people locked up in the safe-deposit vault, she witnessed the impact of death, marriage, birth, whenever one of her regulars closed a deposit box she'd tell me and look at me the way she must have looked at that customerâwith great sorrow and affection. If troubled her thatâunless her customers told her voluntarilyâshe might never find out where they were moving, and what the rest of their lives might be like.
I bet you imagined it was me inside you, Annie. I bet you did.
Afterwardsâ
Afterwards, you and Jake wouldn't look at me.
Almost dawn, then. And you, throwing on your robe andâeven in that moment of swinging it around youâshielding your body with the fabric so I couldn't see you naked. Your back to me, you stomped toward the house.
“Annie!” I ran after you. “Have you noticed how you cover yourself whenever you're pissed at me?'
“I want you out, Mason.”
“How come you're naked with Jake but not with me?”
You went into Opal's held up one hand to keep me from following you.
Outside, the engine of Jake's car. Idling. No headlights.
And then you. Leaving Opal's room. Wrapping yourself deeperâ
Opal
A House Hatching a House
}
A
unt
Stormy says we're going to live with her.
She came to our house on the evening of the day Mason offed himself. Said to Annie and me: “This is what we're going to do. You're coming to live with me. For the time being.”
I like
off
better than
kill.
Because
off
doesn't sound forever.
Like
switch off.
Or
buzz off.
Which I'm allowed to say. And
fuck off.
Which I'm not allowed to say.
Aunt Stormy is not my real aunt. That's because she's not my mother's real sister. But she's still my aunt. In my school lots of kids haveâ
But my school is no longer my school.
In second grade of the school that used to be my school, seven kids had parents who didn't start out as their real families. Sisters and brothers too. But who became their families. Stepfamilies. Half families.
Still, different from me.
Because Annie is two people. My sister and my mother.
Annie says she'll be more like a mother till I'm grown up. Afterwards more like a sister. Or both forever. If I want her to be.
My real parents died. A big truck did it. Crashed into them. But my real mother waited with dying till I was outside of her. Safe. Because she loved me. That's what Mason told me.
But then Mason offed himself.
So what does that say about him loving me?
W
E FOLLOW
Aunt Stormy's little truck in our car. When I wake up, my face is sticky on my pillow.
“We're here,” Annie says. “Let's go inside.”
I can't make my eyelids stay up.
She takes hold of my legs.
I kick her. “No, Annie!”
But she slides me into air of salt. Air of ink. Air of salt and ink. Wind in the tall grasses. Wind along Aunt Stormy's boardwalk.
Annie carries me. Me and my pillow.
“I'm not three, Annie. I'm eight.”
Carries me into Aunt Stormy's kitchen. “I know you're eight.”
“Eight is four times two. Or two times three plus two.”
“Even half asleep you're a genius,” Aunt Stormy says.
Above me her candle lamp. White candles and a rose and drift-wood.
When Aunt Stormy kisses me, she smells bad, of too-many-flowers. Smells of what sticks the smell of too-many-flowers together.
But I like her eyes. Clear and blue. Reading inside me. Reading that I want Annie to let me down.
“Our little girl wants to get down.”
I kiss her back.
Annie stands me up on the floor. By myself. Unties my sneakers.
Aunt Stormy's kitchen is the only kitchen I know that has a bookcase. All the way to the ceiling. I know which books are in German because I can't read the titles.
Aunt Stormy slips down the hood of my purple windbreaker. “Would you like to sleep in your clothes, Opal?” She talks funny. It's called accent.
“Okay.”
Up the stairs with Annie then. Toward the little bed where I sleep when we visit. Where a hundred veils hang between the little bed and the big bed. A flowing maze that changes when I dance. The big bed is where Mason and Annie always sleepâ
Mason offed himself, stupid.
No maze. No hundred veils. Empty. Here. Empty on the high shelves where Aunt Stormy keeps glasses and bowls and plates.
My toes start hurting.
Annie tucks me into the little bed. “I'll be up soon, sweetie.”
“Where will you be?”
“Not far.”
She turns off the lamp.
Downstairs, her voice floats into Aunt Stormy's. Floats. Then she's crying. Aunt Stormy too.
“Melissandra?” I whisper.
Melissandra doesn't answer.
My toes are hurting worse.
“What did you do today, Melissandra?”
No Melissandra.
No Mason joking around.
“Mason!”
I bet Melissandra offed herself too.
“W
HY ARE
you crying, Opal?” Annie, flying at me.
Crying?
“
You're
crying, Annie.”
And she is.
But it's my face. Wet.
She sits on the edge of my bed. “What is it, sweetie?”
“My toes. They hurt.”
“Which ones?”
“I can't do this day.” Saying it the way Mason does. The way he always says it. Knowing it. Watching Annie know it. Watching Annie's fingers fly to her throat.
The green 7 on Aunt Stormy's clock changes to 8, making it 3:28.
Late.
Saying it again: “I can't do this day.” Because I won't let Annie forget. Forget Mason.
Annie finds my feet under the quilt. “Which toes?”
I have to think. Because nothing hurts now. Now that Annie is wiggling my toes. But I want her to stay. With me. With me in my bed. I tell her, “The middle toes. Of the foot closest to the wall.”
“Middle toesâ¦foot closest to the wall⦔ She takes them. Takes them between her fingers. “Here?”
It tickles. “Yes.”
“Want me to kiss them?”
“Okay.”
Annie kisses the middle toes of my foot closest to the wall. “I am not going away.”
“Mason went away.” Now I'm crying. Crying for sure.
“Yes, he did.”
“Mason offed himself.”
“Offed? Oh, sweetieâ¦where did you get this?”
“With a rope. That's how he offed himself. And Jake offed himself too.”
“Jake didn'tâ¦Jake is⦔ Annie fusses with my quilt. “â¦busyâ¦very busy.”
“Jake isn't here. And Melissandra isn't here.”
“I'm here.”
“But Jakeâ”
“And I'm not going away. Neither are you.”
My face wet against Annie. Annie, who smells of driving. Who smells of sweating. And of M&M's she bought when we stopped for gas. A big bag of M&M's.
She doesn't let me have many sweets. Because sweets rot your teeth. That's the truth. But Annie eats sweets.
And Annie says fuck off. Said it to Mason.
Did that off him?
“Scoot over, you.” She squeezes in. Next to me in the little bed. Snuggles up so her toes won't hang over the edge. Her face white in the dark. Lopsided where it dents my pillow.
Annie, smelling of driving.
And of sweating.
And of M&M's.
Smelling of carrying me.
And of toes no longer hurting.
Smelling of sleep.
S
UN ON THE
lids of the clouds. I climb across Annie. She's curled and little. By the bathroom sink, the floor is like a sponge. I brush my teeth. Hop up and down. Make the tiles jiggle.
The tub has dragon's feet. Dragon's claws.
Treetops swish against the windows. Like being in a tree house.
“Aunt Stormy?” I yell down.
She's working in her garden. No shoes. In winter she'll wear shoes. But never socks. Beyond her, the boardwalk and wetlands. Mason says wetlands is a fancy name for swamp. Beyond the wetlands tall beach grasses. Then sand. Then Little Peconic Bay. Which is not little but big with lots of water.
My pond house has water too.
But that water is round and little and stays in one place.
Aunt Stormy's bay has snaky water. Water that doesn't stay in one place. Snakes away with the tide.
“Aunt Stormy?”
“Opal! Good morning.”
“What happens if I fall through the bathroom floor?”
“You'll land on my bed.”
“And squash you.”
She's moving a huge rock. A pink and white rock. Lifting it. Walking with it. Heavy. Setting it down nearby. “If you fall, you'll land on the other side of my bed, Opal, the empty side.”
“Oh.”
“It'll be like one big trampoline.”
I
RUN
downstairs. “Are you growing rocks, Aunt Stormy?”
She kneels down. Now she's smaller than the rock. “How did you know?”
“Because I don't remember this rock.” I touch the rock. Its edges are soft. “And I don't remember the gray rock over there. Do you look like my real mother, Aunt Stormy?”
“Sometimes. In a certain light.”
An old mother. Much older than Annie. An old mother I have not seen in my real father's photo books. Six books with photos and his notes. Photos of my real parents. And Aunt Stormy. And my real parents' friends. Pictures of traveling. And of Annie. Annie being a baby. Annie in first grade. Annie every year. Every year with my real parents. But I'm not in the photo books. They stop, the photos. Stop before I'm born. And I didn't get to go anywhere. The last photo is of my mother. Pregnant. “With you, Opal,” Annie says. But how do I know it's not a pillow?
“I talk the way your mother did,” Aunt Stormy says. “But she looked like you and like Annie. The shape of your faces. Strong shoulders and long necks. That same quick smile. Lots of thick red curls. Her hands were so smooth, Opal. Not like mine.” Aunt Stormy spreads her palms for me. “Rough skin. From gardening.”
“What was her favorite color?”
“She loved purple. And tie-dyed. That day I met herâwe were just eighteenâshe was wearing a tie-dyed shirt, purple and yellow and orange and red. And then her red hair, of course, with a ton of hair spray. And I still remember thinking: This girl looks like one big sunset.”
“One big sunset.” I like that.
“Your mother, she had the stiffest hair of anyone I knew.”
“Do you think she loved me?”
“I know she loved you.”
“Even if she didn't know what I was going to be like?”
“She loved you from the moment she knew she was pregnant. She felt so lucky.”
“How about my real father?”
“He was so excited about you. Looking forward to you.”
“How about his favorite color?”
“Phillip liked to wear blue.” Aunt Stormy plucks some weeds. “A deep blue, like his eyes. He was a fast walker. Most days, he walked six miles before breakfast.”
“You knew my real parents before Annie knew them.”
“Yes. And I knew your mother before your father met her. This sun is too strong for you.”
“No, it isn't.”
“I know how quickly you sunburn. You can either stand in the shadow or we'll put on some lotion.”
I step away from her till leaves keep the sun from my face. “How long is for the time being?”
Her eyes. Reading me.
“You said we're going to live with you for the time being.”
“That means for as long as you want, Opal.”
“Your bathroom floor squeaks.”
“It's how this cottage talks. A groan here, a squeak there. It's over a hundred years old.”
I tilt my head toward her house. The blue door stands open. Far away, a dog is barking, then two. I wish I had a dog. “What happened to your dog, Aunt Stormy?”
“Agnes? Sheâ¦she got spooked by fireworks one Fourth of July.”
I wait for her to tell me more, but she doesn't. That's how I figure Agnes is dead. Because people get squirmy saying
dead
around me.
Dead
or
kill
or
hang
.
After a while, Aunt Stormy adds, “Agnes ran under the wheels of a car.”
“Where did you bury her?”
“Where I grow squash.”
“Gross. I'm not eating Agnes squash.”
Aunt Stormy smiles. “St. Agnes squash, please.”
“Annie won't let Mason get a dog.”
“Oh.”
“Annie won't let Mason get a baby.”
A
FTER LUNCH
, Aunt Stormy takes Annie and me hunting. Hunting for catbriers.
“Touch these pine needles.” She stops by a small pine. All tangled in prickly vines. “Feel how fine and long they are. That's how you can tell a white pine.” She crouches. Reaches with her clippers.
“They'll scratch you, Aunt Stormy,” I warn her.