When You Go Away (25 page)

     "Hi, Lara.  Things could be better.  Obviously.  But really, thanks for keeping Maxie.  The kids were desperate to get her back."

     "Really.  Of course.  Too bad it had to happen in the first place."  Lara smiled her fake smile again, and Carly began to like her more than ever.  "So how is Brooke?"

     Her father nodded and kicked at a magnolia petal that had floated next to his shoe, a pair Carly didn't recognize.  Nothing he had on was familiar, his wedding ring a new, wider, bigger band.  What had he done with the old one?

       "A lot better than when they found her.  Peri--" he started, and then stopped, looking up at Lara and then coughing.  "Well, thanks again.  Come on, kids.  Let's take Maxie to Grandma's."

     As her dad opened the rear door and made sure Maxie was settled on top of Grandma's tarp and not under it, Lara walked over to Carly and put her hand on her shoulder.  "Don't blame your mom for all this," she said quietly.  "I should have seen something.  So should a lot of other people.  Remember she's sick, okay?"

     Carly nodded and then opened the other door and sat down, holding Maxie over her shoulders, accidentally touching Ryan's hand as he did the same thing.  Neither of them moved.

     Her father didn't say another word to Lara, and as they drove down the street, Carly turned, watching Sam and Lara and Monte Veda disappear, just as they had before.  But this time, there was nothing calling her home.

     Back at their grandmother's, Carly and Ryan stood in the backyard with Maritza watching Maxie sprint around, stopping to sniff the base of a tree or plant, and then sprint some more.

     "
Su pero is muy loco
," Maritza said.

     "
Si
," Ryan said.

     "Huh?"  Carly asked.  “What did she say?”

     "She's acting crazy.  Look at her.  It's like she's been locked up or something," Ryan said. 

     He and Maritza were right.  Maybe Maxie imagined that this yard would also disappear, and she had to memorize it all right now before it was gone, a car dumping her off at another house with other people.  But she seemed to be enjoying herself, looking back occasionally at them, wagging her tail, and then tearing off again.

     "
Si esa mujere espera que yo limpia la miedra, sera loca
," Maritza said, nodding at Ryan and walking back toward the kitchen.

     "What was that all about?"

     "I guess we're going to have to clean up after Maxie."  Ryan smiled.  "But I don't care."

     "Me, either."  They were both quiet for a second, the afternoon turning to that perfect gold light Carly had always loved, the way it slid liquid across the shiny backs of oak leaves and trailed across shingled rooftops. 
Piedmont
was so much like Monte Veda that if she closed her eyes, she could imagine she was in her old backyard.

     "What are you going to do tomorrow?" Ryan asked, sitting down on the thick wood chair and putting his feet up on the table.

     Carly sat down, too, folding her hands between her knees.  "What do you mean?"

     "I mean about the visit.  You know.  With Mom?"

     She shrugged, but she wanted to know if she really had any options.  Could she not go?  Her stomach felt empty from the last time, and simply thinking about her mother's sad, tired face made her stomach swirl as if she'd swallowed jungle bugs, creatures with
long legs and prickly antenna.  And then she remembered what Lara had whispered earlier in her ear. 
Remember, she's sick.

       Maxie tore down the slope and then stopped at the patio, finding her water and lapping at it, her tags banging against the bowl.  "Do you think Mom is sick?  Is it, like, a disease that she's got?"

     "That's what Grandpa said.  Depression with some kind of reaction.  He said it was as if her brain kind of made another universe that only she lived in and only she knew the rules to.  And she thought she was acting fine because in her world, she was.  To us on the outside, she was doing crazy shit."

     "Like leaving Brooke in her bed.  Like leaving me to take care of Brooke, who had a fever, who could have died."

     "Yeah.  That's the shit.  That's the stuff that somehow made sense to her."

     "What did she say to you after I had to . . . ."

     "What?  Crap your guts out?"

     Carly flushed.  "Shut up."

     "Just kidding," Ryan said, leaning back, his arms so long the armrests seemed like wood stumps.  He closed his eyes and tilted his head up, the sun lighting the five long hairs on his chin, the vague red stubble above his lip.  "Well, she said she was sorry.  That she didn't mean to hurt us.  That she loved us."  He squeezed his eyes together, as if the sun were bothering him through his eyelids.

     "Did you believe her?"

     "Yeah. She wasn’t always like this, Carly. You know that."

     Shaking her head, Carly looked at her hands in her lap, the slick clear nail polish her grandmother had let her use flickering in the light.  Ryan was right, but that old mother was as far away as her old father.  Once upon a time there had been laughter and warmth and fun, like in a fairytale.  Her mother took her shopping and braided her hair and came into her room at night and read
Pig William
, the story about the stubborn pig that wouldn’t go to school.  Somehow, though, that mother became the mother who was on the phone or in Brooke’s room or meeting with therapists and nurses.  And then that mother became the one who hid under her blankets, struggling to get up every morning just to feed Brooke.  Now, there was yet another mom, one who was on drugs to make her normal, on drugs so she wouldn’t bash anyone else’s front door.

     "Are you going to visit?" Carly looked at her brother.

     "Yeah."

     "Even after what she did?"

     "Because of what she did," Ryan said, sitting up, turning to Carly.  "She's in trouble, Carly.  If she didn't know what she was doing, I can't blame her.  Fran told me she wasn't herself.  And our being pissed at her probably won't be her only punishment.  She might--she might go to jail.  It's like we
have
to see her now."

     Carly bit the side of her cheek.  It was just like Ryan to be all wise now, after the hard part was over.  Back when their mother was under the blankets and Brooke was falling out of her bed, he'd been like a dream she'd had once, something she could almost remember.  Now that the adults were involved and Dad was back, everyone knowing exactly what was going on, it was easy to be big, act like he had the answers to the questions he couldn't even ask before.  And while he was running around cutting class and smoking Lucky Strikes, there she'd been, pushing formula through a syringe into her sister's stomach.

     Maxie was barking at the end of the property, and Ryan stood up, ran up the slope and then over past the oak trees on the crest, and then the barking stopped, but he didn't come down.  For a few minutes, Carly sat still, closed her eyes, let the air wrap around her face like a friend who'd been gone and was now back in town, so happy to see her.  After a while, she sat up and followed Ryan's path up the slope, past the fancy landscaping her grandmother's gardener tended, bushes with fuzzy purple flowers, plants that seemed to wave at her with yellow hands. 

     At the top of the slope, she looked past the oak trees, but Ryan and Maxie were gone, both probably slipping through the hidey-hole in Grandma MacKenzie's fence, the spot Grandma would never know about because she didn't venture past the first tier of plants.  The gardener probably left it there so he could run away from her if he had to, Carly thought, starting to walk toward it.  But then she stopped, turning back to the house.  The sun was a golden eye hovering over
San Francisco
, and she squinted and then looked down at the roof of the house, the shingles like gleaming teeth.

     High above the house, high above
Piedmont
, and even
Oakland
, she felt made of half air, half earth, something in the middle.  Maybe she was like her mother, two people at once.  The good Carly did what she was told, took care of whoever needed her help, worried about everyone.  The bad Carly, the one inside her skin now, hated everyone:  her mom, dad, Ryan, Grandma, maybe even Grandpa Carl for letting them come here.  Back in her old life, the bad Carly only came out at times.  Once when Kiana teased her about a new haircut and Bret Watson tormented her about Brooke, calling out on the bus, "Crooked little sister, bent in two.”  A feeling had spread like black ink in Carly’s body, and she had told Kiana, "You're stupid and fat," and with Bret, she had stood up while the bus was moving and yanked his hair so hard, his head hit the back of his seat.  When she thought about her actions days and months later--even now--she was filled with shame, wishing she could go through the events in reverse and pull
them
all back into nothingness.

     Closing her eyes against the orange sun, she took one last deep breath as if it were a wish she could hold in her body.  She and Ryan used to play a game as their mother drove past the Lafayette Cemetery.  Ryan would say, "Ready?  Okay!  Go!" and they would hold their breaths as their mother laughed and joked that she was going to take her foot off the accelerator.  When Carly asked what the game was for, Ryan said they were saving themselves from evil ghosts, but really, it was the deep breath at the very edge of the green lawn that they really wanted.  That amazing rush of air that meant they were still alive.

     Walking down the slope toward the patio, feeling the crush of new grass under her feet, Carly took in a breath as she had all those times with Ryan.  She'd lived through the
long days and scary nights with Brooke, and she'd never breathed in, never felt like it was over, the cemetery going on and on and on forever.  Now, she didn't have to hold her breath; she didn't have to turn away from her mother as if she were an evil ghost.  Here was her chance not to regret what she was doing.  Already, Carly cringed when she thought of running down the hall at the jail, knowing she preferred sitting on the toilet to talking to her own mother.  Maybe Ryan with all his fake new wisdom was right.  Here was her chance not to want to erase her life.  Here was her chance to move forward.  Here was her chance to breathe.



That night, Carly got up to go to the bathroom, and on her way down the long hall, she heard a sound in Brooke's room, and she moved soundlessly toward the door, her feet sliding bare and smooth on the wood floor.  She held on to the door trim and pushed slowly, stilling herself against any squeak.  The doors at the apartment had cried like animals every time they moved, but this door swished open smoothly, and there, right by Brooke's bed, was her father.  He sat toward the head and was gently stroking Brooke's hair.  The nurse her grandmother had hired for nighttime was in a corner of the room reading a
Time
magazine, the pages
flick, flick, flicking
as her father touched her sister.

     Without thinking, Carly walked in, looking at her father.  The nurse glanced up and then went back to her reading, but her father almost started, pulling his hand away from Brooke.

      "Don't stop," Carly said.  "She likes that.  Even if she's asleep."

     "I know," he said, putting his hand back.  "I know what she likes."

     "Then why don't you do it more?  Why didn't you?"  She pulled a chair close to the bed and sat down, reaching out to touch Brooke's knee. 

     Her father didn't say anything for a while, and she watched him.  He looked different.  Older?  Or was it sadder?  Or did she just not recognize him
anymore
, already forgetting his face in the time since she'd seen him.

     "This could have been avoided.  She didn't have to be like this," he said quietly.  “I knew it right away, the minute your mother went into labor.”

     "What do you mean?"

     He shook his head like he was trying to bang something out of it.  Did he blame Mom for what happened to Brooke?  It wouldn’t have been her fault.  Brooke was born like this, everyone said so. 

     She was just about to tell him that, when he said, “It’s nothing.  Never mind.  She's just so hurt.  I can't stand to see her like this."

     Carly was confused.  Her sister had always been like this, and she wasn't hurt.  She just was.  "She's usually happy.  She's not hurt."

     Her father sighed.  "I know.  I guess I look at you and Ryan and think about what Brooke could have been like if things had gone--gone differently when she was born."

      "So . . . so did you leave us because you didn't like to look at us?  Is that why?"  Her father gazed at her and then stood up.  For an instant, she thought,
Don't touch me, don't touch me
, but she knew she didn't mean it.  Before, back in her old life, she liked the feel of her father, his warm body as she hugged him around the waist, the way he would let her walk on his shoes, the tipping, monster walk across the living room floor as he sang "Monster Mash," a song from forever ago.  She was ready for his embrace, but right as he neared her, just as he was close enough to pick her up and bring her up to his face, he stopped, reaching a hand out instead, his fingers so light on her head she could barely feel them.