Where I Want to Be (3 page)

“Knew…?” My fingertips still hurt. I press them against my neck.

“Look, I’m not saying Jane was watching me for real.” Caleb darts me an uneasy look. “It’s more like she was there because she’s in my head. She’s…I dunno.
Around
.” He swipes a hand back through his hair. “Ah, just tell me to shut up. Hearing myself talk about it, it sounds totally insane.”

“No, it doesn’t.” I shake my head. “So, what did you do? At the pool, I mean.”

“Got out. Cooled off. Let Maureen take over for a few minutes.”

Caleb is being serious, but I’m not really sure what it is that he’s told me, so I’m not really sure how to respond. “I was in Jane’s bedroom earlier tonight,” I confide, “and I had the same feeling. I think. Caleb…” I slide up on an elbow to look at him. “Do you ever feel guilty?”

This is exactly the kind of question Caleb hates. Something close to panic holds his eyes; one a bleached blue, the other a dark, marbled navy. Odd, definitely, but I think they’re amazing. Even if the whites are bloodshot from pool chlorine and his chronic lack of sleep.

“The thing you can’t forget in all this…” He stops. I wait
him out. “What you can’t forget, is that you weren’t responsible for how Jane was.”

“You say that, but I know I could have helped her better. Somehow.”

Caleb shakes his head. “We’ve had this talk a zillion times, Lily. There was no way for you to have known. You keep beating yourself up for not noticing, for not seeing the changes. But nobody else saw them, either. Why do you put all the blame on yourself?” His confidence envelops me, almost.

“Because I’m her sister,” I answer, “and I should have been able to do more. For all I know, I was part of the problem. Maybe we both were.” With this last sentence, my voice is so low, I can hardly hear myself.

But Caleb hears me fine. He looks angry. “How were we the problem? Just by existing? By being us?”

“By being happy.” I know I’m on shaky logic ground here. “Maybe it made us selfish. It must have hurt her.”

Caleb’s bony shoulder flinches in defense. “Being happy isn’t our fault.”

“Okay.” I make my voice dull, agreeing and not agreeing. Our zillion-and-oneth talk is not going anywhere. I drop it. Lean back against him and try to anesthetize myself with TV. I imagine kids arriving at Mike Heller’s house. Mike’s a senior, and I picture his party crowded with other seniors—Jane’s classmates, although I’m better friends with most of them, mostly on account of dating Caleb.

Heller’s would be a total scene. First kids would make this whole big joyfest of seeing me,
oh, hey, wow, glad you made it, great to see ya,
and then there’d be the usual gossiping behind their hands, scrutinizing me, passing judgments about how I’m doing
really
. And I just do not want to deal with it.

“Stay here with me tonight, Cay?” It’s a plea, but I try to make it sound like a suggestion. I move to tuck my arm underneath Caleb’s waist. So thin, not a scrap more flesh on him than necessary. Wrapping myself closer, I whisper, “You make me feel so safe.”

One of Caleb’s scarecrow legs hooks and twines through mine. This means he’ll stay and keep me safe the way I need him to. But I also can feel myself holding on too hard, relying on him too much.
Be with me, stay with me, don’t leave me
. As if I’ve lost my hold on the world around me, and he’s the only grip I’ve got.

Jane woke up yelling. In her mouth, in her open eyes, the darkness poured into her.

She sat up in bed and remembered. She was safe. She was at her grandparents’ house. And she had not been yelling. Not out loud, anyway.

Thunder rumbled. That must have been the sound that woke her. Rain was driving hard on the rooftop and against the window. She slipped from the bed and out of the bedroom. Every floorboard, every piece of furniture at Orchard Way was so familiar to her that her imagination could shape whatever her sight couldn’t reach. But she kept a hand on the banister as she tiptoed down the stairs, touching each step as lightly as a dancer.

Years ago, she and Lily used to play a game called Squeak. The winner was the one who could make it all the way up and back down the stairs the quietest. Only Jane got too good at it. She’d learned the mystery of each step,
just as she’d learned every other secret thing about her grandparents’ house.

When Lily stopped coming regularly to Orchard Way, Jane continued to play the game alone. Winning over and over against an invisible Lily.

At the front door, Jane turned the knob and stepped out onto the porch. The rain echoed on the roof, as loud as charging hooves. Could Lily hear it, too? Lily always used to wake up in storms. They’d terrified her, sent her flying into Jane’s room, where she’d fling herself into Jane’s bed and shiver under the covers. But storms at Orchard Way were beautiful and startling. Jane refused to let Lily hide through them. Instead, she’d coax her outside to play Runaway Horse.

“Pretend you’re Finnegan, a wild stallion,” Jane would say, “and pretend I’m Señor Jorge, the horse catcher who is coming to tame you for the circus!”

Once she had turned into a horse, Lily would forget about being afraid. Together, she and Jane would race through the slopping wet grass, raindrops smacking their arms and legs, Jane tugging the reins of Lily’s hair and yelling, “There is no escape for you, Finn!” as Lily screeched in terror and delight.

Settled on the ladder-back rocker, Jane let it tilt her back and forth, back and forth. Finnegan and Señor Jorge! They had seemed so real back then. When Jane thought back on some of those old pretending games, they seemed so
strange. As if somebody else had thought them up. As if they weren’t from her mind at all.

She had missed being here. Missed it dull like a sickness and missed it sharp as a thousand scratches on her heart. Orchard Way had been the perfect place for snowstorms and thunderstorms and swimming and fort building, for birthdays and weekends and games and more games. It was a house of pretending impossible things. It was her whole, entire childhood blended into one single, perfect day that she thought would never end.

Back and forth. The rocker creaked if Jane pressed too hard against its spine. She tilted and held it with the tips of her toes as she watched another break of lightning, followed by a boom of thunder so loud that now she knew. Lily was awake.

The thunder wakes me up. It takes me a minute to remember where I am, on the couch, with my arms and legs pretzel-twisted around Caleb.

Through the living room window, I can see the summer storm raging. It’s a biggie, electric with lightning. I untangle myself from Caleb’s limbs and ease myself to my feet to double-check that all the windows are closed.
Not scared not scared
, I chant as I pad through the house.
Lalala
. Storms are definitely in my top five list of things that petrify me.

Kitchen, living room. The patio door is closed, but—oops—I’d left it unlocked. Parents’ room, my room. At the end of the hall, the door to Jane’s room, I hesitate.

Then I take a breath and turn the knob.

Her window is wide open. Rain blows in slantways, rattling the blinds up and down like a xylophone. My throat catches in senseless panic as I rush toward it. I can feel the carpet soaked and spongy under my feet. I lean up, struggling,
but the window is stuck fast. Water sops my T-shirt and beats against my face. “C’mon, c’mon.”

The window gives so suddenly that it almost takes off my fingers as it slams shut. Quickly, I turn the latch and step back, wiping the spray from my face.

The rocking chair is wet. It creaks back and forth as if by an invisible hand. I pluck a cotton T-shirt from the stack on Jane’s bed and use it to dry the wood. The skin of my fingers stings where it tore. My heart is still thumping. I sit on the chair to calm myself. The rocking motion soothes me. I tilt myself into the rhythm as I listen to the rain.

When I was little, I used to head straight for Jane’s room whenever I heard thunder. She was totally unafraid of it. Her brave face made me feel brave, too.

“Don’t worry, Lily,” she’d comfort me. “Storms are only angels having temper tantrums.” Then she’d tickle her finger up and down the length of my arm, like Augusta did, to help me sleep. “See? It’s a magic trick,” she told me. “It hypnotizes you.” I wasn’t sure if that was true, but magic seemed to live in Jane’s skin, as much a part of her as the games she would invent for us to play.

Like Spying on the Hobhouses, where we eavesdropped on an imaginary family who lived in Granpa’s barn. Or Getting the Gold, where Jane would bury a sandwich bag full of loose change, and then present me with a map that would have me digging all day to find it. Or Wherever It Takes You, which was nothing more than following a bumblebee
into the garden or woods, but mostly into trouble if we wandered off too far.

I’d happily play along with any of Jane’s games back then. Jane enchanted my world. I thought my sister could do anything.

Realizing that she couldn’t must have come on gradually, but I always pin it to one day. We’d been snapping string beans at the kitchen table at our grandparents’ house, which Jane had named Orchard Way. Jane loved renaming things, but “Orchard Way” was wrong. Too snooty for a small house plopped on a patch of Peace Dale farmland.

I’d taken off my new bracelet, which was actually a bendable pencil, glittery pink. I was proud of it, and I could feel Jane stealing jealous glances.

“Where’d you get that?” she asked me finally.

“From the goody bag at Josie Hull’s birthday party.” Josie Hull was in Jane’s class, but I’d been the one invited to Josie’s tenth birthday party since we played league soccer together. Jane did not play soccer. She didn’t play any sports at all.

“Granpa and Augusta’d get me one of those pencil bracelets if I wanted,” Jane said after a minute. “All I’d have to do is ask.”

“They would not.”

“Would. They love me. Actually, more than they love you.”

“Lie,” I answered automatically. Then, “How do you know? Did they tell you that?”

“Not in words.” Jane snapped a bean in half and checked it for spots. “But you can see from how they treat me.”

It was true that our grandparents seemed to prefer Jane. They let her ramble on about her dreams, and they laughed at her unfunniest jokes. It had never really bothered me. After all, I had everything else, and I was slowly becoming more aware of that. Better looks and better grades and more friends. I had plenty. I had too much.

But if my grandparents actually loved my sister more, well, that seemed just about illegal. I wasn’t a bad granddaughter. I said please, and I scraped my plate and put it in the dishwasher without being asked, and I never threw a Jane-style temper tantrum that swept through the house like a typhoon and bent everyone to its will.

“Why? Why do they love you more?” I’d asked her bravely.

“You know why.” Jane’s eyes fixed on me. “Because I have Special Needs. That’s why Mom takes me to Dr. Beigeleisen every Thursday after school, but not you. Because of my Special Needs.”

I simmered. Jane made it sound so good, but I knew the truth. Jane’s Special Needs were nothing to brag about. As Mom had explained it, Special Needs meant extra help for Jane’s tantrums and bad moods. But I knew that Special Needs also put the worry in Mom’s and Dad’s forehead.

Special Needs was a problem. It was no reason to get extra love. No way.

“After Mom and I drop you off at Dr. Beigeleisen’s,” I said, “we go to Newport Creamery and get Awful Awfuls, with real whipped cream. Maybe Augusta and Granpa love you more, but Mom loves me the
most
.”

Mom had sworn me not to tell about the Awful Awfuls. The clench in my stomach confirmed that I’d done something bad.

In that second, though, it was worth it. Just to see the horror pop the smugness off Jane’s face.

“Liar,” she whispered.

I said nothing. I snapped another bean and stuck out my tongue.

She pushed up from the table and slammed outside. I heard her calling to our grandparents’ mutt, Gambler. Who also loved her best.

I snapped the rest of the beans by myself, although the job was too big for just me. But I was scared to ask a grown-up for help. Jane shouldn’t have told me that our grandparents loved her best, but somehow I knew I’d done worse.

That day marked the beginning. Not because it was our first big fight, but because it was the first time I realized that I could hurt my sister if I chose. She might be half magic, but she was also half glass. It scared her to be shut out of my world of pink glitter bracelets and sleepovers and
streams of friends and, later, Caleb. And I didn’t mean to shut her out, but sometimes I did it anyway. I liked having power. Power is its own kind of magic.

The rocker squeaks me back and forth, lulling me to sleep. I imagine that Jane is with me again. In the next moment, knowing that she isn’t, that she never will be, seems almost too much to bear.

In a determined push, I bounce to my feet and stretch. Then I leave Jane’s room for the second time in one night. Heading back to the couch, back to Caleb’s warm body, and the comfort of his skinny arms.

Morning sunshine warmed the breeze through the window curtains. Last night’s rain had made the world damply fresh.

Jane flipped back the covers and smiled.

Outside, she heard Granpa whistle to Gambler, who was barking at something. The harder Jane listened, the more she was sure that Gambler was speaking to her.

“Jane! Get going!” he barked. “Jane! Put on your bathing suit and join us!”

But dogs didn’t talk, Jane reminded herself. Gambler could speak only because she wasn’t taking her medication. Her meds had kept her planted in a world where dogs barked and birds sang and yesterday seemed connected logically to today and tomorrow.

This morning, even without the pills, she felt all right. She felt free.

In a perfect world, a dog could talk, and it wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

“Jane! Hurry!” barked Gambler. “Sleepyhead!”