This morning’s speaker is a 95-pound yogi with more body piercings than orifices. After a brief share on finding her sobriety through yoga and meditation, Ivy has us all put away our chairs and sit cross-legged on the bare floor while she perches on a purple meditation pillow and “oms” like an electric fly zapper.
Red bailed as soon as he heard the word “yoga,” sneaking off to wherever it is that he goes. Will sits a few feet away from me. He keeps snickering under his breath, and I’m pretty sure the only thing he’s visualizing is the backside of Ivy’s yoga pants.
And somehow this is supposed to help me get in touch with my higher power.
Libby sits right next to me. I can’t tell if she’s into this or if she’s fallen asleep, because even though my eyes are supposed to be closed, I keep opening them to make sure that everyone in the room isn’t secretly staring at me.
Libby’s lashes flutter softly like she’s dreaming. Her hands rest palms up on her knees, and the puckered pink skin of fading scars peeks out from under the sleeves of her white t-shirt. I wonder what finds her when she closes her eyes. And then I realize that if she opens them and sees me staring at her, she’s going to think I’m a creepy stalker and probably never talk to me again.
I quickly shut my eyes and try not to think about the things that find me in the dark: Mom’s coming today. And even though Fisher has reassured me a thousand times, I’m still a nervous wreck. What if I chicken out? What if, even with Fisher in my corner, I can’t tell her how I’ve really felt all these years? Deep down, I know that what I want to come from this session is proof—proof that Dad’s leaving was Mom’s fault so that I can finally let myself off the hook. But what if that proof doesn’t come?
“And when you’re ready,” Ivy finally drones, in this voice that’s a weird combo of sexy and nerd, like a guest speaker on NPR or a hot librarian, “open your eyes and come back to the room.”
I stretch out my legs, which have fallen so deeply asleep that tiny pins and needles are climbing up my skin like a thousand caterpillars.
“It wasn’t that bad, was it?” Libby teases.
“Longest twenty minutes of my entire lifetime.” I pound my feet with my knuckles to wake them up. “You?”
“I kinda liked it.” She stretches her arms above her head, like she just woke up from a blissful power nap. The smooth white skin of her lower back shows, and I can barely make out the upper edge of lower hip ink. Libby lowers her arms. “I did feel like someone was staring at me, though.” She twists around and squints at me, her nose scrunched up like she’s sniffing out a lie. “You weren’t staring at me, were you?”
For a second I’m not sure if she’s talking about when I was watching her meditate or just now, when I was checking out her, um . . . tattoo. Either way, I’m guilty as charged, but I point at my chest like maybe she’s talking to someone else and blatantly avoid the question. “Who, me?”
“Yes, you.” Libby twists full around on her mat so her knees touch my leg. “Because you know that would be total creepsville, right? To stare at someone while they’re meditating?”
I make my face slack-jawed serious. “If you want to get technical about it, staring at someone while they’re sleeping would be total creepsville. Staring at someone while they’re meditating is probably only partially creepsville and, depending on the circumstances, could also be construed as . . . sweet.”
Libby blinks.
“Not that I was staring at you or anything.”
She shoves my shoulder and laughs, then climbs to her feet, reaching out her hands to help pull me up. “C’mon, perv. Let’s get the blood flowing again.” I take her hands, pull myself up onto still-wobbly legs, and make some lame joke about how she might have to carry me to group. But as soon as we part ways, the nerves set in again.
I’m a basket case during group, my legs jostling up and down almost as much as Will’s, who looks like his very veins are caffeinated. I can’t concentrate on anything anybody says. My stomach churns around my breakfast, and my palms are sweating so much they leave wet prints on my jeans. I must look like I’m going to puke or something, because at one point, Howard looks at me all worried and asks if I need to see the nurse. By the time I get to Richard Fisher’s office, where my mom and Fish are waiting for me, I can barely see straight. This was a bad idea—a very, very bad idea.
Richard Fisher sits in a chair opposite Mom on the couch, and he’s brought in another chair for me. “Come on in and have a seat, Eli. Your mom just got here.”
Mom gives me this tiny, tentative smile, and I wonder if she’s as nervous as I am. She pats a spot on the couch beside her, but I choose the chair, a safe distance away.
Richard Fisher gives me this expectant look, and I know he’s waiting for me to start, but the words that came so freely when it was only me and Fish now seem stuck somewhere between my head and my heart.
“Eli,” Fisher begins, laying down a trail of breadcrumbs for me to follow. “Why don’t you tell your mother why you’ve asked her to join us today?”
Mom’s face is open and warm, like when she’s listening to Benny talk about his favorite kind of dinosaur or the latest episode of Blue’s Clues. For the first time in a long time, I’ve got her full attention, and it’s absolutely terrifying.
I look at my hands instead of at Mom and force out the words. “I want to talk about Dad.”
Mom blinks. “What?” She casts a sideways glance at Richard Fisher. “Why?”
“Because you never talk about him,” I push. “Because he’s my dad, and you act like he never existed.”
Mom’s jaw flexes; she picks at an invisible piece of lint on her sweater. I give Richard Fisher a pleading look.
He picks up the trail. “Eli thought that maybe a family session—”
Mom cuts in. “We really should’ve included Steven.”
Anger rises in my throat, freeing my tongue. “That’s just it!” I say. The words wedge through gritted teeth. “Steven’s not my family.”
“Honey,” Mom tries. She reaches to touch my knee, but I push my chair back out of reach. She sighs. “Steven cares about you a great deal, Eli. And like it or not, he’s a part of our family.”
Richard Fisher clears his throat. “That may be, but right now it’s important that we validate every feeling Eli’s having.”
“Steven raised him like his own son.” Mom talks to Richard Fisher like I’m not even here. “He paid Eli’s way into one of the most prestigious college prep schools around. He—”
“He’s not my dad!” I explode.
Mom’s head swivels to face me, like she’d forgotten I was in the room.
“My dad died, remember? Or did you forget about him when you and Steven were drawing up plans for your new life?”
Mom slides her hands down her face. “That’s not fair, Eli. I don’t expect you to understand, but I had to do what I knew was best.”
“You didn’t even ask me! You never once tried to talk to me about my dad. You stuck me in therapy, hoping they could figure out what was wrong with me. Well, guess what, Mom? I could’ve saved you a boat-load of money—the only thing wrong with me is you!”
Mom turns to Richard Fisher. “I don’t think I can do this.”
“Now, hang on a second,” Fisher tries, his voice coaxing. “Eli, remember how we talked about trying to use I-statements—”
I ignore him.
I want to hurt her. I want her to feel like I’ve felt all these years. My words freefall like cannonballs. “All I ever wanted was more time with Dad. I wanted to live with him. Did you know that? Did you ever think for a second that maybe I actually needed him around? No, you were too selfish, too self-absorbed . . .”
Mom’s face turns to chiseled stone, her voice taut and low. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Why can’t you just admit it? If you hadn’t been so determined to get a divorce, Dad would still be alive.”
Mom’s shaking her head, deflecting my words. Fury and desperation push me to my feet, and I hover over her, landing a final blow: “It’s your fault he’s dead!”
Mom’s face crumples; she drops her head into her hands. Words, faint and feeble, find their way through her fingers. “It was an overdose, Eli.”
An overdose. The word sears my brain, fiery and hot.
“You’re lying.” My voice cracks, and I hate how pathetic I sound.
Mom peers up at me, her eyes pooling with tears. “I wish I was,” she says. “You were so little, and you loved him so much. How could I tell you he was an addict? I had to protect you from the truth.”
An addict.
My mind swirls as memories rush in like flood water. “That night,” I begin, “the night he left . . .”
The park.
The swings.
Mom’s cheeks are glistening, and her eyes are bloodshot. “I went through his dresser,” she says. “I’d known for a long time that something wasn’t right. We were always short on money, and he was always going out at night, always lying to me. At first, I thought it was an affair. I went through his drawers, looking for receipts, lipstick stains, anything. But I never expected . . .”
Mom dissolves into tears, and Richard Fisher hands her a box of tissues.
I turn my back to them, lean against the wall, and press my forehead against the cool plaster. This new life history sits skin-deep, burning the surface of my knowing, but I will not absorb it. I will not take this in.
Mom’s sobbing now, but instead of going to her, instead of comforting her, I reach for the door. “We’re done here.”
“Eli?” Richard Fisher’s voice pulls me up short. A deep crevice furrows his weathered brow. “Can you stay a little longer? I think it’s important that we talk about what you’re feeling right now.”
You know how when you put your hand in scalding water or ice-cold snow, the feeling you get is the opposite? The water feels like ice and the snow burns you? Either way, if you keep your hand there long enough, pretty soon you don’t feel anything. You don’t notice your hand burning. You don’t notice the frostbite.
You don’t feel anything at all.
“I’m fine,” I say.
“Eli,” he presses.
“I said I’m fine!”
Richard Fisher sighs, and I leave without saying goodbye to my mom.
A gnawing hunger grabs me right outside of Richard Fisher’s office, tearing at my skin from the inside. I skip the end of group and head to the dining hall, where I scarf down four cream-filled donuts doused in scalding coffee. I leave the cafeteria in a sugar-sick daze. The walk to the art room feels like moving through quicksand, each step heavier than the first. I brush past Libby, almost bumping into her easel, and she grabs my arm.
“Eli? What the hell? What happened?”
Her eyes pass over my face like searchlights, teasing out the story, and for a second I want to tell her everything. But that would make it true.
“I’m fine,” I mumble.
I leave Libby at her easel and head for the supply table. I squirt paint on a palette and choose a brush, then fill a can with water from the utility sink at the back of the room. I swipe color after color on my canvas until the paint cakes like mud.
The rest of the class arrives gradually, and the art room settles into quiet, focused activity—a beehive vibrating with the subtle din of brushes against canvases and the soft “oohs and aahs” of the wandering art teacher, with her rustling skirt and wind chime earrings, who stops at each person’s easel in turn.
“Tell me about this,” she buzzes, hovering near an easel close to mine. Her patchouli smell wafts across the room, stinging my nose.
The girl behind me drones softly about how her self-portrait depicts the pressure of perfectionism.
“I can see the anger here,” Queen Bee/Art Teacher hums. “And over here, in these cool tones you’ve chosen, the loss and isolation.”
Her voice is the delicate pitter patter of raindrops in summer—soothing and barely audible. But in the fog of confusion that clouds my brain, they echo like the mega-phoned announcements of a sports commentator. “Anger! Loss! Isolation!”
I stare at my painting, jab more brown here, more yellow and red, until I’m not painting anymore, I’m stabbing the canvas with smudging color. This is supposed to be a self-portrait. This canvas is supposed to tell my story. But my entire life has been a lie.
My dad was an addict.
An addict.
Savannah’s words sneak in through some back door of my brain. Your heart stopped, Eli. You were dying.
Like father, like son.
And suddenly I’m not painting anymore. The paintbrush is gone, and I’m stabbing the canvas with fists that come back streaked with brown. My fragile easel trembles and clatters to the ground. Someone screams. Faces pass in a blur as I run from the room. I don’t stop, I don’t slow down.
I run until I don’t know where I’m going. Until I can’t see straight. Until I can’t breathe. Down the hall, through the rec room, right out the back doors where visitors stand to smoke. I slump down on the concrete stoop, streaked with ash, and sob into my paint-covered hands. My tears land like clumps of mud.
When the double doors behind me shove open, I’m pretty sure it’s an orderly sent by the art teacher to haul me to Richard Fisher’s office for more shrinking. Or to the nurse for a sedative. Which actually sounds pretty good right about now.
I wipe my eyes on my t-shirt sleeve. “You don’t have to say it,” I say, without turning around. “I can take myself back to art.”
“Not much point in that,” Libby answers, and I twist around real fast, because she’s the last person I expected.
She smirks. “Your painting is pretty much a pile of scraps at this point.” She sits down on the stoop beside me, her knee bumping mine in greeting. “It sucked anyway.”
I choke out a strangled laugh, but the effort pushes out more tears, and I turn my face away from Libby, try to wipe them before she sees.
She doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t ask what happened. She doesn’t even ask if I’m okay. She pulls my head onto her shoulder and pretends she doesn’t see me cry.
Paint drips like dried blood from my wrists and hands, mixing with the suds at the bottom of the shower. My thoughts swirl. Mom and Dad on the front porch the night he missed the ball game. Her hands on his chest, pushing him away. The flash of red taillights in the darkness. Mom on her knees in the middle of the street.
She could’ve told me then. She could’ve told me a thousand times after. Instead, she married Steven and moved us to Grandhaven, where the ceilings were too high, and everything was closets and corners—a thousand places to hide and nowhere to be myself.
She built our lives on a lie.
I slam the water off, wrap a towel around my waist. Mo sits on his bed; his pen scratches across the pages of a notebook.
My footprints soak the carpet. The picture of me and Mom heckles me from the top of my dresser. Me smiling, totally oblivious, Grandhaven Giants slapped across the front of my jersey like a brand. Like if we moved, we could start over. Like our lives could ever be normal again.
I fling the picture against the wall. The glass cracks but doesn’t shatter. The frame lands face down on the floor.
Mo stares at me, his pen suspended above the page.
“Don’t ask me if I want to talk about it,” I growl. “I’m done talking.” I pick up the picture, toss it into the trash. I’m done with all this shit, done with sharing, with memories, with writing in my stupid fucking journal. Done telling the truth.
The truth only brings more pain.