It takes Dr. Brasher quite a long time to read whatever Lacy wrote. I don't know whether he reads slowly, or whether she’d just written an awful lot. Knowing her, she probably wrote like a million pages. When he finally finishes, he doesn't look at either of us. He closes the laptop and exhales loudly.
I glance at Lacy, and she shrugs. She doesn't know what he's thinking either.
"The drugs had nothing to do with you, Hope?"
I shake my head.
"Why did you tell Principal Skinner they were yours?"
"I’m a minor. I didn't want Lacy to go to prison."
"You didn't know about her deal with Jack, though. As far as you knew, the drugs were hers."
I nod.
"And you still told the police, the principal, everyone, that they were yours?"
I nod again. "Lacy has a bright future, Dr. Brasher. She shouldn’t go to prison for felony possession, like Principal Skinner said she could if I told."
Dr. Brasher leans back and laughs.
"I don't see what's funny about this," Lacy says. She's wearing her, 'watch out or I'll kick your butt' look.
"Lacy, you've been scared to admit this, that you spoke to Jack about letting him put his drugs in your car, and even gave him your key?"
She nods. "Yes. I know it was wrong."
"But you never took the drugs he gave you?"
She shakes her head. "No, I didn't, but I gave him a key. I told him he could store them in my property."
"You did, and aiding a criminal is a serious issue, but it's not a felony, not under these circumstances."
"It's not?" she asks.
He shakes his head, and my chest feels so much lighter, I wonder that I don't float up in the air like a birthday balloon.
"Oh good!" I say.
"The real crime," Dr. Brasher says, "is that I’ve written up my recommendation to the Court. I was going to tell them that there wasn't a strong bond between the two of you, and that you might complete your grieving and finish the school year better alone, in separate domiciles."
Lacy's mouth drops open and I feel just as shocked.
"I love my sister," I say.
"I can see that," Dr. Brasher says. "I can see it clearly now that I know the whole story. I'm going to recommend the Court perform a drug test on your hair, Lacy. It should show only one usage of Adderall, and if it does, I’ll recommend they drop charges and allow you to be placed as your sister Hope's guardian. You will almost certainly be required to testify against the boy who asked you to hold the drugs for him."
Lacy's smile fills the room, and my heart soars. "Really?"
"You obviously have a deep bond, one that matters. After something like your mother’s passing, you need those bonds more than ever." He walks over to his desk and shuffles some papers. "Unfortunately I can't do anything about it tonight. Hope, you'll need to return home with the Boones, but if the judge agrees with me, you two could return to your home as early as tomorrow night."
I feel like the world is spinning around me. No record, no foster care. The future is wide open, and maybe Lacy will be okay, too. I want to dance and sing. Of course, when I sing it sounds like the seagull in The Little Mermaid, so I don't, but I want to.
"One last thing." Dr. Brasher hands Lacy a file folder. "I pulled these a few days ago. That's your father's arrest record. Your mother had to post bail quite a few times for him. The last time, she didn't go to post bail. She went to identify his body. I can't imagine how hard that would have been, or what agony she suffered trying to do the right thing by the two of you. Addiction runs in families. She was probably terrified you two would eventually follow the same path. It ate away at her, and combined with her depression, well. Make sure, for her sake, you don't ever get involved in any form of drug use."
Lacy doesn't speak, and neither do I, but I think Dr. Brasher can tell we’re listening. I don't intend to ever walk that road. I wish my mom was here to see that.
"It's not your fault, you know."
I look up at him. He's talking to both of us.
"There's nothing either of you could have done that would have saved her, not at this point. You couldn't have been expected to know the clinical signs of depression, not at your age. I included her medical records in that folder as well. You'll see she was diagnosed on two separate occasions, but refused to take any medication. Wherever she is now, I will promise you one thing, and you need to believe me. She would not want you to carry around that guilt."
Whether she wants it or not, I don't know. I do know that I can't quite erase it, but I’ll make sure I keep my eyes out for anyone else in the future. And I’ll badger the crap out of them to take their medicine, every day if I have to.
“But if I hadn’t told Jack he could store those drugs.” Lacy shakes her head.
Dr. Brasher takes a step toward her. “Your mother didn’t even listen to the voicemails on her phone before she died. She had no idea any of that happened. Sometimes depression worsens for no reason at all. It’s a medical condition, Angelica, and it was not your fault. Not a bit of it.”
A tear runs down Lacy’s face then, and she leans forward and hugs Dr. Brasher. She practically whispers the next words. “Thank you. For your patience. For your understanding. For everything.”
He smiles as we leave. "Keep me apprised of where you go after graduation," he says. "I'm really interested to know."
"I will," Lacy says. "I've got a new application for Yale to finish tonight, now that it looks like I might be going after all."
The Boones are waiting outside, matching looks of concern on their faces. They're good people; they just aren't my people. I hug Lacy tightly before I let her go and head back to their home with them. That night, before I go to bed, I check my email. I haven't checked it in over a week, and I have a lot of junk mail. I never should have signed up for People magazine's updates.
The most recent email isn't junk, though. It's from Lacy. "Finished a first draft of my admissions letter. Tell me what you think." I click on the attachment.
Dear Admissions Board:
I used to think that who we were was somehow a product of our essence, something you might call a soul. I thought that people were who they were, and you couldn't change them. This past week has altered my paradigm. I now realize that our lives are nothing more than a sequence of decisions, all of them small, but they send ripples out all around us. They weave together to form the fabric of who we are. If I choose to eat two pieces of toast every morning, and I consume healthy vegetables and fruits, with meat in moderation, I will likely be thin and healthy my entire life. If instead, I choose to eat Snickers bars for lunch, and wash them down with a soda, I’ll likely become sickly or weak. It won't happen overnight, but little by little, day by day, my health will deteriorate. Sometimes we make decisions so incrementally that we don't even realize where they’re taking us.
A few months ago, I applied for admission to Yale. I applied to many places, but your school has always been my top choice. I received a rejection from you a little over a week ago. Following that letter, I made a sequence of bad decisions, and the result was that my life began to spin out of control. I can't pinpoint exactly when it began, but I know I shouldn't have let a drug dealer store his stash in my car. I shouldn't have gotten in a huge fight with my sister over a guy we both liked. I definitely shouldn't have stayed up all night working on a project, and then contemplated taking prescription drugs improperly the next day to compensate for my exhaustion. All of those things were bad choices, potentially ruinous ones, but the decision that impacted my life the most last week, the one that got me thinking about all of the repercussions of each choice we make was one I didn't even make. Notwithstanding my helplessness, I've agonized over it, I have wailed, and moaned and yes, I have even cried. Buckets of tears, if I'm being honest.
My mom chose to end her life two weeks ago today.
At one point, I partially blamed my sister. When I learned more about the circumstances, I shifted all of that blame to myself.
On several occasions, I’ve been furious with Mom for leaving me. After the benefit of a few weeks’ thought on the horrible, tragic decision my mom made, I've come to the conclusion that the only person we can blame for any decision is the person making it.
I am to blame for fighting with my sister. I am to blame for bad judgment in letting an acquaintance put illegal substances in my car. I am to blame for almost taking amphetamines, but in the end, I threw the pills in the garbage. That's the same thing we must do with our guilt over other people's decisions and our own mistakes, every time the guilt resurfaces. Sure, I might have recognized the signs of my mom's depression and prevented her death if I’d been less caught up in my own problems, but I didn't. I could have caused her less stress in the past week, if I'd known what the results would be, but we cannot live our lives out of fear of what may happen. Sometimes the consequences of our decisions spiral far beyond our ability to predict.
Of all the things that went wrong in my week, I'm to blame for all but one. I refuse to accept the blame for my mother's mental illness and the horror that followed. What I promise to bring to Yale, if Mr. Zane convinces you to accept me, is an ability to make each decision now, small though they may seem, with the attention I know those decisions deserve. I hope that with my unique perspective, I can help other students to learn to do the same. It would be my distinct honor to debate on Yale's team, if your esteemed institution will have me.
Sincerely,
Angelica Shelton-Vincent
I type a reply right away. "Lacy for President. :)"