Ryan is only in the group home for two days and ten hours before Mom pulls him out. I come home from practice Wednesday to find Rosie making dinner, Mom yelling on the phone at Dad, and Livy sitting at the table, trying to do her homework while Ryan screams from his wheelchair.
“What did you want me to do, Scott? They were starving him.”
I can only picture Dad’s reaction on the other end of the phone.
Livy shoots me a look, then goes back to her homework as Rosie serves her homemade mac and cheese and steamed broccoli.
“Just in time, John,” Rosie says. “Wash up.”
My eyes go to the dining room, where Mom has retreated. I can see her slumped in one of the chairs. Her hair is a mess, and she’s picking at it like a crazy person. Her cough interrupts her attempt to defend herself.
“She needs to go to the doctor,” I say.
A plate is plunked down in front of me. “Wash up. I mean it,” Rosie answers. “You can’t help her right now. Just eat.”
I go to the sink and do as I’m told—but quickly so I don’t miss overhearing too much of Mom’s conversation.
“I know that, but… Ensure? Are you kidding me? There’s all sorts of stuff in there that will make him sick. He can’t tolerate it. We have never fed him that.” A pause. Then, “I never fed him that.”
I take a bite.
“Come on, Ryan,” Rosie says. “Bath time.”
“Is it too much to ask that our son get to eat like a normal person?”
I give Livy a look, and she gives one right back. This fight is one they’ve fought over and over again. Why Ryan couldn’t go to school. Why he couldn’t go to camp. Why he couldn’t…
“He got home, like, an hour ago,” Livy says. “Dad must have paid someone from that place to rat Mom out, because he knew as soon as it happened.”
I take a bite of Rosie’s awesome cooking, but it doesn’t taste right eating it during their fight.
“Just stop it. I did not want this to fail. You have no idea how hard any of this is.” Mom starts to cry. Then coughs. Then cries some more.
Livy’s face falls, and I wish like mad I had my car so I could take her out of the fallout zone. We’d go get pizza and Cokes. But because I screwed up, I’ve got no play. I think about texting Emily, but she’s kind of wrapped up in her stuff, and I don’t want to bother her, so instead, I say, “Finish up and I’ll let you beat me in Super Smash Bros.”
She tries to smile.
“Or…” I grab her plate and mine. She grabs the cups and forks and napkins. “We can finish this in my room while we watch Scream.”
We’re carrying everything we’ve got, making way for Rosie, who’s gone down the hall to make up Ryan’s bath. They converted Mom’s office to Ryan’s bedroom, because it was downstairs. “It’s OK, babies.” Rosie puts her hand on Livy’s cheek. “Change is hard for everyone.”
I want to believe Rosie. God knows she’s been with us long enough to know how all this goes.
“This will happen. They will find a place for Ryan where he can be more functional and independent. Where he will have kids like him to hang out with and activities to do.” She winks at me. “Trust me. It’s all going to work out.”
I want to trust Rosie—I do—but my beast is pacing now. Pacing and growling about how nothing ever changes and nothing ever will.
“Come on, Livy,” I call over my shoulder.
Mom disappears into the shadows of the living room. I hear her coughing and crying, and I feel like my entire world is cracking.
• • •
I’m working on my arch project. Like Mr. Bonham said, I went 3-D so I can get the angles right. I’ve built a tiny model with pieces of gum, so the whole room smells minty fresh. Then I drew the damn thing. Now I’m trying to match what I’ve done on the computer screen. I do not want to enter this contest with sticks of gum or Rice Krispies treats or cell phones. I want to do this right.
Mom knocks. I don’t even turn to face her. I’ve got stuff to do. “Come in.”
She slides into my room, flattens the covers in place on my bed, and sits, her hands in her lap. She looks so small and thin, like a doll, so unreal. She smooths her hair down in the back. “I just wanted to tell you I’m really excited about your awards presentation next week.”
“It’s no big deal. I probably won’t even win anything.” I look at my drawing and hit a key on the computer but know that I’ve messed it up even before it draws the point. I hit undo. Undo. Undo. God, I wish life had an undo button.
“Dad’s coming in for it. Rosie said she’d stay with Ryan so I can go too.”
“So he’s not going back?”
Mom covers her mouth while she coughs, her body hunching with each spasm. She puts a tissue to her nose. “No. Not to that place at least. I know your father…”
I put my hand up. “I’ve got work to do, Mom.”
Mom comes closer. “What are you doing?”
I point to the gum model and then to the drawing and then to the computer. “It’s screwed up, and if I don’t fix it, it won’t matter who shows it to what competition, because I won’t even enter.”
“No. You have to.” She stares at the model. “You’ll figure it out.”
“I hope.”
“Have you thought about sending a picture to Dad or Uncle Dave?”
Wow. Mom recommending Uncle Dave seems so unreal that I almost balk, but I have to admit, it’s not a bad idea. I snap a picture of the gum bridge and then the drawing and send it to him.
This is wrong. Can you help?
He texts back right away. What the hell is it?
It’s supposed to be a bridge arch.
What’s it made out of?
Trident gum.
That’s your problem. I always use Wrigley’s.
I laugh. Smart-ass.
Better than being a dumb-ass. Check the numbers on each side.
Like I wouldn’t have thought of that?
Count again, but mark them as you count. Your eyes play tricks sometimes.
I grab a pen and put a dot on each one. Turns out I double counted on the right. Bingo. And then I’m back in time again in that igloo with Ryan.
He’d made me lay on the ground to make the snow angel that would be the guide for how big to make our igloo. Then I had to stamp down the snow into a sheet of ice. He got to use the saw, because he was older and he didn’t want us to get in trouble. I was supposed to pack the snow between the bricks.
“Pass me the next one,” Ryan said, his hand stretched out for the next block of snow. That’s what little brothers do, right? Assist?
I held tight to my brick. Put it where it went on my side of the igloo. Ryan puffed out a cold breath, which I could tell was filled with all the annoyance of my little mutiny.
“Come on, we need another one there.” He pointed to his side, but I’d counted. I knew where I put the brick was right, but he’d never listen.
We were both squeezed in so tight, it was hard to move. He was looking at the roof, but it was a little heavy, and the angle of the arch wasn’t quite right. I counted the bricks we’d made out of one of Mom’s empty planters, but it was hard to make the bricks line up in my head while I counted—it was like they jumped everywhere.
Our shoulders bumped, and his angry movements sent a cascade of ice and snow all over us, and I had to pull my scarf over my mouth. He was still filling in little cracks and making his side perfect. I just wanted to start building the fire he said we could. I sat up. My head hit part of the roof and opened a hole on my side, the lower side of the igloo. Within seconds, the whole wall collapsed, burying us under all that weight. I didn’t know if it was the snow or him or both. I just knew I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. Terror wedged itself inside my throat. Mom was in her study. Dad was at work. I’d read pirate stories where people fell into pits of quicksand and died.
We were going to die. I was going to die. I was dying.
Hands lifted me. Ryan’s hands. He pulled me out of the wreckage I’d caused. I expected him to be angry, but instead, he brushed off my shoulders, pushed me back. “You are such a little pain in the ass!” But he was smiling. “You scared the shit out of me.”
I wanted to yell back. I wanted to tell him he always made me feel like a little dipshit. I wanted to curse and scream, because I knew this was my fault. My stupid eyes. My stupid temper. I should have listened to him. I knew it, and so did he. I stood staring at him, anger pouring off me, and he just laughed it away. Then he kicked at the remains of the igloo. “Hurry, before Mom finds out what we did.”
I joined him, smashing the rest of it. Glad my mistake would melt into the ground and no one else would know. Glad that my big brother saved me. Just then, Mom opened the door. She waved us in. “I’ve got hot chocolate ready. You must be freezing.”
Ryan pushed me so he could go in first. And just like that, he became my jerky big brother again.
Mom cocks her head. “What?”
“Never mind. I think I fixed it.”
“Good. Your ceremony is from six to eight. We’re planning to go out to dinner afterward. Unless that’s too late for you.”
“It’s fine,” I say, but I’m still mixed up in the memory, cold and numb and so annoyed with myself. That igloo was when I started to get competitive with Ryan. I wanted to be better than he was. I didn’t care what happened. I just had to be right, even if it killed us.
Mom turns to leave, then stops again. “I never told you how sorry I am about your girl.” Her gaze skates over my pictures lined up on the dresser, and I’m annoyed that she’s going there, but it’s not like I didn’t know she would.
My girl. Leah. I’m speechless.
“If we’d known…”
I shake my head. I don’t tell Mom that Leah didn’t exactly tell anyone about me either.
“John, I know I’ve made a terrible mess of our lives since Ryan…”
My hand goes out. “Mom, stop.”
Like a steam engine plowing through me, the memories come. The sound of glass shattering. Dad saying, “That’s great, Lydia.”
“You like that?” Her voice mean and threatening.
Then the coffee burning me. Burning.
Livy crying. Mom saying, “Shush, baby, shush.”
I shake my head to clear the memory. I can’t keep doing this. This is why I don’t want to be back here. The constant never-fucking-stopping train of memories that bury me.
Mom stands there, completely unaware of the war I’m going through. As usual. “I think you and I are too much alike sometimes.”
She wants me to answer her, but I can’t.
“I know you didn’t want to come back here. I know I make you… I”—she gathers her hands in front of her, takes a breath—“I know I make you kind of crazy, but I’m glad you’re here, John. This could be a second chance for us. You don’t want that?”
I try to count to ten. Twenty. One hundred. Anything to stop this landslide of feelings. Not just about Mom but also about how unfair life is. How I could have been the one to die so many times. When I fell off my bike on that trail. The hundred or more times I ran into the street without looking, chasing some stupid ball. The igloo that collapsed and buried me. I could have died any of those times, but I didn’t. But the Old Ryan did that day on the driveway. And it didn’t make any fucking sense. None of it. How could one person make bad decision after bad decision without consequence, while, with Ryan, one second of stupid luck took everything from him? Why did Leah die when someone could have found her and saved her? When I should have. She gave me her phone for cripes’ sake.
“John? I’m trying to talk to you. You can talk to me about this.”
She just sliced me open seven different ways, and she wants me to talk while my guts are pouring out of me, slopping on the floor. We both know she blames me for Ryan’s accident. She did then. She does now. Things like that don’t change. People don’t. We just grow up and move on. Like I’m going to do the minute I can. California, I remind myself. As soon as my probation is lifted.
Eventually, she gets the hint and shakes her head, her face sober, but at least there are no tears. Mom and I don’t like to cry in front of people. Good thing. “Oh. I almost forgot.” She points to my closet. “I bought you jeans and running shoes. The ones you had were so worn.”
I’m not sure what pisses me off more: Mom looking through my things or using new things to buy my love. Or that I have to thank her for sneaking around my life, spying, instead of simply asking me what I want or need. Leaving little presents in this weird staying-on-the-periphery kind of parenting.
My eyes go back to my homework. “I’ve really got to get on this.”
“Sure. Let me know what fits and what doesn’t. I can take anything back you don’t like.”
As soon as Mom leaves, I close my books and take out my phone. It’s been forever since I’ve talked to Pete. But instead of texting him, I see one from Emily.
Bad night. Could use someone to talk to.
I type back. I’m someone.
Can you meet me?
Where?
The park.
I don’t ask her why she wants to meet two blocks away when we could just hang in each other’s backyards. I simply send back Yes. Ten minutes.
Thank you.
I try to silence the voices in my head that tell me this is a bad idea. That I can’t save her any more than I could save Leah. I hear Steve telling me to fall for someone who can take care of me for a change, but the thing is, I can’t help Mom. I can’t help Ryan. I can’t change anything that’s happened in the past. But I can meet Emily in the park. So I will.