The first thing I saw when I walked in the door at Dad’s was a huge portrait of the four of us hanging above the fireplace. It wasn’t a great picture of me, but I loved it anyway. I loved it because the four of us, in that picture, in that moment looked . . . like a family.
“Like it?” Dad asked.
“I love it,” I said.
“I love it, too,” Suzanne said, coming up behind us with Baby Robert in her arms.
We all stood looking at the portrait and I noticed we felt like family. I felt like family, standing there with them. I remembered what Mrs. Sloan had said then and thought maybe she was right. Maybe it was happening. Maybe we were becoming a family!
I was happy for the rest of the night. Happy even though meat loaf showed up on the dinner table, happy even though I came in dead last at a game of Scrabble—I was distracted by Baby Robert’s cuteness. Just happy.
It didn’t even bother me when Suzanne brought the pictures of me alone to my room to show me. They were good pictures—except for all the freckles—and I knew Mom would love them.
• • •
I was in bed watching my little TV when Baby Robert started crying. I turned the volume up and watched two more shows. That’s how I knew that Baby Robert had been screaming for more than an hour, and that’s when I started to think maybe I could help—I could try singing Miyoko’s lullaby, “Nenneko yo.”
I got out of bed and followed the dreadful sound down the hallway to Dad and Suzanne’s bedroom. The door was closed, so I knocked and waited. Nothing. I thought maybe they couldn’t hear me over all the wailing, so I knocked again, louder.
The bedroom door flew open and Suzanne stood before me with Baby Robert in her arms. She didn’t exactly look happy to see me.
“What?” Suzanne barked over Baby Robert’s yowling.
“I heard the baby . . . ,” I said, looking past her, hoping Dad was in there and that he’d come to my rescue. But I didn’t see him. What I did see was another picture, a little smaller than the one over the fireplace, only this one had just the three of them in it. The homesickness spread through my belly like an egg that had been cracked open.
“What?” Suzanne repeated.
I swallowed. “Nothing.”
As I started to turn away, the door practically closed in my face.
• • •
I found Dad downstairs in the kitchen, warming up a baby bottle.
“I’m calling Mom,” I announced. “I want to go home. I’m going home.”
I think Dad would’ve looked exactly the same if I’d hauled off and kicked him in the shin—surprised, confused, and very unhappy.
I picked up the phone.
“Wait,” Dad said. “What happ—”
“Robert!” Suzanne yelled from upstairs.
“Coming!” Dad answered, testing the bottle on his wrist. “Wait,” he said to me on his way out of the kitchen. “Just wait.”
Mom didn’t answer the phone at home, so I called her cell.
• • •
By the time Dad came back downstairs looking for me, I was dressed, packed, and watching out the front window for Mom’s car. A flash of lightning lit up the night sky.
“Fizzy,” Dad started just as Keene’s car pulled to the curb. Why did that car always make me feel so disappointed—and nervous?
Thunder rumbled in the distance. “Mom’s here,” I said, avoiding Dad’s eyes. “I’ve got to go.”
Before Dad could say anything more, I was out the door and running as fast as my legs—and suitcase—would go. Wind rustled through the trees as the storm approached.
Keene sat in the driver’s seat. Mom was beside him. They were both dressed up, like maybe they’d been somewhere fancy when I called. Before I even got in the car, I could tell that Keene was mad.
He didn’t want to come and get me, I realized. For a second, I thought about going back inside Dad’s house, but then I knew Dad and Suzanne didn’t want me either.
I wondered, What does it say about you when even your own family doesn’t want you anymore? I felt sure it indicated that there’s something seriously, severely wrong with you. With me.
Even though I was trying my hardest to be perfect.
But since they’d stopped what they were doing and come all this way, and since big raindrops were starting to splatter down on me, I went ahead and got in the car with Keene and Mom.
Mom turned around in her seat and said softly, “Fizzy, honey,” and that was all it took.
I burst into tears. I don’t know why Mom has this effect on me, but she does. Once, when I was eight, I wrecked my bike near Olivia’s house, skinning my thigh. But I didn’t cry. Instead, I hopped right up and told everyone I was fine. When Olivia’s mom said that my leg was in bad shape and she needed to call my parents, I was a little scared, but still, I didn’t cry. When Dad showed up to get me, I didn’t cry then either. But as soon as I walked through the back door and saw my mom, I fell to pieces. “She was fine a minute ago,” Dad kept saying, like I was faking or something. I barely had any skin left on my thigh; I wasn’t faking.
Anyway, once I started crying, I couldn’t stop. I cried so hard and loud that eventually Mom stopped trying to talk to me, and instead just reached into the backseat and put her hand on my knee. Rain began pounding the windshield. I did that kind of crying where you make weird sounds that you never make otherwise and you can barely breathe.
By the time we got home, I could tell the anger had sort of melted off Keene. Now he just looked . . . uncomfortable.
It didn’t make any difference to me. I kept right on blubbering as Mom hurried me into the house. My teeth chattered violently. I felt cold and wet right down to my bones. My body felt heavy, my head pounded, and my stomach sloshed around like an out-of-control Tilt-A-Whirl. I felt more homesick—for a place, a time, a family that didn’t exist anymore—than I ever had in my life.
Mom took me upstairs, helped me out of my rain-soaked clothes and into my pajamas, tucked me into bed, and sat down beside me. Then she brushed my hair with her fingertips and said over and over, “It’s going to be all right,” until I started to calm down.
But even after I stopped crying, I couldn’t get hold of myself. My breathing was still funny—like hiccups or something, only not hiccups—and I kept shuddering.
“You’re awfully warm,” Mom said then. “Do you feel all right?”
I opened my mouth—to say that I was fine—and promptly vomited all over my bed.
“Keene!” Mom shouted. “Keene!”
I blindly reached out, caught Mom’s arm, and squeezed as I continued retching. I wanted to say, No, don’t let him see me like this! Only I couldn’t say anything at the moment.
Mom must’ve misunderstood the arm squeeze, because she responded by pulling my hair back and holding it.
I saw Keene’s polished, black-tassel loafers step into my room. But as soon as he’d had a few seconds to take in the scene, his shoes turned and carried him away—quick. I didn’t blame them—or him.
“Keene!” Mom called sharply.
Keene’s shoes reappeared in the doorway.
I raised up and wiped my mouth on my hand.
Mom let go of my hair and placed a strong arm around me. Then she said to Keene, “I need you to strip this bed while I get her into the shower.”
Keene didn’t look like he wanted to, but he didn’t argue.
Mom was sitting on the toilet lid in the bathroom, waiting for me, when I stepped out of the shower. She handed me a towel and said, “I’ve put fresh sheets and another blanket on your bed.”
“Thank you. I . . . I’m sorry,” I said.
“It’s all right,” Mom assured me.
When I was back in bed, she said, “Now then. We’ll talk in the morning—it’ll all look better in the morning, you’ll see.”
I nodded obediently. I knew Mom was wrong, but she was trying so hard.
“Sleep now,” Mom said. “Just sleep.”
I was listening to the rain, about to drift off to sleep, when I heard the phone ring. Somehow, I knew it was Dad calling. I felt like I should get up and tell him how sorry I was—for everything—but I was too tired to move. Mom’s words echoed in my throbby head: Sleep now. Just sleep.