Told by Manda
It’s supposed to be an expression. Hearts are muscle, not bone. They can’t actually break. But, when Svenrietta disappeared, I swear, my brother’s heart shattered. She’d been making Shady a little stronger and braver every day, and once she was gone, he folded inward and crumbled like a dying leaf.
Shady wouldn’t eat. He couldn’t sleep. He refused to go to his appointments with his psychiatrist. He wouldn’t even go to school. And—worst of all—for the first time ever, he completely stopped talking. Even to me, Mom, and Dad.
Mom moved some meetings around on Tuesday. Dad worked from home on Wednesday, but by the time Thursday came, they couldn’t do it anymore.
“Shady, you need to get dressed,” I heard Mom plead that morning.
I peered in the doorway to see a tight lump of covers on my brother’s bed.
“Just give school a try. If you really can’t cope, Dad or I will come to get you.” The blanket lump didn’t move.
Mom tried a threat. “I’m coming back in five minutes,” she said, “and you’d better be up.”
But, really, what was she going to do if he wasn’t? Send him to his room? He was already there. Ban him from playing The Evil Undead? He mostly liked playing it with Pouya, and since he wouldn’t even come out of his room to see his best friend, Pou had to go to the after-school program.
Mom walked out of Shady’s room like she meant business, but when I went in to borrow a pair of socks from her drawer a minute later, I found her sitting on the edge of the bed crying. She didn’t even try to stop when she saw me—so I knew it was bad. I sat down and put an arm around her.
“I can stay home with him today if you want,” I offered. “Most of my teachers post the assignments online anyway.”
For some reason, that made her cry harder.
Dad came in. “I’m calling Dr. Nugget,” he said when he saw my mom’s runny mascara. “We can’t go on like this.”
While Dad spoke to the psychiatrist’s receptionist on the phone, Mom seemed to rally. She put on earrings. She picked out shoes. Finally, with a callback from Shady’s psychiatrist coming on Dad’s cell within the hour, my parents decided there wasn’t any other choice. Mom had important meetings. Dad couldn’t miss another day with his big conference coming up. They weren’t happy about it, but they asked me to stay home with my brother. They also decided he wasn’t in any shape for Angie Murray to come babysit, even though I was supposed to have Film Fanatics after school. I said it was okay. And, honestly, I didn’t mind at first.
Only, the silence was so much louder than I expected.
At first, I left Shady alone while I did some history homework. It was nice having the house to myself.
But when eleven thirty came around and he still hadn’t come down for breakfast, I started to worry. I put a blueberry muffin on a plate and brought it to him. We’re not allowed to eat in our rooms, so I figured he’d be happy.
Shady was still under his blanket, but at least now his head was poking out a little, and he had a comic book propped up in front of him.
I sat down on the edge of his bed. “Hey, you hungry?”
He shifted one shoulder away from me and stared harder at his comic.
“It’s forbidden bedroom food.” I smiled and held up the plate. “Don’t tell Mom,” I added as if everything was normal. As if he could tell Mom. I mean, at that point I half hoped he would tell her and get me in trouble because at least then he’d be talking.
“Come on. Try a bit?” I tugged at Shady’s blanket playfully, but that only made him curl up tighter.
My phone buzzed.
Library. U coming?
It was Pascale. I hadn’t forgotten that I was supposed to meet her at lunch. I’d even borrowed a scarf from my mom with little violets on it, and I was planning to ask her how to knot it.
I’d been working on a message all morning, but I kept rereading it and hesitating to hit Send: I’m SO sorry. Can’t come today. Shady needs me at home. Still really upset about Svenri. Won’t talk to anyone or come out of his room. Pls don’t be mad, ok? Because I really, really, really want to be your friend!
Nope.
Delete.
I mean, way to sound totally desperate!
Instead, I went with short and to the point.
Sorry. Can’t. Tomorrow?
I watched the phone anxiously as the three little “I’m answering” dots appeared. Finally, it buzzed with her reply.
Sure.
One word.
I felt myself deflate. She was definitely mad. Which was great, because—as predicted—when I’d told Carly and Beth that I wasn’t going to be in their film contest group anymore, they were all like, “Oh, okay. Fine. Whatever. No, really. It’s fine.” And ever since then they’d been acting like I no longer existed, right down to staring at their phones and pretending they didn’t see me standing directly behind them in the lunch line. So now I had zero friends.
We can still edit after school tho? At film club?
At first, I didn’t get what Pascale meant. Svenrietta was gone. Pascale had been there when she disappeared. You can’t film a duckumentary without a duck. We had the school stuff, but we’d been planning to film Svenri at home with Shady next. We still didn’t have enough footage to meet the minimum ten-minute run time for the film. Why bother editing?
She must have guessed what I was thinking.
Now we film about the absence of the duck.
I glanced at the defeated lump of covers on the bed. That was the absence of the duck. And it wasn’t fit to be filmed.
“Shady,” I tried softly, holding out the muffin again. “It’s blueberry. Your favorite.”
No response.
“Fine then.” I took a bite. “Mmmm,” I said in an exaggerated way. “So good.”
Shady looked right through me with the same blank stare he gives to waiters, the dentist, and the lady at the flower shop who always tries to get him to say hello.
I sighed.
Sorry. We have to cancel the movie. My brother is too upset.
The three dots appeared.
But that’s part of the story! It’s documentary. Whatever happens, you film it.
I blinked at my phone, not knowing what to say. I mean, sure. Telling what happens is what documentaries do. But my brother’s broken heart wasn’t just some story for people’s entertainment.
“You sure you don’t want some?” I nudged the blanket lump.
Silence. He closed his eyes.
My phone buzzed again.
If he’s too sad now, we can edit the first half, then pick up filming later. No big deal.
Only, it was a big deal. It was a very big deal. Ever since my brother stopped talking in kindergarten, he’d been taking the tiniest baby steps toward communicating. A small smile for our favorite aunt, a little wave to thank the postal worker who’d just brought him a birthday package. Then Svenri came along and changed everything. And now that she was gone, he was right back where he’d started—only worse, because at least in kindergarten he hadn’t been miserable like this. My brother couldn’t handle a camera in his face. Definitely not now. Maybe not ever.
You don’t get it. He isn’t going to feel better without Svenri.
Then I made a snap decision that wasn’t snap at all. It was inevitable, really. I’d been kidding myself for months thinking I could do this.
I need to quit film club.
There was a long pause as my screen stayed blank, then—
Swell
I didn’t need to hear Pascale say it. Just reading it, I could feel the sarcasm dripping off that single word. I could picture her perfect nose turned up in the air, the stormy look in her dark eyes. I’d ruined our project and her chance to go to New Orleans. She was going to hate me forever. Swell. Just swell.
“Okay, Shady. Fine.” I took another bite of the muffin. It tasted like sawdust. “Fine,” I said with my mouth full. “If you don’t want it, don’t eat it.”
My brother had opened his eyes again. He was watching me with his deer-in-the-headlights look.
The phone buzzed.
Now I know your commitment to filmmaking.
I wanted to scream. First, at Pascale: “You don’t know the first thing about commitment. You don’t have a brother like Shady!”
Second, at my parents: “Why did you make me join film club in the first place? I knew something like this would happen.”
Last, I wanted to scream at the entire world. For being the kind of place that makes a person like Shady so uncomfortable and overwhelmed in the first place. For not even trying to learn how to make him feel okay.
Mostly, though, I felt like screaming at myself. Like: “Why can’t you find a way to make him better? What kind of big sister are you?” and also “How could you be so stupid? You almost had a real friend who liked you for who you are, and now you’ve messed it up by acting all weird. Like always!”
But the one person I ended up screaming at was the one who didn’t deserve it.
“Just so you know,” I told Shady. “It’s film club day. My one day of the week to do my own stuff after school instead of looking after you, but I’ll be here instead. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but everything is always about you.”
I scrunched my hand around the remaining muffin, squashing it into a ball.
“Shady doesn’t like noise, so we can’t go to the water park. Shady gets anxious around people he doesn’t know. Never mind, we’ll skip the Christmas party at the Marshalls’ house where you make gingerbread houses and get to take them home.”
His eyes were wider now. Glassier. But he still didn’t react, which made me even angrier.
“Shady lost his duck. He won’t get out of bed, so Angie can’t come babysit,” I went on.
Silence.
“That’s it?” I asked. “You’ve still got nothing to say? Why don’t you just talk?” I yelled. “Why don’t you just get over yourself and talk?”
Something in me snapped. I threw the muffin ball at my brother—hard enough that it exploded into chunks and crumbs when it hit the duvet. Shady looked down at the mess, then he pulled the blanket over his shoulder and turned to face the wall. Muffin crumbs tumbled to the carpet.
“Oh my God!” I yelled. Then I left, slamming the door behind me. But by the time I got downstairs I was already regretting every word. I collapsed on the bottom step—tears streaming down my face.