TWENTY
December to March
The new year was full of promise. Abby was ready to leave the old year behind.
Well, sort of. On the morning of New Year’s Eve, the thought that tomorrow would be not only another day but another year—a year of new beginnings, not endings—should have made her feel optimistic. It didn’t. This had been the Year of Dad. Dad had taken center stage; everything revolved around him. Leaving the year behind felt like leaving him behind.
Abby would no longer be able to say that her dad had died earlier that year. Now she would say he had died last year. And last year sounded like such a long time ago. Soon she would say that he had died two years ago, then three, then five, then ten. Before she knew it, she’d be telling people stories about what her dad did years ago, when she was a kid. All she’d have to tell them would be the memories she already had, and even those would fade. Once she became an adult, Dad would be just someone she had known long ago.
On New Year’s Eve Abby needed her pep squad; she wanted her friends.
Some kids, including Spence and Leise, were going to the all-night ski at Alpine Valley, across town near the high school, and had asked her to come with. New Year’s Eve at Alpine was a big deal; a band played in the lodge and at midnight the ski patrol lined up for a downhill parade and fireworks were set off over Alpine’s highest slope. The kids who had gone had boasted about how much fun it was, and Abby was dying to check it out for herself. Never mind that she’d never skied in her life; Abby didn’t intend to start on New Year’s, anyway. She could sit in the lodge and listen to music and drink hot cocoa and hang out with her friends.
She knew she wouldn’t be able to go, though. Mom planned on staying home; she’d always said that going out on the roads on New Year’s Eve was like playing Russian roulette. They used to have Billy Mohr’s parents and the Beasleys over to ring in the New Year with cocktails, munchies, and euchre, but this year Mom said she wasn’t feeling up to it. As Mom mopped the kitchen floor that afternoon, Abby sat at the kitchen table, trying to sway her to at least go out for dinner with friends so that maybe she’d let Abby go out, too.
“Why don’t you give Charlotte a call?” she prompted. Charlotte was Mom’s never-married friend from work, and the two of them went out to dinner now and then. “I’m sure she’d love your company.”
“Charlotte has a date tonight, honey.”
“What about Miriam or Judy?”
“They’re married.” Mom put her full weight into the mop, scrubbing like her life depended on eliminating a sticky spot on the floor. “They’ll be spending the evening with their husbands.”
“I’m sure they wouldn’t mind if you tagged along.”
“No, they probably wouldn’t. In fact, Judy asked me to come to a party she’s having this evening.”
“So? Go!”
“I can’t, Abby. I just can’t. I’d feel like a third wheel.”
“It’s a party, Mom. There will be lots of people there.”
“That’s another thing,” Mom sighed, taking a break from her mopping and wiping her forehead with her sleeve. “There will be plenty of couples there, along with some of the ‘nice men’ everyone has been trying to set me up with.”
So maybe Mom was right. She shouldn’t go.
“I’ve been put in the situation before. As much as they mean well, I don’t think my friends realize how humiliating it is for me when they appoint themselves my personal matchmakers. We go out and these men show up and I swear I can feel their eyes on me the whole night, scrutinizing what I look like and analyzing every word I say. Invariably they sit next to me the entire night, asking a million questions, personal questions, when all I wanted to do was get out and have a little fun. It’s not fun. I assure you that any man past forty who is not married is single for a good reason.”
“So can’t you just tell these bozos to buzz off?”
Mom laughed. “I wish it was that easy. Besides, you know how I feel about driving on New Year’s Eve. Every drunk in the country gets behind the wheel on New Year’s.”
Mom wrung out the wet mop and set it in the garage. She dumped the dirty water from the bucket into the sink, plunked a paper-wrapped pound of ground beef onto the counter, and searched through the spice cabinet for the fixings to make a meat loaf.
“Ask your friends to come over here, then,” Abby suggested.
“Everyone has plans, Abby. Why are you keeping at me about this? Why is my staying home tonight such a big deal to you?”
Drumming her fingers on the table, Abby tried to think of something to say that sounded sincere and altruistic, but came up with nothing.
“Oh,” Mom said with a smile. “I get it. You want to get me out of your hair so that you can go out, right?”
“Well . . . yeah.”
“Forget it,” Mom said quickly. “There’s no reason for a fourteen-year-old to be out on New Year’s Eve.”
“But Mom, all the kids from school are going up to Alpine. It’ll be safe—no one is driving and there are adults all over. Why can’t I go?”
“Because you’re fourteen, and—”
“Fourteen and a half!”
“Not quite. There will be plenty of time for late-night parties when you’re older. You know, my curfew was nine o’clock until I went off to college. I wouldn’t have dreamed of asking my parents to let me stay out past midnight, not even when I was eighteen.”
Her parents. Didn’t Mom know how much it stung to hear that word in plural?
“That was in the olden days, Mom.”
Her mother laughed. “Yes, we had to make it home before dark so that the horses could still see the road to pull the buggy.”
Then she went about her business, chucking the ground beef into a bowl with some bread crumbs and spices, kneading the mixture with her hands. Abby watched her mother, dressed in worn khakis and a faded blue Henley with the sleeves bunched up to her elbows, her short curls coiffed just so, her hands covered in a fatty mess of beef and bread crumbs and basil as she flattened the mixture into a loaf pan. Mom’s life was so depressing. Abby flashed forward to a vision of herself in thirty years, trying to imagine her life being so pathetic. She couldn’t picture it.
Mom didn’t understand anything. She’d been the perfect kid, earning a 4.0 through high school and college, modeling for a department store to pay for what her University of Michigan art scholarship didn’t. She’d abstained from anything that resembled fun. She was her own mother’s dream. No wonder Abby was such a disappointment.
Abby would never be like that, no matter how hard Mom tried. Staying home, watching television with her, and listening to her cry herself to sleep, was undoubtedly the last way Abby wanted to spend New Year’s Eve.
“So Josh is staying home tonight, too?”
“He’s staying the night at Billy’s.”
“Wait, that’s not fair—”
“I talked with Mr. Mohr and he’ll be home all night. Josh will not be doing anything more exciting than you will.”
“Yeah, right.” Billy’s parents were pushovers; there was no doubt in Abby’s mind that Billy and Josh would be up at Alpine.
“Abby, I’m sorry, but you’re staying home. End of story.”
Abby’s face flushed and her hands started to tremble. Slamming her fist on the table, she rose from her chair.
“You can’t keep me in a bubble, you know.” Abby’s voice was loud and shaky. “I’m sorry that you’re so depressed all the time, but I don’t want to be as miserable as you are.”
Mom looked at Abby, her jaw tight. “I want you to be happy, but I’m also going to keep you safe. You’re trying to grow up too fast.”
“You just can’t face that I’m growing up!”
“Nonsense,” Mom said, and went back to preparing dinner.
“Why don’t you just get a life?” Abby screamed as she stomped up the stairs.
She went into her bedroom, intending to slam the door behind her to drive home her point, but instead she stood near the door, listening for her mother’s sobs. She regretted her harsh words already. Sticks and stones could break bones, but words can kill.
But Mom didn’t cry. She didn’t even yell back. The silence was deafening.
She wasn’t playing fair, laying on the guilt trip with her sneaky psychological tactics. Steam came out of Abby’s ears as she sat on her bed and pounded out an email to Leise, detailing the woes of her confinement. When Mom stuck her head inside her bedroom door she growled at her to go away. Abby fell asleep at eight o’clock, leaving her bedroom light on to drive Mom crazy.
At eleven she woke to a knock on the front door.
“Josh?” Mom shouted.
Abby jumped out of bed and ran down the stairs to find Billy standing on the front porch with Josh, green in the face, hanging on to the wooden railing for dear life. Billy dragged Josh inside and deposited him on Dad’s recliner.
“He’s been drinking,” Billy said quickly before bolting out the front door.
Josh slumped over in the chair, mumbling something incoherent and laughing to himself. Suddenly Abby didn’t see Josh anymore. She saw Dad in that chair, fighting with morphine for control of his mind. She wanted to pummel her brother for bringing it all back. When she thought of Dad, she found she could hardly remember him healthy, so she’d stopped remembering. It was easier that way.
Mom didn’t know what to do, so she called Mr. Beasley.
“Jim?” she said into the phone. “It’s Josh, he’s . . . can you please come over?”
Abby could have sworn that he walked through the front door before Mom had made it back to the living room. “Josh?” Mr. Beasley said loudly. “Look at me.”
Josh raised his chin and tried to open his eyes, but his head rolled backward. Mom gasped.
Mr. Beasley pulled him to his feet, draped Josh’s left arm over his broad shoulders, and hauled him up the stairs. Mom and Abby followed them into Josh’s bedroom, watching as Mr. Beasley gently laid him on the bed.
Mr. Beasley snapped his fingers in front of Josh’s face and Josh’s eyes shot open.
“How much have you had to drink, son?”
“Ohhhh . . . two or three.” Josh closed his eyes. “The room’s spinning.”
“Do you feel like you’re going to get sick?” Mr. Beasley asked.
“Already did.”
“What’s wrong with him?” Mom asked anxiously.
Mr. Beasley turned to look at her and smiled.
“He’s drunk, Helen.”
“But he’s so out of it. Do you think he has alcohol poisoning? Is there something I can give him?”
“Spaghetti pizza,” Josh chimed in. “I need some of Aunt Fran’s spaghetti pizza.”
Mr. Beasley chuckled and shook his head.
“How’s he gonna read?” Josh asked no one in particular. “It’s too dark in there. He needs a flashlight.”
Abby wanted to run out of the room, down the stairs, and out the front door. She wanted to sprint down the road and keep running until her legs gave out. But she didn’t move.
“What’s he talking about?” Mr. Beasley asked.
Mom shook her head.
“He’s talking about Dad,” Abby said quietly. “Josh left a book in the casket.”
Mr. Beasley’s eyes fogged, and he hugged Mom.
“He’ll be okay,” Mr. Beasley assured her. “He’ll be just fine.” Abby wasn’t sure if he was talking about Josh or Dad. “Do you want me to stay?”
“No. I’m sorry to have bothered you. But you’re sure there’s nothing I can do for him?”
“I’ll tell you what. Give him some water and check on him a couple of times overnight while he sleeps it off a bit. Wake him up bright and early tomorrow morning and make him shovel and salt the driveway. Then dust, vacuum, scrub toilets, whatever. By noon he’ll never want to drink again.”
Mom smiled and saw Mr. Beasley to the door. He hesitated. “You’re sure I shouldn’t stay?”
“No. I can handle it.”
After he left, she looked almost serene as she walked upstairs to Josh’s room. The calm before the storm. She stood over the bed with her hands on her hips and took a deep breath before erupting.
“I don’t know how you expect me to handle all this!” Mom yelled. “I need some help here, you know. I didn’t ask to be a single parent.”
“I’m sorry, Mom,” Josh said dully.
“You say that, but are you really?” She started for the stairs but turned back again. “I’ve had it. Do you hear me? I’ve had it!” She slouched down in the middle of the hallway and covered her face with her hands. “I can’t do this. I’m failing. I can’t do this alone.”
Abby approached her mother, but she pulled away. “You, too, Abby. I get it, you’re angry that all this is happening. You need someone to take it out on and that lucky person is me. I don’t want to be that person!”
“Mom—”
“You know what?” Mom said, standing and stomping toward the master bedroom. “I’m angry, too! Something has to change or I’m going to go stark-raving mad.”
Mom arranged an appointment for the three of them to see a psychologist, Dr. Robert Robinson, a middle-aged guy with a lisp and an extremely distracting unibrow. He called himself “Dr. Robby.” Honestly.
During the first visit Dr. Robby met with the three of them together, and Mom detailed the deterioration of her onceimpeccable children into juvenile delinquents. She wanted to know what she was doing wrong and how she could help them. Dr. Robby informed Mom that it “wasn’t uncommon for teenagers to act out grief in self-destructive ways” and that Mom had brought them to the right place.
The guy had turned Abby off at word one.
Dr. Robby scheduled individual appointments with Josh and Abby, one after the other, for the following week. Abby knew she didn’t need therapy, but she figured if she went along with it, maybe Mom would realize she wasn’t as terrible as she thought and get off her back.
On her solo visit, Dr. Robby asked Abby about school, about her friends, about her relationship with her family; he even tried to get her to venture into the Land of Feelings. She gave him one-sentence or, more commonly, one-word answers and waited patiently for the next question. Dr. Robby wouldn’t say anything for a while, pausing long enough for the silence to become so uncomfortable that she would want to spill her guts.
He didn’t know how stubborn Abby was. He learned.
Then he blew it completely. “Your mom says you’ve been pretty angry,” he said.
For bringing me here? Yes, angry doesn’t even come close.
“Are you angry with your father for leaving you?”
Angry with Dad? Why would Abby be angry with Dad? Was Dad thrilled about having half his life stolen from him? He hadn’t wanted to die. Dad was a victim; how could she possibly be angry with him?
“My dad died,” Abby growled. Idiot. “He didn’t leave me.”
“Not on purpose. But do you feel like he abandoned you?”
Abby clenched her teeth to keep herself from telling the guy to shove his theories right back up his butt where his head was, stood up, and stormed out. She grabbed her coat off the chair beside Mom in the waiting room, opened the door, and headed into the hallway.
“Where are you going?” Mom asked, wide-eyed.
“I’ll wait in the car. This is a waste of time.”
Abby strode out into the parking lot only to find the TrailBlazer locked. She kicked the car’s tire out of frustration. Josh would be in with Dr. Know-It-All for the next hour, and it couldn’t have been more than fifteen degrees outside. The office was in Birmingham, a suburb of Detroit Abby had only passed through once or twice in her life; she had no idea where to go to stay warm. She sure as hell wasn’t going back in, so she sat on the hood of the car until her butt went numb, wishing she could pluck her heart out and freeze that, too, so she wouldn’t feel anything anymore.
Mom cut back on her hours at work so that not only could she be at home with Josh and Abby before and after school, she could drive them to and from school. Abby supposed her mother suspected that they might play hooky or that during the half-hour bus ride they’d be ducking out of view of the driver and snorting ground-up Smarties or drinking Listerine or something. Maybe she thought that some of the other kids on the bus were bad influences. Or more likely, Mom feared that the bus might have a brake malfunction that would send it hurtling into the depths of White Lake, sinking fast with the remainder of her family inside.
Whatever the case, Josh and Abby were stuck being shuttled to school in Mom’s SUV. It was humiliating. At least she had the decency not to drop them off in the student parking lot; she stopped in front of the main entrance, in the faculty lot. Still, they would hide their faces in shame as she drove in, and they’d leap from the car before it had stopped moving and make a mad dash to the school, hoping they hadn’t been spotted. After school, they’d loiter near the main office until all the buses and most of the cars in the student parking lot were gone; then they’d meet her in the lot. The wait annoyed her, but she knew better than to come into the school to get them. That would have been a declaration of all-out war.
One icy day at the end of February, Josh and Abby slipped and slid toward Mom’s car after school and climbed in to find Mom beaming. At Abby.
“Did you see what’s posted out there?” She pointed at the marquee near the school’s front entrance. “Softball tryouts are next week.”
“Mm-hmm,” Abby said offhandedly, using the heel of one of her shoes to scrape the slush off the other and letting it melt on Mom’s floorboard. Abby had heard about the girls’ softball tryouts, all right. How could she not? She could have sworn that every wall in the school was papered with flyers.
“So are you excited?” Mom asked. “Nervous?”
“About what?”
“About trying out for the softball team!”
Abby shrugged.
“You are going to try out, aren’t you?”
Another shrug.
“Abby, you have to try out! You love softball, and you’re so good at it!”
“I’m not good,” Abby corrected. “I’m barely mediocre.”
Mom dismissed her comment with a wave of her hand. “Oh, you are not. I’ve always thought that you played very well in summer ball!”
“You’re my mother, and that was the Hi-White league. The high school team is more competitive.”
“You did better than a lot of the Hi-White girls, and those are the same girls that will be trying out for the freshman team.”
“There is no ‘freshman team,’ Mom, only JV and varsity.”
“Well, so what?”
“So I’m not good enough. End of story.”
“But you love softball,” Mom insisted.
“You love softball.”
“I don’t know what’s wrong with you.”
“Nothing’s wrong with me. If you’re so obsessed with softball, why don’t you play?”
“Abby, you can’t just—”
“I’m tired of you trying—”
“—throw away an opportunity like this—”
“—to live vicariously—”
“—because you lack self-confidence!”
“—through me!”
Josh cleared his throat and said he was hungry and could they continue this conversation at home and not in the parking lot? Mom shifted the car into reverse and backed up slowly.
“This conversation’s over,” Abby grumbled.
“No, it’s not,” Mom insisted.
“Yes, it is.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Whatever.”
The following Monday, Abby stood with her back against the bleachers in the stinky gym, twirling her mitt on her index finger as she waited alongside her fellow JV softball team hopefuls to be assigned a tryout station by the coach and her assistants. Her mother had threatened to march Abby into the gym herself—and, even worse, make her go back to see Dr. Robby—if she didn’t make the decision “on her own” to go to tryouts. So she went—but Mom couldn’t force her to put any effort into it.
“This group,” barked the coach—who couldn’t be identified as male or female by voice or appearance—separating ten girls from the line, “go over to the north end of the gym with Sarah for catching-and-throwing skills review.” A redhead wearing the team cap raised her hand.
“Group two”—another ten girls—“will go outside with Olivia to Field B for fielding review.” Abby let out a sigh of relief. It was snowing outside, for Pete’s sake. No way was she going to trudge through a foot of snow in her sneakers to stand shivering in the field so that she could prove to some chick that she could catch a fly ball. “Group three”—that included Abby—“go upstairs with Ashley to the batting cage.”
The coach assigned another group to sprint in the hallway, and him- or herself escorted a cluster of girls who had expressed interest in pitching to the south end of the gym.
Along with nine other girls, Abby followed her leader—blonde, ponytailed Ashley—upstairs to where a batting cage had been set up. A couple of girls Abby knew from the Hi-White League, both of whom had been on the All-Star team, were the first to grab helmets and race for the cage. Katy Townsley, a house of a girl, shoved her way inside first and took a confident stance at one end of the netted cage.
Crack. Crack. Crack. Katy smacked every ball that came at her, sending them flying into the net. When her turn was up, she reloaded the machine and handed the bat to Tamika Jakubic. Tamika nailed every pitch, too, smirking and swaggering out of the cage when she’d finished.
Abby was last in line, and as her turn at bat approached she decided that she had to pee and could not wait one more second. She took off for the locker room, and when she started back up the stairs afterward, her group was heading down.
“It’s time for rotation,” Ashley scolded. “You missed your turn. I can’t evaluate you.”
So of course there was no point in staying. As the rest of her group grabbed their mitts and coats to head outside for fielding evaluation, she slipped out into the hallway and away from the gym and fiddle-farted around until tryouts were over.
Mom was waiting in the parking lot just after seven.
“So, how’d it go?” Mom asked excitedly.
Abby slumped in her seat. “I was cut.”
“What? On the first day?”
“Told you I wasn’t good enough.”
Mom looked at Abby sympathetically and patted her knee. “It’s okay, honey. At least you gave it your best shot. Maybe next year.”
Abby shrugged. Guess she showed her.