Chapter 4

Izzy

3 years, 8 months

 

I close my eyes. Open them. Close them. Open them again. Fast. It’s so dark under my bed that it doesn’t make a difference.

The box springs feel closer to my nose tonight. I wonder if I’m having another growth spurt. No boobs yet. I slide my hand across my chest to make sure they haven’t popped out since I checked this morning. I don’t feel anything. Flat as a board, that’s what She Who Shall Not Be Named says. She says I’ll never grow boobs. She says I’ll be a freak and she can sell me to a freak show.

Amanda Durum, in my class, is getting boobs even though she’s the same age as the rest of us in the fifth grade. Her mom bought her some real bras at Target, like the kind you hook in the back. Not the stretchy sports bras my friends and I wear.

My mom has medium boobs, but my sister Caitlin, hers were big. Like Nana’s. If I grow big ones like Caitlin’s, and I really do think they will grow because She Who Shall Not Be Named is a liar, I wonder if I’ll be able to fit under my bed still. If Caitlin were here, would she be able to fit under here? It’s an interesting thought. One I should contemplate. (One of my vocabulary words this week at school.)

I’m getting sleepy. I should probably crawl out from under my bed and get in it. Mom will worry about me if she finds me under here. She’ll ask if I’m okay, even though she knows what the answer is. Of course I’m not okay. Caitlin kicked the bucket.

I close my eyes and think about the white coffin we put Caitlin in. Is this what it feels like to be in a coffin? The lid has to come pretty close to your nose. Did she need a tall one to fit her boobs? Did we pay extra for it?

I hear someone in the hall and I wonder if it’s my mom coming to check on me. Sometimes she checks on me. She used to come all the time before; now not as often. Mostly she just lies on her bed in the dark and cries. A lot. If it’s Dad and not Mom who comes into my room, he’ll pretend I’m not under here. He’ll stand in the doorway and say “sweet dreams” or something dumb like that. Who says that to their eleven-year-old daughter? (Well, I will be eleven soon. In a few months. Six.) I mean, aren’t there books out there that teach parents what you’re supposed to say to your kids after their favorite daughter, the best sister in the whole world, dies? Or at least what the H not to say? Because “sweet dreams” has got to be one of the dumbest things he could say. I don’t have “sweet dreams.” I dream about a big, black truck slamming into our Kia Soul. I dream about Caitlin splattered all over the road. Sometimes I dream about me splattered all over the road.

I hear Mr. Cat meow and I stick my hand out from under my bed and wiggle my fingers. “Kitty, kitty, kitty,” I call. I have to say it kind of loud because the vet says he’s losing his hearing.

I hear him purring. Then I feel him bat at my fingers with his paw. I tease him with my finger. I don’t hear anyone out in the hall now. Maybe it was just my imagination. I have a pretty good imagination. Once I thought I really heard Santa’s reindeer on the roof. I mean, I really thought I heard the prancing and pawing of each tiny hoof. That was when I believed Santa was real and that life was good and bad things happened to bad people and stupid stuff like that. And right after Caitlin bought it, I woke up in my bed thinking I could smell her in my room. She always smelled good even when she didn’t use spray stuff from Victoria’s Secret. She had a special smell. Her smell.

I pet Mr. Cat on the head and he meows. He’s been hiding tonight. Like me. She Who Shall Not Be Named got in some kind of big trouble today. She was already home when I got home from school. In her room.

I wanted to ask Dad what happened, but I didn’t. Nobody tells me anything around here anymore. Then my friend Ann texted me and asked what she did to get expelled. Her sister goes to Smythe, too. Instead of texting her name, which is not permitted in my presence, she made a line of asterisks and pound signs and stuff so it looked like a curse word. Which was funny. If I ever have to write her name, which I never intend to do, I’ll have to remember that. I just told Ann I didn’t know what she did. So now I know why she was home early and I’ll know why when she doesn’t go to school tomorrow, and I didn’t have to ask anyone. I don’t know why she got expelled, but I’m sure I’ll know in a day or two. Ann’s sister will tell her and Ann will tell me.

Mr. Cat jumps up on my bed. It springs down a little bit and I can feel his weight over me. He meows again. He wants me to come up and lie down with him. “All right, all right,” I tell him, and I slide out from under the bed. “I just have to pee.” I pet his head. “I’ll be right back.”

He meows like he understands me, which is interesting because how can he understand me if he can’t hear me? I wonder if the vet lied. People lie to me all the time. Adults, mostly. What I can’t figure out is why would she lie to me about something dumb like a cat’s hearing?

I slip out of my bedroom into the dark hall. I can see shadows dancing from the living room and hear the muffled sound of gunfire. My dad’s asleep out there. The TV is on; he was probably watching something about World War II. He likes Nazis. Well, he doesn’t like them. Who likes Nazis? He just likes to watch stuff about Nazis and Hitler. A few days ago he and I watched a show about German concentration camps and I got to see pictures of the ovens they put people in. I think I’d like to go see those ovens someday.

I walk down the hall in the dark to the bathroom. The door’s open. I don’t turn on the light. I’m not afraid of the dark. I think people are afraid of the dark because they’re afraid of what bad things might happen in the dark. I don’t worry about it. Bad things happen with the lights on, too.

I pee, but I don’t wash my hands. I only do that when I’m with my friends because everyone washes their hands after they use the bathroom when they’re with other people. I don’t really know why people expect you to wash your hands. I don’t pee on my hand.

Instead of going back to my room I hang a left and head for the kitchen to get a drink. On my way back to my room, I’ll shut the TV off. But I won’t wake my dad and tell him to go to bed like I used to before Caitlin checked out. I don’t think my dad sleeps with my mom anymore. I don’t think she cares where he sleeps.

It’s not until I grab the orange juice container from the fridge that I realize someone is in the kitchen, sitting at the breakfast table under the window. I turn around as I unscrew the cap. She Who Shall Not Be Named is sitting in the dark, eating cereal dry out of a box. Apple Jacks. I don’t say anything. I can feel her watching me.

I don’t talk to her anymore. She killed Caitlin and I loved Caitlin. She’s been trying to be nice to me since she ran through that stop sign and let Caitlin splatter all over the road. I don’t want her to be nice to me. I don’t want her to talk to me or look at me. I wish she’d bought the farm instead of Caitlin. I know I’m not supposed to feel that way, but I do. And if Caitlin did have to croak because of some crazy thing in the cosmos, I wish She Who Shall Not Be Named were pushing up daisies, too.

“Hey, pipsqueak.”

I act like I don’t see her. Don’t hear her. I tip the juice bottle and chug. It’s the wrong kind of juice. I like the kind without pulp. But Dad’s been doing the grocery shopping since Caitlin died so I’m lucky he remembered juice at all.

“You can’t ignore me forever,” she says, crunching the cereal. The kitchen smells like pizza, Apple Jacks, and cigarette smoke. She smokes sometimes, which I think is disgusting. Last year, in fourth grade, I wrote a report about the dangers of smoking, about all the kinds of gross cancers you can get like lip cancer and throat cancer where you have to talk out of a box. (With color photos and everything.) I got an A. I gave it to She Who Shall Not Be Named. That was when I still called her Haley and still talked to her, or at least tried. I don’t know if she ever read it. Probably not.

I take a breath and then one more drink of OJ. She munches on her cereal.

I screw the cap on slowly and take my time putting the bottle back in the almost empty refrigerator, even though I want to run back into my room and get under my bed with Mr. Cat.

I close the refrigerator and I can’t see her anymore without the light. It’s like she just disappears, which is what I want to happen. I want her to just vanish.