Chapter 22

Izzy

3 years, 8 months

 

Holy H. Mom just threw She Who Shall Not Be Named’s iPhone out the window. It’s new from Christmas. It has to be worth three or four hundred bucks.

I’m afraid to say anything. I just sit in the seat, my back pushed against the seat, staring straight ahead. I know my eyes have to be bugging out. I don’t know who the one in the backseat was texting, but I guess Mom wants to make sure she doesn’t do it again.

She’s cussing in the backseat, but I barely hear her. She’s like static on the radio to me.

I’ve been wanting a cell phone, but Mom keeps saying I’m not old enough. She says when I’m old enough to go places unsupervised, I can have one. Thirteen seems to be the magic number right now, but I don’t think she’ll make me wait that long. For now, I have an old iPod touch that I can text my friends with. I’m glad I don’t have a phone because I bet She Who Shall Not Be Named would try to get me to give it to her.

I shove my pillow down on the floor between my leg and the door. There’s so many things going on right this second that I can barely wrap my head around them. Mom just destroyed an iPhone. I’m pretty sure we’re kidnapping the witch in the backseat and Mom . . . my mother came back for me. She told me I couldn’t come with her and then she changed her mind.

I can’t believe Mom came back for me.

I can’t believe she came back. I’m so happy I want to cry, but I’m not going to cry because then Mom would be worried about me and I don’t want her to be worried about me. She’s got enough to be anxious about with the crazy one sitting behind us who isn’t shouting cuss words anymore, but I think she’s saying them under her breath. She hit the back of Mom’s seat and then she kicked it, but Mom acted like she didn’t notice so I pretended not to notice either.

I look down at the can of cat food near my left foot. I think about trying to slide it under my seat with my heel, but since Mom didn’t notice it, I decide to leave it there for now. No sense drawing attention to it. Not this close to home.

I take a deep breath. I hope I brought everything I need.

When I ran into the house, I packed as fast as I could. I already had the clothes I’d packed from yesterday that I didn’t unpack in case Mom changed her mind. I didn’t really think she’d change her mind though. If I had thought she was going to, I’d have packed more stuff last night.

I didn’t know what to grab. She said I only had five minutes and there was no way I was going to take any longer than that. But it was so hard to know what I should take. I’ve never been on a road trip across the country with my mom and my rotten sister. I don’t even know which way we’re going so I didn’t know what kind of clothes to bring. Obviously if we were heading south and then east, I’d need clothes for warmer weather. North and then east and I needed stuff for cooler weather. I think I brought some for both, but I’m so excited, I’m not sure what I’ve got in the bags.

I’m so excited to be with Mom. It would be better if She Who Shall Not Be Named wasn’t with us, but not what Liz Lemon would call a deal breaker. (Me and Caitlin and the one who sent her to her maker used to binge-watch 30 Rock whenever Mom and Dad were out and would leave the big girls in charge of me.) Even with She Who Shall Not Be Named here, I’m still excited to be in the car. And shotgun! I love riding shotgun because you can see everything so much better. I don’t get to ride in the front that much. Mom’s paranoid about the airbag, but I love it up here. Riding shotgun, I feel like I’m a part of what’s going on. I can hear and see everything; I’m not just watching, I’m part of the world. The backseat makes me feel like a loser.

I glance up in the rearview mirror. I don’t know why. I don’t care what she’s doing. It would have been okay with me if Mom had thrown her out of the car with the iPhone, but I look anyway.

She’s kind of turned sideways, her knees drawn up on the seat. She’s got her eyes closed with her cheek pressed against the leather seat. She’s got something clenched in her hand, but I can’t see what it is. And she’s got her wireless earbuds in which is proof that she belongs in a psych ward because her phone is gone. She can’t be listening to music.

I look at Mom. She reaches up into the console that holds her sunglasses in the roof and gets her Ray-Bans. As she puts them on she looks at me for just a second before she looks at the road again because she’s getting onto the Woodbury Beltway that goes around the city. We live on the west side of Vegas, near Red Canyon, in Summerlin.

I watch Mom as she turns the steering wheel on the car and I want to pinch myself or something to convince myself this is really happening. I still can’t believe I’m in the car with her. That she came back for me. I only had one hesitation when she told me to get my things and get in the car and that was about Caitlin.

As I was throwing stuff into any bag I could find in my room, I wondered if Caitlin would still be there when I got back. I knew she wasn’t enough of a reason to stay because she’s dead and all, but it did make me sad to think it was possible that we couldn’t talk anymore.

When I heard Mom call my name again from outside, I grabbed all the bags I’d filled on the bed and I ran for the door. Mr. Cat was meowing, but I didn’t even care. In the doorway I stopped and I looked back at the posters of the rain forest and Egyptian mummy on my wall. I told Caitlin good-bye and I told her I loved her. Just in case she can’t come to Maine with us.