By Sunday, a week later, my rash has faded. My headache and congestion and fever are gone. But the empty ache in my chest is still there. I study Katherine St. Pierre’s photo one last time, then fold up the newspaper and shove it into my nightstand drawer. It doesn’t feel like something I can put in the recycle bin. I have to hold on to it.
Yesterday, my mom paused, clasping my hand when she saw the newspaper on my bed. Her eyes welled up like mine.
“It’s so sad.”
“You don’t seem sad.”
“Well, I am. Dad, too. We’re not monsters.”
I pulled my hand free. “Whatever.”
After a midafternoon shower, I smear clumpy homemade deodorant under my arms and look at the school across the street. I wish I could fly out my bedroom window, over the power lines, through the doors, and down the hallways filled with lockers tomorrow morning. I’d float, my T-shirt billowing like a hot-air balloon, until I quietly settled into a desk in a classroom full of people my age. Kitchen School has been on hold, and I don’t miss my classmates. I want Poppy and Sequoia to get better, but not because I want to study with them.
I don’t want to gather around the kitchen table where Sequoia will burp and Poppy will tell him he’s gross and they’ll argue for a full five minutes in the middle of a lesson.
When I float in across the street, nobody will even look at me. They’ll sit at their desks like it’s no big deal that I’m there.
Oh, her? She floats in every once in a while.
She just wants to be normal.
We let her stay.
I go to the bathroom to rinse the greasy deodorant residue from my fingers, then poke my head into Poppy’s room. She’s propped up in bed, her hands gripping a hardcover of The Hunger Games for her billionth reading. The cutouts of butterflies flutter across the headboard behind her when they catch the draft from an open window. Poppy spent a whole weekend on those butterflies when we moved in, her tongue sticking out of her mouth in concentration as she cut, folded, and painted craft paper to look like real butterflies. Then she threaded a thin wire through the paper and positioned the wire around the metal slats of her headboard, leaving a trail of butterflies across the top. She’s way more artistic than I am. I’m almost jealous.
“Need anything?” I ask.
“Yeah. For this quarantine to be done.”
I cross over to her bed and move her favorite sketchbook to the nightstand. When she’s not reading, she’s making art. “Scoot over.”
She pulls The Hunger Games to her chest and drags herself farther into the center of the bed, leaving the cooler outer sheets for me, which I appreciate. She dog-ears the page, and I shudder.
“What?”
“So disrespectful to Katniss. Don’t you have a bookmark?”
“Sure. Somewhere.” She places her book between us, then throws her hands over her head and lets out a dramatic sigh that blows her blond bangs up from her forehead.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m bored.” She says the word all long and drawn out. Borrrrred. “I want to go outside.”
“Wanting to go outside means you’re getting better.”
She rolls her eyes. “I seriously can’t stand this house anymore. It’s like a prison.”
I laugh. “Tell me about it.”
“I don’t mean it in the same whiny way you do.”
“Hey!” I jab my elbow into her ribs.
She twists away, rubbing at the tender spot. “I’m not trying to insult you.”
“You’re doing a pretty good job of it for not trying.”
“I’m just saying, I don’t feel stuck like I want to go to school across the street and drink fancy coffee and all that stuff you’re always fighting with Mom and Dad about.” She eyes me warily. “I heard you and Mom talking about that baby, by the way. And how she got the measles from you. Can I see the newspaper article you kept?”
She should see it. She should know what our parents have caused. “I’ll give it to you later.”
“Okay.” She kicks off her covers. Jiggles her legs. “I’m so antsy.”
“You’ll be better soon enough. See?” I hold my arm out, let her examine my healing skin. “You’re only about a week behind me.”
She moves her hand like a puppet mouth. “Blah blah blah.”
I pull at a loose thread on the quilt my mom made her. “You really don’t want any of the things I want? No fancy coffee, fine. But do you actually want Dad to be your teacher forever?”
I was around Poppy’s age when I started wanting something else. When I started realizing my family was different. I played AYSO soccer to fulfill my homeschool PE credit, and one day at practice, all the girls on my team were talking and laughing about something that had happened in the cafeteria that day at lunch. When I realized I was the only one on the team who didn’t know what they were talking about, I felt profoundly left out. That night at dinner, I asked my parents if I could go to real school so I could eat in the cafeteria with my soccer friends, and they laughed like it was a silly little thing I’d forget by morning. But I didn’t. I never stopped wanting it. I keep waiting for Poppy to make that same shift.
“I dunno,” she says. “Ask me in another few years when I’m your age. I’m sure you’ll have figured out if it was worth fighting for by then.”
“You’re such a smart-ass. Usually more smart than ass, but not today.” I push off the bed. “Need anything?”
“Mom’s lemonade?”
“Glug, glug.”
She giggles and it makes her cough. “Lots of ice,” she manages to sputter.
I hand her a box of tissues. “Okay.”
I peek in on Sequoia to see if he wants some too, but he’s passed out, asleep. I pull his door shut as quietly as I can and tiptoe away.