ZAIDIE
FOR THE NEXT SEVEN DAYS, EACH NIGHT’S SUPPER WAS MORE ORDINARY and wondrous than the last: tuna casserole with crushed potato chips on Thursday, hot dogs and beans on Saturday, a Sunday roast with mashed potatoes.
On liver and bacon night, Jon spilled his cherry Kool-Aid and Dad dropped his fork, about to bark out the usual: For chrissake, Jonny. How many times have I told you—
But before he got a word out, something stopped him. The same force had Ma in its grip, too. She didn’t jump up to get the mop or defend her baby by fuming at Dad: “Leave him alone, Lou; it was an accident.” Nor did she yell at Agnes for overfilling the Flintstones jelly jars. No one was denied dessert for goofing around at supper.
Without the blame, defensiveness, and tension we’d always fallen into, we glanced around the table at each other and wondered how a spilled glass of Kool-Aid had ever mattered.
Agnes laughed when Princie sidled into the room, hoping one of us might sneak her a piece of liver from the table. “Watch out, Princie. Your paws’ll get stuck to the floor.”
For a moment none of us knew what to do, but then we all joined her. Even Ma.
“I got it, Shad,” Jimmy said when Jon finally pushed back his chair to clean up the spill.
But the heartbreak was always close to the surface. The sight of my brother kneeling over that pool of Kool-Aid reminded me how he’d bent over Ma, sobbing; and the clock that had momentarily stilled ticked on, even more noisily. One day, twenty-one hours, and thirteen minutes before the hearing that would decide our fate. Just a formality, Nancy had said.
MICHAEL FINN DIDN’T call once that week; nor did we hear from anyone from the department. There were moments, whole hours, once an entire day when I allowed myself to believe he was gone for good. Maybe another girl like Peggy or the one with my name had caught his eye and he’d forget us for eight more years. Maybe, if I stayed up wracking my brain long enough, I could think my way out of this. But then his final words coursed through my sleep and jolted me awake in terror: Our flights are booked . . . Have the children packed and ready.
Sensing my restlessness, Agnes whispered to me in the dark. “Mr. Dean said he would come back to get me, too, but he didn’t. He never did.”
In my head, however, the words that tormented me answered her. No doubt Mr. Finn is a fit parent . . . Just a formality . . . Have the children packed . . . No, this was nothing like the threat from Mr. Dean.
When loudmouth Jeffrey let the news out, Cynthia pressed me every day. “You’re not really going, are you?”
“No, of course not.”
“Promise?”
“I promised yesterday, Cynthia. Please. Don’t ask me again.”
Sometimes saying the words scared me more. Other times, when I spoke up strong, I almost believed it. But it was never long before the clock resumed its infernal beat.
I still attached Henry Lee’s tie tack to my shirt every day, but when he called, I told the family to say I wasn’t home. Finally, sick of the endless ringing, Ma grabbed the phone from Jon: “Don’t you understand? She doesn’t want to talk to you.”
It took a whole day to summon the courage to ask what he’d said. Ma scowled at a TV ad for Dial soap. “He said to tell you not to forget the plan. What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing,” I said, my throat thickening, as I thought of how we’d promised to meet at Barry Schuman’s house. Tuesday at one. Even as the clock ticked inside me, I hadn’t forgotten for a second.
On Tuesday, as one o’clock passed and then two, I imagined him sitting by the pool, watching the gate. Henry Lee, master of time, would have been there by twelve forty-five. How long would he wait before he gave up?
At three, I went out in the backyard and threw the stick for Princie so long and so hard that for the first time ever, she wore herself out. When she lay down in the middle of the yard, I spooned her like I did when she snuck into my bed. Did Michael Finn really expect me to leave my dog, or the nicked picnic table where all the kids who’d ever passed through the house had told us their secrets, or the desk Jimmy had refinished for me?
Did he know Cynthia and I planned to try out for cheerleading next year and that Henry and I were in the same homeroom? Every object I’d ever used or tripped over felt sacred—from the jelly jars to the shoes Jon always dropped in the middle of the parlor to the window in my room where Agnes and I stared into the night and talked. Even the moon, our moon, would be different if Michael Finn took me away. I was sure of it. Burying my face in Princie’s heat and softness, I cried for the life that was seeping away minute by minute.
I don’t know how long I’d lain there before I realized someone was with me, stroking the dog from the other side. Henry’s eyes had never been so dark, his olive skin never so smooth.
“So this is the famous Princie?” With his free hand, he swept a wing of black hair from his face. “I was expecting the most notorious thief in Claxton to be scarier.”
I wiped tears from my face. Looking around the scrappy yard, I took in everything I had been embarrassed for him to see—the peeling paint of the house, the stack of old tires beside the garage, Ma’s face in the kitchen window, lined with troubles. But now my fear felt as silly as Jon’s spilled Kool-Aid. For once, it didn’t even matter that my hair was uncombed or that I didn’t have a tissue to wipe my eyes.
“So you were just going to leave without even saying goodbye?”
I looked toward that kitchen window, where Ma had disappeared. “I told Cynthia not to tell you. And besides, I’m not going.” As the tears streaked down my face, I realized how unconvincing I was.
“But if you have to, we can write every week, and he might let you come back to visit your family in the summers. Then we’ll—”
I shook my head. “Why would he do that? He doesn’t even understand they are my family.”
“You know my brother’s girlfriend, Gail? They’re still together even though she’s in school out in California. He says the letters they had to write brought them even closer. He also says high school flies by, and maybe we could apply—”
“So even your brother’s heard?”
“You know how you tell your sister everything—even if she’s too young to understand? Well, that’s me and Craig.”
“Jimmy, too. Or at least before he became a rat.” In the past, I might have been ashamed of that, too, but now it was just more spilled Kool-Aid.
And the amazing part? Henry didn’t care. In his pale blue T-shirt, he lay in the dirt, one arm open to the sky, the other stretched across Princie to hold my hand. Nothing was said and he didn’t sit up and try to kiss me or pull me out behind the garage to press himself, breath and bone and fire, against my chest. But I would always remember it as one of the most perfect moments of my life.
I was the one who finally bolted upright and checked the Timex watch that Ma had given me for my Bat Mitzvah. “Henry, look!” I held out my wrist, displaying the time: 3:57. “You’re nine minutes late for your paper route!”
But Henry just lay there in my scrappy yard, stroking Princie and staring at the sky. “Yeah, I know,” he said. And when he smiled at me, it was almost as if he’d seen that cherry Kool-Aid, too.
MICHAEL FINN SHOWED up on Wednesday afternoon just like he said he would.
Instead of a suit, he wore a pair of jeans and a blazer. A shirt that matched his eyes and the sweater he’d worn before was open at the collar. Unlike Dad, the obviously fit parent didn’t have to prove his worth in the court room or anywhere else.
He and Nancy walked across the maledizione and climbed the porch, leaning close to each other to share a joke like a couple on a date instead of a pair who’d come to ruin our lives.
“Afternoon, Zaida. How’s my girl?” He was so engrossed in Nancy, he seemed almost surprised to see me. Or was that calculated to throw me off, too?
His smile was a dare.
“What do you think of this guy?” he asked, capping Jon’s head with his hand. “Is he a little heartbreaker or what? Just like the old man.”
Nancy giggled. “No one’s conceited in your family, right? You got it all.”
I rolled my eyes at the familiar middle school taunt. How had I ever thought she was pretty?
“Where’s your mother?” she asked.
When I refused to answer, Nancy approached the stairs. “Mrs. Moscatelli? You up there?”
If I had any hope, it disappeared as soon as I saw Ma’s face. She’d obviously heard the judge’s ruling by phone, but Nancy read it again before producing the paperwork for her to sign.
Meanwhile, Michael called me to sit beside him on the couch. He took my hands in his before I could stop him. “I don’t know what I expected to find when I came here two weeks ago, Zaida. But since my first visit, you’ve made it clear that you’re not the little girl I remember. Chronologically, you’re thirteen, a child, but you’re hardly typical, are you?”
Once again, I felt him puffing himself up, as if any positive quality I might possess was a credit to him, but I didn’t pull my hands away.
“If you were,” he continued, “I’d demand you do what the court thinks best—not just because I can give you a better life, but because—well, you’re mine. I saw that when you were small, and it’s even more apparent now. No matter how many years you live with this family, I will always know you better. Bone of my bone and all that.”
Even as the words confused and incensed me, I felt he was speaking truthfully for the first time.
“I hope you decide to come with me today, but if you don’t, well, Zaida, you’ve earned my respect. I’m going to allow you to make a choice.”
At that, my brother was on his feet, his hands knotted into fists the way they were when he ran. He looked from Ma to me and back. “What? You mean Zaidie can stay, but not me? That’s not fair! Ma! Tell him I’m not going!”
He flung himself at Ma, sobbing, and the two of them clung to each other as if nothing on earth could separate them. But I already knew it could. And so did Jon.
Momentarily unnerved—and undoubtedly embarrassed in front of Nancy—Michael Finn’s mouth stretched into the thin line I remembered. The same line it had formed when I told him how Sylvie had called for him when she was dying.
Where had Princie come from? And Agnes? I didn’t even hear them enter and would only later remember how Princie had run through the rooms of the house, barking, the way she did when we argued or she sensed danger.
Agnes, on the other hand, stood frozen in the center of the room, as if the sound of Jon’s screaming and the sight of him clutching Ma’s gray dress had taken her somewhere no one could follow.
I think Nancy was the one who stepped forward and wrenched Jon away, but I can’t be sure. All I remember clearly was how Michael Finn dragged him from the house, a howl trailing him like smoke that would never be dispersed. But what would haunt me most was the way his eyes had scanned each of our faces and the house he would not see again.
“His things?” Nancy repeated.
“Forget them,” Michael said.
Standing as still as Agnes, Ma covered her mouth and lowered her head, her eyes closed.
As they reached the sidewalk where Josie Pennypacker had keeled over, Jon broke free from Michael’s grasp. But he must have known that there was no place to run.
Still sobbing, he turned to me. “You gotta c-c-come, too, Zaidie. Y-you—you promised our mama. You told her you’d always take care of me. You can’t make me go by m-myself.”
I thought he’d forgotten the times when, jealous of his bond with Jimmy, I’d reminded him I was his real sister. I told him how I’d gotten up with him in the night when our mother was sick. What she’d made me promise.
“Ma’s my mother,” he always replied. “And Jimmy is too my real brother. Realer than you.”
I opened my mouth to explain all the reasons I couldn’t go: because Jimmy and Agnes needed me, because no one knew how Ma would carry on after this, because Dad couldn’t do everything. But were any of those the real reason?
Or did I just want what Jimmy called my own life—Cynthia and my friends, cheerleading and the bench at Beth Shalom where I sat with Holly Simon’s family? And most of all Henry. The way he’d made me feel at the dance that night when he stood there with his hands in his pockets, or the day before when we lay on our backs and opened our arms to the sky in the yard. I thought of how Michael Finn had dragged me to the mirror to make me see how much we were alike. How deep did it go?
“There’s still time to change your mind, Zaidie. I didn’t cancel your plane ticket,” he said, coolly victorious. Again, I saw the smile, the dare he’d brought with him. This time, though, I understood it.
I turned to my brother. “We’ll—we’ll figure something out, Jonny, I promise we will. You have to go with him today, but Dad will . . . he’ll do something to get you back. Ma will get a lawyer like Jimmy said and . . . and . . .”
Again, Michael Finn took his arm. This time, when Jon wailed, his cry had words: “I hate you, Zaidie! You know that? I hate you forever! You and Ma—all of you.”
My only solace was that Ma had retreated to her room and closed the window so she didn’t hear him.
After they left, I followed the car till I got tired. Then I went to my room and cried for my lost brother, but also for the part of myself Michael had forced me to see. The part that had chosen myself, what I wanted. Just like him.
IN THE WEEKS that followed, the phone rang every night at precisely six, just like usual.
“Zaaaa-deee!” Agnes called like usual when she picked up the phone. “It’s that boy. Do you want me to tell him you’re not here?” She didn’t even try to cover the receiver like I’d taught her, but it no longer mattered.
“Tell him not to call here anymore. It’s over,” I finally told her—loud enough that he could hear me.
“You’re breaking up?”
I hated the water that filled my eyes. “For crying out loud, Agnes, just tell him.” Then I tore the tie tack from the shirt I was wearing and ran out of the house. When I reached Buskit’s River, I hurled it as hard as I could.