Mom opened the mail, sorting bills into one pile, dumping junk mail in the trash, and saving handwritten envelopes for last. With her head bent over and her face in deep concentration, I noticed for the first time that she had some gray hair. Matt and Dad watched the news side by side on the couch. Matt looked like a younger version of Dad, without all the creases.
“Grandpa and Grandma are coming,” Mom announced, letter in hand.
“Yeah!” I squealed, then stopped in disbelief. “Really?” I didn’t ask the obvious question. Why would they come now?
“You’ve gotta be kidding. They never come,” Matt said, turning from the news.
“They came once,” Dad corrected. “After Abby was born.”
“They say they’re coming for your birthday,” Mom said, looking toward me.
“No, they’re coming because we’re so messed up,” Matt corrected.
“Matt!” Dad scolded.
“He’s right. They’re coming to fix us,” Mom agreed.
“They’d better hurry,” I said, and then everybody laughed.
“Do they know Abby and I don’t live here?” Mom asked. Dad kept watching the TV. Soon Grandpa and GramAnna would see that everything was broken.
“You could come home for a week,” Matt suggested.
“Matt has a point,” Dad said.
“Not now,” Mom said simply.
Not now. Not now. Then when?
“I’m glad that new counselor’s been helping Matt, but we’re not all at the same place,” Mom pointed out.
Matt was seeing a new counselor? I wasn’t sure if that made me feel better or worse. He was getting help; that was a good thing and it probably explained some of the positive changes I had seen in him, but what did it mean for me? Would somebody make me say why I had weird feelings and strange thoughts and anxious “whatifs” about bad things that could suddenly happen to us?
“We can’t work on things when we’re not together,” Dad said.
“But we weren’t working on things when we were together, either,” Mom pointed out.
“It’s about the job, then. You won’t come home until I go back.”
“No, I don’t care about the job anymore,” she explained. “If you can’t do it, then find another career. A new minister would give the church an opportunity to start over, and maybe we could restart and move on, too.”
“Seems like you already have,” said Dad.
“Maybe I have,” Mom agreed. “I don’t want to be the same person I was. I can’t.” She didn’t apologize; Mom stood tall, her voice confident and persuasive. “Now maybe you should go seek that pastoral counseling the elders were talking about.”
“Would that really change anything?”
“I don’t know,” she said honestly. “I don’t know.”
Though I had always wanted to be done with nine so I could have a double-digit birthday and hold up both hands and answer, “Ten!” I no longer wanted a celebration and I told Mom that.
I also told Mom I didn’t want a lot of friends over or a cake or games or even lots of presents to open. Unfortunately, Mom didn’t get it. She hadn’t gotten to do Joel’s fourth; and for his sixteenth, Matt said he just wanted money or a car, and we all knew that wasn’t going to happen since we were still borrowing a used loaner to get around.
And so on May fourteenth, when I came home from school, nine girls screamed, “SURPRISE!”
Mom had planned a bowling party. My first time bowling. Ten years, ten bowling pins, and ten girls. She had it all worked out: Rita, Melody, Phyllis, Marci, Barbara, Maureen, Kris, Linda, Tonja, and me.
“But it’s not my—” I began.
“Not yet. I had to do it early so it’d be a surprise!” Mom hadn’t looked this excited for a long time. She gave me a big hug and then scooted us out the door to caravan to the Spare Room, the only bowling alley in town. Oh joy, I thought. Hadn’t she heard me? Didn’t she understand? I didn’t want a birthday.
The boy at the counter rolled his eyes as we shouted out our shoe sizes. At first I thought he deliberately gave us the dumbest-looking shoes on the rack until I realized everybody had clown shoes. Barbara and Rita looked down at their feet and started tapping away. My shoes were too big, but I didn’t care.
“Once my uncle Ed took me bowling!” Tonja bragged.
“Have you ever knocked them all down at once?” Linda asked.
“That’s called a strike,” Marci explained knowingly. She had brought the pink bowling ball her grandparents had given her last Christmas.
“This is gonna be fun!” Barb said, taking my hands in hers. I didn’t share her enthusiasm, and headed down to the end of the bowling alley where Mom had the #10 station decorated with streamers and a big sign reading A HAPPY TEN FOR OUR ABBY! She thought of everything.
“Let me go first!” Phyllis begged.
“No, please, I want to!” Melody said.
“Abby should. After all, it’s her birthday,” Marci pointed out. I looked down the other nine lanes, where people got to bowl anonymously.
“Well, at least let her pick who goes first then,” Kris said, seemingly aware I wasn’t fighting for that honor.
“Go reverse alphabetical,” I suggested, and then I wandered off as if in search of the right weight ball, leaving Barbara lining everybody up reverse alphabetically in two lanes.
I slipped between the popcorn machine and a huge tank of stuffed animals where you could put in a quarter and a claw would grab at the animal you wanted, and I watched the party that was supposed to be for me. Silly, crazy, screaming girls who, except for Rita, couldn’t understand me. I was dying inside.
If I were somebody else, I might want to be one of those girls bowling in lane #10, their names and scores on the board: Tonja, Rita, Phyllis, Mom, Melody, and Maureen on one team: Marci, Linda, Kris, Dad, Barbara, and me on the other.
Dad bowled a strike, but the only other person who knocked down all her pins was Linda. We were just plain awful. My turn awaited. Finally, Barbara bowled and I was next.
I returned with a black ball. There is nothing graceful about a skinny almost-ten-year-old girl hurling a six-pound globe down a narrow aisle. The only grace we bowlers experienced was in getting a spare, which Dad described as a second chance.
Suddenly, Maureen rolled a strike and everybody screamed. I covered my ears, watching for their mouths to close so I knew I could take my hands away. I came with a headache that was only getting worse, compounded by Neil Sedaka, the smell of hot dogs, rolling balls, crashing pins, and fourth graders.
Tonja dropped her six-pound ball on Mom’s foot, Kris spilled her soda all over the floor, and Barbara was mopping it up with Dad’s coat. I slumped low in my plastic chair and stretched out my feet. Stupid blue, brown, and yellow shoes. I hadn’t even taken off my coat. Could we go yet?
“It’s your turn, Abby,” Phyllis said. “Hurry and go!”
I wished I could get my turn over faster, but I had never been able to knock down more than four at a time.
“Who’s the birthday girl?” I heard from far away, pretending it wasn’t me and praying there was someone else with a birthday.
“It’s her,” someone said, pointing at me.
“Who’s the birthday girl?” I heard again as the man brought over a pink T-shirt with the words Knock ‘em dead on your birthday.
“Put it on!” my friends encouraged, but I shook my head in such a way they didn’t force me. The man looked disappointed. The whole thing was ridiculous.
“Abby, that was kind of rude,” Mom scolded. “What’s gotten into you?”
Dad tried to help me with my swing, but gave up quickly.
Every time Marci threw the pink ball, I thanked God for the padding on the side of the lane. We always moved behind the scoring table, knowing she could throw it backward or sideways and take out any one of us. I looked at the scoreboard. Nobody had rolled over an eighty. Wow. Time for a break.
Mom had made a cake with ten candles and frosted lanes. The girls argued over who would get the bubble gum bowling balls lining the sides. I didn’t really care.
I opened my presents and got a Troll doll, Barbie, turtleneck sweater, smiley face clock for my bedroom, and poster of David Cassidy. I thanked them all. Then Linda handed me a soft package. I ripped open the wrapping paper to discover a large stuffed monkey. The girls started laughing and I felt my face burn. Did they know? Who would give me a monkey, knowing Joel was the one who loved monkeys?
“I thought he looked like Curious George!” Linda said, shrugging. She didn’t look guilty. But Curious George?
“Abby, open another present,” Mom said as she handed me a bright pink package obviously from Marci.
“I don’t really want to,” I said at last.
“C’mon, Abby, at least open what I got you!” Phyllis begged, yelling over Jefferson Airplane.
“And me, too! You didn’t open mine!” said Melody. What was the big deal anyway?
“It’s just …” I stuttered. “I don’t know …”
“Maybe it’s time to light the cake,” Rita said, granting me a temporary reprieve.
Mom lit one candle and, with it, lit the other nine. Blue- and pink-colored wax dripped over the frosting. On cue, they sang “Happy Birthday” as badly as they bowled, Melody Ludema’s nasal pitchiness sticking out above the rest. It was better when she didn’t sing.
And then, because she just didn’t get it, Linda picked up that stuffed monkey and added, “Happy Birthday to you, you live in a zoo, you look like a monkey, and you smell like one, too!”
“Blow them out! Blow them out!” the girls chanted. “All at once!” Kris said as if I needed instructions. “All TEN!” Phyllis added. “Make a strike!” Mom cheered. I bent down close to the cake and tried not to breathe deeply. The Spare Room smelled of cigarette smoke, hot dogs, pizza, stale popcorn, catsup, and mustard.
As soon as I blew out the candles, Mom pulled them out and began cutting the cake.
“I want the pink gumball!”
“Can I have a piece with lots of frosting?”
“I want the blue piece.”
“I only want cake, Mrs. McAndrews.”
I wanted to yell, SHUT UP!
“Which one do you want, honey?” Mom asked. “Which part of the cake?”
“I don’t care,” I said. And I meant it. As at most birthday parties, the girls scraped off the frosting, took a bite of the cake, and then went back to play.
We bowled one more set. The ball felt so heavy, weighted. Once Linda threw the ball and it flew in the air and came down with a thud. I looked for a dent in the floor and checked the ball for damage when it returned.
“Try for ten on your tenth!” Barbara squealed. I rolled my eyes. That was pretty original. No, a strike would not improve my attitude.
“Maybe you should try the green ball, Abby. I think it’s lucky!” Melody claimed.
“You can try my pink one if you want. But only you,” offered Marci. I grabbed the green one shooting out and flung it quickly down the lane. It skimmed the padding and missed every pin. I did it twice. I didn’t think anybody was a bigger zero.
Rita was next. Whenever she threw the ball, it took forever to reach the pins. The girls started counting the seconds. “One-two-three-four-five-six!” Linda and Kris began blowing as if they could huff and puff the ball down the lane. “Twelve-thirteen!” The ball slowed like a clock winding down. “Fifteen-sixteen-seventeen,” they continued. “I think it’s gonna STOP!” Marci squealed. “What would happen if it did?” Their eyes widened and they laughed, as if that would be the most hysterical thing they had ever heard of. In another time and place, and on another birthday, I would have thought this was great fun.
At last the ball clipped a pin on the count of twenty-five. They were having such a good time. Mom had tried so hard.
I left for the bathroom, knowing I had three girls before my next turn. No one ever knocked anything down with one ball. I had plenty of time.
Pushing open the bathroom door, I took in the cracked tiles, peeling paint, and dingy odor reminiscent of Matt’s football uniform and I lost it. My birthday lunch went down the toilet.
The stall doors held so much graffiti. Joyce loves Brian. Hearts and flowers. Peace symbols, smiley faces, Have a Happy Day. Lots of words I didn’t understand but pretty much figured out had to be bad. I wasn’t the only one who had hidden out here.
I left the stall to rinse my hands and splash my face with water. My legs felt weak and I leaned against the bathroom wall, slowly sliding down until I landed on the floor. This was not how I thought I’d spend my tenth birthday back when I was little.
When I was nine, I was safe. I could catch lightning bugs, run through the sprinkler, and share a bedroom with a little brother. But now I wasn’t a kid anymore, and I didn’t want to celebrate like one. Now I had to be careful because accidents happen. I checked for dangers like radiators and electrical cords and whether Mom turned off the oven. I felt cheated out of the kind of childhood everyone else had—except maybe Rita. And now that Joel wasn’t having any more birthdays, I didn’t think I deserved one either.
“Abby, are you okay?” Rita asked, swinging the door open with a rush of cold air. I shivered.
“I’m okay.”
“Then you have to come back.”
“Do I?”
“You’ve been gone a long time. Everybody’s wondering where you are. I thought maybe you were sick, but you’re just sitting here.”
“I know.”
“It’s your birthday party,” she pointed out, sitting down next to me.
“Duh!” I sounded so rude.
“Why are you acting like that?”
“It’s too hard to explain.”
Rita frowned. I could tell I had insulted her.
“It just doesn’t feel right somehow,” I said. “You know, without Joel.”
“I’ve never had a birthday with my dad. But you have that. And you have a brother, too. That’s something.”
I thought about that. She was right. She didn’t say very much, but when she did, she was almost always right. I hugged my knees to my chest and rested my head on one knee, studying the haphazard pattern of chipped and missing tiles.
“Do you think you’ll ever know what happened to him?”
“Mom hopes so. But I don’t think so,” she said, looking up at the ceiling. One panel was missing, exposing pipes and insulation. I timed the intervals between the drip from the leaky faucet accompanied by the buzz of the fluorescent lights. One. Two. Three. Drip.
“Marci threw the ball down the wrong lane.”
“Really?” I said. “Or are you just saying that to make me laugh?”
“She almost hit these two guys in the next alley. Someone yelled, ‘Look out!’ Talk about clearing the place.” Rita laughed softly.
I shook my head. Marci and her pink bowling ball.
“Everybody thinks it’s kind of cool having ten pins and ten friends,” Rita said.
“Yeah. I guess my mom had fun planning it.”
“So maybe you should have some fun, too.”
The door swung open and my mom rushed in, looking puzzled to find the two of us on the floor.
“What are you doing in here? Everybody’s wondering where you are!” The door began to swing shut and Rita scurried out before it closed.
“I don’t like it out there.”
“It’s your birthday. I thought this would be a fun event.”
“I know you tried,” I said.
“I did more than try. I wanted your tenth to be a great year. It’s something new, Abby. You’re not nine anymore; you’re double digits.”
“Nine wasn’t a good year.”
“Exactly. That’s why we’re trying to move on,” she said.
“You’re getting pretty good at it,” I said under my breath.
“What do you mean? Here I am, trying to celebrate that you’re a year older, but you’re acting all depressed and angry. Honestly, I don’t know what I did wrong.”
She didn’t say it to make me feel guilty. I could tell she had just about had it, but I didn’t really care. I wished I could explain why I felt so weird, but that would mean I understood something I didn’t. She started to head out the door, but then spun back around with renewed purpose.
“Just what kind of birthday party did you want, anyway? How did I let you down this time?”
“I didn’t really want a birthday party,” I said.
“So if you didn’t really want a birthday party, and I hadn’t given you one, wouldn’t I still be the bad mom who forgot you turned ten? Are you telling me you wouldn’t have been mad at me for that, too?” I tried to run that statement around in my head, but it turned out to be really confusing. “That’s a pretty big risk for me to take,” she added, before I could figure out what she had asked.
“Maybe it’s not really a good year to celebrate.”
“Maybe last year was not a year to celebrate. Okay, I agree. But when do we start celebrating? How about if this year is better?” she suggested. Then her voice softened. “Abby, how about we start to move forward this year?”
How? The way she had already moved forward, leaving so many behind? I did want things to change, but I also didn’t want to leave things behind. I did want to celebrate and be happy and get out of lockdown or whatever anybody called it, but I didn’t want to celebrate my birthday. And that was that. Maybe I couldn’t explain it, but I just didn’t want to have a birthday this year, and I wanted somebody to hear me and understand me even if it didn’t make sense.
“I didn’t want it!” I said, louder than I meant. “And I don’t want to move on. I want to move back home. I want to go home!” I yelled. “I want to go home!”
My head throbbed as if my brain wanted out of my skull. I banged it on the tile wall as if that would help.
“All right, let’s just pack up and go,” Mom threatened. “Tell your friends the party’s over.”
“I’m not going back to Miss Patti’s. I want to go home. I want to go home.” When I banged my head on home, for a split second a new pain overpowered the old. So I just kept saying, “HOME HOME HOME,” pounding my head against the wall with increasing intensity.
“Abby, stop that. You’ll hurt your head again!” Mom tried to grab my shoulders but I fought her. I think I heard her screaming, but maybe it was just me.
The door swung open again but I just kept beating my head against the wall, screaming, “HOME HOME HOME!” Louder and louder and louder.
“Abby, STOP it!” Dad shouted, kneeling down and pulling me into his arms. I couldn’t think of how I had arrived on a bathroom floor yelling, “HOME,” but here I was. A small, tearless rag doll.
“Abby, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”
I touched my forehead where there must have been a bruise. Everything was out of focus.
“Your mom can’t come home, Abby.”
That was it? The reason we weren’t going to be a family?
“Your mom can’t come home unless I make some changes. Abby, I’m sorry. I’m so very sorry.”
The water dripped, 1-2-3. I could hear muted cheers outside, but inside only the buzz of the fluorescent lights. No one spoke.
“Presbytery has a grief counselor. A retreat for pastors who’ve lost a loved one.” Dad took a deep breath and continued. “And I’ll talk to Uncle Troy about the church. I’ll work something out for all of us.” He held me at arm’s length and I could feel him looking at me and really seeing me. “Abby, you need to talk to someone, too. That’s not a request. I’m so very sorry we waited this long.” Dad took my hand and pulled me off the floor.
I looked at Mom. Dad was making a step. Was this enough? I knew she couldn’t go back, but could we go forward?
“Let’s go home, Abby,” she said as she took my other hand.