Downcast (12 page)

There, I was pretty proud of myself. That was a totally sensible speech. I hadn't been rude. I had been honest and fair. I just wanted the chances every other normal kid had. That can't have been asking too much.

Mom tensed her shoulders and locked her jaw. Apparently, yes, I had asked too much.

She narrowed her eyes at me and closed the space between us in two steps. Her chest rose and fell with heavy heaves of breath, and her lips curled, pulled back in a fearsome grimace. Her arms shook as if she was holding herself back with a tremendous effort. Instinctively, I took a step back. Mom had never raised her hand to me, but I wondered if this would be another first in a week that had already contained so many firsts.

Sweat trickled down the back of my neck. When had the kitchen gotten so hot? Was I running a fever?

"You will not disrespect me like this, Stephanie Starr," Mom snarled, her eyes narrowed and cheeks pale with rage. "Go to your room. Now. You are not to leave until I say so."

My jaw was so tight that it hurt to speak.

"It doesn't have to be like this, Mom."

"GO TO YOUR ROOM!" she roared in an almost inhuman voice, the sound growing instead of fading, ringing and filling the room until there was no air left to breathe.

I didn't wait another second. I spun around and fled upstairs, my backpack banging against my back as I took the steps two at a time. I paused for a moment when I got to my door, trying to calm my wild heartbeat and listening for her downstairs. I heard the clang of metal and the running of water.

I let myself into my room and shut the door behind me. Staring at the doorknob, I remembered there was no lock. My heart pounded like iron bells as I realized there was no way to keep her out. A gasped-out sob shook through me, surprising me. How could I have come to a point where I would lock my door against my own mother?

There was no denying it, though. Mom’s behavior was frightening me, not because she was angry, but because she was somewhere beyond anger now. At some point, our fight had stopped being about my history and had become about my future.

The element of physical fear was a new thing for me, especially when it came to my mom. I couldn’t absolutely say that I felt in danger from her, but I couldn’t absolutely say that I was completely safe, either—not with the way my instincts were all jittery and shivery.

My instincts probably weren’t responsible for the wild way my thoughts had spiraled into a crazy scenario of a butcher-knife wielding Mom bursting, screaming, into my room. That was my mind, as usual, taking my anxiety way too far and showing me jumping out my window, crashing into the bushes below—probably with a sprained ankle—and limping down the road to the neighbors' houses, screaming for help.

My brain was an awful place, and I was an awful human being. How could I even be thinking such horrible things about Mom? How could I believe that she would endanger me in any way? I couldn't believe I had upset my mother like that – and that I was feeling guilty about standing up for myself for once in my life. I couldn't believe I had been so stupid, all these years, to never ask about my father or other family. I was a stupid, awful, ugly, awkward person.

Crying seemed like a really good option, and the tears were just starting to flow when I heard a step on the stairs.

I froze.

I waited.

Silence.

Then another step.

Another minute ticked by.

One more step.

Each step came with agonizing slowness, and I stood completely paralyzed as I listened for them to stop at my door.

The floorboard in front of my door creaked. I waited, my eyes glued to the doorknob. I held my breath, waiting for the second when the knob would begin to turn.

Another step. And another. The footsteps were moving away from my door and toward Mom's room. I heard her door shut, and for the first time in my life, I heard the click of the lock on her door.

I began to shiver uncontrollably.

A deafening, house-shaking crash of thunder rattled my bones, and I nearly bit my tongue off while trying to stifle a scream. I looked outside to see that the sky had grown black and green with the heaviness of a thunderstorm. Within seconds, heavy rain was drumming on the roof and spattering the windows.

Another crack of thunder and flash of blinding lightning blew out the electricity in the house. I backed up to the footboard of my narrow bed and sank down to the floor. I wrapped my arms around my knees and shivered, breathing loudly to keep from crying.

"Okay," I whispered to myself. "Think. Think. Be like Helen and figure this out. Mom's just really upset. She's not going to hurt you. She'd never hurt you."

Why wasn't I believing myself? What the hell was wrong with me? Why was my gut screaming to make like a boy scout and be prepared?

"You're just tired," I said, forcing myself to my feet. "It has been, like, the longest week of your life. Your birthday is tomorrow. You've never fought with your mom before. You're just a little wound up right now."

I tottered over to the window, watching the raindrops meet their death against the glass panes. The storm clouds had helped dusk along, and it was almost completely dark out now. Still, there was just enough light that I could see the outline of my dead garden and the branches of the big evergreen that was to the right of my window.

Resting my forehead against the cool glass, I whispered, "It's okay. Everything's going to be okay. It's all going to be fine."

Tiredly, I glanced out at the storm and something in the evergreen moved. I squinted into the gloom, but it was no use. Grabbing my cell phone from my bag, I use the light of the screen as a flashlight. It made for a sucky light, but it was enough for me to see a big black bird sitting in the shelter of the branches, calmly watching me watch it.

Despite myself, I smiled a little as I remembered Haley reading “The Raven.”

Seeing the stupid bird made me feel a little better, like I wasn't quite so isolated. I watched the bird blink in the light of my phone for another minute, and I found myself relaxing somewhat. A power outage in our old house during a thunderstorm wasn’t anything unusual. I’d just use the emergency candles I kept in my bedside table for that reason. By the time I turned off my phone, I felt almost okay again. I shook my head and turned away from the window, trying to laugh it all off.

"Quote the raven," I said out loud. "Do your homework, and nothing more."

And that's what I did.

I WOKE UP
to the sound of thunder and lightning splitting the sky for the millionth time since the night before.

The storm had gone on all night and into the morning without stop. Didn't storms usually last only a few hours at most? I'd have to ask Morris on Monday.

Monday. School. Normalcy.

Too bad this was only Saturday.

Yawning and stretching cautiously, I slowly pieced together my memories of the night before. I remembered doing homework on the bed, a small candle on my night table providing just enough light to work by. I remembered jumping every time the house creaked and groaned. A couple of times, I had gone to the door and listened for the sound of Mom moving around. I couldn’t decide if the fact I couldn’t hear her was more or less terrifying than hearing her.

At one point, I glanced at my cell phone and saw the time tick over from 11:59 p.m. to 12:00 a.m.

"Happy birthday to me," I muttered.

I’m the girl who turns eighteen on a Friday night—no, a Saturday morning—trapped in her own house in the middle of a storm. Eff my life.

The wind had picked up and whistled through the trees. I heard branches break and hit the roof and sides of the house. I wondered if we were due for a tornado, as we did get them in Western Massachusetts once in a while.

Nervously, I went over to the window and looked out into the dark. I used my cell phone again to provide a feeble light.

"Whoa!" I exclaimed softly when I saw the black bird sitting on the same branch in the evergreen. "Crazy!"

The bird tilted its head as if it could hear me, which, of course, it couldn't. But, it made me feel a little better to pretend that it did.

The sharp notes of breaking glass shattered my moment of calm, and the gong-like sounds of metal being struck hard reverberated in sync with the pounding of my heart.

"Oh my God!" I gasped.

Clinging to the window, I glanced back out at the bird, who sat there in the tree, watching me.

"Stay," I whispered, feeling desperate but stupid for using a dog-command on a bird that couldn't hear or understand me.

An angry scream ripped through the house, and I sank down to the floor by the window, my thoughts paralyzing me. Was that really my mom screaming?

The house went eerily silent after that. As the hours went by, my fear-frozen brain could only run in circles, thinking that staying by the window was a good idea because if anything bad was going to come knocking on my door, jumping out the window would be my best option. Periodically, I peeked out the window, flashing my phone’s light to find the bird, always perched in the same place.

I wondered why the bird wasn’t flying off, especially in this storm. At least, it should have been closer to the trunk of the tree where the branches could shelter it better from getting wet. Wait, did birds get wet, or did their feathers protect them? Or was that ducks…weren’t ducks birds?

And that's when I had fallen asleep.

***

The electricity was back on, which was a definite bonus. My body ached from spending the night on the floor, but a hot shower would make that right.

I paused at the door to my room. Mom hadn't told me I could leave my room. But, nature was calling, I was starving, and I had to go to work this morning. Besides, I was going to have to face her some time.

Oh, and I was eighteen. I didn't have to stay in my room now, just because she said so.

Still cautious, I headed out into the rest of the house and got ready for my day. In the dingy, grey light of day, the house was its old self. A little broken down, a little musty, but nothing more than just an old house at the end of an old street.

The taste of toothpaste and chlorinated tap water was a soothing bit of normalcy. Everything from the night before now seemed a little ridiculous and overdramatic. So, Mom and I had had a fight. So, she had sent me to my room. So, she had yelled and ranted to herself. So, what? That had to be considered normal parental behavior by most other teenagers.

My confidence faltered a little when I saw no sign of my mother, and oddly enough, I didn't see any broken glass or dinged metal, either. Maybe she had just broken a wineglass and screamed in frustration because of her teenage daughter's rebellion? Mom didn't believe in drinking, but I knew she kept a secret stash of red wine in a locked cabinet in the living room. If any night would have driven her to drink, it would have been last night.

I snagged a banana and went in search of Mom, my mind spinning through every possible scenario about where she could be. I checked her room, the basement, the laundry room, everything. There was no sign of her anywhere. The car was gone, too.

She could have gone to work early, but I was supposed to work that day as well. Was she trying to keep me from going as a punishment? It didn't make sense. We needed the money. All of my paycheck went directly into her checking account, and we barely made the bills every month—as far as I could tell from surreptitious glances at the scattered papers around the kitchen.

I lost my taste for the banana and put the rest of it in the fridge. I was just going to have to figure out how to get myself to work. In the rain. On my birthday.

***

Funny how grateful I turned out to be for the emergency plastic rain poncho Mom made me carry in my school backpack. After an hour and twenty minutes of walking, I was only five minutes late, and I was mostly dry. I switched out my rain boots for sneakers and clocked in.

"Hey, Ben." I called out to my supervisor as I saw him restocking the herbal supplements. "Seen my mom yet today? She wasn't in back."

Ben frowned and looked around.

"No," he replied. "Actually, now that I think of it, I didn't see her yesterday, either."

"Wait, she worked yesterday, right?"

"Yeah, she's on the schedule. I know for a fact she wasn't here because Amir was having to handle produce, and you know he can't tell okra from daikon, so he was asking me about everything."

It was my turn to frown. Where was my mother?

"Is everything okay, Stephanie?" Ben asked, pausing to look at me, his arms full of bottles of fish oil and folic acid.

"Totally fine," I answered, faking a smile. "Totally, totally fine. Did Amir touch my orchids yesterday?"

Ben laughed. "He knows better than to do that after the way you laid into him the last time. I think he’s still in therapy."

I huffed melodramatically, then grinned, satisfied I had distracted Ben from my home situation.

Thankfully, it was a slow morning. The routine of the floral department relaxed me, and for whole minutes at a time, I forgot about everything. Mom, Haley, school, Jordan, the rain. Nothing mattered when I worked.

Every flower bucket needed its water changed, and I took my time trimming the stems of the bouquets so that fresh fibers could absorb more water and keep the flowers alive longer.

I inspected my orchids, satisfied that Amir really hadn't mucked around with them. I checked all the mums that were starting to bud, watering them, and lining them up outside under the awning.

It wasn't just the pretty petals and colors of the flowers that I liked. The reason I was so good at working with plants is because I cared about the roots. I liked to examine the stems and the dirt, looking for signs of new shoots and moisture. The only science unit I had ever aced was the one on plant biology. For some reason, I just got it.

Mom always liked to say that spring was my favorite season because it was so pretty and mild. I tried clarifying it for her a couple times, but she never listened, so I just let it go.