For the Best (5 page)

Hanna

I rummaged through a box from my old home
looking for a file folder. Recycling I inverted three used ones
that had been labeled: thirty days overdue, sixty days overdue, and
the last chance ninety days overdue.

It wasn’t that we had lived a frivolous
existence, my mom and I. We hadn’t, far from it. Our house was
middle class but in a good neighborhood near the beach. To get by
after Dad left, Mom took out a second mortgage. We could barely pay
the first. We didn’t go for extravagant vacations, entertainment,
fine dining, any of that. My mom had worked her whole life until
the first bout of cancer hit her. Then she and Dad decided it would
be best if she didn’t work. He made over a six figure salary and
had fantastic insurance.

My dad blamed the stress of her illness and
financial difficulties on the demise of the marriage. I blamed him.
When he left, he didn’t have to cut us off. No money was coming in,
not even child support. He kept arguing with Mom that she needed to
find an oncologist in network. This I later learned meant Mom’s
supreme doctor was not on a specified list of physicians his
healthcare plan recommended. This caused us to have to pay the
first $5000 of all treatment. Then the lifetime maximum on out of
network doctors was $250,000. The local Mayo clinic was the best in
our area and they weren’t cheap. Her bills far exceeded the max.
Monthly Mom’s drug treatments ran around $800. She had to use up
her 401k, which Uncle Sam taxed heavily when she cashed it in. That
was when she second mortgaged the house. Not long after I emptied
my college fund. It still wasn’t enough.

When Dad argued with Mom about insurance, he
argued with me about my expensive private school. He was right. I
didn’t enjoy the experience and would have been satisfied with a
public education. I pushed the issue because I wanted to be with
Tanner.

Tanner’s parents needed him to be in private
school. It was like because Trevor was learning challenged they had
to prove their intelligence through their other son. I think as
much as my parent’s dysfunctional marriage damaged me, Tanner’s
parents push for him to be the brightest and best messed him up -
dulling his natural inclinations.

Tanner and I were both stressed. His mom was
threatening to send Trevor to a group home because she felt he was
difficult to manage as an adult with special needs. Not wanting to
add to his misery, I kept a lot of my inner turmoil away from
Tanner. He may have noticed my stacks of sorted bills, but he never
commented.

I didn’t pay any medical statements until
the final notice. Even then, sometimes the bill would be turned
over to a collection agency before I paid. Debt collectors became a
routine part of my daily existence. They would scream and yell
trying to humiliate or badger me into paying thinking I was my mom.
I took those calls because stress worsened her condition.
Eventually, I cancelled the land line in the house stopping the
harassment. I ditched the family cell phone plan Mom and I shared,
opting for cheap pay as you go phones instead.

There was an ugly feeling gnawing at me
inside. I wish I could have written it off as PMS.

Arriving at school ten minutes early, I was
zoning in my car listening to Pete Yorn crooning about a white
trash beach. I could have just closed my eyes and fallen back to
sleep, but they were focused on a heated conversation between a
couple arguing in a Mustang two cars down. Tanner and I rarely
fought, but our junior year we hit a very rough patch that had
nothing to do with our families.

Sex became a source of contention between
us. Maybe it was the porn he and his friends watched, maybe it was
the pills he began taking when he thought I wasn’t paying
attention. I knew when I was with Tanner and when I was with his
persona just by his style in bed. The funny thing was he was better
on his own without the videos, when he was with me because he
needed me, needed love. Eventually, our whole sex life just kind of
snowballed, each of us with our own agendas.

His bedroom was dark. With one ear, he
listened to the sound of the garage door opening alerting us his
parents and brother had come home from the movies. We were making
out on his bed.

“I’m having trouble staying in the moment,”
I whispered, trying to explain something he should have
understood.

“Why?”

Of course he would ask that. It wasn’t like
he was having any trouble getting off on my body. “Because.”

“You need to just get over it. Stop living
in the past. What’s done is done.”

Aggravated, frustrated, humiliated, give me
another description of a negative emotion ending in “ed” and it
applied to me then. My plan to get pregnant had failed, my whole
world was falling apart, and my mom wasn’t the only one dying
inside.

Public school was a little easier than
private. I wasn’t putting forth much effort since the diploma was
all I needed. There was no chance I was going on to college.

By sixth period, I was exhausted past the
point of trying to listen. The class was advanced biology. The lab
portion had just dissected a cat. The smell of formaldehyde and wet
fur made me want to hurl. My eyes always stung in lab partly from
the chemicals but mostly because I hated to see an animal spread
and flayed.

The teacher was done with the lecture and
told us we could read or study. I was reading
The Stranger
by Albert Camus for English lit class. Most people were studying.
Two lab tables back girls were giggling and whispering. I tried to
tune them out. It wasn’t about me but old incidents always made me
fear it was.

Let me explain. Timeline back to my first
biology class, sophomore year. We were studying cell development,
particularly during pregnancy. Some brainy kid asked the teacher
about stem cell research and disease treatments. The teacher
explained about cord blood - those stem cells could be harvested
from the umbilical cord once a woman gave birth and used to treat
patients on high-dose anticancer drugs. The transplanted cells
could travel to an inflicted person’s bone marrow and begin to
produce new blood cells, essentially regenerating what chemotherapy
and/or radiation therapy destroyed. The results were nothing short
of miraculous.

Without a care for my future life, I decided
a pregnancy was an attainable goal for a fertile young girl like
me. I would keep my aspiration a secret from the public until I was
in my third trimester. They showed that kind of deception all the
time on TV dramas. I told Tanner because if he was going to make up
half a baby he had a right to know. Without argument, he
agreed.

I studied up on ovulation. We did it on my
most fertile days and a lot of the rest for months. Nothing, it was
like I was the one high school girl having unprotected frequent sex
who couldn’t get pregnant. I was devastated. Tanner was on some
sexual high. It wasn’t long after that I found out we had gotten a
label, the “it” couple.

Hanna

To get to the beach, my walk entailed
crossing six lanes of A1A during rush hour. I hated that
intersection. There was a wreck there every other day. Mostly
because some traffic engineering idiot had made all the lights up
to that point have one lane with a green arrow that didn’t have to
stop. Tourists didn’t pay attention that this particular light had
no arrow and was the standard go-caution-stop.

At the crosswalk, I quickly untangled
leashes, making sure my feet were clear. As the white light flashed
a picture of a person walking, I shot off in front of the lined up
traffic with two hyped up Spaniels -Romeo and Juliet ahead, and a
somewhat lazy Rott -Bowzer lagging behind.

The east side of A1A in my hometown was
wealthy. Once it had only been summer and weekend beach cottages
according to my dad. Now those were all swallowed by huge additions
or demolished in favor of sleek cube and glassy structures that
didn’t compliment the beach street.

Bowzer began barking madly at the
landscaping on just such a structure. Out of habit, I peeked around
a white Oleander. Trevor sometimes hid beneath shrubs. I had to
remind myself he didn’t live near enough for me to stumble upon his
refuges any longer.

Trevor usually hid so he wouldn’t get locked
up in the house for the night by his mom. He liked to take jaunts
in the dark of night. He didn’t do it for mischief, he liked the
night sky. He loved to look at the stars.

My last memory of Trevor going undetected
was April of junior year. I had just sunk into the couch cushions
to watch TV when the doorbell rang.

Reluctantly, I peered out the window to see
who was there. A hulking man had his face pressed up against the
door and startled I gasped until I realized who it was. Opening the
door I asked, “Trevor, does your mom and dad know you’re out
tonight?”

The forever imprinted face of a child
trapped in a Down Syndrome mask shook his head no back at me.
“Hanna, will you talk to me?”

“Yes, but we need to call your house and let
them know where you are.”

He followed me inside. The dark haired boy
slash man knew my house well. He patted Gator on his head as he
passed the doggy bed, and flung himself on the couch proceeding to
flip the channels on the remote until he found Nickelodeon. I
watched him as I dialed the familiar number with a nostalgic
sadness for the child whose playmates and body had outgrown
him.

“Hey beautiful,” Tanner answered aware it
was me from the caller ID.

“Hey, Trevor’s here.”

“Fuck, when did he take off?” Tanner
exclaimed.

I realized Tanner was on Trevor duty, one of
his parent’s date nights. “It’s okay. I know you’re cramming for
that test. He can stay here until ten.”

I popped corn in the microwave and joined
Trevor. He was watching the cartoon
SpongeBob SquarePants,
repeating each line he thought was funny while simultaneously
bouncing up and down on the couch.

Trevor eventually dehypertized enough to
talk. “Another girl is at my house besides you Hanna. I don’t like
her. She wasn’t nice to me and Tanner took her up to his room to
play,” he whispered the words.

My stomach clenched, and cold anxiety
steeled through my veins.

“Does he not love us anymore Hanna?” Trevor
asked quietly like a child about to cry.

“Sure he does.” I smiled through my
tightening throat.

He beamed back at me. “I love you,
Hanna.”

The front door opened without a knock.

“You ready?” Tanner asked his brother with a
hint of irritation.

“Yep.”

“Let’s go.” Tanner motioned for Trevor to
follow.

“First I need my hug and kiss.” Trevor
bounded off the couch and embraced Gator who just let him. I got up
to follow them to the door.

“Don’t you want to hang out for awhile?” I
practically begged.

“I’m really stuck on a chapter.” Tanner
provided a ready excuse on why he needed to leave so soon.

Without warning, Trevor bear hugged me,
lifting me off the ground, bending me back. “Trev, remember what I
told you.” I choked out feeling like my spine was breaking.

He relaxed his arms. “Sorry, Hanna, you said
girl hugs are supposed to be gentle.” He smiled sheepishly. “Will
you come over and read me stories?” he asked letting go.

“She can’t tonight, Trev,” Tanner answered
for me.

With obvious discomfort, Tanner kissed me
goodbye. The taste was flavored like fruity lip-gloss.

Tanner was standing in my bedroom doorway.
He had stopped by on break from his job at a local nursery. I knew
he didn’t come by car instead using the service truck from his
employer.

“I’ve got a drop off. You want to ride
shotgun.”

“Where you headed?” I smiled not sure if I
wanted to leave Gator but wanting out of the house.

“I have to load up some Sagos and Palmettos
from the supplier then take them north.”

I had done this with him before. I looked
back to my spot on the bed knowing another sleepless night waited
for me. “Sure, why not.” I grabbed my jacket, and left the dog in
my room telling him I would be back.

He opened the front passenger door for me.
When he started the engine, a familiar band roared from the
stereo.

I lowered the volume as we wove through A1A
traffic to the airport expressway. “How is school?”

“Not that bad actually,” I replied feeling
the shocks bounce the truck as we passed each joint in the
intracoastal bridge.

He glanced over at me. “You haven’t
mentioned prom,” he said merging right to take an exit.

I shrugged. “I can’t go. Part of being
expelled.”

Tanner squinted sideways at me. “And you
were going to tell me when?”

“I had a lot of other crap on my mind. You
can go with someone else.”

We grew quiet. He started singing with a
song on the radio as we drove over the Dames Point span. I loved
that bridge with its suspension cables gleaming white and the
different colors illuminating it and the St. John’s River below.
The view to the east of Blount Island was ugly, a port with giant
ships carrying rail freight cars mostly with Chinese companies
logos on them. Giant Gantry cranes loomed like
Star Wars
fighters to remove the loads.

Two exits past the northern city limits he
exited into a rural area, and stopped for his load at a nursery
supplier. I waited in the humid truck with the windows rolled down
inhaling a breeze tinged with cigarette smoke and rich peat soil
while he and two other guys hauled gallons of tropical plants into
the back.