Harmony (15 page)

They both look surprised for a minute, and maybe a little bit guilty. And then my mom hugs me closer, and we're laughing together, all three of us.

One Saturday in March, you take the girls to the toy store, so they can pick out a birthday present for their cousin. On the way there, everyone seems to be in a good mood, talking about possible purchases, both realistic and fanciful.

“Maybe we could get her a machine that sings songs to you when you're sad,” says Tilly. “It knows when you're sad, because it has eye-recognition technology, and it can see when there's a tear.” In the front seat, you shake your head. It's amazing, the way this child's creativity has come to be an ordinary part of your life. You should write this down, though you know that by the time you have a chance to, you'll probably have forgotten the peculiar Tilly-phrasing that makes it so good.

“Maybe,” says Iris, doubtfully. “Or we could get her a toy pony. She really likes ponies.”

Once inside the store, you let the kids wander a little bit, and you give yourself the luxury of browsing. You love this place; it's a neighborhood business, and it's been here a million years. Higher prices than, say, Target, but more interesting toys. You like to support them when you can.

Things have been going better lately, at least a little. The licking hasn't disappeared, but it's calmed down, and the new tics she's developed aren't quite as disruptive. She's back at school again most days, which is good for both of you.

You've been listening to Scott Bean's CDs and reading his newsletters, and you believe firmly that it's made a difference. The advice he gives, the techniques he suggests, are sensible and easy to implement, and they make you feel less helpless. You've got a set of tools, even if you're not always sure which ones to try.

He emails you, too, periodically. His notes are brief, but personal; not a form letter, but a real note from the real guy, using your kids' names and asking how they're doing. “Just checking in,” he always says. You see it for what it is—a clever piece of marketing, keeping his name on your radar—but even so, the notes touch you. You appreciate the effort, however small it might be.

You've stayed in touch with Janelle, the mom from Philadelphia who you met at Scott Bean's workshop, and that's been helpful, too. You email each other during the day with updates and grim jokes; a couple of times a week, you talk on the phone after the kids are asleep. It's not that you don't have other friends. But you don't have many other friends you can talk to about this.

You don't want to jinx anything, but you feel like maybe, maybe, this most recent crisis has passed. And if it hasn't, you've got a secret weapon in reserve, in case you need it: at the bottom of Scott's messages, right below his name, there's always an automated signature line, listing some of the services that Harmonious Parenting offers. And the first entry, three words, is like a candy that you've hidden away where no one else will find it:
Private consultation available.

You walk through the toy store, making mental notes to save for future birthdays and Christmases. You're thinking that you'll give the girls a little time to browse and pick out their gift
recommendations. But it's only a minute or two before you hear Tilly begin to scream.

Anatomy of a meltdown: it can happen anytime; it can take you completely by surprise. You know to watch for certain triggers—hunger, fatigue, impending illness. But there are also times when it seems to arise out of nothing. Times when you never do figure out a cause, not even afterward, when you and Josh and Tilly's therapist sit down and do the Miss Marple thing, breaking down every external factor and personal interaction, every food eaten and cartoon watched in the hours leading up to it.

You know this much: it happens when she doesn't get what she wants. But not in a selfish way, not like a toddler who doesn't understand why she can't have every toy. It's more that if she doesn't get what she wants, she gets scared. She feels trapped. In an instant, she's lost. She can't see her way out. Everything seems bigger than it is. If she's been told that she can't use the computer, it means that maybe she'll never be allowed to again. For all she knows, you or Josh might unplug the computer, pick it up, and carry it out to the trash. If she's not the one in control, then who knows what might happen? The world is an unpredictable place.

You're always trying to stay on alert, three steps ahead of her, but it's not really possible, because her brain is such a fine and complicated machine. Say she wants to play a game with her sister. Great, right? This is what you want. Reaching out, moving out of the sphere of her own mind a little bit. But before they even begin, she's got it all planned out. They're not going to be just any aliens; they're aliens from the planet Hammondia. She's already expecting it to go a certain way, and there's not a lot of room for compromise. If she thinks that the aliens have names like Zogox and Glaptu, then it's a disaster for her sister to want to be called Lauren.

The way it manifests today is that one minute you're browsing wrapping paper, and the next you can hear Tilly, half a store away,
yelling at the top of her lungs. No words, just a high-pitched shriek, piercing the hushed air.

You drop the gift bag you're holding and run toward the scream. You find them in the doll section, and you round the corner just in time to see Tilly raise her hand and take a swipe at Iris.

“Stop,” you maybe-say and maybe-yell. “Tilly. Stop. Now.”

You get to her before she can hit again, and you grab her hands in yours. She's found her words now, and she chokes them out between sobs. “I hate her! She's a bitch! Fuck her!” In the corner of your vision, you see Iris slip out of the place where she's been standing, pressed against a shelf of doll beds, and run toward the end of the aisle.

The problem with Scott Bean's bag of tricks is that they only work if you're able to stay calm. And right now, you're not calm at all.

You squeeze Tilly's wrists, hard. “What's going on?” you whisper, furious.

“Stop it,” she says, her voice twisting. “You're hurting me. Do you hate me?”

And maybe in the washed-out heat of this moment, you do. Your children have told you many times that there's no difference between being angry with somebody and hating them for just a little while. And right now, you're angrier than you've been in a long, long time.

When the four of you are together, it's usually Josh who gets this job, talking Tilly down while you do damage control with Iris. But Josh isn't here, and you need to be the fucking adult.

You bite your lip and loosen your grip on Tilly. Breathe and breathe and breathe. You cross your arms over your chest, grab hold of your forearms, hidden beneath your coat sleeves. Dig your fingernails into your flesh, someplace where your clothes will hide it. It's a kind of currency exchange: the physical pain creates a tangible jolt that disrupts the circuit, turning fury into sadness. It focuses you, giving you a place to pin your attention. By the time your throat swells and your eyes begin to ache, you're finally ready to speak.

“No,” you say, your voice breaking. You can feel the tears on your cheeks now. “I don't hate you. I love you so much.”

You put your hands on her arms. Her body is practically vibrating; she's still fuming, though about what you may never know. What you'd like is to get her out of here, take her outside to scream in the open air, where there aren't a dozen happy people trying to buy toys. But you know you won't be able to get her out, because to her, that will sound like a threat, and it will make things worse. You'd have to bodily drag her through the store, and that's not a good idea. Once you get started on any kind of physical struggle, it's going to trigger a whole other set of bad events.

So you hold her in place and keep your talking to a minimum, get her to count and breathe and all those other things that are written in her “angry notebook” from school. When you're sure that she's a little calmer, you leave her where she is and go looking for Iris.

You find her in the art section, hiding. You crouch down next to her and hug her tight. “It's one thing when she does this at home,” she whispers.

God. God. “I know,” you say. “I know.” Sometimes you don't know how you're going to stand this.

After a moment, Tilly wanders over. “I'm sorry, Mommy,” she says. “Sorry, Iris.” She's on a fairly even keel now, and she wants to put it behind her. But you . . . you just can't. When you don't immediately say, “It's okay,” her face rumples, just a little. “Are you mad?” she asks, her voice quavering.

You keep your words steady. Firm, but not angry—this is key. “I'm a little bit mad,” you say. You've still got your arms around Iris, keeping her at a safe distance. You look up at Tilly, who's standing above you both. “This was hard for me, Tilly. You need to learn to control yourself. This was very embarrassing and upsetting for both me and Iris.”

You've devastated her. You watch it happening. It turns out that it
doesn't matter how not-angry you sounded; you've still done damage. When you tell her, “I was embarrassed,” she hears, “You're a fucking idiot.” You say, “You need to learn to control yourself,” and she hears, “This family would be better off without you.” You watch her face absorb the blow. She's going to be crying in a minute, but right now she's still in the process of letting your words hit her all over, leaving little welts. You close your eyes for a long moment.

You need to help her with this. She needs to understand the way her behavior affects other people. But it's not worth it to crush her this way. She's sobbing now. You did this to her. She starts to wail, and she's hitting herself in the stomach, over and over again.

“I should die,” she says. “I should commit suicide.”

You take a breath. It's too much, too dramatic for such a little thing, and it allows you to get a little perspective. Where have you seen this sort of thing before—this instant globalization, jumping to the worst possible conclusion? She's her mother's daughter all over.

You're very, very good at beating yourself up. And you so wish that you hadn't passed it on to your little girl. Because the traits you've given Tilly, the good ones and the bad, aren't just reflected back at you; they're magnified all out of proportion. Where you're smart, she's brilliant; where you scold yourself during car trips, she sobs in the aisle of a toy store, believing that she deserves to die.

You take her by the hand and pull her down onto the floor next to you. You put your arms around her. “Okay, sweetie, okay.” All you can do is comfort her. Iris stands and watches the two of you on the floor; she's a different kind of creature entirely.

“Okay, my baby,” you whisper to Tilly. “It's going to be okay.” And maybe, if you can create a soothing enough rhythm, maybe there's a chance that you'll start to believe it, too.

 • • • 

When your kids were little, there was a brief period when reality shows about comically strict nannies were popular:
Supernanny
,
Nanny 911.
Programs about families in chaos, needing a firm hand to guide them. They became a guilty pleasure of yours. It was partly schadenfreude—
well, at least we're not as bad off as they are
—but you also hoped that you might learn something you could use. The thing that always came through, crystal clear, is that it was never the kids who were causing the problems. It was like an autopsy, a cause-and-effect diagram: these are the mistakes the parents made, and this is how they led us here. That child deliberately pouring juice on the floor? It's more than likely that you created this situation yourself; all she did was adapt to it.

When you get home from the toy store, without a present, you sit down and open your laptop, scanning for the information about private consultations. You email Scott and ask for a quote.

We begin Project Werewolf at lunch on Wednesday. I'm actually really excited about it; it's like being in a play. I know it's kind of mean, but the thing is, I don't really care that much. These kids are just passing through. They're not part of the CF, and after they leave on Saturday, we'll probably never see them again. They just show up for a week and make our lives harder.

So Ryan and Candy and Tilly and I all fill up our plates at the buffet and then go sit down at the same table with Kylie and Jason. And then I just start eating my sandwich and wait for the right moment to come.

In movies and TV shows, when kids come up with a plan that the adults don't know about, it always goes so perfectly. Like they've thought of every detail, and broken it down into parts, and every person knows practically how many
seconds
until it's their turn. But in real life, especially when you've got kids like Tilly and Ryan, who you can't really trust to behave the way a normal person would, it's a lot less smooth. That's why I've set it up with them that I'm the one who's supposed to start, and even though they're both giving
me these looks like
come
on
, I wait until we're almost halfway through lunch.

Jason's nervous, because he's heard we're having a campfire tonight, and he's afraid that he's going to get burned like Scott did. So he's asking all these questions, and instead of eating, he keeps putting little pieces of his napkin into his mouth to
chew
on them, before he takes them back out and leaves them on the table in a gross, soggy lump.

Candy's telling him about the fire-starters and about how we'll probably sing the Camp Harmony song and whatever, and then she mentions that it'll be dark by the time it's over, and she gives me this little look, too quick for anyone else to notice. And finally I pipe up and say, “Make sure you stay with everybody else, though, because the light of the campfire keeps away the wild . . . well, anything that's wild in the woods.”

Tilly and Ryan make a big show of glaring at me and saying “shh,” and I think they mostly pull it off.

Kylie's bored and not paying much attention, but Jason looks up at us so quick it's like a cartoon. “What do you mean?” he asks. “Like mosquitoes?”

We all can't help laughing at that, because (a) that's so dumb and (b) we've all been covered in mosquito bites for weeks now, and these kids are probably used to their moms spraying them down with toxic bug repellent.

“No,” says Tilly. “Actually, the light attracts the bugs. But it keeps away . . .”

And then I hit her hard in the arm, like we planned. “Tilly,” I say, whispering, but loud enough that the other kids can hear. “We're not supposed to mention that.”

Candy says, “She just means like rabbits and chipmunks and stuff.”

“The esquilax!” says Ryan, which was definitely not one of our planned lines and is probably a
Simpsons
thing that he can't resist saying. “It's a horse with the head of a rabbit”—and he pauses, but
not really long enough for anyone to cut in—“and the body of . . . a RABBIT!”

Afterward, he bursts out laughing really loud, and Tilly looks annoyed, but I think it's actually probably good. It'll make the adults think that everything is business as usual over here. If they glance over to see what we're doing, it's just Ryan quoting
The Simpsons
and Tilly with her hair in her mouth. Just lunch the way it always is.

“Yeah, right,” I say. “It protects us from the big bad esquilax.”

“Or anything bigger,” says Tilly. It might be better if she just lets it go and waits for the new kids to ask us questions, but I think she's too excited to do that.

“Like what?” asks Kylie. She's still acting all cool, but her forehead's sort of wrinkled, like maybe we're getting to her a little.

Tilly and Candy and I all look at each other, like we're trying to decide whether to say anything. Ryan puts his hand over his mouth, so he doesn't start laughing, but luckily no one else is paying attention to him.

“We don't really know,” I say, “but we think there might be something bigger out there in the woods.”

“Like what? A bear?” asks Jason. His eyes are really wide.

“No,” I say. “Something bigger. Something . . . worse.”

“We think . . .” Tilly begins, but I cut her off before she can say anything stupid. I don't want her to say the word “werewolf,” or it'll ruin the whole thing. It'll make it sound silly, like a cheesy ghost story. The thing that's scary should be that there's
something
out there, but we have no idea what it is. What's scary is that it's something none of us have ever heard of before. Something so weird and freaky that it doesn't even have a name.

“We don't know,” I say, talking over Tilly, which isn't easy to do, I can tell you. “It's just noises and shadows. It's probably nothing.” I look straight at Jason then, careful to keep my eyes away from his spit-pile. “You don't have to worry at all,” I say, and even I can hear that my voice sounds mean.

Then Scott gets up to make afternoon announcements, and we don't have time to say anything else, which is just exactly perfect. I feel light and bouncy, like I've got helium inside me. I made this work. I made it go exactly the way we wanted it to.

I keep feeling that way until about a half an hour after lunchtime, when Scott comes to get me out of the Red Rover game and pulls me hard by the arm into the office.

I can't believe how short a time it took. Scott tells me that Jason (of course) got scared (of course) and told his mom what we'd been saying. And somehow, because of whatever he said, I'm the only one who's in trouble. Right away, the helium's gone, and I'm starting to feel worried. Because I can tell that Scott is really mad at me, like
a lot
. More than it seems like he should be for the situation, actually, and I have no idea what he's going to do. I wish for a minute that my mom were here, or my dad, but then I realize that it probably wouldn't help. They'd probably back him up. “Every adult is your mom here”—that's something Scott likes to say. “Every adult is your dad.”

Scott paces through the little office, around the chair that I'm sitting in. He's squeezing and unsqueezing his hands into fists, and then all of a sudden, he picks up a stapler from the desk and throws it at the wall behind my head. It doesn't hit me, but it makes a loud noise, and when I turn around, I can see that it's cracked the paint. The paint that I put up there on our very first day. I scrunch down in my chair and pull my legs up, like my knees are going to protect me somehow.

“I am trying to figure this out,” says Scott. His voice is practically burning, like it's
red
with anger, almost. “But I cannot for the life of me figure out why you would do something like this. Do you know who you are?”

He stops and looks at me, waiting. It seems like one of those questions you shouldn't have to answer, but I don't want to make him madder. “Iris Hammond?” I say, in a tiny voice.

“Yeah,” he says. “Iris Hammond, fine. But beyond that, you know who you are? You're our
good
kid. You're the one we trust.”

I make a little sound that I didn't even mean to make. What he said, it
hurts
me, like an actual pain in my chest, and it keeps hurting more, the more it sinks in. For a minute I feel like I can't even breathe. Then I really am crying, the worst sort of crying, where you sound like you're moaning, and you can't stop, no matter what you do.

“I . . .” When I try to talk, it sounds all wrong, my voice going up and down like waves. “I
am
a good kid,” I say, finally, but in my head, I'm going through the whole conversation with Jason, thinking about how I
wanted
to scare him, wanted him to . . . I don't know, wet his pants or something, or be so scared that he wouldn't be able to sleep. And I know it's not true, what I'm saying. I'm
not
a good kid.

I put my head down on my knees and cry for a long, long time. The thing is, I should be mad about what he said, but it should be for
Tilly's
sake, not just my own. Because if I'm the good kid, then it means Tilly's one of the bad ones, and no matter how mad I get at her, I know that's not true. So I'm crying for everything in the whole world, it seems like. It's partly because I was mean to Jason, and because Scott just told me I was bad, and as soon as he said it, I knew he was right. But more than that, I'm crying because I'm realizing that this is what I've wanted, maybe my whole entire life: for someone to take me and Tilly, look us both up and down, and tell me that I'm the one who's good and smart and special and nice. And feeling that way just might be the worst thing I've ever done to my sister, whether she knows about it or not.

By the time I finally look back up at the rest of the room, I'm gasping, almost like I'm going to throw up from crying so much. Scott's looking at me, not mad anymore, but not particularly concerned, either. Just kind of blank. I reach out and take a tissue from a box on the desk.

“Let me tell you a story,” he says. “When I was growing up, I had a little brother named Jesse. He's dead now, but that's neither here nor there.”

I look up, surprised. I wonder if I should say something, like “I'm sorry,” but there's no chance. He just keeps on talking.

“Now Jesse was a little bit like Tilly, and a little bit like Jason. And that didn't always sit right with me, as I'm sure you can understand.”

I don't know if I'm supposed to nod or agree with him or whatever, because that means I'm saying that I don't always like Tilly. Or you know, that I don't always like the way she
is
. But Scott isn't even looking at me, anyway.

“So when I was about eleven, and Jesse was about ten, he used to collect these stickers called Wacky Packs. They were like parodies of brands, like things you might find at the supermarket. Like there would be a picture of a Snickers bar, but it would be called Sneakers, and it would say that it tasted like old gym shoes, or something like that. They were stupid, but kids thought they were funny, and Jesse was wild about them.”

Scott wipes his good hand across his forehead; we're both sweating. I wish he'd just turn on the air conditioner, but I don't think I should ask when I'm still in trouble and he's in the middle of telling a story.

“He didn't just have a normal collection, either. He studied up on which ones were rare and hard to get, and he wrote letters to people who collected them in other countries. And this was before the Internet, so it was a lot harder than it is now to hunt down whatever you were looking for. I'm a little amazed when I think about how he managed it. He had hundreds of those things.”

He stops talking, obviously thinking about these stickers, or his dead brother or whatever. I scratch a mosquito bite on my arm, kind of just to remind him I'm still in the room.

“So anyway,” he says, finally. “One day, I got mad at Jesse because he knocked a bunch of stuff off my dresser—we shared a bedroom—and so I took all his Wacky Packs, and I brought them to the woods behind our house, and I burned them all up.”

I gasp, like actually make a little gasping noise. I don't know what I thought he was going to say, but this is worse.

“Jesse was devastated, of course. And I got a beating, because that's what childhood was like back then. But the worst part was that when I tried to fix it, by saving up my spending money and buying him whatever new ones I could afford, Jesse wouldn't even look at them. It was like I hadn't just ruined those individual cards; I'd ruined the whole thing for him forever.”

I'm going to start crying again; I can feel my throat getting tight and sore. But I don't really understand why he's telling me this. Is he saying that the stupid werewolf story I told Jason was really as bad as this horrible thing he did to his brother when they were little? Or that it ruined something for Jason forever? For a while, neither of us says anything. We both just sit there, sweating in the little room while I try to even out my breath.

“All right,” he says, after a while. “Try to calm down. I'm afraid that there has to be a consequence, no matter how sorry you are. So AD Block tonight, and no swimming this afternoon.” He sighs. “You've lost a little bit of my trust today, Iris. Start trying to earn it back.”

“How did he die?” I ask. My voice is still all wavery.

Scott shakes his head. “That's a story for another day.”

He leaves the office, and I put my head down on my knees again. I'm waiting to see if I'm going to cry again, and almost
want
to, like otherwise there's no place else for this hurt in my chest to go. But I feel . . . empty. My head hurts, and my mouth is dry, like I've cried out all the water in my body.

I get up and throw away my soggy tissue in the little trash can. In
with the other garbage, there's one little scrap of paper that catches my eye. It's all covered with Magic Marker swirls, and I recognize it right away: it's one of Candy's envelopes, from the letters she writes to her dad. Which is confusing, because why would it be here in the trash? But my head feels empty, like I don't have the energy even to wonder about anything, so I just focus on the pretty pattern of flowers and swirls. I keep the picture in my mind, as I walk back to our cabin and lie down on my bed, and when I fall asleep I don't dream about anything besides white paper being filled up with color.

 • • • 

When I wake up, it's almost dinnertime, and my mom is sitting on the edge of my bed.

“Hey, sweet girl,” she says when I open my eyes. I reach my arms around her waist and give her an awkward hug, pressing my face to the skin just above her knee.