o 7d2acff2003a9b7d (3 page)

“Like, the four of us weren’t using it as a trampoline.”

We sat quietly for a few minutes and gazed at the sky. Now I could see the moon. It was the thinnest of crescents. Just a hair.

After awhile [sic] Dawn said, “Sunny, do you remember the time your mom gave us the pennies

— ”

I didn’t want to think about that. “Not now,” I said, cutting her off. A little chatting was okay, but I didn’t want a big talk about Mom.

For just a second Dawn looked wounded, but then her face changed. “All right,” she said.

I am so, so glad that Dawn and I are friends again. I have my best friend back, the person who always understands me. I can’t believe that I almost lost her.

Only your best friend could understand everything you mean when you say just two words, like

“Not now.”

11:50 A.M.

Have been looking in my closet. What a mess. I’ll have to straighten it out one day. First I need to clean it out. I bet I have stuff in there from second grade.

12:22 P.M.

The doctor just left. He looked pretty grim. Now Dad and Aunt Morgan look grim too. I didn’t hang around to hear what the doctor said.

I don’t want to know.

12:38 P.M.

Aunt Morgan has fixed lunch but none of us can eat it. Dad doesn’t want to leave Mom’s side, and anyway, he doesn’t have an appetite. Neither do Aunt Morgan or I. So this bowl of potato salad is sitting on the kitchen counter with three clean plates beside it. Aunt Morgan has been here for three days and this is the first time she hasn’t insisted on a “family meal.” We are all so tired and drawn-looking.

1:15 P.M.

There’s the weirdest talk show on TV. I almost never watch TV during the day so I don’t know

— maybe the show isn’t so weird. But anyway, it’s all about women who used to be married to other guys and now they’re married to the guys’ brothers. Truly. When a new face comes on the screen a caption will appear that reads something like CINDY — BROTHER-IN-LAW IS ALSO

EX-HUSBAND. Some of the brothers seem to get along pretty well. Others, of course, are furious at each other. One caption read JOSEPH — HAS RESTRAINING ORDER AGAINST

BROTHER.

Why are people interested in this sort of thing? I’m mystified.

1:28 P.M.

All right. I’ll admit it. I’m also bored. Well, maybe I’m not really bored. I think I’m just afraid.

The program is over and now I’m just sitting up here in my room, afraid to go downstairs.

Nothing has changed. Dad hasn’t given me any news. I think Mom has another visitor. But for some reason I’m now afraid.

I guess Mom isn’t going to be with us much longer.

1 32 P.M.

By “much longer” I mean I think she is going to die in the next day or two.

1:47 P.M.

God, my hair is a mess. I really need to get it cut.

2:26 P.M.

School is almost over. I wonder what I missed today.

But I don’t care.

2:39 P.M.

I just realized that I haven’t done anything today. I’m hiding out in my room, sitting, staring out the window, picking up the journal every so often. I’ve barely talked to Mom or Dad or Aunt Morgan. I wonder if anyone remembered to put away the potato salad. I better go do that before the mayonnaise goes bad.

Oh, doorbell

6:17 P.M.

Stopped writing earlier to answer the doorbell, and suddenly I wasn’t bored anymore. Didn’t get back to the journal until just now.

I could hear the doorbell ring — and then ring a second and a third time. Why didn’t Dad or Aunt Morgan answer it? All of a sudden that panicky feeling overwhelmed me once more.

Maybe Mom had … Maybe that’s why no one could answer the door. Again my heart started

racing and i could feel the blood pulsing in my head. My mouth got dry.

Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep.

Ding-dong.

My leaden feet dragged me out of my room and down the stairs. And I heaved a sigh of relief.

Aunt Morgan was on the phone and Dad was busy with Mom. I bet he hadn’t even heard the

bell.

I was shaking when I answered the door.

“Hi, Sunny.”

Mom’s friend Anne was on our front stoop. She looked tired and drawn like the rest of us. I tried to remember if she’d been here yesterday. I think she might have been. And the day before. She came to the hospital nearly every day too.

“Hi,” I replied.

“How is she today?”

“The same. No, maybe a little worse. Come on in.” I know Anne is always welcome. Mom has wanted to see her no matter what.

I walked with Anne to Mom’s room and left her there. She greeted Dad, but then to my surprise, Dad left the room and sat in the kitchen, giving Mom and Anne time alone together, I guess. I thought Dad’s eyes looked a little red. Well, of course. He was operating on almost no sleep.

When Anne left Mom’s room about twenty minutes later, her eyes were red too. Actually, she was crying. Actually, she was sobbing. I wondered if she had been sobbing with Mom, or if Mom had been asleep, or if Anne had just now begun to cry. I felt as if I were watching the scene from very, very far away.

Anne came over to me again, cupped my chin in her hand, and looked into my eyes for a

moment before leaving the house.

I didn’t say anything.

Ten minutes later, the doorbell rang again and this time Grandma and Grandad were there.

“Hi!” I greeted them. Suddenly I felt all perky.

Grandma gave me an odd look, though. “Hi, honey,” she said softly.

“I guess you want to see Mom.”

“Well, yes.”

No one said so, but suddenly I had the feeling that Grandma and Grandad were here to say good-bye to Mom. I squashed the feeling. I led them to Mom’s room, then rushed outside and sat on the stoop.

That was how I happened to see Dawn come home from school. Ducky drove her in his own

wreck of a car. He pulled into Dawn’s driveway and turned off the ignition. The two of them started to walk into the Schafers’ house. Then Dawn spotted me. She waved. “Hi, Sunny,” she called, but she wasn’t smiling.

“Hi,” I replied.

Dawn headed across the lawn toward me, but behind her, Ducky hesitated. Dawn turned to him.

“Come on,” she said.

“No, I better — ”

“Come on.”

This was horrible. Ducky was afraid of me, I think. And I couldn’t blame him. What I did to him was terrible.

I jumped up. “Ducky?” I called.

“Yeah?”

“Can we talk?”

8:01 P.M.

Had to stop for dinner, which was horrible. Not the food. Just the whole thing. Dad and Aunt Morgan and I sat at the kitchen table and picked at the potato salad and didn’t say much. We still weren’t hungry, but I guess we thought we shouldn’t skip two meals in a row.

I have lost seven pounds.

Now I am back upstairs, safe in my room.

Anyway, Ducky finally followed Dawn across the lawn. He looked almost frantic when Dawn said, “Sunny, can I go see your mother?”

I knew he didn’t want to be left alone with me. I also knew that Dawn was purposely leaving him alone with me. Not to be mean, but because we needed to talk.

Ducky and I sat on the front porch.

“Ducky — ” I began. And then all the dreadful things I said and did to him the night of the concert came flooding back to me. How could I have said those things? Done those things? It was like some other person was saying and doing them. Not me. “Ducky,” I said again. “Um

— ”

“Sunny,” Ducky said at the same time, “I — ”

“No, let me go first.”

“Okay.” Once again, Ducky looked almost afraid of me.

I barged again. “Ducky, I want to apologize. You’re one of my best friends. I don’t know why I said those things. I didn’t mean them. I just wanted to hurt you.”

Ducky’s expression changed from wary to angry. “If I’m such a good friend, why did you want to hurt me? Is that how you treat all your good friends?”

“No, of course not.”

“Just the ones you think you can step on?”

“Ducky, please,” I said. I was surprised but almost glad to hear that he was so mad. “I thought if I could embarrass you then, you would drive us home after all. I didn’t want to go home in disgrace with Mr. Schafer. I wanted a perfect, grown-up evening. I had this fantasy about the evening. It had been keeping my mind off Mom. And I didn’t want anything to spoil it.”

Ducky softened a little, but all he said was, “Then why did you keep giving me drinks?”

“I don’t know. The drinks were part of the perfect, grown-up evening. I just wasn’t thinking ahead to what would happen when it was time for you to drive. But Ducky, I’m really, really, really sorry. You truly are one of my best friends. I know I hurt you, but I hope we can be friends again. I’ve missed you.”

Now Ducky softened completely. “I’m sorry too.”

“What are you sorry about?”

“I’m sorry I haven’t been here for you.”

I shrugged. I’m sorry about that too. But it was my own fault.

“Sunny?” said Ducky when I didn’t say anything. “Speak to me.”

I smiled. Ducky is one of the few people who can make me smile these days. “Speak to you about what?” I said, even though I knew perfectly well what he meant.

“Tell me exactly what is going on with your mom right now. I know what Dawn tells me, but I want to hear it from you. Also, how you’re feeling, what you’re thinking. You know.”

Here’s the thing about Ducky. If almost anyone else said that to me (tell me what you’re thinking or tell me what you’re feeling) I would reply with something rude and sarcastic like,

“My mother is dying. How do you think I feel?” Or “My mother is dying. That’s what I’m thinking about.” But I knew Ducky really wanted to know specifically what was going on with Mom. And specifically what my innermost thoughts are. (Ducky is almost like this journal.) So if I was thinking, “This is so hard and painful that I wish Mom would just die now and get it over with,” that is what I could say to Ducky, and he wouldn’t think I was a horrible person.

I drew in a breath. “Well,” I began, “the doctor was here a couple of hours ago.”

“Did you talk to him?” Ducky interrupted me.

“No. I didn’t even go downstairs. I kind of didn’t want to know what’s going on.”

Ducky nodded. “I understand.”

“But after he left?” (Ducky nodded again.) “Dad and Aunt Morgan looked kind of, I don’t know, stunned maybe.”

Ducky sucked air between his teeth. “Whoa.”

“Yeah. I know. And then people started coming over. Well, not a whole stream of them, but first Anne showed up” (Ducky has met Anne once or twice), “and now Grandma and Grandad

are here. When Anne was here Dad left Mom’s room to let her see Mom alone. And Anne gave me this really long look when she left. Like, a long meaningful look?”

“Yea?”

“And she was crying really hard, and she didn’t even try to say anything to me.”

“Whoa.”

“Grandma and Grandad are very serious,” I went on. “I was happy to see them, but Grandma looked at me kind of strangely. Like, how could I even think of seeming happy right now.” I paused. “Hey. I wonder what Dawn’s doing, because when she went inside Grandma and

Grandad were still with Mom, I think. Hold on a second,” I said to Ducky.

I stuck my head in the front door. I saw that the door to the dining room was ajar and I could hear low voices from inside. Then I peeked into the living room. There were Dad and Dawn, sitting on the couch, not talking, just sitting. So Dawn probably hadn’t seen Mom yet.

“Ducky,” I said when I joined him on the porch again. “Ducky, I just want to say this one more time. You mean so much to me. I’m so sorry I was such a bad friend to someone who’s been such a good friend.” I almost added, “I love you,” because I do, but something stopped me.

Ducky looked at me then with huge eyes that were soon filled with tears. He couldn’t say a word. He just turned to me and gave me a hug. That was when I knew that everything would be okay between us.

Ducky and I sat quietly on the porch for awhile [sic]. Just sat. Side by side. Every now and then, Ducky took my hand. After fifteen minutes or so had gone by is tuck my head in the front door again. Now Dad and Aunt Morgan were sitting in the living room with Grandma and

Grandad, and Dawn had disappeared.

“Dawn’s with Mom,” I reported to Ducky.

A few more minutes went by and Ducky and I heard the front door open. We turned around and saw Grandma and Grandad.

“Call us,” Grandma was saying to Dad.

“No matter what time, son,” Grandad added, and touched Dad’s shoulder. I have always thought that Dad is lucky to have parents like Grandma and Grandad.

Dad closed the front door, and Ducky and I stood up.

“You remember Ducky?” I said.

Ducky stuck out his hand and first Grandma, then Grandad shook it. But nobody said anything.

Then Grandma turned to me. “You too, honey,” she said. “You call us anytime. For any

reason.”

“Okay,” I replied. I wasn’t sure why she said that because I thought it was kind of understood. I mean, I call them plenty of times for plenty of reasons.

Grandad hugged me then and stepped off the porch. Grandma took my hand and held it and

looked deep into my eyes. She started to say something, then pursed her lips to keep from crying, turned, and followed Grandad. They got into their car and pulled out of the driveway.

Ducky and I looked at each other. Finally I said, “Want to go inside?”

Ducky looked like that was the very last thing he wanted to do, but he said, “Sure,” stood up, and held the door open for me.

Dad and Aunt Morgan were standing in the kitchen, conferring about something. The door to Mom’s room was still ajar. It opened slowly and Dawn tiptoed out. She was crying.

“What — ” I started to say.

But Dawn held her finger to her lips. “Shh,” she said very, very quietly. And she headed for the front door. So Ducky and I turned around and followed her back outside.