When You Go Away (12 page)

     "Yeah, it is.  But we can clean it up.  I can sleep on the couch in the living room."

     "The rent is due.  I know it's a lot," Carly said.  "Rosie told me yesterday.  Maybe it's too expensive to go back."

     "Everyone will know," Ryan said quietly.  "They'll know about Mom."

     Grandpa sat back in his chair.  "Here it is.  If we get you back there, you can go to school.  You need to go to school.  Too much has interrupted your lives.  And we can make it better for when Brooke comes back.  And your mom."

     Carly hadn't allowed herself to think about her mom more than just that fact that she was gone.  She didn't dare because there was too much to comprehend, and a feeling that
was red and had a whipping tail came to her when she thought of feeding Brooke and cleaning Brooke and being all alone, even Ryan leaving her.  Now she didn't care about her mother because Brooke was okay.  And Carly liked sleeping in the big bed in Grandpa's house.  "I hate that school.  I don't want to go there.  I want to go to any school but my old school."

     "Me, too," Ryan said.  "I hate that school.  I don't have any friends."

     "
You
have Quinn."

     Ryan shrugged.  "He's not a friend.  He just has a car."

     "He's got other stuff."

     "Shut it."

     "Well, you can't go back to Monte Veda," Grandpa interrupted.  "The only option would be to go to school here in
Oakland
.”

     This new Oakland life wouldn't be like her old one in Monte Veda, with her best friends and both her parents, and Brooke almost saying "Carly" after her speech therapy.  Now, neither of her parents was around, her mom probably even arrested.  But they would have Grandpa Carl, and Grandma Mackenzie lived right up Park Boulevard.  Maybe Ryan would stop smoking and going out because Quinn would be gone, and then it seemed possible that her mom and Brooke could come and live here, too.  Carly could share a room with Brooke, and Grandpa could turn his TV room back into a bedroom. 
She didn't have any friends to miss from Walnut Creek, anyway, so what would be so hard about starting over again?

     "Okay," she said slowly.  "I'll live here.  I'll go to school here."

     "Yeah," Ryan said, agreeing.  "That's good.  That's the best."

     Grandpa Carl sighed and shook his head.  "Well, this is a piece of work.  I'm going to have to get on the horn.  I don't know if I can do it like magic.  I have to talk to Fran McDermott, the social worker.  Maybe the judge.  Or we might have to wait until your dad gets back into town."

     "When will he be here?"  Ryan asked.

     "Tomorrow.  Tomorrow we can try to work it out."

     "But if he's coming, won't he want us to go home with him?" Carly asked, her stomach flaring again, tears behind her eyes.  "Will we have to move to
Phoenix
?  Will we have to leave Brooke here alone?"

     Grandpa put his arms around her shoulders.  "Don't get upset.  No one really knows anything.  But I'm going to do my best, okay?"

     Carly nodded and looked at Ryan, who was staring at the table.  He had on the face he wore when he slammed into the apartment, dropping his backpack, staying just long enough to grab whatever food there was and slip some money out of their mother's wallet.  It was his
I Don't Care
face.  Why did he have it on now, when people were finally helping them?

     "Right.  Like anyone's cared all this time," Ryan said, standing up, his chair skidding on the linoleum.  "Where were you for the last year?  Now everyone's all over us, like we're so fucking important.  So do your best dude, but it won't mean jack."

     He walked away and Carly heard the study door slam.  She grabbed onto Grandpa, not wanting him to be mad, not want him to leave.  He patted her hand and sat back in his chair, sighing.  "He's right.  Everything single thing he said was right on."

Later, when Grandpa was on the phone, Carly tapped on the study door, leaning her forehead against the wood. 

     "It's me," she said quietly.

     "Hold on."

     She heard a window open, and then breathed in the cigarette smoke Ryan was trying to push outside as it slid under the door and into the hall.  After a minute, the door opened a slit, one of Ryan's blue eyes blinking at her.  "What?"

     "Are you mad?"

     "What do
you
think?"

     "It's not his fault."

     "Dad's?"

     "No.  Grandpa's."  Carly put her palm on the door to see if there was any give, but he was leaning against it.

    "No shit, Sherlock.  I can't believe we might end up back in that apartment or with Dad.  I don't want to be anywhere."

     Carly put her shoulder against the wall, angling the toe of her tennis shoe in the opening of the door.  "Let's go for a walk."

     "Forget it."

     "Come on.  Grandpa's on the phone with the social worker or somebody."

     Ryan looked behind him, the door opening a bit, the outside noises leaking in.  Some kids were skateboarding down the street; a dog followed behind them barking.  Cars rounded the corner, and behind the house was the whirring whack of a hedger. 
The witch,
Carly thought. 
She wants to trap us and throw us in her oven.

     "Fine.  But let's go through the window."

     Carly almost asked why, but for the first time in maybe a year, Ryan wanted to do something with her.  They used to play all the time, board games or Mario Cart or a make-believe game with Legos, but that had been before he gave up on them, before their dad left.  Ryan let her in the room, closing the door behind them.  "If you tell Grandpa I smoke, it's all over."

     "It's bad for you."

     "Like who really cares?  Mom?"

     "Grandpa."

     "I just don't want anyone on my back, okay?"

     She shrugged, but Ryan was already leaping out the window, turning around to watch her.  She didn't want to trip and fall on the lawn and look like an idiot, so she bit her lip and concentrated, jumping and landing with only a bit of a wobble next to the bottlebrush tree.

     "Hey!  You!  Kids!  What are you doing?"

     "Shut up, you old bag," Ryan muttered under his breath, pulling Carly with him to the gate that led to the sidewalk.

     "Who are you?  Why are you coming out of Mr. Randall's house?"

     "We're his grandkids."  Carly stopped and looked at the woman, who stood with a hedger in one hand, a length of extension cord in the other.  Her face was hidden by her hat's shadow, she smelled like the Bug-Off Carly's mom used to pack in her summer camp gear, and her nose and cheeks were covered in zinc oxide.

    "Grandchildren!  Well.  That’s a surprise.  But is that any way to come out of a house?"

     "What's it to you?"  Ryan asked loudly.  "We're going on a walk, if it's legal."

     The witch woman stopped talking, letting her arm with the hedger fall, and Carly gave her the smile she offered teachers when someone else threw erasers or passed notes or hurled spit wads at Johnny Bowman, the retarded kid. 

     "The retarded kid," she said to herself.  She'd always hoped Brooke would go to school like the rest of the kids, but she'd be propped in the corner like Johnny, spinning in a wheelchair like a wind-up toy.  No one ever talked to Johnny, mean boys making fun of his strangely squashed head and dead eye and throwing whatever they had on hand at him.  How could that be good for Johnny or eventually Brooke?  Why would her mother or anyone want that?    

     "Come on."  Ryan pulled her arm, and they started walking fast, faster, and finally running down the street.

They'd found a 7-Eleven and now sat on the steps of the First Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, sipping slurpies and watching cars drive up the street that led to their grandfather's house.  Carly had picked cherry, as she always did, and Ryan had too, his mouth a circle of red.  He still looked the same, she thought, not turning completely into a man yet.  Sure, he had some strange, wispy whiskers, his arms were tight with muscles, and his voice cracked into deepness sometimes, especially when he was mad.  Which was most of the time lately.  And his bones were longer and sharper.  But he was still the brother she'd always known, and it felt good to sip the drinks, occasionally brushing his arm, listening to his breath, slow and steady.  She was glad they were in Oakland because at home or in Walnut Creek, she wouldn't have been cool enough to hang with, the stupid sister who always acted like a kid.

     "Ahh," Ryan said, rubbing his forehead.  "Cold headache."

     "I hate that."  Carly was careful, sipping slowly, warming it in her mouth with her tongue before swallowing.

     He put down his cup and leaned back against the rail.  "You know, Dad tried to tell me about it once."

     "What?"

     "Mom.  What was going on with her?"

     "With Mom?  What do you mean?"  Carly looked into the red swirl of her drink, shaking her cup to mix it up.

     "He said she'd been depressed since Brooke was born.  That she like didn't pay attention to anything but Brooke to keep her mind from how sad she was."

     "Mom was just fine until he left.  Everything was fine until then."  Carly shook her head and then sipped down the last of her drink.  "I don't remember that."

     "Me either.  But that's what he said."

     "When?"

     "Right before he left.  He didn't want me to think he was just, you know, leaving."  Ryan stood up, walked to a garbage can, tossed his cup in, and then held his hand out for Carly's.  She gave it to him and then let her hands fall on her knees.

     "I remember all the doctors and
Leon
and the phone calls.  Mom always came to our stuff.  Your games and my . . ." Carly paused.  She couldn't remember what she had done
in that life before the divorce and the move.  For a year, her whole life had been Brooke, worry, her mother, or homework.  She closed her eyes and pulled at the past, remembering there had been parties with Kiana and Ashley and roller skating in San Ramon and art classes at the community center.  Once there had been Brownies and birthdays at
Chuck e
Cheese and the Monte Veda Theatre.  A whole lifetime ago there had been pottery and gymnastics and drama.  "Oh, you know, the art show and all that," she said finally.

     "Maybe.  But he wasn't happy.  He told me.  It wasn't really about Brooke as much as it was about Mom.  He told me he loved us."

     “He never told me that.”

     “That’s what he said,” Ryan said, shaking his head.  “This is so whack.”

     “Mom said he didn’t send the alimony.  If he loved us so much, how could he let all of it happen?”

     Ryan rubbed at his mouth with his hand, licking his lips and rubbing some more.  He looked down the street, as if some really hot girls were going to appear and find him with a clown mouth.  “Do we really know he didn’t send the money?  I mean, Mom wasn’t like totally normal or anything.  Maybe she forgot to deposit the checks or told him we didn’t need anything.”

     “Why would she do that?  She was the one who had to drive Brooke everywhere.  She’s the one who had to stay!  So Dad wasn’t happy.  Big damn deal!”  The same feeling she'd had in her stomach earlier came back, twisting the red drink around in her
body.  She knew that if she'd decided to quit the seventh or eighth or whatever grade because she wasn't happy, no one would have let her.  They’d have made her stay and listen to
Se
ñ
ora
Ortiz go on and on about
tomatillos
and
gazpacho
.  When she got sick of Ryan and his teasing and hit him in the arm, her mother made them apologize to each other.  Once, Kiana had tried to drop her like a disease, but by the afternoon, she was sending Carly notes that read, "I'm soooo sorry.  U are my best friend."  People couldn't just leave when they weren't happy.  Otherwise, no one would stay anywhere.

     "I hate Dad,” Carly said.  “I don't care what he told you.  I hate him for leaving.  I hate him for what he did to Brooke."  Carly leaned against her knees and began to cry, seeing Brooke's body and the scary red spots, the peg in her stomach, the plug at her throat, the way her mother looked surprised each morning as if she hadn’t expected to find herself still in the apartment, Carly sleeping next to her, Brooke moaning in the bed on the other side of the room. 

     Ryan moved closer and put his arm around Carly’s shoulder.  She tucked her head against his chest, smelling his Old Spice deodorant and the fuzz of his flannel shirt, one that hadn't made it to the laundry room yesterday.  Pedestrians walked past them, their voices lowering when they saw Ryan and Carly huddled on the stairs, and all she could think was,
He's touching me and doesn't care who sees, not even if it’s girls
.  She cried some more, feeling the pain in her stomach lighten and lift and disappear