When You Go Away (8 page)

     Grandpa Carl looked at Carly, his eyes dark like her own.  "No.  You don't have to go to school.  I'll just call them.  Ryan?"

     Ryan looked down at his plate.  He probably wanted to tag after Quinn and smoke cigarettes.  They must cut school all the time anyway, so he wouldn't have to sit through geometry or Spanish and imagine what was happening to Brooke.  He could hang out at
Broadway
Plaza
and check out girls in the sunshine and forget about his sister altogether, just like he'd been doing since they’d moved.  Thinking about all the time Ryan had left her alone with Brooke made her mad, as angry as she was after the paramedics left, knowing she was the only one who cared.  But then Ryan said, "I want to go to the hospital, too.  I want to know what's going to happen."

     Grandpa Carl nodded and counted out money and put it on top of the bill.  "Well, let's get on home.  We have to get you all settled."

     She tried to catch Ryan's eye, but he scooted out of the booth and followed Grandpa Carl out the door and toward the Corvair.  Ryan was almost as tall as Grandpa, which meant he was taller now than their father.  Just like Maxie the Wonder Dog, their dad wouldn't even recognize them if he saw them again, walking right past them into his new and better life.

Grandpa's house was dark when they got there, only the sound of sprinklers in the night.  "At least I got that fixed," he said.  "You don't know the witch who lives next door to me.  Don't go in that yard.  She probably has an oven like in
Hansel and Gretel
."

     Carly felt a laugh in her chest but it wouldn't rise up any higher, so she smiled to herself and stepped out of the car, lugging her duffel bag behind her.  She wasn't even sure what she had packed other than the clean laundry that had been on the couch.  She hoped she'd brought her face soap, but all she could remember was grabbing her toothbrush.  It wasn't that she really had any acne yet, but she knew she had to pay attention because she'd turned thirteen in December and that meant hormones and hormones meant zits.  That's what Ashley and Kiana had told her, anyway.

     When Grandpa Carl opened the door, holding it for Carly and Ryan, Carly half expected Maxie to run up, wagging her tail, thankful to be back in a real house with them.  But there wasn't any sound of claws on hardwood or tile or even the small tick, tick of cat
paws walking toward them.  The only movement she could see was the steady red blink of the answering machine.  The muscles in her back relaxed at the sight of the phone. 

     They hadn't been to Grandpa's house for awhile, but she remembered the smell, something clean like 409 spray and Lemon Pledge.  He'd always been really neat.  Once her father had said something like, "I guess that gene is recessive," to her mother, who hadn't thought it was funny.  Grandpa read a lot of books, and the living room was full of them.  When she'd been little, she'd liked to pull out the ones about castles and sit on his leather recliner, flipping the pages.  Sometimes, she knew he smoked cigars, too, and in his study was a special box for keeping them fresh.  He used to have to tell her to stop opening it or what was the point?  "I might as well smoke them all now," he'd said

     "So, Ryan, you're going to sleep in the foldout in my study, and Carly, you're in the guest room.  Let's get the sheets and make up the beds."

     Grandpa Carl pulled a stack of sheets from the hallway closet, handing some to Ryan and walking with her into the guestroom with the rest.  The room was neat as everything was, a double bed, a nightstand with a brass lamp and alarm clock, and a picture of an old western town hanging over the dresser.  Carly looked at her grandpa as he pulled off the bedspread.  Who had been a guest here?  What was this room for?  Maybe he'd hoped that they would come to visit, but they hadn't, their mother not even mentioning it as an option.  When Carly stayed at her Grandma MacKenzie's old house in
Piedmont
, she always slept in her father's old bedroom.  The old, brownish wallpaper had cowboys on it.  When she was really little, she named the different men--the one waving his hat was
Jed, the one asleep on his horse, Buster.  She could see them even when the lights were out.

     There were no family memories in Grandpa Carl's house.  When they were at their Grandmother's, she would say things like, "Your father used to slide down those steps on a towel, as if he were tobogganing."  Grandma would point to the giant oak tree in the backyard and laugh, shaking her head, "He scared me so much!  Climbing almost to the top.  And then one day he really did it fall and break his arm!  Can you imagine?"  But their mother had never lived in this house, Grandpa having moved here when she was in college.  All the furniture, all the plants, and the books belonged only to him.

     Carly grabbed one end of a sheet and tucked it into a corner and pulled up the blanket.  Her grandfather bent over his task, whisking the top of the bed with his palms.  Her mother told her he was in the army before he married Grandma Janice.  Maybe that was why he was so neat.  But really, she didn't know anything about him except castles and cigars and kitchen cleaners, and as she shook a pillow into a pillowcase, she heard herself ask, "Why does Mom hate you so much?"

     Grandpa Carl stood up straight, sliding a hand over his white hair.  He looked the same way he had pushed open the door of their apartment, surprised and pale.  Then he sighed and sat down on the bed he'd just smoothed tight.  "It's about the divorce."

     "Why would she be mad at you over that?  It was Dad's idea."

     "Not
that
divorce."

     "Oh."

     Carly looked down at her shoes, the same ones she'd put on that morning, all the way back in the time when she was responsible for everything.  She thought about her dad, the way she wanted to see him so bad and the way she wanted to yell at him.  At night sometimes when she lay awake listening to her mother's and her sister's breathing, one steady, one erratic and thick, she imagined visiting him in Phoenix, walking up to the woman he'd left Mom for and slapping her.  She'd practiced it again and again in her mind until she could feel her hand tingling. 
Maybe
, she thought now,
I really want to slap him
.  That's how her Mom must have felt toward Grandpa Carl all these years.

     "Your mom and I never really talked about why I left your Grandma Janice.  Peri was younger than you when it all happened, and I'm sure she didn't understand.  It wasn't like these days where she would have gone to therapy or something."

     "We didn't go to therapy," Carly said.  The only person who went anywhere for treatment was Brooke.  She was the one who needed it the most, and lately, even she hadn't gotten any. 

     Grandpa Carl shook his head.  "I know.  But it will be different now.  I promise."

     "Will it be different for Mom?"

     He stood up and walked over to her, pulling her close.  As she felt his warmth, tears in her eyes again, she knew why Ryan had cried.  The relief of finally feeling a big adult body taking charge, giving them what they had been missing for so long, was too much to contain.

    Peri woke up tangled in the sheet, her heart pounding, her hair in front of her eyes.  She tried to swallow, clearing her throat of sleep.  The baby wasn't here, the crying further and further away, but Peri knew she had to keep moving. 

     Last night, she'd made it to the outskirts of Phoenix, parking the Honda in front of what she thought was a Motel 6, only realizing after she held the key in her hand that the blinking sign read only "Motel."  All night long, Peri had heard the sounds of bodies slapping together, beds pounding against the walls, loud cries of laughter and a few, piercing screams.  But her head was a twirl of knots, the extra sound didn’t bother her, and she slept without dreaming.

     After a shower, she sat on the bed looking at map of
Phoenix
and its surrounding suburbs.  With Graham's address in one hand, she followed the squares and twists of roads and streets, red and blue like veins in a flat body, until she found where he lived.  She grabbed her purse and closed the door behind her.  Outside, she blinked, the morning dry and warm, mountains rising out of the flats of the city like dinosaur bones.  She'd never been to
Phoenix
before, but already she hated it, the air empty, too able to carry the sounds of the baby to her, no Bay Area fog to muffle the sounds.

     "Hey, baby," a man said from an open window, a can of beer in his hand.

     "The baby's at home," Peri said, putting on her sunglasses, and sliding the motel key into her pocket, her jeans three-days worn and soft with dirt.

     "Whatever.  You know where I am."  He smiled, his two front teeth missing.

     Peri opened the Honda door, pushing aside the Burger King wrappers, and sat down, ignoring the man who continued to smile at her, raising his can in a toast as she drove away.  As she waited at a light, she flattened the map on the passenger's seat, following the grids. 
Phoenix
was easier to follow than
San Francisco
with it turns and streets that suddenly changed names.  But even with the carefully planned blocks and well-placed street signs, it was as if Graham was calling her, his bad deeds leaving a trail she could navigate by.  And within a half-hour, she was parked in front of a brand-new beige stucco house.  She sat with her hands still on the steering wheel and stared.  A green lawn spread out from the house like a thick, emerald robe, a brick and metal fence surrounded the entire yard, and a closed electric gate guarded the driveway. 

     Peri felt bile rise in her.  The lawn alone could have purchased the baby her wheelchair and the three-car garage the van she would need soon.  Without knowing it, she was crying, and she bit her tongue and hit the steering wheel with the heels of her hands, wanting the feeling to stop, knowing that this was the thing inside her that would explode and hurt people.  That mustn’t happen.  It couldn't.  The baby needed her.  All she had to do was talk to Graham.  She would tell the woman who had picked out this house about the baby and her curved body. They had to give her back what she’d lost, or the feeling would take over and something terrible would happen.

     Getting out of the car, Peri smoothed her clothes, tucking in her blouse and adjusting the drooping waist of her pants.  She would be calm at first, she promised herself.  Calm.  That's what she'd do.  She'd simply ask for and then take what she needed.  Then she
would get back into the Honda and drive home.  And everything would be better.  No one would even have noticed she was gone.  She swallowed and pressed on her chest, containing the feeling into a small square under her breastbone
.  Stay down
, she thought. 
Please
.

     At the gate, she pressed on the intercom button, once, twice.  As she stood waiting, she looked around the neighborhood.  If the air were different, and the mountains disappeared, this could be Monte Veda, the same huge houses, the same expensive cars, everything that she and the kids and the baby had given up so that Graham could what?  Come and live here in an
Arizona
neighborhood so much like his old one, but with one major difference.  He couldn’t hear the baby and her crying.  Peri swallowed again, but the balloon inside her grew.  She breathed in lightly and glanced at the houses.  There were women inside staring at her.  She licked her lips and tucked her hair behind her ears so the women would know she was one of them, a mother of three children, a housewife with 2500 square feet to care for.  But she couldn't fool herself--she knew a baby like hers wasn't in any of these houses.  The women staring at her could tell that, couldn't they?  No matter how she looked, the baby was always there, pulling on her, stopping her from being normal, like all these people on this street.  Like everyone else.

      Peri pulled on her hair, trying to stop the air that was pushing up and up from inside her, but then there was a woman's voice on the speaker.

     "Yes?"

     "I need to talk to Graham."

     "Who are you?"

     She looked up at the house.  Like her neighbors, this woman was spying on her, too.  "I'm an old friend of Graham's."

     "Graham is out of town."

      "I need to see him right away."

      "He's not here.  Give me your name, and I can tell him you came by."

      Clenching her fists and jamming them in her pockets, she pressed her knuckles hard against her thighs.  The pain forced her to be calm, be good, make this work for the baby.  Peri was lying with her fake smile and still body.  Just as Graham did when he promised he’d love her forever, as her mother had when she was a child, whispering, “Honey, I’m here.  I’ll be here for you always.”  She was lying like her father did each time he smiled at her, trying to make up for everything. 

     Peri tucked her hair behind her ears, trying to speak slowly.  "I want to see him now please.  Tell him to come out and talk to me please.  He can't hide in there."

     "Graham's not here.  Now, give me your name and then go away.  I don't want to call the police."

     Turning her head, Peri could see that there really were women in the windows, one in the house right next to Graham's, her hand at her mouth. 
The woman can see the baby
, Peri thought.  That's why she looks so afraid.  She’s staring at Brooke's poor twisted body, the way her arms flail, the holes in her stomach and throat.  Inside her, the balloon
grew and grew, the heat and pressure unbearable.  Peri tore off her sunglasses and dropped her purse, unable to force her body into deception any longer.  "You know who I am.  I'm Graham's real wife.  I'm the mother of his children.  The one he said he would love forever.  You don't know what he did to us.  If you came out here, you would see her.  Can't you see the baby?  Can't you see her now?  He doesn't send money.  He doesn't call me.  She has a hole in her stomach."