Things I Should Have Known

  “Yes,” Mom says, “but I started counting anniversaries again from the beginning when I married Ron.”

  “The twenty-fifth anniversary is called the silver anniversary,” Ivy says. “And you’re supposed to give people gifts made out of silver. In two years, you and Dad would have celebrated your silver anniversary, but you probably won’t now because Dad died.”

  “But I will celebrate my third anniversary with Ron that year,” Mom says with a forced smile. Her fingers are twining around each other, like she’s trying to braid them together. She doesn’t have any huge problem talking about the fact that Dad died, but it’s probably hard for her when Ivy casually tosses it out the way she does. Or maybe I just think it’s hard for her because it’s hard for me.

  It kills me to think about Dad. Sometimes when I see Ron strutting around the house, filling up rooms with his bulky chest and kissing Mom like he has a right to, I want to scream at him that she’s not his, that she’ll never be his, that she belongs to someone else.

  I miss my dad, even though we never really talked that much. He wasn’t the “sit down and tell me what’s going on in your life” kind of father. He worked long hours, and when he was home, he was usually on his computer. His eyes could slide right past you without seeing you—​just like Ivy’s. You had to work to get him to pay attention to you, but if you made enough noise or tugged at him hard enough, he’d suddenly blink and look at you like he’d just returned from a long trip and was glad to see you again.

  I can’t remember a single mean thing he ever said or did to any of us. He still drove Mom crazy, though—​he was always forgetting to do stuff she asked him to and she’d yell at him and he’d apologize. And then forget to do what she asked again.

  He was tall and slender, with dirty blond hair like mine and Ivy’s, except his was thinning on top. He walked oddly, up on his toes, the rest of him tilting forward, so his head and shoulders arrived at a destination before his legs did.

  He ate so slowly that the rest of us always finished before he did, and Mom would eventually say, “Oh, for God’s sake, Chris. It’ll be breakfast before you finish dinner.” He’d push his plate away then and say he was done, even if he wasn’t. I don’t think food mattered much to him.

  But maybe I’m confusing the way he was at the end—​when he couldn’t eat at all—​with the way he was before. It’s so hard to keep it all separate. I try to picture him before he got sick, but it all blurs.

  He was so tired during those last few months, and so were we—​tired of the idea of cancer, of its presence in our house. I wanted it to just go away.

  And then it did, but it took him with it, which wasn’t what I’d meant at all.

  Anyway, since the skeletal, defeated, exhausted guy he was for the last few months of his life keeps blotting out the happier, younger version of him in my mind, it hurts to think about Dad.

  But I can’t get mad at Ivy for bringing him up a lot. She’s just figuring stuff out, the way she likes to, adding up bits of information to see where they lead. She wants to find patterns, to be able to predict things and find some sense in the chaos, but what sense can you find in a father who died too young and a mother who remarried too quickly?

  “I’m going to be twenty-one in June,” Ivy says. At least she’s off the topic of wedding anniversaries. “And that’s why I can’t go to school anymore after this year. I’ll have to get a job. And I’ll live in my own apartment and pay for it myself.”

  “Let’s take things one step at a time,” Mom says.

  “When I turn twenty-one, I’ll be able to order alcohol at restaurants and bars,” Ivy says. “And also buy it at stores.”

  “Oh, God,” Mom says.

  “One step at a time,” I remind her.

  Six

  A LITTLE BEFORE SEVEN, James texts me to say he’s waiting out front.

  I call out a goodbye to everyone in the kitchen, but before I make it through the front door, Ron appears in the hallway. He expands his chest and sets his feet far apart—​he’s like a peacock, trying to impress and intimidate by spreading out. “Hold on there, Chloe—​are you getting picked up?”

  “Yeah. James is waiting.” My hand is twitching on the knob.

  “Not cool,” Ron says, shaking his head. “He should come in and get you.”

  “He would, but we’re running late.”

  Ivy’s face appears behind Ron’s shoulder. “Are you leaving, Chloe?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Can I go too?”

  “Sorry. James’s parents are taking us out.”

  “Because you’re his girlfriend?”

  Ron puts his arm around her waist. “Let Ms. Chloe go out to her fancy dinner,” he says jovially. “You and your mother and I will have fun here. Maybe we’ll play a board game.”

  “I don’t want to play a board game.” She pulls away from him. “I want to go out too.”

  “I can ask your mother if she’d be up for a movie—”

  “Not with you guys. With Chloe.”

  “Not tonight,” I say, and quickly slip out the door.

  In James’s car, I lean over for a quick kiss and then he steps on the gas and his BMW roars off. His parents bought the car for him for his seventeenth birthday. It’s used but in perfect condition, and if I weren’t his girlfriend, I could easily hate him for all the stuff he has and the life he leads.

  He totally blows apart Sarah’s theory that no one’s life is perfect, because his is.

  He glances over at me. “You’re quiet. I’m not complaining or anything—​actually it’s kind of a relief—”

  “You are so going to pay for that.”

  He flashes a wicked grin. “But just to cover my ass, is everything okay?”

  “Yeah, fine.” I smooth my parent-friendly demure skirt over my thighs and wonder if I should tell him how guilty I feel going out and having fun when Ivy’s stuck at home with Ron and Mom.

  I turn my head and study him for a moment. He’s wearing a collared shirt under a blue crewneck sweater. His short, dark, wavy hair is still damp from the shower, and his sleeves are rolled up just enough to show his strong forearms. He looks sexy and handsome and carefree.

  And I think, Don’t be the girl who can’t have fun, who drags everything down, who can’t ever leave her sister behind.

  “Stop staring at me,” James says. “I’m not just a pretty face, you know. I have a brain.” Mock sigh. “But you never seem to notice that part of me.”

  “I promise to only pay attention to your brain tonight. I’m going to ignore your body completely.”

  “Yeah, I’m not sure that’s going to work for me either.”

  “Your choice,” I say. “I can love you for your mind or for your body. I can’t do both.”

  He reaches over and finds my hand, which he puts on his leg. He presses it hard against his thigh. “If have to choose . . . I’d say that brains are overrated.”

  “Mmmm,” I agree. “So after we have dinner with your parents, any chance of finding somewhere quiet and alone to be?”

  “Not at my house.” James has a younger brother and sister, and his mother likes to send them in with messages for us when we’re alone in a room, to make sure we’re not having sex.

  “We’ll figure something out,” I say.

  We eat dinner at a fancy Italian restaurant where the appetizers cost ten dollars and the entrees thirty—​Ron would have a heart attack if our family ever tried to eat there. He’s either very cheap or just kind of poor, but I’m not sure which, since he and Mom are both secretive about finances.

  After dinner, James and I hang out at his house for a while and then he takes me home and comes inside with me. It’s dark and quiet downstairs, which means everyone else has gone to bed.

  We don’t turn on any lights, just creep quietly into the family room, where we feel our way to the sofa, kick off our shoes, and fall onto the cushions together.

  “See?” James whispers in
my ear. “All I am to you is a body you can use.”

  “Do you have a problem with that?”

  The noise he lets out in response suggests that he doesn’t.

  And then we’re blinded by a sudden and brutal flood of light.

  I fling myself off of James so fast I fall on the floor. I scramble upright, tugging my clothes into place, while James does the same with his as he swings into a sitting position on the sofa.

  “Ivy!” I say, because she’s standing by the light switch. “What the hell?”

  “I’m sorry.” She switches the light off.

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” I snap. “Just leave it on.”

  She flicks it back on. “I’m sorry,” she says again. “I heard some noises and didn’t know what you were doing. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” James says. “Don’t worry about it.” He glances at me ruefully. “I’m sure my heart will start beating again any minute now.” He reaches down for his shoes. “I need to get home anyway.”

  I walk him to the door, where we kiss each other goodbye, but we’re both too aware of Ivy watching us from the other side of the room to do more than just touch lips, and then he leaves.

  I turn around. Ivy’s standing there in her pajamas—​old-fashioned ones, in matching red and gold stripes, because Mom buys her clothing and that’s the kind of thing moms buy.

  “Are you mad at me?” she asks, her hands cycling anxiously through the air. “I probably shouldn’t have turned on the light.”

  “It’s fine.” I’m annoyed, but if Ivy thinks you’re angry at her, she gets more and more anxious and starts hitting herself—​it’s not worth it. And she didn’t do anything wrong. She just has this talent for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  “What were you doing with the lights off?” she asks.

  “Come on, Ives,” I say. “You know what we were doing.” She’s twenty years old, and Mom bought picture books when we were little that explained all about changing bodies and sexual attraction. And Ivy watches tons of TV. There’s no way she doesn’t know what goes on between a guy and a girl in the dark.

  “Were you having sex?”

  “Jesus!”

  “What?”

  “You don’t just ask stuff like that.”

  “I’m sorry.” She clutches the collar of her pajama top and tugs down hard like it’s choking her. “I didn’t know.”

  “It’s okay. Just don’t ask stuff like that in front of other people, okay? And we were making out, that’s all.”

  “That’s different from sex, right?”

  I feel a surge of anger—​not at her, just at a world where I have to explain what making out is to my older sister. “Yeah. You don’t go as far.”

  “Far? What do you mean?”

  “It doesn’t matter. I’m too tired to talk now, Ives. I want to go to bed.”

  “How do you know what to do?” she asks, raising her head to stare briefly at me before sliding her eyes away again. “When you’re with James?”

  “I don’t know. It’s not something you think about. You just kind of know.”

  “What if you don’t?”

  “You just do.” I walk past her into the hallway and up the stairs.

  But, then, in the bathroom, as I’m brushing my teeth, I freeze suddenly, struck by a whole new thought. What if Ivy isn’t asking questions just because she’s curious about my life?

  What if it’s not all about me?

  When I come back into the bedroom, Ivy’s curled up with her iPad, and I can hear dialogue coming from the tablet.

  “What are you watching?” I ask.

  “Ten Things I Hate about You.”

  “That’s the one with the two sisters and Heath Ledger?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You don’t usually watch movies.” Ivy’s more of a TV show fan. Especially police procedurals—​she eats that stuff up.

  “I like this one,” she says. “I’ve seen it before.”

  Interesting. She’s not only watching this movie; she’s rewatching it. “That’s the one with the father who won’t let the younger daughter date until the older one has a boyfriend, right?”

  “Yeah. If Mom made that rule, you couldn’t go out with James because I don’t have a boyfriend.”

  I don’t know how to respond to that.

  “It’s a good thing Mom didn’t make that rule,” she says. “I probably won’t ever have a boyfriend.”

  “Sure you will.”

  “I don’t think so. Chloe?”

  “What?”

  “I want to watch my movie.” She leans over the screen again so her face is partially veiled by her hair. She’s absorbed by what she’s watching. Curious—​the way she was curious about me and James.

  I lie awake for a long time, thinking about Ivy and her curiosity and how sad she sounded when she said she might never have a boyfriend of her own.

  Seven

  THE NEXT MORNING, Mom says she needs to do a supermarket run. Ron’s at the gym and Ivy hates food shopping, so I offer to keep Mom company—​it’ll give me a chance to talk to her alone. We grab some canvas grocery bags and head to the car.

  I launch into the subject as soon as we’re on our way. “Hey, Mom? Do you ever worry that Ivy seems a little lonely?”

  “Are you kidding? I worry about that every single day.”

  “It just feels like there’s nothing in her life except going to school and playing on her iPad and watching TV.”

  “I know. I wish I could change that, but I’ve got a lot going on these days and just don’t have the time or energy to figure out a solution.”

  She’s never had the time or energy to solve problems—​just throws up her hands and waits for someone else to deal with them.

  And I’m the only other person who really cares about Ivy.

  “I think Ivy wants a boyfriend.”

  “What?” Mom brakes too hard at a red light and turns to stare at me, horrified. “Why would you say that? She’s never said anything like that to me.”

  “Last night she saw me and James . . . you know . . . kissing and stuff.”

  “And stuff?” she repeats.

  “She wouldn’t stop asking me questions about what we were doing.” The light changes, and we move again. “And then she was watching this romantic movie and started talking about how she doesn’t have a boyfriend and probably never will. She sounded really sad about it.”

  “Oh, poor baby. I honestly never thought she cared about any of that.”

  “She’s twenty, Mom. Most twenty-year-olds in this country have already had sex. She’s totally an adult—​her boobs are bigger than mine. I bet she’s way more interested in guys than we realize.”

  “She never talks about boys in her class. I mean, she talks about them . . . names go by . . . but no one name more than any other. Oh, wait!” Mom raises a finger off the steering wheel. “Now that I’m thinking about it, she has mentioned an Ethan a few times. A lot of it is complaining—​she thought he had taken her pencil a couple of days ago—​but she’s definitely noticed him.”

  “Getting annoyed at him could totally mean she likes him. Back in seventh grade, I thought I hated Brian Kessler. I used to come home and complain about what a jerk he was. And he was the first boy I ever went out with.”

  “He was one of your boyfriends? I don’t even remember the name.”

  “The relationship never got past the texting stage—​but that was considered going out in seventh grade. Anyway, I’ll ask Ivy about Ethan. She needs to start getting out of the house without me before I go to college. Otherwise—” I stop before I say what I’m thinking, which is that it would kill me to leave knowing that Ivy has no escape from Ron and Mom. I switch to, “A boyfriend would be amazing for her. She’d have someone to do things with and to talk to and to help her grow up a little. Plus she probably has all these physical feelings—​I mean, I know she does since she was asking me all those
questions.”

  Mom groans. “That’s what I’m terrified of—​Ivy and some boy exploring each other’s bodies, trying to figure it all out, letting nature take over. She could easily wind up pregnant, Chloe.”

  “If we tell her exactly how people get pregnant and how to avoid it, I bet she’ll be careful. She sets the alarm clock every night and brushes her teeth for exactly three minutes—​she’s a total rule follower. If you explain about condoms, she’ll use them—​and also probably lecture to death any guy who tries to get away without one.”

  Mom’s laugh ends in a sigh. “I’m sorry, Chloe, but even if I can get over my own fears, I honestly don’t see this ever happening. It’s just so hard for her to be social in any way, and then adding in romance . . .”

  Shocker: Mom’s giving up before even trying. Which just makes me more determined. “I’ll figure something out. I’m going to make this my mission—​to get Ivy a boyfriend before I leave for college. You didn’t hear how sad she sounded last night. She’s so lonely. I’m going to make this happen for her, even if I have to help her along every step of the way.”

  “Every step of the way?”

  “Okay, not every step of the way,” I concede. “Some things they’ll have to figure out for themselves.”

  “That’s what terrifies me.”

  “Get over it,” I say.

  Ivy’s hungry when we get home, so Mom makes her a grilled cheese sandwich with the American cheese and sliced white bread we just picked up at the market. Ivy likes her food bland and colorless.

  I pull up a chair to sit opposite from her as she’s eating. Mom lurks nearby, listening but letting me do the talking.

  I keep it casual. “Hey, Ives? I was just thinking . . . Are there any boys you like to hang with at school?”

  “I don’t know.” She examines the edges of a grilled cheese half and then bites into it. She chews and swallows. There are traces of gluey orange cheese at the corners of her mouth as she says, “They don’t talk that much to me.”

  Yeah, well, that’s probably true: the class is specifically for kids on the autism spectrum. There’s probably not a lot of conversation for conversation’s sake.