My Life Next Door

  “Nan.” I move toward her, arms outstretched.

  “You too. You’re part of it all.” Turning, she stalks out of the bathroom, stopping only to scoop up her backpack, from which the sweatshirt sleeve dangles uselessly.

  Did that really just happen? I feel sick. What just went wrong here? When did I become just another thing Nan wanted to escape?

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  The hotel ballroom’s stifling and overheated, like someone forgot to flip on the air-conditioning. It would probably make me drowsy even if I hadn’t gotten up at five this morning, restless, thinking about Nan, and gone to the ocean to swim. Not to mention that we’re in Westfield, the other end of the state, a long, long drive from home, and I’m constricted in my formal blue linen dress. There’s a big fountain in the middle of the room, and tables of finger sandwiches and buffet food set up around that. Out-of-season Christmas lights twinkle around statue reproductions of Venus rising from the waves and Michelangelo’s David, looking as sulky and out of place as I feel at this fund-raising rally. Mom makes her speech at the podium, flanked by Clay, and I struggle to stay conscious.

  “You must be so proud of your mother,” people keep telling me, sloshing their fruity champagne cocktails over tiny plastic cups, and I repeat over and over again: “Oh, yes, I am. I am, yes.” My seat’s next to the podium and as Mom’s introduced, I can’t help tipping my head against it, until she gives me a sharp jab with her foot and I jerk back upright, willing my eyes open.

  Finally she gives some sort of good-night summary speech and there’s lots of cheering and “Go Reed!” Clay rests his hand in the small of her back, propelling her, as we edge out into the night, which isn’t even really dark, kind of tea-colored, since we’re in the city. “You’re a wonder, Gracie. A twelve-hour day and still looking so fine.”

  Mom gives a pleased laugh, then toys with her earring. “Honey?” She hesitates, then: “I just don’t understand why that Marcie woman has to be at just about every event of mine.”

  “Was she there tonight?” Clay asks. “I didn’t notice. And I’ve told you—they send her the same way we had Tim out counting the cars at Christopher’s rallies, or Dorothy checking on his press conferences.”

  I know this is the brunette woman. But Clay doesn’t sound like he’s trying to pull one over on Mom. He sounds like he genuinely didn’t realize “Marcie” was there.

  “Ya gotta ashess”—he pauses, laughs, then repeats carefully—“assess your opponent’s strengths and weaknesses.”

  Clay trips a little on the pavement and Mom gives a low laugh. “Easy, honey.”

  “Sorry—those stones kinda got away from me there.” They halt, leaning together in the darkness, swaying slightly. “You’d better drive.”

  “Of course,” Mom says. “Just give me those keys.”

  Much chuckling while she searches for them in his jacket pockets—oh erk—and I just want to be home.

  Mom starts the car with a roar, VROOM, and then giggles in surprise as though cars never make that sound.

  “Actually, sugar, better give me the keys,” Clay tells her.

  “I’ve got it,” Mom says. “You had four glasses to my three.”

  “Maybe,” Clay says. “I might could have done.”

  “I just love your Southern phrases,” Mom murmurs.

  Time hazes. I slide down in my seat, stretching my legs out over an uncomfortable pile of Grace Reed signs and boxes of campaign flyers, tilting my eyes against the hard leather padding under the window. I watch the highway lights, my eyelids sinking, then the dimmer streetlights as the roads get smaller and smaller, closer to home.

  “Take Shore Road,” Clay tells her softly. “Less traffic. Nearly there now, Gracie.”

  The window glass is chilly against my cheek, the only cool thing in the warm car. Other headlights flash by for a while, then fade away. Finally, I see by the glint of the moon on the open water that we’re passing McGuire Park. I remember being there with Jase, lying on the sun-warmed rock in the river, then my lids slowly close, the hum of the engine like Mom’s vacuum cleaner, a familiar lullaby.

  BLAM.

  My nose smacks the seat in front of me, so hard that stars dazzle against my eyes, and my ears ring.

  “Oh my God!” Mom says in a high panicky voice scarier than the sudden jolt. She slams on the brakes.

  “Back up, Grace.” Clay’s voice is level and firm.

  “Mom? Mom! What happened?”

  “Oh my God,” Mom repeats. She always freaks out about dings in her paint job. There’s a sudden whoosh of cool night air as Clay opens the passenger-side door, climbs out. A second later, he’s back.

  “Grace. Reverse. Now. Nothing happened, Samantha. Go back to sleep.”

  I catch a flash of his profile, arm around Mom’s neck, fingers in her hair, prodding her. “Reverse and pull away now,” he repeats.

  The car jolts backward, jerks to a halt.

  “Grace. Pull it together.” The car revs forward and to the left. “Just get us back home.”

  “Mom?”

  “It’s nothing, sweetheart. Go to sleep. Hit a little bump in the road. Go back to sleep,” Mom calls, her voice sharp.

  And I do. She might still be talking, but I’m just so tired. When Tracy and I were younger, Mom sometimes used to drive us down to Florida for winter vacation, instead of flying. She liked to stop in Manhattan, in Washington, in Atlanta, stay in bed-and-breakfasts, poke around antiques stores along the way. I was always so impatient to get to the sand and the dolphins that I tried to sleep every single hour we were in the car. I feel like that now. I sink into soft blackness so absolute, I can barely drag myself out when Mom says, “Samantha. We’re home. Go on to bed.” She jiggles my arm, roughly enough that it hurts, and I drag myself upstairs, collapse on my mattress, too weary to take off my dress or dive under the covers. I just embrace nothingness.

  My cell buzzes insistently. I shoved it under my pillow as usual. Now I hunt for it, half-asleep, my fingers clutching and closing on bunches of the sheets while the buzzing goes on and on and on, relentless. Finally I locate it.

  “Sam?” Jase’s voice, hoarse, almost unrecognizable. “Sam!”

  “Hmm?”

  “Samantha!”

  His voice is loud, jarring. I jerk the cell away from my ear.

  “What? Jase?”

  “Sam. We, uh, we need you. Can you come over?”

  I crawl across the bed, blearily check my digital clock.

  1:16 a.m.

  What?

  “Now?”

  “Now. Please. Can you come now?”

  I haul myself out of bed, yank off my dress, pull on shorts and a T-shirt, flip-flops, climb out the window, down the trellis. I glance quickly back at the house, but Mom’s bedroom lights are off, so I run through the light rain across the grass, to the Garretts’.

  Where all the lights—the driveway, porch, kitchen lights—blaze. So out of the ordinary at this time of night that I stumble to a halt in the driveway.

  “Samantha!” Andy’s voice calls from the kitchen door. “Is that you? Jase said you’d come.”

  She’s silhouetted in the doorway, surrounded by smaller shadows. Duff, Harry, George, Patsy in Andy’s arms? At this hour? What’s going on?

  “Daddy.” Andy’s holding back tears. “Something happened to Daddy. Mom got a call.” Her face crumples. “She went to the hospital with Alice.” She throws herself into my arms. “Jase went too. He said you’d be here to take care of us.”

  “Okay. Okay, let’s go inside,” I say. Andy’s pulled back, taking deep breaths, trying to get hold of herself. The little ones watch, wide-eyed and bewildered. The frozen expression on George’s face is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to look at. All his imagined disasters, and he never imagined this.

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  In the light of the kitchen, all the children are blinking, sleepy and disoriented. I try to think what Mrs. Garrett would do
to rally everyone, and can only come up with making popcorn. So I do that. And hot chocolate, even though the air, despite the rain, is stifling as an electric blanket. George perches on the counter next to me as I stir chocolate powder into milk. “Mommy puts the chocolate in first,” he reproves, squinting at me in the brightness of the overhead light.

  This is no doubt a good idea, as I’m stuck with grainy lumps of powder I’m trying to mash against the side of the pot. Mom makes hot cocoa with some fancy chocolate shavings from Ghirardelli’s in San Francisco. They melt more easily.

  “We don’t have any whipped cream.” Harry’s glum. “There’s no point to hot chocolate without whipped cream.”

  “There’s a point if there are marshmallows,” George insists.

  “Boob?” Patsy calls mournfully from the circle of Andy’s arms. “Where boob?”

  “What if Daddy’s dead and they aren’t telling us?” interjects Andy. George begins to cry. When I pick him up, he snuggles his head against my shoulder, warm tears slipping on my bare skin. I’m reminded for a second of Nan crying in my arms, all defenses down. And how she’s raised her shields so completely now. What could have happened to fit, strong Mr. Garrett: a heart attack, a stroke, a brain aneurysm—

  “He’s not dead,” Duff says stoutly. “When you’re dead, policemen come to your door. I’ve seen it on TV.”

  Harry runs over to whip open the porch door. “No policemen,” he calls back. “But, uh…Hi Tim.”

  “Hi kiddo.” Tim shoulders his way into the room, hair soggy, wetness shining on his Windbreaker. “Jase called me, Samantha. You go to the hospital. I’ll hang here.” He flips me the keys to the Jetta. “Go,” he repeats.

  “I can’t drive.”

  “Oh for fuck’s sake. Okay.” He turns to Andy. “I’ll take her to the hospital and then be back to help you…uh, do whatever…except change diapers.” He jabs his index finger at Patsy. “Don’t you dare poop.”

  “Pooooooop,” Patsy says, in a small, subdued voice.

  Before we get to the ER, Tim insists on skidding to a halt at a Gas-and-Go to buy cigarettes, scrabbling in his pockets for cash.

  “We don’t have time for this,” I hiss. “Plus, it’s bad for your lungs.”

  “Got ten bucks?” he rejoins. “My lungs are the least of our problems at the moment.”

  I shove a handful of bills at him. Once he’s gotten his fix, we head off again toward the hospital.

  There’s no sign of Mrs. Garrett. Or Alice. But Jase is sitting in one of the ugly orange plastic bucket seats in the waiting room, hunched over, heels of his hands against his forehead. Tim gives me an unnecessarily hard shove and takes off.

  I slip into the seat next to Jase. He doesn’t move, either not noticing or not caring that there’s someone next to him.

  I put my hand on his back.

  His arms drop and he turns to look at me. His eyes are full of tears.

  Then he wraps himself tight around me and I wrap around him. There we are for a long time, not saying a word.

  After a while, Jase stands up, goes over to the water fountain, splashes water on his face, comes back over, and puts his cold, wet hands on my cheeks. We still haven’t said anything.

  A door bangs. Alice.

  “Head injury,” she tells Jase grimly. “He’s still unconscious. Maybe a subdural hematoma. They really can’t tell how serious right now, just containing. There’s a lot of swelling. Definitely a pelvic fracture—bad break. Some ribs…that’s not a big deal. It’s the brain stuff we won’t know about for a while.”

  “Hell. Hell,” Jase says. “Alice.…”

  “I know,” she says. “I don’t get it. Why was he walking on Shore Road so late? There aren’t any meetings out there. Not usually.”

  Shore Road.

  Shore Road.

  It’s like some awful fog clears and I can see Mom driving home from Westfield, taking the uncrowded route along the river. McGuire Park. By the river. Shore Road.

  “I’ve got to get back in there,” Alice tells us. “I’ll be out when I know more.”

  I’ve never spent any time in hospitals. The waiting room fills up with people who appear desperately sick, and people who seem to be as calm as though they are waiting at a bus stop to travel on to a destination they don’t really care about. The small hand of the clock moves from two to three to four. Some of the bus stop people get called in before the people who look as though their time on earth is measured in milliseconds. Jase and I sit there as the monitors murmur. Doctor Rodriques. Paging Dr. Rodriques. Dr. Wilcox. Code blue. Dr. Wilcox.

  At first I lean on Jase’s shoulder, then he bows his head and it dips lower and lower. By the time Alice returns, his head is in my lap and I’m nodding over his curls.

  She shakes me forcefully, startling me back from some confused dream about Shore Road to this room with fluorescent lights and the weight of Jase in my lap and the catastrophe of everything.

  “Mom says you two should go on home.” Alice pauses to swig from the bottle of Coke in her hand, then holds it against her temple. “He’s got to open the store. We can’t stay shut for a day. So he needs a few hours sleep.”

  “What?” Jase jolts awake. “Huh?” He usually seems older than me, but now, his hair a mess and his drowsy green eyes hazy, he looks so young. Alice’s eyes meet mine, hers imperative, saying take care of him without uttering a word.

  “Go home. We don’t know anything yet.” Alice polishes off her Coke in a few long swallows, and arcs it into the blue plastic recycling bin, a perfect basket.

  The light rain is still falling when Jase and I go out to the van, droplets of soft mist. Jase tips his head to the sky, which is clouded over, impossible to see the stars.

  We don’t say anything on the drive home, but he reaches out one hand from the steering wheel, tangling it with mine, holding on so tightly, it almost hurts.

  The Garretts’ house is still lit like a birthday cake when we pull into the driveway.

  “They can’t all be awake, still,” Jase mutters.

  “They were pretty scared,” I say, wondering how much chaos there’ll be when we get in. Leaving Tim in charge? Perhaps not the best idea.

  But the house is silent. The kitchen looks as though an invading army came hungry and left swiftly, cartons of ice cream, bags of chips and cereal boxes and bowls and plates stacked everywhere, but no one’s stirring.

  “You could have mentioned that this kid never sleeps,” Tim calls from the living room. We go in to find him slumped in the easy chair next to the pulled-out sofa bed. Andy’s sprawled out on the bed, long tan legs in a V, George gathered in her arms. Duff, still in his clothes, lies across the bottom, Harry curled in a ball on the pillow under Andy’s outstretched leg. Safety, as much as could be found, must have lain in numbers.

  Patsy’s fingering Tim’s nose and pulling on his bottom lip, her eyes wide-blue open.

  “Sorry, man,” Jase says. “She’s usually good to go at bedtime.”

  “Do you have any idea how many times I’ve read If You Give a Mouse a Cookie to this kid? That is one fucked-up story. How is that a book for babies?”

  Jase laughs. “I thought it was about babysitting.”

  “Hell no, it’s addiction. That friggin’ mouse is never satisfied. You give him one thing, he wants something else, and then he asks for more and on and on and on. Fucked up. Patsy liked it, though. Fifty thousand times.” Tim yawns, and Patsy snuggles more comfortably onto his chest, grabbing a handful of shirt. “So what’s doin’?”

  We tell him what we know—nothing—then put the baby in her crib. She glowers, angry and bewildered for a moment, then grabs her five pacifiers, closes her eyes with a look of fierce concentration, and falls very deeply asleep.

  “See you at the store, dude. I’ll open up. ’Night Samantha.” Tim heads out into the dark.

  Jase and I stand in the doorway for a few minutes, watching Tim’s headlights light up, the Jetta backing out of the
driveway.

  Then the silence gapes between us.

  “What if Dad’s got brain damage, Sam? A head injury? What if he’s in a coma? What if he never wakes up?”

  “We don’t know how serious it is yet,” I say. It can’t be bad. Please don’t let it be bad.

  Jase bends over, pulling off a sock. “His head, Sam? No way that’s good. Mom and Dad don’t have health insurance for themselves. Just for us kids.”

  I shut my eyes, rubbing my forehead as though that’ll erase those words.

  “They dropped it last spring,” Jase tells me softly. “I heard them talking…they said only for a few months, they were both healthy, young enough, nothing pre-existing…it wasn’t a big deal.” He drops his second sneaker with a clunk, adding, under his breath, “It is now.”

  I swallow, shaking my head, nothing to say for consolation, for anything, really.

  Straightening, he reaches a hand for me, drawing me toward the stairs.

  His room’s gently lit by the heat lamp in Voldemort’s cage, a faint red glow that barely illuminates the other cages and nests, redolent with the earthy plant smell and the tang of the clean sawdust in the animal cages, scored by the soft whirring noise of the hamster wheel.

  He turns on his bedside light, takes his cell phone out of his back pocket, turns up the volume on the ringer, drops it on the bedside table. He moves Mazda the cat, who’s sprawled in the middle of the bed with her paws in the air, to the bottom. He goes over to his bureau, pulls out a white T-shirt and hands it to me.

  “Sam,” he whispers, turning to me, a beautiful, bewildered boy.

  I sigh into his neck, dropping the shirt to the floor as Jase’s hands slip down the bend of my waist, pulling me close enough that his heartbeat sounds against mine.