“How are you, honey?” Regina asks.
I say nothing.
“Anna?”
Silence.
“Can you hear me?”
This coming from the loudest person I know.
“Anna?” she says again. “Are you there?”
“I’m here,” I say flatly.
“Good. I thought I lost you.”
If only.
“How are you doing at your dad’s?” she says. “Are you eating enough?” Regina thinks everyone is too thin. She cooks constantly, and I am her favorite customer. Meatballs, baked ziti, lacey Italian cookies. I have sat in Regina’s kitchen a million times, eating her food. A million times, I have stuffed my face with garlic knots while she and my mom drank wine and listened to Italian opera.
Suddenly the words burst out of me. “Why are you telling everyone about my mother?”
“What?” Regina sounds surprised.
“Dani says you told her mom. In the middle of Big Y.”
“Oh, honey. It was hardly the middle of Big Y. It was a discreet corner. The ethnic foods section.”
“I can’t believe you did that. I can’t believe you’re telling people.”
“Your mom needs all the love and support she can get right now.”
“That’s your idea of love and support? Blabbing her personal business to the whole world?”
“Joyce Loomis is not the whole world. She’s a friend of your mom, and I thought she should know.”
I snort. I don’t bother telling Regina that because Dani and I are no longer friends, by the transitive property our mothers are no longer friends. I just snort.
“Okay,” she says. “So you’re mad at me.”
I think about denying it, but I don’t.
“It’s okay to be mad at me. Be as mad as you want. I can take it.”
“Fine,” I say. “I will … I am.”
“I know you are. It’s all right.”
Silence for a moment. Then she says, “So, okay, we’ve established that you’re pissed at me. And we’ve established that it’s fine that you’re pissed at me. And now we need to talk about your mom.”
I feel a little twist in my stomach.
“Okay? Can we do that?”
My voice comes out low. “Have you seen her?”
“Not yet. But I’ve been talking to her doctors. They’ve been trying, based on what happened, based on your mom’s history, to come up with an accurate diagnosis.”
“What do you mean, an accurate diagnosis? It’s depression. She gets depressed. You give her pills and she gets better.”
Regina is the one who explained this to me in the first place—how not long after I was born, my mother developed postpartum depression. She was so sad and tired she couldn’t get out of bed, so she had to go into the hospital. My dad was left to take care of me, which was not part of the plan. You know that movie about the three single guys and the baby that suddenly gets dropped on their doorstep? They’re so befuddled they don’t know what to do? How do we put on this diaper? What do babies eat? That was my dad, minus the roommates to help him, so he called Regina. I don’t remember any of this, obviously. But Regina told me the story when I was in second grade, on the morning my mom was so tired she couldn’t get out of bed and go to my school play. I don’t think I will ever forget how it made me feel. Like my mom’s depression was my fault. Like giving birth to me broke something inside of her. That’s how little kids think, right? In literal terms? I broke it; now I need to fix it.
“It may not be as simple as depression,” Regina says now. “And the medication she’s been given in the past may not have been the right medication.”
“Why not?”
“Well … I need you to think back for me. Not about this week, when your mom was clearly depressed, but about the weeks leading up to her depression … What was she like?”
“What was she like?” I say. “She was Mom. You know what she’s like.”
“Energized? Excited about things? Working on a project?”
“Obviously.”
This is one of the things I love about my mom. She’s always jazzed about something. This summer it was guinea hens. She’d read some scientific journal article about Lyme disease and discovered that guinea hens eat the ticks that carry the bacteria. Most people would read the article and say, Hmm, that’s interesting. But my mom springs into action. She joins the Guinea Fowl Breeders Association. She buys the wood and the wire and the nails. She digs the trench in the backyard and builds the coop and orders the eggs. And then, when the chicks hatch, she names them all after Broadway stars you have never heard of. Gertrude Lawrence. Pearl Bailey. Betty Buckley. She sings them show tunes. She paints little signs for their roosts.
“Remember the guinea hens?” I say.
Regina saw the whole thing. My mom called her when the chicks hatched. They drank champagne to celebrate.
“I do,” Regina says. She starts to say something else, hesitates. Then, “What else?”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you remember any other projects—say, before your dad moved out?”
I’m tired, I realize. I don’t want to have this conversation. I want to lie down on the bed, take a little nap. Wake up in a year.
“Anna. I know this isn’t easy. But I need you to bear with me.”
“I am.”
“Remember the painting project?”
Regina is really starting to bug me. Of course I remember the painting project. I was there. It was the last big fight my parents had before they split up, and I was right in the middle of it.
The way it started was my mom went to some workshop on the psychology of color, and when she came home she decided to repaint the whole house. First she made a chart: rooms, moods they should create, best colors to reflect those moods. Front hall: orange; welcoming energy. Downstairs bathroom: blue; peace and relaxation. She bought paint. She took all the art off the walls. She moved the furniture into the middle of each room. I was excited because my room was going to be green, harmony and stability, and because I would get to use the paint roller. My father was not excited. He thought the whole thing was a GD shit storm. He said my mother would never finish and he would have to clean up the GD mess.
I sigh into the phone.
“What?” Regina says. “Say it.”
“Say what?”
“Whatever’s on your mind.”
“My dad was right. It was a shit storm.”
“Anna.”
“What?”
“Honey,” Regina says softly, “that’s mania. The flip side of depression. Your mom’s projects? Those times when she’s really, really energized and doesn’t need to sleep more than a few hours? That’s actually part of her sickness.”
“Oh.”
“It’s a new diagnosis they’re considering. Bipolar two.”
“So, what—Dr. Amman was wrong? She’s not depressed?”
Dr. Amman is a psychiatrist friend of Regina’s—the one she drags my mother to whenever she can’t get out of bed. My mom hates going, but Regina makes her go anyway. Because Regina is only a nurse and can’t prescribe medication.
“Dr. Amman was half-right.”
“How can you be half-right?” I say.
“He treated half your mom’s problem, and the pills only worked to a certain extent, when she was willing to take them. The doctors at the hospital are trying to figure out which medications, in which combinations, will work to stabilize all of your mom’s symptoms and make her feel better.”
“When can I see her?” I say. “When can she come home?”
“Let’s take this one step at a time,” Regina says.
Who put you in charge? I want to yell at her. I feel a knot of craziness forming in my stomach and another one in my throat.
“This sucks,” I choke out.
“She’s going to be okay,” Regina says. “I promise. You just need to give her time.”
Time? It??
?s been a week already. How much more does she need?
CHAPTER
6
“THIS IS WHAT I was working on,” Sarabeth says on Monday morning. “Invitations!” The bus hasn’t even moved and already she is handing me a card.
“Thanks,” I say.
“You’re welcome.”
I feel a little dread, opening it. I am remembering the last Sarabeth Mueller fiesta I attended. Chamomile tea, watercress sandwiches, dolls. I am not judging. I am not saying people shouldn’t like what they like, or shouldn’t throw whatever kind of party they want to throw. It’s just—okay, here it is—I am reading the first line: Calling all women of substance!
“Women of substance?” I say.
Sarabeth smiles. “You, Shawna, Chloe, Nicole, and Reese. It’s a famous-women-in-history party! You can come as anyone you want. Pocahontas. Cleopatra … Marie Antoinette … Anne Frank.”
Anne Frank? I am thinking. How could Anne Frank go to a party? She couldn’t go anywhere, not even to school. Not even to the fruit cart to buy an apple. I was blown away by that book. I felt all scooped out inside. For weeks afterward, I felt that way.
“It doesn’t have to be Anne Frank,” Sarabeth assures me. “Whoever. You can even pick someone who’s still alive, like Hillary Clinton.”
“Oh.”
“So…”
“So?”
“Are you free on Saturday night?”
It takes me a minute to realize she’s not joking. She actually thinks I have a life.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I have to ask my dad.”
I still haven’t told Sarabeth about my mother. I have not told anyone about my mother. The only people who know are the people who found out on their own or the people Regina blabbed to.
“So you’ll call me?” Sarabeth says.
“What?”
“You’ll call and tell me if you can come?”
“Uh … yeah.”
“Do you have a cell?”
“Yeah.”
“Here,” she says, reaching out her hand. “I’ll plug in my number.”
* * *
After third period, Mr. Pfaff finds me at my locker. He says he thought we had a plan to meet after school last week.
“I must have forgotten,” I say.
“No problem,” he tells me. He’s free now.
I think about lying, saying I have class, but Mr. Pfaff is holding my schedule right there in his hand. He knows I have study hall.
“Why don’t we take a walk?” Mr. Pfaff gestures down the hall like it’s a country lane. The bell rings, and all the little worker bees fly off to class. The only noise in the hall is the squeak of Mr. Pfaff’s loafers.
“I have no trouble thinking of things to write,” I blurt.
“Okay.”
“I can write fine.”
Mr. Pfaff doesn’t say anything, but out of the corner of my eye I can see him nodding. I keep my head down. Tan-and-green-speckled tiles, the same flooring that covered the halls of my old elementary school. The same flooring that Dani threw up on in second grade. For the record, I’m the one who got the nurse. I’m the one who rubbed Dani’s back when she cried and I’m the one who told Tommy Markowitz to shut his trap when he called Dani a crybaby. Maybe I should remind Dani of this. Some things are worth remembering.
“Anna,” Mr. Pfaff says.
I look up.
“I know there’s a lot going on at home.”
“You do?”
“Yes,” he says. Then, “I’m sorry about your mother.”
“How do you know about my mother?”
“We had a team meeting,” Mr. Pfaff explains. “Last week. Your father, your teachers, the school counselor…”
Well. There is not much that can humiliate you more than grown-ups discussing your private business behind your back. I remember my dad mentioning a meeting, but I thought that was just about switching buses. I didn’t think he would tell them everything.
“… Her name is Mrs. Ramondetta. She’s easy to talk to. I think you would really—”
“No,” I bark. I have stopped walking, halted right here in the hallway. “No school counselor.”
“Anna.”
“My mother’s a school counselor.”
Mr. Pfaff starts to put his hand on my arm, then stops himself, like he just remembered the rule. No PDA at Shelby Horner Middle School. No hugging! No back rubs! No touching of any kind! It’s a big joke with the students, but the teachers take it seriously. Mr. Pfaff’s hand flies to his goatee instead. Why did he have to grow that thing? It’s like roadkill on his chin.
“We’re all here for you,” he says. “I know that sounds … canned. But listen, we really are.”
Oh, this is the worst. The worst! I shift my gaze to the wall.
“You don’t have to write me a novel, Anna. You just have to … show a little effort in class. I can’t grade a blank paper. I need something … Anna?”
It kills me to look at him, but I do. His eyebrows, two fuzzy black caterpillars, are raised.
“Fine,” I say.
“Fine?”
“I will show more effort.”
“Great!”
Mr. Pfaff looks so pleased I should probably feel guilty for lying, but I don’t. I am just glad the conversation is over.
* * *
The day drags on. I eat lunch in silence, which is easy because Chloe and Nicole do all the talking. Apparently there is more than one kind of witch. There are your Gardnerians and your Alexandrians. Your Eclectics and your Reconstructionists.
Chloe and Nicole argue. Can you call yourself a true Wiccan if you’re not from a lineaged coven?
“Who cares?” Shawna says. “It’s all bullshit.”
I want to agree with her. But agreeing with her would mean joining the conversation. Instead I focus my attention on the center table, where Ethan Zane has dropped an ice cube down Dani’s shirt. I watch her squeal and pretend to get mad. It reminds me of one of those advice columns she used to tear out of magazines and read to me on the bus.
Dear Seventeen,
This guy Ethan always snaps my bra and whacks me on the butt with a lunch tray. I really like him. Do you think he likes me? What should I do?
Signed, Snapped and Whacked in Rhode Island
Dear Snapped,
Squeal and pretend to get mad. If he keeps doing it, he likes you.
I know I shouldn’t be watching. Dani’s life is no longer any of my business; she made that perfectly clear. But sometimes you can’t help yourself. It’s like the car wreck on the highway. You don’t want to look, but your head just spins around anyway.
“She should pants him.”
I look at Shawna. She is watching the same scene I am. “What do you think, Anna? One quick yank for all womankind?”
Pantsing. I haven’t heard that expression since sixth grade, when the boys were constantly pulling each other’s shorts down. They’d surprise attack from anywhere. The cafeteria, the playground, the bus line. I’m not saying it wasn’t funny. It was. I laughed a lot in sixth grade. Now, I can barely open my mouth to take a bite of sandwich.
When I do, it tastes like sawdust.
* * *
After lunch I have Practical Life. Don’t ask me why, but this class is mandatory for Shelby Horner eighth graders. Once a week, my Practical Life “team” gathers in the industrial arts room to learn such exciting skills as how to wash clothes, how to balance a checkbook, and how to sew on a button. Today … are you ready for this?… we’re learning how to make a grilled cheese sandwich.
Apparently, most thirteen-year-olds in Westerly, Rhode Island, would not survive a week without their parents.
Apparently, I am the weirdo who can.
I have been cooking and doing laundry since elementary school. Only child, working parents, everyone pitches in. It’s not like it’s so hard. Jeans dirty? Throw in a load of darks. Need a snack? Fire up a Hot Pocket. They never treated me like
a baby; they treated me like an equal. Which is why it’s so strange now, having Marnie hovering around, bringing me clean underwear, making sure I’m eating all four food groups. It’s like she’s auditioning for the mother in the school play. I have a mom, remember? I want to tell her, every time she does something nice. I don’t need your help.
“All right, everyone.” Mrs. Beckwith claps her hands. She gestures to the stove in front of us. “This is a gas range.”
She starts describing how it works. These are the burners. These are the burner control knobs. As you turn the knob, you determine just how much gas reaches the burner. The higher the number, the more gas is released.
Really? Wow. That’s amazing.
If my mother had a burner control knob, I could set her however I wanted. If, say, she started staying up too late, watching QVC, and ordering a bunch of wineglass necklaces, I could turn her down to 6. If I found her in the bathtub with a washcloth over her face, listening to “Anatevka” on her boom box, I’d turn her up to 4.
Talking too fast? Down a notch.
Monotone voice? Up a notch.
If my mom had a burner control knob, maybe my dad never would have left. He could have kept her at a fun level. A 7, maybe. Like she was for those parties they used to throw. Neighborhood parties, birthday parties, holiday parties. When she was up, my mom was the queen of parties. She loved to drink and laugh and sing. We had a karaoke machine that my dad gave her for Christmas one year, and she always set that on the back deck. I felt proud watching her karaoke. It didn’t matter what kind of song it was—Bon Jovi or Neil Diamond or Weezer—my mom could nail it. She could literally sing anything. There was this one party … I can’t remember what it was for. But she wore her long black hair straight down, and red lipstick, and a flower tucked behind one ear. She sang “Pour Some Sugar on Me.” And she was so good. She was standing on the picnic table in her dark jeans and high heels, legs a mile long. Everyone at the party stopped what they were doing just to watch her. And do you know what my dad did?… I’ll never forget this … he got up on the picnic table and started rocking out next to her. He played air guitar.