“We think so,” Kari replied from her chair. I noticed she didn’t say anything to us unless it was about the baby. “The doctor said she was the most beautiful baby he’d ever seen. Isn’t she the most beautiful baby you’ve ever seen?” “Do you like those little socks? They’re darling, aren’t they?” “Don’t you think she has your father’s nose? I think she has your father’s nose.” All sorts of questions that didn’t really require answers. “Aren’t you the most beautiful baby girl, little Jewel?” She bounced her in her arms, and Jewel gave a little growly squeak and finally stopped screaming. “Aren’t you?”
“Can I have your chips?” Doug asked Aaron. Aaron pushed his chips across the table.
I was glad Dad and Kari had a baby to be excited about. Really, I was. Having a baby was probably the best thing ever. Babies couldn’t disappoint you.
“What are we going to do today?” I asked. I was just trying to make conversation, really. Not like I really cared what we did. But Dad usually had something planned for the weekends. He’d take us to a baseball game or a football game or a movie, or to go bowling at least. We always “got out of Kari’s hair” for a while, and sometimes if you could ignore Dad and just focus on the thing you were doing, it could kind of even be sort of fun.
Dad looked around the room. “This is pretty much it,” he said. “Unless you want to go with me on a diaper run later.”
It was practically impossible to leave your house after you had a baby. That’s what I learned that Saturday.
What we did instead of anything fun was we sat around and stared at Kari staring at the baby. We weren’t even allowed to turn on the TV, because Kari said it was bad for Jewel’s developing eyes, not like she was even watching it.
I almost said I’d go on the diaper run, just for something to do. But I thought better of it.
About four o’clock, I went to the bathroom (talk about excitement). And I didn’t think I was in there that long, but when I came out, Dad and Kari were nowhere to be seen. It was just Doug and Aaron sitting on the couch. And Aaron had Jewel snuggled in his arms.
“Where’d everyone go?” I asked.
“Dad’s getting diapers,” Doug told me. I should’ve known. “And Kari decided to take a nap.”
I plopped down next to Aaron on the couch. Looked at my little sister in the face, the closest I’d gotten to examine her since we’d arrived. She was a fat pink grape for sure, but she was sort of cute, under all that fleece.
“Does Kari know you’re holding the gemstone?” I asked.
Aaron shrugged, without disturbing Jewel in his arms. “Kari asked if I wanted to,” he told me. “So I said yes.”
Watching Aaron hold the baby was pretty much exactly as interesting as watching Kari hold the baby, except that every once in a while Aaron would make fake farting noises at her, so that was better at least.
When Dad got back fifteen minutes later, he smiled at Aaron on the couch holding Jewel and said the two of them looked pretty nice together. He even got out his phone to take a photo. Dad and Kari already had more framed photos of their month-old daughter than they had of me and Doug and Aaron combined. I noticed that the egg-race trophy was still on the bookshelf, though. Half tucked behind a photo of Jewel being held by Kari’s mom and dad, but still, it was there.
Probably Dad hadn’t gotten a chance to toss it into the garbage yet, what with taking care of his new baby and all.
“Here, Trent,” Aaron said, leaning closer to me while Dad went off to the baby’s room to put away the diapers. “You take a spin.”
And before I could say, “Huh?” there was a tiny baby in my arms.
“Be sure to support her head,” Aaron told me. “Yeah, that’s good.”
I’m not sure what I’d thought holding a baby was going to feel like. I guess I’d never thought about it before. Mostly it was warm. Jewel snuggled herself into my arms like she was getting good and ready to stay there for keeps. She let out a little baby sigh and smacked her baby lips together.
It was kind of nice, actually.
For about three seconds.
That’s how long it took before Kari came out of her bedroom, yawning, and said, “Thanks, you guys, for letting me take a little na—”
She stopped as soon as she saw me with Jewel. And maybe I was making it up (only I knew I wasn’t making it up), but there was something in Kari’s eyes I didn’t like.
She cleared her throat, then smiled, a real big smile. She rushed over to me. “Let me just . . . ,” she said. “Tom!” she called into the nursery to my dad. “I think Jewel needs a diaper change.” And just like that she scooped Jewel out of my arms.
Dad poked his head out of the baby’s room and looked at Kari, rescuing their precious baby from his least favorite son. “Oh,” he said, like he was taking something in. Something important. “Oh. Um . . . Who wants to learn how to change a diaper?” he asked us.
Aaron said he did. I don’t know why. Obviously that wasn’t a thing that anyone wanted to learn.
As he got up, Aaron squeezed my knee.
I don’t know why he did that either.
I tried to ignore the burning in my chest. It was nothing, I told myself. I was making things up.
• • •
Dinner was spaghetti with sauce from a jar and salad from a bag. Kari apologized nine times that we weren’t having something homemade, but the truth was that’s what we had half the time at Mom’s anyway. And it wasn’t awful.
After dinner Aaron and Doug and I got ready for bed, even though it was all of eight thirty. And now that Jewel Annabelle Hoffsteader Zimmerman was in our lives, we all had to sleep in one room, in Dad’s office. There was one bed in the corner with a pullout trundle underneath, and one person had to sleep on the floor in a sleeping bag.
“I’ll rock-paper-scissors for the bed,” Doug said when we were in the bathroom brushing our teeth.
“Don’t worry about it,” I said, spitting over his shoulder into the sink. “I’ll sleep on the floor.”
“You will?” Doug sounded surprised. Aaron glanced at me in the mirror. I gargled a mouthful of water and didn’t answer. I hated it here anyway, and sleeping on the floor wasn’t going to make things any worse.
“If you have to get up in the middle of the night to pee,” I told my brothers, “don’t step on my face.”
“No promises,” Aaron said. And then he slugged me in the arm.
• • •
When I woke up on Sunday morning, there was a horrible howling sound, like a great tornado gale of wind, swirling around the room. I shot straight up in my sleeping bag.
“Whoooooooo-eeeeeeeeee!” the noise went.
“What was that?” I said. The noise was loud but tinny. Like nothing I’d ever heard before.
Aaron was sitting up in his bed, too, on the top part above the trundle. “I don’t know.” He rubbed his eyes. “It sounds like it’s coming from the closet.”
“Whoooooooo-eeeeeeeeee!” came the noise again. “I’m the Ghost of Nightmares. I’ve come to haunt your dreeeeeeams!”
Doug. It was very clearly Doug. Who, now that I thought about it, was very much not asleep in his bed.
Aaron and I looked at each other, both of us trying not to laugh.
“Oh, man,” Aaron said in his loudest voice. “Trent, did you hear that? I think it’s a ghost!”
“Yep,” I said, just as loudly. “I think maybe”—I pointed—“there’s a ghost in the closet.”
“I’m not in the closet,” the voice said. “I’m in your dreeeeeeams! Whoooooooo-eeeeeeeeee!”
It was definitely the closet.
Aaron and I got up at the same time. I unzipped the side of my sleeping bag, and he pulled back his covers. Quietly. We tiptoed to the closet. Quietly. And we opened the closet door.
“Whoooooooo-eeeeeeeee
e!”
The surprising thing was that Doug wasn’t sitting in the closet, howling at us from behind the door.
“Whoooooooo-eeeeeeeeee!”
But that’s definitely where the noise was coming from.
“What the . . . ?” Aaron said.
I pointed to the top shelf. There was a small white plastic square of something, with a tiny plastic antenna.
“Whoooooooo-eeeeeeeeee!”
A baby monitor.
Aaron pulled it down from the shelf.
“Oh boy,” he said, still super loud so Doug could hear, wherever he was. “What is going on? I think there really is a ghost in here.”
“Man, I’m scared!” I shouted. “What should we do?”
“The only way out is to leeeeeeave your dreeeeeeams!” Doug howled on the other end of the monitor. “You’ve got to— Hey, what the . . . ?”
“Doug Zimmerman!” Suddenly Kari’s voice shot out of the other end of the monitor. She did not sound happy. “Just what do you think you’re doing? That monitor is not a toy.”
Aaron and I couldn’t take it anymore. We broke down laughing.
“Trent and Aaron!” Kari screeched through the monitor. “You two bring me that right now!”
From the other room, we could hear Doug pouting like a little baby. “You totally ruined my prank,” he told Kari. I’d’ve bet anything his lip was sticking out, too.
• • •
Sunday was about as exciting as Saturday was, which is to say, not very. Aaron said we couldn’t leave till five o’clock, which was exactly when Game 4 of the World Series started, and even if it was just the stupid Phillies versus the stupid Orioles, I still wanted to watch it.
Aaron said we could listen on the radio while we were driving.
I must’ve really been dying for something to do, because when Kari asked me if I wanted to take a walk with her to the corner store, I actually said yes. I thought maybe she’d ask Doug or Aaron, too, since she actually liked the two of them a little, but nope. It was just me and her.
We were mostly quiet on the walk.
I guess on the way back from picking up the milk, Kari decided she was sick of the silence, because she asked me, “So, how’s school going?”
I shrugged. “Fine,” I said. It was mostly true, anyway.
“I heard you’re in a club.”
“Yep,” I said.
She was quiet some more.
“You know, we’re all rooting for you, Trent.” That’s what she decided to say after a while.
I looked down at my feet. One step after another. Just kept walking.
“I know you had a tough time last year, what with everything that happened. And I know there’s a lot of anger in there about all that.” She pointed vaguely at my shoulder, like she thought that’s where I kept my anger or whatever. “But I just want you to know that we’re rooting for you. That we know it’s all going to come out all right.”
“Uh.” It seemed like she wanted me to say something to that, but what was I supposed to say? They were rooting for me? It wasn’t like I was in the World Series or anything. I was just in sixth grade. So what were they rooting for me for? Not to choke and blow my whole life? “Thanks, I guess.”
Kari nodded.
When we got back to the house, Dad was washing dishes from breakfast and Aaron was drying. Doug was sitting with Jewel on the couch.
“Hey,” Doug said when we came in. “Check this out.” And he raspberried, right on the bare part of Jewel’s belly, where her tiny shirt was riding up. “Awesome, huh? I think she likes it.”
Kari actually smiled a little.
I don’t know why I asked it, what I asked next. Because I knew—I knew—what the answer was going to be. But I guess there was that warm tingling in my chest, and I was wondering if maybe I was making it up, the whole thing, or if I’d been right.
And Kari did say they’d been rooting for me.
“Can I hold her?” I said, walking over to Doug.
“Sure,” Doug replied, and he held out his arms, with Jewel inside. But just as I was about to take her, Kari rushed over and scooped her up, and said, “You know what? I think she’s tired. Why don’t we let her sleep?”
I should’ve stopped there. I should’ve shut my fat mouth and gone to Dad’s office. Crawled into the sleeping bag and pretended to take a nap.
I didn’t.
“Why can’t I hold her?” I asked.
Kari glanced at me, then over to my dad, still at the sink in the kitchen. “She needs to sleep,” she told me.
“I can help put her in her crib,” I said. I was still holding my stupid arms out. Like some kind of moron who couldn’t take a hint.
There was that smile again. “Oh, that’s not necessary, Trent,” Kari said, “but thanks for the offer. Tom!” she called to my dad in the kitchen. “Can you come here for a sec, please?”
Fire. Fire in my chest.
“Why can’t I hold her?” I asked again. “Doug got to hold her. Aaron too.”
“Trent . . . ,” Kari said slowly. She was bouncing Jewel softly in her arms, watching my dad as he scuttled over.
Dad put a hand on my shoulder. “Trent, calm down, all right?” he said.
And I don’t know why, but that made the fire burn hotter than ever. “You calm down!” I shouted. “All I’m trying to do is hold my stupid sister. You’re the one who made me come here in the first place to meet her, and now you won’t even let me hold her. How is that fair?”
I was louder than I meant to be. I was louder than I should’ve been.
Jewel got upset. She started wailing.
“Trent.” My dad’s grip was hard now. “I said, calm down.”
“No!” I said. I was really screaming now. I had to be, to be heard over the baby, because she was really going to town, even with Kari racing her off to her pink bedroom, shutting the door behind her. You could still hear her, wailing bloody murder through the walls, like someone was being unfair to her. “What did I ever do? Why can’t I just hold her? What do you think’s going to happen?”
“Trent.” That was Aaron now, but I wasn’t about to listen to him either. Doug had his hands slapped over his ears, like all the screaming and wailing was really getting to him.
My dad’s face, you should’ve seen it. It went from normal to chili-pepper red in seconds. He was angry. “You listen to me, you little snot,” he told me. And his angry red nose was inches from mine as he spoke, his grip bone-crushing tight on my shoulder. He almost pushed me all the way back on the couch, but I held my ground. “You don’t come into my house, and upset my kid. Do you hear that?” He jerked his red face toward Jewel’s closed bedroom door, where she was still wailing like a monster. “You did that. You. And you wonder why Kari and I won’t let you hold her? You are the angriest little . . .” He took a deep breath, but his face was still red as ever. “You are never holding that baby, you understand me?”
The fire, it was all the way to the tips of my fingernails. Digging down to the bottoms of my heels. “That’s not fair!” I told him. “She’s only crying because you guys wouldn’t let me hold her. It’s not even my fault.” I never even wanted to hold a stupid baby. That was never a thing I wanted. “It’s not fair.”
Dad shrugged then, like there was nothing left inside him but the up-and-down movement of his shoulders. “Sometimes you only get one chance,” he told me.
On the way out the door, I took a good hard whack at the milk on the counter. Heard it hit the wall and smack open and slosh everywhere before I slammed the door so hard that even outside, I could hear Jewel start up again. “You said you were rooting for me!” I shouted at the closed door.
But even I didn’t know who I was talking to.
• • •
No one came outside to talk to me. I sat
on a rock on the corner of the road for more than an hour, and not one person bothered to find me. I wasn’t going back in there, not as long as I lived.
I guess none of them wanted me there either.
There’s nothing you can do about it now. That’s the thought that rolled around in my brain, over and over—what Dad had said to me right after I killed Jared on the lake. No use thinking about it.
Sometimes you only get one chance. That’s what I thought about, too.
What did Dad know?
• • •
Someone must’ve called Mom, obviously. She pulled up to my sad little rock and stopped and rolled down her window. But she didn’t say anything, just bit her lip and sighed at me.
I got in the car.
“Oh, Trent,” she said as she started on down the road.
I’m sorry. That’s what I wanted to say. But I wasn’t, not really. Not for what everyone wanted me to be sorry for. I was sorry Mom had to drive all the way out to get me because my dad was such a jerk that I couldn’t be in the same house as him for two full days. But I wasn’t sorry about the shouting, or the milk. I didn’t think I was the one who should be sorry about that.
“What am I going to do with you?” Mom said to me as we drove.
I didn’t answer. I didn’t have the slightest idea.
THIRTEEN
I didn’t do anything to that wrinkled old crone all day on Monday, I swear, but at the last second before social studies ended—the final period of the day, so I was almost free—she looked up from her stovetop desk and said, “Trent, stay after class a moment, would you? I’d like to speak with you.”
Next to me, Heidi Hammels whispered, “Ooh, someone’s in trouble!” Which was not helping very much, but I decided not to pummel her or anything.
I stayed after class. What else could I do?
• • •
The wrinkled old crone sat me at an oven station in the front row, in the middle, which wasn’t mine for any class. It was usually Pete Trager’s, the suck-up. Ms. Emerson sat behind her big bench area with the sink and the stove and everything, and stared at me down her nose. Her chair was really high, so she had to tilt her head a lot to look down at me, which made her look even more wrinkly, even more old, and way too much like a crone.