FAMILY DINNER
AS I WALK HOME from the bus stop after school, a dense patch of gray and black clouds rolls in overhead. The wind howls past me, blowing the leaves from the trees like they’re nothing more than dandelion fluff. My hair whips around my face. I can smell it in the air, taste it—that wild, earthy flavor—a storm, a big one.
I make it to the steps of our building just as a team of crisp brown leaves lifts off the ground and charges toward me, until it crashes full speed into the bottom step and falls lifeless to the ground. Then the first fat, freezing drops of rain fall down against the sidewalk. Splat, splat, splat. Then. Monsoon.
Upstairs the apartment smells amazing. I can hear the sizzle of something simmering in a pan in the kitchen. The windows in the living room have been darkened by the clouds overhead, and the rhythm of the rain outside is muffled into a soft hum. The feeling is unfamiliar. Comforting, warm, cozy. Like maybe this is what people mean when they talk about home.
I close the door behind me, and Callie turns around in her seat at the kitchen table, throwing a casual “Hi” in my general direction.
I reciprocate with a “Hey,” careful not to sound too excited about her greeting. Leaving my shoes and jacket and backpack by the door, I make my way to the kitchen to find Aaron standing there in front of the stove. “Smells good,” I tell him.
“Thanks.” He glances up at me and smiles. “It’s just spaghetti, though. The sauce is from a jar.”
“Well, it smells great. I’m starving,” I add, trying to stretch out this good feeling as long as possible. Twenty minutes later, the three of us are at the kitchen table, and Aaron keeps clearing his throat like he’s working up the nerve to break some kind of bad news. Bad news about Mom, I’m sure, about the trial.
“There’s this thing on Friday,” I begin, thinking that maybe if I can talk long enough, then Aaron won’t ever get the chance to tell us whatever it is he doesn’t want to tell us, and then we’ll never have to know, and we can hold on to this moment.
“Oh yeah?” he asks, too interestedly, as he twirls a bunch of jumbled stands of spaghetti around his fork over and over, around and around.
“A dance thing. Whatever. I might go, I don’t know.”
“You should go,” he agrees.
“Maybe,” I say, and I wonder how much longer we can feign interest in this pointless conversation. “It’s not like I have my heart set on it or anything.”
At this point Callie rolls her eyes and tears off a bite of bread between her teeth, looking back and forth between Aaron and me like we’re some kind of preverbal cavemen, not speaking a real language, but just grunting and snorting and pointing.
“No, go. I mean, why not, right?” he says, finally putting that twirled and retwirled forkful of spaghetti into his mouth.
“Yeah?” I ask. “Well, maybe.”
Callie sighs loudly.
After a few seconds of silence, chewing, and swallowing, Aaron clears his throat once again. “So, listen. I saw Mom today.”
Callie sets her fork down with a clang against her plate and crosses her arms over her stomach, sitting back in her seat.
“Aaron, you knew I wanted to go see her too,” I tell him, careful not to yell.
“It wasn’t a visit like that. Her lawyer wanted me to go talk to her. She’s getting cold feet, I guess. She wants to take the plea bargain instead of having the trial.”
“Why would she want to do that?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” he mumbles. “I think she just wants this to be over with. We’re trying to convince her that they need us to testify—all of us. You know, to prove that it was self-defense. Jackie’s going to. So am I. Tony, too. Except Mom doesn’t want you guys anywhere near this, even if it’s going to hurt her case.”
“That’s ridiculous!” I shout.
He scratches his head and sets his fork down on his plate. “She wants to protect you, I get that, but—”
Callie lets out this small noise, a cross between snort and laugh. Her eyes tick back and forth between me and Aaron.
Ignoring Callie, I answer for us all: “We’ll do whatever we have to do.”
“Speak for yourself,” Callie hisses, her voice low.
“What?” I ask, not used to her voluntarily offering up so many words at once.
“I’m not lying for her,” she says, wrapping her arms around her body so tightly her muscles tremble, something menacing going on behind her eyes.
Aaron looks at me, confused. “Who said anything about lying?” he asks, that familiar edge of irritation rising in between the words.
She looks back at us, her eyes dark, her jaw set, and repeats herself through gritted teeth. “I’m. Not. Helping. Her.”
I feel my breathing slow to a stop, my brain unable to process what she’s saying to us.
“Are you serious right now?” Aaron asks, barely able to stay in his seat. “Callie, she’s our mother—we have to help her.”
I’m sitting there, getting caught in a familiar cross fire, my head foggy, because this is not happening. Our little sister can’t turn on us, not now, not when we need her.
“And who was he?” Callie says, her voice not having reached this volume in months and months. “Some random stranger?”
My head feels like a drum being pounded, word by word.
“Just because you guys hated him,” Callie continues, gaining steam, “doesn’t mean he deserved to die!”
“No one said that,” I tell her, but I can’t make my voice loud enough to be heard.
“So it would better if Mom were dead right now?” Aaron asks, his voice getting louder. “That’s what you’re saying?” He pushes his chair out and stands, like he’s going to walk away, but then he doesn’t.
“Stop, you guys,” I try, but no one seems to hear me.
Callie stands now too and swipes at the angry tears on her cheeks. “Why does anyone have to be dead?” she challenges, getting louder.
“You guys, stop!” I try again, my head surely about to implode.
“I don’t know, all right?” Aaron shouts over me.
“Shut up,” I tell them. “Stop it, both of you!” I yell, now standing in between them. “Shut up! Just. Shut. Up.”
Callie and Aaron stand on either side of me, all of us breathless. Then they both take a step away from me, like I’m the bad guy, when they’re the ones who are fighting. Callie spins around and stomps off to her room. When she reaches her door, she turns around and braces herself with one hand on either side of the doorframe, her voice straining when she says, “I hate you!”
Then crash. Her door slams shut.
“Why does this happen every time we try to act like a family?” Aaron asks, though I don’t think he expects an answer, because he turns away from me before I can offer one. He stacks our three plates, one on top of the other, all the delicious food being smashed and splattered, and walks into the kitchen. I open my mouth to say something—what, I’m not sure—but the sound of the plates crashing into the sink makes me jump.
After a few seconds I hear the water running. I walk to the doorway and have to raise my voice over the clanging dishes: “Let them know that I’ll do whatever she needs, tell them whatever they want to know. She doesn’t have to keep me out of it—please tell her that. Okay?”
“Yeah,” Aaron mumbles, not looking up.
I go into the bathroom, open the medicine cabinet, and swallow three aspirins. Then I close my bedroom door and lie facedown in bed, listening to the pattering of rain on the window as I wait for the pills to kick in. She said she didn’t remember what happened. I didn’t believe her at first. But then I did. And now . . . now I don’t know.
I must have dozed off, because I awake to muffled voices. I lie here for a while, listening. I drag myself up from my bed, my head noticeably better, though not all the way. I sit at my desk and pull out my homework; putting my brain to work drowns out their voices, drowns out the dull leftover ache of words pounding through my head. Everything’s quiet now, even the rain has stopped.
It’s almost midnight when I come out of my room again. Aaron’s sitting at the table hunched over this giant GED study guide that I’ve seen him open only in five-minute increments over the past few weeks.
I go sit down next to him. He doesn’t look up.
“Sorry,” I offer, even though I’m not really.
“I’m trying. I really am,” he says, picking up the study guide, as if offering up proof.
He is trying, I can see that. “I can help you, Aaron. Studying—it’s sort of one of the only things I’m good at.”
“Nah,” he says, pushing the book away. “Thanks, though. I gotta get up early tomorrow.” He stands abruptly, already walking away before I can answer.