Reality Boy

Lisi sat forward. “Is it okay to open it now?”

“Of course,” Nanny said.

When she opened it and found a set of walkie-talkies, Lisi screamed. We’d wanted them for years and Santa Claus had never brought them for us. She asked Dad to help her get the packaging open and put in the batteries, and then she handed one to me.

“Lisi to Gerald, can you hear me?” she said from the hall.

“I can’t tell. You’re too close,” I said. “Go farther away so I can’t hear you talking.”

A few seconds later, she came through the walkie-talkie’s speaker. “Lisi to Gerald. Come in, Gerald.”

Nanny was smiling. Dad was smiling. I was smiling. I pressed the yellow button on the side of the walkie-talkie. “This is so awesome!”

“Now,” Nanny said. “Gerald, you go off and play with Lisi. I want some time with the rest of the family.”

I nodded and took off full speed toward the basement door, but then I stopped. I stood quietly where I could still hear the conversation and pressed the button on the walkie-talkie so Lisi would be able to hear, too.

“Tasha, I think we’ve talked enough about what happened here with the boy you invited over to the house,” Nanny started. “But what we haven’t talked about is your behay-vyah toward your sis-tah and broth-ah. I’d like to know what you think you can do to improve it.”

I heard Dad sigh.

Tasha said, “I can’t relate to them.”

Mom said, “Lisi and Gerald are just so young compared to Tasha.”

“I’ve met plenty of families who have far larger age gaps and the kids don’t have as much trouble relating to their siblings,” Nanny said. “At least they’re not rude to one another. Tasha, you’re quite rude to your sis-tah and broth-ah. I’d like to know why.”

I could hear Lisi sniggering upstairs. If she didn’t shut up, we’d be in big trouble.

“They don’t love me,” Tasha said. “Nobody loves me!” She started to sob again.

“That’s silly talk,” Nanny said. “We all love you. And I know being twelve isn’t much fun, but it would be a lot bett-ah if you treated people more nicely and thought about them a bit. It’s not that hard, is it?”

I didn’t hear anything for a minute, and then Tasha said, “How can I relate to a retarded kid and a girl who doesn’t do anything but read books? Seriously! I’m a woman now, you know? I have other stuff to think about.”

“Like that—” Dad said. But then he stopped. But I think everyone knew he meant Mike.

“There are no learning-disabled children in this house,” Nanny said. “Everyone here is fine! I could take you into some really difficult homes and then you’d realize how lucky you are. I get so cross when you say these things!”

“She’s right,” Dad said. “Every doctor we’ve taken him to says he’s fine.”

“And another thing,” Nanny said. “You are not a woman, Tasha. Not for a while yet. You shouldn’t be thinking you’re a woman.”

Tasha started to cry then. Mom said, “Stop making her feel bad! None of this is Tasha’s fault. She didn’t do anything wrong!”

“Yes, she did,” Dad said. “She brought a boy into this house and—and—you know!”

Mom said, “Nothing bad came from it, Doug.”

“He could have robbed us. Could have hurt Lisi. Could have done worse things than what he did,” Dad said. “And what he did was bad enough. For Christ’s sake, she’s twelve!”

There was twenty seconds of silence. Tasha let out a few more sobs and Nanny told her to go to her room, so she did.

“Jill,” said Nanny. “Look at me. You have to do something about your own behay-vyah. Everyone else here has changed, but you haven’t changed. Gerald makes his bed every single morning. Lisi isn’t any trouble. Even Doug does more around the house and has tried to help you through this. But it’s really up to you now.”

There was silence. Then Mom spoke. I think she was crying.

“When I was pregnant with Lisi—she was—you know. A surprise,” she said. “I didn’t think I could love another child as much as I loved Tasha. Tasha has her problems, I know, but I’m her mother. But—I mean, how can you have that much love for two of them? I just didn’t think I had it. A lot of women feel this way. I’ve read articles about it,” she said. “And Doug was working all the time, so it was just the two of us. But then Lisi was born and I didn’t feel anything for her at all.”

This is when I switched the red button on the side of the walkie-talkie to OFF. If Lisi was still listening, then I didn’t want her to hear that.

“I tried,” Mom said. “I mean, I really tried. But I didn’t have the patience for all that baby stuff anymore. The diapers. The spitting up. The night feeding. Doug? Do you remember? She never stopped crying.”

He said, “Jill had a little breakdown. Or two.” He sighed. “And Tasha didn’t like being left out, either.”

“And then, just as I’d potty trained Lisi, there was Gerald. God,” Mom said. Then she started really crying. “It’s normal for families to try again for a boy. Everyone said things to Doug about it. Like we had to keep going for our boy! And look at what we got. Look at that boy.”

I didn’t need to hear any more. The way she talked about Lisi and me… was like we were pets, but without the whole reason you get pets.

I was stuck in the kitchen. If I made a move, they’d know I was there. So I stood still and tried not to listen as Dad explained Mom’s trips to the shrink and how their marriage suffered.

I could hear Bony Nanny give Mom a hug. It was like a skeleton wind chime. “There’s still time,” Nanny said. “Just because they’re six and eight doesn’t mean it’s too late. Tasha needs more discipline and those two just need love.”

“They’ll never love me,” Mom said. “And I don’t blame them.”

When I heard this, I realized something. I was six, but I realized it and I shoved that realization deep down until I was old enough to handle it.

That realization: Her love was a lie, just like everything else.

The day I’d be old enough to handle it: my seventeenth birthday.

PART THREE

44

ON MY SEVENTEENTH birthday, I wake up thinking of Hannah. Not in that way. Okay, yeah, in that way, too. I almost told her I loved her last night on our way home from work. Our drives from the PEC Center the last few nights have been fun. We play loud music and Hannah sings. Over the weekend, we stopped at the baseball lot again and we lay on the field and looked at the stars. On Monday we stopped at the McDonald’s and ate hot caramel sundaes. Last night, she was eating a long string of black licorice and she smiled at me in this way I can’t explain. I had to remind myself not to go too fast. It’s only been, like, two weeks. She’s not gonna love you back, Crapper. No one has yet.