I opened one eye in the dim morning light, and turned so I lay on my back. My hips ached from a night spent sleeping on the floor. It was a wonder that I slept at all, but I had. I tilted my head to the left to look at Fay, her soft breathing familiar and comforting. I always slept better when she was in the room.
Once Paul and I stepped inside last night, nobody tried to fake a cheerful birthday gathering, thankfully. We weren’t six years old anymore, and I didn’t want anyone singing to me. Mom and Aunt Olive retreated to the kitchen to hash it out, and the rest of us squeezed onto the couch and ate the pieces of cake Fay handed to us. We were quiet, and I just wanted the night to be over. Abe, somehow, seemed the most okay.
After Paul left, me having to pretty much push him out the door, we started getting ready to sleep. We didn’t talk about staying over; Mom and Aunt Olive just retrieved extra blankets and pillows from the closet and started making our beds.
Fay told me to take her bed because it was my birthday and it would be rude to make a birthday girl sleep on the floor. I’d told her there was no way I was taking her bed from her, and I put the pillow and blanket Aunt Olive gave me on the floor and started making a nest. A moment later, Fay joined me on the floor, pulling her own blankets off the bed. “Fine, then. We’ll both take the floor.”
Abe peeked in the door to say goodnight, and when he saw the empty bed and both of us on the floor, he asked if he could sleep in it. After a while, once I was sure Fay was asleep, I whispered over to him. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” he whispered back. “It was just a slap. No worse than a spanking, really, and I deserved it.”
I furrowed my brow. Our parents had never disciplined us by spanking. What Dad did wasn’t discipline. A drunken person wasn’t capable of discipline. “You didn’t deserve it.”
“I kind of did. Man, I really yelled at him.”
“Aren’t you mad, Abe? Aren’t you upset?”
“I’m still mad that he ruined your birthday. But honestly? Maybe it makes me a bad person, but it feels kind of good that I made him that mad in return.”
“It doesn’t make you a bad person.”
“Well, bad or good, mostly I’m just tired. Not sleepy, you know? I’m so tired, Celia.”
“Me, too,” I said, and in a few moments his breathing evened out and he was asleep. I had lain awake for a long time, thinking over what he said. I didn’t like any of it.
Now I looked over at him in the morning light, his arm hanging off the side of the bed, and I smiled to myself thinking how such a thing used to scare him so much he slept cocooned in his blankets so nothing could attack his limbs in the night. I guess he didn’t scare so easily anymore.
Fay stirred and rubbed her hands over her face. She yawned and sat up, her hair a halo of blonde fluff around her face. She blinked her eyes blearily at me. “You are always up too early.”
I awoke to a pounding heart and racing thoughts most days, and rather than lying there and trying to ignore those feelings while they only increased, I got out of bed and got busy distracting myself. “I only just woke up.”
Fay glanced toward the window, where the edges of the shade revealed it was still dark outside, and then to her alarm clock, which read five thirty. “No chance of going back to sleep?”
“You can if you want. My body thinks it’s supposed to work the morning shift at Heidi’s. I wish I had cross country practice before school.”
Fay slipped back down onto her pillow. “Tell your body it’s Wednesday, and school doesn’t start until eight.”
“Would your mom mind if I took a shower?”
“Nobody else is crazy enough to be up,” she mumbled against her pillow. “Wake me up when you’re out.”
I padded down the hall to the bathroom. The door was slightly ajar, and the light was off, so I pushed it open. Mom sat on the edge of the tub, dressed in the same clothes she’d worn last night. She was an early riser, too. I wondered if her heart beat her out of bed the way mine did.
She didn’t give any indication that she saw me there, and I was tempted to back away and go sit in the living room until a more decent hour. But I longed for comfort from my mother, and that longing drew me into the room. I sat on the closed toilet lid, facing her.
She didn’t seem surprised to see me. “Celia. I was just thinking that I forgot to give you your birthday present last night.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, it isn’t. Hang on.” She left the bathroom, and I thought about following her. It would certainly be more normal to do this in the living room instead of the bathroom. But this small space with soft blue walls and plenty of privacy kept me in place.
Mom returned with a small purple gift bag. My heart lurched when I realized she must have brought it here from home last night. In the midst of all the chaos, she was thinking of my birthday gift.
She sat back down on the side of the tub, and handed me the bag. “Sixteen is special. My Grandma Judy left me this. I wore it a few times, but it didn’t suit me. I think it will be perfect for you.”
I peered into the bag. A tiny square of folded tissue paper lay on the bottom. I lifted it out, and unfolded it carefully. A silver ring with a round amethyst sat upon the paper. I plucked it off with two fingers and held it close to my face to inspect.
“Purple is your favorite color,” Mom said.
As she spoke, she spun her gold wedding band around her finger—the only jewelry she ever wore. “It’s beautiful. Thank you.”
She smiled softly and reached over and patted my knee. “I want to tell you happy birthday, but it wasn’t a happy birthday for you. I guess what I mean to say, is that I love you.”
I swallowed, trying to keep my feelings down inside my body instead of letting them come to rest on my face. I slipped the ring onto the ring finger on my right hand. “It fits perfectly.”
She rubbed her hands together, all business once again. “Now shoo. I need to get a shower.”
“But, Mom…” I tried to gather my thoughts. We didn’t talk freely about the way things were at our house. We danced around it. We spoke in code. We made declarations about our behavior and hatched plans that we thought might help. But we never talked about how it made us feel. “Are we staying here again tonight?” My chest ached. I wished last night had never happened. I wanted to go home, but not to the home of last night.
She stood up and opened the door. “I don’t know yet. Right now I just don’t know anything.”
I knew she was thinking about money. She didn’t even have a job or a car. I thought about the book Paul had seen on the table the day of our picnic—the book that scared me as much as it excited me. “You have a book about community college,” I blurted.
She sighed, her arm braced above the door, still hoping I’d leave and she wouldn’t have to talk about this. “I’ve thought about getting an LPN degree. That way I could work at a nursing home; the newspaper always has listings for those jobs. But I can’t think about that right now. Celia, last night was—” she paused to clear her throat. “It may make me sound like a fool, but I never expected that to happen. I need some time to get my mind around it. Figure things out.”
“Let’s stay here, then. You can’t figure things out with Dad around.”
“I will let you know when I’ve decided what we’ll do.” Her tone was final.
“Please don’t go see him today. As soon as you get near him, you forgive him.”
She bowed her head.
Aunt Olive shuffled up to the doorway, having overheard our conversation. “I meant it when I said you can stay here. Fay and I would love that,” she said.
“I told you last night,” Mom said. “I need some time to think.”
I knew then that my mother was going back to my father, and probably tonight. She wasn’t going to fix this. But maybe I could. Maybe I had to. My pulse raced as I thought about putting a plan together. If I gave up running, if I gave up hanging out with friends, if I gave myself over to this plan, I could earn more money. Maybe enough to send her to school. Or if she wouldn’t do that, maybe it would be enough to help us move out if she could find a job, too.
Feeling dizzy and energized and sorrowful, I stepped out of the bathroom. The door closed in my face and Olive put her hand on my shoulder. “Let’s get some breakfast, shall we?” I avoided looking at her face, afraid of what I’d see there. It was easier to evaluate a situation when you weren’t in it. I couldn’t be sure Aunt Olive would see the gray mixed in with the black and white.
I leaned against the rough brick wall of the middle school, the cool air snaking its way into my collar and cuffs. Fall in Indiana was unpredictable. One day could be sunny and warm, and it could snow the next. It was heavy jacket weather today, and my jacket was at home.
The door popped open and banged against the bricks to my side, a loud crack that rattled my ears. Students streamed out of the building, loud and energetic, happy to be free. Toward the end of the swarm of students, Abe emerged, head down. His hair was a little greasy. He hadn’t managed a shower last night or this morning, and he had the same clothes on as the day before. He’d refused Fay’s offer of a T-shirt, claiming people would be able to tell it was a girls’ shirt. I imagined that wearing the same clothes two days in a row was just as much of a social crime as wearing the wrong shirt. Middle school was terrible.
Abe looked up, squinting against the brightness of the afternoon sun, and spotted me. “Hey.” He didn’t seem surprised to see me, though I never picked him up from school. “Something else happened, didn’t it?”
I shook my head, taking in his upper lip, still swollen and pink on the left side. There might have been a blue tinge to it, too, but he looked away before I could study it more. “If something happened, I don’t know about it.”
He walked past me, toward home. I pushed off the wall and followed. “We’re staying at Fay’s again tonight. How about we make dinner for her and Aunt Olive?”
“Don’t you work tonight?”
“I called in.”
We walked in silence for a bit, our course not altered toward Fay’s. At the next intersection, I tugged his arm to turn, but he jerked it out of my grasp.
“Abe, did anybody…say anything?”
“About my lip, you mean?”
“Yeah. About your lip.”
“No. Not a word.” I sagged in relief, and then felt a rush of anger. Did no one pay any attention? Before I could think more about it, he continued, “You should have gone to work. You can still go. You know Heidi will just be doing the serving herself and she’ll be glad you’re there.”
“Why do you care so much if I go to work? Are you trying to get rid of me?” I hoped teasing him would at least get me a small smile.
He looked away from me.
“Abe?”
“Maybe I am trying to get rid of you.”
“Oh.” My eyes stung in surprise.
I saw his throat move as he swallowed. “When you’re at work, I don’t worry about you.”
It took a minute to get my mind around that. Our feet scraped the sidewalk as we passed the junk house with the porch covered in old furniture and appliances. “You worry about me?”
He looked at me, eyebrows knitted in bewilderment. “Of course I worry about you.”
“I worry about you, Abe. I’m the older sister; it’s my job to worry, not yours.”
“I’m the brother; it’s my job.”
“You’re not the big brother, you doofus. It’s only big brothers who have to look out for their little sisters.”
He scowled. He tucked his hands in his pockets. His backpack, which was slung over just one shoulder, slid down his arm and jerked to a stop where his wrist emerged from his pocket. He grunted and shoved it back up his arm. “Well, I think that’s stupid.”
“But Abe…”
“Don’t say it,” he practically begged. “I messed up last night and ruined your birthday and the whole thing was my fault. I usually do a lot better.”
“Better at what?” My feet stopped moving. Abe stopped, too, and stood facing me. I glanced to the house on my left, where an older lady swung in her porch swing, watching us.
“Come on. Let’s keep moving.”
When the lady was out of earshot, I pressed him. “What do you mean you usually do a lot better?”
“I don’t know. Just that I make sure to do whatever he says and don’t do all the stuff I know might annoy him. I keep him out of your way.”
“But Abe, that’s what I do for you.”
“Then we do it for each other.”
I looked at him in wonder. If I thought about it, there were plenty of times when Abe was responsible for smoothing over a situation at home. I’d always thought it was because of his natural charm, and his ability to put love in front of anger. “Listen, did you know Mom wants to take some classes and become a nurse?”
His eyes widened. “We should tell her not to do that. Dad won’t like it.”
“It’s not our job to make him happy, Abe. I think we should help her do it.”
“How could we help?”
“I’ve been thinking about that. Aunt Olive would be happy to share her car with Mom. Mom could drop her off at work, and then go to her classes.”
He turned to look at me, processing my idea. “But what about the money? School costs a lot of money.”
“Not too much, at the community college in Bakerstown. And I bet she can get a scholarship. I’ll look that up at the library. I’ll take on more shifts at Heidi’s, and give the money to Mom to help pay for it. Plus, if Mom takes classes in Bakerstown, she could get a part-time job there, if she doesn’t have classes all day long. I don’t really know how it works. We can figure it out. And you know what else?”
“What?”
“You are almost thirteen. High time you got a job.”
He seemed shocked. “What job could I do?”
“Malcolm and Paul were swamped with work this summer, and it’s not letting up over the fall. I bet they’d hire you to help them rake leaves and shovel snow from driveways this winter. Or you could wash cars. People hate having road salt on their cars in the winter. You could give that money to Mom.”
Abe looked forward, then tilted his head up to look at the trees. His chest followed, until his whole being stood proud. “I could do that.”
“Then Mom could get her degree and get a job that pays well enough to move out.” Abe’s head dropped, and a small gasp escaped from his lips. I put my hand on the back of his neck. “Or maybe not move out. She’d have more options, is what I’m saying.”
“I was thinking that if money wasn’t so tight, that would be one less thing for them to fight about,” he said.
“That is true,” I said. Strange as it was to think, it was no longer what I was hoping for. We turned onto our street, and stopped simultaneously, seeing the car parked out front—the car that had been at Fay’s when we left that morning. Dad must not have gone to work. I wondered if he and Mom had spent the day together.
“Am I stupid that I love him?” Abe asked, staring at the car.
“Of course not, Abe. I love him, too.”
“What if he says he’s sorry and I want to forgive him? Will you think I’m dumb then?”
“No, I won’t think you’re dumb. I’ve done that a lot of times before. Or maybe we’re both dumb.”
He smiled a little. “Yeah. And it was just a slap.”
I rubbed my chest where it still ached, had ached all day, the raindrop pendant pressing into my palm. I wished he would have hit me last night, instead of Abe. “He isn’t going to hit anyone ever again. I’ll make sure of it. We’ll just get through it, Abe. Before you know it, you’ll be eighteen and we’ll both get out of here.”
“I don’t want to get out of here.”
“You don’t?”
“No. I love Juniper. I’m always going to live here.”
We stood, staring at our silent, unassuming house. I had always assumed he wanted out, too. I didn’t know what to make of the fact that he didn’t.
“Come on. Let’s go to Fay’s,” I said.
“Mom might be inside.”
“Maybe, but you get to make different choices than she does.”
“I’ll have to talk to him eventually. I think I better get it over with.” He walked across the lawn. I thought about going to Fay’s on my own, but seeing him walk up the steps to the porch had me following. Maybe if I never let him be with Dad without me there, this wouldn’t happen again. I could take him away if things started getting out of hand.
Abe pushed open the door. Dad was waiting for us, sitting at the dining room table with his hands in his lap. He looked smaller; like he’d turned so far inward he was folding up on himself. He didn’t look scary. Mom heard us come in, and came to stand behind him. Dad opened his arms, his lips pressed together and his eyes watery.
A muscle jumped in Abe’s jaw, but it was Abe who bridged the space between them. Abe, as always, took that weight upon himself. He crossed the floor and put his arms around our father’s thin shoulders, and hugged him tight.