What Holds Us Together

by Sandi Ward

  “You don’t have to say it’s okay if it’s not.” Annika’s voice is nearly a whisper. “I’m a terrible single parent. I’m truly a complete failure. The worst mom in the history of the world.”

  “You are?” Sam chuckles. “Yeah, okay. I know that’s not true. I’m sure you’re better than you think. You were always great at everything.” He studies her. “You still look the same. You look amazing. It’s like no time has gone by at all.”

  Annika shakes her head. There’s a flush on her face and gleam in her eye. “That’s not true. That can’t possibly be true. But thank you. It’s nice of you to say.” She sighs. “I just wish I wasn’t so tired all the time. Do you feel that way, too?”

  “Sure. My knee is about ready to fall apart. My back gets sore. But getting older isn’t all bad. There’s good stuff, too. I feel more relaxed when things don’t go my way. Problems don’t bother me like they used to. I’ve got a lot more perspective.” Sam tips his head. “Man. I was really crazy about you. I’m still mad at my dad for sending me away after the accident. I mean, I guess he had to do it. But I was never happy about it.”

  My whiskers tingle as I watch Sam. He’s growing on me. At first I thought he looked like a scruffy hobbit or something. But he does have a certain charm. I appreciate the way he admires my woman. Maybe he’ll turn out to be like a frog who turns into a handsome prince.

  Of course, I have an overactive imagination. I’m perfectly aware of that.

  Annika looks him over. “A lot of time has gone by. It’s time to forgive your dad.”

  “I know, but . . .” He pauses, looking down at Annika’s hands, perhaps studying the way her diamond ring reflects the light. “It killed me to leave you. I never stopped thinking about you.”

  “Sam?”

  He considers her for a moment.

  She considers him back.

  When he leans forward, she waits for him to come to her and embraces him in a hug. Relief washes over Annika’s face and she looks radiant, with her arms thrown around him. They sit that way for a good minute, while wind batters and shakes the house, and a draft of cold air floods down the chimney. The floorboards above us creak as the twins walk from one room to the next. And the next thing I know, Sam has turned his head, and his mouth is near hers, and I think he is going to kiss her.

  What? My tail twitches with surprise.

  I suppose that is, in fact, how you turn a frog into a prince. With a kiss. If I’m being literal about it.

  “Wait, wait.” She puts a hand on his shoulder.

  “Annie.”

  “You left me.”

  “No, my dad sent me away.”

  “Because of what you did.”

  His eyes study her face. “I know. Sweetheart, believe me, I’ve thought about it so many times.” He strokes her hair, and she lets him hold her, although she now seems skittish, like a bird about to take flight.

  “Sam, it was awful. I’m relieved you forgive me. I can’t even tell you how glad I am, but now . . .”

  “Don’t worry about all that. If you need me, I’m here. If you need someone. You don’t have to be alone.”

  She shakes her head. “It wasn’t fair,” she whispers. “It wasn’t fair what you did.”

  My whiskers spread. What in the world did he do?

  “I’m sorry. Do you think we could—” He sighs. “Could we pick up where we left off?”

  “Left off?” She pulls away, and he lets her go. “No. Sam, Peter just died.”

  “Sixteen months ago.”

  “Yes, but . . . I’m not staying in Manchester. The kids and I need to move on. I’m only here for another month or two.”

  “That’s all?” He frowns. “No, you should stay. Stay a while. Don’t you like it here?”

  Annika takes in a quick breath. “I don’t know if I do.” She stands, looking suddenly startled, as if coming out of a deep sleep and surprised to find herself here. “Sam, I can’t. Too much has happened.”

  “But, sweetheart, I want—”

  “Don’t call me sweetheart. You just can’t. My kids will hear it, and . . .” Her head swivels right and left, as if she’s afraid someone is watching. “I have to go to bed. You and Danny can make yourselves at home on the couches. There are a bunch of throw blankets folded up on the footstool in the front room. Good night.”

  Well! She retreats, and I trot after her. I’m glad she came to her senses.

  * * *

  Annika goes to each of the twins, in their separate rooms, to explain that the men are stuck and must stay overnight. Donovan accepts the news stoically and turns away from his mother to face the wall. Delilah seems to find it exciting, eyes bright, as if this is all a great adventure.

  As she’s getting into bed, Annika grabs a photo of Peter from her nightstand and kisses it. At bedtime, Peter usually took off his prosthetic leg, settled down in bed, and threw his arm over her, and the two of them fell asleep right away curled up in a ball.

  I nestle behind her knee. We loved Peter, and we miss him. I’ll do my best to keep Annika warm, but it’s never really enough. It can’t ever be enough.

  February 1987

  ANNIKA

  As I fall asleep, I think about the second time Sam got arrested. This time, it was in fact my fault.

  I didn’t realize how much trouble he was going to get into. And I didn’t expect him to lose his temper. Sometimes, when you’re hurtling toward love at breakneck speed, you make mistakes.

  * * *

  “It’s snowing!” Dana runs up to me at recess and twirls around in a circle. I’m sure she’s freezing, but she loves wearing the acid-washed jean jacket her mom bought her at the mall even though it has no lining. At least she’s got on the hand-knitted mittens I gave her for her birthday—pink and orange stripes, her favorite colors.

  I’ve got on my high-top sneakers. There’s four inches of snow on the grass from last week, but the school staff has shoveled and sanded the blacktop pretty well. Still, I would have worn boots if I had known that it was going to snow again and we were going to get kicked out of the cafeteria.

  We were ejected because our grade was causing mayhem. The weather’s been freezing cold, and most of us are still waiting to hear from colleges, so the seniors are getting stir-crazy. Everyone was on the verge of a food fight, with a couple of kids from band lobbing ketchup and mustard packets at each other. So the vice principal ordered us to go outside for twenty minutes to “get the crazies out,” as he put it.

  Dana laughs. “I love it. More snow.” She has a dark mole on her left cheek, which matches her glossy black hair and stands out against her pale skin. Like everyone else, she looks older this year. Her face has taken on a new seriousness now that she has lost her baby fat and her acne has cleared up. She’s also become a grade-A flirt.

  The new blond kid is just walking by and Dana waves wildly at him to get his attention. “Peter! Guten tag!”

  He smiles and walks over. I’ve noticed Peter has got a great smile, kinda flashy and crooked. And when I say that I’ve noticed, I don’t mean that I’m, like, taking notes in a journal or anything. I just mean that over the past few months I’ve started to realize that I get a good feeling when Peter smiles. It’s as if he’s got this great secret he’s hiding, but it’s something he’s not ready to share yet.

  “Hi, Dana. Hi, Annika.” He’s got his hands shoved deep in the pockets of his expensive winter jacket. “Guten tag.”

  We both laugh. We still love that he’s got a real German accent, to die for, and always demand that he speak it to us. I feel like we don’t know Peter as well as we should, because it’s senior year and we’re sentimentally focused on our oldest friendships. In some other circumstance, we’d probably know him better by now.

  But I do know that Peter’s a nice kid. In art class, we got paired up to draw portraits. Peter told me he was terrible at faces, so he was going to try something a little different. When he drew me, he had me face away from him, and pu
t great detail into sketching the braids hanging down my back. I was surprised how much I loved it, and I asked him if I could keep it.

  “I showed my mom the sketch you made of me,” I tell him. “She thought it was so good she wants to have it framed.”

  “Really? Wow. That’s cool.” He looks down at the ground, as if checking out my sneakers, and then up again. From the way his gaze finds mine, I can tell he’s just acting coy. He’s not really a shy person.

  “You can draw better than you said you could. You told me you were awful.”

  “I’m not that good,” he says with a shrug. “I just got lucky on that one.”

  “No, it was excellent. I think you have talent.”

  “I think so, too!” Dana chimes in. She bounces on her toes, practically shimmering with enthusiasm. “That drawing was amazing.”

  “Thanks.” He looks back at me. “Well, of course, I had a beautiful subject to draw, so that probably made it easier.”

  I laugh. “Peter! Honestly. That’s not true. I only braid my hair because it’s usually a mess of tangles, and I’m trying to keep it out of my face.” It occurs to me that I’ve never learned how to accept a compliment.

  He smiles back at me. “You know, I could make another sketch of you. If you want. We could sit in the art room, or wherever, and I could give it another try—”

  “Annie,” someone calls out, and we all look. Sam is just coming out of the school.

  At the same time, a group of boys call Peter over from the edge of the tennis court. He tosses his head to get his bangs out of his eyes and gives us a quick salute. “Sorry, girls. Gotta roll.” He looks at me and then nods at Dana. “Tschüss.”

  “Auf wiedersehen,” Dana sings as he walks off. We watch him go for a moment. “You know,” she says, turning to me, “I can imagine him as a cute ski instructor at a mountain in Vermont. Can’t you see it?”

  I laugh. “Yeah, maybe.”

  “Come back! I want you to tschüss with me,” she calls out, but he’s out of earshot already. Thank God.

  I turn as Sam approaches with a Styrofoam cup. Now that it’s winter, Sam has traded in his varsity jacket for a navy peacoat, which he told me was a hand-me-down from his brother Danny. One of the buttons is missing, and I have to fight the urge to reach out and pull the loose string. “I got you a hot chocolate from the cafeteria. The lunch ladies are being nice because it’s Valentine’s Day and they’re giving out free drinks.”

  “Thanks.” I take it from him carefully, afraid it might slip from my bulky mittens.

  “I love a man bearing gifts,” Dana says. She puts her hands on her hips. “So, where’s mine? Thanks a lot, Sam.”

  He shrugs and looks down at the blacktop. “Sorry. They only gave me one.”

  I peel the lid off the cup and steam pours out into the cold air. The scent of the chocolate is rich and sweet, and when it mixes with the crisp aroma of snow in the air I could almost faint from happiness. I press the lid back on to keep it warm. “This smells so good. Thanks.”

  Sam nods. He watches me, putting a hand out in case I need help balancing the cup.

  Dana looks at me, then at Sam, and tosses her head. “Fine. Whatever. It’s fine. So I’m gonna . . . I’m gonna go get my own hot chocolate. I’ll be back.” She stomps off.

  Dana’s current theory is that Sam is going to ask me out any day now, so I guess she’s trying to give us some privacy. I’ve already told her that’s not possible. I’m sure he thinks I’m a total geek.

  But Sam has been awfully nice to me lately. That I can’t deny. Maybe he’s just being mature and polite now that he’s a senior, in addition to being an inch taller than last year.

  He’s actually not just taller. He also has nice posture. And I have to admit I agree that he does have a kissy mouth, as my sister likes to remind me.

  Not that I want to kiss Sam. I mean, not that I’d mind kissing him. By which I mean, if he kissed me first, and it was really amazing, which I’m sure it would be, then yes, I would kiss him back. I think about that a lot, actually.

  Oh, boy. I think I’m in trouble.

  “I made you something,” he says as soon as Dana is gone. He pulls a cassette tape out of his pocket. “I know you hate classic rock. But these are great songs, the best songs I could think of, my top ten. I taped them off the radio. Maybe this will change your mind.”

  I have to juggle to get the hot chocolate into my left hand, so I can grab the tape with my right. I’m starting to regret wearing these mittens. “It’s not going to work,” I warn him. “You’re fighting a losing battle. You’re not going to win me over. Unless the B-52’s are on here.”

  He blinks once, slowly. A snowflake lands on his eyelashes and he shakes his head. “Listen. Here you’ve got some Kansas, Boston, Rolling Stones, AC/DC, and a bunch of other stuff that an educated person like yourself should probably be aware of.”

  I hold the tape away from me a bit, as if it might be contaminated. “Okay. Sounds . . . interesting.” I’m not convinced, but I’m willing to give it a listen. “How’s your dad doing, by the way?”

  Sam shrugs with one shoulder. “He’s okay, but not back to work yet. My mom’s spending all her time taking care of him. So they’re stressed out, you know?”

  “What about your brothers? Are they helping out?”

  He bats another snowflake from his cheek. “Not a lot. Danny’s away at college. My oldest brother, Greg, has his own stuff to worry about. My sister Andi lives at home right now, but she’s getting married this summer. Everyone’s busy, and I’m just in the way. I’m sure my parents wish they were rid of me already.” He shuffles his feet. “My dad thinks I can’t do anything right. Anyway, what do they need me for? They already had two boys, and then two girls. I think I was a mistake. Obviously they couldn’t afford to have me.”

  “Oh.” I’ve never heard Sam say anything like that before. I guess that despite having a big family, Sam must feel alone sometimes. “You need a hug or something?”

  He slowly breaks into a smile. “Yeah, I do.”

  I wasn’t expecting that answer.

  “Hold on.” I place the hot chocolate down on the pavement and balance the cassette tape on top of it. When I straighten back up, Sam is waiting and he reaches out and hugs me. And this is how I find myself in a huge embrace with Sam Parsons, in the middle of the school day on the blacktop outside the gym, on Valentine’s Day in a snow shower. Which is romantic, no matter what way you look at it, even if we’re just friends. He buries his face in my hair, and I give him a squeeze. I hope I’m doing this right, because I’d be embarrassed if I weren’t. He holds me tight, and I try to give him a real, comforting, adult-like hug, using one hand to rub his shoulder blade. I hang on tight for a moment, feeling good and gushy as I press against him, like my insides are melting. When he lifts his head, he looks right at me before letting go, and HOLY COW, no one has ever looked at me like that. His eyes are so sweet and his face is a little flushed from the intensity of it. So that’s something incredible right there.

  Dana’s suddenly back, and she clears her throat. “Hey, guys,” she says, looking at us and then looking away.

  “Hi.” I lean down to grab my hot chocolate and cassette tape from the ground.

  “Annie, I . . . I’ll talk to you later,” Sam says, heading off to go find his friends, I guess.

  “Later,” I call out after him.

  “Well. That was an abrupt departure. I thought he was about to kiss you. Sorry I scared him off.” Dana sips her hot chocolate and winces. “Ugh. This is so hot. I just burned my tongue.”

  “I’m sure it wasn’t you. And I’m sorry you burned your tongue.” I haven’t even started mine. Some of the heat seeps through my thick mitten and I feel my fingers warming up.

  She glances at my hand. “Is that what I think it is? He made you a mixtape?”

  I nod. I know what she’s going to say. “It’s just some rock songs. It’s not, like, love songs or something.
”

  “Doesn’t matter.” She pushes her hair back from her face and tucks a strand behind her ear. “He gave it to you on Valentine’s Day. Think about it. And now you’re getting all huggy together.” She squeals. “Ooh, you guys are so sitting in a tree. Soon enough you’ll be K-I-S-S-I—”

  “Shut up,” I say with a laugh.

  Just then, I see Lisa walking toward us. She’s wearing the hood of her coat up, the fur trim hiding her forehead, and I realize that’s a good idea. I can’t believe I’ve been letting the snow land in my hair. I’m going to look like a drowned rat later. I pop my own hood up. “Hey, Lisa.”

  “Was that Sam?” She looks over my shoulder. “Why was he hugging you?”

  A strong scent hits me, and I realize she’s just come from the smoking area around the corner. “No reason. It’s just that his dad has been sick. It’s nothing.”

  “Yeah, I know his dad is sick. That doesn’t mean you should throw yourself at him. So . . .” Her eyes dart back and forth. “What’s up with the tape?”

  “This?” I shove it in my coat pocket. “It’s a tape of the holiday band concert. From Mark Tindall. He thought I might want to hear it, since I missed the concert. Whatever. Maybe I’ll listen to it later.”

  “So why’d Sam give it to you?”

  Good question. For once, Lisa is being very perceptive. Luckily, Dana comes to my rescue.

  “He was delivering it for Mark, because Mark likes to hang out in the band room instead of coming outside,” Dana insists, in a tone that leaves no room for discussion.

  “Super. Mark is such a dork.” Lisa shrugs and turns to me. “You know what would be fun? If you went with Mark to prom, and I went with Sam.”

  I nod. “Sure. That would be totally fun.” I glance around, desperate to change the subject. I don’t love lying to Lisa about how I feel about Sam . . . although I have, several times lately. I always feel like she’s fishing for information, and no matter what I tell her, she’s not very nice about it.

  “Where’d you come up with that idea?” Dana asks Lisa, suspicious.