“It’s Xanax,” Robert says. “For anxiety.”
I tear my eyes off my wrists long enough to glare at him. “What are you still doing here?”
“Jo,” he pleads, orphan eyes as he sniffs back blood. But then says nothing. Does nothing.
Gran pulls me close to her and the déjà vu-ness of it gives me goose bumps, picturing myself on her lap that day as the cops swarmed our house. Robert backing away, admitting defeat so easily—back then, and today too. Some things never change.
“Get the hell out of here!” I shout.
“But—” His eyebrows pinch. “What about the mural?”
“She asked you to leave,” Grandpa booms, angrier than I’ve ever heard him.
Robert flinches, nose raw and cartoonish, eyes brimming with feigned affection. Definitely feigned, though. I know that now, and I make my expression hard and fierce in response.
“All right,” he finally says. With a nod, he turns to leave. Gran and Grandpa watch him stagger down the gravel path, but I can’t.
“I’m sorry,” I say into my hands. And I’d say it again but I’m bee-stung to my core, the porch spinning around me. “I really need that pill. Will you give it to me?”
Gran snatches the bottle from Grandpa and reads the label again, tucking it in her pocket without unscrewing the cap. She leads my rigid body back into the house.
“Wait—the pill,” I shout, but she only shakes her head.
“Honey, you don’t need it.” She gently pats my back. “I’d rather we work it out together.”
The thought of it sends my breath into hyperspeed. She can’t do this to me; I can’t do this alone. She shows me slow, steady breaths and I try. Mostly I hyperventilate, but I try. Fail. Keep trying. We go into the living room, and she reaches for the TV remote.
“How about a distraction?”
“No, don’t.”
I can tell I’m frustrating her, and I’m sorry. But my heart is on fire, and this might never, ever end and—it’s dumb, but, like—I don’t want TV to be associated with this belowground feeling. She lets go of the remote and starts giving my neck this cloying, knobby-fingered massage.
“Stop,” I pant. “It’s not working. Nothing’s working.”
“Well, why don’t you tell me what will work?”
“Don’t yell at me!”
“She’s not,” Grandpa says from the doorway. “We aren’t sure what to do.”
“I don’t know either!”
I feel trampled beneath my beating heart. Hyperaware of the sofa cushions against my skin, the hum of overhead lights. Gran keeps breathing, so I try again. Fail. Try. Somehow, one minute ticks by. Two … three …
Gran’s eyes get this soft Bambi quality, and she starts to hum one of her favorite church hymns. One hymn, then another. Dizzy heat erupts through me, then dulls. She keeps humming, and I start to notice my heart slowing. Another minute goes by. Two … three … I’m nearing the last lap of the race.
I inhale a wave of panic, surf it for a second, and then let it go. “I’m sorry.”
“Hush,” Gran says. “It’s going to be okay.”
I nod, trying to believe her, wondering if she means the panic attack or my whole messed-up, fatherless, motherless life. Because it’s over. After months of secrets and stories and maybe-I-thought-but-I-guess-I-was-wrong love, it’s … finished. I exhale, and I remind myself that this feels right. Me plus the two of them is how it is supposed to be. We are a family. Not him.
After a while, when I’m finally breathing right, I start to talk. They don’t force it—maybe don’t want to hear it at all—but I tell them. Everything. My poor grandparents, still in their church clothes, reeking of God and faith and disappointment. Gran’s hand goes over her mouth when I admit that Robert and I have been in contact this whole time, even after my promise to cut ties. Coffees, phone calls, late-night texts.
They’re quiet at first, contemplating, then Grandpa clears his throat, almost reluctantly. “Did it bring back anything from the accident—learning about your mother?”
A dust storm blows through me. All the nights I’ve lain awake, picturing my childhood as a movie trailer, wondering what’s real or imaginary. Mom’s arms around me, golden sunlight streaming through white curtains. Me, sliding off the bed in search of a doll, a ball, a book. Not in the closet, not in the hamper, but what’s that catching light under the bed?
Nothing’s ever concrete.
I quickly shake my head, ashamed for my amnesia.
But Gran says, “Thank goodness,” and relief seems to swell within her. “Thank the Lord you don’t remember.”
“I wish I did.”
“You don’t,” she says. Urgently, passionately, which really pushes my rage button.
“I’m not saying I’d be better off if I’d grown up remembering all the gory details, but if you’d given me something, maybe I would have listened when you told me to stay away from Robert. You kept on pretending, even after you knew I knew. I don’t get it.”
Gran nods, fumbling with the tissue in her hand. “I know it seems cruel, but it’s so much more complicated than you make it sound. This has been hard for us. Amanda’s death was a secret for so long, and I …”
Grandpa clears his throat, squinting toward the ceiling. “Some people can always find their way back home,” he says softly—which means what exactly? But I don’t interrupt. “No matter how long you’ve been away, those old familiar roads come back to you. But we couldn’t find our way back to that time.” He pauses, sad eyes meeting mine. “JoJo, you’re young. Got your whole life ahead of you. The thing is, when you get older, things that happened in the past, they get hazy. We came up with that car accident story such a long time ago. Moved to a new town, met new people, and we told that story over and over again. We rooted ourselves in that version until it was a part of us.”
I let the bizarre poetry of his words sink in. “Are you saying you forgot?”
“Of course we didn’t,” Gran snaps, but there’s guilt in her sigh. “We simply lost the language to talk about it. The truth was so painful. That first year, especially, was one of the hardest I’ve ever been through. For weeks after Amanda’s death, you’d ask for her, and it broke my heart. But the doctors said there was a good chance you wouldn’t remember the trauma. So, we waited to see what you’d say about that day, if anything. And then you asked about her less and less. The nightmares stopped, and you started to seem like your old sweet self again.”
“But what about now?” I ask. “I mean, I get that you didn’t want to ‘go back there’ or whatever, but what about me? What about what I’ve been going through? Couldn’t you tell I was hurting?”
“Oh, baby.” Her voice breaks. “Believe me when I tell you, it’s only ever been about protecting you. Maybe we tried too hard, and maybe we did it wrong, but we committed to keeping those memories away, just like the doctors said.”
“Repressed memory,” Grandpa adds, summoning a long-forgotten word.
“That’s right,” Gran says. “Repressed memory. You unconsciously blocked the events of her death, and we worked hard to keep it that way.”
“But you didn’t just repress the memory of her death,” I cry. “You repressed everything. You erased her. You threw her away.”
“Oh, Lord.” Gran covers her mouth, choking on tears. “It was selfish, keeping her from you. I see that now. But Amanda was my baby. Losing her was—a mother shouldn’t have to bury her own child.”
My body rattles as I cry. Because, holy shit, how could I do it? How could I make her bury her own daughter?
“Hey now, don’t cry,” Grandpa says, patting my knee across the coffee table. “There was a break in the clouds. We got you. God gave us a second chance at a family.”
He’s trying to be nice, but it only makes my heart twist and burn. I ruined their first chance, and I’m ruining this one too. All they want is a family, and I keep finding ways to screw it up.
“I’m so
sorry I took her away from you,” I whisper. “I’m sorry for all of it.”
Gran shakes her head fiercely. “Don’t you ever apologize for that. Not ever.”
“It’s Robert who should be apologizing.” Grandpa’s fingers graze his bruised knuckles. “Damn that man for coming back.”
“We should have known better,” Gran says, “but he gave you up so easily. I wish he’d kept away and let you grow up in peace.”
So easily. He didn’t fight for me, not even then. Maybe it’s fact, but it still stings. I lower my gaze, unable to meet their shame-filled eyes any longer. My brain aches, unsure what to say next. I want to keep pushing them. Keep torturing them for hiding this from me … but maybe they’ve been through enough. Maybe we all have.
“Y’know—” Gran pauses, eyes darting down the hall. “We have some things of Amanda’s. Odds and ends, mostly. Books and things. Grandpa will bring them in from the shed.”
My heart leaps, dipping just as quickly. “You’ve had her stuff all this time?”
“Well, we didn’t know what to do with it.” She laughs defensively. “I threw so much away when we first moved. Couldn’t bear the smell of her on her clothes. But we held on to some. I guess a part of me thought you wouldn’t find it until later.”
I almost ask, but later clearly means after we die, and this conversation is already bleak enough. Instead, I hug her. For the odds and ends. For the truth. For feeling close to her for the first time in months. She squeezes back, smelling of sugar and Earl Grey and everything I love about her stubborn-ass self.
Magic whimpers from the doorway, wanting to be walked.
“I’ll take him,” Grandpa says, joints creaking as he stands.
I should probably offer, but I’m so worn out. I feel lighter, though, too.
I yawn, and Gran squeezes my knee. “Why don’t you have a lie down?”
“I’m not tired,” I say, but really, it’s that I don’t want her to leave.
“I’d better go do some dinner prep,” she says.
Knowing Gran, she’s going to be guilt-cooking till the end of time, but before she can leave, I grab her hand. Even though my friends will hear all about this later, for now, I want things to be the way they used to with Gran. I want to feel safe, like on sick days when we’d spend all day together. The way I’d curl into her on the couch, tucked into the crook of her arm, watching movies or reading aloud from Baby Island—one of her childhood favorites, also one of mine, maybe Mom’s, too.
“Wait,” I say, voice small. “Can we hang out for a while?”
“Still feeling anxious?”
I nod, and she settles back down, coaxing my head toward her chest. She rocks me for a minute, then pulls back. “Sweetheart, where did you get those pills?”
“What?”
“The little pink ones. From your backpack.”
“Oh.” I pause, but the lying part of my brain feels broken. “They’re from Milo.”
“Who’s Milo? It said Daniel on the label.” Her eyebrows rise as she gasps. “Oh my Lord, are they drug dealers? Is that what this secret has done to you? Turned you into a—”
“Gran, stop it!” I shriek, feeling my cheeks burn. “I swear I’m not a drug addict. I took one Xanax, once. Daniel is his dad; they’re his pills. Milo’s my—” The b-word freezes on my lips. I’d never had a b-word before, and I never imagined this conversation stemming from a bottle of prescription pills, but: “He’s my boyfriend.”
Gran hiccups. I’m afraid to look at her, but when I do, it’s kind of sweet. The way her brain goes all Rubik’s Cube-y at the thought of it. Blushing, nose pinched. It makes me wonder about Mom, and how Gran reacted to her first boyfriend.
“You’re going to like him,” I add. “He’s been there for me a lot.”
“And I’m sorry I haven’t,” she says, then hesitates. “If I could go back …”
The way she trails off, I’m not sure how far back she’s talking. A few months, to when we lost each other? Or all the way back? I picture them visiting my mother in California—sitting in their hotel room, maybe out for a walk—getting that phone call. A police officer telling her there’d been an accident, that they couldn’t reach my father and someone needed to come for the baby. How it must have destroyed her.
“You okay?” Gran asks. When I don’t answer, she squeezes me tighter. “I think you should talk to someone.”
“What?”
“You know—” She swallows. “A professional.”
“You mean a shrink?”
“A therapist, yes. It doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you,” she adds quickly. “It’s something we should have offered you a long time ago.”
I bite my lip, thinking of Jenny Ireland. It sounds kind of good, actually.
“If you want,” Gran says cautiously, “I’ll go with you. When you’re ready. So much of this is my fault.”
Her fault.
Not that Gran accepting blame justifies anything or feels like vindication. I’m still mad. And hurt and guilty and confused and really, really tired. But hearing her say that? I don’t know. It makes it a little more bearable. Makes me wonder if this could be the beginning of something better.
“Just something to consider,” she says after a minute.
“I’ll think about it,” I say quietly.
But my mind is already made up.
39
Robert texts me around 7 a.m. on Monday, asking if I’ll meet him outside before school. I get dressed in a daze. Almost forgetting a bra, nearly mismatching my shoes, not sure how to reply. When I do decide to open the front door, he rises tentatively from the porch swing.
“I won’t come in,” he says. “I’m here to say goodbye.”
I glance over my shoulder. Gran’s in the kitchen, experimenting with tofu sausage. Maybe she’ll kill me, but I grab my purple hoodie and slide through the door anyway, keeping a comfortable distance. His nose is swollen, a shadow of dull purple making a home for itself below his left eye.
“If you still want me to forgive you, that ship has sailed.”
He shakes his head. “I never should have said that. It was selfish; you’re right. The truth is, I have honestly loved getting to know you. You’re this cool seamstress who’s obsessed with old music. You’re funny. And smart. And beautiful. And I didn’t think it would be possible to love you so much.” He pauses, eyes moist and severe. “I love you, Jo. I needed you to hear me say that.”
I slide the sweatshirt zipper up over my heart. “It’s too late.”
“Okay.” He nods. “Okay. But I—”
The front door swings open, and Gran shoots out like there are fireworks in her pants. She takes in Robert’s banged-up face and then raises the cordless phone to her ear. “Thanks for the call, Tina. You were right.”
My eyes narrow, shooting across the street toward Steve’s house.
Gran ends the call, waving the cordless phone at Robert as if it’s full of mace. “This time I will call the police.”
He hooks his thumb toward the street. “I’m leaving this morning. There’s my car. Bags packed. I wanted to say goodbye to my daughter. Please, Kate.”
“Not on your life, you son of a—”
“Gran!” I yelp. “It’ll only take a second. I won’t leave the porch.”
Anger concentrates itself in her eyes. She scowls at Robert one last time and then nods, a smile softening for me as she heads back into the house. The door stays open, though.
“Thanks,” he says.
I shrug, arms folded.
He stares silently into my eyes like he needs to memorize them.
“Is that all?” I demand. “Because I have to get ready for school.”
I should turn and slam the door, but suddenly he’s covering his eyes with his hands, tears whooshing out alongside a thousand apologies. “I never should have done this to you,” he wails. “Not just the gun—God knows I shouldn’t have done that. But coming back here. That first day
, when you thought Mandy had been in a car accident? I’m so sorry I didn’t go along with it. I should have come to my senses, but instead, I upended your life. I’m sorry, Jo. I know you won’t forgive me—and it was stupid to ask—but please know how infinitely sorry I am. I never meant to hurt you.”
His arms shoot around me, tight and strong and squeezing the life out of me. It makes me cry, hating how much I need this. To feel like at least part of what we had was real. Because we did laugh together, shared stories, played stupid computer games. Those things have to mean something. They have to. Because of that, I let him hug me for too long, knowing it might—hoping it won’t—be the last time.
When I get the guts to push away, he looks wounded.
“You have to go,” I choke. “I’m not ready to forgive you. I don’t know if—”
“It’s okay,” he whispers. “You don’t have to. But know that I’m here for you, if you ever need me. I love you, Joey. I never stopped.”
With a final, somber smile, he races across the lawn to his car and slams himself inside. My tears create polka-dot stains on the cold wooden porch. I can’t move, but I might fall, so I grab onto the porch railing to steady myself. A trail of exhaust wheezes from his tailpipe, and then, that’s it. He’s gone.
I’m pathetic for watching the empty street, but I let myself do it.
Even after Gran calls me back in, even after she physically has to escort my flimsy body back into the house, the empty street is all I can see. Broken daydreams of Houston, of French toast and late-night chats. Gran leads me to my bedroom, tucking me gently under the covers, wiping my tearstained cheeks. Before she leaves, she kisses my forehead, because there’s nothing left to say.
• • •
Gran lets me skip school in favor of sleep, and when I wake up, I almost can’t remember why there’s a cardboard box on my floor.
But it’s the box—as in the box—full of odds and ends, as promised. I rub my eyes, peeling back the covers as I slide onto the floor beside it. A layer of orange New Mexico dust clings to the top. I blow it off with a soft puff of air. The tape across the lid has long since lost its stickiness and the flaps open easily. I want everything, but I want to savor it too, so I only grab the rubber-banded stack of CDs. Which almost gives me goose bumps because, I mean, music is the window to the frigging soul, right?
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