“Oh, Leah.”
“That was when they made an appointment for me with a therapist. After I threw away the ice trays. Like it was some cry for help or something, cleaning out the fridge. But you know what? I don’t think it was. It was just gross, and Mom and Dad were being depressed and lazy, and not talking at all, about anything. They had turned into ghosts, and ghosts don’t clean out refrigerators. Someone had to do it. I’d do it again.”
“I would too,” said Jasper, nodding. “I’d do the exact same thing.”
“I know you would,” I said.
Then Jasper leaned in, crossed the few inches between us. She leaned in and set her forehead against my forehead. Hairline to hairline. We stayed like that, for a minute.
“Thank you for telling me. I’m glad I know.”
“Me too,” I said, smiling a little, and sniffing. “I kind of can’t believe it.”
“You can’t believe that you told me?” asked Jasper.
“Yeah,” I said. “That. But also that I waited so long. It’s been a year. Almost a year. I’ve been waiting a long time to say it out loud. I think . . . maybe . . .”
“Maybe what?”
“I think maybe I thought it would make it real, to say it out loud. Make it true. Like if nobody else ever knew how it happened, knew the things I was thinking and feeling, it was like it didn’t really happen.”
“Yeah,” said Jasper.
“But the thing is,” I said, “it did happen the way I remember it, and I did look away, and nothing can ever make that untrue. So actually, I was keeping it all to myself. Like all the badness was just for me, inside me.”
Jasper nodded slowly, like she was thinking about what I’d just said. Like she was thinking about it hard. Then, suddenly, she sat straight up on the blanket and took a deep breath. She looked down at me, and I saw that there were tears in her eyes too. “You know, Leah,” she said, “it is not your fault.”
“I’m not sure I do know that,” I said. “But—”
“No,” said Jasper, shaking her head. “You’re wrong about this. You’re a kid and you didn’t do anything wrong. It is not your fault Sam died, and I know that for sure. For sure. I promise you.”
“Okay . . . ,” I said, sitting up too, and hugging my knees. Wanting to believe she was right.
“But also, I think that maybe it’s time I tell you a story. Okay?”
“Okay,” I said again. “I’m listening.”
Then Jasper took her deep breath, and opened her mouth, but at that very moment, I noticed something. I noticed that the sky wasn’t so dark anymore. There was pale gray light now, behind the trees. Thin, winking light, forcing its way through the fog and the leftover rain clouds.
“Oh, no, NO!” I said, pointing at the sky behind her. “Look!”
“What?” she asked. She turned.
“Jasper,” I said. “It’s morning!”
Far From Finished
I ran hard without stopping, and I was breathless when I reached my front yard. Panting as I tiptoed those last few feet up the porch steps. Maybe I could somehow sneak back in without being spotted. Maybe they’ll be in the shower, I thought. Maybe they’ll be running late.
No such luck. I could see them through the front window as I approached the door. They were sitting on the couch, side by side. Both of them staring straight at me as I reached for the doorknob.
I let myself in, my chest heaving, my face hot. I stood in the doorway. “Good . . . morning?”
Dad was already dressed for the day. His hair was wet, and I could see the tooth marks from his comb. Mom was in her robe. Her hair was tangled and crazy. She looked like she had the flu.
“Have a seat, Leah,” Dad said, like he was in some work meeting. He pointed to a chair.
I heard him, and I tried to move forward. I willed my feet to walk, but they wouldn’t obey. It was like I was frozen in the doorway, trying to catch my breath.
“Sit down.”
This time, I did. I unstuck my feet and stepped forward, took a seat in a chair across from them. Then, as my breathing returned to normal, Dad yelled and yelled. Mom just sat there, with her hand over her mouth. Like she was trying not to yawn, or trying not to cry. Maybe both. I don’t know. But Dad was on fire. It was like he hadn’t talked to me in a year, and now he wanted to use up all the words. He went on and on. All about how our relationship depended on trust, and I had broken that trust, and he wasn’t sure what it would take to earn it back, and if they couldn’t trust me, everyone’s life would become much less fun.
Fun? I thought. Is that what this has been? But I didn’t say it.
After a little while, Dad’s face was all red and Mom put a hand on his arm, and she took a turn. Like they were wrestlers, and she was tapping in now. She talked about how they weren’t mad at me—well, they were, but they were mostly just worried. She talked about how they were just trying to keep me safe. About how this was a scary age, thirteen.
“Lots of kids you know are going to be doing bad things,” said Mom. “We’re not idiots, Leah. We remember. We’re not the kind of parents who don’t know what goes on. We just want you to be honest with us. We don’t want you hiding, and sneaking, and lying. Can’t we be honest? Can’t we be friends?” Then she paused, as if she expected me to actually reply to that.
“Umm, okay?” I tried. Even though the moment didn’t feel especially friendly.
I was trying to think of what else I could possibly say when suddenly Dad stood, picked up his travel mug and phone from the coffee table, and said coldly, “This is far from finished, young lady. But I need to leave.”
Mom looked up quickly. “Paul?”
“I’m sorry, Rach. I have a meeting I can’t miss. We’ll have to finish this later. If you want to stay home, you should. But I . . . can’t.”
“But . . . ,” said Mom.
“I’m sorry,” said Dad, not sounding very sorry. “Life doesn’t stop because Leah decides to suddenly become a juvenile delinquent. People are counting on me. I have a job to do.”
“Yeah,” said Mom. “I know that.” Then she reached for her coffee mug on the table in front of her, and held it tightly in both hands, until the door shut with a click.
I looked at the mug. It read, I’d rather be smashing the patriarchy. Then I glanced up at Mom. Her face was angry, but somehow I could tell that she was more pissed at Dad than she was at me. Only I wasn’t sure what to do with that.
So I shrugged. “Toilet paper emergency,” I said.
“Not funny, Leah,” snapped Mom. Even though it kind of was.
Somewhere in my brain, beyond everything that was happening now, I wondered if she knew about the cornfield in the garage. I wondered if she knew why he was painting it. I wondered if Mom and Dad talked to each other, about real things. It was hard to know exactly who was lying, and exactly what about. Which was worse: a lie or a secret?
“Dammit,” said Mom, startling me. She took a deep breath. “Dammit, dammit, dammit. Where were you, Leah? What on earth were you doing, running around the streets in the middle of the night?”
“I was . . . at a friend’s house,” I said. It was the truth.
Mom frowned. “Does your friend have a name?”
“Jasper,” I said. “I told you about her, remember?”
“Yes,” said Mom. “Jasper, the new friend. The girl we still haven’t met. You went swimming. You painted her room.” Then she added, “I need to ask. Are you sleeping with her? Or maybe the two of you went to hook up with some boys together?”
“What?”
“Or drinking? Or drugs? Are you doing drugs with her?”
“Mom!” I said. “I’m thirteen.”
“Do you think we’re stupid? We know what can happen. We know what kids do. We aren’t fools. Kids younger than you are out there doing—”
“Mom.” I cut her off. “We were just talking. I don’t . . . sleep . . . with anyone. I’ve never even kissed anyone. Jeez. And I don�
��t do drugs. I’m not an idiot.”
“In the middle of the night, Leah? Why on earth would you sneak out for no reason, when you can see your friend anytime, all day long?”
“It just seemed . . . fun,” I said. “To be out at night.”
“Fun,” Mom repeated. “And what kind of parents does this girl have? To be fine with you showing up randomly at that time of night? If some kid showed up here at midnight, you can bet your ass I’d call her mother and check in.”
“It’s complicated,” I said, borrowing Jasper’s words. “I don’t know how to . . . explain.”
“Try,” said Mom.
“I want to, but—”
“Try!” shouted Mom suddenly, banging her cup down on the coffee table. There was a sharp crack, and the cup fell into two pieces, broken.
“Mom!” I said, jumping up.
I think she even surprised herself. Mom wasn’t a yeller or a smasher. I’m not sure I’d ever heard her shout like that in all my life. In that moment, it felt like she’d cracked. Broken, like the mug. We both stared at the handle in her hand and the other chunk of ceramic, now fallen off the table. There was coffee everywhere.
“I loved that mug,” she said under her breath.
“I did too,” I said.
Mom took a deep breath. “Okay, Leah. Let’s try this again. I want you to explain.”
She wasn’t even trying to clean up the mess. She was still clutching the handle, but there was no mug attached. It was just something to hold on to.
I stood there, staring down at my mother. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do. I’d sworn to Jasper I wouldn’t tell anyone about her situation, but nothing was making any sense at all. I wished I could see her, right now. I wished I could tell her about this mess. Ask her what to say.
“Mom,” I tried again. “I didn’t do anything bad, I swear. I was just . . .”
Mom looked like she was going to cry, but she sounded angry, not sad, when she suddenly said, “Give me your phone, Leah, now. I don’t want you scheming with this Jasper kid again until I’ve had a chance to meet her. And her parents.”
“I don’t have my phone on me. I forgot it when I went out.”
“Then go get it. And bring it here. And your laptop too. To begin with, you’ve lost screen privileges for the foreseeable future. I’m not sure what else.”
So I ran to get the phone from where I’d left it beside my bed, and my laptop from my desk. As I walked back to the living room, I checked the phone. Seventeen missed calls. One after another. All from Mom.
“Here,” I said, setting both devices down on the dry part of the table. “Mom. I’m sorry. But I swear, nothing bad happened. Nothing bad is happening.”
Tiredly, she shook her head at me. Like she was saying no to the apology and no to me and no to the broken mug and the puddle of cold coffee and everything else in the world. “Go to your room, Leah. Just go to your room.”
I nodded and turned to head off down the hall. But I only got about halfway to my room before I stopped and looked back at my mom. She was sitting with her head in her hands now. She wasn’t crying. She was frozen.
And I couldn’t do it, couldn’t slip away and let the room go silent. Couldn’t pretend things were fine when they weren’t at all. “Mom,” I called out. “It’s not fair. It’s not fair for you guys to only be my parents when you’re mad at me, but be ghosts the rest of the time.”
“What?” She lifted her head from her hands. There were tears in her eyes. “What did you just say to me? I want you to repeat that.”
“I . . .” I couldn’t stand the look on her face. It made my stomach ache. “I forget. I mean, I don’t know.”
“No,” she said coldly. “I don’t think you do know. Now go straight to your room.”
“Okay,” I said. And this time I did. I walked straight to my room and crawled into bed, fully dressed. I closed my eyes and disappeared.
In the Junk Drawer
When I woke up a few hours later, I didn’t quite remember everything that had happened. Maybe it was just too much for me, the crazy night with Jasper, followed by the fight with Mom and Dad. It felt like my brain had overloaded.
Then I looked down and realized I was still wearing my dirty clothes from the day before, and . . . bit by bit, memories began to wash over me. I lay still, sprawled and staring, trying to recall everything, to fit it all together. I thought about Jasper, back in the Vine Realm. Had she slept? She must have. If she was awake now, she was probably wondering what my parents had done to me. She was probably waiting for me to turn up. I wondered how long it would be before she came knocking on my bedroom window.
In the hallway beyond my door, I could hear Mom pacing in her ratty slippers. Every once in a while, she’d shuffle my way, stand outside the door to my room for a minute, as though she wanted to knock. But then she’d shuffle away again. I felt like I should call out to her, but I wasn’t sure what I could say that wouldn’t make things worse. I definitely didn’t know how to fix us. We were broken. Our family was cracked all the way through, like Mom’s dumb coffee mug.
I tried to force myself to go to sleep, but there was morning light streaming in my window, and as tired as I was, I only felt more awake, lying there. Finally, I did something I hadn’t done in years. I bent my knees, pivoted my body, and planted my feet on the wall beside my bed. One foot at a time, I walked up the wall, with my arms braced under my back, until my feet were up near the ceiling and my back was arched. It felt strangely good to be upside down. It also felt like I was a little kid again. Sam and I had done this together, back when we still shared a room. It had been a contest, to see who would fall first. Almost always, Sam lost, but he was such a good sport about it. I remembered how it felt to be upside down, my face turning red. I remembered telling Sam jokes, so that he’d laugh and fall first.
I let my back go limp and flopped down hard on the bed. Thunk and rattle . . . I sat up and peered around my room. What was I going to do all day? No phone. No computer. No TV. Nobody to talk to. Until who knows when. What was I going to do all day? Lie there, going crazy?
I got out of bed and changed into a clean pair of shorts and a fresh shirt. Then I wandered around for a minute, looking out the window, staring at the furniture, trying to think of something to do. At last, I walked over to the bookshelf, to see if there was anything I wanted to reread, but nothing looked good. Half the books were super old. Ivy & Bean. Toys Go Out. Baby books. I should have gotten rid of them by now.
I sat on the floor in front of my bookshelves, and one by one, I started to pull the little-kid books down and stack them. For a while I stayed distracted like that, leafing through the books as I sorted them. When I was finished, I only had two shelves of books left that I wanted to keep. Around me, the floor was covered with old paperbacks.
Next, I turned my attention to the walls, which were covered with posters and framed prints and other stuff that had been there forever. All of which suddenly seemed absurd to me. This room would never be the Vine Realm, but the unicorn cross-stitch Mom had made me when I was in kindergarten was an embarrassment. The Moana poster I’d saved up for and bought myself at the school book fair seemed totally ridiculous to me now. I walked across the room, tore down Moana, and folded her up until the folds were too thick and I couldn’t fold anymore. Then I shoved the poster in the trash. After that, I took down every piece of art and stacked it all on the floor, until the walls were bare and white, except for the streaks and scrapes and paint chips I had never noticed before.
I rummaged in my closet, and tossed every too-small sweater and shoe and pair of pants out onto the floor of my room. I tossed out my stupid yellow duck-suit pajamas. I tossed out the princess Halloween costume Mom had made me in second grade. Why was it still in there? When the closet was done, I moved on to my dresser. Old socks, threadbare tights, the jeans with a hole in the knee.
At some point, I noticed that while I’d been cleaning out the clutter, I’d
also been making a gigantic mess. For some reason, the piles of books and clothes made me want to scream, so I stripped the top sheet off my bed, laid it on the floor, and moved everything onto the sheet, building a mountain of castoffs in the middle. Then I rolled the sheet up, with all the stuff in it, like a big burrito of junk, and shoved it under my bed.
The only thing left to do now was my desk. So I sat in my swivel chair and gave myself a good quick spin before I reached down and opened all the drawers one at a time. Into the trash went dried-out markers and broken pencils. Half-used notepads and useless glue sticks.
Last of all, I reached to open my junk drawer. The place for everything that didn’t have a place. When I pulled on the handle, the drawer was still jammed, but then I took a ruler from my desk and wedged it into the slit at the top of the drawer, started shoving and ramming at the stuff inside until I felt something give and the drawer shot open.
I peered inside warily. It was stuffed to the top, and I was a little afraid there might be sharp objects, rotting food. But after a minute, slowly, I began to pull everything out. One object at a time. I couldn’t remember why I’d saved most of them in the first place. Corks and acorns and binder clips. Rocks I’d found in places I could no longer recall. Seven pairs of cheap plastic sunglasses, swag from booths at the East Atlanta Strut, and three totally deflated but still tied balloons at the ends of sad ribbons. Two strands of cheap purple beads. Wrappers from lunchbox cookie packs that I was only ever supposed to take for lunch but sometimes stole from the kitchen and snuck into my room to munch on late at night. I found a two-year-old permission slip from a field trip to the planetarium. And all of these things—every single one—went into the trash can under my desk.
Then I found it. At the bottom of the drawer, in the lower right-hand corner.
My Jasper June Page 13