A Boy a Girl and a Ghost

by Robert J. McCarter

  I blink and then let out a sigh, I had been holding my breath. I’m confused as to what’s going on, but it’s clear that this is important to her. And even through the shock of my own problems, I am starting to get that. She doesn’t bring people here, but she brought me.

  I straighten up and take a deep breath. “Yes, Helena. You can count on me.”

  She gives me a small smile and takes my hand, leading me into the room.

  The woman looks old, with grey hair and stooped shoulders. She’s facing away from me when I first enter the room. She’s sitting at a table in front of the room’s one window, sunlight illuminating the jigsaw puzzle she’s working on.

  She’s got a tan sweater on with a blue scarf wrapped around her neck. The room is nice enough. It’s got a single bed against one wall, a closet on another wall, a dresser with lots of pictures on top of it, and some framed art on the wall depicting ocean scenes.

  “Mama,” Helena says, and the woman pauses, carefully puts the puzzle piece she was holding down, and turns.

  She’s not as old as I first thought, her grey hair seeming somewhat out of place with her face. It’s lined, but like someone in their fifties, not in their seventies. Her skin, though, is grey, and her brown eyes dull.

  Mama? But Helena had told me her mother had gone crazy and hanged herself. Who is this?

  The woman’s eyebrows furrow as she looks from Helena to me and back to Helena. “What!” she says, rising from her chair and marching straight up to Helena, her face pinched. “Is it Sunday already? I… I… thought it was Thursday or Friday, but not Sunday…. Did I… Oh…” The woman stammers, her jaw quivering as she talks and stares at her fingers, counting on them.

  “No, Mama. Everything’s fine. It is Thursday, you were right. You know what day it is.”

  The woman scratches at her cheek and then her eyes find me. “Oh no… Oh no…” she intones as she backs away. “Not a new doctor. No more test. No more medicine.” She backs herself into a wall, her hands pulling at her dull, grey hair.

  Helena surges forth and pulls the woman into a hug. “No, Mama. I promise you everything is okay. This is my friend. I brought a friend of mine for you to meet. He’s had a hard day and I thought that meeting you might help him.”

  This woman is Helena’s mother. Obvious, I know, but it wasn’t until that moment that it dawned on my overworked brain. Helena had told me her mother had hanged herself. I had assumed she was dead. Clearly she is not.

  “Hello, Mrs. Monfort,” I say, extending my hand. “My name is Aaron Wade and I am very glad to meet you.”

  Seeing Helena with her mother, imagining what she’s been through with her, broke through my myopic obsession with what happened with my own mother today.

  Mrs. Monfort disengages from her daughter and looks me up and down again, but doesn’t come close. “No, no, too young to be a doctor, and too stupid looking,” she says. She turns to her daughter and adds, “Why did you bring him? It’s always you and your dad. You don’t bring friends.” She turns back to me. “Why did you bring him? It’s Thursday not Sunday.”

  “Mama, I thought you would be pleased,” she says, sounding like a little girl. “You always ask to meet my friends, and here is one.”

  The older woman purses her lips, her hands going to her hips as she takes a step toward me. “Very well,” she says. “Tell me about yourself and why you deserve to be my precious daughter’s friend.”

  I’m caught flat-footed for a moment, just blinking at her.

  “Well?” she asks, taking another step towards me and crossing her arms. I can see a look of pleading on Helena’s face.

  “My name is Aaron Wade. I’m sixteen and I live in Cedar City and help my father run his bookstore, Cedar Books and Such.”

  She waves her hand at me and turns to her daughter. “Boring. He’s so boring. Why would you be spending time with him?”

  “Mother… please…” Helena says.

  The older woman turns back to me and says, “What else?”

  I search my brain for what she might find interesting about me. Riding bikes—no. Comic books—no. Lots of trivia gathered from constant reading—no. Then I think about what caught Helena’s attention and just blurt it out. “I was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia when I was eleven.”

  Mrs. Monfort’s mouth opens as I speak, forming a “B,” but then freezes for a moment before she slowly nods and takes two steps so she is right in front of me. Her breath is bad, like morning breath to the extreme, and I can see her hand has a tremor.

  “Lots of doctors?” she asks. I nod my head. “Awful treatments?”

  “Awful doesn’t even begin to describe what chemo is like,” I say.

  I see her take a breath and relax. She takes my hand in hers—they are surprisingly warm—and draws me over to the bed, sitting on it and indicating that I should sit next to her. I do, and she says, “Tell me about the chemo. I want to hear about chemo.”

  And so I do, in grizzly detail. The more I tell her the happier she seems to get.

  The sun has just dipped below the Pine Mountains as we roar north on the highway, the hum of the tires against asphalt through the open window lulling.

  Mrs. Monfort was relentless in wanting to hear about the indignities I’d suffered with my Cancer treatments. Relentless. Most people can’t stand more than a few tidbits of it. She wanted everything. To see the scar where my central line was, the scar from the bone marrow transplant, hear about the tiniest side effect of chemo. On and on.

  And I gave it to her. After a while it began to feel good to get it out. I didn’t forget Helena while I was doing it, worried that it could be way too much for her, but her mother was voracious for it. As if my terrible experiences in the health care system made her feel less alone.

  She didn’t tell me much of what she had experienced, but I’ve got to imagine it wasn’t that great. Even I know that mental illness is a tough thing to treat and a tougher thing to have.

  “Why didn’t you tell me she was alive,” I finally say, pulling myself out of my reverie.

  “What?” she asks, shaking her head and taking a deep breath. She must have been lost in her own thoughts.

  “When you told me about your mother, we were doing Truth or Truth. You led me to believe she was dead. She is not.” After the shock of it all had worn off, that had started to bug me.

  “Really?” she asks. “After all that’s happened today, this is what you want to talk about?”

  My sadness about my mother is there, but it’s abated somewhat. I feel anger welling up, and Helena’s half-truth is in my crosshairs. “Yes. Really. I thought we were telling the truth those times.”

  She glances from the road to me, a half-smile on her face. “We were, Wade. I told you nothing but the truth about my mother.”

  “But not all of it.”

  She shakes her head. “No. Not all of it.”

  “Why?”

  She’s quiet for a while. The silence is bugging me, like an itch I can’t scratch, but I don’t say anything. I just stare at her.

  She finally sighs and says, “Because no one ever tells you all the truth. Ever. Not about anything real or important.”

  I scratch my head trying to process her words. All the truth… Okay, I get how that would be too much to tell… there is no time. Even in an hour and a half, I didn’t tell Mrs. Monfort the entire truth about my treatments. It wasn’t nearly enough time. And my words, though voluminous, couldn’t really convey all the nuances. As I mull it over, I realize that what she has just told me was a dodge.

  “Okay,” I say. “I get that. But you didn’t tell me the essential truth. That your mother hanged herself and survived was one of the most essential parts of the story.”

  She’s silent again, and I see her blinking rapidly. Surprised? Blinking back tears? I can’t tell.

  She glances at me again, this time the smile on her face is small and filled with pain. “You need to work on your empathy
skills, you know that?”

  That hurts, and I open my mouth for a retort and then close it. She’s taking a deep breath, and I know there is more to come.

  “Because,” she continues, “you know, the truth is not a simple thing. Not an easy thing. And neither is trust. That is something that takes time, has to be earned, is delicate.” My stomach falls and I’m afraid. “Let’s take all that stuff you just told my mother. You left things out… I imagine essential things. Things that make you feel guilty or uncomfortable. Things that might paint you in a less than positive light. Things that you might not even admit to yourself.”

  “I… What?”

  “Ohhh… I don’t know, but I can guess.” She pauses and glances at me, her brown eyes hard. “Do you want me to guess?”

  I’m so confused, I haven’t had a day be this much of a roller coaster since I was diagnosed, but that vein of anger at my parents, at her leaving out something some essential is still making me defiant. “Sure,” I say.

  “I think I know you well enough to get this on the first guess.” She pauses, licking her lips, I see her hands tighten on the steering wheel. Why the hell did I say “sure”? “I think you’ve milked this ‘I’m a sick kid thing’ some.”

  I’m blinking as I stare at her, my mouth open.

  “I think you liked having your mother and father wait on you hand and foot. I think you, at times, played sicker than you were. So they’d fuss over you, bring you your food in bed, buy you that book you were dying to read.”

  She pauses, the wind and the hum of the tires filling in the gaping silence.

  “Am I right?” she asks, but her voice is quiet now. There’s no attack, no sense of victory, no joy in it.

  I lick my lips and nod. “Yes.”

  It’s true. And it’s something I hadn’t really admitted to myself, but when she said it, I knew it to be true. I had fought so hard to survive, I had been so dependent on my parents, that I, at times, had played sicker than I was to get what I wanted.

  The tears are silently rolling down my cheeks and I sniff loudly. God, how many times can I cry in one freaking day?

  Her lips are pursed as she glances at me again. I see compassion in her eyes, but not pity. For that, I am grateful.

  “Do you want to know how I knew that?” she asks, her voice sweet and calm.

  I sniff loudly again, rubbing my nose on my sleeve. “Why not?” My voice cracks at the end, like that embarrassing six months when my voice changed when I was fourteen.

  “Because you’re human, Wade. You’re a mess just like the rest of us.”

  She’s silent then, and I think it over. Half-truths, things we don’t even admit to ourselves, things we don’t understand about ourselves. Is this what it was to be human? An essential part of being human?

  Helena has lived a different life than mine. While I’ve dealt with physical illness, she’s been dealing with mental illness. While I’ve experienced what it takes for a body to survive a horrible disease, she’s been pondering the failings of the human mind.

  She’s right, that’s for sure. We’re all a mess. All of us.

  Mother’s hug is so tight, that for a moment I’m afraid she’s going to hurt me. I smell her rose perfume, but mixed with her sweat and fear, her scent is not sweet today.

  Helena and I didn’t discuss it. She just brought me home. Our field trip to St. George did what it was supposed to do and while I’m not “ready” to go home, I know it’s time.

  A quiver passes through my mother and she sniffs loudly. We’re standing on the landing in front of our front door. My parents were out the door as soon as I got out of the car. They must have been watching.

  “I’m so glad you’re okay,” she whispers. “Don’t ever do that again,” she adds, holding me even tighter.

  “Sorry,” I whisper back. I’m not exactly sorry, but I don’t know what else to say. There are things going on here with my family that I don’t understand. Things that scare me. But, it was never my intention to hurt my parents. I just needed some space from them.

  I can hear my father and Helena talking behind me in the yard. Their voices are low and serious and I can’t make out anything they’re saying.

  The hug finally ends and I get a good look at my mom. Her eyes are puffy and red-rimmed from crying and she somehow looks older than I’ve ever seen her look before. Frail. It hits me then, the cost they paid for my outing. But that guilt is countered by the anger at what I saw. Who she was with. The secret my parents have kept from me. The lie we’ve all been living.

  My father’s warm hand on my shoulder keeps me from saying anything stupid. “Helena wants a moment with you,” he says. His voice is even as if he just told me breakfast was ready, as if this was just another day. “We’ll be inside.”

  My mother resists briefly, but lets my father take her in the house, and after the door is closed, I walk down the steps and into the yard where Helena is standing.

  She’s beautiful, even after this crazy time we’ve had she’s beautiful. But something has changed about her beauty. It’s not just the long hair, lovely face, and tantalizing curves. It’s her. Who she is to me that is starting to outshine those physical things. Our friendship. Not the kind of friend I’ve ever had.

  I smile. It feels crooked and I hope it conveys some gratitude and some “oh my god, what now?”

  “Give me your hand,” she says as I get close.

  I’m confused, but I hold out my hand. She pulls a pen out of her jeans and turns my hand palm up. She pulls the cap off with her teeth and writes on my hand. “This is my number. I’ll be up late, call if you need to. Don’t freak out if my dad answers.”

  The pen tickles as she writes the numbers on my palm in red ink. After the number, she draws a little heart and fills it in.

  I should say something, but my mouth is dry and I don’t know what to say. “You can handle this, Wade,” she says. “You know that, don’t you?”

  “No,” I reply.

  She smiles, just a little thing, and adds, “Well, I know you can.” She glances up at the house and back at me. “And let’s face it, this is going to be a bitch. But you can handle it. Just remember that your parents love you, and…” she trails off, her face going dark.

  “…and,” I continue for her, “I’m lucky to have them.”

  She sniffs and nods. I don’t fully realize it then, but what Helena did for me today was epic. What she showed to me, what she gave to me… it was not normal in any way.

  “Thank you for… I…” I stammer. “Helena, you are the most…” I can’t get a coherent sentence out and I feel my cheeks flush red. I want to tell her how amazing she is and how much what she did for me means. I want to tell her how much her friendship means to me.

  “Shut up, kid,” she says, pulling me into a fierce hug.

  I hug her back. And I can’t say that I don’t notice her femininity pressed against mine, but it isn’t that big a part of it. I am expressing my love and affection and gratitude for what she had done. Her minty-smoky scent is even stronger. And I think it is that moment when I grew to truly love that strange smell.

  I don’t know how long that hug lasted, but it wasn’t long enough. Suddenly she’s in the car and driving away with a smile and a wave.

  I turn and look at my two-story house with its well-manicured lawn, powder-blue paint, and cheery curtains. It’s so middle class. So put together. So very orderly.

  I sigh as I walk to the front door. It’s time to find out what’s hidden behind all that neatness. To find out what’s beneath it. What kind of mess us humans that live here are.

  Opening that door and voluntarily walking into my house was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. Every part of me wants to run away. And it’s not lost on me that my parents were probably feeling something similar about the conversation that is to come.

  We all want to run away. But we don’t. We can’t. Not and remain any kind of a family.

  And yes, I did
run away for a while. But I came back. I opened the door. I walked in.

  My mother and father are seated awkwardly on the couch in the living room. They’re staring right at me, so I walk in and sit on the wooden rocking chair across from them. The house seems so quiet, so quiet that I can actually hear my steps on the shag carpet.

  The rocking chair has a thin pad on the seat, but nothing on the back. It’s not comfortable and that suits me.

  “You realize,” my mother begins, “that you are grounded, of course.” There’s more than a little anger in her voice and I’m surprised to hear it.

  “You can work your shifts at the bookstore,” my father says. “But otherwise you are to be here. And you are to answer the phone if it rings.”

  I purse my lips, starting to slowly rock in the chair. The movement is vaguely comforting. I don’t say anything and I see that is making my mother even more uncomfortable. My father seems his usual cool self, but I can see the tension in his shoulders, the stiffness in his back. He’s stressed too.

  “Do you have anything to say to us?” Mom asks.

  My lips are still pursed. Like I’m trying to keep myself from speaking. From throwing accusations at my mother. From saying something amazingly stupid. Is this all they have to say? How I will be punished.

  I pretend that I’m my father. All logical and cool. All calm and collected. I take a deep breath and stop rocking, sitting forward in the chair. “You feel the need to punish me. I understand that and accept it. I am sorry for the worry I caused you. But you must realize that the shock I experienced had to come out somehow.”

  My mother’s mouth opens, and she sucks in a deep breath, but my father stops her by putting his hand on her knee. She was about to yell. About to take offense at my “tone.”

  “Maybe you can imagine what it felt like,” I continue, looking directly at my mother, “to see you with Doctor Rogers.” She looks away, red flowing to her cheeks. “I’ve been thinking about this as best I can. And I can only imagine that you two don’t want to be married anymore. That you are only together because of me. Because of my Cancer.”