“Are you trying to hurt me?”
The sight of her mom’s beaten expression made Hannah’s eyes well up, but it wasn’t enough to stop her. “No, Mom. I’m trying to understand . . . what can I do? I want to help. You’re disappearing. It’s like you’re not even here. I can’t talk to you. I want so badly to tell you what’s going on in my life. I have no one to talk to. I need a mother!”
“I can’t . . .” Her mother flew off the couch and was already on the stairs before Hannah realized what was happening, her coffee cup leading the way.
When? When will be the right time, Mom? When you don’t wake up the next time?
“I don’t get why I still love you,” Hannah whispered to the empty couch before her mother’s bedroom door slammed shut.
CHAPTER 38
July 15, 1985
Dear Kerry-Girl,
I hope you’re having fun at camp and staying at Gamma Mimi’s house. I miss you although it was only yesterday that Daddy took you up there. I saw that you forgot Droge bear on your bed and he misses you terribly. I wrapped him in one of your blankets and extra bubble wrap (the kind that you like to pop!) so he stays comfortable on his trip and I put a small bottle of honey in the box in case he gets hungry.
I’ve asked Gamma Mimi to read this to you and I hope she does. If not. I know you know these words:
I love you,
Hannah
Hannah kissed Kerry’s Droge bear and tucked him in the box, along with the letter and the honey. She smiled as she taped the package closed, and noticed her father watching her from his recliner.
He cleared his throat. “What do you have there?”
“A package for Kerry.” She completed Gamma Mimi’s address, then took the cap from between her lips and replaced it on the marker. “Would have been nice, Dad, if you’d told me you were taking her there. I would have liked to have seen her before she left.”
Her father looked at her blankly, like she wasn’t speaking English. She didn’t wait for a response.
“You and Mom keep doing that . . . not including me in family stuff.”
“We didn’t think it mattered to you.”
“Well, it does. What happened to Mom and Kerry . . .” Hannah swallowed the lump in her throat. “I found them, Dad . . . remember?” She pushed away the package to avoid smearing the marker. She didn’t care if he saw her cry.
“What’s going on?” her mother asked, cautiously descending the stairs. Her far hand was hidden behind her body; from her disheveled hair, Hannah guessed that she’d just been napping.
Hannah knew she’d heard the conversation. Her mother’s coy act irked her. As she stepped into the living room, Hannah eyed the coffee cup laced between her fingers.
“Nothing,” she said, wiping her face.
“What’s in the box?”
“Droge bear, for Kerry.”
“Don’t send her that, Hannah. I told her not to bring it.”
“Why? She’s all by herself there. She may get scared in an unfamiliar place, especially at night.”
“She shouldn’t use him as a crutch anymore. Besides, he’s practically threadbare . . . what would Gamma think of us?”
Hannah’s eyebrows knitted together as she nodded toward the cup in her mom’s hand. “Talk about crutches. You don’t seem to care what people think . . . especially your own family.”
Her mother’s face colored like she’d been slapped. From the corner of her eye, Hannah spied her father’s pinkish complexion already darkening to rhubarb. She ducked her head and gathered the package from the table, trying to escape before the yelling began. She didn’t care. She’d ask Peter to take her to the post office.
Her mother’s pitchfork stare stopped her. Hannah froze, then released the package. The unacknowledged mountain between them accumulated another frosty inch. Hannah readied herself for the landslide.
“I’m trying, dammit . . . I’m try . . .” Her mother’s voice trailed off. She blinked rapidly, squeezing her wrist and pulling it into her stomach, as tears released down her face.
“Hannah! What the hell!” Her dad darted from his recliner toward her mother like she was about to fall.
“Stop. I’m fine,” her mother said, holding up her hand. She stepped back awkwardly, looking unsure of the floor underneath her.
Hannah’s voice softened, her tears matching her mother’s. “I’m trying too. Trying to hold everything together . . . pretend that our family’s okay . . . but we’re not . . . are we?”
“That doesn’t give you the right to speak to us this way,” her father admonished, his face on the verge of boiling.
Hannah’s temples started to pulse. She pulled on the ends of her hair and looked up at the ceiling as if summoning someone up there for help. “Stop this holier-than-thou stuff, Dad. You’re not helping Mom by treating her like she’s made of glass.”
“She’s still recovering.”
Hannah shot him a look, pointing at her mother. “She’s still using, Dad, and drinking too . . .”
“Stop it! Stop it. This isn’t easy!” her mom cried, lowering the cup in her hand and tucking it behind her leg like a small child.
They didn’t move.
Her mother’s eyes slid to the floor. She grasped her opposite shoulder just as her upper body folded like an accordion. She backed into the hanging picture frames on the wall behind her, and released the cup from her fingers. As it clattered on the floor, she rode the wall down to the ground, her hands clasped in prayer over her nose and mouth.
The air felt suspended in the room. The burnt-orange starburst clock clicked loudly from the kitchen, poking holes in the pockets between them.
Hannah crouched down to help her. “I’m sorry, M-Mom, I’m sorry—”
“I’m a terrible mother,” she said weakly. She let her head fall back against the wall with a smack. Then she did it again. And again.
“Stop, Mom!”
“I failed all three of you . . .”
Hannah glanced briefly at her father. She had a feeling her mother wasn’t including him in that number.
“I can’t stop. I try, every morning I tell myself, this is it, no more . . . don’t look at me that way, Hannah. You have no idea!” Her voice revved up an octave, then cut out.
Hannah’s eyes grew wide. Her mother’s face reminded her of Kerry’s when she cried. She’d never noticed the resemblance before. Pieces of her mother lay scattered on the floor. She saw herself in her, and all at once her heart began to fill.
“No . . . I don’t. I can’t honestly say I understand what it feels like. I don’t know what this thing inside is . . . this urge to take those pills and drink all of the time. What do I know? I overdose on ice cream and can’t stop sometimes, especially after a bad day. It’s hardly the same, I know. But Mom, if Dr. Shapiro isn’t helping . . . don’t try and fix it alone. It’s too big . . . it’s destroying whatever trace of a family we have left.”
Her mom bent her head into her knees, her forehead wrinkling into the center of her face. It was the same face she made whenever Hannah or Kerry made a mess in the kitchen.
“My father told me all I was good for was to get married and have children . . . then look what happened . . . I couldn’t even do that right. Complete failure.”
Hannah reached out, intending to touch her mother’s forearm, but stopped herself, fearing her mother would jerk her arm away. Instead, she tried to think of the right words.
Her brows lifted. “You’re sort of like Betty Ford, Mom, and no one calls her a failure.”
Her father, who was standing over them, coughed. “That’s a good point, Donna.”
“If a former First Lady can get addicted to pills and alcohol, it can happen to anyone,” Hannah added.
Her mom braced her lips and dispatched another tear down her cheek.
“Your dad sounds like a jerk by the way,” Hannah said. “He was.” Her father’s head bobbed.
My mother married someone like her
own father.
Hannah rose and looked her father in the face. A rare, slight smile formed there—and then dropped. He peered over his glasses at her. Her cheeks reddened as she watched his eyes travel from her T-shirt to her frayed jean shorts.
“What now?” she said, throwing her hands on her hips.
The lines around his eyes tightened. “It’s nothing.”
“No, you don’t. Don’t even start on my face or my clothes. That’s not okay.”
He let out a sigh. “I don’t like the strings hanging from the bottom of your shorts. I think a young lady should—”
“Are you going to call me a prostitute again?”
Her father squinted like he’d been asked a hard question. She could see his brain searching for the reference and it infuriated her.
“You don’t even remember when you kicked me out of the car on the way to church, do you? Well, I do. I’ll never forget it. I’m human, Dad. I have feelings, you know. Cut me a break already. Mom and Kerry can screw up pretty majorly, but with me even the littlest stuff gets you mad. And it’s always about my appearance. Why is how I look so important?”
Her dad frowned. “Thought I was helping.”
“Helping would be accepting me for who I am.”
“I think this summer your skin looks better,” a small voice uttered from the floor. Her mother tilted her head up toward them. “The sun helps some?”
Hannah’s jaw dropped. Who is this woman?
“Yeah, I guess . . .”
Her father removed his reading glasses and began cleaning them with a napkin he picked up from the table, as if this rare moment of honesty between the three of them was a regular occurrence.
“Just lay off of my looks for once,” Hannah said. “I’m never going to be perfect.”
Her father raised his lenses toward the ceiling and inspected them without responding. When he seemed satisfied, he returned them to his face and helped her mother to her feet.
“There you go, dear,” he said as she rested her head on his shoulder.
They’re so dysfunctional, Hannah thought, watching them together. And they always will be.
CHAPTER 39
HANNAH AND PETER JUMPED TO THEIR FEET IN UNISON with the rest of the crowd as Robert Smith’s voice cut into the first song of the evening. Jewels of color and flashing lights ricocheted across the theater, illuminating the people nearest the stage. A euphoric frenzy spread everywhere. Everything came alive in that moment, and Hannah’s insides soared.
She grinned as she and the crowd around her were sucked into the magic of The Cure, together, in the same space and time. She wanted to bottle the extraordinary sensation of all her senses being set on fire. Mostly, she wanted her uncontained happiness to never end.
She swayed to the music and found herself tearing up at the overwhelming magic and beauty, song after song. Then someone laughed.
She turned to see Peter pointing at her face.
Hannah cupped her hands over her nose and wondered why he’d try and ruin her first concert for her.
I shouldn’t be here with you, she thought, just as she had so many times before.
Peter smiled, took her hand, and draped it around his waist like he had when they were dating. Glued to the side of him like a conjoined twin, Hannah found it hard to breathe.
I don’t want this. I don’t want to get back together. You’re not the one.
“Amazing, right?” Peter screamed into her ear.
Hannah nodded. She blotted her cheeks and ran the middle finger of her free hand along her lower lash lines to corral her mascara and eyeliner.
A dull pain rose from her right thumb and passed up her arm and into her chest. It sank in deeper until it reached her back.
“Everything okay?” Peter asked.
She nodded and pressed her lips together to stop them from giving her away. Calm down, she told herself.
“Here, have a beer,” he offered, opening his jacket. Its lining held several cans. She took a sip of the Bud Light, and then a longer one, welcoming the grainy, sweet bubbles storming her throat.
“Whoa! Go easy. We need to make those last,” he chided.
She glanced up to see if he was kidding. He wasn’t.
“We should get some weed,” she burst out. She didn’t know where the idea had sparked from, but at that moment, standing among the explosive Technicolor crowd and at this theatrical stage show, it seemed like the most amazing thing they could do.
Don’t think. Just party to forget.
Peter’s face calcified. His gaze traveled back to the band. Without looking at her, he leaned over and said, “Why, is that what you used to do with him?”
“F you, Peter,” she said, pushing him away, her face stinging from his comment. She wished she had another way home. She started to walk away from him.
He grabbed her hand. “Stop. I don’t want to fight.”
“I’m going to the bathroom,” she yelled, yanking her hand away, and left without waiting for a response. He didn’t try to stop her.
She joined the long, winding line for the women’s bathroom alongside other sweaty females, many of them with their hair teased and sprayed so it stood high above their faces, resembling The Cure’s front man; their black-shadowed eyes and the stark red lipstick bleeding into the corners of their mouths made them look more clownish than Robert Smith, though.
Hannah ran cold water on her wrists and splashed some on the back of her neck to cool off, then blotted herself with a paper towel. She peered into the mirror and gasped at the sight of the girl behind her—the one with the long, jet-black hair and olive skin sporting tight jean shorts and a denim vest with concert pins.
“Jade!”
“Oh . . . hi.” Jade grimaced.
“I haven’t seen you in a while.” Hannah figured she was probably there dealing. She wasn’t ready to let her go; she stuck by her side as she walked out of the bathroom. She had a tired, run-over appearance that made Hannah wonder how much she was still using.
She knew it was the beer talking when her mouth unexpectedly spewed out, “So how’s Gillian?” Not like I care.
Jade shrugged, her face indifferent. “We broke up last December. After I came by your house.”
“Why? Never mind.” God, that was stupid, Hannah thought. Then she leaned in and whispered, “So can I buy a joint?”
Jade wrinkled her face. “Since when do you smoke?”
“Just feel like it tonight . . .”
“Deacon wouldn’t like it, you know.”
Really, you’re going to go there? Hannah knew it was a snarky thing to do, but corrected her anyway. “Yeah . . . he would not have liked it . . . but I’m tired of people telling me what I should and shouldn’t do. Do you have one or not?”
Jade unfastened the metal button on the front of her vest. She slid her first two fingers into her front breast pocket and pulled out a partially smoked joint.
“Here,” she said looking over her shoulder and concealing it in her hand as she passed it to Hannah.
“How much?”
“Just take it.”
“Thanks. Got a light?”
“Let’s go in there.” Jade motioned toward a back stairwell. They walked around the bathroom, away from the snake-line of girls. She heard the beginning of “Let’s Go to Bed” and felt the urge to run back to her seat. Her feet, however, kept following Jade.
Hannah lit the joint on her second attempt and inhaled like she’d seen people do. It immediately burned her throat. Her eyes watered while she held her breath, trying to hold in the smoke. Jade then took a hit. Her eyes flitted off in different directions. A couple of guys passed and she daintily held the joint behind her leg like an expert.
Hannah exhaled, unable to hold it in any longer, and coughed a few times. She gently swallowed; her throat felt thoroughly singed.
“Seeing you reminds me of him. I still miss him.”
Jade ignored her and kicked the tip of her white Tr
etorns into the railing in front of her.
“Do you . . . still miss him?” Hannah asked. She didn’t care if she sounded like a moron. She needed to talk to someone, someone who knew him like she did.
Jade took another hit and offered the joint back to her. She declined.
“Everything has changed. I don’t remember him much,” Jade answered, still not looking at her.
“What do you mean, ‘don’t remember’? It’s only been a few months.”
“Eight,” Jade said emphatically.
“So you don’t remember him much . . . but you can correct me on when he died?” Hannah said, getting annoyed.
“God, you’re clueless,” Jade said, rolling her green eyes. “Clue me in, then . . . I’d love to know what you know.”
“I can’t . . . I gotta go. Do you want this?” She extended the joint to her.
Hannah shook her head. She felt a little fuzzy around the edges. “What are you saying, Jade?”
A boy flung open the door to the stairwell, startling them. “Jade, Jade! Been looking all over for you!”
Jade started walking away with the guy. Before she exited the stairwell, she glanced back at Hannah like she wanted to tell her something.
“Jade, please. Help me understand.”
She just shook her head and slipped out the door.
“You smell like pot,” Peter announced when they got back in the car after the concert. The corners of his mouth created a condescending smirk.
Hannah’s ears rang. She relished the reverberation; it made her feel like she was taking home some of the night’s exhilaration with her. She wasn’t going to let Peter ruin her high from seeing The Cure for the first time and from seeing Jade again.
He reached over and patted her leg like she was a child. She didn’t bother to listen to anything else he said. She tilted her seat back a bit and closed her eyes. She’d be home in an hour or so.
When she woke, they were driving into one of the parking lots in Gossamer Park. Peter knew not to bring her anywhere near the lot where Deacon had been shot. She was unfamiliar with this spot. It looked deserted; not a car or person was in sight.
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