“It’s not all right. She sounds like a lunatic!” I stare at Mom, who’s still laughing, in her own world. “You’re humiliating me.”
Mom stops laughing suddenly and looks right back at me. “Ungrateful bitch,” she spits out.
It’s the disease talking. She’s not my mother when she’s in this kind of place. I know that. She’s having a bad day, a bad afternoon. But it still hits me in my gut. Grabbing Caleb’s arm, I turn from the table and drag him with me out of the room so I won’t say something horrible. I storm up the stairs two at a time.
Caleb shuts the door behind us. “Hey.”
I don’t even feel like crying. I sit down on the bed, frozen, staring into space. He sits next to me.
“It’s okay, you know. I mean, she didn’t offend me.”
“Well, she offended me,” I say.
“It’s the disease—”
“I know. I know that.”
He reaches out and tucks a stray piece of hair behind my ear.
“She’s getting worse,” I say. He doesn’t say anything, just looks at me, like he’s actually hearing me. “Sometimes it’s like, she’s more or less fine, or you don’t notice it, anyway. And then suddenly, she’s this totally different person.” I shrug. “I guess that’s what they mean by degenerative, huh?” I give him a fake smile, but he doesn’t smile back.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“Okay. But it’s not, really,” he says.
I look away from him and toward the window. It’s dark already, the days suddenly shorter as October turned into November. We stare outside for what feels like it might be five or ten minutes, although I know in reality it’s probably more like two, before Caleb breaks the silence.
“On the bright side,” he says, breaking into a sly grin, “I like that she called me your boyfriend.”
“Oh really?”
“Yeah. Really.”
I know what’s going to happen next, of course. I’ve seen enough movies. He leans toward me until our faces are so close that I can almost feel a tiny breeze every time he blinks. And then I lean in a little closer, and then we meet in the middle.
His lips are softer than I’d expect for a guy’s. We part for a minute, leaning back to look at each other. I feel shy, all of a sudden, like I don’t want to make eye contact, and then we kiss again, longer this time.
I’ve seen a lot of movies, but I’ve never seen our movie: sickle cell kid meets HD kid and they fall in love. If that’s what’s about to happen.
Suddenly, the thought of it makes me feel sick to my stomach. Falling in love seems like one risk too many in a life that already has the odds stacked against it—or at least precariously balanced.
“It’s late,” I say, waking up my phone to see the time.
“You kicking me out?” he asks, smiling.
“I guess, yeah.” I smile back, but I’m ready for him to leave.
Caleb looks a little skeptical as he gently traces my jawline with the back of his hand. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
I’m okay and I’m not okay—that seems to be my constant state of being these days. For an instant I feel kind of annoyed by the question. So, we kiss and it’s supposed to make everything better? Caleb of all people should know that’s not how this works.
“I’ll let myself out.” He kisses me on the cheek quickly, then slips out the door. I hear him saying a muffled thank you and goodbye to my family downstairs, and I wonder if Mom has already switched back to a decent mood. Then the front door closes. From the window, I catch sight of him as he crosses the street and unlocks his car. Before he gets in, he looks up at my window and grins. I can’t see the gap between his teeth from here, but I know it’s there.
When his taillights are completely out of view, I flop down on my bed again and send Lena a quick text. “Mom’s losing it. C and I kissed.” Within seconds, my phone’s buzzing. I barely even need to say anything when I answer.
“Mmm-hmm,” I sigh into the phone.
“Do we need to divide and conquer here? I don’t know what to ask about first.”
“Caleb had dinner here and my mom lost it over leftover Chinese.”
“Define ‘lost it,’” Lena says.
“Oh, yelled at all of us, fixated on Caleb, made inappropriate racial comments, and called me an ungrateful bitch. You know.”
“And then you kissed? So it ended well.”
“I don’t know. We kissed. It was—nice, I guess. But what am I doing?”
Lena doesn’t answer for a minute.
“Hello?” I prompt her. “You’re supposed to tell me what I’m doing.”
“Rose,” she says, “you’re not required to sacrifice every kind of fun because you have a sick parent.”
She’s right, I know. But something tells me that this uneasiness isn’t just guilt that I’m busy kissing a boy while my mother is getting worse. It’s that whatever I’m feeling for Caleb—this thing that’s like a tumor of good stuff, growing bigger every time I see him—is too scary, too risky. Maybe I need to just cut it out.
“Yeah. Whatever. We’ll see.” Suddenly I get an overwhelming desire to stop talking about this. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, okay?”
“Um, okay. Fine. Wait, though—how was the kissing? He didn’t, like, lick all around your chin, did he? Because that can be a turnoff but it can be resolved with clear communication.”
That makes me laugh. “Ew, no—there was no chin licking, thank you. It was … I don’t know. It was nice?”
“You said that already. I need more information.”
“I don’t know—look, I told you, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
She growls a little. “Okay, fine. Later.”
I hang up. I’m not sure I want to tell her how nice it was—that it was like the feeling of getting into a soft bed when your body is completely exhausted and all you want to do is relax. Because it’s a slippery slope from kissing to boyfriend-ing to falling in love. And falling in love is like getting a dog: You’re pretty much guaranteed to end up with a big loss.
Loss. It stops sounding like a word if you say it enough times.
Eleven
Caleb and I don’t talk the day after we kiss, or the day after that. It feels like something has shifted, like we’ve entered a period that can never be the same as before. I’m not sure if it’s the kissing that makes it feel that way, or Mom’s outburst, or Caleb’s comment about being referred to as my boyfriend, but everything just feels different—in my head, at least. In reality, of course, I have no idea if anything has shifted at all because we haven’t even exchanged so much as a text.
Eloise’s mom gives me a ride after our Nutcracker dress rehearsal, and it’s after ten by the time I get home. The house is quiet except for some scratching coming from the kitchen. It’s Gram, who appears to be cleaning the floor harder than it probably needs to be cleaned. The sight of my seventy-something grandmother on her hands and knees, scrubbing at what I think is a long-standing stain in the hardwood, is a little alarming.
“What are you doing?”
She looks up, startled, then looks back down at the floor and at her raw, wrinkled hands, as though she’s not actually sure what she’s doing, as if I’d just woken her up from sleepwalking.
“I was just tidying the kitchen.” She struggles to her feet. “Fancy a snack?”
I shake my head. “Not hungry, just exhausted.” I drop my bag on the kitchen island and slump onto a stool.
“Where’s Dad?”
“His study. Working away, I suppose. Earning his keep. Cuppa?” Gram asks. She means tea, and it sounds good, actually. I nod. She rinses out the sponge she was using on the floor, then fills the kettle and sets it to boil on the stovetop. We talk so little these days, my grandmother and I, I’m not even sure how to make conversation with her anymore. It wasn’t always like this: We used to play cards—Oh Hell and War and Rummy, sitting opposite each other at the dining room table—
and go to the aquarium and have tea parties whenever she’d come to visit. I used to look forward to those visits. But then at some point, after she moved here, everything shifted. Maybe it isn’t her fault. Maybe it isn’t anyone’s fault, per se.
“All right?” she asks, setting a mug in front of me. She pulls a bunch of boxes of tea from the cabinet over the sink. “Mint Medley? Earl Grey? Peach something-or-other? So many bloody tins, a person can’t even tell what’s in here.” “Bloody” is as close as she’ll come to cursing, and it always makes me smile.
“Mint. Thanks.” Gram drops the tea bag into my mug. The kettle goes, the whistle starting low and building to a high-pitched scream, but she just stands there, staring at me, as it gets louder and louder. After a moment too long, she turns the gas off and pours the boiling water into my mug. The steam rises off it and feels good on my face. I clasp my hands around the mug and wait as the heat sets into the ceramic, subtly at first and then so hot it burns.
“Sorry about the other night,” she says, making herself a mug of decaf English Breakfast.
“It wasn’t your fault.” I take my tea bag out and get up to dump it in the sink. Gram sits down opposite me, warming her hands on her mug just like I do.
“You know it’s—”
“It’s the disease talking. Yeah. I’ve heard.”
Gram blows on her tea, not taking her eyes off of me. “That’s not what I was going to say, actually, although that is also true. You want to interrupt me again or can I finish?”
“Sorry.” I burn my tongue on my first sip and curse quietly. Gram ignores me.
“I was going to say, it’s okay to fancy somebody. It’s okay for you to date.”
Ugh. Do I really have to be having this conversation with my grandmother? She’s not my mother—not that I’m sure I’d want to talk to Mom about this, either.
“You’re allowed to enjoy yourself. I, for one, liked Caleb very much. He seems like a nice boy. He fancies you, clearly.”
“Oh my god. Okay, Gram. Thank you.” Slinging my bag over one shoulder, I take my tea and stand up, ready to go. But then I hesitate, for whatever reason. She’s still my grandmother. She’s annoying sometimes, but she’s trying.
“He’s just my friend. We’re not dating.”
Gram shrugs. “Well, what do I know? I’m just an old bat who hasn’t been with a man in a very long time. You don’t have to listen to anything I say on the matter.”
The idea of Gram being “with a man,” so to speak, makes me cringe a little, even though I know she means married, not “with” as in—with. And it has been a long time. Gram was younger than my parents are now when my grandfather split. As far as I know, she never really dated anyone after that. It’s weird to think about old people dating, but it’s also sort of weird to think about someone younger than my parents—like, a lot younger—deciding to throw in the towel on love just because she got burned once.
Of course, Gram might just have been being smart about things. Maybe my grandfather proved to her that love isn’t worth the risk.
“I want you to see something.” She gets up and marches past me, then stops short in the door frame and looks at me expectantly. “Well, stop faffing. Get a move on.”
I follow Gram upstairs and into her bedroom, where she pulls a felt box out of the top shelf of her closet. It’s full of old pictures, scuffed one-pound coins, and envelopes of who knows what. She digs through it for a minute, muttering something to herself.
“I have homework,” I say, turning to leave.
“Hold your horses,” she shoots back, not looking up. “Found it. I knew I’d put this in here.” She holds up a DVD case, the kind you can buy in multipacks for burning your own stuff. “Sit.”
I follow orders. Gram turns on her TV and pops in the DVD. There’s no music, but a picture fills the screen: my parents, circa twenty years ago, on their wedding day. I’ve seen their wedding pictures before, of course. Dad’s in a dark gray suit with a turquoise tie, and Mom’s dress is a halter with a long tie down the back and a low V-neck. It’s fitted through the hips and then billows out. Her hair is loose around her shoulders.
“Their wedding film,” Gram says, clicking Play. “You haven’t seen it, have you?”
I shake my head. I didn’t even know it existed.
“I didn’t think so,” says Gram. “Years ago your mum told me she was waiting until you were old enough to enjoy it. I imagine she’s forgotten by now.”
It’s surreal, watching my parents on video, practically in the flesh, when they’re so much younger. I’ve seen footage of myself as a baby and a little kid, obviously, but usually my parents aren’t in those videos. And even when they are, the focus is on me—someone’s holding me up, or calling to me to walk toward them, or clapping for me when I’ve just finished performing one of my endless “recitals” in the living room.
In this video, Mom and Dad are just themselves. They get married outside, in the backyard of an old hotel in Maine, where we used to go every summer. Uncle Charlie walks Mom down the aisle, which is really just a narrow walkway of grass between uneven rows of folding chairs. Dad stands up at the front, under the chuppah, and cries (no surprise there). The wind howls and there are seagulls squawking loudly, which makes it a little hard to hear the vows—this video was clearly taken by a friend, not a pro—but I can more or less make out that they’re not the standard religious ones.
“Ellen,” Dad says, taking Mom’s hands, “having you in my life is like wearing rose-colored glasses every day. You make every day a little better, a little brighter, a little closer to perfect.”
Cheesy, Dad, but I have to hand it to him—it tugs at my throat.
“That’s where you get your name from, you know,” Gram says.
“What? I thought your mother’s name was Rose.”
Gram laughs. “Well, it was. She was your official namesake. Your mum didn’t like the idea of naming you after a dead person, but she agreed on Rose because she said it wasn’t all about the dead great-grandmother. You made everything better for both of them.”
After their special vows, there are the regular ones: for better or for worse, in sickness and in health. They look at each other, and repeat those words, and they have no idea. They have no idea. Gram reaches out and rests her hand on mine. Just for a moment, I let her.
“Right, we can skip this part,” Gram says then, all business again, fast-forwarding through a series of toasts. “Here we go, this is the good part.” She hits Play again for their first dance.
Dad makes a joke over the microphone about how he’s marrying up, and how everyone already knows that but in case there’s any doubt in the room, this dance is about to prove it. Gram, of course, wouldn’t have agreed with that proposition at the time—Mom always said that Gram didn’t think anyone was good enough for her baby—but I guess both my mother and my grandmother have let that go, given the nature of their current relationship. After his string of self-deprecation, Dad takes Mom in his arms and they swirl around the dance floor, her dress spilling behind her when she spins.
My mother had a natural talent for dance, great rhythm, a body that generally did what she wanted it to. Dad just lets her show off—he spins her this way and that way, dips her, but mostly I can tell that she’s leading and just making it look like he is. It’s hard to believe that the person in this video and the person we have now, shaking and jerking continuously, are the same.
The DVD ends, and Gram and I sit there in silence for a minute. Finally, Gram pops it out of the player and puts it back in the jewel case.
“They were twenty-eight years old. More than ten years older than you are now.”
“Yeah. I know.”
“So?” Gram says.
“So?”
“A lot can happen in a decade or two, that’s all I’m saying.” She puts the box back in her closet and leaves me there, perched on her bed.
She’s right, obviously. My mother was dancing at her wedding
when she was twenty-eight. She had real love. Then she had me. And she didn’t get diagnosed with Huntington’s for more than a decade after that.
* * *
I tiptoe down the hallway to my parents’ bedroom. Cracking the door just slightly, I see that Mom is in bed with her earbuds in, eyes closed but clearly awake. I knock hard on the door frame, but it doesn’t catch her attention, so I go closer. She only notices me when I sit next to her and she feels my weight on the bed.
“What are you listening to?”
Mom pulls out the earbuds. “Mmmystery,” she says, slurring. “Not very well written.” She wrinkles her nose. I wonder if it’s not good because it’s not good, or it’s not good because she can’t process the story. I don’t ask; I know she won’t be able to tell the difference.
“I wanted to tell you. About the other night. It’s fine. Caleb wasn’t upset or anything.”
She squints at me. “I’m sssorry.”
I lie down next to her, with my head on Dad’s pillows. “He’s just my friend.”
“Is he your boyfriend?” she asks. I think of Lena and her mother, sharing secrets. But nothing I tell my mother will stick. Maybe that makes her the best kind of secret-keeper.
“Just a friend,” I repeat. “But I’m worried that I might…” I trail off. I don’t know what.
Mom raises a hand unsteadily to my cheek and rests it there. “You might love hhhim?”
“Not love, but … something.”
Mom’s audio book is still on. I can’t hear the words but I can make out the muffled ups and downs of the narrator’s voice. I find her phone caught in the folds of the comforter and press Pause on the recording.
“How did you know you loved Dad?” I ask, when it’s quiet again.
She focuses hard on my face and blinks forcefully a few times. “Because I didn’t have to be anyone but myself with him.”
I know one of Huntington’s only supposed mercies is that it spares the short-term memory—it isn’t Alzheimer’s or something. But in this moment, I can’t help but wish that it took that, too. So my mother could remember what it felt like to fall in love with my father more than twenty years ago, but could forget throwing around the term “jungle fever” over dinner with Caleb just the other night. So she could live every day completely fresh, except for the things that really matter. Maybe that would be the real mercy.
Rules for 50/50 Chances Page 11