The How & the Why

by Cynthia Hand

  We lingered on the front step—me and Amber and Teresa—the lights splashing us like fireworks, finally fireworks, and we watched the ambulance until it was out of sight.

  Then we came back in and went off to our rooms without another word. I sat down at my desk and tried to think of how I would describe it all to you, what happened, what I feel now.

  What do I feel?

  I don’t know. Sad. Scared. Tired. And like I’m not ready, either. It’s weird, but I don’t want our time to be over yet.

  I guess I’m just not ready to let you go.

  S

  26

  I’m not ready, I think as I watch my mom open her Christmas presents.

  We’re having Christmas at Thanksgiving break, because Christmas is too far away, and Christmas is my mom’s favorite thing after cake. We have a little fake tree set up in the corner of her hospital room, and I’ve strung Christmas lights around the window, and Dad and I are both wearing ugly Christmas sweaters (Dad’s features a polar bear with a puff-ball nose and mine has a gingerbread man with his legs broken off that says, “Oh, Snap!”) along with oversized Santa hats. We’re going all out. Christmas turkey. Christmas cookies. Christmas songs. The Blu-ray of A Christmas Story, Mom’s favorite holiday movie, playing on the hospital television. The other patients in my mom’s hall must think we’ve gone crazy. And maybe we have.

  We’ve laughed a lot this week. Enjoyed each other. Savored every candy cane, so to speak. But all I keep thinking is that I’m not ready. I’m not ready for this to be the last Christmas I get with my mom.

  “Oh, Bill,” Mom breathes as she unwraps a little black velvet box. Inside, I already know, is a pair of pearl earrings that I helped Dad pick out for her. Mom’s never liked diamonds. She prefers pearls. They’re more beautiful, she always says, because they’re formed by a living thing with a great deal of effort.

  “These are gorgeous,” she says, pushing her cannula up on her face a little. “Thank you.”

  I wait for her to say that he shouldn’t have, that they’re too expensive. Mom’s always been frugal, even when we had money, but she doesn’t say anything but that she loves them, and then she closes the box and puts it next to her bed. She can’t wear them. You’re not supposed to wear jewelry in the hospital.

  Which means maybe she’s not even going to wear them while she’s alive.

  “And for you, Boo.” Dad hands me a box. “From your mother and me.”

  I open it. It’s another box, a flat white box with different-colored columns along the bottom. Welcome to you, it reads.

  I glance up. “What is this?”

  “A DNA test,” Dad explains. He seems a bit jumpy about it, like he’s not sure I’m going to like this. Or he’s not sure if he does.

  But Mom’s smiling. “We know that you have questions that we can’t give you the answers to. So we thought—I thought, anyway—that this might help you with that.”

  “Okay,” I say slowly. “Thank you.”

  It’s been almost a month since I went to the Vital Records office, and I’ve heard nothing more about this mysterious letter that may or may not exist. Which is probably, I think now, a good thing.

  “I’d like to get a DNA test myself,” Mom says. “See if what your grandma’s been telling me all my life about our ancestry is actually true. She says we’re German, Swiss, and Welsh. She claims that’s where we get our light hair but dark eyebrows from—the Welsh.”

  Grandma and Uncle Pete are supposed to be here later. I wonder what Grandma’s going to say to the idea of this DNA test.

  “I’m content not to know that stuff,” Dad says. “No one defines me.”

  “You have red hair, freckles, green eyes, your middle name is Patrick, and you bear the last name McMurtrey. With you it’s obvious.” Mom has no problem defining him. “You’re Scottish, sweetie. With a generous dollop of Irish thrown in there, I’m sure.”

  “I’m my own man,” Dad says like he didn’t hear her.

  I open the kit. Inside is this weird little tube I’m supposed to spit in. Like, a lot of spit—up to a certain line that’s printed on the vial. My heart’s beating fast again, but if I think about it, this test is less scary than any of the other adoption-related stuff. I don’t have to search for anything or try to find anyone. I can spit in a tube, and I’ll get answers.

  It’s a nice gift. Thoughtful. “Thank you,” I say again.

  Mom squeezes my hand three times.

  “So I’ve been meaning to ask you . . . ,” she says.

  Oh boy. “What?”

  “What’s going on between you and Nyla?”

  “Nothing.” And that’s the truth, sort of. On the outside, everything looks the same. I go to school, and I have lunch with the same friends, at the same table. I see Nyla almost every single day, and we talk about the regular stuff, mostly: class, theater, rehearsal, repeat. We even laugh at each other’s jokes. We act like nothing happened.

  That’s the worst part. I’ve apologized, like twice now, and Nyla’s technically accepted my apology, so it feels like now we should be moving on. Only we’re not, really. I can feel it. We can sit in the same spot in the lunchroom and talk about the same things, but there’s a wall between us now. I’ve lost Nyla’s trust. She can be the bigger person about it, and say it’s okay, but she hasn’t forgiven me.

  If she were mad, I could handle that. I could apologize again. I could make her believe that I mean it. But there’s nothing I can do now that I’ve said I’m sorry and she’s said it’s okay. It’s like that topic is closed. Possibly forever.

  It feels like the entire school is mad at me, too. Ever since I lost it in the cafeteria, no one has looked at me the same way. Everybody’s still friendly. They smile at me. They ask about Mom. They make small talk. But they’re keeping me at a distance, too. Even Ronnie and Alice and Bender.

  In other words, I’ve ruined pretty much everything, but it kind of feels like it doesn’t matter. Because my time with my mom is running out.

  “Did you and Nyla have a fight?” Mom asks, and I look at Dad. He shakes his head. He didn’t tell her.

  “No,” I outright lie to my mom. “Why, has she said something?”

  “No,” Mom says, frowning. “But lately you don’t talk about her, and when she’s here, she doesn’t talk about you. Which is not normal behavior from either of you.”

  “We’re busy, is all,” I insist. “We’re fine.”

  I feel bad for lying, but I want my mother’s world to be like a frozen lake. Perfectly still. No ripples. No waves.

  “Busy with the play,” Mom says.

  “Yes. The play.”

  We’re still a couple weeks away from the performance. I’ve been dutifully keeping up with school and rehearsals, and slipping in to see Mom every other free minute, and Mom’s still here. But even if she’s still around two weeks from now, they wouldn’t let her leave the hospital to go see the play. And it’s not like the doctors gave us an exact date. They said six weeks. If that. I’ve decided those words—if that—are the worst thing, worse even than knowing she’s dying. Because they mean anytime. At any moment, she could make her exit.

  “And the boy?” Mom asks slyly. “How’s Bastian?”

  I hate to think about how Bastian was there, that day in the cafeteria. He got a front row seat to my moment of crazy. I keep remembering the way he said “Hey” and tried to take my hand, but I didn’t let him. So I’ve probably ruined things with Bastian, too. Even if he’s miraculously still interested in me, romance has been the last thing on my mind lately, but I’ll play along for Mom’s sake. “We’re going to start practicing the make-out scene with real kissing soon.”

  Dad groans. “I don’t want to hear this.”

  Mom grins. “I see. You’ll have to report back.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Nyla seems to like him,” Mom says.

  I’ve noticed. Nyla and Bastian are becoming fast friends, it seems. They’ve g
ot so many scenes together, after all, Cinderella and Cinderella’s prince, and they’re hanging out more now that Nyla and I are hanging out less. Maybe Bastian will end up as Nyla’s boyfriend. I can’t even call up the emotional energy to be jealous.

  “So Nyla was here?” I ask Mom. “When?”

  “Yesterday.”

  I try to keep my voice light. “What did she say?”

  “She’s been busy, too, making audition videos for all these colleges she’s applying to. Do you need to do a video for College of Idaho?”

  “No, I’m going to audition in person,” I answer. “That’s not until January.”

  “Oh, good,” she says. “I know you’re going to blow them away.”

  I hope so, because I obviously still need as much in the way of scholarships as I can get. But lately it’s like my parents aren’t worried about the money anymore. They both seem to have accepted that I’m going to C of I, even though I only applied a couple weeks ago, even though I haven’t been accepted yet, even though I don’t know how I’ll pay for it. Mom especially keeps talking about what things will be like when I go to college. When I’m living at College of Idaho. When I’m gone.

  Like I’m the one leaving her.

  “Who wants alcohol-free eggnog?” Dad says suddenly.

  “Um, yuck.” I pretend to gag.

  Mom raises her hand. “Me, definitely me!”

  Dad goes out to the hall. I think he left the eggnog in the fridge in the nurse’s lounge.

  “I used to make an eggnog cupcake with spiced rum,” Mom remembers mournfully.

  I remember, too. I don’t like eggnog, and I thought that cupcake was divine.

  “Oh, go catch your father and tell him I’d like cinnamon. He always remembers the nutmeg but forgets the cinnamon. They should have some in the cafeteria.”

  I dash into the hall. Where I nearly run smack into Dad outside the nurse’s lounge, leaning against the wall. Crying.

  I’ve only seen him cry once since my mom had her heart attack. It was after the first surgery. We’d been up all night in the waiting room, waiting to find out if she was alive, and then the surgeon came out and told us that she’d made it, and Dad started to sob. I’d never seen him like that. This time it isn’t the sobbing kind of crying. It’s a quiet suffering. He’s holding it all in, still. Trying to be brave.

  He doesn’t see me, so he’s surprised when I throw my arms around him.

  “Oh,” he says. “Oh, hi. I’m sorry, Boo.”

  “Don’t be sorry,” I tell him. “You have to feel what you feel, right?”

  “It’s just, I’m not ready,” he says, wiping at his eyes. “I’m not prepared to go on without her.”

  “I know,” I whisper. “I know.”

  27

  I’m not ready, I think again as I stand on the stage with Bastian.

  Mama Jo claps her hands together. “Okay, everybody out but Bastian, Cass, Nyla, and Bender. We’re going to give Bastian and Cass some privacy to actually practice the kissing scene. So Nyla and Bender, you have to stay, obviously, because you’re going to need to be part of this scene in the middle, but don’t gawk at them, okay? Let’s be sensitive.”

  The rest of the cast files out of the theater. Then Bastian and I are essentially alone. Up on the stage. Under the lights.

  Bastian exhales with a short “whew” sound and smiles at me nervously. “Oh, wait,” he says, digging into his pocket. “I came prepared.”

  He produces two tubes of lip balm and gives me first choice at picking mine: orange or cherry flavored. I pick orange, because I loathe anything cherry. He nods and opens the cherry one and makes a big show of slathering his lips. I do the same.

  I think we may slide right past each other.

  “Also—” He goes for the other pocket and holds up a little container of orange Tic Tacs.

  “I love those!” I gasp.

  “I know.”

  “You know?”

  “Nyla told me.”

  I glance over at Nyla, who’s talking to Bender offstage. She meets my gaze over his shoulder, then looks away.

  “Are you two ready?” Mama Jo asks.

  No, I think. My stomach rolls. Don’t puke, I tell myself sternly. That would not be sexy.

  It’s not like it’s a big deal. It’s just business, really. It’s acting. That’s all. It’s silly that Mama Jo always makes a production out of the first kiss rehearsal. She thinks this is going to make it easier, but this is somehow worse than if we’d been kissing in rehearsals all along. It puts a false importance on what is, in the end, only a kiss.

  “Cass?” Bastian’s looking at me.

  I didn’t answer Mama Jo’s question: Am I ready?

  “Yeah,” I say quickly. “Let’s do it.”

  It’s only a kiss, I tell myself.

  “Be patient with me,” Bastian whispers as the music starts. “I’m new at this.”

  “This?”

  “I’ve never kissed a girl before,” he admits, scratching his eyebrow.

  I find this incomprehensible. Bastian is hot. He’s funny. He’s smart—he memorized his lines before any of the rest of us. He quotes Shakespeare at random times. He has a voice that could melt any heart into a puddle of butter. How is it possible that Bastian Banks has never kissed anyone?

  “All right. Places,” calls Mama Jo, and I don’t have time to question Bastian about this, because we start on opposite ends of the stage. And we end up (breathe, Cass, breathe) kissing.

  It goes okay. Bastian, as the confident, womanizing prince, sings, “May I kiss you?”

  Then we kiss. It’s that simple. His lips, my lips.

  It’s supposed to be a little awkward, actually, since the baker’s wife is completely shocked that this handsome prince would be interested in kissing her.

  “May I kiss you?” Bastian’s hands are at my waist. Pulling me into him. His mouth touches mine, soft and supple and not at all slimy with cherry-flavored lip stuff. He smells good—I’d almost forgotten how amazing he smells, like the bar of Irish Spring at Grandma’s house, and orange candy, and sandalwood, or whatever it is they put in guy’s cologne.

  “Keep your body stiff at first, because the baker’s wife is shocked,” Mama Jo directs me. “But then go limp. Give in to it. Put your hand up to his face.”

  I do as she says. This is so weird, I think, choreographing a kiss. His cheek under my palm is soft, as smooth as mine, and warm.

  “Now break,” Mama Jo says.

  “No,” I gasp, stumbling away from Bastian. “We can’t. You have a princess. And I have . . . a baker.”

  Mama Jo chuckles. “Great,” she says. “Let’s stop there for a minute. How was that?”

  I turn to Bastian. “How was it?”

  It was . . . only a kiss.

  He puts a hand to his chest. “I felt the earth move.”

  I laugh, but it comes out as a snort. I put my hand over my mouth.

  “So that was the first kiss,” Mama Jo says briskly, all business now. “Let’s do the next one.”

  Right. There are five kisses.

  It’s going to be an interesting night.

  28

  “Hey you, come down to earth.” Grandma jostles me.

  “What?” I glance up at my mom and grandmother. I haven’t been listening to what Mom’s been saying for about five minutes, which makes me feel a stab of guilt. She only has a certain amount of words left. I shouldn’t miss any.

  “How was it?” Mom asks again, gently.

  “It? The kissing scene?”

  Her eyebrows lift. “Oh, the kissing scene? Was that today?”

  Grandma scowls. “What kissing scene?”

  Crap. “Yes. It went fine. He told me I was his first kiss.”

  Mom gasps. “Get out.”

  “I know!”

  “Is this that boy you’re going to have sex with?” Grandma asks.

  “No, Grandma.” I glance at the door for the nurse. “I’m not goin
g to have sex.”

  “His first kiss, hmm,” Mom says. “That’s a big deal. How did it go?”

  “It was . . . a kiss.”

  “No fireworks, huh?” Grandma says. “Too bad. That happens sometimes.”

  “Yeah, but this was stage kissing,” I argue. “It’s not like real kissing. It’s a performance. You’re not supposed to really feel anything. Usually.”

  “Did you feel something?”

  “Don’t answer that question.” Grandma makes a face. “We do not need to know what you felt.”

  “Grandma! Geez!”

  Mom’s laughing. And then she’s coughing. And coughing. We all sober up a bit.

  “What did Nyla say?” Mom asks when she can talk again. “When you told her this was his first kiss?”

  “Um . . .”

  “What’s going on with you and Nyla?” Grandma asks.

  “Yes,” Mom says. “What’s going on?”

  “I told you.”

  “You didn’t tell me. You lied to me about it.”

  “I did not. I—”

  “You’re lying right now,” Mom says, then sighs like she’s too tired for this crap. “I’m your mother. I can tell when you’re lying. Remember that time with your rubber duck in the bathtub?”

  “Don’t lie to your mother,” Grandma says.

  “Okay!” I burst out. “We had a fight. At the drama competition, Nyla got this amazing scholarship, and I didn’t, and I was mad because I need that money, and she doesn’t need it, and I said . . . I said . . .”

  Mom’s eyes are sad. “What did you say?”

  “I said something . . . racist.”

  “Oh shit,” says Grandma.

  “What did you say?” Mom asks.

  I tell her.

  “Yep, that’s racist,” Grandma assesses.

  Mom’s mouth is a flat line. She actually looks mad, and (gulp) ashamed. “Do you think you’re better than Nyla?”

  “No!”

  “Then why did you say what you said?”