“She thought she had it all figured out. They couldn’t kick her out right away because she was too young. They could cut her off without a penny once she turned eighteen, of course, but by then she’d already have had her baby. The worst of it would be over. She’d already have embarrassed them in front of the neighbors. If they kicked her out, along with their infant grandchild, they’d only be drawing attention to themselves, and they’d make themselves look terrible.
“Sure, people would whisper about her—maybe a lot more than whisper—but most everyone would have time to get used to the idea that This Kind Of Thing happens even in the best families.
“That was one thing she and her parents had in common. They all agreed their family moved in the Best Circles. Maybe she had a little different idea of what ‘best’ meant, or ought to mean, but in plenty of ways she had a lot in common with them.
“She never said that, of course. I figured out a lot for myself.”
The holiday break starts in a few days. We’ll have earned the quiet after all this giggling and packing and begging Ms. Lurie for trips into town for last-minute shopping.
My goal is to eat in the dining room the day before they leave.
I think I can do it. And that way if it feels too weird, I don’t have to worry about how they’ll react to not seeing me the next day.
“She kind of knew they wouldn’t really throw her out. Her mistake was thinking that was the worst they could do. That that was all she’d have to deal with.
“She figured if it came down to that, she’d call their bluff. Oh, you want me to leave with my helpless child? Fine. I’ll go. Proudly. Saying goodbye at every house along the way. Explaining why I’m leaving.
“Or, heck, if they weren’t nice to her she could threaten to leave while she was still pregnant. Walking out the door looking all the more pitiful with that baby bump. Probably thought Prince Charming would be standing outside getting his horse repaired, and he’d take one look at her and she’d be set for life.
“She was used to things being like that—always working out for her. She was little and cute. Kind of like an elf—well, you remember. She made people want to take care of her.
“So she was pampered and soft. She’d been sheltered by money and family and she had no idea what real life was like. That was something other people had to deal with.
“She didn’t have any muscles, figurative or literal.
“So when they found out she was pregnant and really started in on her, she didn’t stand a chance.”
“It was late enough that when they couldn’t start their car, they figured, well, why not just stay over and sort it all out in the morning. My mother was seriously pissed because the cottage was barely big enough for us by her standards, but of course she couldn’t say anything like that in front of our friends.
“We never stayed somewhere that small again, which was too bad. I loved it. Right next to the ocean in what felt like a hut, compared to our regular life. It was an adventure. But my mother hates adventures if they’re inconvenient, which is kind of the definition of adventure.
“Anyway. Their son was my age, so he and I were tossed into my room with strict instructions to Go Right To Sleep. We were six, so fat chance of that happening. But we did quiet down after my mother came in and gave us what I’m sure she thought was a jolly little talking-to.
“There were millions of blankets and we made a fort, except we called it a house. Even with the window shut we could hear the ocean, so we pretended it was Neverland and we fought over who got to be Peter Pan.
“Of course I won.
“We pretended my mother was Captain Hook and the crocodile and we had to be very quiet or we’d be eaten. But then I decided we also had to rescue someone, so we tiptoed around our island and finally managed to save … Who was it? A baby mermaid, I think. He hated that part, so I threw in a wolf, too.
“And then we were tired enough that we actually wanted to sleep, though we hated to admit it. It felt like losing a war. I tried to talk him into sleeping under our bed so we could terrify our parents when they came looking for us in the morning, but he was too scared.
“So we bundled up in what had been our roof and lay very still listening to the waves. He fell asleep right away, so far as I could tell, but I stayed awake for a long time thinking about how good it was to have someone so warm and near while I slept. In case I had a bad dream, or just because. I was Pan and he was my minion and that was how it should be.
“That was the nicest night I ever had but one.”
M looked at me inquiringly. “Is that the kind of story you wanted? I didn’t exactly have a normal childhood, sorry.”
“She couldn’t hold out against them. She was used to winning arguments, but those were about minor things. They didn’t care that much about what she wore or what kind of music she listened to or even what kind of people she hung around with, at least up to a certain point. That was the kind of thing they could complain about with other parents. It was part of being in the club.
“This wasn’t. This was the kind of thing that would turn their family into a cautionary tale, the kind of things their friends would congratulate themselves on not having happened to them.
“And when she’d daydreamed about fleeing into the wild with her pregnancy, she hadn’t considered the possibility that maybe she wouldn’t feel up to running away because she’d be spending every minute either wanting to sleep or trying not to throw up.
“Everything was on their side. Even the timing. School was just letting out for the summer, and needless to say she’d done a crappy job on her finals.
“So it wasn’t conspicuous at all for them to send her away on a long trip and tell everyone she was doing some enrichment program in Europe.
“Just like the bad old days. Girls Who Got In Trouble would go away for a few months and come back skinny and quiet.”
“You’re not defined by what somebody did to you.”
M keeps getting mad at me. Especially when I answer that kind of statement by saying, “I kind of am, though.”
“That isn’t all you are. It isn’t all you can be, or you have to be.”
No matter how quietly I sigh at that point, she hears it and it sets her off like a rocket.
I know she’s right, in a way. There’s a sort of core person, the one I’d call “me” no matter what my life had been like. The one who loves books and cake and hates flowers (sorry, M). I know M wants me to believe that’s the only “me” that counts.
But I’m also the person all those terrible things happened to.
Those events are me. At least in the sense that they’ll be the first thing mentioned in my obituary. And more than that. They shaped me.
So, yes, M, I am defined by what other people did.
I can try to make a life I want, a life I can love.
I think I have a chance, especially with M to push help me.
But maybe the fact that I’ll have to try so hard proves my point.
“She didn’t tell anybody afterward. She was a different person by that point. Defeated. She’d never had to do something she didn’t want to do. She’d never had to give anything up.
“She had a lot of friends but no one she was really close to, and she’d already broken up with the guy so there was nothing to explain there.
“Having a baby would have been one thing. She could have bragged about that. That would have been the ultimate coup against the big bad grown-ups, and never mind that it was also the kind of thing that made you one of the grown-ups.
“Except of course she’d never be the kind of parent her mother and father had been.” She snickered mirthlessly. “No one ever is.
“But having a baby and being forced to give it up? That’s not the kind of thing a prom queen wants to brag about.
“Not that our mother was ever prom queen. She just loved knowing she could have been.”
The dining room was okay. Not great, but bearable.
Lucy looked really disappointed when M and I came in and sat down at the last two seats at a different table. Not that we were avoiding her or anything—her table was already full, too. I didn’t know if she might still be mad about me screaming at her, but then I remembered Ms. Lurie saying how Lucy had been asking about me after the Stephen James memorial. There was nothing even remotely normal to do or say under the circumstances, so I met her eyes and gave her an awkward little wave. I had to look away then, but when I glanced back up, she looked stunned.
The other girls obviously feel bad for me and also kind of puzzled. Naturally.
They were awkward, especially at my table, because they had no idea what to say or how to act.
I didn’t, either, which helped. If no one knows what to do, it’s harder to do something wrong.
It helped a bit when Brianna said hi and I couldn’t say anything so I just smiled a little and nodded and then she said, “Dibs on your dessert,” and I was able to decently imitate a laugh.
The others kind of looked at each other, taking this all in and making sure everyone else had seen and heard it, too.
Everyone was very quiet for a minute, and then Katia the poet made a valiant effort and said she and her family were going to England for the holidays and was it true M and I were staying at Hawthorne? I nodded and M said that Ms. Lurie and Miss Miller had promised to make us an authentic plum pudding and Katia said, oh, that was perfect, she’d be having one, too, what with it being England and Christmas and all.
We all laughed a bit at that. M squeezed my hand under the table but I was fine, I really was. I couldn’t eat much but it was just because everyone was looking at me. I don’t blame them. It just made it hard to chew.
So did catching a quick look at Madison’s face, which looked as if she’d bitten a large piece of lemon and then decided to keep it in her mouth for a while and see if it tasted any better after an hour or two.
I think Madison and I wouldn’t particularly like each other even if I hadn’t spent so much time being actively horrible. And if the word around school weren’t that I’d had some kind of breakdown and was currently rebuilding, it would have been fine for her not to adore me. But as it is, I must make her feel all kinds of mean. I make her the person who doesn’t like a poor little mentally ill girl. Which makes her dislike me even more.
I wish I could just go up to her and say, “Look, it’s okay that you don’t like me. I’m not crazy about you, either. No offense. And none taken, by the way.”
If I could say that, things might be better. It might even break some of the ice between us. Maybe we could manage to be irony buddies. Our greeting could be a raised eyebrow and a curled lip and a rueful sort of “well, what can you do?” expression before we gratefully looked at someone, anyone else.
But I don’t feel ready to talk like that, even if it might help. And it might not, after all. As much as Madison hates me, she might be deeply affronted that I don’t secretly worship her.
So I’ll just have to try to enjoy the novelty of being surface-polite to someone I don’t particularly like.
I keep wanting to copy out relevant quotes from Emily Dickinson. It would be so much easier. Everything I want to say, she’s already said perfectly. Even knowing nothing about me, she summed up my life better than I ever could.
That doesn’t count, though. It doesn’t get me where I need to be in terms of sorting things out.
I don’t need Ms. Lurie to tell me that.
I was in the front room and it was dark except for one light and Ms. Lurie was holding me and saying, “It’s all right, Emily, everything’s all right, you’re safe.”
I still don’t know how I got there but I’m very glad the other girls had already gone home for their holiday.
“It took her a long time to feel like a person again, she told me. She didn’t feel real. Nothing felt real. It was like she was sleepwalking, or playacting. Or like she was the only one who wasn’t.
“She went through the motions. She didn’t really want to go to college, but at least it was a way to get away from her parents.
“She’d been very artistic before it all happened. She was really good, as far as I could tell. It wasn’t just doodling or copying, and it wasn’t just cute. She hung on to a couple of her old sketchbooks, and she showed me one with some drawings she’d done when she realized she was pregnant with me.
“I think she thought I’d look at those pictures and everything would be perfect between us.”
“Are you going to leave? Is that what you want?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I just thought—maybe that’s what you really want. Subconsciously. Or not so subconsciously, and you just don’t want to hurt my feelings.”
“Don’t be an idiot, M.”
“Last night—”
“Are you blaming me for sleepwalking?”
“I’m not blaming you for anything. I’m trying to figure things out. And you weren’t sleepwalking. You were pounding on the front door, screaming.”
Ms. Lurie hadn’t told me that. Maybe she thought I already knew.
“Last night, maybe I was trying to save you again.”
“Oh.” She paused, and then she took my hand. “Well, don’t. All right? I promise if there’s any saving to do, I can do it myself.”
“I know.”
Last night, maybe I was trying to get away from her. Again.
“Her parents thought she was finally growing up and being practical. Probably the first time anyone’s ever called becoming an English major practical, but I gather they used to worry she’d run off and become an artist and live in a garret, or something to that effect.
“Sometimes I think that would have humiliated them even more than I did.
“I’ve thought of asking them, but I despise them as much as she did.
“Nice to have one thing in common with her, anyway.”
“I haven’t been able to work.”
“Really? M says you’ve been writing a great deal.”
“But it isn’t—work. I mean, it isn’t fun, but it isn’t, you know, school stuff. It’s just whatever I think of.”
“What’s wrong with that? It sounds like exactly what you need to be doing right now.”
“But what about later?”
“What about later?”
“I just don’t feel like I’ll ever feel like working again.”
“Emily.” Ms. Lurie put down the Christmas cards she’d been arranging on a table and came to place her hands on my shoulders. “Here’s the part where I give you a long, tedious lecture about understanding that how you feel right now—right after you’ve suffered a serious shock—shouldn’t be taken to stand for how you’ll feel forever.”
“Is this the part where I nod and look serious and only roll my eyes when you’re not looking?”
“Exactly.” She beamed at me, smoothing my hair away from my face. “You need to give yourself time. A lot of it.”
“But—what if I really don’t ever feel like working again? Not just on my Dickinson project—and I’m not even sure what that is anymore—but on anything?”
“You’re allowed to not do anything, Emily.”
“So she went to college. She went through the motions. She didn’t care much about the work and she wasn’t exactly brilliant, but she did pretty well. It wasn’t as if there was anything else she wanted to be doing.
“Everyone expected her to do the usual and meet some eligible bachelor and get married, but she wasn’t interested. She graduated and started some stupid job she hated and went to the kind of parties her parents wanted her to go to and did the kind of volunteer work they approved of.
“They thought she’d grown up. She said she felt like she was just waiting to die. Or waiting for someone to notice she already had.”
&
nbsp; “I can’t just sit around my whole life.”
“You won’t. Trust me.” Ms. Lurie looked amused. “Especially if you spend your life with M.”
“No.”
“No?” She smiled at me.
“That can’t be right. Why would she have married him if she didn’t love him?”
I don’t know why I felt so betrayed by that idea. Why it seemed so cruel to my father.
He’d already been forgotten by his own daughter and murdered by someone else’s, and now I learned he hadn’t even been important to the person he should have been everything to.
“She didn’t have to marry anyone if she didn’t want to,” I said.
“She didn’t have to, no,” she agreed. “Nobody was holding a gun to her head.”
I closed my eyes tight for a minute, but the darkness there was worse than the night.
“But there are other reasons she might have wanted to get married,” she went on. “Reasons other than love, that is. She might have been tired of being alone. She might have wanted to get her parents off her back. Those are all things she hinted at, when she told me that part of her story.
“She said that he was safe, and he made her feel safe. That he seemed to love her, and she kind of liked the fact that she didn’t exactly love him. It made her feel strong. Powerful. In control. For once.”
Freezing cold. Not the weather: just me.
M thinks I’m mad at her because I spent all day in the bathtub. I wasn’t avoiding her. It was just the only place I could feel almost warm. Warm enough not to feel numb.
I guess I wouldn’t have minded her visiting, if she really wanted to sit there while I turned into a human prune, but Ms. Lurie wouldn’t approve—not after all her talks about Leaving Ourselves Something To Look Forward To.
Anyway, I couldn’t really talk, and that only would have worried her more.
The Letting Go Page 22