Code Name: Whatever

by Emily Asad

  Chapter 13: Confrontations

  Statistic: Children of divorce, especially boys, tend to be more aggressive than children whose parents stayed married.

  I took Erika’s advice to heart and set out on the unpleasant task of making friends. I felt like Mary Lennox from The Secret Garden who was notorious for being antisocial. In the end of that book, however, she made several friends. Although my life was not as neatly arranged as a book, I wondered how my school year would end. In any case, if Mary Lennox could make friends, then certainly I could too.

  The next day, I ran into Darcy in the hall. As usual, when our eyes connected, she looked down and tried to become invisible. I was already in a bad mood from the night before, and Darcy made me feel worse. She, the most unpopular girl in the entire school, was ignoring me! I was tired of it. I stopped her.

  “Darcy, how’s it going?”

  The shock in her eyes made me think she was going to have a heart attack right then and there. She looked behind her, as if there were another Darcy in school. “I’m fine?” she replied, as if it were a question that had multiple answers and she had to choose the correct one.

  I got straight to the point. There were only a few minutes between classes before the bell rang, and I didn’t want to be late. “Why are you always avoiding me?”

  “Avoiding you? I thought you were avoiding me!”

  “That’s crazy. What gave you that idea?”

  She studied the tiles on the floor. “I don’t know… everybody else does… and you seemed kind of… I don’t know… put off by the fact that I have cancer…”

  I remembered my sudden departure, that day in the bathroom, right after she showed me her stomach pack. “No, that’s not it. I really truly had to catch the bus.”

  We stood there, uneasy, neither of us knowing what to say.

  “Okay,” she shrugged. “Bye.”

  “No, wait.” I took a deep breath. “I’m lonely, and you seem lonely too. I don’t really have any friends. You’re in several of my classes… I wanted to invite you over for a slumber party sometime.”

  She bristled. “Is this a joke?”

  “No, it’s not. I know it sounds really stupid. I don’t care what you think.” I grew angry with myself for exposing my most private feelings. “Never mind. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  I brushed past her, but she caught my sleeve. Her eyes had the same hungry, longing look as mine. “A slumber party? I’ve never been to one.”

  “I’ve never had one.”

  “How many people will be there?” she asked, releasing her hold on me.

  “Just you, I’m afraid. I don’t know anyone else to ask.”

  “Why are you asking me?”

  I sighed. “I don’t know. I’m just… so… I hate my life. Somebody told me to go make some friends, so that’s what I’m doing.”

  She gawked at me. “Just like that. You’re going out and making friends.”

  “Well, this is my first attempt.”

  She snorted – a cross between a laugh and a snicker. It turned into a full-fledged giggle after a few seconds. “You’re even worse at it than I am!”

  “At least I’m trying,” I huffed, offended.

  “No, no, I didn’t mean it like that.” She stopped laughing, but the grin remained. “Why did you choose me?”

  Brutal honesty gripped me. “I didn’t think you’d make fun of me, since everyone picks on you anyway.”

  “Ah.” She grew pensive, and then made her decision. “You know what? I’d love to do a slumber party with you. When were you thinking?”

  We decided on Wednesday. It would be short, but it wouldn’t interfere with the parents’ driving schedule or school. We could take the bus to my house, and she could return with me the next day for school again.

  She did warn me that she had to take lots of medication, and that some of the things she had to do were pretty gross. She seemed very concerned with me being okay with her illness. It truly didn’t bother me. I knew cancer wasn’t contagious.

  And there it was - I had taken the first steps toward cracking out of my self-imposed, introverted little shell. It was much easier than I had expected. I just wondered how I was going to ask Mom for permission to have a slumber party!

  I had just finished setting the plates on the table for the dreaded family-style meal when Mom came home from work. I didn’t have to look at her to know she was in a bad mood – I could feel it as soon as she walked inside. My first tip-off was the fact that she slammed the door and strode into the kitchen, stopping within inches of my nose.

  “I just heard that my daughter gave the performance of her life last night. Do you know who I heard it from? My boss! He was there to see his son, and he recognized you!”

  I tried hard to think who her boss’s son might be. She worked for Mr. Overland… it must be Luke.

  “He said he was impressed with your choreography. Supposedly you and his son danced better than any of the other couples. And then, he told me about how you led the choir – the whole choir – in a sign language version of your song.”

  She was so angry she was spitting. I wondered why she was so upset. Was it because I had danced with a boy? I knew she didn’t want me near boys until I was thirty, but this was only for a school concert!

  She grabbed me by the shoulders and began to shake me, lightly at first, but then with more intensity. “Do you know how embarrassing it was for me? I had to pretend to know what you had done. I had to fake it! You never told me you were doing anything special for your concert!”

  So that was her problem! She wasn’t sorry she had missed the concert – she was upset because someone else had embarrassed her for being a bad mother! My temper ignited instantly. “You wouldn’t have come anyway,” I said, knocking her hands away from my shoulders.

  “Don’t you get physical with me,” she hissed. “I’m your mother. You show me some respect.”

  “Show me some, and I’ll show you some,” I shouted. “I get my behavior from you. You taught me well!”

  She slapped me.

  I knew I deserved it for sassing her, but I didn’t care.

  “How dare you talk to me like that? You know I go to your events every chance I get.”

  I couldn’t stop myself. “That’s a lie! You always have a headache. You don’t care one bit. You’re the worst mother that ever existed!”

  That earned me another slap, and another, and another. I put my hands up to defend myself, but I knew the rules well enough to know I was breaking them and making the punishment worse.

  “Put your hands down,” she screamed. “You don’t defend yourself when you’re being punished. Or do you want a beating with the wooden spoon?”

  I forced myself to hold my hands at my side while she smacked me again. I was just considering playing unconscious, so she would stop, when my protector and hero came to my rescue.

  Matt, with gentle strength, grabbed her arms. “That’s enough,” he growled.

  I had never seen him so angry. It was a cold, calm anger that made me fear for him worse than I feared for myself.

  “Let go of me,” Mom shouted. “Stay out of this. It’s none of your business.”

  “Physical abuse is everyone’s business.”

  That made her mad. She began to kick and squirm to get out of his grasp, but he held her tight and evaded her blows. He wasn’t even hurting her, but she made it seem as if he was trying to kill her.

  At that moment, Roger and Becky entered the house, carrying groceries in their arms. Roger saw Matt and dropped his bags. “You let go of her, right now!”

  “Not until she stops beating us,” he said.

  Roger crossed the room in two steps and practically threw Matt to the floor.

  Matt, ever the quick wrestler, was up in an instant, sparks shooting from his eyes. “You don’t know what you’re getting into.”

  “You will never touch your mother like that again, ever
,” said Roger, drawing himself up to his full six feet, two inches. “No matter what she’s done to you. She’s your mother. You need to respect her.”

  I stepped between them. “She’s nobody’s mother. She’s never around!”

  “You ungrateful little witch!” shouted Mom.

  “You want to challenge me?” asked Roger, noticing how tense Matt was.

  I put my hand on Matt’s arm. I had never felt it so tense before. His muscles bulged. He was ready to spring into action. “I’m ready right now,” he said. “I’m not afraid of you.”

  “Stop, Matt,” I pleaded. “He’s bigger than you are.” My touch kept him from advancing.

  “Apologize to your mother. Apologize!”

  Matt glared at Roger. “You’re not my father! Don’t tell me what to do!”

  Mom reached in and smacked Matt. “Don’t talk to him like that!”

  The only thing preventing us from getting into an all-out tumble, me included, was Becky, who stood in the middle of us. If we had started beating on each other, she would have gotten punched, too. She started to cry. “Stop it, you guys! Don’t fight with each other!”

  Matt sneered at Mom. “You think you can hurt me? You’re too weak. If you touch me ever again – or Beverly, or any of us kids - I’ll kill you. Do you hear me? I’ll kill you!”

  “Get out! GET… OUT… get out!” she shouted. She would have attacked him if Roger hadn’t held her.

  We did get out. Fast. We both ran to the barn and locked the door. I was glad to escape.

  My cheek, bright red, still stung from the slapping. I wondered if it would bruise like last time.

  “Do you still have your survival kit?” asked Matt.

  I nodded.

  “I want to use it. You’ll never use it. You don’t have the guts. But I’m leaving. Right now.”

  “Don’t say that, Matt. We need you. If you hadn’t shown up, she’d have given me a black eye. I’ve never seen her so angry.”

  “She gets worse every year. I can’t take it any more.”

  “Me neither, but we have to. Where will we go? Nobody will take us. I don’t want to end up in a foster home. They’re worse than Mom is.”

  “Nothing’s as bad as she is. I hate her. I hate her.”

  My hands - in fact, my whole body – trembled from fear and anger. “What are we gonna do?”

  “I know what I’m doing. I’m leaving. Give me your kit.”

  “Matt, no! Please don’t leave me. I can’t handle her alone!”

  “You can come with me. You don’t have to stay. Foster homes? That’s just a lie she told us. They’ll never catch us. We can be free. What do you want to do, stay here or be free?”

  “Those aren’t our only options. We can avoid her, too, you know. I usually do.”

  “You didn’t today. You got caught. And you didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “I should have been quicker with setting the plates out. Usually I do the chores, then come out here until dinner. After dinner, I come back ‘til bedtime. I only stayed because I wanted to ask if I could have a slumber party.”

  “You’re bringing another human being into this Circus Maximus? What are you thinking?”

  Suddenly, inviting Darcy over seemed to be a really bad idea. The chances of Mom blowing up over the slightest provocation were very high. Did I really want a new friend to be exposed to that?

  “Give me the kit, Beverly.”

  “No.”

  “Then I’ll find it myself.” He began to dig in the straw, and he seemed to know right where it was hidden.

  “No! Come on, Matt! You can’t leave. Please. There has to be another solution.”

  “Aside from murdering her, I don’t see any alternatives.”

  “Wait! There is one – there is! You know that we can graduate with our associate’s degree when we get our high school diplomas, right?”

  “What are you talking about?” He slowed his frantic digging.

  “Don’t get impatient yet. I have a point. You know how some of the juniors go out to the community college instead of doing their junior year at the high school? Well, I heard that the State Hospital offers free room and board to college freshmen and sophomores, as long as they’re taking full-time courses and they work two hours a day at the hospital.”

  “Work in the loony bin? Never. And you have to have the grades to substitute college for high school.”

  “You have good grades. Talk to the counselor – she’ll sign you up for summer courses. They start in June. You’d only have to stick around until June.”

  I had his attention. I could see him weighing the pros and cons.

  “Free room and board?”

  “In exchange for two hours of work a day. You clean toilets and peel potatoes. Plus you’d have a college degree by the time you turn eighteen. You get a head start on life.”

  “Are you going to do it?”

  I shrugged. “I’ve been thinking about it. But I don’t have a car. I don’t know how I’d get myself from the hospital to the college. That’s ten miles. Plus I’d want to get a job, you know? I don’t want to just exist on hospital food every day. I’d want some spending money too.”

  “Cory offered to sell me his car for five hundred bucks. If I had a car, I could get a job to pay for the gas and insurance.”

  “You could give me a ride to college and work, maybe. I’d split gas and insurance with you.”

  “It will never work. Mom will never agree to this. We’re sixteen. She’ll say we’re too young.”

  We slumped into the hay. “I gotta be honest with you, Matt. I’ve always wanted a horse. I love our animals, and I love living here. This is the best house we’ve ever had. I’m not sure if I want to leave – even if it means putting up with Mom.”

  “Well, I have no ties,” he shrugged. “I hate coming home.”

  I pushed my advantage. “So it’s settled, then. You’ll stay until June.”

  He worked his jaw muscles for a while. “Yeah. I suppose. I’m buying a car, though. I have some money. Maybe I can talk Cory into letting me have the car now, and I’ll pay him off when I get a job. Mom can’t object to me getting a job. It’s better than wasting the evenings here at home.”

  “You know her rules. No working during the school year. We can work during the summer, but not during classes.”

  “Screw her and screw her rules. You think I care? You think she can stop me?”

  He was starting to grow angry again, so I switched the topic. I made him see that it would be better to wait until he was fully prepared, instead of doing something he might regret. I had just gotten him calmed down when Roger broke our sanctuary.

  “Matt, I want to talk to you.”

  Matt stood up. I joined him. What happened to him, happened to me. We were twins. We shared everything.

  “Your behavior is unacceptable. You’ve got your mother fearing for her life. What are we supposed to do, report you to the police?”

  “If you do, they’ll investigate, and they’ll find out that she’s abusive,” he countered. “You wanna go through all those hoops, just to get me into trouble?”

  I could see that Roger knew full well that Mom was out of control. There was no way to stop her. He drew near to us and spoke in a hushed voice. “I’m going to tell you something that I don’t want you sharing with your mom. I think she’s manic depressive. She displays all the signs – mood swings, uncontrollable outbursts… I’ve tried talking her into seeing a specialist, but she refuses to acknowledge that she has a problem.”

  A shudder ran down my spine. We had studied that in Health and Wellness class. It could be controlled with medication, to the point that the afflicted person could live a normal life. Wouldn’t that be nice, I thought sarcastically. With horror, I realized it could also be genetic. I remembered stories about Grandma, how she treated her own kids… did that mean that I was next in line? Would I turn out to be exactly like my mother?

  Q
uickly, I made a new rule for my List. Seek help if you suspect you’re out of control. Never be too proud to admit failure. Get input from other people, and believe them if they tell you there’s a problem…

  “I’m grounding you for your behavior, Matt. Physically restraining anyone is a form of abuse in its own right.”

  “But she was beating up on Beverly! Someone had to stop her!”

  “You didn’t let me finish. What you did was also commendable, stepping in and helping your sister, so I’m lifting the punishment. Just don’t touch your mother again.”

  Rebellion burned in Matt’s eyes, but he kept silent. I knew he was thinking about June.

  “What about me?” I asked.

  “You should have told your mother about your special part in the concert. She’s upset that she missed it.”

  “She wouldn’t have come anyway! It wouldn’t have made a difference. And it was her choice to miss my concert. She could have swallowed a bottle of aspirin so her migraine wasn’t an excuse.”

  “She complains that you never tell her anything. She wouldn’t have had an excuse if you had told her.”

  “That’s so stupid,” I muttered. I got sarcastic. “And what about her? Are you punishing her?”

  “Your mother is her own worst punishment,” he sighed. “She loathes herself. She wants to be a good mother but she doesn’t know how. She’s in her room right now, hating herself for what she just did to you two.”

  That was a new concept. I had never thought about Mom’s emotions before. I thought she enjoyed yelling at us. “So why doesn’t she stop?”

  “I don’t think she can, Beverly.”

  Matt folded his arms across his chest. “So when are you leaving?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Leaving. Departing. Going away. Quitting. Filing for divorce.”

  Roger was taken aback. “I have no intentions of going anywhere. I love your mother.”

  Matt sneered at him. “You must be crazier than she is, then.”

  Roger smiled. “You can’t get rid of me that easily. I’ve seen worse. Much worse. I’m here to stay, son.”

  “I’m not your son.”

  He sighed. “I know that. I just like to pretend. I only had daughters, you know. I always wanted a boy.”

  “Well, you’ll never be my father. Take out your fantasies on Peter.”

  “Fair enough. But you don’t need to get so rude with me, Matt. I’m not your enemy. And neither is your mother.” He turned to me. “I know I don’t count as a father to you, either, but I thought you did well at your concert. I was proud of you. Good night.” He hurried back to the house.

  “I can’t wait until June,” said Matt.