by Lizzy Mason
When Cajun and Dave went back to the kitchen to clean up, I noticed Arjun and Tina disappearing into a bedroom. I pulled Raf aside.
“How old is Tina?” I whispered.
“Sixteen.”
I frowned. Maybe this party was like the others after all, just a sober version. “Don’t you think she’s a little young to be hooking up with someone who has his own apartment?”
“She’s a sixteen-year-old emancipated minor. She has her own apartment. She’s been through a lot.” He didn’t elaborate, but he didn’t have to. She was a parentless heroin addict. What I could imagine probably wouldn’t even cover half of it.
I hesitated, staring at the closed door. “Can we hang out and offer her a ride home?” It was literally the least I could do, but it made me feel slightly less bad for judging her.
He chuckled. “You might be waiting until the morning.”
My shoulders sagged.
“When people quit drinking or doing drugs, it doesn’t remove their other faults or insecurities,” Raf said quietly. “Tina needs validation. Arjun does, too. They’ve found each other.”
I was still frowning.
“Too much therapy, I know,” he added. “But I’m not wrong. I’m just saying, some people can’t change everything at once. Getting sober doesn’t take away the things that made you use in the first place.”
Only then did I realize he was talking about himself as much as he was Tina and Arjun.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s say some goodbyes and see if anyone wants to go to the diner for dessert.”
I groaned and wrapped my arms around my stomach full of jambalaya. “How can you think about eating right now?”
“Oh, that’s easy,” he said. “Another nice thing about not drinking? There’s always room for pie.”
After our trip to the diner, Raf walked me home—well, the hundred feet between his driveway and mine. But he stopped me before I opened the door. He took my hand and pulled me off the bottom step so that I stood in front of him. His face was the most serious I’d seen it be all night.
“Tonight was more fun with you there,” he said, looking me straight in the eye. “Thanks for coming.”
I smiled, unsure what I was feeling. Shy? That didn’t make sense. This was Raf. Happy? Yes, definitely. Maybe I shouldn’t question it.
“Thank you,” I said after a moment. “It was more fun and less scary than I thought it would be.”
Raf’s eyes glinted. “Why did you lie to me?” he asked. He knew; he just wanted to hear me say it.
“Because I wanted to hang out with you again, and it seemed like a good way to make that happen. Okay? Are you happy?”
He nodded, leaning close enough that I could feel his breath against my cheek when he said, “I couldn’t be happier.” And though I don’t know which one of us closed the gap between us, suddenly his lips were on mine.
A tornado of thoughts whirled through my mind, but I didn’t stop him. I didn’t want to.
I didn’t pull away when his tongue met mine. Or when his fingers wrapped around my hips, pulling me closer. Not even when they drifted under the hem of my T-shirt.
Raf was taller than me, but he was thinner. Not scrawny, but not thick. He had some muscle, but it wasn’t defined. I felt small love handles when I put my hands on his waist. It made me less self-conscious about my own curves as his hands explored farther up my back.
I might have entirely forgotten my vow to keep my distance had Dad not pulled down the street just then. When I heard the familiar scrape of his rear bumper on the bottom of the driveway, I pushed Raf away and drew my fingers to my lips. They felt swollen.
“I’m sorry,” Raf said. His eyes widened, following Dad’s car.
I was still a little dazed. I couldn’t figure out why he was apologizing at first.
“No,” I whispered finally. “Don’t be.”
Raf nodded but still looked troubled. I was beyond trying to figure out my own feelings. I couldn’t decide whether to be embarrassed or happy or ashamed.
I turned as Dad walked out of the garage. When I looked back, Raf was already headed toward his house.
“Good night, Dr. Langston,” he called over his shoulder. Then he paused and shot me a smile. My stomach did a somersault. “’Night, Harley.” And then he was gone.
Dad cleared his throat. I had no idea how much he’d seen.
“Hey, Daddy,” I said, a little too loudly.
“Hey, kid,” he said. His voice was gentle. “How was your night?”
“Seriously? That’s all you have to say?”
“What?” he said, innocence plastered on his face. “It’s not my fault I have impeccable timing. I should call myself ‘The Cooler.’”
I turned and bolted for the front door. “I’m not hearing this.”
“No, I mean it,” Dad said. He raced after me. Luckily, once inside, he had to deal with Floyd, who had been waiting with his nose plastered to the window since I got home.
“Maybe I have special powers,” he said once he’d given Floyd enough pets that he had rolled onto his back. “I’m like the Flash, except my power is keeping guys from kissing my daughters.”
“I hate to say it, Dad, but if you have that power, you’re really not using it right.”
His smile faded.
“Hey, have you been to see Audrey today?” I asked, awkwardly changing the subject.
Dad crouched beside Floyd, stroking his ears. The crease between his eyebrows deepened. “Same as yesterday,” he said.
I nodded. My throat tightened. “I saw Mom crying today,” I blurted out. It felt a little bit like I was tattling on her, but Dad needed to know. Mom prided herself on responsibility and routine, but today, she’d skipped work and gone to the hospital all day. When I left for the party, she was lying on the couch with the lights off. The sun had almost set, casting the room into a slow darkness. She had barely acknowledged me when I told her I was going out.
Dad took a deep breath in through his nose and rose from the floor. “That’s good,” he said finally. “I think she needs to cry.” Then all at once he pulled me into his warm chest and pounded me hard on the back twice before releasing me. “Let’s go check on her, okay?”
I nodded, trying to hide my shock. So . . . he was letting me get away without discussing what he’d just witnessed? He had never let me kiss Mike in front of him. He’d walk into the room, see us, and immediately start making an embarrassing siren or alarm sound, or just announce, “Father in the room!” It was all pretty effective. Maybe this was a test.
I turned to head up the stairs when he added, “You might want to clean off that smudge of lip gloss first, though.”
And there it was. Best to just get it over with. I stopped on the first stair so that we were eye to eye.
“What you saw, that was just a mistake. I’m going to tell Raf that it was too soon and we need to be friends.”
There was a flicker of relief on Dad’s face. “Smart girl,” he said.
My fists clenched at my sides. The anger was sudden and unexpected. I fought to keep it bottled up. Why was he so sure I was being smart? What did he really know about Raf, anyway? There was no need to get into it; I was only fighting with myself. Dad was just echoing what I’d told Cassidy. What I so desperately wanted to believe. That it was too soon. We should just be friends.
I hurried up the stairs and knocked on my parents’ bedroom door.
“Mom?” I said.
Dad pushed the door open before she answered. “It’s my room, too,” he joked defensively.
I almost laughed, but then I saw Mom. She was curled on her side, in her nightgown, with a blanket tucked up under her armpit. She wasn’t crying anymore. Her eyes were open, and she was glassily staring at the wall. The room was silent and smelled strongly of stale booze.
Dad and I exchanged a nervous glance.
“Maureen?” Dad said. His tone reminded me of how he’d talk to Audrey when we were younger, when Audrey was on the verge of a panic attack. “Honey, are you okay?”
I sat down on the edge of the bed and patted her foot. Her toes were tiny ice cubes. “Mom? What’s going on?”
“Do you think she knows we’re not there with her right now?” Mom replied. Her voice was unexpectedly calm and steady.
Dad and I exchanged another uneasy glance. I looked at him pointedly, and he knelt next to the bed so he was at eye level with Mom.
“No,” he said. “I don’t think she knows what day it is or what time it is. I think she can hear us sometimes, but other times, she’s sleeping, healing. But I don’t think Audrey would be upset that we aren’t there every moment. I think she’d want us to try to live our lives as best we can. Don’t you think so, Harley?”
“Yes,” I heard myself say.
“She was moving a little more today,” Mom remarked, not looking at either of us. “But she won’t wake up. I just kept asking her to, over and over again . . .” Her voice trailed off as she squeezed her eyes shut. A tear leaked out. For once, maybe for the first time, her hair was matted and greasy. My eyes drifted to the glass on her bedside table; it was half full of brown liquor and stained with her lipstick.
She’d kept it together as long as she could, but now it was her turn to fall apart. Now it was my turn to take care of her.
I stood and walked to the other side of the bed. Mom tilted her head back to look at me as I reached for the top sheet and comforter, which were still crisp and neatly made. Dad took the other corner, and we eased them out from beneath her. She rolled onto her back and we tucked her in. Then I switched off the light and turned the TV on to distract her. Dad removed the glass of whiskey from her bedside table.
“Watch some Friends,” I said over the soft laughter of the studio audience. “And get some sleep. We’ll see Audy first thing in the morning.”
I left Dad there. I imagined he would lie beside her after she passed out and stare at the ceiling all night. Not that I blamed him. In the end, I spent most of the night awake, doing the same thing. Mom was the bedrock on which this family was built. If she cracked, where did that leave us?
At midnight, I pulled out my phone to text Raf, but I ended up deleting draft after draft. Most began with “I’m sorry.” But I wasn’t sorry at all. I’d liked kissing him. He was a much gentler, softer kisser than Mike had been. I liked the feel of his unshaven chin against mine. His fingers in my hair. His warm breath on my neck.
But then the guilt came crashing back over me, a wave that dragged me under. I fought against its pull by tossing out rationalizations. Mike had cheated on me. We were broken up. I shouldn’t be feeling guilty. And yet that didn’t change the fact that Audrey was in a coma because I’d abandoned her. I shouldn’t have been kissing Raf. I didn’t deserve to feel happy when she was in peril.
I watched the phone until the backlight turned off and, finally, drifted into an uneasy sleep.
As if Mom had willed it in her stupor, the call came from the hospital around 4 a.m. Audrey had woken up again. Since the accident, I’d begun sleeping with the cordless house phone next to me, so I eavesdropped while Dad talked to Keisha. As soon as he hung up, I ran to my parents’ room and flung open the door.
“It’s just like her, the night owl,” Dad croaked groggily as he swung his legs out from under the sheets. “She would wake up when we were all asleep.”
He shook Mom. “Maureen, honey, Audrey’s awake.”
Mom’s eyes popped open, but she winced at the light from Dad’s bedside table.
“That’s great,” she said quietly. “Let me just . . . go take some ibuprofen and brush my teeth.” She looked over at me. “Go put on something clean.” Even hungover, Mom was still Mom.
By the time we arrived at the hospital, Audrey was unconscious again. Dr. Martinez was waiting for us in her room, so I figured that had to be a good sign. Or a bad one.
“She was more alert this time. And while she was conscious, she was fighting the ventilator,” he said, ushering us into the hall. “She’s trying to breathe on her own. So she’s no longer comatose. She’s too weak for it to be removed, but we’ll do a trial soon to see if we can start trying to wean her off. We’re very hopeful,” he added, seeing Mom’s anxious expression.
“When will you do that?” Dad asked.
“I’d like to try in a day if she’s alert enough.”
I tuned out the conversation and glanced back at her open door. I could just see the two lumps of blanket-covered feet.
I ducked back into the room. I was so nervous, my chest felt like it was full of bees. Or maybe it was hope, trying to lift the leaden feeling of guilt that had been weighing me down. I sat down on the chair closest to her pillow and leaned in, stroking the soft skin between her eyebrows. It used to help her sleep when we were little.
Her eyes blinked open a crack. My heart leapt and I nearly lost control of my hand and dropped it on her face. I pulled back just in time.
“Hey, Audy?” I gasped, trying to contain my excitement.
She made a soft noise in her throat.
“It’s me.” Remembering that she may have memory loss, I added, “Your sister, Harley.”
Audrey moaned again quietly. She moved under the covers, pointing her toes.
My pulse began to race. “I missed you,” I whispered. She blinked at me, her eyes unfocused. “I’ve been talking to you. And reading to you. Watching movies. Do you remember any of that?”
Her expression remained blank. But her stare was fixed now. Fixed on me. This was real. This was happening. I knew I’d start crying if I stopped, so I kept babbling.
“Mom and Dad are right outside, talking to your doctor and Keisha,” I said. As if on cue, the door opened and Mom and Dad rushed in. I jumped out of the chair to hug them.
“Why didn’t you tell us she’d woken up again?” Mom barked at me.
My jaw dropped. I froze mid-step.
“It literally just happened,” I snapped back. But the tide of guilt lapped over me once more. I moved out of her way and mumbled, “I’m sorry.”
Mom ignored my response anyway, falling into the chair where I’d been sitting, wrapping her hands around one of Audrey’s.
“It’s Mommy, sweetheart,” she said, her voice quivering. “I’m here. I’m so sorry I left you.”
I glanced over Dad’s shoulder. Keisha and the doctor had followed my parents into the room. Suddenly it was feeling way too cramped.
“She may not remember waking up,” Keisha said to Mom. “So try not to be too hard on yourself. Audrey needs positivity.”
Audrey’s eyes fixed on the sound of Keisha’s voice and she tried to turn her head. Keisha immediately brushed past Dad and me, kneeling beside Mom. Maybe Audrey didn’t remember us, but she recognized the voice that had been there all along.
Mom’s face fell as she watched Keisha interact with Audrey. My heart squeezed. Keisha chattered easily while she checked Audrey’s pupils and took her pulse. Audrey didn’t look away once. Mom’s prayers had been answered, yes, but none of us had expected this.
Audrey’s lips were cracked and dry from the ventilator, so Keisha ran a cotton swab coated with Vaseline across them. Mom’s fingers unconsciously mirrored her actions, so consumed was she with the desire to do it herself. It was almost too painful to watch. Right now, honestly, I wanted to punch something.
Mike’s face came immediately to mind.
A few hours after Audrey fell asleep again, I decided to go home. It was eight in the morning and I was exhausted. Mom still had plenty of energy to hover, and Dad wandered in and out, trying to find distractions. Both Keisha and Dr. Martinez had made it clear that returning to full consciousness would be a long proces
s. The implication was that we could all use a break, but I was the only one who seemed to get it.
I called Cassidy and woke her up. I must have sounded as tired as I felt because she didn’t even sound annoyed when I asked her to come pick me up. She even had coffee and a donut waiting for me in her car’s cup holder.
“I don’t deserve you,” I said as I took a grateful sip. Liquid warmth spread through me. Sweet and milky, just the way I liked it.
“No, you don’t,” she deadpanned. “Luckily, I love you anyway.”
I laughed sadly as I reached for the donut.
“So, do you want to talk about it?” she asked.
I shook my head. “Not really. But do you think you could get me a job at The Flakey Pastry? Mom told me to find ‘gainful employment,’ but I’m also thinking of emancipation. I’ll need to pay rent.”
Six Years Ago
I heard my friends grumble, the ones closest to the cabin door. I heard them even before I heard Audrey’s voice. But I knew what was going on. She was back. Of course. This was the fourth time this week.
With a sigh, I climbed off my bunk and went to shoo her out of our cabin and herd her back to her own. It was nearly lights out. We’d both be in trouble if we were out after “Taps” had been played.
“Hey, Audy,” I said quietly.
Her small, freckle-scattered face was red and streaked with tears.
I led her back outside, onto the cabin’s small front porch. My counselor raised her eyebrows at me through the window. I held up my pointer finger, asking her for just a minute. She reached for her walkie-talkie anyway. I knew she was calling Audrey’s counselor to come get her. I didn’t have much time.
I sat Audrey down on the stairs and stood in front of her so we were eye level. Her chin trembled and fresh tears slid from her eyes.