by Sarah Moon
Mr. Garfield is fine, but he’s new—and young. He has jet-black hair that falls into his very blue eyes. Most of the girls think he’s hot; the jock boys want to talk sports with him. Sometimes he can’t tell whether we’re just wasting time or we really do want to know his opinion about, for example, SpongeBob. I never mind those times, those fifteen-minute inquiries into what he was like in high school or the Yankees. I can read. I can stare out the window. He is grateful for a quiet kid who doesn’t need much from him. He leaves me alone.
We’re supposed to line up outside the classroom before we come in. It’s supposed to be two single-file lines, but Mr. Garfield is never very good at insisting, and we take full advantage. Today, that works in my favor. I don’t have to worry about what part of the line I should be in, the front begging him to announce to everyone that I’ve returned, the end giving him the chance to take me aside to welcome me back personally, the middle leaving me open to comments from my classmates—if they’ve become people who talk to me, which they probably haven’t. Happily, it’s a big chaotic mess, and I can just shuffle in with everyone else.
He starts class with a Do Now—or he tries to. He’s got the question on the board, 8 = 5 + 2d, but Charmaine starts with “So nice to see you, Mr. Garfield. How was your break?” He’s so happy that we’re being nice to him that he tells us all about his visit to Colorado to see his family, how he went skiing. He asks if anyone else went skiing. Three boys tell him all about snowboarding; a few girls draw curlicue hearts in their notebooks. Jayce throws a spitball at one of the snowboarding boys. He hates snowboarders, he says, but I think he really means that he hates people who have families who take them snowboarding. For the whole month before break, all Jayce could talk about was how his dad was going to come and take him to the mountains. I guess his dad didn’t make it. Jayce probably sat at home playing video games.
Mr. Garfield says at the top of his lungs, “You GUYS! This is not cool. This is not how we behave in a society. A classroom is a society, you see, a community. Who can tell me what a community is?” A spitball heads toward Mr. Garfield, not at him, not a suspension-worthy offense, just a warning shot. And I roll my eyes right out the window. It’s nice to see that some things don’t change.
The next period is English, and I know that I won’t be able to get by quite so easily. Ms. Smith notices everything. The lines outside her classroom are always straight, single-file, and silent. They’re also alphabetical. There’s no way that she won’t notice I’m here, no way she hasn’t noticed that I haven’t been here. Ms. Smith isn’t mean; she’s just serious about school. She’s young—a lot of the teachers at my school are—and she’s West Indian, which the rest of them aren’t—and she has dreads down to the middle of her back, and ironic horn-rimmed glasses. She waits for us at the doorway, a smile soft like it’ll go away if we mess up. We know for a fact it will.
“Good morning, everyone,” she says.
“Good morning,” we mumble.
“Come on in; get started. Sparrow, it’s good to have you back.”
She doesn’t leave time for anyone to look at me or say anything, she says it right as we’re all coming in, and in Ms. Smith’s class, you come in and start the Do Now. It says: Journal Day! Write two paragraphs, one about the best part of your vacation, one about the worst. I like Journal Days because there’s five minutes after for anyone to read what they’ve written but the journals are private. Even Ms. Smith doesn’t read them. She walks around the room while we’re writing to make sure that we’re not sleeping or using our phones, but the actual writing is totally private.
I mostly doodle today. I can’t really answer this question. It seems like a long list of worsts. Worst: Being in the hospital. Worst: Being in therapy. Worse worst: Not talking to Mom. Just thinking the word Mom makes me want to cry; I can’t imagine actually writing about her. Ms. Smith circles our six pushed-together desks. She puts one hand on my shoulder as the other places a Post-it on my page. In her perfect cursive it says, Take your time. We missed you. I put the note in my pocket, curling and uncurling my fingers around it for the rest of the period.
Naomi sits next to me in science. “Where’ve you been?” she asks. Naomi’s sentences go up extra high at the end, like a squeaky toy.
“On vacation, like everyone else.” I try to sound like I think she’s crazy, like I can’t tell what she’s getting at.
“No, I mean before that.” Squeak. She looks me straight in the face, like, You know what I mean. Like, You can talk to me, Sparrow. Naomi’s the resident Nice Girl. She’s nice to everyone. She has big brown eyes that she bats in your direction, two pigtails that go down to her waist, and pink glasses that I think are just for show. When Naomi sits down next to you, you feel like her personal community service project, like the ones she’s always announcing in assembly. I can hear her now: Hi, everyone, I just wanted to remind you that Sparrow is coming back to school, so I’d like to invite all of you who’d like to volunteer to be nice to her to meet after assembly today. Naomi is the person who makes the five-foot card for you and has everyone sign it. She’s the person who plans the secret party for the teacher’s birthday and makes sure everyone brings a treat. If you get picked last for a team in gym, Naomi will always say, “I would’ve picked you.” You have to be a terrible person to hate Naomi, but you have to be an idiot to trust her.
“I heard you were carried out of school in an ambulance. Are you okay?”
“An ambulance can’t fit inside a school, so no, one didn’t carry me out, and yeah, I’m fine.”
She looks so hurt. I feel like I just kicked a puppy.
“Sorry, Naomi. Yeah, I’m fine.”
“I’m glad!” Squeak squeak.
Mrs. Robbins starts class. Nobody likes Mrs. Robbins but she’s a yeller, so nobody talks either. I’ve never been so glad to be in her class.
All morning all I thought about was what I was going to do during lunch. Now it’s here, and I still don’t know. I head down to the cafeteria with everyone else. I don’t want to, but it’s so much easier than drawing attention to myself by trying to go against the swarm of eighth graders headed in one direction. So I go. Down the stairs to the terrible green room that makes the noise and lights of this morning seem like a quiet walk in Prospect Park. I get food that I don’t plan to eat and look around at the sea of tables and shouting kids falling into place naturally, finding friends, saving seats, knowing just where to go. Where they belong. Naomi finds me and calls “Sparrow!” across the cafeteria, which causes other tables to look up and look at me, and I swear I see Janae mouth “hospital” to Brianna, who mouths “crazy” to Rebecca, and I drop my tray and leave. Not the inconspicuous exit I was hoping for. The lunch lady tries to grab my arm, but I’m small and I’m fast. By the time Ms. Grayson looks up from Jamal and Jarrod, who are throwing food at each other as usual in the back corner, I’m gone.
There’s nowhere to go without a hall pass. I duck into the first bathroom I see. I find a stall and tuck my feet up like a fugitive. Like someone is going to come and find me. I can’t catch my breath. The room is spinning, and I look for a window. What would I do, crawl out? Honestly, maybe. I let the room spin, and I close my eyes and feel my body whish and whirl and pound. I wait for it to pass.
Stuffing a sandwich into your face in the bathroom isn’t lunch, Sparrow. Mrs. Wexler’s voice makes me sob. I want to run into her office, I want her to tilt her head so all her earrings jangle and ask me what’s wrong. I might even tell her. My heart has returned to normal, the room isn’t going anywhere, I’m sobbing now. My feet against the door of the stall, my head against my knees, I’m thinking of what I would say to a dead woman and wondering how I am ever going to go to class. The bell rings. I don’t know how long I’ve been there but someone says my name.
I don’t answer.
“Sparrow, it’s Leticia. I know you’re in here, and Mr. Rothman is going to figure it out too. You should come to class before he notice
s you’re gone and they go looking for you.”
Leticia. I can hear Mrs. Wexler saying, Talk to her, Sparrow, she’s more like you than you know. That might have been true in sixth grade. It might even have been true a month ago. It is not true right now.
“Anyway, I hope you’re okay. I miss you, you know.”
My mouth opens up, but I can’t say anything. When the door closes, I take in as much air as I can. It’s like I was drowning and I didn’t even know. I wish I could’ve told her that I missed her too. That I miss Mrs. Wexler. That I miss being a Frequent Flyer. That I miss being her friend. I wish I could tell her to wait. Instead, I wait until I’m sure she’s long gone and there’s no one else in there. I put my feet down. I walk to the sink and run the water. I put my face right in the stream. I keep my eyes open for as long as I can. They sting. I don’t care. I try not to blink. It’s like I’m trying to wash my tears—past, present, future—down the drain. I’m sick of this. I stay underwater for as long as I can, until I’m choking and spluttering, but at least I’m not crying anymore. I dry my face and make sure the paper towel bits aren’t stuck on my skin. I sneak into class when Mr. Rothman has his back to the door. I don’t think he even noticed that I was gone.
Come on in, Sparrow,” Dr. Katz says with a smile as she opens the door.
There’s a notebook and a purple pen on the table where the Kleenex usually is. I take my seat and begin to pick at the stitching on the arms of the chair. From how frayed it is, I’d say I wasn’t the first to have this idea.
We begin our dance. She asks me a few easy questions:
“No mom today?”
“Nope.”
“Where is she?”
“Work.”
“What’s she do?”
“Something with IT at a bank.”
And on until she gets to one I won’t answer, and then I say nothing.
“How’s your sleep been?”
That’s the impossible one today. I’m tired all the time. I could fall asleep at a moment’s notice, but when I lie down at night, my mind spins and spins until morning. I think about the sky and the birds and wings and wind in my face, like I used to before bed. Still, I don’t sleep. I’m worried that if I say any of that, she’ll think I am crazier than she already does and I’ll have to take those terrible drugs they gave me at the hospital.
I shrug.
“Are you still taking the medications they gave you at the hospital?”
I nod, not wanting my voice to give away my lie. Not wanting to show I’m surprised that she seems to be able to hear my thoughts. The truth is, Mom gives them to me every morning and I make a big show of swallowing them, then tuck them under my tongue until she looks away, spit them into my hand, slide them from my hand to my pocket, and chuck them in the trash on the way to school. My pockets are disgusting, covered in spit and dust from the nearly swallowed pills, but it’s better than being drugged all the time.
Dr. Katz looks at me, brown eyes over silver frames. She takes a breath. “Listen, Sparrow, here’s the deal. You don’t have to talk to me, but you can’t lie to me. I know you haven’t had a great time lately, and I know that talking hasn’t gotten you very far. It’s going to take a while for me to convince you that I’m not going to tell you that you’re crazy if you open your mouth. Or, I guess more important, that I’m not going to tell your mom that. I’m not. Believe me, don’t believe me. But let’s get one thing straight. You’re not taking your meds—it doesn’t seem to me that you’re in any danger at the moment, but that’s not something that you lie to me about. It’s also not something you’re going to lie to Dr. Woo about at your next appointment. Do we understand each other?” I nod as slightly as I can.
“It seems to me that you’re pretty used to telling people the answers they want to hear. It’s a clever strategy, and I’d recommend using it in a lot of parts of your life. In here, it’s a waste of time. If you decide there’s something you want to tell me, there’s a notebook right there. Or, of course, you could speak up, but I’m not banking on that anytime soon. Me? I’m going to put on some music. It’s your time. Do what you like.”
I come down from the ceiling for a second only to see if she’s seriously about to put on some old-lady jams. She’s fiddling with an iPod dock. She has her sleeves rolled up, and I see the hint of a tattoo peeking out from under the white cotton of her button-down shirt. I go back to the ceiling, a little shocked by what she’s said, by what she knows, by the iPod dock and the tattoo.
I don’t recognize the song she puts on, but it’s not the hippie stuff I am expecting. It’s a man’s voice, which surprises me for some reason. I figured if she was going to play anyone, it would be Enya or something, something soothing and therapisty. Instead, it’s a gravel-voiced white guy with an electric guitar. I can’t make out what he’s saying at first, but the chorus is clear:
With your feet on the air and your head on the ground
Where is my mind?
How did she know? Who is this guy? And who is this old lady who likes his music? I am tempted to ask her, but I write it down instead.
Who is this?
I sit there listening to the rest of the album, eyes glued to the ceiling. Music is something you listen to with your friends, not with your therapist, but I don’t have friends, and if I don’t look at the tattooed woman in sneakers across from me, I can forget where I am and listen to the insistence and heart coming through the speakers. If I’m not careful, she’s going to be able to see my toes tapping through my sneakers. If I’m not careful, I’m going to dance.
It takes me the rest of the session to gather the courage to write the second question.
Can we switch seats?
When I get home from therapy, I see an extra pair of shoes by the coatrack downstairs and I know Aunt Joan must be visiting. The blare of video games tells me that my cousin, Curtis, is here too. I walk by the family room and see him completely obsessed with shooting something in some gross Shoot Lots of People game he loves. I know Aunt Joan must have told him what’s been up with me because he presses pause.
“Hey, cuz.”
“Hi, Curtis.”
“Um, how are you?” He has a concerned expression on his face that doesn’t look right. He’s eleven. He shouldn’t be concerned with anything but how many bad guys he has yet to kill today.
“I’m fine. Can we just be normal?”
He presses play. This is normal.
“Hey,” he says over the roar of machine guns, “I got you an iTunes card if you want to listen to some Taylor Swift or something. It’s on your bed.”
I throw a couch pillow at him, make him lose a round of artillery or something.
“Thanks, knuckle.”
That’d be short for knucklehead. This is normal.
“Our moms are in the kitchen?” He doesn’t hear me; he has enemies to waste.
I walk through the family room to the dining room. The table isn’t set—they must not be staying for dinner. I stop at the swing door between the dining room and the kitchen. I don’t mean to eavesdrop, but I haven’t heard Mom’s voice in normal conversation for so long I can’t help it. It’s muffled but it doesn’t take much to figure out the topic of conversation.
“So you think she’s okay?” Mom asks.
“Donna, listen, teenagers go through things. You remember how we were.”
“We weren’t hospitalized.”
“No, but we were teenagers. We were all emotions and roller coasters and secrets and trouble.”
“Maybe. I don’t know about that therapist, though.”
“Why?”
“She’s fine, I guess. Some hippie in pajama pants and sneakers. Like, really, are you going to be able to help my child? Are you going to be able to understand my child?”
“White?”
“Mixed. Black and Jewish, I think.”
“Sparrow will tell you if she doesn’t think it’s a fit.”
“She’d have to talk
to me to do that.”
“She’ll come back to you, sis.”
“I really hope so, Joanie. I don’t know what to do.”
This is what I get for eavesdropping. Everything is just as bad as I thought it would be. Well, at least Aunt Joan doesn’t think I’m completely nuts. Maybe she’s just saying that, though, to make my mom feel better.
“THANKS FOR THE GIFT CARD, CURTIS!” I shout so they’ll change the subject. Then I walk through. It’s quiet in the kitchen. They’re both looking at me like I’m a wild animal who’s somehow worked her way out of the zoo.
“Hi, Mom. Hi, Aunt Joan.”
“Hi, baby,” they say in unison. Twins, jeez.
“How are you, Sparrow?” Aunt Joan asks.
“Good. How are you?” I get myself a glass of water. I keep my voice light. I try to sound like Naomi, squeak squeak. Nobody thinks she’s crazy.
“I’m fine, just catching up with your mom.”
“I’ll let you do that, then.” I head up the stairs to my room.
“Dinner’s in an hour, Sparrow,” calls my mom.
“I’m not that hungry.”
“You have to eat.”
“Okay.”
I am hungry. I may be skinny and named after a bird, but I don’t eat like one. What I’m not in the mood for is sitting at the island, me and Mom on our stools, not talking, not listening to music, not reading. Picking at our meal and waiting for it to be over. I’m not in the mood for any of that.