The Secrets of Blueberries, Brothers, Moose & Me

by Sara Nickerson

  Mom looked worried. Really worried. And Dad was off somewhere, worried about other things, like gazebos and cake and parking spots for guests. Those things. I felt bad about being the cause of that unattractive crease between my mother’s eyebrows, but there was no way I was getting off the couch until I absolutely had to.

  If it weren’t for the dress, my maid of honor war dress, I don’t think I would have been able to get up at all. I couldn’t wait to see the looks on their faces—Dad and Tessa and all the happy guests—when I marched down the aisle wearing it. Just thinking about it in the dark corner of my closet, still with the tag that said Looks Can Kill, gave me the giggles. Not the happy giggles, but at least I wasn’t crying.

  • • •

  That night, the night before the wedding, I slept on the couch and woke up sweaty after dreams I couldn’t remember. When the light coming from the window let me know it was finally morning, I opened my eyes and thought this is the day. I could hear water running in the bathroom—someone in the shower already. This was the day.

  I slipped out from underneath the quilt and stretched my arms over my head. I had a plan, suddenly, to make coffee for Mom and scrambled eggs for us all, and I was surprised at how good it felt to be up, doing something. When Mom came into the kitchen she was surprised, too. “Missy,” she said, “you’re up!”

  “I’m up, Mom,” I said. “How about some coffee.”

  She nodded her head with quick, grateful movements. I could see her eyes filling with tears and the worried crease between her eyebrows beginning to soften.

  Patrick came in, toweling off his wet hair and smelling of something new but familiar. “What’s that smell?” I asked.

  “What smell? Shampoo?”

  “No, it’s something else. But I can’t place it.” I went over and stood close. “It’s shaving cream!” I shouted. “Shaving cream!”

  Patrick’s ears turned red. “So?”

  “So what—you’re shaving now?”

  “Leave him alone, Missy,” Mom said with a smile. “Come and eat these eggs you made. They look delicious.”

  Claude came running down the hallway, shrieking with the joy of being completely naked. With skin still warm and pink from his bath, he looked like a sweet little pig. This is my family, I said to myself. The rest doesn’t matter.

  “Go jump in the shower,” Mom said. “We can’t be late.”

  “When are we being picked up?”

  “I’m driving you.”

  “What?” I was surprised.

  “I’m driving you.”

  I couldn’t imagine her driving up to the house on the day of the wedding, dropping us off and then driving away. Somehow that just seemed too much. Even Dad wouldn’t ask that of her. He’d already asked some cousin of his to pick us up and babysit Claude while we got ready to do our best man/maid of honor chores. It had been planned like that for weeks.

  “What about that cousin?” I said. “Dad’s weird cousin from—”

  “Eat your eggs.”

  “You told me to jump in the shower.”

  “Then do something, Missy!” Mom shouted angrily. “Just do something!”

  We all froze. Mom never shouted like that. She would get angry sometimes but she never shouted at us. I looked down at my plate of eggs. The thought of eating them made my stomach lurch.

  “I’ll be quick,” I said tightly. “Don’t want to be late for my father’s wedding.” And with that I went straight to the bathroom and stood under the steaming hot water until a fist pounding on the door told me it was time to stop.

  CHAPTER 46

  THE RIDE TO THE WEDDING COULD HAVE BEEN A RIDE to anywhere. We were clean and showered but dressed in normal clothes, since our fancy wedding outfits were already hanging in closets at Dad’s house. Patrick had a bag packed with extra clothes for Claude, since he couldn’t stay clean for more than ten minutes at a time. And in my backpack, of course, was the secret weapon dress from the dark corner of my closet.

  “So why are you driving us, Mom?” I asked after we’d been riding in silence for several minutes. “I’m just wondering.”

  “I told you. Things got a little mixed up. Your dad’s cousin couldn’t come as early as she thought so your dad called last night and asked if I would do this. It’s no big deal.” I could hear her voice trying extra hard to be casual. “I do have a favor, though.”

  Patrick asked, “What is it, Mom?”

  “Can you two just get Claude into the house fairly quickly. You know.”

  I knew. “You don’t want to see Dad, do you? On his second wedding day.”

  Mom said, “It’s not that. It’s not that at all.” But I knew it was.

  Of course, the moment we pulled up I realized the folly of that plan. Dad was already out front, talking to some parking guy or catering guy—one of the many guys hired to make the day go smoothly. He was dressed in his tux pants and a white shirt, but not the jacket or tie. I saw his face get tight, just for a moment, before he gave Mom a friendly wave on his way to the car.

  Mom sighed and glanced at herself in the rearview mirror. Then she turned to us and forced a bright smile. “You all look great,” she said as she opened the door to greet my father.

  My mom had spent so much time getting us all bathed and shiny that she hadn’t had time to put on her new face goop from the mall, or even the free lipstick. When she got out of the car I looked at her, really looked. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail and she’d thrown on a plain white T-shirt and faded jeans. Her cheeks were flushed, her cheekbones high and delicate. She was beautiful, like the heroine of a tragic and heartbreaking tale. If she only had a horse or a cape, I thought, she could be on the cover of one of Bev’s paperback novels.

  My throat was so tight I could barely breathe. I got out, grabbed my backpack and threw my arms around her. “I’m glad you’re my mom,” I whispered in her ear. For some reason it felt like I was saying a big good-bye, like we were all going on a long trip and leaving her behind.

  She held me tight. “I’m proud of you, Missy,” she said back. “Have fun today.”

  I thought of the dress wadded up in my backpack and nodded. I would certainly have fun. And she’d hear all about it later. There would even be photographs.

  While Patrick hugged our mom, I stepped over to the sidewalk. After his good-bye, Patrick came and stood next to me. Together we waited for Dad to get Claude.

  I watched my parents carefully. Would there be a moment when Dad suddenly remembered his other wedding day? Would he think, This is the person I cut that cake with, all those years ago? Or do you turn those things off—close them like a book you once loved but couldn’t possibly read again? And if so, are our lives made up of books like that? Entire collections of moments that makes us who we are, but are impossible to keep open all at once?

  Mom leaned into the backseat and unbuckled Claude. Even though he was getting too big for it, she lifted him out and held him tight. When Claude saw Dad he reached his arms out happily.

  “Come here, Mr. Claudio,” Dad said softly, giving him a squeeze. “Thanks, Claudia.” And I crossed my fingers hoping he wouldn’t say something terrible like, “I’m sorry,” and he didn’t, not even in his voice.

  But they did stay there, just for a moment. They stayed like that, both holding on to Mr. Claude. And they smiled, over his big round head. “He’s getting so big,” Dad said. “You’re getting so big, Claude.”

  And Mom said, “He’s very excited about the wedding cake.”

  “The wedding cake? You’re excited about the wedding cake, Mr. Claudio?”

  Claude’s face turned red as he squirmed his way out of their arms. “Put me DOWN!” he roared.

  They both laughed. “He reminds me of Missy at that age,” Mom said.

  Dad nodded. “Except Missy was louder.” They laughed agai
n, remembering.

  It was almost too much to look at, and yet, it was what I had been waiting to see. After all the months of hearing them say it to us, We’re still your parents together, I finally saw it with my own eyes. It was in the look they shared over the top of Claude’s head. It was in how they remembered me.

  We were a family. Not the family I wanted us to be, but still a family. My mom and dad might not be together in most ways, but they both loved Mr. Claudio. They loved him together. And they loved me, too. And Patrick.

  It wasn’t the moment I’d been secretly dreaming about, the one where Dad, suddenly coming to his senses, whisks Mom off her feet and carries her to the backyard. And while Tessa runs away screaming and crying and ripping the hair out of her very own head, the minister calmly performs their marriage ceremony all over again.

  This actual moment was small—here and gone before anyone could have snapped a photograph. But it was real. And it was ours.

  I knew that my mom would get in the car and drive away and that my dad would go to the backyard and marry someone named Tessa. But the fact that it had been there at all seemed to unravel the terrible knot that had become my stomach. Right at that moment, I couldn’t hate my dad. Not even on his wedding day.

  I turned and started up the sidewalk. I had to leave before my mom drove off in the car all alone, headed back to an empty house. I had to leave while there was still a tiny bit of magic in the air.

  CHAPTER 47

  “YOU’RE JOKING, RIGHT? THIS IS A JOKE?” PATRICK stood in front of the bathroom’s full-length mirror, adjusting his silver-green tie while I wrestled with my Looks Can Kill, skull and bone, spandex, camouflage minidress.

  Every time I pulled the dress down to my knees, it managed to creep up to my thighs in about three seconds. After the fourth try, Patrick started to laugh.

  “Thanks,” I said. “Thanks a lot.” I dashed back across the hall to my room.

  Patrick followed. “Missy, I wasn’t laughing at you. You look, well—isn’t that what you want? Don’t you want to make a statement?”

  I fell down on the bed and covered my face with my hands. “I don’t know anymore. I don’t know. I just didn’t want to wear a dress that Tessa picked out for me. And I wanted to hurt them somehow. But I don’t know.”

  “You don’t have to, Missy. You don’t have to do anything they want you to do.”

  “What?” I sat up straight. Patrick looked good. Respectable. Sharp in his dark suit and pressed white shirt.

  He said, “Do you think this is easy for me?”

  “Of course it’s easy. You act like it is. You’re the one who blames me for making things hard. You even said it. You said I make it hard for you.”

  “Maybe I’m just not as brave as you are, Missy.” He looked away quickly so that I couldn’t see his face, and I suddenly wondered if he, too, wanted to be anywhere but here, stuck in this room and wearing a fancy wedding suit. I stood up and the dress immediately crept up my thighs. I yanked it back down.

  “Wait!” Patrick said. He left the room suddenly, like he’d just remembered something important. A moment later he was back, carrying a long plastic bag. “Mom told me to give this to you. If you weren’t feeling sure of yourself.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know. That’s just what she said.”

  I took the bag from him. Something about it was so familiar. As I held it in my hand, I remembered our trip to the mall, and Mom’s bag with the hanger—just a little something for myself, she had said.

  I pulled up the bag slowly, nervously. I saw a flash of blue, cornflower blue, the color of a cloudless summer day. The tears came on so quickly I didn’t have time to stop them; they just rolled down my face.

  Patrick moved in and put his arm around me. “It’s okay, Missy,” he said in a soothing voice, like Mom would to Claude. “It’s going to be just fine. Who cares what you wear? You look great.”

  I had picked the awful dress to hurt Patrick, too. And now he was being so nice. Since everything that happened in the field we hadn’t said much more than, “pass the toast” to one another. And now this?

  “Patrick,” I said, pulling away. “You haven’t even said sorry.”

  “For what, Missy?”

  “For lying to me. Betraying me.”

  “It’s all about you, isn’t it, Missy? Like Moose and Lyle—”

  “Don’t talk about Moose. I don’t want to talk about them.”

  “Don’t you want to know the whole story?”

  “I know the whole story.”

  “Can you even try to see a situation from a side you’re not standing on?”

  “Nobody can.”

  “Sure they can. Like with Mom and Dad. You always blame Dad for their divorce, but Mom was part of it, too.”

  “She didn’t leave us.”

  “Dad didn’t leave us, Missy. He didn’t even leave Mom. They split up. End of story.”

  “That’s the easy way to see it, Patrick.”

  “Missy, that’s how you are with Shauna. And Moose and Lyle, too. One person is always right and one is wrong. It’s not like that. Life isn’t always like that.”

  “Well, what you did was wrong.”

  “So what if it was? And what if Dad was wrong, too? Are you going to hate him for the rest of your life? Are you going to hate me?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I think so.” But I couldn’t stop the smile at the corner of my mouth. It felt so good to be talking to Patrick again. But then I remembered that I hated him. “So, did you kiss her?”

  “What?”

  “Do you guys kiss?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What’s it like?”

  “I can’t describe it. You’ll find out for yourself, someday.”

  “I won’t.”

  “You will.”

  “Why do you like her so much?”

  “She likes me.”

  “A lot of people like you.”

  “It’s different, Missy.” Patrick was thoughtful for a moment, the way that Patrick gets when he’s trying to decide if he wants to speak or not. Finally he got up and crossed to the other side of the room. He stood in front of my dresser mirror and didn’t look at me when he spoke.

  “I never told you this but something happened at the end of the school year. It was after gym and I was getting dressed. Some boys grabbed me and shoved me out of the locker room. Then they held the door so I couldn’t get back in. They kept shouting, ‘Come and see the amazing stick boy,’ and pretty soon other kids came to see what all the yelling was about. And there I was.”

  “Naked?”

  “No, I had on my underwear and socks.”

  Quickly I made a mental note: Always put pants and shirt directly over gym clothes. “Well,” I said, softening in spite of myself. “Oh.”

  “The gym teacher came pretty quickly, but still, a few kids saw me and it was the big joke.” Patrick’s face had gone pale, just thinking about it.

  “Well, I’m sorry.” I said it grudgingly.

  “It’s okay. It’s just one of those things that happen. Some of those guys, they were my friends even.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “That’s just it. Sometimes you can’t get people. You just can’t. Like Mom and Dad. We can’t totally get it. But we can get that they’re both trying to be our mom and dad still.”

  “Dad’s not,” I said. “He’s getting married to someone else today. And I will never forgive him.”

  “Then it will be your loss.”

  “You sound like them.”

  “I’m not them, Missy. I’m me. Patrick—your brother.”

  “So what about Shauna?”

  “What about her?”

  “What’s so great about her?”

  “Well, she’s
funny. And she’s fun. We laugh together. And she’s, you know—”

  “Yeah, yeah. Miss Bikini Top.”

  Patrick ignored me. “That’s why I told you about the thing in the gym. I’ve always felt embarrassed about how I look. But not with Shauna. When I’m around her, I don’t feel like I need to hide my legs. Like at the lake. I just have fun. I feel like myself.”

  “What about your limp?”

  “See, that’s just it, Missy. I don’t think I even limp that much anymore, but you still see me that way. You see me as your skinny brother who limps.”

  “Well, you do. One of your legs is shorter than the other. It’s a fact.”

  “By a half a millimeter or something. The doctor measured. It’s not as big a difference as it used to be. Do you even know what a millimeter is?”

  “Sure,” I said. But I didn’t. And I wondered something about myself right then. Why did I still want Patrick to be a limper?

  Patrick turned to look straight at me. “Anything else?” he asked.

  What I wanted to say to him was this: The best part of the summer had been walking down that tire-track road with you in the morning, side by side. But I knew if I did, I would start to cry again. So instead I pointed to my Looks Can Kill outfit. “Do you think I should wear this?”

  “It’s up to you, Missy,” Patrick said. “I’ll stand by you no matter what.”

  CHAPTER 48

  ACROSS THE HALL IN THE BATHROOM, I YANKED AND pulled and peeled myself out of the spandex war dress. Then I took the cornflower blue off the hanger and slipped it over my head. It fell around me like a soft breeze.

  I stared at the mirror. The girl across from me looked nice. She looked good. She looked like me, only in a perfect dress.

  I thought about my mother, back home, drinking tea out of the cup with our smiling younger faces. “Thanks, Mom,” I whispered, hoping that somehow she could hear me.

  When I walked back to my room, Patrick was just as I’d left him, except his face was now flushed with something new, like excitement or nervousness or both. For the first time I noticed that the fancy suit hung too big around his bony shoulders.