Stay (ARC)

by Catherine Ryan Hyde

  She turned and walked into the house, leaving the

  door open. I stood there feeling like a fool because I

  didn’t know if that had been an okay thing to ask or

  not. But I figured if I had offended her, she would have

  slammed the door behind her. Or at least closed it, shut-

  ting me out.

  She came back a minute or two later with a little

  paper booklet in her hands. Maybe only four pages, or

  maybe six. She sat on the edge of the porch with it, and

  I sat down next to her. The minute I dropped my face

  to their level, the dogs smothered me with wet kisses.

  When I was able to open my mouth safely—which

  involved holding Rembrandt at arm’s length with one

  hand against his chest—I asked about the booklet.

  “We have so many meetings in this town that you

  need to sort them all out on paper?”

  “Hardly,” she said. “This is for the whole tricounty

  area. Okay. The one at the bank is still going on. That’s the only NA that’s right here in Ashby. Monday, Wednesday,

  and Friday, 6:00 p.m. Monday and Friday are open meet-

  ings. Wednesday is closed for addicts only. It’s in that

  community room at the First Bank.”

  “Oh yeah. I know where that is.”

  We sat in silence for a moment. I expected her to

  ask me who I was wanting to take to meetings, but she

  never did.

  I figured that was the difference between Zoe Dinsmore

  and myself. She didn’t seem to burn to know things. She

  seemed to be able to leave everything alone in her head.

  Either that or it was easy enough to figure out on

  her own.

  “Can I say how I feel?” I asked after a time.

  “You always did before.”

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  That stung me a little. But I kept going. Zoe Dinsmore

  was pretty damned beelike, and if you were going to

  shrink back every time you got stung, well … I figured

  it would be a waste of time to come out to her cabin in

  the first place.

  “I feel like I’m having to save too many people at once

  here.” At the corner of my eye I saw her nod slowly. “I

  mean, I’m not even out of high school. What am I doing

  trying to help all these people? Three people all at once

  like this. That’s a lot, don’t you think?”

  “You can take me off your list,” she said.

  “But then I might lose you.”

  A pause.

  Then she said, “Okay. Seriously. Want me to tell you

  how to take the pressure off yourself?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I sure do.”

  “You’ve just got to stay out of the outcomes, Lucas.

  It’s not that you walked Connor out here to meet me

  that’s weighing you down. It’s the fact that you’re holding

  yourself responsible for whether it works out or not. You

  can take your brother to some meetings without turning

  yourself inside out. Trouble is, you take on the respon-

  sibility of being the one who sees to it that he recovers.

  Want to know why that stuff takes so much out of you?

  Easy. It’s all stuff that’s out of your control. You’re try-

  ing to change things that’re not within your control to

  change. And whenever you try to do something that’s

  impossible to do, you’re going to find yourself a little on

  the tired side. Make sense?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “It does.”

  It did. Actually. Though I’m not sure that was the

  good news.

  “You don’t sound too sure.”

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  “It’s just that … what you just said … it’s that kind of

  advice that lets you know what to do but not how to do

  it. I mean, how do you not take that stuff on?”

  “Right. I’ll grant you that. It’s easier said than done. But practice at it. You’ll get better at anything you practice.”

  We sat quietly for another minute.

  Then she said, “Here,” and held out the meeting

  schedule to me.

  “You should keep it,” I said. “You told me you might

  think about going back.”

  “I know where those three meetings are if I want

  them.”

  I sighed. Took it from her. Folded it up and stuck it

  in my shirt pocket.

  “How’s it going with Connor?” I asked.

  “That’s not what you were going to practice, now is it?”

  “I just thought maybe if I knew more, I could worry

  less.”

  “Oh, I doubt that,” she said. Then, “I can’t really

  tell you how it’s going, because I don’t really know. He’s

  talking to me. Talking is better than not talking. But

  beyond that it’s hard to say.”

  “I wish I knew why he couldn’t talk to me.”

  “Because you take it on.”

  “What do you mean, take it on? I don’t even know

  what that means.”

  “It means you care too much about him to stand back

  from the situation. If he tells you he can’t take much

  more, you freak out and feel like you need to do some-

  thing. Me, I just hear him out. I just let him get it off

  his chest.”

  “Nothing wrong with caring,” I said. I sounded a little

  on the defensive side. Probably because I was.

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  “Never said it was wrong. You asked the question

  and I answered it.”

  “Yeah. Okay.”

  We sat another minute. Vermeer sighed deeply, final-

  ly accepting that the run was unavoidably delayed. She

  curled up in the dirt at my feet, and Rembrandt took her

  cue and followed suit.

  “Look. Here’s what I don’t get,” I said. “He’s so close

  to his mom. And she depends on him so much. Especially

  now that his father is gone. I just can’t understand how he

  could even consider such a thing. You know. Knowing

  what it would do to her and all.”

  “But can you understand that he feels a lot of rage

  toward his mom? Because she depends on him too much?

  And because he has to consider her feelings first in every-

  thing he does?”

  I opened my mouth to answer, but no answer had

  formed yet in my brain. And, before one could, I looked

  up to see Connor walking up the path toward the cabin.

  So I knew this conversation was over.

  It was time for me to practice relaxing about the things

  I couldn’t control.

  * * *

  When I’d finished my run and jogged home, I found

  more opportunities to practice.

  My mom was gone. Where to, I had no idea. She

  was starting to be away more and more. She said nothing

  about it, and I couldn’t imagine even wanting to know

  the story behind it. I figured if I knew, I wouldn’t like

  what I found out. Call it a hunch.

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  Roy had managed to come downstairs on his own and

  was limping around on his crutches, obviously looking

  for something. And what he was looking for was obvious.

  I stepped into the hall just in time to see him leave

 
; the downstairs bathroom and make his way into our

  parents’ bedroom. I followed him. Stood in the doorway

  and watched him pull open the top drawer of my mom’s

  dresser and rummage around in there.

  “What’re you doing?” I asked.

  It startled him so much he almost lost his balance and

  fell off his crutches.

  I’d meant to say it casually. Not so much as an ac-

  cusation. More like “Hey. What’s up?” I don’t think I

  succeeded.

  “Oh. Hi. Buddy. You scared me. Listen. Mom took

  off and forgot to give me my pain meds.”

  I doubted that. She had a written schedule. She checked

  off the doses with a pencil. I didn’t say so.

  “So…,” he continued, “…you know where she’s keep-

  ing them now?”

  “No.”

  “Help me find them. Okay, buddy?”

  “No.”

  My brother seemed to freeze in time. Really, the

  whole world seemed to. The utter silence was shocking. I

  remember thinking the birds had stopped chirping outside

  the window because of what I’d said to Roy. Though,

  looking back, it’s possible they’d just flown away by then.

  For their own reasons.

  I heard him clear his throat carefully.

  “Thought you cared enough about me to do me a

  favor, buddy.”

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  “I can’t do that one, though.” I wanted to say I couldn’t

  do it because I cared about him, but I couldn’t bring myself to talk like one of those corny made-for-TV movies where

  people say exactly what they’re feeling, as though there

  was nothing difficult about that at all. As though people

  did that correctly every day. “As a matter of fact,” I said

  instead, “I was going to ask a favor of you.”

  “What?”

  “I want you to come someplace with me.”

  “Where?”

  “I want you to not ask where.”

  “When? Now?”

  “No. Later on this afternoon.”

  “Weird that you won’t even tell me what it is.”

  “I know. But I’m just going to ask you to trust me.

  You trust me, don’t you? And if you do this for me, I’ll

  do something for you. I’ll ask mom to show me where she

  keeps her schedule of your meds so I can look over her

  shoulder and catch it if she ever forgets and skips a dose.”

  I waited for a minute. Watched as he rolled that around

  in his head. It was a useful offer only if she really was

  forgetting. It was no use to him if he only wanted to take

  more than what had been prescribed.

  Meanwhile he seemed as though he never planned

  to answer.

  “So will you go with me?”

  “On one condition. That Mom or Dad won’t drive us.”

  “How are we supposed to get there if nobody

  drives us?”

  “Well how do you get places? You never ask them to

  drive you.”

  “Walk. Or take the bus. But I don’t have a hurt foot.”

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  “I’m good on my crutches now. They’re mad as hell,

  and I’m not getting stuck in a car with either one of them

  lecturing me.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Suit yourself. We’ll take the bus.”

  * * *

  I bolted down as much dinner as I could stomach, then

  took a plate up to Roy and told him to hurry. Told him

  we had to leave in twenty minutes.

  When I got downstairs, my mom was doing up the

  dinner dishes.

  “Roy and I are going out,” I said.

  I had to run it by her. No way I could get him out of

  the house without her noticing. But it was dicey, and I

  knew it. She was a brick wall between me and our get-

  ting where we needed to go, and I knew I might not get

  through her. I could feel a little vein pulsing with tension near my ear.

  “What?” She said it not like she hadn’t heard me. More like she’d heard it but she couldn’t believe it. “No,” she

  added. “No, no, no. I don’t like this one bit. I don’t trust either one of you.”

  That was a sad truth, but I believed her. In fact, I’d

  already known.

  “But—”

  “I need that boy here where I can keep an eye on him.”

  I moved closer to the sink. I needed to confide in her

  quietly. And I think she knew it. I think she could see

  honest information coming. She seemed to withdraw

  into herself. To move out of the way of the honesty. She

  never moved her feet, though. It was all an inside job.

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  “I’m taking him to an NA meeting,” I whispered.

  “What is that?” she asked. As if it irritated her not to know. “I don’t even know what that is.”

  “Like AA, except for drugs.”

  “How do you even know about a place like that?”

  “Darren Weller told me. I promised him I would do

  this for Roy. So please, please don’t stop me from doing

  this. Okay? It might help. And I promised.”

  “Oh.”

  I watched her face change. Watched her feelings about

  the situation evolve—possibly against her will. It always

  seemed to bother her to let her anger drop away. It was

  something she seemed to want to hold tightly.

  “Well I guess I underestimated you,” she said. “I’ll

  drive you boys.”

  “No. We have to go on our own. He agreed to go

  with me on the condition that it would be just the two

  of us. And he doesn’t know where we’re going, so don’t

  spill the beans, okay?”

  A long pause.

  Then all she said was, “You need money for the bus?”

  “It would be nice, yeah.”

  I’d been hoping Roy had some. If not, we were on foot.

  I followed her to her purse, where she dug out a hand-

  ful of change. She dropped it into my palm, staring into

  my face the whole time. It made me uncomfortable. It

  made me need to look away.

  I felt her hand on my cheek.

  “You’re a good boy,” she said. “Take care of your

  brother.”

  Then she hurried off. Before I could even answer her.

  Before she’d be forced to confront the fact that she’d said

  a kind and loving thing.

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  * * *

  We got off the bus on Main Street, near the end of the

  business district. It turned residential farther down.

  It was almost six, and I wanted to walk faster. I didn’t

  want to be late for the meeting. But I had to slow my

  steps for Roy.

  The sun was on a long slant behind us, but it was

  still hot. Weirdly hot. I could feel it baking the back

  of my neck. I could feel sweat trickling down into my

  collar.

  “Where are we going?” he asked.

  I figured this time he meant it more logistically. Like

  “Which way should I walk?” At least I hoped so.

  “The bank,” I said.

  “Isn’t the bank closed after five?”

  “The community room.”

  The community room was a separate room in the

  back w
ith a separate entrance. It made no difference if

  the bank was open or not.

  “Oh,” Roy said.

  I could feel him wanting to ask more. But, to his

  credit, he didn’t.

  We walked around the corner of the bank. I was still

  shortening and slowing my strides for Roy, who seemed

  to be tired already on his crutches. We walked down the

  side street and into the parking lot.

  The door of the community room was standing wide

  open, and the light that spilled out of it felt welcoming.

  I could smell cigarette smoke and coffee.

  A big handful of guys and one lady were standing

  around in the parking lot smoking and talking. Two

  massive chopper-style motorcycles sat parked among a

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  smattering of cars. The guys nodded to us as we walked

  slowly by.

  Then, just at the doorway, Roy stopped cold.

  I had already walked into the room, where tables had

  been arranged in a big square. It took me a second to

  realize that Roy wasn’t with me anymore.

  I backtracked, and found him staring at a handwrit-

  ten paper sign taped to the wall next to the open door.

  It said: NA MeetiNg iN Progress—PleAse Do

  Not Disturb.

  “No,” Roy said when he saw I was there. Not really in

  a defiant way. More like he was churning things around in

  his head, and this was the only thing he could push out.

  “But you already promised.”

  I watched him chew that over behind his eyes, still

  staring at the sign. As if it took many minutes to read

  every word.

  “But I didn’t know what I was promising.”

  “But you promised to do whatever it was without

  knowing what it was.”

  A pause. I felt like my whole life was resting on that

  pause. Bowing everything under the weight. Ready to

  snap something at any minute.

  “Tell you what,” Roy said. “I’ll go to the meeting.

  But only if I can do it by myself. You have to go home.”

  “But I promised Darren Weller I’d stay with you.”

  “Oh,” he said. “Darren Weller. Got it. That explains a

  lot. Look. Seriously. Buddy. This is not the kind of thing

  a guy does in front of his little brother. Can you under-

  stand that? I’ll give the meeting a try this one time, but

  first you have to go home.”

  I sighed. I saw no way out.

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  I dug in my pocket and counted out change for the

  bus trip home. He took it from me.

  “You have enough for the bus?” he asked me.