Stay (ARC)

by Catherine Ryan Hyde

  “He was really going to do it.”

  “Who was really going to do what?”

  “Connor.”

  I stood a minute. Panting. Watching the news settle on

  the inside of her. Of course I was only watching the outside of her, but I could still see. It was on her face. I didn’t know where the dogs were, so they must have been inside the

  cabin. Nothing else would stop them from greeting me.

  “He did have his father’s gun,” I said. “He lied about that.”

  “Does he still?”

  “No. I threw it in the river. He said he doesn’t want

  it anymore. He said he changed his mind.”

  “Good.”

  For a minute we just stood there. Looking at each

  other. Really looking at each other. None of that “near

  miss” business.

  “You know what this means,” I said. “Don’t you?”

  “I’m not sure what you think it means.”

  “You saved him.”

  “I don’t know about that.”

  “You did. You kept a person here in the world. You

  saved a life. So that’s like … I don’t know how to say it.

  It’s like a repayment. It’s like … one down and one to go.”

  She didn’t hear it the way I’d hoped she would at all.

  I watched her face harden. I watched her recoil from the

  idea.

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  “That’s not the way the world works, my friend.”

  Her voice was all armored. But at least I liked the way

  she’d called me her friend.

  “Why isn’t it?”

  “You want to go tell Freddie’s or Wanda Jean’s parents

  that this makes up for their loss?”

  “I didn’t mean it did. That wasn’t what I meant.”

  “Well, what did you mean, then?”

  She had her arms folded across her broad chest now.

  Just below the top of the bib of her overalls.

  I felt like she’d just thrown me a hard essay test, and

  I didn’t have any answers. But then one came to me.

  And I thought it was good. I thought I’d get an A on

  this test.

  “I guess…,” I said. “I guess I mean if you can save

  somebody … I mean, isn’t that a good enough thing?

  Isn’t that enough reason to stay?”

  I thought it was a better answer than she did, apparently.

  She shook her head. Let out a little low chuckle that

  seemed to be at my expense.

  “Ah, youth,” she said. It reminded me of something

  my mother had said to me. “When everything in life is

  so damned simple.”

  Then she walked up onto her porch and opened the

  door to her cabin. As she walked in, the dogs came spill-

  ing out and ran to me.

  And jumped on me. And whimpered at me. And

  kissed me.

  So at least I had that.

  I fell to my scratched-up knees and held the dogs

  around their necks and spoke hurt words into their ears.

  “Well, she did save him,” I said to them. “And that is a good reason to stay.”

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  They gave me sympathetic looks. They couldn’t pos-

  sibly have known what I was so upset about. But to me

  their looks seemed almost to say, “Well, we all know how

  she is, don’t we? We know how she can be, but we love

  her all the same.”

  Or at least that’s how I interpreted their gazes, and I

  have some solid truth to back it up, because that’s what

  you really do get from dogs. And it’s no small thing to

  be loved all the same, let me tell you.

  * * *

  When I got home, and stepped into my kitchen, my mom

  was holding the receiver of the phone. Waiting to see if

  it was me coming in.

  Really, who else could it have been?

  I knew I had a phone call, and I knew it was Connor.

  She covered the mouthpiece with the heel of her hand.

  “It’s Connor,” she said. “It’s the third time he’s called

  for you. I hope nothing’s wrong.”

  “No. It’s fine. Nothing’s wrong. He’s just really excited

  about his new kitten.”

  It bothered me to lie so smoothly and so easily. But I

  did it for my friend. I couldn’t look her in the eye, though, which might have made her suspicious. Then again, I

  didn’t look her in the eye very often.

  I took the phone from her. I was hoping she would

  leave the kitchen. She did not leave the kitchen.

  “Hey,” I said to Connor.

  “Everything go okay?”

  “Yeah. Fine.”

  “Oh, thank goodness. Wow. Whew. I’ve been jump-

  ing out of my skin here. Nobody saw you?”

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  “No. It’s fine.”

  “Where did you put it?”

  I could feel my mom standing close. Feel her listening.

  But I didn’t look up at her, because I didn’t want her to

  know it was a problem.

  “It’s fine,” I said again.

  “Oh. Is your mom right there?”

  “Something like that, yeah.”

  “Okay. Good. Because I’m going to tell you something,

  and this way you just have to listen and you can’t argue

  with me. So just stand there and don’t say anything, okay?”

  There was a pause on the line, and I thought he might

  really be waiting for my permission. So I said okay, even

  though it made me nervous. It sounded like he was about

  to read me the riot act for everything I had ever done

  wrong to him in our lives. Every time I hadn’t been what

  he needed.

  I could not have been more wrong if I’d been trying.

  “You’ve been a really good friend,” he said. “And I

  haven’t.”

  “No, you are.”

  “Just listen,” he said. “Don’t talk.”

  “Okay.”

  My mom moved across the kitchen to the fridge and

  started rummaging around in there. But I had to assume

  she was still listening.

  “Not lately I haven’t been,” Connor said. “Lately

  you’ve been bending over backwards to try to help me,

  and I haven’t been much good at all. And I’m not saying

  it like I did last time—like you shouldn’t even be friends

  with me. I’m not saying that. I want you to be. I just want

  you to know that I’m going to do better now.”

  A pause while I waited to see if he was done.

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  “It’s a deal,” I said.

  “I’m sorry for the way I’ve been.”

  “You don’t have to be.”

  “Well I am. Thanks for what you did for me today.”

  “Anytime,” I said.

  Then, strangely, we both burst out laughing.

  “Well, not anytime,” I added.

  We said our goodbyes, and the incredibly stressful part

  of that incredibly stressful day got to be over.

  I looked up at my mom, and she looked back at me.

  Probably to see if I would tell her what all that had been

  about.

  “He just really loves that new kitten,” I said.

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  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Tell Them Your Story

  Come Monday, my brother and I were halfway to the bus


  stop together after dinner. On our way to the meeting.

  I walked. He limped along on his crutches.

  At first we didn’t talk.

  The sun was on a long slant, but it was still hot. Now

  and then a neighbor had driven by and honked a hello to

  us. One, old Mr. Harrigan, had rolled down his window

  and given Roy a big thumbs-up. Probably for serving in

  the war and then getting home. I could tell that one made

  my brother uncomfortable.

  When Roy finally opened his mouth, I thought he

  was going to talk about that. But he took us in an entirely

  different direction.

  “Why don’t you want to be on the track team?” he

  asked me. Like he was seriously interested in my answer.

  He hadn’t seemed seriously interested in anything since

  before he left for the war. Except for his meds.

  “I don’t know. It’s kind of hard to explain. I just …

  when I run in the woods, with those dogs, I just feel …

  like … completely free. And when I run on the track at

  school, I’m with these other guys who don’t really like

  me. And the coach is watching. And everybody would

  be judging me. Or at least I’d feel like they were. And

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  it’s just the complete opposite. It’s like being in a cage or something.”

  “But you could do both,” he said.

  By then we’d arrived at the bus stop. There was no

  one else around. I sat. He just stood there, leaning on his

  crutches. I think getting up and down was hard for him.

  Once he got up, he didn’t tend to sit unless he figured

  he could stay a while.

  I looked up at him, but he was staring off into the

  distance, and I don’t think he noticed. I got this feeling,

  like that moment perfectly summed up everything be-

  tween me and my brother since he got home. Me staring

  at him, hoping to see something. Find something. Him

  a million miles away in his head.

  “I guess I could do both,” I said. “But why do the

  school part at all? I mean, if I don’t like it much.”

  For a time, he didn’t answer. Then he looked down

  into my face, which felt surprising. Jolting, actually.

  “I don’t usually say things like this to you,” he said,

  “but here goes. I would appreciate it very much if you

  could see your way clear to take that spot on the team as

  a favor to me.”

  He looked away again. We both looked up to see

  the bus coming, but it was many blocks down the street,

  and it had just missed one of the only two stoplights in

  town.

  “Why would that be a favor to you if I did?”

  We just kept staring at that bus, stopped at the red light,

  like we’d never seen anything so fascinating in our lives.

  “I tried out for track,” he said.

  “You never told me that.”

  “I didn’t make it. I wasn’t fast enough. You don’t just

  come home from school and tell your kid brother, ‘Hey,

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  today I tried to go after something I really wanted and

  fell flat on my ass.’ And now I can’t even run badly. I’ll probably never run again. So if I could go to a track meet

  and see you doing it … taking that spot on the team I

  could never snag, well … I would like that.”

  The light turned green, and the bus made its noisy

  way to us.

  “Okay,” I said. “Then I will.”

  * * *

  “How long do we have to keep going to these meetings?”

  he asked me.

  We were on the bus. Counting the stops until it was

  time to get off. Or I was, anyway. That might have been

  the last thing on his mind. He might have been leaving

  all such logistics to me.

  “I don’t know. I’m not sure. Maybe till it’s not so

  uncomfortable for you to go?”

  “That’s bizarre,” he said, his eyes still off in the distance.

  After our brief track team moment I had lost him again.

  “Why is it bizarre?”

  “So long as I hate going, I have to go. Then, just as I

  figure I don’t mind it much anymore, I’m off the hook.”

  “You can still go if you want. I think some of those

  people have been going for years and years. Sounds like

  it, anyway, when they share. And you can get a sponsor

  like people do, so you’ll have somebody to talk to outside

  the meetings.”

  The word “sponsor” sounded weirdly commercial, but

  it was, in program terms, more like a personal mentor.

  “Why do you hate it so much?” I asked, when he

  didn’t answer.

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  “I don’t hate it. I just figure they’re waiting for me to

  tell them my story.”

  And that was the end of that conversation. Because

  I couldn’t tell him he was wrong. I couldn’t say no they

  weren’t. Of course they were waiting for him to tell his

  story. And so was I.

  And I, for one, was getting stretched pretty thin wait-

  ing to hear what had happened.

  We rode and walked the rest of the way to the meet-

  ing in silence.

  * * *

  We were in the part of the meeting when it was almost

  time for the sharing to start. That’s when it happened. That final tilt of the teeter-totter that puts you fully on the other side. The final huge tipping point of the summer of 1969.

  We had done all the readings. The leader had asked if

  there were any newcomers in their first thirty days. Roy

  hadn’t raised his hand. Roy never raised his hand. I don’t

  think he was trying to pretend he had been clean long-

  er. At least I chose not to believe that. I think he wasn’t

  going to call himself a newcomer in his first thirty days

  until he was off the pain meds. I think he was claiming

  no clean time at all.

  The leader had run through the process where they

  give out these little key tags they called “chips” for anyone who had thirty, or sixty, or ninety days. Or six months,

  or nine months, or anybody who was celebrating an an-

  niversary of a year or multiples of years.

  Only nobody was. But they went through the list every

  time, calling off all those milestones to see if anybody

  wanted to raise their hand and take a chip.

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  I saw a few sets of eyes flicker over to the door, so of

  course I looked where they looked.

  Zoe Dinsmore was just stepping into the room, clos-

  ing the door behind her.

  She either hadn’t seen me yet, or had seen me and her

  eyes had moved on. She was looking at Roy, and Roy

  was looking back at her.

  And, now, this part was weird. At the time.

  She nodded to him. And he nodded back.

  I couldn’t have told you exactly what the nod meant,

  but it was an acknowledgment of something. Something

  they shared between them. Which was absolutely stun-

  ning to me, because I had no idea they’d ever shared

  anything between them. But I could see it was not the

  kind of no
d you exchange with a stranger. It was a nod

  to some level of mutual history. It was an understanding.

  Some things don’t need explaining. Some things are just

  plain on their surface.

  They broke off their gazes, and Zoe found herself a seat.

  She sat across from us, and her eyes came up to mine.

  Just very briefly. She offered me one weak, sad little smile, then looked down at the table.

  The leader, this guy named Jeff, spoke directly to her.

  He said, “We just finished giving out chips, but I’ll

  ask again. Anybody here in their first thirty days of

  recovery?”

  Zoe raised her hand, still staring down at the table.

  “My name is Zoe, and I’m an addict,” she said.

  And instead of the usual group response, which would

  have been “Hi, Zoe,” just about everybody in the room

  said, “Hi, Zoe. Welcome back.”

  * * *

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  “I’m thinking there’s not a single person in this room

  who doesn’t know my story well enough to tell it them-

  selves,” Zoe said when she was called on to share. “Am

  I right about that?”

  Her eyes scanned the room. No one spoke. No faces

  seemed the least bit confused.

  “Good,” she said. “Then I won’t waste your time

  with that, because you know it, and I hate like hell to

  talk about it anyway. I’ll just tell you this. If you’re thinking of going out again, don’t. Don’t even mess with it.

  Just consider that I did the research for you and it still

  stinks out there. And the addiction problem you used to

  have hasn’t gotten any better while you were recovering

  in these rooms. If anything, it’s gotten worse. It’s like

  you’re in here thinking you have all this insurance, but

  meanwhile your disease is out there doing push-ups on

  the porch. You think you can let it out of the box and

  then put it back in again when you’re ready because you

  did it the one time, so maybe you get overconfident and

  think you did that with your own superior will. So you

  let it out, and then you look at it, and you look at the box, and your disease is like a thousand times bigger than the

  box, and you can’t for the life of you figure out how you

  ever got it to fit in there in the first place.

  “I almost didn’t make it back here,” she said, her eyes

  flickering somewhere close to mine. But no direct hit. “I

  almost took myself out instead. But I guess that wasn’t

  what my higher power had in mind for me. I guess the