A Friend at Midnight

by Caroline B. Cooney

  “I’d never break that rule,” said Michael, happy. “Rebecca, what are your three rules for Freddie?”

  “He’s allowed three rules for me,” said Rebecca, “but I’ve reserved six hundred and fifty rules for him.”

  “That’s a lot of rules,” said Nathaniel anxiously.

  “Yeah, I’m worried,” said Freddie, with a huge grin that said he never worried, especially not about Rebecca Rosetti.

  Mom said softly to Lily, “Help me in the kitchen, honey?”

  It was code. It had nothing to do with kitchens or help. Lily followed her mother inside. She turned just before going in the door to look back at the others, and she saw them as if captured in a photograph: Michael happy, Nathaniel squirting, Freddie teasing, Rebecca in love, Kells in the background.

  Mom shut the kitchen door gently behind her. “I’m feeling marginally better about Reb getting married so soon,” she said in an undertone. “Actually, I’m not feeling better, but I’m pretending I feel better. I remember when your father left.”

  Even when Lily hated Dad, she didn’t want to hear anything about the divorce. And right now, she desperately didn’t want to hear about divorce. She wanted to think of true love and new brothers.

  “He was tired of me,” said Mom. “Tired of the house, tired of making sure the oil got changed and the lawn got mowed and the doctors’ appointments got kept and the new shoes bought. He got tired of my music and tired of—” She broke off. “And when I met Kells, Kells was like a teddy bear. Plump and soft and kind. Reliable and decent and predictable. And he has been, Lily. I’m so pleased that Reb was nice to Kells. Kells probably will have to pay for the wedding. He earns twice what I do. I can’t imagine Dennis suddenly writing checks to a caterer and a florist.”

  “Try not to worry about it, Mom. Rebecca is going to live on the Arctic Circle, so whether or not she gets along with Kells—”

  “I have to cope with your father, though!” When Mom referred to Dennis, she never spoke of him as her ex-husband, but always as “your father.” Lily found it pretty tiresome to be Dennis’s owner.

  “Dennis will be here for two days, maybe three, maybe a week, for the wedding,” said Mom. “I can’t avoid him. I’ll have to endure his contemptuous looks at Kells. He’ll shudder at this messy house just the way he used to shudder, even though he never once picked up a single thing himself, or ran a vacuum, or sorted mail. It makes my heart pound just to think of keeping my nerves in order with Dennis around. Not to mention pulling off a wedding in six weeks. Lily, I’m a wreck.”

  Mom doesn’t even know I’m suffering, thought Lily. She’s not going to comfort me. She thinks she needs the comforting. Comfort ye, my people, saith the Lord. “Get him a motel room,” said Lily.

  Her mother gave a desperate little smile at the wall. “Darling, now don’t get mad. Take this in the spirit in which it is meant. Rebbie told Dr. Bordon how you don’t want to be in the wedding because of your attitude toward your father. Dr. Bordon wants a chat with you this afternoon. In his office. At church.”

  Lily was so mad she left the house then and there before she told everybody what she really thought of them. She’d walk to church, but first she might as well stop at Amanda’s to whine for a while.

  You know what annoys me about you, Jesus? she said to Him. It’s having to ask you all the time. You know perfectly well I need you throughout the day and I shouldn’t have to repeat myself. You should just be here, making things easier. And now I have to listen to your minister mouth off.

  Dr. Bordon was going to look at her compassionately. Lily hated compassion. It was just another word for pity. Like—My life is good and yours isn’t, so I’ll sit here and bestow my loving glances upon you and get credit for a good deed.

  At Amanda’s, no time seemed to have passed; no position had changed; no event had taken place. Amanda was still lying under the sun near the pool, ready to listen. When Lily finished the latest episode, Amanda said, “What’s up with Michael anyway? And for that matter, what’s up with you?”

  “I don’t know anymore. Don’t interrogate me.”

  “Tell Dr. Bordon what’s going on. He’s bound to have ideas.”

  “No. I have enough people pushing me around.”

  “He’s not so bad.”

  “He’ll side with them! He’ll tell me to try harder and be nicer and shoulder responsibility.” Lily began hurling rubber duckies one by one into the pool. She tried to hit the first ducky with the next ducky. The duckies just bobbed happily, not knowing they were weapons and victims and they were supposed to cry in pain and get hurt and sink.

  Amanda was giggling.

  Lily was not. “Amanda, I don’t want Michael forgiving Dad!”

  “You lose,” said Amanda. “He already has.”

  The church had its Saturday feel—the busy open-door feel of when the sanctuary was just a side room, and the real action was in the community rooms.

  Volunteers were loading the soup kitchen donations and collating the bulletins for tomorrow’s church service. Parents were getting ready for the middle school sleepover, the ROMEOs (Rowdy Old Men Eating Out) were just getting back from lunch, the Christmas Bazaar committee was finishing its first meeting of the season, and the volleyball team was drifting in for afternoon practice. In the background was the growl of the vacuum cleaning up the church, while the organist hacked away at a pedal part he didn’t seem to be conquering. The Sunday school superintendent was arranging piles of new curricula; the weekend class of Bible 101 was arguing in the hallway while the local chapter of Alcoholics Anonymous smoked their cigarettes out in the parking lot.

  Church had three parts. The Sunday-morning service/ Sunday school part. The Bible class/soup kitchen part. The maintenance part—vacuuming, practicing, repairing the steeple clock. Now Lily saw there was a fourth part. The part where the church interfered.

  She imagined Dennis conning everyone, certainly including Dr. Bordon, who knew nothing. Dennis had even conned his victim, Michael, who had forgiven before Lily even got on the plane to rescue him. In fact, since Michael had never held anything against Dennis, there had been no need for forgiveness.

  She knocked on the minister’s office door.

  All four women collating programs turned to see who was seeking help. It was rare for a teenager to consult the minister of her own free will. Possibly something really terrible was going on, in which case, who did they know, so they could phone and get details?

  It came to Lily that the person she could never forgive was Michael.

  He had thrown in her face all the effort and love she had given him. He had lied about the most important and dangerous thing she had ever undertaken and the biggest achievement she had ever accomplished. Denrose she still despised and denrose she would not smile at or be in a wedding picture with—but Michael was worse.

  He hadn’t just lied. He had betrayed; that biblical word you never encountered in real life. Michael had betrayed her.

  “Hi, Lily, come on in,” called Dr. Bordon.

  Lily went in. She would treat this the way orthodontist patients treated their visits: Go ahead: poke, pry, tighten, glue, whatever. I’m just holding my breath till it’s over.

  Dr. Bordon wanted to chat about school and her foreign languages and Youth Group but Lily didn’t want to, and he was forced to give up. He launched into his sermonette. “When a woman plans her wedding, Lily, she’s also planning her future family. She’ll have a new family—her in-laws. And she’ll add to her family—her future children. A wedding is worth every minute of planning and preparation because it’s a holy day in which the family of the bride and the family of the groom rejoice together. So a wedding is about family. Your sister needs you to tolerate the presence of one man in your family for one day.”

  Rebecca had not needed her family since the day she’d left for college. She had not needed Lily since that moment when she had purposely packed too much so that a half brother and a younger sister co
uldn’t fit in the car.

  “Divorce creates pain,” said the minister. “The rift can be impossible to bridge. Nobody is asking you to bridge it, Lily. But—”

  Lily snapped. “They are so asking me to bridge it.”

  “You have only one sister, you have only one father. I have no doubt it will be painful for you to do this. But it will be a great gift to your sister.”

  Who never gave me anything, thought Lily. Not like I gave Michael.

  “Lily, I’m one of the many people who drove by the day that Michael sat on the curb, waiting ten hours for his father to show up. I’m one of the ones who called to see what I could do. I’m one of the ones who wasn’t surprised when Michael’s hopes for his father didn’t work out. I’m one of the ones who trembled for Michael, and when he was back home, I prayed that he’d come out of his frozen state and be as laughter-filled as when he left.”

  Lily spoke fiercely. “I don’t see why we bother with a God you have to pray to and pray to. Once should be enough. He should be listening the first time.”

  “I often feel that way. But we’re caught in the web of what other people decide to do. We can’t escape the results of other people.”

  “I was escaping just fine,” said Lily. “And Rebecca is wrecking things.”

  “No matter how you’ve been hurt,” began Dr. Bordon—but Lily couldn’t stand it anymore.

  “You know nothing!” she yelled. “You’re a beginner in the world of hurt. You’re junior varsity. I’m a pro.”

  Dr. Bordon looked at her for some time.

  All of a sudden she knew that he was thinking the same thing Trey’s father had thought about what Dennis had done to Michael. “You watch too much television,” she accused him, although he was at the church practically every night of the week teaching or participating or leading and she knew perfectly well he never had time for television. “I can tell you’re thinking he did something sexual to Michael. Well, he didn’t. He was just scum. He’s always been scum, he’s still scum, he’ll always be scum, and I won’t be in a wedding with him!”

  Dr. Bordon nodded for a while. “Just give it some thought,” he said finally, “and some prayer.”

  “What do you think I’ve been doing? Giving it potato chips?”

  Dr. Bordon laughed. “One time in the Youth Group I decided to serve a snack Communion, so we had Coke and potato chips instead of grape juice and bread. But kids are always serious, even when they say they hate being serious. Nobody would take a potato chip. The toughest kid there, who showed up just to pick on everybody else, explained to me that Jesus was not about potato chips.” He was still laughing when he added, “Jesus,” before Lily spotted the prayer coming, “be with Lily.”

  Mom, Kells, Rebecca, Freddie and Michael were sitting in the shade of the blue and green striped awning on the deck, talking companionably. Every one of them looked up at the intruder who was Lily.

  Right away she knew she was going to pick a fight.

  “Crumb?” Michael was saying. “My sister’s new last name will be Crumb?”

  Michael was teasing Freddie. It had been exactly a year since the last time Michael had been able to tease.

  “I think you should have planned ahead, Reb,” said Michael, “and fallen for a guy with a great last name.”

  “Excuse me,” said Freddie. “The Crumbs have a long, impressive background.”

  “Of what?” said Michael. “Sandwiches?”

  “Michael, you’re not going to be able to say anything about my last name I haven’t already heard. I made sure Rebecca was hopelessly in love with me before I said my last name out loud. And if she wants to stay Rebecca Rosetti, I’ll understand.”

  “You could be Freddie Rosetti.”

  “Nope. I’m stronger, tougher, and more interesting because I’ve had to survive being a Crumb.”

  “But your kids have to be little Crumbs.”

  “Yup. And I’ll be proud when they lift their heads high and admit to being Crumbs,” said Freddie.

  Out in the yard, Nathaniel was still playing croquet. There were no balls visible. He had probably hit them all into the bushes. He was now prying up croquet wickets and wearing them as a necklace. Lily decided he couldn’t strangle himself, since they had large openings, so she didn’t get involved.

  Rebecca came bounding over. “Did you have a nice talk with Dr. Bordon?” she asked, brightly as a nursery school teacher.

  “Couldn’t talk it over with me yourself?” asked Lily. “Had to ask a minister to handle it for you?”

  “It isn’t possible to talk to you. You won’t listen. I thought you might listen to Dr. Bordon,” said Rebecca stiffly.

  Lily would have run away from home, but she hadn’t rested up from running away the last time. She went into the kitchen, opened the freezer, got out an ice cream sandwich, took off the wrapper and licked a vanilla path around the chocolate wafers. Then she went out to the deck.

  Freddie patted the picnic table to invite her over. Lily sat across from him. It wasn’t a great position because she was also facing Rebecca. “So everything’s fine?” said Freddie. “You’re going to be the maid of honor?”

  “We’re still having trouble on the father front,” Rebecca said.

  Freddie leaned forward. He looked very earnest. “I know it’s tricky to deal with your dad,” said Freddie, as if he could possibly know. “You guys haven’t seen him or talked to him in a year.”

  Michael said, “But you have, Freddie.” Michael’s eyes were wide and unblinking, but he wasn’t looking at anybody. “How is he?”

  “Seems like a great guy,” said Freddie. “But then, we didn’t get into the hard stuff, like how he’s never paid child support.”

  Michael was stunned. His face took on a sick yellow color.

  Lily watched Michael try, and fail, to sip some of his soda.

  Nobody else seemed to be looking at Michael. They were all looking at her. She was the bad guy here.

  “When we went camping together, I liked the guy, Lily,” said Freddie, as if it were any of his business; as if he had any right to pitch a tent with denrose, who couldn’t even be bothered to acknowledge he had two other kids!

  If I start screaming, thought Lily, I’ll be the person who is behaving the worst, when in fact, I’m the person who’s behaving the best.

  “Dr. Bordon and Freddie and I had such a good good good talk this morning,” said Rebecca. “Dr. Bordon says one beautiful thing about a wedding is how it brings families together. A wedding is an occasion for rejoicing. To make the rejoicing complete, every member of the family must be present.”

  Lily folded her hands in her lap. Then she knotted them into fists. She cut her palms with her own fingernails.

  “What did Dr. Bordon suggest we should do about your difficulties, Lily?” asked Rebecca. “I mean, we’re all ready to pitch in here.”

  “I think it’s Lily’s affair what she and her minister discussed,” said Kells mildly.

  “They discussed my wedding,” said Rebecca, “and that makes it my business, Kells. If you would like to butt out of this discussion, feel free.”

  Kells withdrew, as he always did. He had stated his position, but he didn’t argue. Lily didn’t know if she envied him or despised him.

  “I just hope you’re ready to call Dad and be perfectly, utterly pleasant,” said Rebecca to her sister.

  “With a nail gun in my hand,” said Lily.

  She knew Freddie was appalled.

  She knew Mom was embarrassed.

  She knew Michael was frozen in place, wanting nothing to touch his vision of Dad coming.

  She and her sister went at it as they had not done in years. Even in middle school, when Lily would torment Rebecca constantly, they had never done anything like this, because each sister could escape into her own room. They yelled long enough for Freddie to try to separate them; long enough for Mom to cry, “Girls!”

  Lily did not know how long they had been yellin
g when Kells rejoined them. Rebecca was midsentence. Kells interrupted. Rebecca glared. If there was one thing she could not stand, it was a stepfather, and if there was one thing worse, it was a stepfather who dared to talk when she had the floor.

  “Where’s Nathaniel?” said Kells.

  chapter

  15

  He was three.

  Their yard was not fenced.

  And they had no idea how long he had been gone.

  They looked in the bushes and under the deck. They looked in the garage and in the cars, in the toolshed and in the cellar. They looked in the bedrooms and under the beds. They looked down the sidewalks and on the neighbors’ porches.

  I did this, thought Lily. I know how Nathaniel hates raised voices. I raised my voice meaner and harsher and angrier than I ever have. I did it because I felt like it, not because I had to. It was me he ran from.

  Her knees were trembling.

  Nathaniel, who was not afraid of cars, intersections or strangers. Nathaniel, who had never gone through a No stage. Who would say yes to anybody about anything.

  I did this, thought Rebecca. I saw him put those stupid wire hoops around his neck and I thought, Good grief, the kid could strangle himself, and I didn’t do anything because he’s from a marriage I wish hadn’t happened. I could have gone out in the yard and picked him up and put away the croquet set and he’d be here at the table right now.

  I don’t want Mom happy with her second husband. So I just sat here and thought—the kid’s their problem. So there.

  But every little kid is always your own problem.

  I did this, thought Michael. I’ve been lying and Nathaniel always knew. He tried so hard to tell about his airplane ride but over and over I let Kells say, No, only Michael went on a plane—as if Nate’s too dumb to know the difference. Lily rescued me and Nathaniel rescued me just as much, and I lied about them.

  I knew Nate was walking farther and farther away from us because he didn’t like the screaming. But I couldn’t interrupt the screaming because Lily would notice me and then she’d yell at me and it would all come out.