Dolphins in the Mud

by Jo Ramsey

  Usually I would have tried to cover for Mom the way I always did. Not this time. I was tired, and having to watch Cece was kind of cramping things with Noah. Besides, I had no way to know when Mom might be home. Maybe something was genuinely wrong, and if it was, Dad would have to take care of it.

  So I took a deep breath and told Dad, “I don’t know where she is. She didn’t show up to get Cece off the van, and I tried to call her and she didn’t answer.”

  “She wasn’t home when you got there?” His tone changed from angry to concerned. “The van driver let you have your sister?”

  “Yeah, after he called the school, and they said it was okay.” I leaned against the counter. “Do you think Mom might have had an accident or something? She didn’t leave a note or anything, so she probably figured she’d be home before us.”

  “I don’t know. I’ll be home as soon as I can. Just sit tight.”

  He hung up before I could say anything else.

  Chapter Six

  “EVERYTHING OKAY?” Noah asked. He was still sitting on the couch, tense.

  “Mum?” Cece asked.

  I wasn’t sure if she was asking whether Mom had been on the phone or whether she just wanted to see Mom. Cece didn’t pay a lot of attention to what went on around her, but she did notice whether people were around or not. Mom being gone was a break in Cece’s routine, and so was Noah’s visit.

  “I don’t know where Mom is.” I sat on the floor beside her. “Do you want to finish your snack, or is it time to exercise?”

  “Nack.” She climbed back into her chair and shoved a piece of apple into her mouth. At least she didn’t seem scared of Noah anymore.

  “When you finish, tell me.” I didn’t think Cece would follow the direction, but I didn’t feel like staying at the table with her, especially when I had company. Dad wouldn’t be home for another couple hours even if he’d left the office the second he hung up on me. I still wanted to make the most of having some time with Noah without any parental interference.

  I still couldn’t figure out what I liked about him. He was kind of hot. Tall, blond, somewhere between skinny and athletic. His eyes were a blue-green I hadn’t realized eyes could be. It reminded me of the ocean in summertime.

  There was more to my interest in him than just physical stuff. We still didn’t know a whole lot about each other, but I felt like I knew him anyway, like we’d known each other for a long time.

  Plus he was a mystery, and that kind of intrigued me. I wanted to find out what he was hiding.

  I sat beside him again. “My dad’s coming home. He isn’t too happy about Mom not being here, and I think he’s worried too.”

  “Should I leave?” Noah asked.

  “Nah, he won’t be here for a while. He works in Boston.” I leaned back and put my hands behind my head. “We can just relax and talk, at least until I have to do exercises with Cece. Which would be easier if I knew what exercises she’s supposed to do.”

  “Aren’t you usually here when she does them?”

  I shrugged. “I guess I must be in my room or something. Either that or Mom hasn’t been following the schedule. I don’t remember any exercising going on.”

  “Weird,” he said. “Call your dad back. Maybe he knows.”

  “He doesn’t know anything about half the stuff on Cece’s schedule. He leaves that up to Mom.” Dad left pretty much everything up to Mom when it came to Cece and me. He worked; she stayed home and took care of the kids and the house. That probably had a lot to do with why she “ran errands” all the time. She got tired of always being in the house.

  “Can Cece tell you?” Noah asked.

  “Probably not. She usually only says, like, one word at a time.” I looked at Cece, who smiled through a mouthful of apple. “Can we talk about something else? I don’t want to stress about this.”

  “Sure.” He gazed at the TV for a couple minutes. “What do you do when you aren’t in school? I mean, do you do any sports or anything?”

  “Not here,” I replied. “At my old school, I did soccer in the fall and baseball in the spring. We moved here after the soccer team had already started practicing for the season, and I haven’t decided yet whether I want to play baseball.” Since Jonathan and a couple other jerks were on the baseball team, I probably wouldn’t try out. I could ignore being picked on, but I didn’t see the sense in putting myself in firing range for insults. “What about you? I mean, you don’t go to school, so you can’t be on any teams, I guess. Do you do anything?”

  “When we’re in LA or Tours, I take martial arts lessons.” He made a chopping motion with one hand. “See? I’m good at it.”

  I laughed. “Yeah, my sofa better watch out.”

  “I wish I could be on a team or in a club or something.” He frowned. “That’s one of the things I hate about being homeschooled. I know in a lot of places public schools let homeschooled kids be on their teams and stuff. We’re never in one place enough for me to take advantage of that. I’d love to play football or basketball, but the closest I’ll ever get is watching it on TV.”

  “That sucks.” I didn’t know what else to say. I couldn’t even imagine what it would be like to be so isolated from everyone else. Maybe I didn’t have a lot of friends in Wellfleet, but I wasn’t totally alone the way Noah was.

  “Yeah, it does,” he said. “It’s getting better. At least now when we’re in Wellfleet, I’ll have someone my own age to talk to. That’s pretty cool.”

  “Yeah. How often are you guys here?”

  He shrugged. “Depends on Dad’s job and stuff. This is the first time we’ve been here since last summer, and we’re staying for a month. At least that’s what Dad said. Things might change so we’ll have to leave sooner. That happens sometimes.”

  Cece crept across the floor and stopped in front of the couch, staring up at me and Noah with wide eyes. Noah smiled at her. “Hi, Cece. It’s nice to see you again.”

  She turned her back and stared at the TV. Taking the hint, I changed the channel to the educational one she usually watched. “Mom doesn’t like her listening to that kind of music,” I explained to Noah. “She said she read somewhere that loud music can make autism worse. I shouldn’t have it on that channel in the first place. She could hear it in the kitchen.”

  “I don’t know if that’s true. About it making autism worse, I mean. People with autism probably don’t like loud music, though. My cousin hates any loud noise, and that music qualifies.” Noah crossed his legs on the couch cushion. “Does it feel weird for you having me over here? It kind of does to me.”

  “Yeah, a little,” I admitted. “Going to your house the other day was strange too. I mean, we just met Friday, and all we did that day was watch the dolphins. We didn’t really talk or anything.” I paused. “You don’t talk much anyway, do you?”

  “Not usually. I don’t have a lot to say.” He turned to the window. “This place is beautiful. You must love looking outside all the time.”

  “You have better views than we do,” I said.

  He shook his head. “They’re nice, but this whole house is incredible. I’ve been here once, when your aunt or whoever still owned it. I was a lot younger then. Dad didn’t get along with her, so that was the only time we ever visited over here.” He picked at a tiny hole in the knee of his jeans. “Dad doesn’t really get along with anyone.”

  I didn’t say anything about his father this time. Apparently it was okay for Noah to complain about him but not for anyone else to agree. I didn’t want to argue with him, especially now that Cece was sitting right in front of us. She didn’t like it when people argued.

  “Can I ask you something?” Noah said after a couple minutes.

  “Sure,” I replied. I didn’t think it was fair for him to expect an answer when he didn’t seem inclined to give me any.

  “Are you, like, dating anyone right now?”

  That was so far from the kind of question I’d expected from him that I didn’t even kn
ow how to answer at first. “Why?” I said finally.

  “Just wondering.” He hesitated, picking more at that hole in his jeans. “I’ve never had a girlfriend. Or a boyfriend.” He peeked at me from under his eyelashes.

  The look hit a chord in my heart. He was hurting, and I wanted to make it stop. I just didn’t know how.

  “I’m not dating anyone,” I said. “I was before we moved down here, but we broke up when I moved. I haven’t met anyone here that I’d want to date.” Or that I trusted not to slug me if I hit on him.

  “If you were dating, would it be a guy or a girl?”

  He was talking quietly, like he didn’t want anyone to overhear him, even though the only one in the room besides us was Cece. If she did overhear, she wouldn’t pay attention and might not even understand. But I understood why Noah was worried. He probably hadn’t told anyone that he liked guys, and he wasn’t sure now how I would take it. I’d felt exactly the same way before I’d come out.

  “A guy,” I said like it was no big deal. “I had a boyfriend where we used to live.”

  “You did?” He raised an eyebrow. “Your parents didn’t care?”

  “I don’t know how happy they were when they found out I’m gay, but I told them that a few years ago,” I said. “So they’d had time to get used to the idea before I started going out with Brian. They invited him over for family stuff, just like they would have done if he’d been a girl. I don’t think they had a big problem with him.”

  “My parents would probably kill me.” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands. “Maybe not literally, but I don’t know if they’d even let me keep living with them. They have friends who are homosexual, and they don’t act like they have a problem with those guys. I still don’t think they’d be happy to find out I’m gay.”

  “How long have you known?” I had to wonder if he even knew for sure, since he hadn’t spent a lot of time with other people. Then again, if his parents had gay friends, Noah had probably met them, and that might have clued him in to what he preferred.

  “I don’t know. I think I was like thirteen or fourteen. I’m seventeen now, so three or four years.” He bit his lip. “I’ve never talked to anyone about it. I don’t have anyone to talk to except people who’d probably go to my parents behind my back.”

  “What about their friends who are gay?” I asked. “Wouldn’t one of them talk to you?”

  “Yeah, and they’d probably tell my parents right afterward,” he muttered. “I don’t want them to find out. Not until I’m old enough to move out or something. I just turned seventeen in December, and I won’t be finished school for another six months or so. I have to be eighteen and finished school before I say anything. That way if they do throw me out, I’ll be able to take care of myself.”

  I couldn’t imagine being that scared of my parents. I’d been afraid of telling them I was gay, of course. I didn’t know too many people who wouldn’t have been. But I’d never been worried they would throw me out of the house or anything. I’d mostly just thought I would disappoint them or that they’d ground me or not let me date.

  “Do you really think they’d be that bad?” I said.

  “I don’t know what they’d do. It’s hard to tell, especially with Dad.” He started fidgeting with the hole in his jeans again. “So you and your boyfriend. Did you ever…. Never mind, it’s none of my business.”

  “We didn’t have sex,” I said. “Talked about it, decided not to because we knew I’d be moving soon. I have this weird thing where I don’t want to have sex with someone unless I think the relationship might last, you know?”

  “That isn’t weird,” he said. “I like that you think that way.” His face turned red. “I mean, not that I think about that a lot anyway. It’s kind of pointless to think about sex when you don’t even have a chance to talk to anyone most of the time.”

  “Yeah.” My face was warm, which meant it had probably turned just as red as Noah’s. This wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have, even if Cece hadn’t been there. Talking about sex, or even talking about thinking about it, made me think more about it, and that wasn’t something I wanted to do right then.

  “Yeah.” He kind of crammed himself against the arm of the couch. “So anyway, do you miss him? Your boyfriend?”

  “My ex-boyfriend,” I corrected him. “And not really. He started seeing someone else right after I moved, so I figured if he was going to move on that fast, I might as well too.”

  “That stinks. I mean, maybe you guys could have kept in touch or something.”

  “Maybe.” I didn’t want to talk about my ex either. “Hey, Cece, what do you do for exercise?” As long as Mom was gone, I wanted to try to stick to Cece’s schedule as much as possible.

  Cece stood up and started doing jumping jacks in the middle of the floor. I joined her, and after watching us for a minute with a bemused smile, Noah started in too. We jumped for a few minutes, and then Cece sat on the floor and did something that sort of resembled a sit-up. Noah and I copied her on those too.

  By the time Cece announced, “Done,” I was more tired than I’d been since the end of last baseball season. I’d gotten out of shape by not doing sports, apparently. Noah hadn’t broken a sweat; he wasn’t even breathing hard.

  “I’m going to try calling Mom again,” I said between panting. “She should have been home by now.”

  “Can I do anything to help?” Noah asked.

  I started to say no, but he obviously wanted to do something. After a second, I came up with an idea. “You can play a game with Cece,” I said. “Cece, want to play Memory?”

  Cece grinned and took her Memory game out of the cupboard in the entertainment center. She and Noah went to work laying out the cards while I went into the kitchen and tried calling Mom on the landline phone. Once again, I got her voice mail. “Mom, it’s Chris,” I said. “I’m getting worried, and Dad’s on his way home. Where are you? Please call.”

  I hung up and stood there for a few seconds, hoping she’d call right back. She didn’t.

  While Noah, Cece, and I were in the middle of our zillionth game of Memory, someone knocked on the door. Noah looked up, eyes wide. “I’ve been over here a long time,” he said quietly. “That might be my dad.”

  “Or mine.” I got up to answer the door.

  Noah and I were both right. Our dads both stood there, and neither of them appeared particularly happy.

  “Noah.” Mr. Silver glared. “You were told to come home after an hour.”

  “I’m sorry.” Noah scrambled to his feet. “Chris was here by himself with his sister, and I figured I might be able to help him out, so I stayed. I should have called you.”

  “Yes, you should have.” Mr. Silver’s eyes narrowed. “We’ll talk about this at home.”

  “Thanks for sticking around, Noah.” I stood up and held my hand out to his father. “Nice to see you again, Mr. Silver. It did help having Noah here. He’s really good with Cece.”

  Mr. Silver eyed me suspiciously and then shook my hand. “Thank you. I’m glad he was helpful. Noah, let’s go.”

  Noah went out the door and followed his father off the deck. Dad shut the door and locked the deadbolt.

  The whole time Noah and I’d been talking to his father, Cece had stayed on the floor with her cards. Now she got up and flung her arms around Dad. “Daddy.”

  “Yes, honey.” He stroked her hair, and she jerked her head away. Dad sighed. “I always forget she doesn’t like that.”

  Cece let go of him and sat down on the floor again. Dad kicked off his shoes and sat on the couch. “Have you heard anything from your mother?”

  “Not yet,” I said. “I’ve called her a couple times, and I just get her voice mail. She hasn’t called back, and she hasn’t come home.”

  “She didn’t answer when I called either.” He rubbed his eyes with one hand. “I don’t know, Chris. She and I had a couple arguments over the weekend. I believed we’d worke
d things out.”

  It took me a moment to catch on. “You think she might have left us?”

  “I don’t know,” he repeated. He stood up. “I’m going to check the bedroom. If any of her things are missing, we’ll have to assume she’s gone. If everything’s still there, I guess I’ll start calling the hospitals.”

  He went downstairs. I watched Cece flipping over random cards, not even trying to play the game. I didn’t know what Dad and I would do if Mom didn’t come back. Mom was the one who took care of Cece. She knew Cece’s schedule, she knew what Cece would and wouldn’t eat, and she knew about all the therapies and stuff. If Mom had left, how would Dad and I manage?

  On the other hand, maybe that was why she’d left. She was almost totally responsible for everything to do with Cece. Maybe she’d finally gotten fed up with it.

  Dad came back upstairs looking grim. “Half her stuff is gone. She left a note. I don’t know why she didn’t leave you one. She said she needs time, and she’ll call when she’s ready.” His voice broke. “I don’t know how to handle Cecelia. I don’t know how to handle anything. How can she do this?”

  I just stared at him. I’d only seen my father cry twice in my entire life. Once when his father died, and again when Cece’s autism was officially diagnosed.

  I didn’t know what to say. I definitely didn’t have an answer to his question. I couldn’t believe Mom had just left. Without leaving me a note, without making arrangements for Cece—just packed up and taken off.

  I wanted to scream at her. Make her understand what position she’d put me in. I’d had to get Cece off the van, I’d had to argue with her driver about it, I’d had to take care of her, and that would probably be the case every day from then on. I wouldn’t be able to join the baseball team even if I wanted to, and I wouldn’t be able to spend much time with Noah unless he came over like he’d done today. But his dad hadn’t seemed too happy about that, so I doubted it would happen again.