I collapse into Dad’s lap, my tears soaking his pant legs, the salt wetting my lips. “I miss Mom!” This isn’t one of those polite crying sessions where tears drip daintily down my cheeks and my eyes get a little pinkish. This is a guttural sob, where I bend in half, my breath coming fast and my wails filling the room like an injured animal’s.
“Oh, Veronica.” Dad strokes my hair like he did when I was little and got scared about the monsters in my closet, the ones I was sure turned invisible whenever I opened the door. “It’s okay, honey.”
“It’s not okay!” I’m still crying, and it doesn’t feel like the tears will ever stop. I wonder if anyone has ever cried forever and ever? Maybe I’ll be the first one, some medical marvel that doctors will study. I’ll make it into the record books. I’ll cry so much that I’ll have to wear rain boots all the time so don’t slip and slide all over the place.
“Mom’s gone!” I sob. “She left us and she’s sick and she’s never going to get better.”
“No, no.” Dad repeats the word over and over, low and singsong like it’s a lullaby lulling me to sleep. “That’s not true. Yes, your mother isn’t here, but it’s not because she left us. It’s because she’s finding the part of herself that will allow her to come back to us.”
I tilt my head back to look at Dad, then snuffle in a bunch of snot. “That sounds like something you read in one of your self-help books.”
“I don’t—” he starts to protest, but I interrupt him.
“I’ve seen the pile on your desk. The ones about helping Mom and helping me and helping yourself. The articles about ‘supporting an alcoholic’ and ‘kids of alcoholics’ that you keep forgetting to close on your computer. I know you’re studying up.”
Dad sighs. “Busted.”
I snuffle-snot again. “I’m actually glad you left them out.” I look down at my bedspread, too nervous to meet Dad’s eyes. “I’ve been wanting to know more stuff. And I didn’t know who to ask.”
Now I wish the light was still off. This feels like the type of honesty that should only be done under a cloak of darkness.
“You could have asked me.” Dad sounds hurt. Who is he kidding, though? He can’t even talk to his own mother about this stuff.
“I guess.” I wonder if I should tell him about Libby, or the support group she mentioned, but decide to hold back. I don’t want to give up her secret, after all.
“You could have gone to the library, too.”
I shake my head. “No way. They’d think something was wrong.”
Dad clears his throat. I lift my head to meet his eyes as he gives me a knowing look. “Veronica. Something is wrong.”
Anger rises in me when I hear those words come out of his mouth. Now he admits that something is wrong? Now, when no one else is here to hear our cry for help?
I snort.
Dad doesn’t speak snort language, though, and totally misinterprets why I’m upset. “Honey, the librarians wouldn’t judge you. They’re not even allowed to ask questions about what you’re researching.” He pokes me in the side. “There are laws. The police would send them to librarian jail.”
I squirm away from Dad. “It’s not funny.” I flop on my stomach and bury my face in my pillow.
“Okay, okay.” I hear him getting up from my bed.
“Don’t go!” I sit up before I even realize I’m doing it, my arms shooting out for him.
“Yes?” Dad pads back.
I bite my lip. I feel like a little kid crying out for her daddy. In a way, though, that’s what I am. I don’t want to be mad at Dad right now. I want him to make me feel better. About both the dream and all the stuff I read from his research, all the information that’s flooding back into my head.
“All that information in your books…” I inch closer to dad again. “It scared me. I read about people who never got better and relapsed again and again and then they got divorced and…” I break off, my breath coming in gasps.
“Hey.” Dad rubs my back in circles one way, then the other. “That’s not going to happen to your mother.” He tilts my chin up. “Is that what your dream was about?”
I nod. “Kind of.” The images arise in my mind again. “Mom came home and said she was better, but then the very first night, she told us she didn’t care about us anymore and was leaving.” Tears prickle my eyelids again. “I woke up right after she walked out the door.”
“That sounds scary.” Dad’s voice is serious, like he totally gets it. After all, Mom isn’t just my mother, she’s also his wife. Maybe Dad has nightmares, too.
“It was.” My voice trembles, and even though I’m tempted to make myself sound brave, the secret is basically out. I’m tired of hiding my feelings anyway.
I’m just plain tired.
“Do you want to know a secret?” Dad waits for me to meet his eyes. “I’m scared, too.”
“You are?”
“Absolutely.” Dad nods. “Every day. Every minute. I’ve been scared since your mom started having problems with her drinking, and I’ve been terrified since we left her at Pine Knolls.”
“But every time I act like a brat, you tell me not to worry!” I exclaim. “And you keep saying that everything is going to be okay.”
Dad shrugs. “I’m a good actor, I guess. I’m trying to be a good dad, too—to stop you from worrying.” He squeezes my hand. “But I guess it didn’t work. I just made myself worry more. And I forgot to reassure you that feeling like this is totally normal.”
I wipe my nose. “But what if Mom does relapse? What if she does leave us to drink?”
Dad meets my eyes, his face stern. “Veronica, I know your mother. I know that she has disappointed us both, and I know that sometimes I get so angry I could scream. But I also know that deep down, Mom didn’t want to do any of the things she did. And now that she’s in rehab, I’m one hundred percent positive that she’s working as hard as she can to leave this disease behind. She may have to fight for the rest of her life, but believe me—she will fight.” His eyes bear into mine. “She will.”
Dad’s voice is so sure that I can’t help but nod. “Okay.”
Dad gives me a hug. “It’s okay to be not okay sometimes, too, though. I sure have my bad days. But we can get through this together, as long as we’re honest with each other.”
I start to say something about Dad keeping secrets from Grandma Helen, but he starts talking before I get the chance.
“I was just thinking of something else,” he continues.
“What?”
“I know that we can’t visit your mother for a bit longer, but now that she’s been there for more than two weeks, we can write to her.”
“She doesn’t have computer access, though—”
Dad grins. “There are other ways of communicating besides on the computer or your phone, you know.” He sighs dramatically. “You kids and your technology!”
I giggle. “So you want me to send Mom a carrier pigeon? Or a telegraph, like when you were younger, back in the horse and buggy days?”
“Watch it!” Dad pokes me back. “Or I’ll make you write with a quill.”
“Sure thing, old man.” Then my face goes serious again. “So we can really write letters to Mom?”
“Absolutely.”
Swirls of fear and excitement (fearcitement?) compete for space in my stomach as I think about sending a message to Mom. Should I tell her how Dad’s worried about money? About how I keep messing up on the softball field? About my big talent show plan?
What if something I say makes her worse?
Twenty-Five
Dear Mom,
Dad says I can write have to write can write to you now …
* * *
Dear Mom,
Why are you still there? You said these programs usually take eight weeks, but that you were going to work really, really hard. That means that you should have been your overachiever self and finished early—one week should have done the trick. But you’re not done.
You’re not home. That means you’re not working hard after all …
* * *
Dear Mom,
Home isn’t the same without you …
“Argh!” I crumple up the latest version of my letter and throw it across the room. I try to aim for my garbage can, but it doesn’t even get near the rim. It lays there on the floor with all the other crushed-up balls. There’s a whole family over there now.
I’ve been trying to write this letter for days and I’ve barely made it past the first paragraph. Everything sounds either too whiny or too angry. I want Mom to know I miss her, but not too much. I want her to know how much she hurt me, but I don’t want to discourage her. I want …
I want her to be the old Mom, the one who used to order ginormous lobsters with me whenever we went to Cape Cod, then spent the entire meal waving those little claws at Dad while we pretended to be Lobster Lady and her sidekick, Red.
The one who knew more about Harry Potter than practically all my friends and won our town library’s trivia contest wearing her Hufflepuff shirt and time-turner necklace.
The one who should have found a way to be in touch with me this past week, even though it was against the rules.
Because that’s what moms do. They stick around. They find a way to come home, even when the rest of the world—or their own minds—are pulling them away. They don’t need letters written to them, because they’re already there with a hug or a kiss or even a hand squeeze.
At the very least, they magically send vibes across town so their daughters know what to write in potentially the most important letter of their lives!
For a second, I’m tempted to yell down to Dad and ask him what I should write. I’m sure he knows the answer from one of those books he’s been reading.
“Start out with how much you miss her,” he’d say. “Then talk about your life. Maybe share a happy memory. Then end with how proud you are of her. How excited you are for the future.”
His idea sounded good, like it could be read as a voiceover in some serious movie, accompanied by dramatic music. There’d be a split screen, with the mom on one side, reading the letter as tears pour down her (newly sober) face. On the other side, the daughter would be writing on fancy stationery, her tongue between her lips in concentration. She’d look up at the camera and stare into space, then smile fondly as memories washed over her. The music would swell and the picture would shift to their tearful reunion and “happily ever after.”
The problem is, I can’t get my pen to write those perfect words. I’m just using a plain old BIC pen, with a sheet of paper ripped out of my notebook, complete with those little fuzzies on the left side, the ones Mrs. Fink always yells at us about if we don’t cut them off before turning in our homework.
“It’s a sign of unprofessionalism,” she says. “Messy papers show me that you don’t respect your work or your audience.”
I stare at the little fuzzies, then run my finger over them until they’re soft and even fuzzier. I should have fancy stationery for this letter. I should have an expensive pen, too. Maybe one of those fountain pens with the pointy tips. It should be green ink, too, since that’s Mom’s favorite color.
I jump off my bed and rummage through my desk. All of a sudden, it feels like the most important thing in the world that this letter be perfect. Perfect message, perfect penmanship, perfect office supplies. Maybe I should type it. My handwriting isn’t the greatest.
“Where is that paper?” I look through the top drawer of my desk, then all the side drawers. Nothing. I know I had stationery here somewhere. It was light blue with my name on the top in fancy cursive writing. There was a lighthouse on the bottom of every sheet, too.
My letter would look awesome on that stationery.
It has to be in there.
I check the storage boxes in the back of my closet, but all I see are old Legos, dolls, and craft supplies.
“Dad?” I poke my head out the door. My voice and my hands are both shaking.
“Yeah?”
“Do you know where my stationery is? The stuff you and Mom got me for Christmas a few years ago?” My eyes dart around the hallway, like the stationery will magically fall out of the air.
Dad’s voice echoes back from down the hall. “We got you stationery?”
Of course Dad doesn’t know where it is. Dad usually doesn’t even buy the Christmas presents. That’s Mom’s job. Along with knowing where basically everything in this house is.
Mom’s not here, though. Which means that no one is doing her job.
I comb through the rest of the house, my movements becoming more and more frantic. I dig through Dad’s desk. I rifle through the junk drawer, tossing papers and pens on the floor.
I can’t find anything, though.
I scream in frustration and pound my fists on the counters. It hurts, but it doesn’t hurt as much as my heart does.
“Veronica? Are you okay?”
I don’t answer. I can’t answer.
I just run up the stairs and collapse onto my bed, tears leaking from the corners of my eyes. I know that I’m not crying over a few sheets of paper. Not really.
But I also need that lighthouse stationery. It’s the only thing that will help right now, the light drawing me away from the rocks of my own sadness.
I cry until I don’t have any tears left, then write letter after letter, way past my bedtime.
Twenty-Six
“And a one, two, three, four!” Libby presses PLAY on her phone and the music fills my bedroom. I strike a “hands framing my face” pose, just like the singer does in the video, then step forward into a series of complicated steps.
Forward, back, twirl. Step, back, twirl. Hop, make a face, cartwheel.
“Whoops!” Somehow I end up on my back, staring at the swirly white paint on my ceiling.
Libby collapses into giggles on my bed. “Good thing we’re not trying out for the gymnastics team!”
I snort. “Seriously. I could do a cartwheel when I was little kid, but I guess it’s not exactly like riding a bike.”
Libby tries her own cartwheel. It looks better than mine felt, but she still ends up with her knees bent, halfway crouched on the floor. “Yeah, we’re definitely not going to the Olympics.”
“In gymnastics at least.” I think about standing on the podium accepting a gold medal for softball. Me and the rest of my team, of course. I couldn’t win a game alone. “Do you, um, ever think about…”
“Going to the Olympics for softball?” Libby nods her head furiously. “All the time.” She looks at me shyly. “Can you keep a secret?”
“You’re keeping one for me,” I point out.
“True!” Libby hesitates. “So, uh, when I was a kid, I used to set up a podium in my room and pretend it was a medal ceremony. Then I’d parade around the house with the national anthem blaring.”
I laugh, which causes Libby to blush and turn away from me. “I’m not making fun of you!” I reassure her quickly. “I’m laughing because I used to do the same thing.”
Libby gives me a high five. “Then I’ll tell you another secret. That wasn’t when I was a kid … it was last year.”
I give her a low five, too. High five, low five, in the middle five. It’s what Claudia and I always do before our games to psych ourselves up. It feels a bit disloyal doing it with Libby, but then again, it’s not like Claudia and I put a patent on it. I’m allowed to make new friends, after all.
Then why do I feel so awful right now? Why haven’t I told Claudia about Mom yet? I push the feeling away and bounce off the floor. “Let’s try again. Maybe we don’t have to do the cartwheel. I know there’s one in the video, but we could substitute something else instead.”
“No way.” Libby shakes her head. “If we want to win this talent show, we need to do it perfectly.”
I know Libby’s right. It’s not like I’d substitute another skill during a softball game. When I was learning how to bunt, Mom pitched ball after ball to m
e until I got it. It was boring and it took hours, but it worked. This will work, too.
Eventually.
I flub another cartwheel.
“Let’s do the big finish!” Libby exclaims. “We’re good at that!”
Libby and I strike the final pose, then give each other a high five. My breath is coming in gasps, just like when I sprint to home base; and my heart feels as giddy as when I score a run. It’s weird—I never thought that anything but softball could give me this high, but the more I think about performing in the talent show, the more excited I get.
Yeah, I’m still nervous, but not about performing. I’m nervous because we have to be good enough to win—to beat all the drummers and magicians and gymnasts who enter alongside us. That’s why we need to keep practicing. Even on softball days, when we’re already tired.
“One more time through.” Libby looks at her phone. “If I don’t get home by six o’clock, Mom’s going to kill me.”
“You could have dinner here.” I fiddle with my bracelet. “I mean, if you want to. We only have frozen pizza and cereal, but it could be fun.”
I don’t want Libby to leave. I don’t want to sit at home, in my room or in front of the TV, while Dad sells hammers and Mom discusses her feelings in some big building far away from me. I know why they have to be gone, but that doesn’t change the fact that I’ve been alone a lot lately. Alone in my head and alone in my house. It’s nice to finally have someone here alongside me.
“I do love cereal. Especially the sugary ones my mom never lets us buy. But I should go,” Libby says. “We always have family dinners on Sunday nights. It’s one of the things that’s supposed to help Mom’s ‘recovery.’” She puts her fingers up in air quotes.
I frown at the unhappy expression on her face. “Is your mom okay?”
“Yeah,” Libby says quickly, then bites her lip. “It’s just … all this family togetherness makes me worry. Like the happiness is way too over-the-top and it’s all just a big act until everything falls apart again.”
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