The Last Kid Left
Page 45
32. Like the time he said he liked her hair down? She hasn’t worn her hair up a single day since.
33. It did get easier, and not completely unpleasantly. Not that it ever became nice. But there’d be a moment during sex, nearly every time, when Nick finished, and the music became a quiet song, and he’d smile and look to her to smile, indicate that she’d enjoyed herself; and she always smiled, because she was enjoying herself, right then. Because that moment was heaven. That one moment, lying together. “It’s more like sleeping together than anything else,” she said. “Like little naps but really sleeping. You feel like one person.” In that tiny moment, she said, she found escape.
34. A week later, Mother left for a treatment center outside Camden, Maine. Emily hasn’t seen her since.
35. A similar event, from a few months earlier: In the middle of the night, her mother pushed open her bedroom door and crawled into bed with her, as had happened on many nights before. Frail body in sweatpants and a pilled fleece top.
“We’re going to do it,” Mother said. “I’m just waiting for confirmation.” Almost hissing. “I’m so relieved. Don’t you see? It’s finally happening.” When Emily didn’t answer, her mother filled in, “Honey, I just need a little more time, but it’s all worked out.”
She remembers the densest blackness, the choking air, the oppressive sorority of the smell of her mother’s conditioner. “Please go away,” Emily had said. “Now, Emily,” her mother said. “Get out!” she’d shouted, and shoved her mom off the bed. And her mother hit the floor, ponytail swinging, but returned like a tiger on the back of its catch. Until the manic drive subsided a few minutes later and she shuffled dry-eyed back to her room downstairs.
36. A sign read ATTENTION: THE MOUNT WASHINGTON AUTO ROAD IS A STEEP, NARROW MOUNTAIN ROAD WITHOUT GUARDRAILS. IF YOU HAVE A FEAR OF HEIGHTS, YOU MAY NOT APPRECIATE THIS DRIVING EXPERIENCE.
37. When a bee climbed up her yellow scarf, the Journalist remembered a tidbit that her father once taught her, that bees always crawl up, never down.