Family Game Night and Other Catastrophes

by Mary E. Lambert

  A dark, uncharacteristic look crosses his face.

  “No.”

  “Are you worried about him?” I ask.

  “I would be if I didn’t think he was ignoring us on purpose.”

  “What?” I haven’t quite thought of that yet. It’s a little like being slapped.

  “He’s just getting even with Mom,” Chad says, and he shuts the door in my face.

  I’m not done talking to him, though. There’s so much more I want to say. But I can’t quite find the words, so I end up asking the door: “Do they let you use the meat slicer at work?”

  It doesn’t answer.

  Neither does Chad. I’m sure he can hear me. I can hear him. But the only response I get is the sound of the toilet flushing. Then the shower starts, and I stand there, trying to decide if I should wait until Chad comes back out. Maybe if I ambush him, I can blurt out the things I really want to say: things about Dad and Mom and Grandma Nora and the fighting and Leslie’s nightmares and divorce and custody and CPS.

  Or, if I can’t manage that, I can at least ask if Chad will take me to The Exploding Hoagie with him tomorrow. Leslie could come, too. I’ve got enough money to buy us chips and fountain drinks for his entire shift. Or Leslie and I could hang out at the park or the library. If the rest of Grandma Nora’s visit is going to be as loud and awful as it was today, I’ll do anything to get out of the house for an afternoon or two.

  I never get the chance to ambush Chad. The sound of creaking steps sends me running for cover. I don’t know if it’s Grandma Nora or Mom on the stairs, but unless you want to get drafted, it’s best to hide from grown-ups on the warpath.

  Later that night, after Leslie and I are both ready for bed, I stand on her mattress and survey our progress. We’re pretty much finished with Doll Mountain. It was one of the biggest piles in Leslie’s room, so even though there are still piles and piles to go, I feel like we’ve accomplished a lot.

  While I stand on the bed—which is no longer doubling as an armory—Leslie is standing near the trash bags of discarded dolls, the ones with no eyes or missing limbs or shaved heads. She plucks one from the bag. It has no arms.

  “Put it back,” I say.

  She looks at me a little guiltily. “But they seem so sad.” Leslie fingers the empty sockets where the arms used to be. “I don’t think they want us to throw them away.”

  When I look at those dolls I have to try not to think of Chucky, a horrible doll-murderer from yet another terrifying movie Rae forced me to watch at one of our sleepovers. But when Leslie looks at them, I’m sure she’s thinking of Toy Story. She used to watch it almost as often as she watched the princess movies … before Mom boxed up the DVDs and we stopped our Friday Disney nights.

  “Stop feeling sorry for it,” I say. “It doesn’t have feelings. It’s not alive.”

  “I know,” says Leslie. She puts the armless doll back in the bag, but she does it with a sigh.

  Tuesday morning, we decide to conquer the stuffed-animal pile. It’s slightly less traumatic than Doll Mountain, but it takes twice as long. For one, there are more stuffed animals than dolls. Plus, it’s harder to decide which stuffed animals should be thrown out and which ones are okay for Goodwill.

  Our progress is interrupted shortly before lunch, when I reach into the pile and feel something crunchy. I hold it up before realizing that it’s a stuffed dolphin caked in ancient throw up. I shriek and toss it across the room. All I want is to get Pukey as far away from me as possible. I don’t hit Leslie with it on purpose.

  “Ew! What was that?” she says.

  “A dolphin.”

  “Why is it crunchy?” Leslie looks at it lying on the floor at her feet. She doesn’t bend down to touch it.

  “I think it’s covered in old vomit,” I say. “I have to go wash my hands.”

  I’m almost out the door when something nails me in the back of the head.

  “Hey! What was that for?”

  Leslie shrugs, a little smile pulling at the corners of her mouth. “You started it.”

  “And I’ll finish it,” I say, grabbing a one-eyed panda and a ladybug Pillow Pet.

  By the time Leslie calls for a truce, I realize that we’ve undone half our morning’s work. But at least our war is fun. Based on the noises from the kitchen, Mom and Grandma Nora and World War III remain in a stalemate.

  It’s long after we would usually eat lunch when Leslie offers: “Paper-Rock-Scissors?” which is how we’ve been deciding who has to go downstairs whenever we need something.

  “Nah,” I say, examining my chapped hands. I have to leave at least three or four times an hour to wash my hands, and I’ve practically washed the skin off them. “I’ll go down. I want to find some gloves. Do you want a pair, too?”

  She shakes her head no.

  “Are you sure?” I ask, concerned that she hasn’t washed her hands once today. It seems like a recipe for salmonella, hantavirus, or the plague.

  “Yeah, I’m sure,” Leslie says. “This is my room. I live in here. It just doesn’t feel that dirty to me.”

  It should. Guilt, guilt, guilt. Jiminy is chirping up a storm right now. It’s like Leslie doesn’t know what it means to have a clean room. She’s so used to the filth that she doesn’t even see it. I walk downstairs, imagining two hands pushing away the guilt—pushing it out the door, out the window, out of the state, off the map. Squashing the cricket. I’m so distracted that I’m in the downstairs hall before I realize that something is wrong. Terribly wrong.

  It’s quiet. World War III has raged for the last two days, and now there is only silence. But it’s not a peaceful quiet. It’s a dead quiet. Quiet like a battlefield when only the corpses are left.

  I search for the source of the silence. Since yesterday morning, the house has been filled with noise: Mom’s collections being schlepped around, doors slamming as Grandma Nora takes things outside and doors slamming again as Mom brings it all back in, accusations hurled as Grandma Nora calls Mom a liar for saying that she wanted to clean up and counteraccusations as Mom insists that she does want to clean but Grandma Nora is ignoring her wishes and belittling her feelings. That’s usually when the past gets brought up and things are said that I don’t understand, that I don’t really want to understand.

  There’s been shouting and screaming, and the phone has been ringing off the hook. Mom keeps answering, even though it’s always Aunt Jill, and Mom has refused to speak to her sister for years. I think she’s hoping that it will be Dad. I also think Mom kind of enjoys hanging up on her sister. I hope Leslie and I are never like that.

  Dad still hasn’t called.

  I’ve decided Chad is probably right. When Dad left, he was upset enough that he went into hiding from all of us, not just Mom. It’s not fair. He should at least send an email to let his kids know he didn’t die in a fiery crash over the Atlantic. He didn’t. I checked the news—no recent plane crashes. So, unless he’s been kidnapped by some modern-day Moriarty, I’m assuming he’s alive and well. I could email Dad first. I could check in with him, instead of waiting for him to check in with us. But I don’t really want to do that … because what if he doesn’t write back?

  The only sound that interrupts this afternoon’s silence is the distant hum of an airplane. I’m surprised I can hear it all the way in the house, but then I notice that the front door is cracked open. I’m about to close it when I hear Mom and Grandma. I peek outside and see that they are seated on the top step of the front porch. Mom is leaning against Grandma Nora, and Grandma Nora is rubbing her back in a circular pattern.

  No corpses yet. I count this as a victory.

  “Please consider it,” Grandma Nora is saying. “Jill thinks that it would really help you to start painting again. It would be like therapy.”

  This sounds just interesting enough that lunch can wait a bit longer. I crouch down, careful to stay concealed by the door. Their backs are to me anyway.

  “Stop it, just stop it,” Mom says
. She wipes her face with her hands and pushes away from Grandma Nora, who drops her hand from Mom’s back. “I can’t believe that you and Jill of all people would have the nerve to tell me I should—” She takes a deep breath. “That you would say I should try painting as therapy. You know I hate it when you talk to Jill about me.”

  “I’m not going to apologize for talking to my own daughter. Whatever your differences with your sister are—”

  “You know what my differences with Jill are.”

  “I refuse to speak with you about George’s will one more time.”

  “It’s about a lot more than the money, and you know it.”

  “Jill needed an MBA. If she wanted to get any further.”

  “What about art school? What about what I wanted?”

  “We’ve been over this a million times. George left it up to me.”

  “That’s only part of it,” Mom says with a little hiccuping voice. “Even before—before he died, you’ve always done this, acted like I don’t matter. Like what I wanted didn’t matter, because I’m not perfect like she is. You make me feel so broken.”

  I think Grandma Nora will deny it. I don’t expect her to admit that she meddles. She’s supposed to deny that she thinks Mom is broken. Even if we all know it’s true.

  “Oh my poor little Pauline.” Grandma Nora puts her arms back around Mom and pulls her close. “You were always such a sweet, sensitive little thing. So full of love and so easily hurt. But haven’t you figured it out yet? You are broken. I’m broken, too. We all are. The whole world is broken, and sometimes I think we just crash through life, breaking each other worse.”

  I wait for Mom to argue, to tell Grandma Nora that she’s wrong, that we’re not all broken. I’m not. My room is clean. I have friends. I keep my secrets. I do well in school. I am not broken.

  As usual, Mom disappoints me. She just sits, her face turned toward Grandma Nora so that I can see her profile. Her mouth is twisted, like she ate a snail and can’t decide if she’s going to chew it up or spit it out.

  When Mom fails to reply, Grandma Nora tightens her grip and plants a kiss on Mom’s sweaty forehead, just like she kissed Leslie in the kitchen yesterday morning. It’s tender and it smacks of love and it’s the complete opposite of the battlefield I expected to find.

  And for the first time, I see them differently. For the first time, I realize what it means that Mom is Grandma Nora’s daughter. I’ve always known that Grandma Nora is my mom’s mom. I’m not stupid. It’s just that I never really thought much about my mom as a person outside of my existence. I’ve never really thought about her relationship with her mom, except to notice when they fight. And I’ve never really thought about what it would have been like to grow up with Grandma Nora and Aunt Jill.

  No wonder Mom is a little nuts. She spent half her life with Mrs. Fix-It and Ms. Big-Shot Real Estate Agent, who apparently got a master’s degree with the money Grandpa George left Mom for art school. I knew there was some big explosion over Grandpa George’s will, but this is the first time I’ve ever heard about my mom taking classes, and the first time I’ve realized that she might have wanted to do something like that. That maybe she wanted to be more than my mom.

  When Mom still doesn’t say anything, Grandma Nora continues to hug her. They sit in the same unnatural silence I heard before. A breeze stirs the trees, making patterned leaf shadows dance across the wooden beams of the porch. The sky is blue and deep. No clouds in sight. Warm, but not hot. Another of the Glorious Days. And I can’t enjoy it.

  I sit there and watch, growing uneasy and uncomfortable as the quiet stretches on. In this moment, they are more than my mom and my grandma, more than a mother and her daughter. They are Pauline and Nora, Nora and Pauline. Two people. That’s all they are. Two people who look every bit as lost and confused as Leslie on those nights when I tell her she can’t sleep in my room.

  I pull myself back to my feet. There is a prickling feeling at the back of my neck. Aren’t adults supposed to be the ones in charge? Shouldn’t they have the answers?

  And that stuff about being broken is bugging me. I can feel it taking root. I can feel where it will fester and become an Unanswered Question. The kind of thing capable of keeping me awake at night when I am overtired and can’t turn my brain off. Niggling doubts. Bad memories. Questions like the Forbidden Room. I really do wonder what she’s keeping in there. All the family’s old shoes?

  I shake my head to clear it. I have things to do. It’s still silent when I make my way back to Leslie’s room, equipped with crackers and peanut butter and grape jelly and a pair of yellow gloves.

  An hour later, World War III is back in full swing.

  I actually find the noise comforting. Slamming doors and clinking pickle jars are more familiar than eerie or eloquent silences. And as Tuesday comes to an end, I manage to feel cautiously happy (as far as Leslie’s room is concerned, anyway). Without the stuffed animal and doll heaps, the pathways between piles are more obvious. When the trash bags are gone, we’ll be able to see a huge patch of Leslie’s floor.

  Late that night, as Leslie and I brush our teeth, she asks me if she can take Wednesday off. At first I think she’s making a bad joke, like I’m some kind of taskmaster or something.

  “No!” I say. “Request denied. What do you think this is? Summer vacation?”

  Leslie’s eyes grow wide, and she looks surprised, even hurt.

  I spit in the sink and try again.

  “Leslie,” I say. “I’m teasing. We worked really hard yesterday and today. It’s your room. If you want a break, we can take a break.”

  “Oh good. I didn’t want you to be mad at me, but I didn’t want to hurt Dylan’s feelings either.”

  “Leslie Anne, who is this Dylan kid? Are you hiding a boyfriend from me?”

  “No,” she says, but she blushes. Actually blushes.

  “You’re turning red. You’ve got a boyfriend.” I start to hum: “Sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g.” I’m rinsing my toothbrush while I hum, and Leslie goes to spit one more time. Her mouthful of foam lands on my hand. “You did that on purpose!” I grab the soap and start scrubbing.

  She sprints from the room, laughing while I’m stuck at the sink washing.

  I catch up to her a few seconds later and leap onto the bed next to her.

  “Dish,” I say.

  Leslie rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling. “You sound so dumb when you talk like that.”

  “Like what?”

  “When you say things like ‘dish.’ You sound like you’re trying to be trendy or like you’re trying to be someone else.”

  I am actually offended. Mostly because I have a sneaking suspicion that she’s right. “Dish” is one of Rae’s favorite commands. So I whack Leslie with my pillow and say, “Tell me about Dylan, or I’ll tell Chad you have a boyfriend.”

  “No. Don’t do that. Dylan is not my boyfriend. We’re only ten, and anyway I did tell you about him before.”

  “What? You did? When?”

  “Remember the new kid? The one who came just before the end of school, so he could make some friends for the summer?”

  “The weird kid?”

  “He’s not really weird. Anyway, we figured out he lives near here. He’s got an aboveground pool and his mom is cooking hot dogs. Some of his cousins are coming, too. Do you wanna come? Dylan said I could bring friends.”

  “Nah,” I say. “Too close.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t want to get to know any of our neighbors. It breaks one of my rules.”

  “But, Annabelle, just because they live in your Five-Mile Ra-Radish, that doesn’t mean—”

  “Radius.”

  “Five-Mile Radius. It doesn’t mean that you can’t be friends with them.”

  “Leslie, you know you don’t want anyone to come over here either.”

  “Well, no. But that doesn’t mean we can’t be friends.”

  “It does to me.”

 
“But what’ll you do all day?” And I hear the question she’s really asking: Will you be okay with Mom and Grandma?

  “I’ll be fine,” I say. “I’ve got a new book.”

  “Oh, well, all right then,” Leslie says. “If you’re going to read, it doesn’t matter where I am.”

  It’s true. I’ve gotten rather spectacularly good at hiding from my life in a book, for all those times I can’t physically get away. I don’t talk about books with Rae or the others, but every now and then Amanda loans me one. That’s another secret.

  “Just don’t clean up without me,” Leslie says. “I want to help decide what to keep and what to throw away.”

  “No problem,” I say. I don’t mind taking a day off. Not at all.

  So I go to bed feeling pretty good about life. The feeling lasts until just after 2:49 p.m. the next afternoon. That’s when my entire world comes crashing down. And it’s all Leslie’s fault.

  Wednesday is the first day that actually feels like summer. Freedom. No chores or responsibilities hanging over my head. I sleep in, and by the time I wake up, Leslie has already gone off with her friend. I eat breakfast in bed, which sounds luxurious and all, but really it’s an act of survival. I planned ahead last night and brought my battlefield rations upstairs after Mom and Grandma Nora were done fighting for the day. An apple and a Pop-Tart isn’t the healthiest breakfast I’ve ever had, but when it comes without a side of drama, it’s good enough for me.

  While I munch on my apple, I scroll through my phone. I neglected my messages horribly while I was cleaning. There are texts from Rae, Amanda, Jenny, and Melanie. It’s nothing too exciting. Amanda says she just finished the companion to the book she loaned me, and it’s just as good as the first book. Jenny is bored. Rae wants to know when we can hang out again. Melanie texted that her mom bought her neon-orange flip-flops for Family Camp. Melanie hates neon colors. She says they hurt her eyes. I’m still undecided on the issue of neon. But I am decided on this: I wish my biggest problem boiled down to the color of my flip-flops.