by Amy Giles
Still scribbling, he said, “Good age to start.”
He reached in a file and pulled out another sheet of paper. “Get this signed.”
“What’s this?” I looked at the form.
“Parental consent.”
“Aw fuck.”
Leo looked up at me. “Problem?”
I sighed. “Do I really need this?”
“Yep. Until you turn eighteen.” He handed me my list of exercises. “Come back with that form signed and a credit card on Saturday morning and we’ll get you started.”
I met Pete waiting for me by the door. Before we left, my eyes panned around one last time. My fists clenched in some muscle memory, as if I’d done this before or was always meant to. I watched the guy jabbing at the speed bag, the fluid rhythm of his fists, his intense focus. My arms itched for a turn. I wanted this.
When my father came home that night, I talked him into signing the parental consent form. He ran interference and convinced Mom. I think they were both counting on me giving up on it after a couple of weeks, like I did with football, and before that soccer, and before that T-ball. I also agreed that I would only train, not compete.
That Saturday morning, I went down to the gym for my first session. Leo showed me how to wrap my hands to protect them. I borrowed some loaner gloves that were still moist with someone else’s sweat inside. Leo ran me through basic punches . . . jabs, crosses, hooks, and uppercuts. He watched my moves with eagle eyes, serious, calculating.
Then he clapped his hands. “A’right. Let’s do this.”
I spent an hour working out: fifteen minutes of jumping rope and shadowboxing—sparring with an imaginary partner—eight three-minute rounds on the heavy bag, fifteen minutes of ab and core exercises, with one minute of rest in between.
Leo wacked me in the gut when we were done. This time I clenched my abs, ready for him. “Hands hurt?” he asked. I nodded. “Shoulders sore?” I nodded again, trying not to throw up in front of everyone. “Abs on fire?” More nodding. “Feel like you’re gonna puke? Good. Go home now. Come back Monday. We’ll do the whole thing over again.”
The loaner gloves left a residual stink on my fingers as if I had shoved them under my pits for hours. I bought my own gloves. I could already tell I was going to use them a lot.
Leo took me under his wing. I like to think it’s because he saw so much potential in me, but I know it’s most likely because I’m one of those poor kids everyone feels sorry for since that night. He didn’t mess around though. If I didn’t do exactly what he said, he was going to drop me. So I got up early and ran every other morning before school. I practiced my two-, three-, four-, five-punch combinations on the heavy bag at the gym. Sparred with Kenny, one of the trainers, to work on my aim with mitt drills.
Over the past nine months, I’ve grown to love the sounds of the gym: the predictable ring of the electronic bell—three minutes on, one minute off for rest—the thwacking of the rope, the repetitive dribbling of the speed bag, the deep thuds of the heavy bag. These are the sounds that drown out the screams and gunfire that still echo in my head.
My phone buzzes again.
Where are you? Why aren’t you answering?!
I’m coming.
“Gotta go,” I say to Pete, turning to head out before my mother really starts to lose it.
Jess
Our chain-link gate groans as I push through it backward, while digging in my backpack for my house key.
The stress headache that started in Reggie’s sauna of an office this morning has reached a crescendo, jackhammering behind my eyes.
“Jessica!”
I turn around to find Mrs. Alvarez coming down our front steps.
Mrs. Alvarez has been our neighbor since always and the closest person to a grandmother to me. She babysat Ethan first then both of us when my mother went back to work after her maternity leaves. Now she’s Mom’s de facto babysitter. She visits my mother every day. Some days, she helps my mother around the house. On Mom’s bad days, they just sit and watch television together.
She walks over to me, her cardigan over her shoulders, buttoned at the neck to hold it in place. Her gray wig is immaculately combed, as always. I can tell she put on a fresh coat of red lipstick just to step outside. Mrs. Alvarez never leaves the house without her wig and her lipstick.
“We were worried about you. The school called this morning. They said you missed first period. Where were you?”
“Looking for a job,” I say. “Someone has to.” A different kind of pressure builds up behind my eyes; I try to force it back down. I don’t think I do a great job of hiding my feelings from Mrs. Alvarez though.
“Oh, dear.” She wraps her arms around me, patting my back, which feels like she’s trying to coax a burp out of me. I breathe in her familiar scent, of powder and old-lady perfume, embedded in my memory from a time when I was well cared for.
“PSEG called also,” she says, twisting the collar of her cardigan nervously. “It seems you’re a few months behind on the electricity bill.”
“Great.” I’ve been trying not to stress out about the growing pile of envelopes on the dining room table.
“There’s still money in the account. I know; I saw her checkbook. She just needs to sit down and write the checks!”
There’s a lot my mom needs to do but doesn’t. Like get out of bed, take a shower, make dinner . . . all of these would be great starters.
“Whatever money’s left won’t last much longer,” I say, and Mrs. Alvarez nods, her face grim.
“I wish I could help more.” She rubs her swollen knuckles. “You know, with Mr. Alvarez’s pension and my Social Security checks, I’m only just getting by myself.”
“I know.” I hug her, just for being awesome. “I got a job, at Enzo’s, so that should help. At least a little, right?”
“I’m sure it will.” She puts a hand on my back and nudges me forward. “I made too much soup today. Chicken noodle. Go eat something. You’re thin as a whisper.”
“Okay.” I nod, grateful for Mrs. Alvarez. She’s always making too much food, which is how she takes care of us. Home-cooked meals won’t fix what’s broken, but they don’t hurt either.
Once inside, I kick the door closed behind me. The house is a mess and smells like sauerkraut, which I fear may be coming from my unwashed mother.
Mom’s in her usual place, on the worn-out brown recliner in front of the television. Her blond hair is limp and unwashed. Her dull brown eyes are glued to a cooking show.
I walk up and place a gentle hand on her shoulder.
“What are they making?”
“Coq au vin,” she answers, her voice flat.
“What’s in it?” I ask, trying to engage her.
“Chicken legs,” she offers.
“Hm. Sounds good. Speaking of which . . . Mrs. Alvarez said she brought over some chicken noodle soup. Did you eat yet?”
She shakes her head and glances over at me. “I’m not hungry.”
It’s hard to look her in the eyes these days. I’ve seen a lot of sad eyes this past year, but my mother’s are the saddest.
“Mrs. Alvarez said we’re late with the electric bill,” I tell her. Mom runs a hand down her face like this is already overwhelming her. “Maybe I can help you pay some bills? I can write the checks and you can just sign them?” I offer, glancing behind me at the mail on the table, feeling my stomach knot with another twist of misery.
“I can’t right now, Jess. Maybe later.” She turns her attention back to the television as the onions sizzle.
I miss my mother as much as I miss Ethan, if not more.
At Mrs. Alvarez’s insistence (“What you need is to get out of this house and get some exercise, Nicole! Some fresh air will do you a world of good!”), Mom tried to take a walk around the block a few weeks ago. A neighbor a few houses down found her sitting on a chair on her front stoop, sobbing. Apparently, she saw a boy skateboarding that looked like Ethan. I have the opposite problem. It’s
the not seeing him, not hearing him, that haunts me. At school, at home. I can’t escape the silence.
I walk down the hallway, stopping for a minute outside of Ethan’s room, door shut to embalm his last day with us. I don’t understand the appeal of cemeteries. His bedroom is where I would visit him, if I could. But Mom begged me not to go in there.
“Jess! No!” She grabbed my arm to stop me, soon after he died. She made it sound like I was about to dance on my brother’s grave when all I was doing was trying to find a way to be closer to him. To feel him near me again.
I pivot and go to the bathroom in search of some Tylenol, Advil, baby aspirin, anything to dull this pounding headache. Inside the medicine cabinet I find a diorama of the Nolan Family: Before and After. Dad’s razor, the one he forgot to pack when he ditched us two years ago, the first blow to the Nolan family. There’s a tube of benzoyl peroxide that Ethan and I shared. Some old Neosporin. Ethan’s retainer that we had to replace twice at five hundred dollars a pop because he used to lose everything. And the newest addition: Mom’s prescription of Zoloft.
Mom took them for about four months after Ethan died, after she left her job, and then she stopped taking her pills, stopped going to therapy. She said they weren’t helping; the pain was still with her every waking moment. And then she got worse. She didn’t want to get out of bed or take a shower or eat or anything. I found the psychiatrist’s card in my mother’s purse and called to ask her what to do.
“Your mother is noncompliant,” the doctor said in a tone sanitized of compassion, as if I was going to sue her for malpractice and she was refusing to accept any blame.
“No, she’s sad. And you’re not helping her!” I hung up.
“She’s not very nice,” I told Mom later that day as she lay in bed. “Maybe we can find someone else, though? Maybe you just need to try another medicine?”
“What’s the point?” Mom said. “It won’t change anything.”
No medicine would bring Ethan back is what she meant. But it could possibly bring my mother back, so I mention it every so often; I get the same answer every time.
With a slam, I shut the cabinet as if I can shut out the memories attached to everything inside, and make my way to the kitchen. There’s a large cottage cheese container on the counter, Mrs. Alvarez’s calling card. She always recycles her yogurt or cottage cheese tubs to store her leftovers. I pour some chicken soup into a bowl and bring it over to Mom, setting it on the round end table next to her. Her wedding band and engagement ring are on the table. Two years later, she finally took them off.
“Want me to put these somewhere safe?” I ask, scooping them up.
“Just leave them here where I can see them.” Her eyes catch mine and she nods, as if her logic is perfectly clear. She taps the table with her finger.
Okay, so maybe she hasn’t entirely accepted he’s gone for good.
I put them back where I found them. “You should eat.”
“I’m just not hungry, Jess,” she says, sounding so defeated by a bowl of soup.
I take the chair next to her and offer her a spoonful.
“Jess.” My name is a complaint on her chapped lips.
Your mother is noncompliant.
I move the spoon closer to her mouth. I’ll hold it here all day if I have to.
“All right,” she says, too tired to argue. She takes the bowl from me and eats. For a fleeting, beautiful second, her eyes sparkle like they used to and she smiles at me. “Thank you.” We hold each other’s gaze, gently. Then her eyes turn sad again. “I’m sorry, Jess.”
I look away, nodding. She doesn’t make me any promises she can’t keep, like I’m trying, or It will get better, even if right now I really could use some hollow platitudes.
So I change the subject to tackle the topic I’ve put off for too long.
“Mom? You really need to take a shower. Your hair is . . . well, to be honest . . . it’s starting to smell. Do you need help or something?”
She runs a hand softly down her hair, barely grazing it. “It’s fine.”
I shake my head. “It’s really not. Will you try? For me?”
It gets her up out of her chair and she walks to the bathroom. If I was afraid she was going to take too short of a shower, the opposite happens. She’s in there forever, or at least until she must’ve run out of hot water. Then she comes out in her robe, her cheeks flushed from the steam and heat. She looks almost like her old self.
“I’m going to go lie down for a bit,” she says, then turns toward her bedroom. I won’t see her for the rest of the night. The bills will have to wait, again.
Or not.
I search for the most recent electric bill on the dining room table and open it.
Yikes. We owe four hundred and twenty-five dollars.
I find Mom’s checkbook and write out a check to PSEG, finally putting to use those life skills we learned in eighth-grade Family and Consumer Science. The only thing left is Mom’s signature. I stare at her closed bedroom door down the hall then forge her signature, just like I’ve done all year, on every form that came home from school, on every note I wrote to excuse me for being late, for leaving early.
When I’m done, I stick the check in the envelope, slap a stamp on it, and put it aside to drop in the mailbox tomorrow.
There are more bills I could pay, but I’m afraid to. Afraid to see how quickly we tear through what’s left in the checking account. So I leave them and go to the kitchen to sit down at the kitchen table to eat what’s left of the soup straight out of the cottage cheese tub.
The refrigerator still has pictures Ethan and I made as kids, held up with magnets. “Happy Mother’s Day” flowers made out of construction paper. A Valentine’s Day heart, with a crooked “I Love You” written in crayon. Ethan had better fine motor skills than I did. His hearts were always perfect. Mine always came out kidney-shaped.
Ethan got the better end of the DNA pool—he got Mom’s blond hair; I got Dad’s red hair, pale skin, and freckles—but he wasn’t obnoxious about his good looks. About other things, sure. He was my older brother by eleven months. When we weren’t teasing each other or fighting, we would crack up with just a sideways glance or a twisted expression, the kind of giggles I only shared with him, not even with Marissa.
There were so many nights when Ethan’s friends and Marissa would come over for dinner. We would drag chairs in from the dining room to squeeze everyone around the kitchen table. But all of that is in the past. Now I’m surrounded by empty chairs.
Lucas
If being pulled out of school to go to the doctor when I’m not sick isn’t bad enough, being the only eighteen-year-old sitting in the pediatrician’s waiting room is humiliating.
Dr. Patel’s kaleidoscopic waiting room looks like a box of crayons ate a bag of jelly beans and then vomited all over the room. No color was spared in the decorating, from the cheery apple-green and bright blue walls to the orange and purple plastic chairs. Over in the corner is a table where I used to color or play with the Legos, next to the PlayStation game on the wall Jason and I used to fight over. We even went into the exam room together. It was easier for Mom to schedule both of our annuals at the same time. Not like I ever let Jason out of my sight anyway.
Jason and I were off the charts in the height department, but he had a two-year running start on me. It was Dr. Patel’s annual gag to tell me to keep eating my veggies if I ever wanted to catch up to my big brother. It became obvious by the time I was twelve that Jason was just always going to be taller than me and I was never going to catch up.
Dr. Patel comes out holding my file, his once wiry gray hair now a puffy cloud of white.
“Lucas.” Dr. Patel’s smile emerges from his craggy face. “My favorite patient.”
A little girl sitting with her mother frowns at him. “You’re all my favorite,” he assures her with a wink.
He looks down at my folder a moment as I walk up to meet him. Mom grabs her purse and follows. I
turn around to stop her. “Ma, I’m going to go in by myself. Okay?”
Mom stops in her tracks. Adjusting the straps of her purse on her shoulder, she says, “Sure. Of course,” even though her shocked expression is that of someone who was just blindsided. “Just make sure to tell him you were coughing all night.”
“I will,” I say, but think, You just did.
Crayoned drawings of sick kids visiting the doctor are taped on the walls of the exam room. Steering away from the paper-covered exam table, I sit in the chair reserved for parents. Dr. Patel leans back against the table and folds his arms, my folder stuffed under his armpit.
“What’s going on, Lucas?”
“I’m not sick,” I begin. “I coughed a couple of times because I choked on my spit while I was snoring!”
His bushy eyebrows levitate above the round steel frames of his glasses, but he doesn’t say anything.
“She’s scared, I get it. I’m scared too. But it doesn’t help that she’s always hovering. And my car keys are missing and I think she did something with them, because she thinks everything is too dangerous,” I keep going. “She wants me to go to Queensborough next year because she’s afraid I’m not ready to go away yet. I mean, maybe I’m not . . . but I think she’s not ready. Do you know what I mean?”
He hmmms as he flips open his folder and reviews my chart. Then he pats the table. “Humor me. Since you’re here.”
Dr. Patel puts the stethoscope in his ears as I sit on the table that used to seem so high when I was a kid. He chuckles and aims the chest piece at the ceiling. With a squeak on the linoleum floor, he goes up on the tippy-toes of his rubber-soled shoes, craning his neck to exaggerate our already drastic height difference.
“Helllooo up there!” He laughs, then waves me down. “You know what? Hop back down. You’re too tall for me now,” he says, with a smile of pride on his face.
A memory of that same smile, those same words, just about knocks me over. Instead of me, it was Jason. The last visit to Dr. Patel before Jason told Mom his next doctor’s visit was going to be down the hall at the family practice.