by Sarah Tregay
Dad Doesn’t Lecture Me
He just asks
if I know what
Mom’s family meeting
is about.
Back at Our Apartment
I treat my father like a guest,
pouring him a glass of wine
because we don’t have gin.
“So, Charlene, you wanted to talk face-to-face?”
he asks Mom, looking cool and comfortable
while she paces and sweats.
“I—I—I found these in Marcie’s room!”
From her pocket, Mom pulls out
a stack of
condom
packages
that unfold
like an
accordion.
“Yeah,” Dad says.
“I gave them to her.”
“Ethan! What the hell were you thinking?”
“That I wasn’t going to count on
some seventeen-year-old jock
to remember them.”
“But she’s just a kid!”
“She’s sixteen, Charlene.
There’s nothing wrong
with giving her a parachute.”
Mom puts her hands over her ears,
and stomps back and forth in mad
half circles around the coffee table.
“Mom?”
“MOM?”
“MOM, STOP!”
She stops pacing and looks at me.
“I didn’t use them.
I mean,
I put one on a banana.
Just to practice.
But J.D. and I
don’t have sex.
And I’ve never slept
with Linus.
I mean,
we’ve slept together,
but we just slept.
With our clothes on.”
“See!” Mom shouts at Dad.
“You’re encouraging her!
I can’t deal with this.
I just can’t deal with this. . . .”
Funny
but when Mom
has one of her
breakdowns
the only person
who can glue the pieces
together again
is still Daddy.
In the Aftermath of Operation Sedate My Mother
In the morning,
my father
takes me out
for doughnuts,
which we eat
on the porch
of the summerhouse,
our coffee cups
and our breath
steaming.
“Your mom and I
decided
it would be best
if you
came back to Boise,
with me.”
Protesting
“But Mom needs me!”
“Marcie,” he says, “she’ll be all right.”
“No, Daddy, you don’t know how it is.
Mom needs me.”
I plunk my coffee cup on the railing,
stomp down the steps.
“You weren’t here,
you wouldn’t know,” I tell him
over my shoulder as
I make my escape.
“She needs me.
She needs me.”
I chant as I jog,
finding my pace
and enjoying
the crunch of snow
under my sneakers.
“She needs me.
She needs me.”
Escort
Dad I fall
drives into a
real rhythm
slow down
on Durham
the Point
pavement Road
behind that
me. takes
“Marcie?” me
“Sugar Cookie?” into
“Please?” town.
How I Got to the Bottom of Things
Lungs burning,
thighs screaming,
and chest heaving,
I stumble up the steps
to our apartment.
Mom looks up from her coffee. “Marcie, honey?”
“Dad says I need to go.
That’s not right,
right?
It’s not true,
is it?”
“Sweetie,” she says, dropping her voice,
like she’s saying it’s true
without speaking the words.
“You need me to “I don’t need you
run to the market sneaking into the summerhouse
and buy groceries.” to make out with your boyfriend.”
“You need me to “I don’t need you
save quarters not coming home
and wash our clothes.” right after school.”
“You need me to “I don’t need you
wash your coffee mugs acting like
and clean the counters.” some child I didn’t raise.”
“You need me. . . .” “I don’t need to worry
about you.”
Realization
I collapse
in a
hardly breathing
sweaty mess
on the couch,
hiccuping tears
into the pillows
and realize
that
she doesn’t
need me.
In fact,
she doesn’t even
want me.
December 22–8:32 P.M.
MarsBars: good news.
EmoK8: you got straight As?
MarsBars: nope. im coming home.
EmoK8: whoopeeeeee! *dances around the room*
MarsBars: i can’t wait to see u!
EmoK8: so your mom changed her mind?
MarsBars: about me.
she found the condoms.
she’s shipping me home with dad.
EmoK8: omg! is she mad?
MarsBars: yeah. big time.
EmoK8: but you didnt use the condoms.
MarsBars: no. but she didnt believe me.
EmoK8: figures. but at least ur coming home.
MarsBars: i dont know when we’ll get there.
we’re driving.
EmoK8: drive safe. i want my BFF in one piece.
MarsBars: ok
EmoK8: can i tell the leftovers?
MarsBars: yeah, sure
EmoK8: see u soon. luv u. nite.
MarsBars: nite.
My Good-byes
to Sam, Conner,
and the popular girls
are short and sweet
on the day before
Christmas break.
I return my textbooks,
my combination lock.
I empty my locker
into a box.
I kiss J.D.
quickly
and hug him
innocently
because my dad
is standing
behind us.
Holidaze
I am in no mood for Christmas.
How can I celebrate this morning
when I was up all night listening to
my parents talk about getting a divorce?
Dad was begging Mom not to
because the courts wouldn’t look at him too favorably.
And he doesn’t want to lose me.
He offered her health insurance, rent, and a car
in exchange for me.
He promised not to get married again,
and that he’d sign the papers if she wanted to remarry.
She said that she didn’t need
his health insurance,
his money,
his car,
or his permission.
Christmas Dinner
I think it’s a conspiracy,
Mom and Dad against me.
(They have driven me to Manchester,
where I can’t possibly sneak out
&
nbsp; to devour J.D.)
Until
Arthur insists that Dad carve the turkey.
Dad accepts, not wanting to be rude.
But my mother protests under her breath,
so low only Greta and Grammie Iris can hear.
Grammie Iris gives my mother
a disapproving glance
as if Mom
were still
a child.
Comfort
Gigi and I take a nap
on Arthur’s bed
just to get away from it all.
“Mahcie?” she says
when I think she is asleep.
“I know it’s hard to imagine,
but they’ll figure things out.”
“Thanks, Gigi,” I say.
“Your G’pa and I had our moments,
but we always did what was best
for our children.
That’s what parents do.”
Back to Bed
I sneak out for a run
before Mom wakes up.
(Dad has a hotel room.)
Taking the route around Mill Pond
and up Faculty Row,
I tap-tap on J.D.’s door
instead of ringing the bell.
“He’s sleeping,” his littlest sister tells me.
“And I’m not waking him up.”
She lets me in anyway,
as if she plans on summoning
someone else to interrupt her brother’s slumber.
Tiptoeing up the stairs,
she beckons me to follow.
At the top she opens a bedroom door.
“You do it,” she says.
In the slanted polygons of morning light
that edge their way around the blinds,
J.D. sleeps on his stomach.
His face is smooshed into the pillow.
And he doesn’t look like the grizzly bear
his sister had imagined.
“Morning,” I say. “Mmph?”
“Wanna go for a run?” “Nah,” he says,
rolling on his side and patting the mattress.
I sit on the bed. He shakes his head.
“Lie down.”
I ease off my sneakers.
J.D. lifts the covers and
wraps them over me
leaving his arms
in the embrace. “That’s bettah,”
he mumbles into my hair.
“Now sleep.”
In Bed
I fell asleep
wrapped in J.D.’s blankets
wrapped in J.D.’s embrace
wrapped in J.D.’s sleepy warmth
I awoke
tangled in flannel sheets
tangled in J.D.’s arms
tangled in my dreams.
Blinking the room into focus,
I watch J.D. watch me. “I’ve never woken up
with a girl in my bed,”
he says through a smile.
But his gaze clouds over
and his smile inverts to a pout.
“I thought you were leaving.”
“I Am.”
“Because Mom doesn’t want me,
and Daddy wants me home.”
“I want you.”
“J.D.,” I whine,
“don’t make this harder than it already is.”
With that he giggles
and buries his face in the pillow.
“It’s not funny. It’s sad,” I insist.
His ears turn pink as he gasps for air.
“You want something to laugh about?
I’ll give you something to laugh about!”
He shakes his head.
I wiggle my fingers
under his arms and tickle.
J.D. rolls on his side,
frees his arms,
and reaches for me.
I shriek as his tickles dig at my ribs.
I wrestle for a grip on his wrists,
pushing his back flat to the mattress.
“Not funny.”
“Okay, okay, but just so you know,
next time you crawl into bed with some guy,
don’t expect him not to wake up with a hard-on.”
It’s my turn to giggle and blush.
I punch his shoulder.
“I was talking about leaving
being, uh—difficult.
Not what’s going on in your pants.”
“I’ll miss you, too, Mahcie.”
Time Well Wasted
That’s how we spent the day
drizzling sarcasm over the truth
dropping bad jokes like f-bombs
dabbing smiles over sad silences
dribbling giggles into quiet corners
dusting each other’s lips with breezy kisses
dripping good-bye tears into Little Bay.
But Before I Left
J.D. and I had a serious conversation.
“Neither you nor I are good
at long-distance relationships,” I said.
“Because of me and Megan?” he asks.
“And Linus and me.”
“So you want to break up?”
“I don’t want to.
I just know this won’t work.
I’ll get lonely. I’ll miss you.”
“And you’d wonder if I met someone,”
J.D. said.
“Oh, I know you’d meet someone.
And you’d say, ‘Let’s be just friends.’”
“And she’d have these baby-blue eyes,
short dark hair, and a cute backside.”
“You’d kiss her and say you’re sorry.”
“Her big panties would drive me crazy.”
“You’d kiss her again. I know you would.”
“Yeah,” he sighed.
“I’m not good at the long-distance thing.”
“Me neither.”
Mom’s New Car
When I get home,
Mom takes me outside
to show me a Subaru Outback
parked in our space behind the apartment.
She unlocks the doors,
turns the key in the ignition.
“Heated seats,” she says,
sounding like she wants me to say something.
(I want to ask about her old car back in Boise
and if I can drive it when I get my license.)
“It’s nice,” I say instead.
“And it’ll be good in the snow.”
This car is all Mom.
Practical.
Understated.
And so not Daddy.
Lobstah Feed
Dad and Mom don’t tell the Grapes
exactly why
I’m leaving.
We just enjoy lobsters at Newick’s
as if it were the Fourth of July
instead of the evening after Christmas.
Mom wrestles her crustacean
into submission,
refusing any assistance
from Dad
while Greta brags that her lobster pie
is already out of the shell.
Arthur cracks Gigi’s claws,
and Gigi gives me the best pieces,
to convince me that
I need to like lobster more than I do
if I want to be a New Englander
after all.
MapQuest Says
It will take forty-one hours and thirteen minutes
to drive Dad’s Mustang home. (Mom drove it in four
days, back in June.)
New Hampshire (I don’t want to leave.)
Massachusetts (I can’t tell Dad.)
New York (Because I don’t want Dad to
think I don’t love him.)
Pennsylvania (I do.)
Ohio (But I miss J.D.)