Mom says she typed up all the triggers and shared them with the Piedmont school, but I bet Scott the Smug OT hasn’t read them. I bet he doesn’t have any idea that it upsets Ryan if you try to give his fish people names, like Archie the Angelfish and Nina the Neon Tetra. Or that Ryan hates it if you sit in the wrong seat at the kitchen table, or that socks grate against his ankles and heels if they lose their elastic and slide too far down.
And I bet he has no idea how Ryan loves to set up special hiding places for his shy fish, behind rocks and plants. Or how easily he can remember dates and facts about history, even if he just hears them once. Or how he really likes to play classical music on the piano, but he plays songs from Mom’s favorite musicals and my favorite Disney movies, too, because he knows how happy it makes us to sing along.
I thought of Jenna, who understood all those things about Ryan. Who beamed at me when she told me what a helpful sister I am. Who keeps trying as hard as she can for all her clients even though it must make her furious how unfair it is, that she can’t help people like Hailey as much as she wants to.
If Jenna can keep trying even though she has so many obstacles to deal with, I can, too, even though now it’s going to be harder. I just need Sierra to help me figure out how.
SIERRA
Slide Closer
When I come into my room,
Anne is there.
She asks if I’m going to start to unpack.
Says living out of a suitcase
is harder
than it would be to use some drawers.
I don’t tell her
that I had unpacked a bit
but then we fought
and I put most of it back in.
Now she sits on my bed.
I slide closer to the window.
I don’t know why she’s talking to me,
after I said such a mean thing to her.
Says she wants to explain.
Why she keeps her room—
Amy’s room—
set up.
Tell her I don’t really care.
Which isn’t true, but
I want it to be.
Says it’s because
she wants to always remember her
the way she was
when she was happy.
I nod, watch Seeger in the yard
chasing his tail,
I’m not sure what to say.
I realize I don’t even know
how Amy died.
Biting my tongue,
I don’t ask her what I want to know:
When she says she was happy,
does she mean Anne or Amy?
What Never Grew
Carl, happy that Anne & I spoke,
knocks on my door,
shows me his garden map.
It is a grid on graph paper.
Different symbols for different vegetables.
He says he won’t ever plant tomatoes again
where he did last year,
too much “blossom end rot.”
And he is going to have to do better with
“the whiteflies attacking the kale.”
He’s going to try using some “diluted Dr. Bronner’s” to kill the pests.
I don’t really understand anything he’s saying
or why he’s showing me the map.
He keeps explaining,
pointing out my window.
Showing me how each square on the map
represents a place in the actual garden.
Then, he coughs and says
he will learn from his mistakes
and start again in early spring.
He says he’s been thinking of my question
about why he grows his own food,
why he works so hard.
He has a better answer:
He likes to watch
the cycle of life.
To participate in it.
He says some of building relationships is about creation & destruction.
And that understanding this,
watching this cycle,
helped him accept the loss of Amy.
Is that why he’s come up here? To tell me that?
I think of last spring,
how Mom promised to plant a garden.
As a favor to our landlady.
A way to help with one month’s rent.
She tried turning the patch of grass
into a garden by just
pouring soil on top of it
and then
planting tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers.
I kept telling her
it might not work
she might need to water, read instructions.
Just like her plants
creating, destroying
her promises
never took.
I look back at all of Carl’s plans.
Down at his well-loved garden.
Imagine it in springtime.
Imagine it helping him.
But—
not sure what that has to do with me,
not sure whether I care
about his garden
growing.
Back to Himself
We go outside, Carl tells me
it’s time I learned more about compost.
“What’s your father like, Sierra?” Carl asks
as he shows me how to put the dead leaves,
over the just-dumped compost.
It was Mom
who turned Dad in.
She ratted on him
he said, Tammy said.
I said she did him a favor.
Maybe in prison
he would be clean
maybe in there
he could get back
to his drawings,
his books, cooking,
to himself.
Maybe jail has helped Mom, too?
“He’s an artist,” I tell Carl,
covering the yellowed apple cores,
leftover noodles,
coffee grounds,
with the brown, dry leaves.
Proof
The next day,
Mr. Ellis and I have another meeting after school
to talk about the structure of an essay.
He says:
You must have a thesis statement
then take examples from the text
and prove it.
You have to restate your introduction
in your conclusion.
I think of Lauren
how sure she is
of what she wants
to say, do.
I go back and forth
between three statements
on the American Revolution.
Mr. Ellis says
what’s important isn’t in the choosing,
it’s in the proving.
Charity
At Worship & Ministry,
they debate over where to send the money raised
from the Simplicity-a-Thon.
Jake says
Habitat for Humanity,
Mariah says
World Wildlife Fund.
Lauren
turns to me
and says,
what about a place
that gives
to foster kids?
My cheeks burn hot
like when Cassidy called my dad
a criminal in front of the teacher
last year.
How could she do that?
Bring all that attention to me?
I run out of the room,
past rows of L.L. Bean backpacks
a lost & found full of brand-new ski jackets.
I don’t need her charity.
People Who Deserve It
Lauren chases after me
says she’s so sorry,
didn’t mean to embarrass me.
Just wanted to give money
to people who really deserve it
&
nbsp; not to houses or the planet
but right to people.
She tries to hug me.
I shrug her off.
Above us a display,
historical Quaker quotes.
One reads:
You Lift Me &
I’ll Lift Thee &
We’ll Ascend Together.
It makes me think how Lauren & I
have both cheered each other up
at different times.
Mr. Ellis said proving matters more than choosing.
I realize
as I step back toward Lauren:
It isn’t Lauren’s choice to be my friend
that’s the most surprising
but how far she’s gone—
chasing after me, losing Audrey—
to prove it.
Just Because
I tell her it’s okay
I don’t want her to be friends with me
because
she thinks
I need help.
She tells me
that is not at all the reason.
Says, hey, let’s do something fun this weekend.
Says her parents will drop us
at the movies by the mall.
If only she knew
how well I knew
that mall.
She might not want to take me there at all.
But I say yes,
thinking maybe
being with her there
might turn all that orange,
yellow.
Overfilled
I text Cassidy
to see if she could meet us there.
Imagine:
Lauren laughing at Cassidy’s jokes.
Cassidy admiring Lauren’s face and hair.
Trying to up each other, dare for dare.
But she says she can’t get a ride,
her mom had to take the twins to the Urgent Care.
Both up all night with coughs.
Lauren and I, in Aveda,
smelling shampoos,
chamomile, rosemary & mint.
I always wondered how
people could pay that much money to wash their hair.
Think of Cassidy’s coughing sisters.
How much it will cost Lena to take care of them.
We go to Bath & Body Works,
smell some more,
sweet pea, peaches & cream.
My head spinning with smells,
when I see—
Nancy the security guard
who called the police
on my mom
that final day.
I duck around the corner.
Tell Lauren we need to get some
pretzels and lemonade.
She says if she does she won’t be hungry
for popcorn at the movie.
I tell her it’s more fun that way.
To be overfilled.
Have to say it quickly
to dodge Nancy.
After pretzels,
we get out to the parking lot—
we have to walk through it
to get to the movies
the very same lot
Mom got so mad
she lost me—
Lauren pulls
Aveda products
out of her bag.
My heart speeds up,
I lose my breath
I look around the lot for Nancy.
Tell Lauren she needs to take those back.
She says no. She’s going to raise so much money
for kids like her brother—
and who needs such fancy shampoo anyway.
I say fine, hurrying Lauren
away from that bad-luck parking lot,
Nancy’s evil eye.
I wanted today to be something
easy,
happy,
free.
But now with these shampoos,
Nancy’s stare,
joy escapes me.
Someone Like That
During the movies,
a text from a strange number:
Its mom sneaking on a hidden cell
I run out of the theater
tell me something good quick
I look around,
don’t want to tell her where I am.
So, instead, I type, I’ve made a good friend.
Her name’s Lauren and she is into . . .
shoplifting? I almost say, then write . . .
justice.
Mom types back,
says we could use someone
like that in our lives.
I love you so much
I write, but I don’t hear back.
She must have had to stop.
When I return,
Lauren smiles at me,
asks me if I’m OK,
I say yes,
she says good,
a car crashes into another
as she passes the popcorn.
Yes, I Know, I Can
After the movies,
the shampoos inside her backpack.
Our knees curled up,
back home,
on my bed.
Carl’s homemade kale chips,
at our side.
I want to tell her I felt
anxious today.
Want to tell her why.
But she asks about my kaleidoscope.
I say it was—is—
my mom’s.
She says she’d like to know more
sometime about everything, what happened.
She doesn’t want to ignore what’s real.
Not anymore.
I nod.
I tell her I really like that about her.
She beams. Like I’ve given her a prize.
I put my hand on a chip.
Put it back down.
She tells me how she got caught
by her parents.
But she won’t give up,
tells me about a girl named Hailey,
more about Jenna.
And I almost tell her about my dad.
About what my mom did on that last day.
But before I can,
she asks me
if I can help her hide the stuff
she’s taking to sell.
For a minute,
I’m mad.
Wondering again
is she using me?
Is she just asking me
because she has no one else?
She eats a kale chip and makes a face.
“Not quite like the real thing,” she says.
I laugh.
Think of Cassidy and me
and a bag of UTZ potato chips between us.
Lauren decided to be my friend
even though I was a stranger.
She’s all I have.
Think about Amy’s room,
how no one is allowed to go in.
I tell her I think—
Mr. Ellis says you need to be confident, to make a choice,
Lauren’s smile, beaming eyes—
I shake my head and start again:
“Yes—
I know—
I can.”
LAUREN
Easier to Breathe
The Saturday before Thanksgiving, I sat at my desk, attempting to focus on my math homework and staring out the window into Amy’s dark room. That’s where Sierra hid the Aveda shampoos and the cuff links Mom and Dad think are for her dad and the money they think is for the Simplicity-a-Thon.
The lights in there were off, so I couldn’t see anything, but I kept picturing the tan bottles and the shiny gold cuff links under Amy’s old bed. They must look so tiny under there. So insignificant. And then the too-thin envelope of cash Sierra put in Amy’s closet.
I needed to figure out how to get more stuff to add to the stash under the bed and thicken up that envelope in the closet. Good stuff, like the Fitbit and the swirly ring. Stuff that’
s worth a lot more than a few fancy bottles of shampoo and somebody’s old cuff links, even if they are real gold.
I sat there for a whole half hour, only finishing one measly word problem, until I got a notification that somebody bought the cuff links. Which was good but meant there would be even less stuff left under Amy’s bed. Before I could text Sierra to see when I could pick up the cuff links, Mom came up and announced it was time to pick out a “hostess gift” for Aunt Jill and Aunt Becky since Dad and I are going to their house for Thanksgiving dinner.
I said we should go just go to one of the stores right in Chestnut Hill—the one that sells kitchen stuff, maybe, since Becky loves to cook, or the one that sells crafts from Africa and Latin America and the Middle East—places where people need the money from the vases and jewelry and dishes and other stuff people buy at the store. But things have been weird ever since Mom found all that stuff in my pajama drawer, and she’s trying extra hard to make them OK. So she said we should take the train into Center City for a “girls’ outing” instead.
“Let’s go to Anthropologie and look at their housewares for Aunt Jill and Aunt Becky!” she told me. “And then we can go anywhere else you want on Walnut Street! Maybe we can find you some new winter clothes, now that it’s getting colder! Maybe Sierra wants to join! Or Audrey—it could give you a chance to reconnect!”
She was speaking all in exclamations, and her face was all lit up, like she was so sure I’d be thrilled with her idea and so proud of herself for thinking of something I’d love. And the thing is, I would have been thrilled last year to go shopping, just me, Mom, and Audrey. I would have loved to have Mom to myself for a day and to try on sweaters and boots and leggings with Audrey. But Audrey and I are done, so there’s no point in “reconnecting.” And there’s nothing wrong with the sweaters and boots and leggings I already have.
“I think Audrey and Sierra are busy,” I lied.
I couldn’t make myself tell Mom I wouldn’t go, though—not when her face was so lit up and I knew her smile would disappear and her shoulders would sink the second I said no.
But as soon as we got off the train at Suburban Station, I really, really wished I had. On the walk to 18th and Walnut, we passed three different people who sat on the sidewalk with cardboard signs that read HOMELESS and cups to collect money: a dirty-faced boy who only looked a few years older than Ryan, an old lady with no jacket and her hair in two braids like a little kid, and a man in a wheelchair.
It’s not like I’ve never seen homeless people begging for money, but I guess I sort of used to tune them out. “There are charities and shelters set up to help people on the street,” Dad told me once. “There’s no way we can give money to every single homeless person we see, so if we want to make a difference, we can donate to those organizations.”
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