P.S. I Miss You

by Jen Petro-Roy

  Ben went to bed at ten (he fell asleep on the couch and Mr. Foley carried him upstairs), and the rest of us watched the ball drop in Times Square. We blew noisemakers and wore party hats and threw confetti. The Foleys love New Year’s.

  We used to, too. Remember when I was seven and you were eleven and Mom and Dad rented out the sports center across town? They invited all their friends from college and church and convinced the management to crank the heat up to eighty degrees? I wore my favorite purple-striped shorts (I was so sad when I grew out of those) and a tank top and you wore that yellow-and-white sundress that ripped before you got a chance to hand it down to me. We played soccer and kickball and basketball all night long and went home with “turf stains” all over our knees.

  That was awesome.

  The next year was awesome, too, when Mom and Dad decided that one year of “Summer New Year’s” wasn’t enough. Everyone in my class thought I was the coolest for inviting them to a bathing suit and ice cream sundae party.

  (Not so awesome—when you ate three huge sundaes in a row and barfed all over the living room couch. I couldn’t look at ice cream for the next month. Ew.)

  Dad was wearing a winter coat when he dropped me off at Katie’s, though. No cheesy Hawaiian shirt and no sunglasses. The heat at home was set to a normal sixty-seven degrees and there were no inflatable flamingos on the porch.

  No one was feeling very sunny this year. Especially me, even though Katie and Maggie wouldn’t stop trying to get me to blow those annoying noisemakers. I pretended to have fun and cheered when the ball dropped, but I was secretly glad to go to sleep, even in my old sleeping bag on Katie’s hard floor.

  I’m glad to say good-bye to this last year, but I don’t want to say hello to the new one. This is my first New Year without you at home. There’s nothing about that I want to welcome.

  Love,

  Evie

  P.S. I miss you.

  THURSDAY, JANUARY 3RD

  Dear Cilla,

  Katie and Maggie want me and June to try out for the school musical with them. Mrs. Harper told us about the show today during music class and they’re soooooo excited. Auditions are at the end of the month and we’re doing Beauty and the Beast. I’ve seen the animated Disney movie about a million times, but never the musical. I bet they’re pretty similar, though.

  I’m nervous, but I think I want to do it. Here’s the problem: We need a parent’s permission, and I’m afraid to ask Mom and Dad. You met Alex while you were doing the high school musical. What if talking about Beauty and the Beast makes them remember what happened and they get all mad again?

  June came over after school again yesterday and we made oatmeal raisin cookies together. We used Mom’s recipe, but Mom didn’t help us. She did sit in the kitchen the whole time, though, reading a book.

  Well, kind of reading a book. She kept staring at us. It was super weird.

  I’m not used to Mom being home so much. I’m used to her shuttling you all over town. But now you’re gone. And Mom is here. A lot.

  Having a parent around when you’re hanging out with a new friend is totally awkward. Not that June is a “new friend” anymore. We’ve known each other for four months now. More if you count the times we saw each other over the summer. I talk to her more than Katie and Maggie lately, especially after all that time hanging out over winter break.

  The cookies turned out awesome. I wish I could send one with this letter, but the envelope isn’t big enough.

  Love,

  Evie

  P.S. I miss you.

  P.P.S. Things are back to normal after all that weirdness on the sledding hill. Which is good. Definitely good.

  P.P.P.S. June told me that the next time I go over to her house, she’ll show me a horror movie. A really gross one with a monster and a chain saw. It sounds scary, but also awesome. And Mom and Dad will never know!

  WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 16TH

  Dear Cilla,

  Your baby is four months old now. I read an article about what babies do at four months. Here are some of the main things:

  1.  They smile and gurgle all the time.

  2.  They start to shake rattles and grab at stuff. They grab tiny things, too, and try to put them in their mouths. So you have to be careful to pick up after yourself.

  3.  Their vision gets better. They used to see blurs and blobs and now they see colors.

  4.  Their eyes follow you around the room.

  5.  They start to make sounds. Sounds like “mama” or “dada.”

  I keep thinking about what it’d be like if you hadn’t gone away. If you hadn’t gone away and you’d decided to keep the baby. You’d be living in the bedroom next to me. There’d be a bassinet next to your bed. Or a crib across the room, with a pink-and-green mobile. I bet you’d have taken down all your Broadway posters and put up a bunch of farm animal posters instead.

  Alex might be sleeping in there, too, which is strange to think about. I bet I’d get used to it, though.

  There’d be a stroller in the garage. I’d take the baby out for walks while you napped, since you would have been up all night feeding her.

  You’d make me change diapers all the time and I’d complain, but secretly I wouldn’t mind, because I’d know you were busy with school and homework and rehearsals and your daughter.

  Your daughter.

  That still sounds so weird.

  But she isn’t your daughter anymore. She’s someone else’s.

  Is it sad to think that she’s saying “mama” to someone else? That the colors she’s starting to see are on someone else’s shirt? That her eyes are following someone else around the room? That she’s smiling at another mom?

  It’s weird to me and she wasn’t even inside me for nine months. But she was still part of me. I thought about the life she was going to have. I thought about it a lot. Then it was ripped away.

  I don’t get why you changed your mind. I thought you wanted to keep the baby. I thought you wanted to marry Alex. What made you change your mind?

  I asked Dad about the baby once. Where she was, who her parents were now. He didn’t have much to say.

  “We went through an agency,” he said. When I asked him which agency and how they worked, he said it didn’t matter. Because the baby had another family now that wasn’t us. Then he shut himself in his office for the rest of the night. I don’t understand why he wouldn’t even tell me the agency’s name.

  Maybe he didn’t care.

  Maybe you don’t care, either.

  Because all I hear from anyone anymore is silence.

  Love,

  Evie

  P.S. I miss you.

  FRIDAY, JANUARY 18TH

  Dear Cilla,

  Mom and Dad said yes to the musical! Now that I know I’m really trying out, I’m super nervous. I’m not a very good singer. Not like you. I sound like a strangled bird when I open my mouth. Maybe I can lip-synch during the chorus numbers.

  I bet Maggie will get the lead. She’s the only one in our grade who takes professional singing lessons. She wants to sing some opera song from her last recital for her audition piece. I wish I could just do “Happy Birthday.” I wonder if that’s allowed.

  This is the first time the district is doing a middle school musical. Maggie said it’s because the high school one is always so awesome. They want a “feeder program,” so that by the time we get to high school, we’ll already be awesome.

  Maggie knows all about what’s going to happen. Her older sister was in West Side Story, last year’s high school musical. You know Hannah, though. You were still here then. You were supposed to be Maria before you dropped out of the show.

  “You need to pick a monologue that shows off your sense of humor.” That’s what Maggie said at lunch yesterday. I was picking at my tuna fish sandwich, trying to ignore the smell while everyone else ate their nonstinky lunches. (Do you have to eat fish on Fridays at your new school? Does the entire cafeteria smell like th
e ocean?)

  Maggie turned to Katie next. “And you should find something dramatic. To show how you can cry on cue.” Katie looked at me. She had tears in her eyes. It was pretty cool, but definitely not something I want to learn to do. I’ve cried enough lately.

  June said she was going to write her own monologue. It sounds hard, but I bet June can do it. She said she’ll help me find a funny monologue, too. Which is good, because I haven’t felt very funny lately. Do you still laugh so hard that you snort? I used to think your laugh was annoying, but I’d love to hear it again.

  Love,

  Evie

  P.S. I miss you.

  TUESDAY, JANUARY 22ND

  Dear Cilla,

  Last night I asked Mom if she watched horror movies when she was a kid. It was going to be my lead-in to convince them to let me watch one with June. I already felt bad about my plan to sneak around behind their backs. But she shook her head really firmly (her hair swished all over the place) and said no. “All that blood and guts make me feel like I’m going to throw up.”

  I believed her, too. Because everything makes Mom feel sick: Reading in the car. Sitting in the backseat of the car. The Tea Cups at Six Flags. Pretty much any ride at Six Flags. So horror movies would pretty much be a barf-a-palooza for her.

  That got me thinking, though. Mom and Dad were kids once, right? Teenagers, too. They must have done something bad. They couldn’t have been born these perfect angel parents with halos hovering over their heads and church outfits on. Don’t all kids have a rebellious stage?

  I asked them before I went to bed. Dad was working on something for work and Mom was doing a crossword puzzle. Her pen whizzed across the grid as she filled in answers.

  Every clue had an answer, every box had a letter. She knew when she was right because words matched up. She knew she was wrong when there were five consonants in a row.

  I bet it’s nice to have everything make sense. To understand why things are unfolding in a certain way.

  When I walked into the room, they both looked up. “Have you guys ever done anything wrong?” I asked.

  “Like what?” Dad asked.

  That’s when I started to get embarrassed. I didn’t want to ask them any specifics. If I did, they might think I’d done those bad things. Or some of my friends had. So I backtracked.

  “I don’t know. Like stuff. When you were young. Stuff that … maybe you weren’t supposed to?”

  Like Cilla did. I didn’t say it, but I hoped they heard it. I kept pressing.

  “And people forgave you, right? Because everyone makes mistakes?”

  I don’t think they did hear it, though. Because Dad started to ask me if I’d done anything wrong. And Mom told me I could always talk to them if I had weird feelings I wasn’t proud of.

  “Or you could talk to Father O’Malley,” Dad suggested.

  Yeah, right. Like I’d talk to a priest, someone who’s vowed to love only God forever and ever, about the way I’m feeling.

  The way I might be feeling.

  They stared at me super intently, like I was one of those hidden-picture puzzles and the next thing I’d say would reveal my secret.

  They were acting like I had a secret.

  Which I totally don’t.

  And even if I did, I could never talk to them.

  Look what happened when you did.

  Love,

  Evie

  P.S. I miss you.

  P.P.S. I’m still going to watch a horror movie this weekend. What they don’t know can’t hurt them.

  THURSDAY, JANUARY 24TH

  Dear Cilla,

  I finally have a good monologue. Which is a relief, because auditions are on Monday! It’s about a girl who gets a dog for her birthday and all the funny things he does around the house. It took me and June two weeks to find it, and I’m super nervous about memorizing it. I think I can do it, though. When I tried to do the monologue by memory, I only messed up three times. It’s a three-minute monologue, too, so that’s pretty good.

  June laughed five times when I performed it for her. I was really nervous, but she made me feel like a comedian. We were in the basement and June sat on the couch while I stood on the fireplace like it was a stage. It was awkward at first, but then I forgot she was there. At the end, I really expected to see a dog in front of me!

  June’s keeping her monologue a secret until auditions. I told her that wasn’t fair, but she said she wanted to surprise everyone. I pretended to be mad, but I’m really not. June’s too nice to be mad at for long. Then we watched TV until Mom yelled down that it was time for me to go to CCD. (I bet you don’t miss that, huh?)

  You know what’s weird? June didn’t know what CCD was. Atheists are lucky. They don’t have to go to Catholic school and sit in those uncomfortable wooden chair-desks, listening to stories about saints while everyone else is having fun.

  June doesn’t know the Saint Anthony prayer, either. I said it the other day when I couldn’t find my science notebook and she told me I was silly for asking a saint to find my stuff.

  “Why don’t you just look for it?” she asked.

  She makes a lot of sense. Why do we ask saints and God for help? Why do I need the Patron Saint of Lost Things to find something for me? Can’t we do things for ourselves? (I really hope Mom and Dad don’t find this letter. They’ll kill me if they know I’m even thinking something like this.)

  Sometimes I feel like I should tell Mom and Dad about June. About her atheism, I mean. I don’t want to, though. Mom already acts strange whenever she sees June. So I can’t let them know about the atheism stuff. What if they make me stop hanging out with her? I can’t do that. And it’s none of their business what June believes in.

  Plus, even though the Bible supposedly says that all atheists will go to Hell, I don’t believe it. I’ve never actually read that part, so maybe it’s not actually in the Bible. Maybe it was a rumor someone made up that was passed down since Jesus’s time. Everyone thinks it’s in the Bible but it’s really not.

  Maybe.

  I’ll pretend that’s what happened. Because June isn’t bad or evil. She’s nice. She shouldn’t have to burn for all eternity.

  It makes me wonder about the Bible, though. Mom and Dad think it’s super important. But it’s just words someone wrote down, just like I’m writing this.

  What if they did make it all up?

  I want to erase that, but I won’t. I can’t stop my brain from thinking it, so I won’t stop my pen from writing it. This is what else I’m thinking: Is God real? Because if He is, why did He let you get pregnant? Why aren’t you here now?

  Love,

  Evie

  P.S. I miss you.

  P.P.S. June was wearing this maroon-and-brown-striped shirt today that made her eyes look super pretty. I told her that, but then I felt weird that I did. Is that okay to say to a girl? You tell your friends when they look pretty, right?

  P.P.P.S. I got in trouble in CCD today for “daydreaming.”

  TUESDAY, JANUARY 29TH

  Dear Cilla,

  I didn’t get a callback. I didn’t do awful, but I didn’t do amazing, either, not like Maggie, who sang her opera song. Everyone clapped when she finished. Miri sang “I Dreamed a Dream” from Les Mis and was better than that girl from the movie. June and I decided to do a duet. We sang “A Whole New World” from Aladdin. She was Jasmine and I was Aladdin. I wanted to be Jasmine at first but June’s voice is higher, so she won. Not that it mattered anyway. I sounded like a screechy cat.

  No one laughed at my monologue, either. Well, except June, but I already knew she thought it was funny. That’s okay, though, because I was the only one who laughed at hers. She talked about some car trip her family took when she was younger and how they ran out of gas and were stuck in the middle of nowhere when this guy dressed as a birthday party clown stopped to help them. I laughed because I know June used to be afraid of clowns and I could totally picture her freaking out. I don’t think anyone e
lse got it, though.

  Whatever. We don’t need to be in the musical. We’ll have way more fun on set crew. June convinced me to sign up after the callbacks list was posted. There was a blank sheet of paper on the bulletin board next to it calling for volunteers. We’re going to build and paint the sets and be in charge of the entire stage the night of the performance. Which is way better than stressing out about memorizing a bazillion lines and having everyone know how bad of a singer I am. Plus I’ll get to spend tons of time with June.

  We volunteered to create the logo for the cast and crew T-shirts, too. June’s mom is going to help us. I can’t wait!

  Love,

  Evie

  P.S. I miss you.

  P.P.S. Write back soon! I want to hear about all the stuff you’re doing at school. Do they have activities there? Is there a musical? I wish you hadn’t decided to drop out of West Side Story after you got pregnant. You would have been an awesome Maria.

  THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 7TH

  Dear Cilla,

  If you were here now, we’d be sitting at the table making homemade valentines. The kind we made every year, even when you got to high school. Remember when you were a freshman and that kid in your class made fun of you for still handing them out? I forgot his name. Brett or Brad or Brandon. Something like that. I bet you remember.

  It’s no fun to be made fun of. At auditions, I was afraid I’d freeze up and forget all my lines or pee my pants or something. Then everyone would laugh at me for the rest of the year. I tried to think of you, though, and how you’d tell me to ignore everyone. But that’s not so easy to do in seventh grade. People still talk about the time Lila Chadwick sat on a Hershey’s Kiss and didn’t notice until the end of the day. People don’t forget things in seventh grade. It’s probably better in high school.