When You Go Away

by Jessica Barksdale Inclan

  At the top of the slope, she looked past the oak trees, but Ryan and Maxie were gone, both probably slipping through the hidey-hole in Grandma MacKenzie's fence, the spot Grandma would never know about because she didn't venture past the first tier of plants. The gardener probably left it there so he could run away from her if he had to, Carly thought, starting to walk toward it. But then she stopped, turning back to the house. The sun was a golden eye hovering over San Francisco, and she squinted and then looked down at the roof of the house, the shingles like gleaming teeth.

  High above the house, high above Piedmont, and even Oakland, she felt made of half air, half earth, something in the middle. Maybe she was like her mother, two people at once. The good Carly did what she was told, took care of whoever needed her help, worried about everyone. The bad Carly, the one inside her skin now, hated everyone: her mom, dad, Ryan, Grandma, maybe even Grandpa Carl for letting them come here. Back in her old life, the bad Carly only came out at times. Once when Kiana teased her about a new haircut and Bret Watson tormented her about Brooke, calling out on the bus, "Crooked little sister, bent in two.” A feeling had spread like black ink in Carly’s body, and she had told Kiana, "You're stupid and fat," and with Bret, she had stood up while the bus was moving and yanked his hair so hard, his head hit the back of his seat. When she thought about her actions days and months later--even now--she was filled with shame, wishing she could go through the events in reverse and pull them all back into nothingness.

  Closing her eyes against the orange sun, she took one last deep breath as if it were a wish she could hold in her body. She and Ryan used to play a game as their mother drove past the Lafayette Cemetery. Ryan would say, "Ready? Okay! Go!" and they would hold their breaths as their mother laughed and joked that she was going to take her foot off the accelerator. When Carly asked what the game was for, Ryan said they were saving themselves from evil ghosts, but really, it was the deep breath at the very edge of the green lawn that they really wanted. That amazing rush of air that meant they were still alive.

  Walking down the slope toward the patio, feeling the crush of new grass under her feet, Carly took in a breath as she had all those times with Ryan. She'd lived through the long days and scary nights with Brooke, and she'd never breathed in, never felt like it was over, the cemetery going on and on and on forever. Now, she didn't have to hold her breath; she didn't have to turn away from her mother as if she were an evil ghost. Here was her chance not to regret what she was doing. Already, Carly cringed when she thought of running down the hall at the jail, knowing she preferred sitting on the toilet to talking to her own mother. Maybe Ryan with all his fake new wisdom was right. Here was her chance not to want to erase her life. Here was her chance to move forward. Here was her chance to breathe.

  

  That night, Carly got up to go to the bathroom, and on her way down the long hall, she heard a sound in Brooke's room, and she moved soundlessly toward the door, her feet sliding bare and smooth on the wood floor. She held on to the door trim and pushed slowly, stilling herself against any squeak. The doors at the apartment had cried like animals every time they moved, but this door swished open smoothly, and there, right by Brooke's bed, was her father. He sat toward the head and was gently stroking Brooke's hair. The nurse her grandmother had hired for nighttime was in a corner of the room reading a Time magazine, the pages flick, flick, flicking as her father touched her sister.

  Without thinking, Carly walked in, looking at her father. The nurse glanced up and then went back to her reading, but her father almost started, pulling his hand away from Brooke.

  "Don't stop," Carly said. "She likes that. Even if she's asleep."

  "I know," he said, putting his hand back. "I know what she likes."

  "Then why don't you do it more? Why didn't you?" She pulled a chair close to the bed and sat down, reaching out to touch Brooke's knee.

  Her father didn't say anything for a while, and she watched him. He looked different. Older? Or was it sadder? Or did she just not recognize him anymore, already forgetting his face in the time since she'd seen him.

  "This could have been avoided. She didn't have to be like this," he said quietly. “I knew it right away, the minute your mother went into labor.”

  "What do you mean?"

  He shook his head like he was trying to bang something out of it. Did he blame Mom for what happened to Brooke? It wouldn’t have been her fault. Brooke was born like this, everyone said so.

  She was just about to tell him that, when he said, “It’s nothing. Never mind. She's just so hurt. I can't stand to see her like this."

  Carly was confused. Her sister had always been like this, and she wasn't hurt. She just was. "She's usually happy. She's not hurt."

  Her father sighed. "I know. I guess I look at you and Ryan and think about what Brooke could have been like if things had gone--gone differently when she was born."

  "So . . . so did you leave us because you didn't like to look at us? Is that why?" Her father gazed at her and then stood up. For an instant, she thought, Don't touch me, don't touch me, but she knew she didn't mean it. Before, back in her old life, she liked the feel of her father, his warm body as she hugged him around the waist, the way he would let her walk on his shoes, the tipping, monster walk across the living room floor as he sang "Monster Mash," a song from forever ago. She was ready for his embrace, but right as he neared her, just as he was close enough to pick her up and bring her up to his face, he stopped, reaching a hand out instead, his fingers so light on her head she could barely feel them.

  "No. It was never about you. Or Ryan. It was always--it was between your mother and me," he said, and then his fingers were gone and the door swooshed open and then closed. Slapping her magazine between her palms, the nurse pushed to her feet and followed her father, going to the bathroom while someone was still in the room. The door closed once more, and Carly was alone again with Brooke.

  "It's all decided," her grandmother was saying Tuesday morning as she sipped tea and ate dry toast. She was waiting for Maritza to fry her an egg, but Maritza stood still at the stove, listening to Grandma. "We are going to enroll you in Piedmont schools. They are the best, after all, and you can both walk every day. I'll go down with your father today when you are having your little visit."

  Carly looked at Ryan and then at her father. "Grandpa wanted to get us into the school by his house."

  "Nonsense, Carly." Her grandmother sat down with her tea. "Oakland and Piedmont are worlds apart educationally. There's no comparison. Your father and Aunt Marcia received a wonderful education here."

  "But if we end up having to move, you know, to like Phoenix," Ryan said, keeping his eyes on his plate, "then we have to start all over again."

  Maritza rattled her skillet and then brought the egg to Grandma Mackenzie. No one said anything for a while, and Carly tried to chew quietly, as if she wasn't really eating at all.

  "I have to go home," her father said quietly. "I have to get some things."

  Carly looked at her grandmother who was saying things, not with her mouth but with her eyebrows and chin, her fingers thrumming on the table, her teacup clicking on its saucer.

  "Do they know? Does everyone know you're leaving?" Carly asked.

  "Of course." Grandma stood up, her eggs untouched. "It's just for three or four days, maybe a week. Your father did have to come here straight from a long business trip after all."

  "Can we stay with Grandpa Carl while you're gone?" Her grandmother's body quieted, the room suddenly empty of air and motion, even Maritza still behind her stove. Carly wondered if it was possible to hurt her grandmother's feelings, a way to make her stop telling everyone what to do. But if she'd upset her, Carly didn't want to care. Maybe Grandma had let them go get Maxie, but it wasn't because she really felt sorry for them or the dog; it was because she was stacking up good things like stones in the wall that would keep them away from their mother. She only wanted what was good for her son.
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br />   "No. You can’t live with your grandfather." Her father put down his napkin. "Not yet. There's too much going on legally. Your mother isn't fit--isn't ready to have you there."

  "Can you imagine her trying to take care of Brooke at this . . ." Grandma trailed off. "Well, enough of this. You two need to get ready for your visit, and Maritza needs us out of here. So go to it. Right now."

  Carly and Ryan stood up and walked toward the sink together, their shoulders rubbing. "Bitch," he muttered, only loud enough for Carly to hear. As their plates clattered together in the sink, the woman on the other side of the rhododendrons, the one Grandpa Carl thought was a witch, bloomed in Carly's mind. If she had to decide who was worse right now, the biggest witch of all, her grandmother or the woman with the pruning shears, she'd pick her grandmother despite everything she was doing for Brooke. Carly would pick her because she never listened, didn't care, only wanted things neat, clean, and smooth, like the long dark wood of the living room floor.

  EIGHTEEN

  "Do you think it was a conscious decision to stop tending to Brooke as much?" Dr. Kolakowski asked during Peri’s Monday afternoon appointment.

  Peri closed her eyes and nodded. "Conscious in a different way. It felt like there were directions I was following, like I always had. I did what they told me, all of them. Get her into swim therapy. Work on her speech. Call Baltimore and find out about the new treatment. Whatever they--"

  "They?"

  "The doctors," she said, shrugging. "The nurses. The social workers. The school. The therapists. My husband."

  "What did you want to do with her?"

  She shifted in her chair, crossing and then uncrossing her legs, finally sitting with them straight together. She hated the thump of her knobby knees banging together, the hard press of her long thigh bones. "I don't know. Keep her alive. Make her better. Make it all go away. Make her like Carly."

  "Did you think you were doing her a favor by keeping her in bed?"

  "I don't think I knew what I was doing or why," she said, closing her eyes against the image of Brooke, the way she turned to her, so happy, so grateful for every touch. "I guess--I guess maybe I thought she'd be better off . . ."

  "Dead?" Dr. Kolakowski asked, not sucking down the sound of the word as most people did.

  "Maybe. But not so clearly. It was like I was underwater looking up into my old life. I didn't really know what I'd done until later when I woke up. When I heard about how thin and how much her muscles had atrophied. God . . ." She leaned her head against the chair, wishing she were anywhere but this office, anywhere but in her own body, this body that could have actually done something like that to Brooke.

  "In that plan, she'd have been happier."

  "You know what happens to kids like Brooke. Ever since she was diagnosed, I’ve learned too much about what her life will be like. It could be her heart that goes in twenty years or it could be a bad case of pneumonia. But not just that. Maybe she'll get better. Maybe she'll learn to articulate every letter in the alphabet or there will be some way to improve her muscle tone, but she's not going to have any kind of life. No one will fall in love with her. She won't have children. She'll never be able to work."

  "And she'll have to live with you for her whole life,” Dr. Kolakowski said.

  "Yes."

  "Or she'll have to live in some kind of institution. Maybe you were imagining something out of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, bars and terrible staff and the like."

  "Yes."

  "So maybe you thought, What's the point of her living at all? Maybe you thought, I'll never have a life while I have Brooke."

  "No! Oh, no!"

  "Do you think Graham ever thought anything like this? Do you think that's maybe why he left?"

  "He couldn't handle it. He couldn't just stay with her."

  "Could you?"

  For an instant, Peri was back in her bed at the apartment, hiding under the blankets, the sound of Brooke's thrashing in the bed across the room as close in her ears as whispers. "No. Not by myself."

  "So somehow you got the idea that you were making her life better. That her life was pointless."

  "Sometimes I wonder, what's the point? I don't want to eat. I don't want to keep living like this, each day as bad as the one before it. No miracle, no cure. Just my poor baby girl the same, and it’s because of me. Because of my body." Peri shook her head, looking out at the waterfall between the doctors' offices, a gurgle and rush of water over stone, forever recycling.

  Dr. Kolakowski looked at her and continued to write on her pad. Peri wished she could look at those notes, not because of the terrible truths written about her in permanent ink, but because she wanted to see if the words were legible. She wondered if the doctor just pretended to write to make Peri feel like anything she was saying was important.

  “You think it’s all your fault?”

  Peri pressed her hands against her thighs, staring at her pale skin. “I didn’t go to the hospital when Graham wanted me to. I kept telling him that everything would be fine. And it wasn’t. And the mother carries the MD gene. I gave it to her.”

  “So you need to be punished? Is that what you think?” Dr. Kolakowski crossed her legs, leaning forward a little.

  “I . . . I don’t know. Yes. Yes.” Peri leaned her head in her hand, hearing Sophia from the Martinez jail say, “You aren’t ever going to get those kids back.”

  Dr. Kolakowski sat still, not writing anymore. "Well, so what is the point of you going on? Why should you eat? Why should you stay alive?"

  Her face opened, her mouth slack, her eyes heavy and wide open. Someone agreed with her--it would be easier if Peri didn't eat, was gone, disappeared so everyone could go on. But then she knew she was mad, wanting her own doctor to defend her life, tell her she had to eat, must eat, for herself and for her children.

  "I--I need to stay alive."

  "Why?"

  "Because I'm better now. Because I want to try again. I want to be alive . . . for my kids."

  "So they need you? You think they count on you?"

  "Yes!" Peri said, her face flushed and hot, the room closing down on her. She crossed her arms over her chest and took shallow breaths, as if the oxygen in the room was reserved for good people. "Well, they will. When they come back."

  "Does anyone else need you?"

  "My dad does, I think. Lately."

  "Who else?"

  Peri flashed to Noel in the hotel room, his hair standing on end, his eyes full of their entire childhood as they lay side by side in the twin beds, just as they had forever, as long as either could remember. "My brother. Always."

  "That's it?"

  “My mother used to. I took care of her when she was dying.”

  “But of the living, that’s it?”

  Peri let her hands fall to her lap, her palms slapping on her knees. In a way, three children and two adults didn't seem like enough at all, her old life full of friends and acquaintances Peri had been sure needed her beyond a doubt. Without her, the Brownie meeting would fold, the bake sale would flop, her friend's marriage would dissolve. She'd been the stable center that had kept the neighborhood watch meetings in order. Without her carefully gridded schedule, Brooke's physical, occupational, and speech therapy appointments, teacher visits, and social worker checks would converge in a swarm of confused people in the entryway. But all along, Peri hadn't been stable, just pretending, everything inside her wavering. So none of that--and none of those people--were real to her now as she sat in front of this doctor, here because she'd been arrested and was soon to face charges that she'd hurt her own children. The only thing that had made any sense since she awakened in Phoenix was family--Noel, her father, the children. They'd saved her even if they hadn't forgiven her. She didn't need Graham and she didn't need her old friends. "Isn't that enough?" Peri said finally.

  "Well, yes. Yes, isn't it enough?" Dr. Kolakowski smiled and sat back, writing even as Peri nodded and listened to the water's pure sm
ooth sounds, thinking, It has to be enough.

  Two weeks ago, a shower hurt, the water falling sharp on her skin like tiny knives. Sudsing her hair had been unbearable, but today--the day of her visit with Ryan and Carly at Montclair Park--she took extra time, wanting to make sure she looked as much as she could like her old mother self, the one from before Brooke, clean and put-together. After her psychiatrist appointment yesterday, her father had taken her to a salon up at Lincoln Plaza, a place that still had a barber pole out front, even though the women inside cut to all the latest style books. "Honey, we are going to heighten and lighten," Leticia had said.

  As Peri blew her hair dry in the bathroom, she did feel lighter and not because of the blonde streaks. It was as if her longer hair had held the poison from the years before and now it was gone, leaving her with another chance, a chance not to make mistakes.

  Leaning close to the mirror, she stroked on mascara, feeling clumsy, her hands shaky from the medication. Standing up straight, she tucked her T-shirt into her new jeans, which were a full two sizes smaller than the last ones she'd bought--what was it—over a year ago? With her hands on her hips, her elbows bent, her arms looked like chicken wings, the kind no one wanted to eat, not an ounce of flesh on them. She hadn't had much of an appetite since her talk with Dr. Kolakowski, but now she felt somehow she wanted to grow, fill up, become part of the earth so she wouldn't float away and miss any more of her life. After the hair appointment, her dad had taken her to Mel's Burgers in Berkeley--always his favorite hamburger place--and she had eaten an entire tuna melt and half a serving of fries. This morning as she almost passed up some oatmeal, she thought, It's enough reason to eat. And so she did.