by A. M. Henry
my fault my fault my fault
It all comes crashing down on me the day after I get home from the hospital, when the lady from the State Department of Children’s Services shows up. She has a giant folder of medical records and she grills Dad about every documented injury me, Rachel, and Casey ever had. Dad can barely speak, and so Rachel does most of the answering for him. Casey won’t come out of her room.
Of course we lie.
No, nothing like this ever happened before. Angela has been going through some issues. Angela and her mother have been butting heads a lot lately. It was just a heated argument, like every parent has with their teenaged children. They were just a little more stressed out than usual. Of course she didn’t mean to hurt Angela. It was an accident.
I was always the bad one. I was a horrible kid and am a horrible teenager. I deserved the hours in the cellar. The blows to the head. I made Mom go nuts.
my fault my fault my fault
I think it would be better for everyone if I was the one carted off to the loony bin. Better if I just went away forever. I should have died in that car accident.
my fault my fault my fault
But now Mom’s in the loony bin and probably doped up to high heaven and DYFS is officially involved and the rest of the family hates me for it.
my fault my fault my fault
The night before Christmas and all through the house, decorations lay scattered and doors are closed. Casey stays shut in her room. Dad alternates between locking himself in the bedroom or in his office. I don’t know where Rachel went. She hasn’t spoken to me since the social worker left.
43.
The doorbell rings, but no one answers it.
Christmas came and went. I haven’t left my bedroom in two days except to use the bathroom, and even then only in the middle of the night. I feel lightheaded and heavy at the same time. All I’ve had to eat are the Oreos and half-empty box of Cocoa Puffs I had stashed on my desk.
The doorbell rings again. I peek out my bedroom door. Dad’s, Rachel’s, and Casey’s bedroom doors are all shut. I don’t know if all of them are even here. Silence reigns this house.
Until the doorbell rings a third time.
I go down the stairs two at a time, still in my bathrobe and pajamas. I have no idea what time it is. Outside the living room windows, snow coats the world in a fresh layer of sparkling white. I open the front door to find Mrs. Reagan standing outside, cheeks red from the cold. No Ryan, just his mother.
“Hi, Angela.” Her smile doesn’t look forced, but it doesn’t quite make it past the worry in her eyes. “How are you?”
I don’t know how I am.
I shrug. “Fine.”
Mrs. Reagan’s smile vanishes. “You are absolutely not fine. I can tell that just looking at you. Ryan said no one’s been answering the house phone since you came home. Where’s your father?”
I shrug again. “Still in bed?”
“It’s almost two o’clock.”
She pushes me into the house and comes in behind me, shutting the door behind her and shivering off the cold. She stamps the snow off her boots on the welcome mat and I can just imagine Mom having a stroke at the sight of snow and dirt in her clean, sterile hallway.
Mrs. Reagan’s clear blue eyes scan the hallway and adjoining living room—the clutter and dust, the abandoned glasses of water and plates of uneaten food, and the half-hearted attempts at Christmas decorations. Then she turns to face me, taking me gently by the shoulders.
“Honey, I want you to go get dressed. And pack some clothes for a day or two. You need to get out of this house.”
I let Mrs. Reagan guide me upstairs. Into my room. Out of pajamas and into clean clothes. I let her stuff some clothes into my thrift store army duffel bag, along with my toothbrush and a hairbrush. As an afterthought, I grab the little folder of the photos of my great-grandmother and tuck them into the duffel before Mrs. Reagan zips it closed. Then she drags the duffel bag downstairs, pulling me along behind her. I hold her hand and follow, a zombie.
No sounds come from behind all the closed bedroom doors.
Ryan’s mother leads me outside and into her Rav4. The second we pull out of my driveway, she takes my hand and grips it tight.
“You’re a good girl, Angela,” she says. “Everything will work out all right.”
I hope that’s true.
At Ryan’s house Mrs. Reagan sits me down at the kitchen table and makes me a sandwich of leftover Christmas dinner—turkey, stuffing, and mayonnaise on toast. It’s my favorite meal of all time and I wonder if Ryan told her that. Ryan sits too close to me, never taking his hand away—he’s either holding my hand, my arm, or my shoulder—but I let him because I feel safe.
And tired.
It gets dark early, the sky threatening more snow. Mrs. Reagan draws me a steaming hot bath in the huge claw-footed tub in the master bathroom.
“My grandmother always swore by a hot bath with lavender oil,” Mrs. Reagan says. “She said it cured everything.”
She leaves me alone with some fluffy towels and a radio. I listen to the classical music station and soak in the lavender-scented water until it’s only lukewarm. I feel like I could sleep for a hundred years.
Ryan’s father sacrifices the good TV so Ryan and I can watch a marathon of bad Lifetime movies on the living room sofa, and I fall asleep in Ryan’s arms.
*
The next morning, I feel groggy. After a huge breakfast of pancakes and bacon, I wake up properly and now I feel antsy and I can’t sit still.
“I should go home,” I tell Mrs. Reagan. I get up from the table and try to remember where I left all my stuff.
“Sit your skinny ass down,” Ryan says. “You’re not going anywhere yet.”
“Ryan, watch your language,” says Mr. Reagan.
“We spoke to your father last night, honey,” Mrs. Reagan says, a hand on my shoulder to ease me back into my chair. “He knows you’re here. He’s coming over in a little while to drop off the medication you should have been taking since they released you from the hospital.”
I was unaware that I had been prescribed medication. I wonder if Dad hears Mom’s voice in his head, telling him that only weak people need medication.
“You also have an appointment today with Dr. Allen,” Mrs. Reagan continues. “Apparently, you had an appointment the day after you came home and you never showed.”
This is also news to me.
I’m flicking my wrist and tapping my fingers compulsively—something I haven’t done since I was maybe eleven or twelve, but started doing over the last several days—and Ryan takes both of my hands and forces them onto the tabletop so I can’t move them.
I look up at Mrs. Reagan as she fills my coffee cup. “Thank you.” It comes out a hoarse whisper.
“This one,” she points a thumb at her son, “wouldn’t let up until I said I’d go check on you.”
“Your family’s going through a serious ordeal,” Mr. Reagan adds. “You can’t go through this alone.”
I barely know Ryan’s father, and yet he’s totally okay with them taking me in. My chest feels tight and my eyes have started to burn. I take a breath. “My mother would call us weak if she thought we asked for help,” I say.
Mrs. Reagan purses her lips, clearly to stop herself from saying what she wants to say.
So Ryan says it. “Which is exactly why your mother is locked up at the funny farm and the rest of the family can’t function without her.”
“Ryan!” Mrs. Reagan growls. “And let go of her hands; she can fidget if she wants.”
Ryan releases me and I immediately resume my nervous fidgeting.
“Your father said your Aunt Cheryl is coming to stay for a while,” Mrs. Reagan says.
I swear my heart stops at “your aunt,” and doesn’t resume beating until I hear “Cheryl” and not “Mairéad.” Cheryl lives out in Denver; we haven’t seen her in years. Mom hates her because she drives a Prius, goes out in pu
blic wearing sweatpants and old Grateful Dead t-shirts, and believes in legalizing marijuana.
*
I bolt up to Ryan’s bedroom when I see Dad’s car turning into the driveway. Ryan hovers in the kitchen so he can relay the conversation back to me when Dad leaves.
“Your dad looks like hell,” Ryan tells me a few minutes later.
We sit in his brother, Sean’s bedroom and play games on the Super Nintendo. Sean left the day after Christmas on a ski trip with their cousins. The last few photos of my great-grandmother are spread out on the floor next to us, beside a big sheet of black poster board where we arranged the photos in what I hope is chronological order. Based on Grandma’s birthday, I figured out approximate dates for each photo. My great-grandmother smiles like a movie star in every picture, and beneath each one Ryan thought we should add the worst newspaper headline from that time that we can find. We spent nearly an hour trying to arrange all of it before we gave up and started playing Super Mario Bros.
“What did they talk about?” I ask.
“Not a lot. He said he’s totally overwhelmed. It sounds like Rachel isn’t speaking to him, and Casey is in total denial about the fact that your mother is crazy.”
“She really had him by the balls. I don’t know how I never noticed.”
“Your aunt gets here tomorrow,” Ryan says. “I think they’re going to make you go home.”
Damn. I really enjoy living with normal people.
44.
“You were a horrible baby.”
I stop chopping potatoes, knife hovering in the air, and turn to frown at my aunt. “Is that supposed to make me feel good about myself?”
Cheryl laughs. “Probably not. You were, though. Cried for a solid three months from the second you were born. Wouldn’t sleep. Wouldn’t eat hardly anything. ‘Colic,’ the doctor said.”
Cheryl looks exactly the same as the last time I saw her, maybe five or six years ago— a little on the heavy side, with frizzy brown hair always kept in an untidy ponytail and Dad’s brown eyes.
“I bet Mom was really loving motherhood,” I say, and resume chopping. Cheryl insists we eat real food.
“Tams was a wreck.”
Mom always hated that Cheryl called her “Tams.”
“Your dad ended up taking a lot of time off work to help. Started carrying you around the house and singing to you. It was the only way to get you to sleep, and stay asleep. He got you to take your formula, too. After that, no one could even try to feed you; you’d just scream your head off.”
“What about Rachel and Casey?” I ask.
“Rachel was a perfect baby,” Cheryl replies. “It’s funny, everyone used to joke about it, tell your dad and Tams that the next one would be a nightmare to make up for how easy they had it with the first baby.”
“And Casey?”
“A little fussy,” Cheryl says. “But I think that’s because Tams doted on her so much. There’s a reason I never had kids. Too noisy and smelly. And expensive.”
“And newborns all look like wrinkled little aliens,” I add.
My sisters and I were all hideous newborns.
“Yeah, and there’s that.” Cheryl laughs. “Casey… She’s turned out all right. What happened to the shrieking little brat I saw last time I was here?”
“She changed after… after the accident.”
“Makes sense. Something like that’ll make you grow up real fast.”
I can’t think of a response to that, so I just nod. I dump the chopped up potatoes into the baking pan and Cheryl adds her pile of chopped onions and squash. I don’t remember the last time anyone cooked anything in our house that wasn’t frozen or leftovers from a restaurant. Both of my parents despise cooking.
Cheryl puts the pan in the oven and sets the timer. “Come sit with me,” she says, settling onto one of the stools at the kitchen island.
I sit.
“I want to talk to you about something,” she says, and I think I know where she’s headed.
“Okay,” I say.
“What would you think about coming back to Colorado with me? To live?” She shifts uncomfortably on her stool. “Your father said you were planning to take the GED. We could get you enrolled in college. Boulder is a great college town, and it’s only twenty minutes from my house. Denver is only about twenty minutes away, too.”
“Umm…,” I say.
“Obviously you don’t need to decide right this second,” she says. “It’s just… something to think about.”
The conversation leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It felt awkward. Cheryl has never been awkward. I shut myself in my room and try to convince myself that I’m wrong. Just overthinking. Overreacting. Jumping to conclusions.
Moving to Colorado was Dad’s idea. Get rid of the problem so Mom can come home and they can all go back to normal.
*
“You don’t know that.” Dr. Allen makes her Concerned Face.
“I do.”
She takes her reading glasses off, lowers them to her lap, and then puts them back on again. “It might be good for you to get away. Go to a new place with no bad memories lurking in the corners of the house. Make a fresh start. You might love it there. Colorado is beautiful. We’ve been taking trips there for years.”
Denver’s also got a pretty sweet music scene, but I try not to let that cloud my judgment.
We sit in silence for a moment, a question burning in my mouth until I can’t hold it in anymore.
“Why me? Why just me?”
Dr. Allen sighs. “I can’t answer that. It’s not unheard of, an abusive parent singling out one child while not mistreating the others. Sometimes it’s because that child reminds them of something, maybe something traumatic. Or maybe that child acted out worse than the others. There’s no answer to excuse or justify it.”
I don’t wish Mom’s behavior towards me on Rachel or Casey, but the truth of it will probably haunt me forever. She never raged at them like she did with me. She never actually hurt either of them. I don’t remember either of them ever getting spanked or whacked with the wooden spoon. Threatened with the spoon yes, but Mom only ever carried out those threats on me.
Is it because I was always the handful? The rebellious one? And Rachel and Casey were easy and well-behaved?
I tell Dr. Allen what Cheryl told me about being a horrible baby.
Something else I had forgotten: “Dad used to joke that my ‘terrible twos’ were the worst anyone had ever seen. And that they lasted two years.”
“Do you remember any of that?” Dr. Allen asks. “I know you were very young…”
I don’t know if I actually remember, or if I just painted the pictures in my head from what other people told me—hitting Rachel all the time and pulling her hair, running away screaming whenever we went out anywhere, shouting “no” no matter what anyone said to me.
And never running to Mom, even if I was hurt or scared.
“I think I always preferred my father. I always went crying to him if something was wrong. I used to sit in their bedroom by the window every evening and watch for his car, and then run to him the second he came in the door.”
And he would throw me in the air and kiss my forehead and say, I missed you princess.
Sometimes it feels like those are all someone else’s memories.
“Your mother might have been jealous,” Dr. Allen says. “She might have resented you. Maybe thought you took your father’s attention away from her.”
I think of Grandma and Aunt Gracie. Mom cast aside for her blonde-haired green-eyed sister, then shunned by a child that looked just like that sister, maybe feeling like her husband cast her aside as well.
I try to imagine myself as a mother, trying to love a child that prefers everyone else, but I can’t quite wrap my head around it. I picture myself sitting alone in a dark kitchen while Ryan and a rosy-cheeked toddler laugh and play in the next room and I shake that thought right out of my head as fast as I can. What did Rachel�
�s stupid meditation CD’s say? Think of an ocean to clear your mind.
“Should I forgive her?” I ask Dr. Allen.
“No one can answer that but you.”
I don’t know if I can. I don’t know if I want to.
45.
Overworked. Overtired. Overstressed, dehydrated, malnourished, and not thinking straight. We all have a breaking point. In a way, maybe it was good this happened—a reality check before something really serious happened.
The way Dad and Rachel talk, I almost believe it. The social worker eats it right up.
They moved Mom from the State psych ward to a private hospital where she can “have a rest” to recover from her work-induced breakdown. The doctor says she can go home in two weeks.
Two weeks to decide if I stay or go. Two weeks for them to decide whether or not I have a choice.
A few hours after the social worker closes her file and leaves, I walk into Rachel’s room and find her packing a suitcase.
“Where are you going?”
She jumps, then an angry frown settles onto her face. “Grandma’s,” she says, stuffing a pair of jeans into the suitcase. “Until the end of winter break.”
“Why?”
She stops packing, stands up straight and stares at me before she answers. “Do you really need to ask? I can’t deal with their bullshit anymore. You shouldn’t either. I think you should go with Cheryl while you have the chance.”
Her words burn. She can’t deal?
Before I can form a response, she chokes out a sob and sits down on her bed. I run over and sit next to her and she pulls me into a hug and cries into my sweater.
“I’m so sorry, Angie.” She wipes her nose with her sleeve. “I wanted to tell that woman the truth. But… Dad kept saying it would just make things worse for you. I didn’t even really remember that time… that time Mom burned your toys and—”
“Almost choked me to death?”
She nods, crying and coughing. “The other morning, when I came out of my room and you were on the floor and Mom and Dad were screaming at each other, it was like someone flipped a switch in my head.” She takes a shuddering breath. “I saw you laying on the kitchen floor. Your lips were blue. And Mom was just sitting there staring at you.”