Our New Normal (ARC)

by Colleen Faulkner

  “She’s probably dead. All this upset about a baby and it’s not going to matter because they’re both dead.”

  “They’re not dead. She’s running late. Teenagers do that.” Amelia sounds as if she really means it and she’s not saying it just to try to comfort me.

  “She didn’t call or text to tell me she was going to be late. She always tells me when she’s going to be late. Used to. She didn’t last night, either,” I add. “Am I supposed to start grounding her now? At this point? I mean, I thought we were beyond that.”

  “You never grounded your kids,” Amelia points out.

  “No. I never needed to.” I turn to watch out the window again, if not for Hazel, then for the police cars and the paramedics with their flashing red lights. “Apparently I needed to. Apparently I need to lock her up in her room and swallow the key,” I add tartly. “I can’t believe she didn’t use protection, Meels. I can’t believe I didn’t make sure she was having safe sex.” My voice catches in my throat. “I can’t believe I didn’t protect her.”

  “We can’t guard them from everything,” Amelia murmurs. Then, “You hear from Sean?” A not-so-subtle redirection of the conversation. “How’s the new roommate and their visit to Portland? I thought it was great that they decided to meet before school started.”

  “He texted me to say he arrived yesterday. Got a pic of a mountain of fries today. Guess he’s good.”

  “Our little Sean, all grown up.”

  I sigh. “Growing up.”

  Light comes through the window, casting shadows in the dark kitchen. Headlights. I turn around to look out the kitchen window. I don’t think I’ve ever in my life been so thankful to see my Toyota. “Gotta go. She’s home.”

  “Go easy on her,” Amelia says softly.

  “Going upstairs,” Oscar calls from the living room as I hang up. “Can you let Willie Nelson out before you come to bed?”

  “Yes,” I call back. “Hazel’s just getting home. I’ll be up soon.”

  He doesn’t answer me.

  I hear the garage door open and I try to come up with a plan as to how to handle the curfew issue. I debate whether to be nonchalant or give her hell when she comes in the door.

  10

  Hazel

  I sit in Mom’s car, my hands at ten and two, just like she taught me. It’s dark inside the car, but the overhead garage light is on. I closed the automatic door so the light will go out soon.

  I did a good job driving tonight. I thought I’d be nervous, driving alone, but it was fun and not even that intimidating. Easier than last night. Tyler never knows how to get anywhere, but I didn’t make a single wrong turn.

  I even drove across town to go see Gran and Granddad. I wasn’t scared. But I’m scared now.

  Of Mom. Of my whole frickin’ life. What it’s become. Becoming. I’ve got a doctor’s appointment next week with an OB/GYN. A pelvic exam. Christ’s bones. That’s what Granddad would say. He’s got the best swears.

  Mom tried to make an appointment with her doctor, but Katy told me who her friend Miranda went to when she was having problems with her period. Dr. Gallagher is a woman. And not as old as Granddad, like Mom’s guy. I know me having a baby means a lot of people are going to see my V, but I feel like I have a right to be somewhat selective.

  I glance in the direction of the door that leads from the garage area of our attached barn into the laundry room. Pretty clever design. It was all Mom. She planned it. Dad just wrote the checks. The people who hired her to do their house and barn came here for some kind of party last year. People Dad knows from the hospital. I think she’s a doctor there and he’s an administrator. They loved it so much that they convinced Mom to renovate theirs and now all of a sudden Mom has her own business.

  I’m still staring at the back door. I don’t want to go inside. Mom’s waiting for me. I know she is. I can feel her just on the other side, waiting to pounce. Waiting to fire off questions too big for my immature brain to handle. At least too big to be decided tonight, for sure. Like . . . how am I going to pay for a baby? How is Tyler going to pay for a baby because “God knows she and Dad shouldn’t be financially responsible for our screw-up.” Am I going to breast-feed? What kind of diapers am I going to buy? Do I want birthday presents for myself, or do I want to get a head start and ask for a car seat now? Maybe my own car to put the car seat in? Tyler and I can’t be stealing his grandfather’s truck to take the baby to the pediatrician.

  I lean forward and rest my forehead on the steering wheel, being careful not to honk the horn. One bark from Willie Nelson and the whole house will be awake. Dad will be down here in his droopy underwear with his butt crack showing, asking what the hell is going on. None of us need that image burned into our brains.

  I groan and kind of bang my head on the steering wheel, still being careful.

  Mom’s right, of course. About all of it. I’ve got a lot of crap to figure out and not a lot of time. How am I going to pay for a baby? Am I going to breast-feed? I looked up the data on breast-fed babies versus bottle babies. It’s pretty cut and dry. Their immune systems are better on breast milk. I didn’t dare look up what kind of toxins we put in baby formula. It makes sense to breast-feed, but how am I going to do it and go to school? What if I can’t do it?

  I know I’ve got a lot to figure out. But does Mom have to keep asking the same things?

  I’m already thinking so much that I feel like my head is just going to explode. And it won’t just be questions when I walk inside. Mom’s going to look at me. Look at me with sad eyes that are somehow angry at the same time. I know she’s not trying to be mean, but mean is mean, right?

  I glance at the door again and the thought occurs that I don’t have to go inside. I could just . . . sleep here. It’s warm out so I won’t get cold. I’m tired; I bet I’d fall asleep on the backseat in two minutes. I’m so tired. And my boobs hurt. Not that I’ve got much in the way of boobs, though I think they’re getting bigger. That or Dad put my bra in the dryer again.

  I could also open the garage door, back out, probably without hitting Dad’s car, and go back to Katy’s.

  I stare at the assortment of bicycles, skis, and weird stuff I can’t even identify hanging on the wall in front of the car. My purple bike is hanging there. We used to go biking, all four of us together. Two summers ago, we camped at Acadia National Park and we rode our bikes all over. We hiked, too. It was so much fun. Mom and Dad were still getting along then. They were holding hands and laughing at private jokes the way they used to when I was little.

  I sigh. I don’t guess I’ll be biking anymore. Or hiking. Not carrying a baby and a big-ass diaper bag. Every mom I see in the drugstore where I work is always carrying a huge diaper bag. I can’t figure out why they bring it in the store. If the baby crapped itself and had to be changed, couldn’t you just go out to the car and get a diaper? And the diaper bags are always ugly, with giraffes or bunnies on it, like something a kid ought to be carrying. I’m not getting one of that kind. I think I’ll just use my old backpack from middle school. And I’m not taking it in stores. He poops, he can just wait until we get to the car. I’ve decided the baby is a boy. I just know he is.

  I take a deep breath. All of a sudden, I feel like I’m going to start crying and I have no idea why. I can think of lots of possibilities. Maybe because I have to go to school every day and pretty soon I’m going to get fat and everyone’s going to know I was stupid enough to get pregnant? Because Tyler was supposed to meet me at Katy’s and never came? Because he never texted me back until I texted him three times? Or maybe I feel like crying because my class schedule is totally screwed up. Katy and I are only in two classes together.

  The overhead light goes out and I’m in darkness.

  I touch my hand to my belly. I’m not fat yet. Then I put my hand on my boob. Definitely bigger. I reach for my bag on the seat. I have to go inside. I have to face Mom. Or try to sneak up the stairs without her hearing me. Maybe she’ll be in
her office working. Better yet, already in bed. Not much chance of that, consarn it. Another Granddad-ism.

  I open the car door and the garage fills with light again. I’m half expecting Mom to snatch open the door before I get there, just to get a head start on her questions and sad eyes.

  But she doesn’t.

  On the steps, I cautiously open the door to the laundry room. It’s dark. The dryer is running and it smells like Mrs. Meyer’s lavender detergent. No mom. No dog.

  Maybe they did go to bed.

  The lights are off in the kitchen, too. The only one on is the one over the stove that Mom turns on before she goes to bed. She’s always the last one to go to bed. She walks around and checks the doors, turns on the stove light, and then goes upstairs. She used to check on me and Sean as she went past our rooms. She stopped that last year when something happened with Sean. I think she must have caught him jerking off or watching porn or something.

  The thought makes me smile. I tried to ask my brother what happened, but he got all weird and I let it go. I thought maybe I’d ask him in a few years when he’s loosened up a little.

  I lock the laundry room door and creep toward the staircase. I make it all the way there, almost into the safety zone, and then I hear Mom’s voice.

  “Hazel?”

  I debate running up the stairs and locking my bedroom door. Instead, I groan really loud so she can hear me and drop my bag on the bottom step. I see light now, coming from the back door off the living room that leads to the deck. Mom must be letting Willie Nelson out to pee.

  I go to the open door. It’s cool outside now. Bugs are buzzing around the lamp attached to the house beside the door. Mom is standing on the deck, her back to me, her hands on her hips. She’s staring out into the dark. I’m guessing Willie Nelson is out there in the yard somewhere, chasing a rabbit probably.

  I don’t say anything.

  Mom just stands there. Which is weird because usually she starts right in on me.

  “I’m home,” I say finally.

  “Keys?”

  I close my eyes and throw my head back and groan. I left them in the ignition. I keep doing that. “I’ll go back out and get them,” I say.

  “I was worried about you.” She sounds far away. And sad, but a different kind of sad than I’ve been hearing in her voice. This isn’t disappointed Mom sad, this is sad sad. It makes me feel weird. And also sad for her, which I don’t like. It’s a lot easier being angry with her.

  “I didn’t have any problems driving. I went to Gran and Granddad’s before I went to Katy’s and I backed out of their driveway, too. I didn’t turn around in the grass.”

  “You went to Gran’s?” She turns around to face me. She’s wearing jeans and an old, faded Life Is Good T-shirt. With no makeup and her hair back in a pony, she looks a lot younger than she is. She has her summer freckles on her face. I like them. “You didn’t tell me you were going. Why did you go there?”

  I lift one shoulder and let it fall. “I don’t know. Just to say hi. To check on them. I thought you’d be happy I went. They’re fine. Well, except that Granddad took a bunch of fish out of Mr. Linden’s fishpond. I think they were expensive. Koi or something. He says he didn’t, but Gran said she found one in the trash can.”

  Mom swears under her breath, but it’s not a good swear like Granddad’s. It’s just the generic kind. “Why would he take Mr. Linden’s fish?”

  “Why does Granddad do any of the things he does? He’s crazy.”

  “Don’t say that about your grandfather.”

  I roll my eyes. “He has dementia, Mom. Or Alzheimer’s, or whatever you want to call it.”

  “He hasn’t been diagnosed,” she counters.

  I know the whole story about Gran taking Granddad to the neurologist’s and them coming back and saying Granddad was fine for a guy his age. Mom had a fit. There was a whole thing. Mom saying she can’t go to everyone’s doctors’ appointments with them. Mom grilling Gran about did she tell the neurologist this and did she tell him that.

  I look at Mom. “Yeah, well, he needs a new neurologist.”

  She stands there for a minute just staring at me. I hear Willie Nelson loping around in the backyard, chuffing. He’s definitely after a rabbit. Luckily, he never catches them.

  “You’re late, Hazel,” Mom says. “You didn’t call me to tell me you were going to be late.”

  “Why do I have a curfew?”

  “That’s a separate discussion.” She turns and calls the dog, then looks at me again. “It’s disrespectful to let me sit there waiting for you.”

  I look up. There’s a bug buzzing really loud around the light. I wonder what kind it is. “I was fine. I did fine. I don’t know why you were worried.”

  “Hazel, you shouldn’t be out this late.”

  “Why, Mom?” I wave my hand in front of my face, trying to shoo away a little bug that I’m afraid is going to fly into my mouth. “Why are you worried about me being out late? You think I’m going to get pregnant?”

  I kind of laugh. I know I shouldn’t say anything else. I’m already in trouble for having a smart mouth. But I can’t help myself. “Because if that’s what you’re worried about, that’s ridiculous, Mom. Because you can get pregnant anytime. It doesn’t have to be after ten o’clock at night.” Now I just sound mean. Meaner than Mom ever is. “You know what? You can get pregnant on a Wednesday afternoon when you’re supposed to be studying for an English exam.”

  Before she can respond, I turn around and walk back into the house. I keep thinking as I make it to the stairs to grab my bag, then up the stairs, that she’s going to come after me. That she’s going to demand an apology and maybe ground me or something. Maybe she’s going to tie me to a chair and barrage me with questions about how the next eighty years of my life are going to unfold.

  But she doesn’t, and I can’t decide if I’m relieved or not.

  11

  Liv

  “Dad.” When he doesn’t seem to hear me, I say, “Dad, just leave it. I’ll get it.”

  He looks at me, his face without expression.

  He was trying to carry two paper plates to the trash can and dropped them both. He opened his hands as if he had forgotten what he was doing, and they hit the floor with the kind of splat only paper plates, soggy with food from a barbecue, can make. My mother will have a fit if she sees potato salad all over her freshly washed kitchen floor. They have a cleaning woman, Lynette, who’s an angel, who comes three times a week. Mom has her scrub the kitchen floor, on her hands and knees, three times a week. I think I mopped mine once since Easter.

  Dad looks at the floor. I look at the floor. I think he’s considering picking up the plates, but I know from experience that letting my father clean up anything will mean an even bigger mess. Which I don’t care about because I understand his need for autonomy and I see it slipping away. But my mother does care and she’s the one he lives with day in and day out.

  He stands there motionless as I pick up the plates and take them to the trash can. He just stands there, so handsome with his full head of gray hair and brilliant blue eyes, looking so lost that it makes me want to cry. He’s staring at the potato salad and what looks like splatters of mustard and ketchup on the floor. There’s potato salad on the toe of his blue Nike sneaker.

  I grab a kitchen towel off the counter and walk to him, taking care not to step in the mess on the floor. I lean down and clean off his shoe. “Good as new. Go on outside and enjoy yourself. You probably won’t see Sean again for a while. He’s going away to college.”

  He studies me as if trying to process the information. Or maybe he’s trying to remember who Sean is. He’s having a bad day today, which I think has put us all on edge. Maybe because he also seems to be having them more often.

  I look up at him and smile. He doesn’t make eye contact.

  Something catches his attention on his hand and he slowly raises it in front of his face. Then he puts it to his mouth. Potato
salad. He licks it and turns away. “You coming outside? They’re playing that game where they throw the things into holes on the wooden thing.”

  “Yup. Give me five minutes. I just want to put these few dishes in the sink to soak.”

  I watch him go. Mom has dressed him in a dark-salmon polo, khaki shorts, and sneakers. His hair has been cut in the last week and he shaved this morning. He looks as impeccable as he ever did in his suit or in his white lab coat. Mom makes sure of that. But he doesn’t look like himself anymore. His face somehow looks different, but it’s not from the natural process of aging. It’s not his wrinkles. It’s as if . . . as if his bones and muscles have shifted, as if the man he once was is now slightly out of focus. He doesn’t move the way he used to; his motions are stilted. And I’m noticing changes in his gait. He no longer possesses the powerful stride I once knew.

  I’m just turning back to the sink when he stops and turns around. “She’s going to have a baby.”

  His statement takes me by surprise. I know whom he’s talking about, of course. I press my lips together, surprised by the emotion that wells up inside me. We’ve told him several times that Hazel is pregnant, but he hasn’t acknowledged it. Or can’t remember. Evidently he remembers now. “She is, Dad.”

  “She’s young.”

  I exhale the way you do when you’re in pain and trying to focus on something else. “She’ll be seventeen soon. The baby’s due in March.”

  “Too young to have a baby.” He’s looking beyond me, maybe to something he sees outside the window? “Baby herself,” he mumbles.

  I draw the clean kitchen towel I’m holding back and forth between my hands. “I don’t know if Mom told you, but . . .” I hesitate. “Dad, I think she should put the baby up for adoption. She doesn’t want to. She has this idea in her head that she and her boyfriend are going to get married and be a family.”

  He’s slow to respond. I wait because I can tell he’s thinking.

  “Doesn’t usually happen that way,” he says. Then he actually meets my gaze for a split second. I see my old dad, the way he used to be, sharp and smart and empathetic, somewhere in the depths of his eyes. I think they might be starting to change color, his eyes. I noticed it the other day when I was here unclogging the kitchen garbage disposal after he put his toothbrush down it. There’s a hint of dark gray in his eyes now. Mom says it might be cataracts, but I don’t think so.