“Watching Vivvy’s life drift away, it felt like Dad—just another thing I used to love slipping through my fingers.”
Mary imagined the string of a helium balloon running across a child’s outstretched fingers until it was gone from reach. Off into the sky, the wild blue. She rose and went over to Jonny and wrapped her arms around him. She felt his body vibrate in her embrace, heart beating fast like a frightened rabbit’s, a boy full of trembling sorrow. This was hard for him, too. Hardest for him, most of all. She didn’t know what to say. No words could express what she was feeling. Instead, Mary just squeezed.
Eventually, Ernesto went into the living room, flicked on the television to a soccer game. Jonny followed him, stretched out on the couch, half watching while checking his phone, a fleece blanket pulled over the length of his body. Mrs. O’Malley shut herself away in the home office, making phone calls and occasionally letting out a groan of frustration that filtered through the closed door.
Mary remembered that she had a science test the next day. She went up to her room to study. She sat in front of a video review session on the computer, but her mind raced to distant galaxies. Oh well. It was only school.
Over dinner, Mrs. O’Malley announced that she had secured a bed for Jonny in a rehab center in Minnesota. “I booked two plane tickets. We’ll leave tomorrow morning.”
Ernesto raised his eyebrows. “You two going to be all right?”
Mrs. O’Malley glanced at Jonny. Her eyes went back to Ernesto. She smiled. “If you drive us to the airport.”
Jonny took the news without emotion. He seemed withdrawn, sullen. Skipping dessert, he went up to his room, acting neither happy nor sad. More resolute than anything. But pensive, also. It struck Mary that it was something he had in common with Eric, that deep-feeling quality. Tomorrow, Jonny had to face the biggest challenge of his life. And like a boxer before a fight, or Jesus before his arrest in the garden, Jonny wanted time to be alone to bargain with his fate. He said, “’Night,” and shut the door.
* * *
It started to rain that night, the kind of violent downpour that pounds the houses and floods the streets. The winds thrashed and tree limbs crashed to the ground. A car alarm screamed down the street, blaring into the night. Dogs barked with madness. The electricity went out, power lines down.
“It’s always something, isn’t it?” Mary’s mother observed, bringing up a battery-operated lantern for Mary’s room.
Mary didn’t get much studying done. Her thoughts fishtailed all over the place, like a car on an icy road. She raised the shades and opened her bedroom window, letting the angry wind and rain billow the curtains into her room. Emotions were like seasons, Mary mused. She accepted all the colors of the four seasons, the tender greens and deep blues, the brilliant oranges and the gray, washed tones of winter. Some people wished for endless summer, forever clear skies and sunshine. That sounded dreary to Mary. Monochromatic and dull. Things shouldn’t always remain the same. That wasn’t real life. She poked her head and shoulders out the window, leaning into the howling night to better know the storm. She thought of Jonny alone in his room, departing early tomorrow. If only she could learn not to love, if she could harden her heart, then the pain would diminish. It wouldn’t hurt so much.
I hate loving you, she thought.
Mary had no choice, though she sometimes wished it otherwise: She loved her brother through and through. It’s what made this year so impossible. But for now, for tonight, she wanted it no other way.
Mary knocked on Jonny’s door and pushed it open. Jonny lay face-up in bed on top of the covers, one knee bent, hands hammocked behind his head. Mary walked softly on stocking feet, set the lantern light on low, placed it on the floor at the foot of the bed. Jonny shifted and with that movement wordlessly invited Mary to join him. They didn’t talk for a long time. Just lay there together, wandering the pathways of their private thoughts. Eventually, he asked, “Don’t you have a test?”
“I don’t care. It doesn’t matter,” she told the ceiling.
Jonny turned, propped up on an elbow, looked at his sister. “You should care, May.” He touched her nose with his finger. “You’re so smart and good.”
Mary didn’t feel that way at all. But she nodded for him, not meaning it.
“Promise you’ll do better.”
“Sure,” she said.
“You can’t be like me,” he said. “I have something wrong inside of me, May. I don’t know if I can be fixed. Promise me, May. Promise me.”
Mary felt the warm pressure build behind her eyes, the tears beginning to come. To hide those tears, she reached her arms around Jonny’s neck and buried her head in his knobby shoulder.
Her whisper came so softly that Jonny had to strain to make out the words: “I’ll never give up on you,” she promised. “Never, never ever. I’ll never not love you, Jonny Bear.”
37
[stones]
At Jones Beach, when Mary was little, she used to beg her parents to try the coin-operated sightseeing binoculars on the boardwalk. They almost always said no, explaining that they didn’t have enough quarters. Yes, she realized now, maybe there was a faint remembrance of a fatherly presence in those early memories—a jingling pocket with coins, two hands lifting her up, strong thick tobacco-stained fingers enclosed around her tiny rib cage. The binoculars didn’t last long before time ran out, the machine wanted to eat more quarters, and Mary had to squint and shut one eye to see properly. She always felt desperate to see everything as quickly as possible. Most of all she marveled at the way she could spin the metal dial to focus. The picture would look all blurry and then, slowly, the scene came into crisp focus. Shapes, colors, details emerged with superhuman clarity.
That’s how she felt about the past few months, from a lazy summer spent lounging at Chrissie’s pool all the way into blustery November. Her blur period. It was strange to Mary how she could see a person many times, in dozens of different situations, and then suddenly see them. See them fully as they were, as if the metal dial turned and they became clear. For Mary, it was happening not only with Eric, but with everyone in her life. Griffin, Chantel, Alexis, Jonny, even Ernesto and her mom.
A new clarity.
When Ernesto started taking Zumba classes with her mother, Mary knew it was only a matter of time. For this was the act of a man hopelessly in love, because Ernesto in no way struck Mary as a Zumba class type of dude. He went because he loved her, that was all. Ernesto came home from the YMCA that past Saturday and popped open a beer while Mary’s mother showered upstairs.
“Is that part of your Zumba training regimen?” Mary joked, nodding at the beer can.
Ernesto pressed three fingers against the back of his leg and grimaced. “That Zumba’s no joke. I may have pulled a hammy.”
“Are you the only guy?”
“There’s another, but I’ve got better rhythm,” Ernesto said. His expression changed, eyes lifted toward the ceiling, indicating her mother’s bedroom. “I love her, you know. I’m going to ask your mother to marry me. I hope that will be okay with you.”
Mary wiped her hands against her pants. Otherwise she stood as quietly as possible, unable to speak, but feeling the weight of the moment. Seeing the look of concern on his face, his earnestness, Mary smiled. “No, it’s good. I’m just … wow. She’ll be ecstatic.”
“I don’t know about your brother,” Ernesto said doubtfully. “But Jonny will have to deal with it. Tough, right? This is our life. But he’ll be okay. Don’t you think?”
Mary answered, “He’ll be fine.”
She beamed at him, a wide, embarrassed smile.
Ernesto stood and took a half step toward Mary. He awkwardly lifted an arm like one raised wing, an invitation to embrace. Mary instantly walked into his arms with all her heart, their first hug as family. Ernesto was as excited and proud as a boy with a new kite. He showed Mary the ring. Then he took Mary by the shoulders, held her at arm’s length, and said with gre
at solemnity, “I’ll be good to your mother, Mary, and also to you. That’s my promise. I’m not a perfect man, but I’ll try my best. I’ll go to work, I’ll do my job, I’ll cook, fix things around the house…”
“I know, I’m glad,” Mary said. “You’ve made my mom very happy. She was broken for a long time. It’s time to feel whole again. When are you going to ask her?”
“Tonight,” he told her. “We’re going to a fancy restaurant. I have it all planned out.”
The following day, Mary found three smooth, round, white stones on her pillow. On each stone was a hand-painted word: EYE, SEA, YOU. There was also an envelope addressed to Mary, which contained a note:
My Mary,
First off, please be assured that I didn’t buy these at the mall. I found these beautiful stones at the ocean and they made me think of you. You are such a good, kind, upstanding young woman. No one is perfect. We all do the best we can. Mostly, I want you to know that I see you. I see who you are. And I’m so proud of the person you’ve become.
Love,
Mom
P.S. I borrowed your paints without asking, hope you don’t mind!
Jonny sent a letter every week. He seemed to be doing okay, claimed that he was beginning to deal with his demons. He wrote that he was trying to learn how to love himself, a brand of self-help talk that Mary had never heard from him before. It didn’t sound like him, but whatever worked. He wrote, I think this is it.
Like so many times before, she hoped it was true.
Experience had taught Mary to draw a line between optimism and hope. Optimism was the head, the intellect. You looked at something, analyzed the data, and decided there could be a positive outcome. Hope was something stronger. It came from the heart. No matter what happened, you never gave up hope.
Only Jonny could make it so.
38
[sticks]
After the fallout from the fight, Eric and Mary created the “misfits table” in the lunchroom. For the time being, it was just the two of them eating together in social exile, but there was room for more misfits. Maybe one day they’d have a crowded table of friends who didn’t belong to any clique or group.
Eric made the basketball team, which was amazing. Just him and one other seventh grader in the whole school. Their first practice scrimmage against another school was scheduled for that afternoon. Griffin’s table had a new member, David Hallenback, which was just too weird for words. Pretty sad, actually, because nobody over there actually liked him. One day, Mary watched as Hakeem got up from Griff’s table, walked right past Alexis and Chrissie without a look, and came to sit beside Mary, across from Eric. “You guys look so damn lonely,” he joked, grinning.
He told Eric that his father knew a guy who knew a guy, and somehow he got free tickets to see the Nets in Brooklyn next weekend. Against the Lakers.
“Cool,” Eric said.
“So do you want to come?” Hakeem asked.
“Wait, you’re asking if I want to see my first NBA basketball game ever in my life? Seriously?”
That was pretty great, Mary thought. The smile on Eric’s face. And, yeah, the way he jumped around ecstatically. His happy dance.
Best of all, Chantel started coming by the table. She didn’t sit, but lingered for a few minutes. Mary knew it was mostly because of Hakeem, but Chantel sent little signals that all was forgiven, if not ever forgotten.
“I never told you,” Mary said, “how much I love that your mother calls you Chanti. It’s so sweet.”
“Chanti? I never heard that,” Hakeem said, “I like it, too! Chanti, Chanti,” he sang in a warm, rich voice.
Chantel blushed, delighted.
Mary pointed at Eric’s supply of Double Stuf Oreos. “You going to eat those, or are they just going to sit there?” She didn’t wait for a reply. It wasn’t that kind of question.
After the last bell of the school day, Mary waited by Griffin Connelly’s locker. She stood with her back against it, arms crossed, one knee bent. He saw her from a distance, but failed to muster his usual swagger.
“What?” he said as if letting out a groan.
“Can we talk?”
“We are,” he said. “This is talking.”
Mary shook her head a little sadly. “Not here.”
“What about?”
“You know,” Mary said. “Vivvy.”
With a flick of his fingers, Griff gestured for Mary to step aside. He spun the dial, stuffed some books into his backpack, turned around. “Where to?”
Mary led him behind the school, past the court and track, up a path into the woods to where they had biked together on a scalding summer day that felt so long ago. She had not been to that spot since. There were still ketchup packets on the ground, along with other accumulated litter. Mary pulled out a kitchen trash bag she had brought from home for this purpose and started to clean up. Griffin watched her, unmoving. After a while, he picked up a plastic soda bottle and dumped it in the bag. Not a lot of help, but it was something.
“How’s your sister doing?” Mary asked.
Griffin paused—he breathed in, he breathed out—and worked very hard to hide any emotion. But his eyes darted about, unable to fix on any object. He looked down. And his hands lifted in a sort of helpless shrug. He didn’t know.
Mary waited him out, refusing to fill the empty space with words.
He said, “She’s…”
Griff looked up, and in that instant Mary saw a different boy than she’d seen before. The surface toughness melted away. The anger, the cruelty. Beneath it all he was merely a boy who was lost: vulnerable and shaken. He reflexively blew the hair from his eyes and wiped the side of his face with a closed fist. “I don’t know, Mary. She’s home, I guess, doing what she does.”
“Home?”
“Her apartment,” Griff clarified. “My father refuses to speak to her. Doesn’t want me to, either. He says it’s tough love. He says … all sorts of things. But I don’t hear much love.”
“Have you tried to contact her?” Mary asked. “Secretly?”
Griff looked to the gray, cloudless sky, the leafless trees, the grass that had lost its deep green. He closed his eyes and shook his head.
“She almost died,” Mary said.
Griff bent to pick up a stray ketchup packet, crumpled it in his fist. “I know,” he said so softly that Mary almost didn’t catch the words.
“Are you okay?” she asked. Mary stepped forward, but caught herself. She wanted to console him, embrace him, offer him strength, but it wasn’t her place to do that for him. She held back and watched.
“What am I supposed to do?” he said, wheeling around. “You want me to cry, Mary? Is that it? You ask if I’m okay? Yeah, sure, I’m fantastic. Nothing bothers me. That’s her problem, right? I’ll be fine.”
“Griff,” Mary said. “My brother was there, you know. He says he loves her.”
Griff picked up a thick fallen branch. He weighed the heft of it in his hands like a ballplayer. It looked like a weapon in his hands, and for a moment Mary wasn’t sure what he intended to do with it. With a fluid motion, Griff violently slammed it against the nearest tree truck. Crack, it snapped in two, the broken half flying into the thicket.
Griff dropped the stick, bent over with his hands on his thighs, shuddering in the echo of that blow.
Mary cast her eyes around. What else could she do? They had gotten most of the litter. “Jonny’s in rehab now. Did you know that?”
Griff glanced up, shook his head. “I don’t know a lot of things, Mary,” he said. “So many things. Haven’t you figured that out yet?”
“You could call her. Send a card. Something.”
Griff shook his head again. “It’s not like that. You wouldn’t understand. My father says she’s hopeless anyway.”
“Don’t listen to that,” Mary said. “You have to hope, Griff. Things can change. She can change.”
Griff looked at her with doubtful eyes.
“And
you can change, too, Griff,” Mary said, the words barely getting past her constricted throat and lips.
Griff frowned, turned his back to her. Maybe he couldn’t look her in the eyes. It was getting late. Mary had planned to watch the modified basketball game. Be there for Eric. She checked her phone. “We should go.”
Griffin shrugged and sank down at the base of the tree. He looked tired and defeated. “You go, I’m gonna stay.”
“You sure?”
Griffin laughed, a short choking sound. “Sure, I’m sure,” he said. He picked up a stone and flicked it away.
Eye. Sea. You.
“If you need anything,” Mary offered, “I’ll be around. Just to talk or whatever. Okay?”
He didn’t answer.
“I hope she, you know, gets the help she needs,” Mary said, and turned to walk away.
After a downcast minute, Mary lifted her chin and quickened her pace. She walked faster, her stride longer, more purposeful. She checked her phone again, 4:13. The game was supposed to start soon. Eric said he probably wasn’t going to start. It didn’t matter to Mary. She wanted to be there in the stands. He deserved it, and so did she. A reason to stand and cheer.
Mary broke into a run and never looked back.
Author’s Note
On school visits, and in fan mail, I’ve repeatedly told readers that no, thanks very much for asking, but I had zero intention of writing a sequel to Bystander.
I felt that the book was complete and self-contained. There were hints and suggestions for what might happen after the last page; I was content to leave those imaginings up to each individual reader, where they belong.
So what changed?
It was a subtle shift. I’d been stuck in one way of thinking: that a sequel would be about what happens next. Then it dawned on me that I could tell Mary’s story—a minor but crucial character in Bystander. In fact, I could tell much of Mary’s story that occurred before the events that took place in the previous book. Here I’d catch up to that time line, overlap slightly, and take at least one step beyond.
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