You Don't Live Here

by Robyn Schneider

  The room went deathly silent. The burble of the coffee pot seemed too loud all of a sudden.

  “You quit,” my grandmother repeated flatly.

  “Even after we discussed it?” my grandfather added.

  “I tried to tell you it wasn’t for me, but you didn’t listen.”

  “When?” my grandmother demanded. “When did you quit?”

  “Maybe a month ago?” I said. It came out like a question.

  “Right after we told you it was a bad idea,” my grandfather said, not missing a beat. Of course not. He was a lawyer, which meant he only asked questions when he already knew the answer.

  “I was only a timekeeper,” I said, babbling nervously. “You were supposed to start as a freshman and work your way up, and because I didn’t they were punishing me. I had to make photocopies—”

  “Photocopies?” my grandmother interrupted. “You quit because someone asked you to make photocopies?”

  “No, I—” I said, realizing the conversation had already derailed. No matter what I said, I couldn’t make them listen. And I hated that. “You don’t get it!”

  I didn’t know how I’d started yelling, but it had happened, somehow.

  “What don’t we get?” my grandmother demanded angrily. “That you quit when something got hard? You made a promise, and you broke it, and you lied to us! And god knows where you’ve been going after school if it wasn’t to Mock Trial!”

  “Art Club!” I shouted back. “I was going to Art Club, okay?”

  My fists were clenched at my sides, and my chest was heaving, and I didn’t know whether to cry or to scream. Everything was turning into a complete mess and it didn’t matter what I did, the mess kept growing.

  “We need to know where you are!” my grandmother shouted. “What if something happens?”

  “Like what? An EARTHQUAKE?” I was really going now. “Because I knew exactly where Mom was and she still died. And now she’s gone, and I am NOT OKAY! And you’re making it worse! All you’ve done is to make everything WORSE!” I screamed.

  “All we’ve done is love you and do what’s best for you,” my grandmother retorted. “You’re the one who doesn’t come to us! You never ask for anything!”

  “I’m not supposed to ask! Mom never made me ask!”

  “Well, I’m trying,” Eleanor shouted.

  “No, you’re not,” I said. “You’re punishing me for her mistakes!”

  “I’m making sure you don’t repeat them! But no one ever listens to me. If Alice listened to me, she’d still be alive!”

  “And I wouldn’t!” I shot back. “That’s what you want, isn’t it? For my mom to be some fancy lawyer with some fancy husband you can have dinner with at the club!”

  “No one’s saying that, sweetheart,” my grandfather said, trying to step in.

  “She literally just said that!” I accused.

  “I don’t want to hear this!” my grandmother roared back. “Go to your room!”

  “You mean HER ROOM!” I shouted.

  As I barricaded myself inside, my heart was pounding, and my eyes prickled with tears, all too ready to spill out.

  I couldn’t stop them, and I didn’t want to. Everything was terrible. So I cried into my pillow until I felt shivery from the shame. What had I been thinking? That I could lie to them forever? Of course they were going to find out I’d quit Mock Trial. It was only a matter of time.

  I’d never shouted like that in my life. I didn’t even know I could. And some of the things we’d said had been horrendous. I’d accused my grandparents of wishing I didn’t exist.

  I really was a fault line. A harbinger of disaster and ruin and disappointment.

  At least they’d only found out about Mock Trial, and not about me and Lily.

  Lily.

  I wanted to talk to her so badly. To explain what had happened so she could tell me how to fix it. But I couldn’t. She didn’t want to hear from me right now. Especially about Mock Trial.

  There had to be someone I could talk to.

  And then it came to me: Cole.

  I called him before I could change my mind, and I stared down at my ringing phone, breathless. There was no turning back. If I hung up now, he’d still see a missed call from me.

  “Hey,” he said, sounding surprised. His voice was gravelly, and I heard him yawn and stretch. “What’s up? It’s crazy early.”

  He was lying in bed, I knew. He was certainly being loud about it. Probably wearing nothing but his boxer shorts. I tried not to think about them, Calvin Klein and black, which of course meant that I did.

  “My grandparents found out I quit Mock Trial and have been lying about it for like a month,” I said, sniffling.

  “Shit,” he said. “And they let you keep your phone?”

  “Yep. Old people,” I said, which made him laugh. His laugh made me snort, and for a tiny moment, I didn’t feel so terrible. “They’re really pissed, though.”

  “I’ll bet,” Cole said, and then he was silent for a long moment before saying, “You know, sometimes adults are wrong. And they get really angry about it, and you think they’re angry at you. But really they’re pissed because the world is changing and they can’t keep up.”

  I was playing with my earbuds, wrapping and rewrapping the cord around my fingers. But after Cole said that, I let the cord dangle, surprised.

  He was so right. They weren’t mad at me—they were upset at being wrong.

  “Wow,” I said.

  “Nailed it, right?” Cole sounded far too pleased with himself.

  “Completely,” I said, surprised by his insight.

  “Anyway,” he went on, “don’t let it get you down. If you know you made the right call, stand by it. Make ’em see your side.”

  “I guess,” I said.

  Maybe that would work for Cole Edwards, with his golden hair and his golden touch, but I didn’t think I could stand up to my grandparents like that. To convince them that they were wrong and I was right.

  “You all good?” Cole asked. “’Cause I really have to pee.”

  “Then pee,” I told him, rolling my eyes and hanging up.

  Chapter 28

  IN A MOVE EVERYONE SAW COMING, I was grounded. And to fill the emptiness on my résumé where Mock Trial should have gone, my grandparents decided I’d start helping out at my grandpa’s firm two afternoons a week.

  It sounded awful, but I knew I was in no position to protest. Especially after the fight we’d had. I hated that they were upset with me. That I had let them down. But then, I’d been doing that a lot lately.

  Sasha Bloom: Most Likely to Disappoint.

  And the disappointments kept on coming. Mr. Saldana reminded us all in Studio Art that we had two weeks before our submissions were due for the gallery show.

  “Remember, if you’re more comfortable in a medium we’re not exploring this semester, you’re welcome to hand in outside work,” he said in class on Monday, his gaze resting on mine for just a moment. “Just so long as it fits through the door and doesn’t require food, water, or sunlight.”

  I sank down in my seat. I knew he was expecting me to turn in photographs, but I didn’t have any new ones. And he’d already seen all of my old work.

  “While you’re not receiving a grade for the work you submit,” Mr. Saldana went on, “you’ll be required to attend and write up half a page about one piece that spoke to you. Your grade will come from that.”

  A couple of students groaned.

  “The grammar of criticism.” He beamed. “I did warn you. If you wanted that easy A, you should have taken ceramics.”

  And then he passed out flyers for us to give to our friends and families, inviting them. I took one because it was the thing to do, not because I was planning on inviting my grandparents. Especially the way things were between us right now.

  I spent that week adrift in a sea of high school students. The days felt sour, like expired milk. I wanted to pour them down the drain. I ate lunc
h alone in the library. I didn’t go to Art Club. I walked to and from school, and then went to my room and did my homework and hugged the dog and checked my phone for a response from Lily that was never coming.

  Dinner every night was tense and awful. My grandparents acted like I was a search engine, asking me question after question about school in a monotone, which I answered as blandly as possible. None of us knew how to fix what had broken between us. And so we tiptoed through the wreckage, pretending it wasn’t there.

  There were no overtures of apology, just awkward, stilted moments when everyone was chewing, and I wished desperately I were anywhere else. Pearl cried and sobbed, throwing a fit while we ate, until my grandfather pushed back his chair with alarming force and shouted at her, and my grandmother shouted at him for yelling at the dog, and I raced to put my half-finished plate into the dishwasher so I could go upstairs.

  Except my hands were shaking, and somehow I missed the counter. I watched in horror as the plate smashed onto the floor.

  “Shit,” I swore, staring down at the fractured pieces.

  “Sasha!” my grandfather boomed. “You need to be careful!”

  “I know!” I said, feeling awful. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry, be better,” my grandmother scolded.

  “I will,” I said, bending down to pick up the pieces.

  My grandfather scooped up Pearl before she could get into the mix of pesto and smashed porcelain. I couldn’t believe I’d dropped the plate. It was so stupid of me.

  Everything I touched, I ruined.

  “Sasha, move,” my grandmother said, coming up behind me with a Swiffer.

  I backed away, letting her take care of it.

  Thanksgiving was on Thursday. The school week ended early, and somehow, in all the chaos of essays and midterms, I didn’t see it coming until it blindsided me:

  My first Thanksgiving without my mom.

  Everything about it felt wrong. Instead of driving down to Bayport, I was already here. But there was nowhere else to go. We certainly weren’t flying to Quebec to see my great-aunt Gail and her third husband, Ronny. Now, Thanksgiving was just a fancy meal in the house where we all lived. It made the whole thing feel like there wasn’t much of a point.

  Especially since everything was still so tense and awful.

  My grandfather barricaded himself in his office, watching football with the volume turned up all the way. And I could hear my grandmother banging around in the kitchen. There was a loud clang, of something dropping, and then a curse.

  I waited for my grandfather to shout and see if everything was okay, but he didn’t. My grandmother cursed again, and then I heard the sink turn on and stay on.

  My curiosity got the better of me. I felt ridiculous hiding upstairs, listening. So I wandered down to the kitchen to make sure everything was okay.

  I stopped in the doorway. There was an enormous raw turkey in the sink, and my grandmother stood over it, crying. She was still in her pajamas. Her shoulders trembled, and her hand was over her mouth, and she didn’t look even the tiniest bit okay.

  “Grandma?” I asked.

  “Oh, Sasha.” She straightened up, wiping her eyes.

  “Do you need any help?” I asked.

  My mom and I had never helped in the kitchen. Eleanor had insisted on doing it all, deputizing us to bring ourselves, and maybe a dessert, and then telling us that she’d have a backup in case ours wasn’t good. It made my mother furious.

  “Oh no, no, sweetheart. I’m fine,” my grandmother said.

  She turned off the sink and gave me a thin smile.

  “I can help,” I insisted. “I want to.”

  I picked up a package of cranberries and tore it open.

  My grandmother didn’t protest. She just watched as I gathered a saucepan and a measuring cup, and then took out my phone, googling a recipe.

  I stirred the berries. and it was oddly cathartic, watching as they started out separate but came together. My grandmother got to work on the turkey, and after a while, I felt her over my shoulder, checking on me.

  “What are those seeds?” she asked, frowning.

  “I found a recipe that said to use orange zest and whole grain mustard.”

  “Mustard?” Her frown deepened. “I’ve never heard of that in my life.”

  She took the spoon and lifted it to her lips as though expecting the worst. And then her expression brightened.

  “You know,” she said. “That’s delicious.”

  She rested a hand on my shoulder, very softly, for the briefest moment, before pulling away and reaching for a dishcloth.

  “We still have to make mashed potatoes, and rolls, and dessert,” she said.

  And then she got out the family recipe card and put me to work making rolls. As I mixed the dough, I noticed my grandfather hovering in the doorway, holding the dog.

  “Didn’t realize it was so crowded in here,” he said. Something passed between the two of them that I didn’t quite understand, but I pretended not to notice.

  After my grandfather left, I kneaded the sticky, stretchy dough. I was glad I’d come down and offered to help. It was too much for my grandmother to do on her own, and somehow, my being in the kitchen made everything feel new, instead of highlighting how my mom was missing.

  Suddenly I was blinking back tears.

  “Sasha,” my grandmother said, surprised. “Sweetheart, are you crying?”

  “No,” I croaked, swiping my nose with the back of my arm.

  “I miss her too,” my grandmother said. “But it’s nice to have help in the kitchen again. Alice used to make those rolls.”

  “She did?” I asked, and then I felt foolish, because of course she had.

  Here I was again, stuck in a skipped-forward repeat of my mother’s childhood.

  “Until she almost burned the house down,” Eleanor said with a sigh. “The phone rang, and she completely forgot they were in the oven.”

  That sounded like my mom.

  “I told her she was permanently off kitchen duty after that,” my grandmother said, and I could hear the regret in her voice, the yearning for all of those lost holidays, all of those long hours she’d spent alone in the kitchen because she didn’t know how to admit she’d been wrong about not wanting help.

  We both stared at the skillet. And I thought, it’s like she was just here. “She’s supposed to be here.”

  I didn’t realize I’d spoken that last part aloud until my grandmother said, “I know, honey. I know she is.”

  And somehow that made me feel better, remembering I wasn’t the only one who’d lost her. I felt a tear roll down my cheek, and I realized my grandmother was sniffling too.

  “Come here,” she said, opening her arms.

  It was an awkward hug. Her skin was cold, and she smelled of expensive creams and coffee, and she seemed as light and hollow as a bird. But I closed my eyes and held on anyway, because it was the first time I’d ever felt close to her.

  Later that evening, my grandfather gave a toast about how thankful he was for his family, and everyone agreed that cranberry sauce tasted better with mustard seeds. And somehow, the frost between us seemed to thaw.

  I still hadn’t heard from Lily by Saturday, even though I’d texted her more times than I probably should have. I pictured her up in Fairfield with her family, staring down at her phone and seeing it was me, and deciding to ignore it. Again and again and again.

  Each time I picked up my phone, hoping for a missed text and finding none, it was like a small piece of my soul withered. Did she really hate me this much? Would she ever forgive me? Or even just talk to me again?

  Of course, my grandparents were under the impression things had gone south between me and Cole. And while I felt extraordinarily guilty for letting them believe that, I also went along with it. It was easier than explaining the truth about my moping, or the fight my grandmother had half overheard, or the mysterious cake that I’d insisted she throw away.


  It had barely been a week since we’d broken up, since the morning Lily had decorated her car for me. And I missed her so much.

  I missed her in this desperate, aching way because she wasn’t gone the way my mother was. She was just angry.

  And I couldn’t tell if her anger was permanent or temporary. If I would go on missing her forever, because she was lost to me, or if this was only a blip of misery in the middle of something bigger.

  I was out walking Pearl on Saturday when I saw them come home. Lily and their parents were unloading suitcases, and Adam was running around the driveway with Gracie while she shrieked and giggled.

  “Hi!” Gracie said, spotting me. “Oh! It’s the dog! Can I pet her?”

  “Um, sure,” I said.

  My eyes searched for Lily’s. They met for the briefest moment, and then Lily marched inside and didn’t come out again. Gracie patted and cooed over Pearl, who was a perfectly behaved marshmallow, although her expression seemed to say, I better be getting a treat, stat.

  “If you keep petting her like that, she’ll go bald,” Adam said, coming over.

  “You’re lying,” Gracie said.

  “What do you think happened to Dad’s hair?” Adam shot back, and Gracie’s jaw dropped. “Go ask him if you don’t believe me.”

  Gracie shot off into the house, screaming for their dad, and I tried not to laugh.

  “He’ll corroborate anything,” Adam said, shrugging. “How was your Thanksgiving?”

  “My grandpa got a new iPhone,” I said, making a face. I’d had to spend forever setting it up for him.

  “That’s like a six-word horror story.” Adam shuddered.

  “How was yours?”

  “My dad and I hid out and watched Star Trek in the guest room,” Adam said. “Also, Lily’s cousins gave me shit for liking cranberry sauce.”

  “It’s the most Thanksgiving part of Thanksgiving,” I said.

  “Exactly,” Adam said. And then he shoved his hands into his pockets, suddenly serious. “So, um, question. What did you do to make Lil so mad?”

  I shook my head, sighing.

  “’Cause I’m assuming the worst,” he told me. “Murder. Grand theft arson.”