All the Impossible Things

by Lindsay Lackey

  “Mom.” Red lowered her voice and hoped Jackson wasn’t listening at the door. “What did you do?”

  Something clinked and clanged in the background on Wanda’s end of the phone. “Nothing. Relax!”

  She wanted to scream, You promised! She wanted to rage and cry. “Mom, your court date is this Tuesday!”

  Wanda sighed, then giggled again. She couldn’t seem to stop giggling. “It’s no big deal.” Her words slurred together. “I didna do anything bad, Red. I jus’ took something for my migraines.” A snorting laugh bubbled through her sinuses.

  Red closed her eyes. Her hair was whipping against her face and snarling around the phone. The whole library started to rattle, softly but urgently. Wanda giggled again, the sound hollow and tinny and far away.

  “You promised,” Red whispered.

  Her mother was laughing at something or someone in the background. “Gotta go, Red. Night night, baby cakes! Mwah mwah mwah!”

  The line went dead.

  get on with my life.

  But living without something I need this much? It’s impossible.

  In 1945, a farmer chopped off the head of one of his chickens. He didn’t do a very good job though. Because the chicken didn’t die! They called him Mike the Headless Chicken, and he lived for two whole years after losing his head. He even traveled the United States and got really famous. People paid twenty-five cents to see him walking around, pecking at the ground like a normal chicken—except he didn’t have a beak or a face or eyes or a head!

  Mike the Headless Chicken lived the life of a celebrity, which was a whole lot better than being someone’s dinner.

  So maybe, sometimes, living without something—even something you really need—isn’t the end. Maybe it’s the beginning of something better.

  Chapter

  54

  “Something on your mind?” Jackson asked.

  She stared out the window of his truck. The sky was thick with moody gray clouds, and the weeds along the side of the road whipped back and forth in the wind.

  “I’m fine.”

  “You sure? You’ve been quiet the past few days.” He nudged her gently with his elbow. “I’m a good listener.”

  “No. It’s okay.” She couldn’t bring herself to look at him.

  He sighed, but didn’t ask her any more questions as they pulled into the Kapules’ driveway to pick up Marvin. When Marvin climbed into the truck, Red slid over on the bench seat so she was between the two of them. Jackson was as solid as a mountain against her left arm, and she wanted to lean in to him and put her head on his shoulder.

  But she couldn’t. If she did, she might start crying. And if she started crying, she’d end up telling him what she was planning to do.

  They were halfway to school before she noticed how quiet Marvin was being. He had his head against the window, and his hands were limp fish in his lap.

  “You okay?” she asked.

  The truck whistled around them. He shrugged. “Yeah.”

  When they pulled up to the school, Jackson smiled sadly at the two of them.

  “Well, we’re a cheerful bunch today, aren’t we?” He reached over Red’s head and ruffled Marvin’s hair, then dropped his arm around her shoulders and gave her a quick hug. “Mrs. Kapule is taking you to their house when she picks you up after school. I’m planning to stay at the hospital with Celine all day, but will come get you around seven. Okay?”

  She nodded, afraid her voice would betray her.

  Jackson kissed the top of her head, and she started to scoot out of the truck.

  “Red?”

  She paused and looked at him. An anxious breeze pressed against her skin, wanting out, but she held it back.

  His gaze was steady. “I love you, kiddo.”

  Red smiled tightly and slid out of the truck, slamming the door before Jackson could see her heart, shattered into ten thousand pieces.

  When Jackson was gone, Red grabbed Marvin’s arm and dragged him around the side of the school, behind a clump of evergreens.

  “Holy bananas!” he complained, twisting his arm out of her fingers. The look he gave her was so un-Marvin that she almost laughed.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  She expected him to deny anything was wrong, like he had in the truck. But instead, his eyes darted away from hers and he kicked the ground.

  “I…” He sniffed and wiped his nose with his sleeve. “I’m sorry, Red. I messed up.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I was working on your video last night. I wanted it to be perfect. But I—I lost it somehow. I deleted the file. My dad helped me look for it for, like, hours, but it’s gone.” A tear escaped his eye and glistened on his dark lashes before dropping down his cheek.

  “Oh.”

  “I’m really, really sorry!” His voice trembled. “I didn’t do it on purpose, Red. I swear!”

  “I know.” She shrugged. “It’s okay. Really.”

  He sniffed again and gave her a dubious look. “You’re not mad?”

  She shook her head. She was plenty mad, just not at Marvin.

  “What are you gonna do? For the judge?”

  The sound of her mother’s wild laughter rang in her ears and she shook her head again. “I don’t know.”

  “I’ll help you. If you want my help, I mean.”

  She bit her lip, glancing over her shoulder. Mrs. Ward, the fourth-grade teacher, was on Kiss-n-Drop duty, but had her back to them. “I do need help, actually. I need you to cover for me.”

  “Huh?” He rubbed away his tears with his palms.

  “I need you to tell Ms. Bell I’m … I don’t know. Visiting Celine in the hospital or something.”

  “Why?” he asked, eyes narrowing.

  “Because I—I need to see my mom.” There. She’d said it. The trees shivered, and they both hunched their shoulders against the cold. Tiny snowflakes started to fall at an angle.

  “Aren’t you gonna see her tomorrow?”

  Desperation started spinning in Red’s chest. She was running out of time. The only bus to Denver was leaving in fifteen minutes. She’d have to run to make it to the bus stop.

  “I need to see her today. She’s—I—I just need to see her.”

  His eyes searched hers, then his lips turned down in a determined frown. “Okay. As your best friend, I will uphold the Best Friend Code and cover for you.”

  Red wrapped her arms around his neck. He grunted in surprise, but hugged her back. Hard.

  “Will you write me an email? Or letters? I know you like real letters.” His voice was muffled in her hair.

  She pulled away. “I’m not going forever, Marvin. I’ll be back by the time school is out.”

  “I mean, when you go live with her again.”

  This surprised her. “Oh.”

  “You have to promise. I don’t want to lose my best friend, Red.” His voice cracked.

  She kicked at the frosty dirt. “You’re not losing me, Marvin. I promise.”

  He grinned. Dimples and all. “Good.”

  The bell rang. Red jumped and stepped closer to the trees. Marvin started toward the school. She stayed in the shadows to wait until the coast was clear. Suddenly, Marvin turned and ran back to her.

  “Red!” he whispered, ducking under a tree branch.

  “What?”

  “You’re my best friend,” he said. “So don’t make this weird.”

  “Make what weird?”

  He gently grabbed the sides of her face and touched his forehead to hers. For a moment, their breath mingled between them in a wisp of cloud. “Aloha nui loa.”

  Then he was gone.

  Chapter

  55

  Snow was falling harder when Red got off the bus. She tucked her hands under her armpits and slumped into the wind. A man at the bus stop watched her from behind a beard so thick and matted that she could barely see his eyes. She kept her head down and hurried past.

  Aft
er she’d gotten off the phone with her mom on Saturday night, she sat and stared at nothing for a long time. Then her eyes landed on the little jar of change Celine kept on one of the bookshelves, and she knew what she had to do.

  She used Celine’s computer to look up the address on the envelope she’d taken from her mom’s car. Then she looked up the bus route. Her mom’s place was a short walk from a bus stop. Just ten blocks.

  Easy.

  Her pocket was heavy with the handful of change she had left for the return ride. The bus had taken much longer than she’d planned, though. When the Grooves drove into Denver, it usually took less than an hour, but the bus had made a lot of stops on the way. It had sat for so long at one stop, Red worried she’d gotten on the wrong bus entirely. Now it was just after noon, and a wintry darkness was settling over the city. Long slate clouds hid the sun.

  About five blocks from her mom’s, Red froze, mouth open in disbelief.

  The hospital—Celine’s hospital—was staring down at her. She had had no idea it was so close to her mom’s apartment. Because of the snow, there weren’t many people on the streets, so Red kept her head down and picked up her pace, hoping Jackson and Celine wouldn’t look out a window and see her.

  She kept walking, past a car dealership that was out of business. Its empty parking lot spread down one long block like a huge, gaping wound. The buildings on either side of it looked closed, too, with boarded windows and metal gates over the doors. It seemed like nothing was alive on these blocks.

  A streetlamp blinked on overhead. Wind moaned through the pine trees above her. She shivered and picked up her pace.

  Finally, she saw Wanda’s car parked under a blue spruce in front of a beige-brick apartment building. Relief trilled through her, then vanished into the fist of anxiety in her chest. Shaking the snow from her hair, she climbed the metal stairs and knocked on her mother’s door. Even with it closed, Red could smell cigarette smoke and hear tinny TV voices.

  Footsteps. A quick, dry cough. The door opened. Wanda was barefoot, in leggings and an orange Broncos sweatshirt. Her hair was tangled and plum circles cradled her eyes. It took her a moment to recognize Red.

  “What are you doing here?” The coldness of her mother’s greeting stung more than the snow.

  “I wanted to check on you,” Red said.

  Wanda crossed her arms. “Check on me? Why?”

  “You sounded weird on the phone the other night.”

  Her mother looked confused. “The phone?” The wind picked up, whipping Wanda’s hair back. “Hurry up and come in. I’m freezing.”

  Red followed Wanda inside, her heart sinking with each step. The living room was chaos. Dirty dishes, discarded cups. Clothes slung over the back of the couch. There was a haze of smoke glowing in the light of the television. Wanda draped herself onto the couch and reached for a can of soda, slurped, and swallowed.

  Red’s skin prickled.

  “Well, sit down or something. You’re making me nervous.”

  Red obeyed. She slipped off her backpack, relocated a stack of mail from a chair, and sat, pulling her knees up under her chin. Wanda was constant motion. Her fingers picked at hangnails on her thumbs. Her feet wiggled. Even her eyes were restless, darting around the room, bouncing off Red, off the TV, off anything they landed on.

  Red swallowed a lump of thunderclouds in her throat. “What are you watching?”

  “Wife Wars.”

  “Oh.”

  Red suddenly missed Gamma with such ferocity her teeth ached.

  “Should I sell tickets?”

  Red blinked. “What?”

  Wanda still wasn’t looking at her. “You’re staring at me. Should I sell tickets to my face or something?”

  “No. Sorry.”

  How could her mother let herself get like this again? She’d been doing well! She had a job, she’d been following the rules—mostly.

  Wanda dug a piece of candy out of a bag on the coffee table. The crinkle of the wrapper filled the space between them. Heat was building in Red’s chest. She chewed her lip, biting it hard enough to make her eyes water.

  “I—I’m worried about you,” she said.

  “I’m fine, Red.”

  Red looked around the room. “Aren’t you afraid they’ll see?”

  “Afraid who will see what?”

  “This!” She gestured to the mess. “Aren’t you afraid they’ll do a home visit and see how bad it looks?”

  Her mom rolled her eyes. “Relax, Red. Nobody is coming.”

  “What about tomorrow?”

  “What about it?” Wanda took another slurp from the can of soda.

  Frustration boiled over and Red jumped to her feet. “Your court date!” she hollered. “Don’t you even care?”

  Wanda stared at her and Red saw something in her expression—a fragility that made her pulse quicken with hope. For an instant, her mother wasn’t this woman on the couch with sweat stains on the neck of her shirt and a tremor in her hands. Instead, she was the mother who climbed the fence of a hotel pool on a blistering-hot summer day. She was the mother who taught Red to stand close to the movie theater screen as the end credits scrolled and throw her hands into the air, looking up at the rising stream of words. We’re falling! That mother giggled, and Red squealed with glee.

  She saw, in that moment, the mother she always wanted.

  Wanda cleared her throat. Her face hardened again. “Hey, do you want pizza? I want pizza.” She stood, wiping her hands on her leggings, and walked into the kitchen. The windows rattled, pellets of snow tinking against the glass.

  Red pursued her. “Did you hear me? Court is tomorrow, Mom.”

  Wanda batted her words away with a wrist flick. “I want olives on it. No arguments.”

  “Mom!”

  “How about veggie? Vegetables are so much healthier than meat.”

  “Mom, listen to me!”

  Wanda stopped. Turned. Folded her arms. Red folded hers as well and stood her ground.

  “What do you expect me to say, Red? Of course I remember that court is tomorrow. My whole life revolves around court dates and social workers and freaking rules!”

  “Only until the judge lets us live together again.”

  Wanda laughed a hard, cold laugh. “You really think that’s gonna happen? You really think a judge is gonna look at me”—she gestured to her disheveled outfit—“a woman whose own mother took her kid away because I couldn’t keep my act together, and think I am a qualified parent? You think any judge in their right mind believes for one second that I’ll hold a job and stay in line and drive my kid to soccer practice and go to PTA meetings? It’s impossible, Red!”

  Red shook her head. “No! It always seems—”

  Wanda roared, and a hot gust knocked Red backward. “Aaaghh! If you say that stupid Gamma quote one more time, Red, I swear, I’ll lose it!” She stomped toward her and stood so close, Red could smell her stale breath. “Sometimes things seem impossible because they are. They just are! The sooner you figure that out, the better off you’ll be!”

  Wanda turned away and grabbed her purse off the counter. She dug through it, then shoved it aside in frustration. “Where is my phone?”

  Red closed her eyes, clenching her fists to hold back her storm. She tried to remember the mother whose wind kept her kite aloft. The mother who helped her dance sleepy polar bears into life. The one who loved her infinity plus one.

  “I just want my mom.” Her voice was small and fragile.

  Wanda paused, closed her eyes. Then she started shuffling papers and magazines again. “I just want my phone.”

  Tears filled Red’s eyes, but she didn’t want Wanda to see them. She spun around and ran to the bathroom, slamming the thin door as hard as she could. A little framed picture of a butterfly fell off the wall and clattered behind the sink. She kicked the door, then the side of the tub. Her frustration billowed from her skin, lifting her hair and shivering against the shower curtain. Outside, the win
d growled and the sky churned. The clouds were as angry and bruised as the girl in the bathroom.

  Chapter

  56

  A buzzing sound made Red jump. She knelt and peered behind the sink, moving the fallen butterfly picture. Wedged between the sink pedestal and the wall was her mom’s phone. Its screen cast a little rectangle of light against the floor. She pulled it out and read the text.

  MESSAGE FROM RICKY: U coming over??

  Red sank to the edge of the tub and stared at the phone. Her mother’s promises tumbled, one after another, onto the floor around her feet.

  She stood and opened the mirrored cabinet above the sink, knowing full well what she’d find.

  More broken promises.

  One by one, she took the pill bottles from the cabinet, read the labels, opened them. The pills stared up at her. How could something so small do so much damage?

  Wind sliced through Red’s heart. It wanted to explode from her chest. It wanted to rattle the whole world, obliterate the stars. It wanted to consume every happy memory, every good thing.

  And Red wanted to let it.

  Her mom—the mom whose breezes comforted her, cooled her raw skin, made her feel protected, safe—that mom was gone. It was like she’d swallowed so many pills that they’d swallowed her.

  A heavy, cold sense of understanding pressed against Red’s heart. It was time to jump to conclusions.

  U coming over??

  Red wanted to throw the phone into the toilet and flush Ricky out of her mother’s life forever. But Ricky wasn’t the problem. Not really.

  Slowly, she tipped each bottle over the sink. The pills fell like pebbles, snickering against the sink’s stained surface. White ovals. Little round yellow ones. Pills as thick as Red’s pinkie. She turned on the faucet and let the water wash them all down the open drain.

  Red picked up her mom’s phone again.

  She thought of Gamma, and the notebook that was now filled with possibilities. She thought of Celine’s words the night they’d searched for Tuck. Love can do impossible things.

  She hoped that was true. Because what she needed to do now felt like the most impossible thing in the world.