My mom stands up, pushes her chair back with so much force it falls to the floor. “We’re done. Go to your room.”
I push my own chair back. Make it fall, too. I grab the newspaper, then stomp out of the kitchen and up the stairs. I slam my door shut and collapse on my unmade bed. I punch at the pillows.
My parents are fools.
Selfish.
Idiots.
I hate them.
Katherine St. Pierre is there on the front page, reminding me how short her time was and how she’ll never get to do or be anything. She was a baby and her parents loved her, and the whole story of her life was ahead of her until she met me and I made her sick.
I curl up on my bed, clutching my pillow and sobbing into it. The sadness is a physical pain. It stabs at my chest and makes my bones ache. How do Baby Kat’s parents even function in their grief? How do they wake up in the morning, face the world, and live? She was their first baby. Their only baby.
Their house must feel empty.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper to Baby Kat. “I’m so sorry.”
EIGHT
By Sunday, a week later, my rash has faded. My headache and congestion and fever are gone. But the empty ache in my chest is still there. I study Katherine St. Pierre’s photo one last time, then fold up the newspaper and shove it into my nightstand drawer. It doesn’t feel like something I can put in the recycle bin. I have to hold on to it.
Yesterday, my mom paused, clasping my hand when she saw the newspaper on my bed. Her eyes welled up like mine.
“It’s so sad.”
“You don’t seem sad.”
“Well, I am. Dad, too. We’re not monsters.”
I pulled my hand free. “Whatever.”
After a midafternoon shower, I smear clumpy homemade deodorant under my arms and look at the school across the street. I wish I could fly out my bedroom window, over the power lines, through the doors, and down the hallways filled with lockers tomorrow morning. I’d float, my T-shirt billowing like a hot-air balloon, until I quietly settled into a desk in a classroom full of people my age. Kitchen School has been on hold, and I don’t miss my classmates. I want Poppy and Sequoia to get better, but not because I want to study with them.
I don’t want to gather around the kitchen table where Sequoia will burp and Poppy will tell him he’s gross and they’ll argue for a full five minutes in the middle of a lesson.
When I float in across the street, nobody will even look at me. They’ll sit at their desks like it’s no big deal that I’m there.
Oh, her? She floats in every once in a while.
She just wants to be normal.
We let her stay.
I go to the bathroom to rinse the greasy deodorant residue from my fingers, then poke my head into Poppy’s room. She’s propped up in bed, her hands gripping a hardcover of The Hunger Games for her billionth reading. The cutouts of butterflies flutter across the headboard behind her when they catch the draft from an open window. Poppy spent a whole weekend on those butterflies when we moved in, her tongue sticking out of her mouth in concentration as she cut, folded, and painted craft paper to look like real butterflies. Then she threaded a thin wire through the paper and positioned the wire around the metal slats of her headboard, leaving a trail of butterflies across the top. She’s way more artistic than I am. I’m almost jealous.
“Need anything?” I ask.
“Yeah. For this quarantine to be done.”
I cross over to her bed and move her favorite sketchbook to the nightstand. When she’s not reading, she’s making art. “Scoot over.”
She pulls The Hunger Games to her chest and drags herself farther into the center of the bed, leaving the cooler outer sheets for me, which I appreciate. She dog-ears the page, and I shudder.
“What?”
“So disrespectful to Katniss. Don’t you have a bookmark?”
“Sure. Somewhere.” She places her book between us, then throws her hands over her head and lets out a dramatic sigh that blows her blond bangs up from her forehead.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m bored.” She says the word all long and drawn out. Borrrrred. “I want to go outside.”
“Wanting to go outside means you’re getting better.”
She rolls her eyes. “I seriously can’t stand this house anymore. It’s like a prison.”
I laugh. “Tell me about it.”
“I don’t mean it in the same whiny way you do.”
“Hey!” I jab my elbow into her ribs.
She twists away, rubbing at the tender spot. “I’m not trying to insult you.”
“You’re doing a pretty good job of it for not trying.”
“I’m just saying, I don’t feel stuck like I want to go to school across the street and drink fancy coffee and all that stuff you’re always fighting with Mom and Dad about.” She eyes me warily. “I heard you and Mom talking about that baby, by the way. And how she got the measles from you. Can I see the newspaper article you kept?”
She should see it. She should know what our parents have caused. “I’ll give it to you later.”
“Okay.” She kicks off her covers. Jiggles her legs. “I’m so antsy.”
“You’ll be better soon enough. See?” I hold my arm out, let her examine my healing skin. “You’re only about a week behind me.”
She moves her hand like a puppet mouth. “Blah blah blah.”
I pull at a loose thread on the quilt my mom made her. “You really don’t want any of the things I want? No fancy coffee, fine. But do you actually want Dad to be your teacher forever?”
I was around Poppy’s age when I started wanting something else. When I started realizing my family was different. I played AYSO soccer to fulfill my homeschool PE credit, and one day at practice, all the girls on my team were talking and laughing about something that had happened in the cafeteria that day at lunch. When I realized I was the only one on the team who didn’t know what they were talking about, I felt profoundly left out. That night at dinner, I asked my parents if I could go to real school so I could eat in the cafeteria with my soccer friends, and they laughed like it was a silly little thing I’d forget by morning. But I didn’t. I never stopped wanting it. I keep waiting for Poppy to make that same shift.
“I dunno,” she says. “Ask me in another few years when I’m your age. I’m sure you’ll have figured out if it was worth fighting for by then.”
“You’re such a smart-ass. Usually more smart than ass, but not today.” I push off the bed. “Need anything?”
“Mom’s lemonade?”
“Glug, glug.”
She giggles and it makes her cough. “Lots of ice,” she manages to sputter.
I hand her a box of tissues. “Okay.”
I peek in on Sequoia to see if he wants some too, but he’s passed out, asleep. I pull his door shut as quietly as I can and tiptoe away.
NINE
When I get to the kitchen, I can see my parents through the window above the sink. They’re underneath the pergola in the corner of our backyard. My mom is talking with her hands, which means she’s trying really hard to make a point.
I put off getting Poppy’s lemonade and head out to see what’s going on.
“—but what if they find out?” my mom says, her tone worried. “What if they sue?”
“For god’s sake, Melinda, it’s not our fault.”
“I doubt the mother of that baby would think June wasn’t responsible if she knew.”
“Excuse me, what?” I say, and my parents whirl around to look at me. “So you really do think I killed that baby. Just like I told you.”
“I do not,” my dad says, throwing his arms up in exasperation. He looks at my mom. “See? Is this what you want? Really?”
My mom reaches out for my hand, eager to soothe. “June, honey, do you want to talk? Can we?”
“How can we help?” my dad says. The sun shoots through the slats of the pergola, crisscrossing us with light
.
“You can’t. Nobody can bring Baby Kat back.”
My dad puts his hand on my shoulder to anchor me. “We’ve been over this. You did nothing wrong.”
“Right. Maybe it’s your fault, not mine. Maybe you should feel guilty. Maybe you should be crying yourself to sleep every night.”
“You don’t know that I’m not.”
“I’d never know because you don’t talk about the baby at all. You don’t say anything.”
He opens his mouth. Shuts it. Looks at me seriously. “It’s my job as your parent to be strong for you. I understand that you hurt. I hurt, too. But if I’m breaking down over that baby every time you see me, how am I helping you? What happened is awful, but I didn’t meet her. I didn’t know her. I know you. I love you. Your pain is my pain, and that is my priority.”
“It’s selfish not to care about anyone’s kids but your own. But I guess that’s exactly why you can validate how you feel about vaccinations.”
“That is patently false,” my dad says.
My mom fidgets her fingers around each other. “Let’s sit down. Please.” She motions to the picnic table in the middle of the yard.
I shake my head. “No. I need to go. Now.”
I’m like Poppy, my feet itching to be outside. Away. Free. I pull out from underneath my dad’s anchor.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he says.
My mom reaches out to me but only gets a handful of shirt. She calls my name behind me as I grab my skateboard and bolt through the back gate.
“Juniper Jade, you get back here right now!” my dad shouts.
“Russ. Let her go. Let her clear her head,” my mom says. “She needs it.”
I slam my board down and take off down the sidewalk, angrily pumping my leg to go faster. Too fast. I skid at the bottom of the hill at the end of our block and the deck wobbles under my feet, threatening to throw me. If I hit a pebble, it’ll be game over. Juniper Jade: survived the measles, died on a skateboard. I slow down and continue rolling through suburbia. I’m literally shaking with frustration over my parents. I want to scream. I want to punch something. I hate that I have no say. Like no matter how much I talk, they won’t listen. They think they’re right and I’m wrong, and that’ll never change.
I breathe steadily. Try to conjure some calm as the oxygen settles in my lungs. Tomorrow is the first day of autumn, but the warm air feels more like summer than it does in early July. Tendrils of backyard barbecue smoke creep into the sky. Over the fence. Into my nostrils. Smelling like meat fat.
I don’t like it.
It reminds me of death.
I have to go.
I push away, turn the corner, and fly over the curb into the wide-open street. I pump faster, off and away, toward somewhere I can make my own choices.
TEN
I skate for at least an hour to clear my head, then arrive at the urgent care clinic at five o’clock. The sign on the door tells me they’re open for another few hours. That should be enough time. I pull the bottom of my shirt up to wipe the sweat from my forehead and go to the front desk, not exactly sure what to do. My insurance card is in my mom’s wallet. And I don’t have any money.
The door to the hallway where the nurse took my vitals a few weeks ago is over my left shoulder, but the L-shaped check-in counter has one half in the waiting room and one half in the hallway. I can see the shut doors of exam rooms inside the hallway, which means those rooms are full and I might have to wait a while.
“I need to talk to someone,” I say.
A guy looks up from his computer and pushes the clipboard on the counter toward me. “Sign-in sheet’s right there.”
“Can I get shots here?”
“A flu shot?”
“Shots. Plural. All of them.”
He squints at me. “What do you mean? Are you traveling out of the country?”
“Nope. But I’ve never had any vaccinations, and I want all of them. How do I do that?” He looks at me like I’m kidding. “I’m serious.”
He finally pulls away from his keyboard and really looks at me. “Are you eighteen?”
“I’m sixteen.”
“Do you have a parent or guardian here with you?”
“They’ll say no. I need to take care of this by myself.”
He puts his elbows up on the desk. Leans forward. “No vaccinations ever? MMR? Tetanus? Chicken pox?”
“None of them.”
He leans back in his chair, hands behind his head like a cradle. “Wow.”
I’m a freak. An anomaly to someone in the medical field.
Coming up on the right, Juniper Jade, nocturnal and not vaccinated. Don’t feed the bears. Don’t vaccinate the children.
A patient and a doctor exit an exam room and walk up to the hallway counter. It’s him. Dr. Soap Opera. With the cheekbones and the judgment. He’s exactly who I need to talk to. I wait as he sends his patient’s prescription into the pharmacy electronically and promises she’ll be feeling better soon.
“Hey,” I say, leaning over the counter. “It’s me. Do you remember?” I groan to sound sick and help his recall.
He looks up, and I can see the recognition dawn on him. “Measles?”
“Yep.”
“Fully recovered?”
“I am.”
“Good. What was your name again?”
“Juniper. What’s yours?”
He sticks his hand out. “Dr. Villapando.” We shake hands.
“Look, the measles was awful, and I never want to go through something like that again. I’m here because I want every other shot I should have. I was reading up on polio. I need that one first. Then what else? Mumps. Rubella.” I count on my fingers. “I’m trying to remember them all.”
He puts up his hand to stop me. “You’re a minor. I wouldn’t feel comfortable vaccinating you without at least one of your parents present.”
“You met my mom. Do you think she’s going to do that?”
“Have you tried discussing it with her?”
“I have.”
He leans across the counter to check out the waiting room full of patients expecting to be seen next. Still, he motions for me to come through the door and into the hallway where he’s standing. “Two minutes.”
Two minutes doesn’t seem like enough time for a dozen shots, but if that’s how it has to be, at least it’ll be over quickly. I’ll close my eyes and visualize myself in the ocean to get through it.
I twist the door handle to the hallway, and a woman in the waiting room lets out an annoyed sigh as I go in before her. Whatever. I follow Dr. Soap Opera into the empty exam room the last patient was in. I prop my skateboard up against the wall, and sit on the paper-covered table with my arm out. He slides over to me on a stool with wheels on it.
“Talk to me,” he says.
Damn. No shots. Only chatting. I let out a nervous laugh. It’s hitting me now. Saying the words out loud to him makes this real. I’m defying my mom and dad. I’m taking care of myself.
“I think I’m smarter than my parents. I know they think they’re making the best choices, but messing around with the measles is no joke.”
“No, it’s not.”
“I did some reading,” I say. “It scared me.”
“Rightly so.”
“I could’ve died.”
“True. But you didn’t.”
“I didn’t. And Poppy and Sequoia didn’t.” He looks at me quizzically. “My siblings.”
“Ah.”
“But a baby died.”
He sits up straight. “What baby?”
“A baby in town. Her name was Katherine St. Pierre. I was around her when I didn’t know I was contagious.”
His eyebrows draw in. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.” I look back at him just as seriously. “She died because of me.”
“That is…” He shakes his head. “That’s terrible.” His eyes focus on mine. Soft. Sympathetic. “I’m sorry. Are you
okay?”
“Not really.”
He nods. “I can see how you think it’s your fault, but you didn’t know you were sick when you were around her.”
“That’s what my parents keep saying.” I shift, and the paper cover on the exam table crinkles underneath my legs.
“Knowing that doesn’t make it any easier, does it?”
I shake my head. A tear falls down my cheek. He scoots his stool over, grabs a box of tissues from the counter, and angles it to me so I can grab a few.
“Thanks,” I mumble.
“I wish I could make it all go away. I think the hardest part about being a doctor is not being able to make everything better every time.”
“I bet.”
“Look”—he rubs at the stubble on his chin—“as much as I’d like to help, you can’t simply walk in here and get all your vaccinations, for a number of reasons. Parental permission being one of them. But also, I’m not even sure what the exact vaccination schedule would be, because I’ve never dealt with this. I’d have to do some research.” He shakes his head at me, smiling. “I do admire your gumption, but can I give you a piece of advice?”
“That’s why I’m here, isn’t it?”
“Wait until you’re eighteen. It’s not that far off. And then you’ll be in charge of making your own medical decisions.”
I want to stomp my foot like Sequoia when he doesn’t get his way, but my feet can’t touch the ground when I’m sitting on this exam table. “I don’t want to wait. Why should my parents be able to make choices for me when their choices could’ve killed me? It’s irresponsible. You said it yourself.”
“I get it. I really do. But they’re your parents, and that’s how the world and the law are going to see it. They’ll say that their choice not to vaccinate you wasn’t done to deliberately endanger you. That they thought they were acting in your best interest.” He furrows his brow. “It’s frustrating. I’m frustrated, too. I do find it irresponsible. But I’m also saying you’re making a headache for yourself. You had the measles. You got better.”
A Shot at Normal Page 4