Chapter 14 Lorna Is Thirteen
Just before new year’s eve, lorna’s dad comes to take them to dinner. He’s brought Christmas gifts—hair clips and earrings for Kristen, a cardigan sweater and a deck of playing cards for Lorna. Why do her parents think she’s a kid?
Kristen is sullen during dinner. When Dad asks what’s wrong, she accuses him of not caring about her and Lorna. She tells him she fights with Mom all the time. Dad tries to defend himself, but Kristen is in a mood and calls him stupid.
Lorna loses her appetite at the Spaghetti Warehouse, a first in her lifetime.
When Dad drops them off, Kristen goes in with a curt “See you,” but Lorna hangs back, standing between the car and house.
“Dad, can I ask a favor?”
“Sure, Lolo. Anything. You know that.”
She doesn’t know that. He’s hardly ever around. She doesn’t quite know how to ask.
Dad is bundling her gifts and leftovers to hand to her. “What is it?”
“Can I come live with you and Trish?”
Something comes over Dad’s face. Like he suddenly doesn’t feel well. “What?” He lets out a forced laugh. “Why do you... Why?”
“Because Mom and Kristen really do fight all the time. Kristen runs away a lot, and she got kicked out of school again.”
“Again? No one told me that.” He frowns in the direction of Nana’s house, as if he’s trying to decide whether he should go in and say something about that.
“I just think I would be happier if I lived with you. I hate all the fighting.”
Dad turns his attention back to her. He looks stricken, like she imagines people look when they are having a heart attack. “Oh, Lolo,” he says after a moment. “Oh, baby... that’s not a good idea.”
“Why not?” she asks, but her heart is already sinking. Maybe she hasn’t explained it enough. “I won’t bother you, I promise. And I’ll keep my room clean.”
“You would never bother me, Lolo, but we have Baby Allison now.”
Lorna panics. “I can help with Allison!” She grabs his hand.
“And another baby on the way. It’s not that I don’t think you would help, it’s just that... So let me talk to your mother and see if we can’t make things better here.”
“No!” Lorna cries. She feels sick, like she’s made a terrible, terrible mistake. “She’ll be mad.”
He doesn’t argue. He squeezes her hand. “Why don’t we revisit this when you’re older?”
“What does age have to do with it?”
He peels her hand off his. “Lolo, you know I would take you in a heartbeat if I could.”
“But you can, Dad. Why won’t you?”
“You’re misunderstanding my situation. Look, I’ll call you tomorrow, and we’ll talk,” he says.
He won’t call her. He never does. “Dad, please—you don’t know what it’s like.”
“Listen, honey, whatever it is, it will pass. You’re young and sometimes problems feel much bigger than they are. I have to go now. I’ll call you. Love you!”
He is walking backward. He opens the car door and waves at her over the top, then drives away.
He doesn’t love her. If he loved her, he would save her from this nightmare.
She stands there long after his taillights have disappeared.
She looks down and realizes he somehow managed to shove her gifts and leftovers into her hand.
She feels like she might fall. Like the slightest breeze would send her toppling down the street like a tumbleweed.
She feels dumb and weird and completely unlovable.
· · ·
The last day of Christmas break, Mom and Kristen have such a huge fight that Kristen throws a chair at Mom. She misses her, but Mom says she’s calling the police. Kristen tells her not to bother. She grabs a backpack and takes off.
Lorna slips away to Callie’s house, where she’s been spending as much time as she can without it seeming odd.
She loves Callie’s house—it’s warm and smells like supper, and everyone is always laughing.
The Klebergs are a big family, full of love and fun.
Mrs. Kleberg always gives her a big hug when she comes in. Today she says, “Happy New Year!”
“Happy New Year,” Lorna mumbles in return.
She’s brought her Rubik’s Cube. Callie got one for Christmas too. They spend the afternoon watching TV, working on their Rubik’s Cubes, and fending off the stealth pinch attacks from Callie’s little brothers.
Callie says she has a secret to tell her. “You’re my best friend in the whole world, Lorna.”
“I know,” Lorna says. She looks up. “That’s not a secret.” She looks down again, because she is so close to solving her Rubik’s Cube.
“It’s something else.”
The blue tiles are the ones that always ruin everything and won’t line up. Lorna tosses the cube aside and looks at Callie. “What is it?”
Callie looks nervous. She is twisting her T-shirt into a knot. At first, Lorna thinks she is going to tell her she is dying. “What is it?” she asks, and leans forward. She feels a little panicky. What would she do if she lost Callie?
Callie looks like she is going to throw up, and Lorna knows she must be dying and says, “ Callie! ” at the same time Callie says, “I like girls.”
Lorna is so relieved Callie is not dying that she sinks back, disappointed the secret isn’t something bigger. “I already know that.”
Callie looks confused. “You do? How?”
“Easy. You never like boys. You always talk about girls. And I’ve seen the way you look at Mandy Harper.” A thought suddenly occurs to her, and she gasps. “Are you going to kiss a girl?”
“Maybe,” Callie says.
“Yuck,” Lorna says, and giggles.
“Are you going to kiss a boy?” Callie shoots back.
“Maybe,” Lorna says.
“ Yuck ,” Callie says emphatically. They stare at each other for a moment, then burst into laughter. They laugh so hard they fall over on her bed. That’s the way it’s always been with her and Callie—they understand each other completely.
Callie’s mom comes in and asks what all the laughter is about. Callie says nothing. Her mom asks Callie to help with laundry, and Callie groans but goes off to do it. Mrs. Kleberg sits down with a basket of clothes to fold and asks Lorna how her week has been.
Lorna does not want to be reminded of the hellscape that occurred between Christmas and New Year’s in her house. Just thinking about it makes her feel queasy. “It was okay, I guess.”
“Did you get a lot of nice presents?”
She is reminded of the Barbie doll and shrugs.
Mrs. Kleberg frowns. “Is something wrong, sweetheart?”
In that precise moment, Lorna makes a decision that will change her life. An idea pops into her head, and she latches onto it with no regard for the consequences. She blurts it out before she can even consider what she’s doing. “Can I come live with you and Callie?”
At first Mrs. Kleberg laughs, but then she sees that Lorna is serious. “Lorna, honey.” She affectionately squeezes her knee. “What would make you ask such a thing?”
That’s a loaded question, and while Lorna clearly has not thought this through, she opts for the obvious answer. “Callie and I have been best friends since the sixth grade. We’re like sisters.”
“Well, I know, but you aren’t really sisters. You have your own sister. Callie has her brothers. Girls should live with their families.”
Lorna has said the wrong thing and feels a twinge of desperation. “But your family is different, and it’s really nice here.”
Mrs. Kleberg looks concerned. “Is something going on at home that you’d like to talk about?”
Lorna doesn’t really want to talk about it because it’s so embarrassing. But she trusts Mrs. Kleberg. And she knows she must make her case. Her experience with her father taught her that just wanting something isn’t enough. She nods slowly.
“You can tell me.”
So Lorna does. She tells Mrs. Kleberg about Kristen’s drug use and truancy.
How her grandmother drinks until she passes out.
How her mother and Kristen fight all the time and then Kristen runs away and stays out all night and doesn’t go to school.
How her dad doesn’t want Lorna to live with him.
How everything is getting worse, and no one seems to remember she’s even there.
When she has said it all, told every dark secret, Mrs. Kleberg wraps Lorna in a tight hug. She smells like caramel and vanilla.
Callie bounces back into the room with another load of laundry and looks curiously at the two of them. “What are y’all talking about?”
Her mom smiles at Lorna. “Lorna was just telling me about her house.”
“Did she tell you that her sister knows how to sneak out?” Callie asks with a giggle.
Mrs. Kleberg smooths Lorna’s unruly hair with her hand.
Later, when it’s time for Lorna to go home, Mrs. Kleberg hugs her and says things will get better, and in the meantime, she will think about what to do.
Lorna takes that to mean she’s going to let her live here and practically skips home, planning how she will tell her mother.
She will present it as an opportunity to focus entirely on Kristen.
Or as one less mouth to feed—her mother complains about the cost of groceries a lot.
She really thinks her mother won’t mind at all.
The next day, the spring semester begins.
It’s a good day for the most part, but when Lorna comes home, she sees a police car and another unfamiliar car in front of her house.
Last year, Kristen was arrested for shoplifting.
Lorna feels a rush of panic and assumes she’s been arrested again. She hurries inside.
A police officer is with two people in suits who look like detectives on a cop show.
Mom, Kristen, and Nana are all sitting on the couch.
They look too relaxed, like they are having tea.
Kristen doesn’t seem to be in trouble—there would be a lot of shouting and finger pointing if she were. So why are they here?
The two people—a man and a woman—introduce themselves to Lorna. They say they are from child protective services. “What’s that?” Lorna asks.
Her mother holds her cigarette over the frog ashtray Lorna made and then snuffs it out so hard Lorna fears she will crack the ceramic in two. “Have you been talking about us, Lorna?” she asks, her voice silvery smooth like it gets when she’s angry.
Fear creeps through Lorna. She doesn’t know what is happening right now, but she knows what she said to Mrs. Kleberg. “Umm...”
“Because someone out there seems to think that we are brawling and drinking in here every day.” Her mother doesn’t try to contain her anger, or Kristen her smirk, or Nana her embarrassment.
Lorna’s heart sinks. She trusted Mrs. Kleberg to help her. She is shaking with fear. Not of the police—of her mother.
“Mrs. Lott, please,” the suit-wearing woman says. “Lorna, may we speak to you privately?”
No one waits for Lorna to answer. She is taken into the dining room and made to sit. “You’re probably wondering why we are here,” the woman says.
“Yes,” Lorna says. “Something is messed up.”
“What’s messed up, Lorna?” the man asks.
“Huh?”
“You told a trusted adult about some things that have us concerned,” the lady says. “Has anyone hurt you? Or touched you inappropriately?”
“ What? ” Lorna is mortified. She never said anything like that. She feels like she might throw up. All she wanted was to be happy. Now she feels sick to her stomach and very much afraid. “No.”
“What is the trouble at home that prompted you to speak up? Whatever you say is safe with us.”
She doesn’t believe that. Nothing is safe anymore.
Nothing will ever be safe again. Mom and Dad will be furious.
Lorna tried to escape this house, but all she’s done is made things worse.
The Klebergs are probably laughing at her.
She’s humiliated—she can never go there again.
She chokes when she thinks of Callie. They can’t be friends anymore.
How could she even look at her? Mrs. Kleberg told the police .
She probably won’t allow Callie to be her friend.
Lorna feels something harden in her. She knows in that moment she can never trust anyone again.
“Lorna... are you safe here?” the woman asks, leaning so close that Lorna can see the red in the whites of her eyes.
“Yes! I’m safe. I just wanted to spend the night with my friend.” A tear slides out of her eye and down her face.
“Just the night?”
She can tell the lady doesn’t believe her. Lorna’s face is flaming. The internal shiver is getting worse, but her arms and legs aren’t moving. She wants to flee to her room, to cover her face with her pillow, to scream. “Just the night,” she insists.
They keep asking questions, keep trying to make her say something else. Lorna puts her head down on her arms and tries to sink into the table.
Finally, they leave. They tell Mom they will be checking back in the next few weeks.
Mom watches until they drive away, then turns on Lorna. “What the hell did you do ?”
Lorna tries to deny it, but she is no match for her angry mother. She finally confesses that she asked Mrs. Kleberg if she could live there.
Her mother looks stunned. Confused. “Why?”
“Because you and Kristen are always fighting,” Lorna says.
Her mother blinks. “And so you betray me? What a stupid, childish, moronic thing to do, Lorna,” her mother says coarsely. “I can never show my face in this town again.”
“It’s your fault,” Kristen snaps at her mother.
“Oh sure, my fault that you’re running the streets,” her mother says. She picks up her phone. “I’m calling your father.”
“Great,” Kristen says. “That’s helpful. What will he do, say he can’t come over right now, that he’s burping his kid or something?” She points at Lorna. “Thanks for all the drama. Now we have to listen to one of Dad’s dumb lectures.”
Mom gets off the couch and goes into another room to call Dad and yell at him. Kristen grabs her backpack. “I hate this place,” she says, and goes out, the door slamming shut behind her.
Nana puts her arm around Lorna. She smells of booze. “It will be okay, honey.”
How can it be? This is a complete disaster. Her envy of Callie and her family has been revealed and rejected. How can she go to school now? Everyone will know the very lame thing she did.
Her shame is so great that Lorna stops being friends with Callie. She avoids her at school because she can’t bear to look her in the eye. It is surprisingly easy to do—Callie is avoiding her too.