Chapter 28
“Well, look who decided to show up,” Naomi says.
I hoped I could go straight up to my room and hide for the rest of the day, or possibly the rest of my life.
But of course this is the time Naomi is actually home, sitting on the old green couch across from Marley and the little picture window.
She must have been up waiting for me, because there’s a half-drunk cup of milky coffee and the tail end of a strudel on the table.
“Wow, look at you having actual food. Great job,” I say, and the snark surprises even me.
I’m still shaking from what just happened outside. I can’t believe the camera is in a thousand pieces, ground into the snowy street along with my hopes and dreams.
“Bennie, I don’t know what’s going on with you,” she says, standing.
“You’ve always been the one I don’t have to worry about.
I don’t have time for it right now, but I will come up with an appropriate punishment for ignoring my messages and worrying me sick.
And let’s add to that, your attitude right now. ”
It doesn’t feel like a coincidence that the next thing she says is “And I signed you up for the visit tomorrow. I tried to give you a chance to decide for yourself but since you opted to ignore me like a child, I was forced to make the decision for you.”
I’m shaking now, but she doesn’t seem to notice. Shocking.
Instead, she stands and reaches for her coat, which is on the couch waiting for her.
I wonder if she ever hung it up when she got home from the bar last night.
Or if she even slept in her bed. Maybe she just passed out from exhaustion right there on the couch.
She’s looking at Marley now, but still says nothing about him, and is obviously about to leave again.
“I have to head in, but there’s a pot of coffee on.
” She gestures to the kitchen. “See you at the party tonight.”
“No,” I say, shaking my head and surprising myself again.
“I’m sorry? No, what?”
I grab Naomi’s keys from the table.
“Seriously. That’s it. No,” I repeat, all the emotions of the morning bubbling up again in that moment. “You can’t leave. Do you even care where I’ve been or what I’ve been doing? Or why I haven’t answered you?”
My mother sighs and rubs the bridge of her nose. “Frankly, Pop-Tart, I didn’t get home until almost three in the morning, and I just got off the phone with your sister, so right now, I’m just glad to know you’re alive and breathing.”
“Alive and breathing?” I say, my pitch rising. “Seriously?”
Naomi looks back at me, speechless. My mother has been on the receiving end of plenty of tirades, but never from me.
“You know every detail about Michelle’s life—her anxieties, her medications, what she does and who she talks to…
You have a mental catalog of every time she’s felt an ounce of pain, and you throw a freaking party when she does the most basic thing right.
But for me, the standard is just alive and breathing ? ”
“Bennie, your sister… She needs…”
“My sister needs what? Love? Support? I know. I know she does. But does she need all of it? Have you considered that I might need some love and support too? Maybe a fraction of your attention?”
Now my mother looks hurt, and there’s a part of me that just wants to hug her. That wants her to hug me . But I have Naomi’s attention now, so instead of slowing down, I pick up speed, trying to get it all out before she leaves again.
“Maybe I need to talk to you too sometimes. But how can I when you’re never here except to sleep?
You don’t know anything about my life. Like, how I have these applications due next week, and I couldn’t possibly give them an answer as to what my purpose is?
Or how about the fact that I got you this tree because you work so much and I wanted you to have something nice—I wanted us to have something nice, together —but you haven’t said a word about it in two days. ”
She looks like she’s about to say something but I can’t stop.
“Or how about the fact that the only girl I’ve ever kissed actually kissed me back but now wants nothing to do with me?”
Now Naomi looks genuinely shocked. “Pop-Tart…”
I didn’t plan on telling her that, but I’m still not done.
“And the most messed up thing of it all? I was already terrified of losing my friends next year, but I didn’t have to worry about that because all my trying not to lose them only made them hate me now.
They’re never going to talk to me again, and since you’re going to be all tied up with Michelle as always, I’ll be totally alone!
“So yeah, I avoided your question. Because how am I supposed to answer that one, when I haven’t answered so many others?
Like what am I going to do next year? Or how am I going to ever find friends like the ones I lost today?
Or what is wrong with me that I screw everything up so badly all the time? ”
I still have my jacket on and though I’m racked with shivers, I’m also sweating to death. Suddenly, I’m running out of steam and desperate for air. I hardly know what’s happening before I’m sobbing and heaving and gasping all at the same time.
My mother walks past me into the kitchen. For a second I think she’s just going to walk out. But then she turns on the faucet, which sputters in sympathy, and fills a mug with tap water.
When she brings it to me, I am shocked—I half expected my mother to tell me she’s disowning me and kicking me out of the house and her life.
I take a sip, trying not to choke. Then she looks me with those eyes I’ve known my whole life and takes slow, deep breaths. I don’t even realize it, but I start to do the same, mirroring her as she stares at me, and soon I’m breathing a little more evenly.
I gulp down the water in a few sips and then gasp again for air.
“Now, Pop-Tart, sit down, would you please?”
How is she so calm? I don’t want to sit, but I’m shaking so hard that I’m also not sure I can keep standing. My body is confused by having so many feelings that are also so physical. So I sit on the couch next to her, and we both stare at Marley for a moment.
“Oh, my beautiful, brave little toaster pastry,” she says, finally putting a hand on my knee. “You’ve got a lotta feelings, kid.”
I feel my anger flare again but say nothing.
“It’s gotta be exhausting.” Naomi shakes her head and takes a sip of her cold coffee.
“I know, because I’m really exhausted from my feelings too.
That’s not an excuse, but it is the truth.
I need you to know this isn’t about you, or because I care any less about you and your feelings.
But parents are people too, people just trying to keep up.
No one gives you a handbook for parenting, and trying to figure it out on the fly…
is kind of like trying to build a guitar while you’re already onstage.
” She pauses, and it looks like she’s considering how to say something.
“You know, it wasn’t the easiest thing for me when you told me you were gay. ”
“Seriously?” I ask, more than a little shocked, and honestly, a little annoyed—why is this what we’re talking about right now? “What does this have to do with anything?”
“Just stay with me. Remember?”
“Yes.”
I remember the day I told her. It was a total nonevent, aside from the fact that later, she baked us rainbow cupcakes and we watched Carol together.
“It’s not that I had a problem with you being gay—‘I love the gays. Gay people! ’?” she says, lifting her fists in the air, imitating my favorite Sarah Jessica Parker scene in The Family Stone .
“But I lay in bed at night worrying how many things you were going to face that I wouldn’t be able to help you with.
I wondered how I could possibly relate or advise you in situations I’ve never been in.
I knew I’d have to work extra at understanding your life experience.
And now I’m trying to do the same for Michelle, in this case, with her illness, with her addiction—the parts of her life experience I don’t personally understand.
And of course, how I can be there for you, too.
It takes effort, and managing my own emotions, and what you said reminded me that sometimes I’m not the most successful at balancing it all.
And I’m sorry for not checking in with you, and for assuming you were fine. ”
“I’m trying to learn too,” I say. “I just… No matter how much I learn, or logically understand, I still really don’t get it, you know? I mean, why does it have to be like this? Why did she do this to us? Or, why did it happen to her… or…”
I pause, and Naomi waits. I’ve managed to sort through so much in the last twenty-four hours, with Audra, with Eve. But there’s another question on my mind—one I haven’t been able to ask anyone else.
“Did I do something wrong?” I ask. “Was I a bad sister?”
“Oh, Pop-Tart, no.”
Now she gives my knee a little squeeze, and it’s gentle but still strong enough to make a point—that she’s serious. I feel another sob rising in my chest.
“No,” she continues. “You were—you are —the best sister, and I know Michelle feels that way.”
“I just wonder… Maybe I wasn’t there for her or something? I know I get distracted a lot; maybe I should have noticed sooner. I guess I always thought once she got help, that would be it because she loved us.”
“It would be so much easier if it were as simple as she doesn’t like us anymore.”
“But so many people get sick,” I say. “Or addicted. And you always hear stories about how they got better or sober after treatment and turned their lives around. Why can’t she be like that? Does she even want to get better?”
“I wish I had the answer,” Naomi says, and there’s something in her voice that makes it obvious how this question really does keep her up at night, maybe more than any extra shifts. “I really do.”
“So then how can you trust that she’s better this time? What if you’re doing all this for nothing again?”