Chapter 32 2006
Meryl once told me, “Every great athlete has a reason, the thing that drives them to get up again no matter how many times they fall.”
Bart killing Nick turned out to be my reason.
It was more than Nick who was destroyed that day.
I returned to the school to discover Ms. Bamford had expelled Dylan for attacking Bart in the cafeteria and that Ivy then quit moments later.
They were already gone by the time I got back. I never even got to say goodbye.
It wasn’t until months later that I would discover the reason Dylan attacked Bart the way he did.
It turned out that Bart knew which rabbit to kill because he’d stolen Dylan’s journal the night before.
In it, Dylan had written about the hole in the wall, the pond, and the wise rabbit I loved with the triangular wedge carved from his ear.
The sum of the loss destroyed me. In the course of a day, I’d lost Nick, Ivy, and Dylan, and once again, all of it felt out of my control, the same as it had been with Boodo and gymnastics.
A twig bent to breaking, what started that morning as shock and immense sadness morphed into something else entirely, transforming into the immutable determination that would drive me over the next eleven years of my life.
Two days later I went home for spring break.
I arrived at dinnertime, and this time, when I walked through the door, Mother didn’t greet me with an effusive “Darling, you’re home!
” and wide-open arms. She merely nodded from one side of the table, while the minister said, “Hello, Vivien” from the other.
I did not wonder what was going on between them. I did not care. All I wanted was to find a way to convince Mother to let me go with Meryl to Prague. I took a seat, and a woman I’d never seen before set a plate of roasted chicken, green beans, and mashed potatoes in front of me.
“I don’t eat animals,” I said, eyes cast down at the table.
“Of course you do,” Mother said.
I shook my head. After seeing Nick’s dead body, I’d made a vow to never eat anything that had once been a living, breathing thing again.
“Eat!” Mother commanded as the minister muttered, “Spoiled.”
I pushed from the table, went to my room, and slammed the door behind me.
The minister decreed I could not leave my room until I apologized and agreed to eat what the Lord provided.
I did not come out for breakfast the following day or lunch.
Profe came to see me that afternoon. He’d smuggled in a Clif Bar, and I ate it greedily, my stomach achingly hollow and my head fuzzy.
When I finished, he said, “It seems to me you’ve found yourself in a bit of a Heinz dilemma.”
The Heinz dilemma was one of Profe’s favorite paradoxes. A man named Heinz’s beloved wife was dying, and he couldn’t afford the lifesaving drug she needed. He had to decide whether to steal it, thus creating an ethical dilemma and sparking decades of philosophical debates on morality.
“In order to go to Prague, which I agree sounds like a good idea, since it’s the best way for you to become the greatest figure skater in the world, you need your mother’s blessing.
But the only way she will even consider giving it is if you fix this thing between you, which might mean compromising what you believe in. ”
“I won’t eat meat,” I said flatly.
His eyes held mine. “Then you will need to find another way.”
I did not join the minister and Mother for dinner that night, and my thoughts grew crazed with gnawing, all-consuming hunger. I had no idea such a mundane thing as food could be the cause of so much pain.
The next morning, at daybreak, I sneaked into the kitchen, hoping to scavenge something before the minister or Mother woke.
“Morning,” the minister said from the shadows where he’d been waiting. His eyes danced with glee at having caught me.
I wobbled to the sink and poured myself a glass of water.
“Your chicken from the other night is in the fridge,” he said glibly as he folded the newspaper he’d been reading.
My head swooned as I faced him. “No, thank you. I don’t eat meat.”
“Greg, please.”
I turned to see Mother in the doorway, dressed in her housecoat, her hair wrapped in a pink satin wrap.
“The Lord has provided this child with nourishment,” the minister said. “Who is she to refuse his bounty?”
Knowing it was useless to argue, I turned for the hall and made it one step before my vision blurred and my knees went weak. The last thing I remember was the glass falling from my hand a moment before the world went black.
I woke to Mother cradling me in her arms and screaming holy murder at the minister.
“This is lunacy! She’s a child!”
The minister threw the newspaper on the table and stormed off.
“Melanie!” Mother howled toward the back of the house.
The cook appeared in pajamas. “Make some toast. Now!”
I looked up into Mother’s face, and for a single, indelible moment, her blue gaze held mine, and she was not looking at my nevus—she was only looking at me.
She helped me to a chair, and when the toast arrived, she buttered it and smeared it with raspberry jam.
I ate it, and she asked Melanie for another, and then another.
When I’d finished the third piece, she stood, then turned as if to walk away. Reconsidering, she turned back, bent down, and brushed a kiss across the top of my head. It was the only time I can recall my mother kissing me.
I did not see the minister the rest of spring break, and my mother never again brought up the subject of me not eating meat. Melanie made a vegetarian plate for me at every meal.
Mother and I fell into a pleasant routine. In the mornings, after breakfast, we would sit together on the dock and read the Bible, and in the afternoons, I would do my exercises near the windows while she worked at the desk in the library.
I waited for her to bring up the idea of me going to Prague. Meryl had told me she’d called her. But days passed, and she never did.
Finally, two days before I was supposed to return to Gaines, I decided I couldn’t wait any longer. After dinner, I brought Mother a cup of tea on the back porch on the nice china with a saucer and two wedges of lemon the way she liked it. I carried it carefully so as not to slosh it.
“Mother,” I said.
She turned and smiled as if genuinely happy to see me. “Thank you, darling,” she said as she took the cup from my hand.
She took a sip of tea, then returned to looking at the lake with her faraway stare.
I remained standing beside her, trying to figure out the best way to broach the subject.
Finally, with no great epiphany, I blurted, “I don’t want to go back to Gaines.
It’s awful, and I hate it there. And I’m good at skating.
Not great. Yet. But I could be. Meryl, the woman who’s teaching me, the one who called you, says I’m a Weeble, which means I wobble, but I don’t fall down.
Which is why she thinks someday I could be great.
Which is why I need to go with her, to Prague, to train. I have to. Please. Please let me go.”
Mother blinked rapidly as if the words were pebbles being spat at her.
For a minute, she said nothing, then carefully, she set the teacup back on the saucer, and her pink lips tightened a moment before she said, “So that’s the reason for all this.” She lifted the teacup toward me. “All the kindness and attention you’ve been giving me.”
I opened my mouth to deny it, but no words came out, the glow of truth around the accusation paralyzing.
“Go,” she said. “Go wherever the hell you like.”
She turned back to the lake and didn’t look at me again, the ember of hope we’d kindled for our relationship snuffed out in an instant.