Chapter 49
Hannah
I’m sitting on my front stoop smoking a cigarette and drinking my third beer of the day, trying to get Ginny to appear, when a familiar gray station wagon rolls to a stop at the curb.
“Fuck.” I spit out the beer and grind my cigarette against the cement, kicking it into the shrubs. The doors of the station wagon open in unison. I stand, wiping my sweaty palms against my shorts. My parents step out of the car.
None of us move. My dad, tall, slender, and fair—the man who gave Ginny and me our blond hair and blue eyes—hangs on to the driver’s-side door with white knuckles, waiting for my mother’s cue.
She wrinkles her nose as she studies me, taking in the beer bottle and sweatpants. I’m familiar with this look.
She and I have nothing in common. She’s short and dark-haired with dark eyes.
If I hadn’t seen pictures of her from the hospital, I’d wonder if she was really my mom.
She wears navy slacks and a white button-up, which is disorienting, since she worked so many hours growing up I’m used to seeing her in scrubs.
Outside of them, she doesn’t quite look like herself.
“We heard you came back to Bonita Vista to perform at your high school.” My mother’s tone is accusatory.
“We haven’t seen you since Christmas, you won’t return our phone calls, but you’ll visit your friends.
” When I say nothing, she adds: “Your father and I decided enough was enough. If you won’t come to us, we’ll come to you.
” She squints at my house. “I’m surprised you still live here. ”
I look at my dad. The expression on his face is pained enough that I take a deep breath and do what a few months ago would’ve felt unimaginable. I tuck my hair behind my ears. “Well, now that you’re here . . . do you . . . want to come in?”
They still don’t move. “You know how I feel about smoking,” my mom says.
I do know. Sometimes, I think that’s why I still do it.
“It would be nice if you took a shower. Otherwise, I might get sick from the smell.”
“And they wonder,” I mutter to myself, heading for the door, “why I don’t call.”
*
I’m still towel-drying my hair when I find my parents standing in Ginny’s room.
It doesn’t surprise me that they’ve gravitated here, since I always do.
Neither of them says anything. Maybe they’re committing the details to memory, the phantom traces of Ginny’s hands on her desk, her thoughts in the sticky notes, even the lines of her body still visible in the dresses in the closet.
All this beautiful proof of her existence.
Mom frowns. “Why haven’t you boxed this room up? You could use it as an office. Or get a roommate to split the rent.”
Once again, I look to my father. He’s always been the romantic artist to my mother’s hard-nosed pragmatist, which historically always made him more likely to side with me. But right now, he can’t tear his eyes away from Ginny’s calendar.
Seeing them here in her room, it strikes me yet again how hard Ginny and I worked to be different from our parents.
They’ve always played by the rules—worked hard, paid their dues, readjusted their dreams to fit the scope of their lives.
Good, hardworking middle-class people, I guess.
But there’s an aura of disappointment that has always clung to them, a sense that their lives didn’t turn out the way they’d hoped.
Or maybe that’s my bias talking. In a lot of ways, it’s just as confusing to be around them at twenty-eight as it was at eight or eighteen.
I’m still torn between the urge to judge them and hope for a hug.
I close my eyes. I can practically hear Dr. X saying, We can learn new ways.
“Would you like to sit in the living room and talk?” I push the door open wider, resisting the urge to shoo them out. “I can make you some lemonade. Dad, I have the mix you like.”
He’s still stuck in front of Ginny’s calendar. His hand rises to his mouth. “She didn’t even get to take her test,” he whispers.
“What?”
“Dan.” A warning from my mother.
“What test?”
Dad points at Ginny’s calendar, open to June of last year.
The week-end she’d visited them—the weekend she died—is circled.
“D-Day,” he says, pointing to the tiny note she’d made in the corner of that Saturday.
I’d always assumed Ginny had written it as a joke—spending time with our parents was like going to war.
“Ginny was supposed to take the MCAT that weekend,” my dad says, and I swear I can hear my mother steeling herself. “But she never got the chance.”
That’s unbelievable. Yes, Ginny had been premed in college, but she’d ditched that path to be our band manager. It was yet another thing my mother held against me. “MCAT . . . as in the test people take . . . ”
“To get into med school.” My mom sighs. “Ginny was planning to apply.”
I laugh. “No, she wasn’t.” My parents are officially delusional. “Ginny was our manager, remember?”
For the first time since entering Ginny’s room, my father turns from the calendar. His expression makes me take a step back.
This would be a really good time for Ginny to materialize and clear things up. But she remains out of reach, like she’s been since the night I kissed Theo at the bonfire party.
My mom has always been good at delivering bad news. Just gets in there and rips off the Band-Aid. It used to drive me crazy as a kid—I used to want to shout, Feel something! Share my pain! But for the first time, I’m grateful for her bluntness.
“Ginny was doing a lot of thinking the last year of her life,” she says, without an ounce of feeling. “She was ready for a change. She decided she wanted to go to med school and become a doctor. Carve a new path in life that was all her own.”
“She was excited,” my dad adds. There are tears in his eyes. “About her future.”
There are some things that are simply too much to process, and the idea that Ginny was planning to abandon me is one of them. “No,” I repeat. “She wouldn’t have kept that a secret.”
“She was worried you’d be upset with her,” my mother says. “You know your sister never wanted to disappoint you.”
“That’s not true.” My voice is barely above a whisper. “We were working on new songs. We had big plans.”
My mother shifts. She and my father silently communicate. “She always wanted to be in medicine,” my mother says, still matter-of-fact.
“No.” I glare at her. “That’s what you wanted. Ginny wanted to be in the band.”
“No,” says my mother sharply. “That’s what you wanted.”
We stare at each other. “You’re lying,” I say.
“She spent her last eight months studying for the MCAT. Didn’t she, Dan?”
My father nods.
“She wanted to take the test in Bonita Vista so she wouldn’t have to worry about you finding out. She was trying to be considerate.”
I shake my head. “Stop.”
“I don’t get it, Hannah.” My mother’s tone is incredulous. “Can’t you appreciate that your sister wanted to be the star of her own life for once?”
The accusation is clear: I’d made my sister invisible while she was alive, always second to me. Ginny had hopes and dreams of her own, but she was afraid to tell me. I’d thought we were closer than any two people in the world.
Ginny appears by the foot of her bed. I’ve never seen her look so guilty.
I grip my hair. “Where have you been? You left me all alone.”
She shakes her head—a small, measured movement. “You weren’t alone.” “Hannah.” My mother’s voice is sharp. “Are you talking to us?” “Why did you keep this a secret from me?” I’m desperate for Ginny
to tell me I’ve misunderstood, that she was happy and my parents have lied. “What secret? Hannah Marie Cortland, who are you talking to?” my mother says.
“Why didn’t you tell me about the MCAT?”
The air in the room chills.
“Are you talking to your sister?” My mother presses her hand against my forehead. Her skin is cool and papery-thin. “She doesn’t have a fever.”
“You’re going to get yourself in trouble,” Ginny warns.
“Just tell me you weren’t planning a life without me,” I beg.
“Dan, get your keys,” my mom orders. “We need to take her to the hospital.” “I can’t,” Ginny whispers. I’m coming apart at the seams. I’ve tried so hard, for more than a year, to create the reality I need, but my effort hasn’t been enough. It’s still unraveling.
“She’s having some kind of breakdown,” my mom barks, and the seriousness of the word is what finally jolts me. I’ve slipped up and shown my parents my true self, and now they think there’s something wrong. Of course they do—they’ve always believed there was something wrong with me.
I spin to her. “Get out, Mom.”
“Listen to me. You need help.”
“Get out of my house.”
“Now, wait a minute—” my father tries.
“Now!” I leave them in Ginny’s room and head to the kitchen, flinging open the liquor cabinet and grabbing a handle of tequila, because beer won’t cut it. My parents sweep in after me.
“Hannah!” My mother is aghast at the bottle in my hand. “It’s two o’clock in the afternoon. This is not stable behavior.”
I blow past them to the front door and swing it open so hard it cracks against the drywall. “I never invited you here. And now I want you out.”
“You’re having a mental health crisis,” she insists, and the sudden gentleness of her tone, as if I’m a wild animal that must be treated cautiously, only further infuriates me.
It’s her nurse voice, which was always nicer than her mom voice.
“Put down the tequila and get in the car. We’re taking you to the hospital. ”
“Out!” I yell. “And don’t come back!”
I don’t care if my neighbors are watching out of their windows, or that my father has tears in his eyes, or that my mother has gone pale.
“We’re trying to help you,” she insists.
“Out!” I scream again.
She shakes her head, protesting, but my father seizes my mother’s arm and drags her out.
I slam the door behind them and lock the dead bolt, then slide to the floor.
“Ginny,” I call into the house, gripping my bottle. “We need to talk.”
But Ginny doesn’t come.