Chapter Twenty-Five
Twenty-Five
I wake up to someone shrieking at full blast. No, not someone. Something. Our security alarm is shrill and banshee-like, and given that it’s an hour before my typical wake-up time on a weekday, I jump out of bed, terrified.
I grab a baseball bat from the linen closet, where I’ve always had one stashed just in case, and rush into Mom’s room. But her bed is empty.
“Mom?” I whisper in case the burglar is close by. “Mom!”
Did Mom never come home last night? Or has someone already gotten to her?
My heart is beating so hard I feel like it might explode out of my chest.
“Ahh!” When I hear a squeal from downstairs, all thought for myself flees, and I storm down the steps ready to go to bat (literally) for my mom.
But when I burst into the kitchen, the air is smoky and Mom is already in there, fanning below the alarm with an oven mitten.
It’s the smoke alarm, not the security alarm.
Most disconcerting is that she’s still in her pajamas and there’s a glass of red wine in her hand.
I stand there, simply unable to comprehend the sight in front of me. “Mom,” I say, “what are you doing?”
“I don’t know!” she says, harried. “It won’t shut up!”
And then she takes another sip from her wineglass.
“You need to open a window,” I say.
“Really?” she says, abandoning the fanning. I rush for the window myself.
Fresh air moves into the smoke-filled room, gradually making it more breathable and less cloudy. Then, finally, the alarm stops.
“Mom,” I say, looking at her. She is still holding the wineglass. “What is going on?”
“I’m so sorry. Did that wake you?” she asks, as though it is remotely possible a single human being could have slept through that ruckus. “I was just trying to make breakfast, which I know I haven’t done in some time, but I don’t remember it being this hard.”
And then she does the most unthinkable thing: She giggles.
“I need to sit down,” I say, grabbing the nearest counter stool.
“Aw, I feel so bad. Will you get back to sleep?”
“I usually don’t,” I tell her. Once I’m awake, I’m up for the day.
It’s the kind of minor detail a mother should know, but the thing about us is that while Mom focuses on the big picture—the overall problem—the tiny details are up to me.
I’ve done my own hair since I was a kid.
I picked out my own outfits. Made my own breakfast and snacks, especially after Dad left.
“Why aren’t you getting ready for work?”
Why aren’t you at work? is a better question.
Mom sighs. Then walks over and takes the stool next to mine.
“I wanted to make breakfast and talk to you about life over food the way we did with big things when you were younger. Remember?” I frown because she never used to do that.
Dad used to do that. He did it when my grandpa died.
He did it when he told me he and Mom were having problems. But I get the feeling she needs to believe this, so I let her.
“Yeah?” I say.
“There’s been…” She sighs again. Puts down her glass of wine. “I made a mistake.”
At first, I’m sure I’ve misheard her.
“You did what?”
“I screwed up,” she says. “Made a mess of everything. I’m turning my resignation in to the city this afternoon, effective immediately.”
My heart rolls into my stomach, or maybe it’s just my stomach that rolls. Either way, my organs shift out of place because this is the single most insane thing I’ve ever heard in my life.
“Are you drunk?”
“Honestly, maybe a little,” she says, the most sober she’s sounded all this morning. “But that’s the story. I wanted you to hear it from me first.”
I can’t stop shaking my head, and now a cold panic is starting to set in. My mom has lost her mind. She’s having a breakdown.
Who do I call if my mom has a breakdown? I no longer have a father, another parent.
I almost start bawling on the spot, but instead I manage to speak over the lump in my throat. Stay strong, Zadie. Just fix it. “This isn’t making any sense.”
“The thing…I guess…” Mom is stalling like she doesn’t want to have to say the words.
Normally I would fill them in, help her where she needs it.
But not this morning. I have to understand what’s happening.
“I had a workplace…relationship. It went south some months ago. I didn’t expect Brian to threaten to go to the media—Brian, of all people… ”
“Who is Brian?”
Mom laughs. Actually laughs, like there’s anything funny or remotely normal about any of this. “A junior staffer. We had…a connection.”
I cover my face with my hands. This can’t be happening. It really can’t.
“If you resign, everyone is going to know.”
Mom stares at me for a second and then touches my cheek. “Oh, honey,” she says, all tenderness. “I’m so sorry.”
“Everyone at school. All the teachers, the parents, your friends. My friends. Your constituents. Your constituents, Mom.”
I emphasize that word in the hopes it will reach her. That is a word my mother knows. Even in a breakdown, she will correct her posture, put on her lipstick, and deliver if there is even one constituent involved.
She nods. “By next week, yes,” she says. “Or even as early as this afternoon, if it leaks.”
“How is this happening?” I ask, looking around at the room instead of her. I am positively and completely mystified.
“How could this have happened? You’ve blown up our lives!” The explosion comes out of me without my permission, and I want to apologize, take it back, make amends. But if I do, she won’t know how serious this is. I don’t think she gets how serious this is.
How can my mother, Wendy Cartwright, not understand the gravity of a situation like this?
And then to my shock and absolute horror, she loses it.
“I’m such an idiot,” she says, bursting into tears. “Such a fool. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
She covers her face with her hands and just starts to weep, quiet shuddering breaths and heaving shoulders.
I can’t move at first.
And then I reach for her.
“Mom,” I say, panicked. “Mom, it’s okay.”
“It’s really not,” she says, still crying. “My whole career is over. You’re going to have to deal with the fallout—we both will. I was just so fucking stupid.”
I’ve never heard her curse before. Never heard her break down like this.
Heart beating wildly, I pry her hands from her face.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” I promise, even though I know it’s not. She’s right that her career is over. She’s right that we’re both going to have to deal with the fallout. And it’s going to be painful. Especially in this town, with these people, who have always viewed us as other.
I run for a box of tissues, a glass of water.
Mom blows her nose, and finally, finally, she can speak again. “I just don’t know what to do from here. What do I do?”
For one second, I’m afraid she’s really asking me.
Asking who and what she is now without the career she has worked so hard for, because the truth is that I don’t really know.
I am afraid, in my heart of hearts, that she is ruined.
But I don’t want to tell her that.
I can’t.
She wipes at her eyes, sips her water again. We’re silent for the next two minutes, and then I say, “I have to get ready for school.”
“Of course,” Mom says.
“I love you, and we’ll be okay,” I tell her, because it feels like the right thing to say. She squeezes my hand, then lets go.
I mean it when I say those words, but by the time I get upstairs, shock and weariness have given way to anger. No, not anger. Fury.
I’m furious that she screwed us over like this, that she’s going to make us the talk of the town for the next however many months.
She’s blown up everything she’s worked for, everything we’ve worked for.
What was the point of it all, if she threw it away just for one short relationship? Some random guy I don’t even know.
I scrub hard at my skin in the shower, get dressed, come back down. She’s still sitting in the same spot. The water I got her is gone, but her wineglass is fuller than when I saw it last.
“Zadie,” Mom says, looking a little more like herself. “Why don’t you stay home today? Maybe we can come up with a game plan.”
She looks so small, so hopeful, and that, too, makes me angry.
She’s screwed us over, and I can’t even be furious and yell at her. I have to comfort her.
“I can’t do that. People are going to notice if I’m not there.”
“Maybe they’ll think that you are ill?” Mom offers. “I can call the school. I can tell them you woke up with a sore throat.”
In eighteen years, Mom has never offered to let me play hooky.
Unless I was actually sick, she’s never deemed one of my personal crises important enough for me to stay home and watch TV all day.
Dad let me once, when my second-grade friends turned on me for a couple of days, and my mother flipped out.
Went on a rant about how we had to deal with things, not just run away from them.
Now, because it’s something that affects her, it’s worth staying home for.
“It’s fine,” I say, turning around to leave.
Then I stop.
“And, Mom? I think I want to take a gap year.”
I shut the door before I can see or hear her reaction.
I hadn’t planned to announce this. The thought hadn’t really even consciously crossed my mind, but as soon as I say it, I know it’s the right decision.
The fact is that I don’t know what I want to do next.
Knowing what other people think I should do next, even knowing the objective best thing to do next, is not enough.
I have to make the decision based on who I am, what I want, and as Dad would say, what I love.
I wish having clarity on this one issue would solve everything, but it doesn’t.
The drive to school feels nonexistent. One second I’m getting into my car; the next I’m getting out of it.
I genuinely can’t tell how I got to school, but I pull down my mirror before I get out of my car.
Since the autumn rain stopped a few days ago, the sun is bright again, good for light but not quite heat.
I wipe the last few tears off my face, double-check my makeup, and paste the most natural-looking smile I can manage on my face.
I’m wearing a vintage choker today, because it feels impossible to breathe.
All the way into the school building, every glance my way is a potential threat. Do they know about Mom?
I don’t think anyone knows.
At least for today, nobody knows.
When I get to my locker, my heart drops. Marcus is leaning against it, waiting. He gives me something that isn’t quite a smile or a frown. It’s a searching look, an appraising look.
I don’t meet his eyes.
“Do you need something?” I say as I wait for him to move so I can grab my books.
“We should probably talk about what happened…” he begins.
“It shouldn’t have happened,” I say.
Marcus looks closer at me, takes a step forward. “Hey, are you okay?” He is so gentle. And he’s paying attention to what I’m not saying as well as what I am.
“Please don’t ask me that,” I say, my voice a warble. “I can’t here.”
“Then where?” he asks. “Do you want to take off for a…” He puts his hand on my shoulder.
“I’m serious, Marcus.” I lower my voice. “No.”
No to talking. No to taking off for a bit. No to us. No to everyone talking, gossiping, judging. No to more dreams. No to kissing, hugs, fairs. Just no.
He backs off. He lets me go.
Mo isn’t here today, so as soon as school finishes, I text her.
SOS
I don’t even wait for her response before I start driving.