everyone would be safe. That was all that mattered.
6
Advice from a Dying Caterpillar
Dinner that evening proved to be a horribly tense affair. Nana had come home early and I hadn’t been there. She had worried. She’d called my cell a dozen times but I hadn’t answered. I had known she would insist on coming to get me, and my protests would have fallen on deaf ears. So I’d sent her straight to voice mail, listened to her messages and texted her back each time, telling her I was on my way and fine.
“What’s the point of having a cell phone if you’re not going to use it,” she muttered now.
“I did use it,” I said, my voice nasally. My nose was cold, wet and stuffed, and if I sneezed one more time, I’d hopefully blow the thing off my face. “I texted you.” Multiple times.
Her lined face scrunched in distaste, making her appear older than she really was. “And I had no idea how to respond! I’ve never typed anything but a number into my phone.”
“I’ll teach you the basics,” I said, the thought alone enough to make me nervous. I could already tell: there’d be lots of adjusting her reading glasses, repeating my instructions as if I’d spoken in Greek, until she finally asked me to write everything down in a language she could understand. But there wasn’t a language she would understand, so we’d never get anywhere.
“You’ll teach me?” Nana asked.
See? Repeating me already. “Yes.”
“You, a girl who doesn’t even have enough sense to stay out of the rain until I can come and get you?”
As if to emphasize my own stupidity, I sneezed. “Yes.”
“That’s it. I’m taking you to the doctor.” She tossed her napkin on the table. “You’ve probably given yourself pneumonia!”
“I’m not sick, Nana. Honest.” Wasn’t like I’d gone to a medical lab, asked for a dish of their tastiest virus and feasted.
She drew in a deep breath…released…then picked up her napkin. “All right. If you’re without a fever tomorrow, I’ll allow you to teach me how to text.”
Gee. Thanks. “So what did you do when Mom was late?” I pushed my peas around my plate with the prongs of my fork. “She never had a cell.”
Pops frowned at me. “Is that what today was about? Scaring us so that we’ll never take away your phone? Really, Ali. That was unnecessary. We wouldn’t do something like that to you.”
“That wasn’t what happened at all,” I said. “I just felt like walking.” And that was one hundred percent the truth. “With the thunder and the wind and the rain, I knew you wouldn’t be able to understand me if we spoke. Also, I was afraid I’d be struck by lightning and, if the phone was at my ear, electrocuted. Texting was the best option.” Again, truth—only stretched thin with the more pertinent details omitted.
“Well, don’t walk home again,” Pops said in that scolding voice. Scolding, and worried. Over the past few days, his comb-over had lost a few valiant soldier-strands desperately holding on to his scalp. Because of me? “I’m not trying to— What do teenagers say nowadays?” he asked my grandmother.
“Get all up in her biznez,” Nana said. Without cracking a smile.
“That’s right,” he replied. “We’re not trying to get all up in your biznez, Ali.”
Oh, wow. Okay. They were trying to relate to me right now. Had probably watched a news program about how to communicate with a teenager or something, and I’d bet they’d later spent hours in front of a computer screen, studying urban slang, muttering together as they deciphered words and discussed the best way to use them.
How…sweet.
Dang it! Their sweetness made me feel all kinds of guilty.
“Those woods are dangerous,” Pops continued. “Predators of the four-legged variety roam freely, and animal carcasses are found all the time.”
I recalled the Bride and Groom of Gore I’d seen. Or might not have seen. Whatever. They were predators of the two-legged variety, definitely, and I
“I’m sorry,” I said after another sneeze. “I really am.”
Nana muttered something else about pneumonia.
“I missed my bus,” I added, “and I didn’t want to bother you.” Another stretched truth. “It won’t happen again. I promise.” And that was the God’s honest truth, with no evasion. I’d never put them through a worry- wringer again.
“You aren’t a bother.” Nana reached over and patted my hand. “We love you and just want—” By then her chin was quivering too much for her to continue. Tears filled her eyes, but she swiftly wiped them away with the back of her hand. She cleared her throat. “Now, then.” Sniff, sniff. “You asked about your mother. Once she started dating your father, she stayed in most nights. And if they went out, he always had her home before dark. We were always so impressed by that and failed to realize… Well, never mind.”
Did they know why? Had
Oh, gross. Thinking of my parents that way…ick, just ick.
“Did Mom ever mention a friend whose last name was Holland?” I asked, recalling what Cole had said to me. Or had tried to say to me.
Nana’s lips pursed as she pondered my question. “Holland…Holland…no, that name doesn’t ring a bell.”
“Your mom was terribly shy. Didn’t make friends easily, truth be told. Didn’t date much, either,” Pops said, after swallowing a bite of roast. “In fact, your dad was the first boyfriend she ever had.”
My mom? Shy? To me, she’d always been effervescent, full of life. Just like Emma.
“Your dad made her laugh and was always convincing her to do such silly things,” Nana said with a soft smile. “One day, they dressed in the most hideous outfits I’d ever seen and went out to lunch. I’m sure people stared, but when they came back, they were laughing so hard your dad actually threw up.”
I could not imagine it. To me, he’d always been serious, a little too driven, even in his drunkenness.
We finished our dinner in silence, then I trudged to my bedroom. It was the only room on the second floor, and I had a bathroom of my own. My mom had spent her teenage years up here. How had she decorated the place? I wondered. After she’d moved out, Nana had boxed up her things and turned the space into first a playroom, then a sewing room and now a guest room.
Me, I hadn’t done any decorating at all. The walls were as bare as when I’d first moved in. I’d stashed the boxes of family pictures Nana had given me in my closet. I hadn’t opened them, hadn’t hung a single frame. Heck, I hadn’t even glanced at them. The most I’d done was go through my mom’s old things, and only because Nana had dug them out. I think she’d been trying to reconnect with the child she’d lost.
Reconnect. Something I’d never truly tried, the sadness that came with such an attempt overwhelming me, stopping me. But I should push through that sadness, shouldn’t I? Otherwise, I would forever be a bad daughter and a terrible sister. I mean, I’d built my new life around the concept that my mom, dad and sister had never existed, yet they so deserved better. At the very least, they deserved recognition, a place of honor.
Time to pull on those big-girl panties.
I flopped in front of the closet, and with blind eyes and hands no longer operating under my control I burrowed through the box closest to the door. As I withdrew a stack of frames, dust wafted and had me sneezing all over again. But no, I did not have pneumonia or even a cold. And okay, yes, my body grew warmer with every second that passed, as if I was indeed developing a fever, but that stemmed from emotion not a virus.
Tears I hadn’t realized had formed trickled down my cheeks, and my vision finally cleared. And there was my mother, looking adorable in a metallic gold dress with her hair teased into what could only be called the Rat’s Nest look. But what a lovely, glowing smile she had. And there was my dad, cute and lanky in a black tux, with a spray- painted-gold flower hooked to his lapel, his arm wrapped around Mom’s waist. He had a fierce,
