22) REFLEXIVELY
There would be no looking back on this and laughing. That’s what people always say, isn’t it? “Someday you’ll look back on this and laugh.” Easy for them to say. I hope they choke on their own advice.
Standing at the open door was like standing at the edge of the earth. I felt myself leaning forward into the April wind, wishing I could just jump—or better yet, just slip out of my body and drift away, leaving all the pain of the evening far behind.
The thing was, if I had found a way to escape— even for just a little while—I knew the pain would be there waiting for me when I got back.
But for now I was shell-shocked. It wasn’t quite escape, but it would have to do.
“Fine,” I said to the stupid, soulless wind, and went inside.
No one was in the kitchen when I returned, and I happily entertained the fantasy that Mom and Dad had been instantly vaporized by their own middle- aged angst and had taken Tennyson along with them. An evil thought, I know; but I was feeling evil down to the core right then—and perfectly entitled to the feeling.
I could hear the TV in the family room. Probably Tennyson. And I heard movement upstairs—Mom or Dad, but not both, because by now they would have retreated to their separate corners of the ring, probably finding the two farthest points in the house to lick their wounds.
And there in front of me were the ruins of the evening on our best china. The waste products of a dinner gone wrong.
I found myself cleaning up, because it was easier to do something simple like clearing the table than to analyze which level of hell I now resided in.
I wasn’t being as attentive as I should have been, however, because as I reached to grab the serving platter, my thumb sliced across the sharp edge of the carving knife. I reflexively drew back my hand, but it was too late; there was a half-inch gash on my palm, near the base of my left thumb, and it was already oozing blood.
“Crap!”
I grabbed it with my other hand and tried to stem the flow of blood, but it didn’t help. Blood dribbled in little vermillion drops all over the forsaken roast, blending in with the drippings.
And that’s when I started to cry.
Of all the stupid things. Never mind that my boyfriend just abandoned me and my family just auto- destructed—there I was, crying about that stupid, freaking roast.
“Bronte?” Tennyson stood in the doorway watching me bleed onto dinner. “What happened?”
I grabbed a cloth napkin from an untouched table setting, pressed it to my bleeding hand, and to my own embarrassment found myself whimpering like a child. “It’s all ruined, Tennyson,” I said. “Everything.”
“C’mon,” he said; and he grabbed my elbow, pulling me toward the bathroom.
He searched for Band-Aids in the medicine chest while I washed the wound, watching the pink water flow down the drain.
“Apply pressure,” he said.
“I know how to stop bleeding!” I snapped. “I took lifesaving, for God’s sake!”
“Okay, okay, I’m just trying to help.”
I cleaned it with peroxide, and he held out a Band-Aid. “At least let me help you put this on,” Tennyson said. “You can’t do it with one hand.”
So I held out my hand and let him stretch the bandage across the wound, smoothing out the adhesive strip.
“There,” he said. “I don’t think you’ll need stitches.”
I took a deep breath. “Thank you, Tennyson.”
“No problem.”
As much as we fought, I can’t deny that at times like this, there’s a closeness between us that I’ve always been grateful for.
We didn’t leave the bathroom. Instead, he closed the door and sat on the toilet lid while I stretched out in the dry bathtub. It wasn’t the most comfortable place for a sibling summit meeting, but there’s something comforting about the tight privacy of a family bathroom. Does that sound weird? I don’t care.
I told him all about how Brewster bailed.
He told me about the times he’d picked up the phone only to be hung up on—and the time he’d overheard Mom talking to someone, saying things she should be saying to no one but Dad.
“Mom has a boyfriend,” Tennyson said. So there it was, out in the open. No hints, just the plain, raw fact.
“It’s because of what Dad did last year, isn’t it?”
“Maybe,” said Tennyson. “Maybe not. Maybe it would have happened anyway.”
Mom and Dad had tried to keep it hidden last year, but Tennyson and I knew what Dad had done. We had been furious about it, because fathers are not supposed to have girlfriends—even if it’s only for a short time. Even if it’s only one time. They’re not supposed to, but sometimes they do. Fact of life. I don’t know the statistics. Maybe I should look them up.
So it happened, and Dad had been left with a choice. He could give her up, whoever she was, and then move heaven and earth to make things right with Mom. Or he could end the marriage. He’d chosen Mom—and Tennyson and I saw how he tried to make it up, not just to Mom, but to all of us. I guess that had been enough for us to forgive him—at least in part. I had thought it was the same with Mom. I never understood the depth of the wound.
All at once, I found my thoughts ricocheting to Brewster. As much as it hurt to think of him, it was easier than thinking about my parents. It was easier to condemn him for what he had done; and the more I thought about it, the angrier I got. I had reached out to save him from whatever terrible things were going on in his world; but when something went seriously wrong in mine, he didn’t just walk away, he ran.
“He just washed his hands of us,” I mumbled. “He washed his hands of me.”
“Did you expect him to be a model of mental stability?” Tennyson asked. “You don’t get a reputation as the resident creepy dude for nothing.”
Still, that wasn’t an excuse. There was no excuse for the way he behaved. If I could be sure of nothing else that evening, I could be sure of that.
“I hate him,” I said, and at the moment I meant it with all my heart. “I hate him.”
Beyond the bathroom wall, we heard the garage door grind open and a car started. Someone drove away. I didn’t know whether it was Mom or Dad. I didn’t want to find out.
“So, what happens now?” Tennyson asked. It surprised me, because between the two of us, he was always the one who pretended to have the answer.
“It’ll get worse before it gets better,” I said.
“The D word?”
“The S word first,” I pointed out. I couldn’t imagine our parents separating. Who would move out, Mom or Dad? Who would we live with? Did we get to choose? How could we possibly choose?
Tennyson and I didn’t talk anymore, because there was nothing left to say; but we didn’t leave the bathroom either, because this was, at least for the time being, our only place of safety. So we sat there in silence, wishing there was some way to sleep through whatever was to come. Wishing there was someone who could come and magically take away all the pain.
23) TRANSFERENCE
It’s strange how we always want other people to feel what we feel. It must be a basic human drive. Misery loves company, right? Or when you see a movie that you love, don’t you want to drag all your friends to see it as well? Because it’s only good the second time if it’s the first time for somebody else—as if their experience somehow resonates inside of you. The power of shared experiences. Maybe it’s a way to remind ourselves that on some level
