“The least likely crowds to be on drugs,” Sadie says.
“Didn’t matter. The school wanted to test as many kids as they could. That way the spotlight would be off the football team.”
“Who was your client?”
“I represented a young musician. A Korean American girl about your age. She played trumpet in the band and refused to be tested.”
“Why? Was she on drugs?”
“As a matter of fact, she was. She took pills to treat her depression. In her community, mental illness of any kind was considered shameful. My client wanted her situation to stay private. She also wanted to keep doing the one thing that brought her joy: playing music for her school.”
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons . . . against unreasonable searches . . . shall not be violated . . . but upon probable cause,” Sadie says.
Mr. Kalman’s whole face lights up. “You didn’t just memorize,” he says.
“So did you win the case?” I ask.
He’s my lawyer, after all. I’ve got to know his track record.
“The ruling was five to four, Sam. In favor of the school.”
“But that’s wrong,” Sadie says. “It’s unfair.”
“The Supreme Court is the last hope, Sadie. It isn’t always the best.”
There’s a knock on Mr. Kalman’s door and I already know who it’s going to be. We’ve been here since four and it’s past ten, and sure enough when I open the door, it’s Mom.
“It’s late, Mr. Kalman,” she says. “The kids need to get to bed.”
12
Sadie versus Mom
Here’s what Sadie and Mom usually fight about:
Clothes.
“You’re wearing that to a study session?”
“What’s wrong with spaghetti straps and jean shorts?”
“I didn’t know you were taking anatomy.”
Food.
“That’s nowhere near enough dinner, Sadie.”
“I’ll eat a second banana in an hour.”
“Empty stomach, empty head.”
“Full stomach, sleepy head. Sleepy head, no homework done.”
Coffee.
“What’s left in the pot is mine!”
“Do you have twenty lines of Latin to translate for tomorrow?”
“No.”
“Then I get the last sip.”
Laundry.
“I am not your maid!”
“I thought you wanted me to wear more clothes.”
Sadie’s bedroom floor.
“Clean it up! It’s a pigsty!”
“What’s the difference? I keep the door shut.”
“I can’t afford to call the exterminator again.”
Lately they’ve had something new to fight about.
“Your English teacher emailed. You’re two papers behind.”
“I’ll do them over the weekend.”
We just came inside. Mom is standing at the bottom of the stairs, her arms folded, all stiff like an exclamation point again.
“Sam, go upstairs, brush your teeth, and get to bed.”
I follow the first instruction. From my perch on the third step from the top, I hear Mom tell Sadie she got a grade alert on her phone. “You have an F on your last chem lab.”
“Those labs take too much of my time right now.”
“And your Common App essay? Is that taking too much of your time too?”
“It’s not due till January.”
“If you don’t keep your eye on the ball, Sadie, someone else will catch it.”
“What does that even mean?”
“It means I wonder if you’ve got your priorities straight. Late papers and a last-minute essay won’t get you into half the schools on your list.”
“Then I’ll aim for the other half. It’s my future. If I’m spending my time the wrong way, it’s on me. Not you.”
Then Mom says she feels responsible for that future. She feels responsible, she says, to Sadie’s mom.
“Don’t you think Emily would have pushed you too?”
It gets very quiet on the stairs.
According to Bernice, everybody has a button. Push it, and the fight begins. Families get in fights, she says, not because everybody knows everybody’s business. It’s because everybody knows everybody’s buttons.
Mine is homework, as we all know.
Sadie’s is her mom.
She almost never talks about Emily, but I know she thinks about her a lot. On the rare occasions when she leaves her door open and I happen to be walking by, I sometimes see her standing at her dresser and looking through a picture album from when she was zero, one, two, three, four, and five. Not that I’ve actively peeked at the photo album, but there was one time when she forgot to triple lock her door, and I went in just to be sure there wasn’t anything spontaneously alive on the floor, and accidentally I noticed the album.
Emily had long curly hair. In one picture she’s standing up in a cable car in San Francisco, holding Sadie’s hand, her hair trailing them like a scarf. Dad must’ve been the photographer. I think they were on vacation, but one thing I notice in the pictures is that Sadie’s mom is always dressed like she’s ready for work. If I didn’t know better, I’d say Mr. Kalman took her shopping too.
I guess it’s not surprising that Sadie feels closer to Dad than she does to Mom. Mom would never let it show, but I think it makes her a little sad. Whenever we’re out somewhere, the four of us together, like in a movie line or waiting to pay for stuff at Costco, I notice how we fall into the same spots, me next to Mom next to Dad next to Sadie. Or me next to Sadie next to Dad next to Mom. And on special occasions when we go out for dinner, Dad always asks if we can have a booth. He says he likes the coziness of it. And when we get to the table, Mom always says, “Sadie, why don’t you slide in next to your dad?”
It’s little things like these that make me feel Sadie’s mom is here and not here at the same time.
The long silence ends when I hear Mom say, “I’m just trying to be the mother she would have been.”
“You can’t be the mother she would have been, Jenny. So please don’t try.”
Four thousand years ago, I’m pretty sure
