Between Here and Forever

can I not crack when I have al these unknowns? How can I not crack when Tess’s being taken out of the hospital? When she’s being written off?

How can I stay whole when everything has changed so much, so fast?

“I—you’re real y doing it? You’re wil ing to say this is it, this is the rest of her life, forever lying in a bed somewhere not seeing the world, not seeing anything?”

“Abby, honey, we’re only moving her,” Mom says at the same time Dad says, “Abby, it’s not like—you know it’s not like that. Tess could wake up, she could. But we—”

He breaks off then, and looks at Mom.

“We’re moving her,” he final y says, his voice very soft. “We have to. She’s just—” He clears his throat. “She’s just not ready to come back. At least not now.”

I can’t believe this is happening. Why now, when I see that I’ve been so wrong about Tess, that I don’t even know her at al ? I mean, her whole life; al the plans and excitement about seeing guys, about talking to them, al of that—al of them—meant nothing to her, but Claire—Claire meant everything. Tess and Claire were together, and Dad found out and Tess asked Claire to …

Wait.

“Hold on. You said Tess told Claire to leave when you—when you found them?” I ask Dad, and just like that dinner col apses. Oh, we’re stil here and the food is stil here, but nobody’s eating now, and the tension I was sure would be here before is out now, smothering the room in silence.

It stays like that, so quiet—too quiet—for a long time, and then Mom puts her fork down, pretense done.

“Tess didn’t—she said she wasn’t …” And my mother—my always together, always polished mother—gestures at the air helplessly, like the words she’s looking for are just out of reach.

“She said she wasn’t a lesbian,” Dad says, and when Mom looks at him, he says, “We have to tel her everything, Katie.”

“Tel me everything?” What else could there be?

Dad pushes his plate away. “Your sister wasn’t—she wasn’t comfortable talking about her sexuality.”

Wel , there’s a word I don’t ever want to hear Dad say again. He must somehow know I’m thinking it too, because he gives me a smal , sad half smile and says, “Tess looked at me like you just did whenever I tried to talk to her. Said she and Claire were friends, and the way I understood the world had changed.”

“But—”

“But they were more than friends,” Mom said. “We could see that. Tess and Claire spent so much time together, and neither of them ever dated anyone else, not seriously, but Tess would never talk to us, never—”

“Never admit it?” I say, and Mom shakes her head.

“It’s not that simple, Abby. She eventual y told me she did have feelings for Claire but that she—she was afraid.”

“Afraid?” I say, and then think about Claire. About Cole. “Oh. She was afraid Claire didn’t—?”

“I don’t know—no, that’s not true,” Mom says, and folds her hands together. “I don’t think she was afraid that Claire didn’t care about her too. She knew that she did. I think Tess was afraid that if she—”

“Came out?”

“No,” Dad says, touching Mom’s hands briefly. “She was afraid that if she admitted she loved Claire, she would lose her. Your sister was—she had some problems.”

“Like being afraid to come out?”

Dad shakes his head, and Mom knots her hands together so tightly her knuckles go stark white, bloodless. When she speaks, she sounds like she’s trying not to cry. “She … Tess was a lot like my mother. Even as a child she could be so happy one minute, and then the next she’d pul away from the world.”

She looks at Dad, who nods at her, and Mom closes her eyes.

When she opens them, they are wet with unshed tears. “Do you remember when Tess went to see the col ege admissions counselor during her senior year?”

I shrug, but I remember. How could I not? She pitched such a fit about everything, and my parents wanted to help her get into the school she wanted to go to, wanted to—

Wanted to help her.

“Oh,” I say. “So senior year, she wasn’t—al those times she went to talk about getting into col ege, she wasn’t talking about col ege at al , was she?”

“You must have noticed how she acted after Claire got pregnant,” Dad says. “She was—”

“Upset,” I say, and think of how Tess’s sometimes moodiness had come more often and gotten stronger, worse. Al those things she did—like the meatbal s, that sudden furious, frightening outburst—and I never thought —

“I didn’t know,” I say. “I thought … She was Tess. She always—everyone said she was so amazing. So perfect.”

“She wasn’t,” Dad says. “She was … she was very unhappy.”

“But she got better,” I say. “Right? She went to school and met Beth and—” I pause, look at Mom and Dad. “Did she ever tel you that she and Beth were together?”

“No,” Mom says. “We’d hoped she would, but I guess after Claire she was—I think maybe she was afraid she’d get her heart broken again.”