Counting Back from Nine Read online

In the cafeteria I move slowly

  as I pass the table where Morgan

  and the others

  are sitting. They stop talking and

  look down.

  I have entered a dead zone,

  a pocket of silence surrounded by

  a thrum of voices.

  I keep moving. I try to trick myself into

  believing I was not hoping for

  an invitation.

  I am sliding through the afternoon when

  it strikes. A jolt, a flood.

  I run out of class with words

  pounding in my brain.

  my father is dead

  my father is dead

  my father is dead

  I am bent in half over the sink when

  Christine Oakey comes in. She speaks quietly.

  “I thought you might not want to be alone.”

  She’s wrong. That is exactly what I want.

  But the cool, wet paper towel she passes me

  feels good pressed to my eyes.

  “I need to go home,” I say.

  She nods and says she’ll let our teacher know.

  Problem

  Mom is not at home.

  The secretary is sympathetic but she cannot

  let me leave the school without a parent’s consent.

  She tells me I can go to the sick room or the library.

  I choose the library and wander aimlessly until

  my attention is caught by a display of student work.

  There, in the centre, is a book of stories and poems

  published as a fundraising project.

  Mom and Dad bought one for every

  relative they could think of because

  one of my poems is in there.

  I take it down, and flip it open to ‘my’ page.

  To Tristan from Isolde

  by Laren Olivier

  Where your thoughts wander, my love, my own

  Away and away and away

  Take me there with you, leave me not

  For I am a child of the moon begot

  Here in the dark, with the lamp forgot

  Here with a song that the faeries brought

  Here, but not bound to stay.

  Where your steps wander, with dreams their guide

  Hillside and rock and stream

  Think mine beside you, quick and free

  Farther and farther, yet held in me

  And deep in your heart—where the shadows flee

  For what shines within you will always be

  As bright as the moon’s own beam.

  Where your heart wanders and finds its rest

  Is the home that belongs to me,

  For I dwell in safety within your hold

  Trembling bravely, shy and bold

  With a love that can try but can never be told

  Captured on pages with ink gone cold

  Steady and yours and free.

  7

  A memory that is still warm rises from the page:

  Dad insisting that I read my poem aloud for the family.

  When I finished they clapped and Mom

  said it was very good. But Dad

  didn’t say anything. Not a word.

  His eyes were misty as he put his hands

  on my shoulders. He shook his head back and forth and

  his face said can you believe it? as he

  hugged me to him.

  Glancing down now, I see several

  wet and puckered circles

  on the open pages.

  I look at them curiously

  as though someone else’s sorrow has left these

  wrinkled splotches on the

  ill-fated lovers.

  Home

  Mom is working late,

  catching up after her week off.

  She says to order a pizza and use

  Dad’s bank card to pay.

  She tells me the PIN number is 1027.

  My birthday and Jackson’s.

  There is a glove around

  my heart.

  Squeezing.

  A Different Delivery

  One of Dad’s co-workers is at the door,

  dropping by, dropping off Dad’s briefcase

  so Mom won’t need to pick it up.

  Tucked inside the soft, worn leather of the case

  is a small package. Something Ordered but as yet

  Unopened. Mom’s face is pale as she pulls out a

  velvet box. Lifting the lid, her fingers tremble.

  Mom says that my birthday is coming up. She says

  This must have been a surprise planned for me.

  The bracelet is beautiful and elegant and

  unlike anything I have ever owned.

  Here After

  It bothers me when Jackson

  has a question and I

  don’t have an answer.

  Not just because I’m older

  (and should obviously know more)

  but because it is hard to face the disappointment

  he can’t quite hide.

  That is why, when he asks, “Is there really a heaven, and

  is our dad there?” I hate it that I have to say,

  “I don’t know.” Which makes me

  wonder why I don’t, at the very least,

  know what I believe.

  Mom and Dad always said we could

  make up our own minds when we were older.

  That is not much help right now.

  Every Cloud

  Morgan is coming over!

  And I know—I know that

  this sounds

  horrible, but

  this is the one

  good thing

  that came out of

  my father dying.

  It is the strangest feeling

  when joy and sorrow both

  have claws on your heart.

  Mixed Messages

  Morgan is hardly through the door

  when she tells me she

  can only stay for an hour.

  “I promised Mom I’d do something.”

  It is the “something” that hurts because it means

  she couldn’t even be bothered to

  come up with a convincing lie.

  Not that I want a lie from her. But,

  when I raise an eyebrow,

  a red cloud of anger floats

  across her face. She knows me

  well enough to see the accusation

  in this small gesture.

  We stare at each other, assessing

  the rules that govern what we

  can and cannot say

  in the frame of this new beginning.

  The clock slows as

  we step around our words

  and I have to admit that there is

  a sense of relief

  when she leaves.

  I push away the disappointment.

  We just need to give it more

  time.

  Comfort Zone

  When I am with Scott there is a kind of

  danger lurking in me, a reckless need to

  wash away the pain.

  It is with him that I find

  places and moments where

  tears and sadness are trespassers.

  Places where

  reality has floated

  into the air and away

  and every thought, every feeling

  gives way to the travelling warmth of his touch.

  That is when the blurring

  begins, and I am glad that

  my back is pressed against anything

  that is not a wall.

  Drama

  It is Wednesday and I am making

  my way through the cafeteria when

  Tessa Landau hurls herself across

  the length of several tables to

  put herself in my path.

  “I hope this won’t freak you out,” she says,

  “but I think I
was one of the last few people to

  see your father alive.”

  I stare, which is all the encouragement

  she needs. Her face puts on a display

  of sadness and she says,

  “I saw the accident. Your dad was

  alive then. I heard he died on his

  way to the hospital.”

  “You heard wrong,” I tell her.

  “My father died later.

  From complications.

  I was there.”

  I want to be sure that she knows

  I saw him after she did.

  “I’m glad you got to see him,” Tessa says.

  Then she adds, “And I’m glad your mom

  wasn’t hurt too badly.”

  “If you were really there,” I say,

  “you would know that my

  mother wasn’t even in the accident.”

  “Of course she was,” Tessa insists.

  “I saw her with my own eyes. I saw them

  get her out of the car and put her

  on a stretcher.”

  This careless lie disgusts me.

  She is turning my father’s

  death into a bid for attention

  I walk away because I am too

  furious to trust my mouth.

  Counselling

  Someone-who-is-not-me

  has decided I should be sent to the

  private psychologist who books

  appointments at the school one day a week.

  So here I am, sitting through

  Dr. Socorro’s Psychological Sales Pitch.

  “A traumatic event, blah, blah

  you may be feeling blah, blah

  well-meaning friends,

  cannot fully understand blah, blah

  isolation, blah, death, blah, range of

  thoughts and feelings.”

  My eyes trail around the room, lighting

  without any real interest on

  muted prints and paintings.

  The brakes come on when I realize he is

  repeating a question he has just asked.

  “So, Laren, do you think that it would be

  beneficial for us to meet once a week?”

  My brain says, “Not even a little bit,” but my

  mouth goes, “I guess,” before I can stop it.

  It’s kind of pathetic, how pleased he looks.

  Lucky he doesn’t read minds

  or he’d know that while he

  writes up my appointment card, I am

  already planning my escape.

  Looking In

  I am horrid because

  some days

  I hate eating lunch

  with Christine and Dee.

  They are always

  Perfectly Friendly. But I

  am the Intruder.

  An Outsider

  who has been granted entrance to

  a slightly foreign land.

  Sometimes I watch their mouths move as

  they talk or chew or smile. It is oddly like

  watching a silent movie. That makes me wonder if

  I’m going crazy. Maybe it won’t be long before the

  student eNews has its first interesting heading.

  “Girl Suffers Psychotic Break while Eating Curly Fries!”

  When the House Smells Good

  I know before I see her.

  Aunt Rita is here.

  I know from the cooking smells

  and lemony cleaning smells.

  My sheets are changed,

  the bathroom sink is shiny,

  and at dinner we will not have to

  try to think of things to say to

  silence the terrible echo

  of silence.

  Lies in my Locker

  I think it must have been Nina.

  Yes, Nina. Who else would make up

  something this mean and write it on a

  piece of paper and stick it in my locker

  like a coward?

  “Your father got in that accident because he was busy

  with his hand up his girlfriend’s skirt.”

  Test

  I walk slowly past the table where my

  once-upon-a-time friends are eating

  their lunch. I give them plenty of

  time to betray themselves with

  giggles and knowing looks. I

  watch to see if they huddle

  together in that certain way

  that friends do when they are

  gathered around a secret.

  If the author of that terrible note is

  among them, they somehow manage

  to keep from giving it away.

  I am not convinced.

  Socorro

  I forget my first appointment, so the office secretary

  buzzes Mrs. Duthie’s class to remind me.

  I feel eyes following me as I

  gather up my books and slink out.

  Socorro’s face lights up when he sees me. I bet

  he’s thinking how rewarding it will be to

  haul me back from whatever ledge he thinks I’m on.

  At least the chair is comfortable. I settle into it as

  Socorro tells me I can discuss anything I want.

  “It will be held in the strictest of confidence,

  unless there’s a crime involved, in which case

  I have to report it,” he tells me. “Although, I can

  let you off with jaywalking or littering.”

  It isn’t much of a joke but I award a smile for the effort.

  When I ask what I should talk about

  I am sure he will answer, “About your father’s

  death, of course. That is why we are here.”

  Except, he tells me, “You can talk about

  anything you like.”

  It feels like I am picking my way along on

  spongy ground. When I think about it later,

  the only thing I can remember saying was that

  a neighbour’s dog has been barking at night,

  making it hard to get to sleep.

  Discarding Dad

  Mom has thrown out or given away most of my father’s things.

  She boxed it all up and sent it to Goodwill or

  wherever it is that you send dead people’s clothes.

  Jackson got Dad’s watch and it was like it didn’t even matter

  if he took care of it. The next day he had it on

  in the backyard when he was goofing around

  with one of his friends.

  I yelled at him to

  take it off but Mom said to

  leave him alone. She said it was his

  and he could do whatever he liked with it.

  It serves him right that it went

  missing later that day.

  A Visit from Morgan

  Did you know that there is a

  way of smiling

  that says, as loud

  as a shout,

  “I do not

  really

  want to be

  here.”

  Locked Out

  Jackson is sitting on the front step when I

  get home from school today.

  He is sitting there because the door is

  locked.

  When I join him, he gets up and

  begins pacing

  back and forth

  back and forth

  back and forth

  across the driveway,

  which is irritating until

  I realize that he is

  watching for Mom

  and he is

  afraid.

  I want to promise him that

  she will come, that

  nothing will happen to her, but

  the words won’t come.

  When Mom finally shows up I

  give her a helping of the

  open, honest feelings she is

  always askin
g for. And she says,

  “I am too tired to fight with you today, Laren.”

  Like objecting to being

  locked out of my own house

  is unreasonable.

  Under Glass

  Later, there is a gift.

  Not a peace offering or an apology token.

  A real gift, planned and prepared for reasons

  unrelated to a locked door.

  Mom taps at my door. She enters looking

  nervous. Her hand clutches a frame, picture side

  away from me. She clears her throat and sits

  on the bed next to me before

  placing it gently into my hands.

  I am expecting to see my Dad’s face

  but my eyes find

  both of us,

  a summer vacation moment

  captured

  when I was thirteen.

  Mom and her telephoto lens had

  found us in a canoe on the river.

  We are paddling toward shore and although we

  are not smiling, our faces are full of joy.

  I cannot tear my eyes away from it.

  I want to tell Mom how perfect it is

  but all I can squeeze out of my throat is,

  “Thanks.”

  Her hand lights like a butterfly on

  my arm. She smiles as she

  slips out of my room.

  Like all of her smiles lately, it

  contradicts itself.

  6

  I could tell you that my father

  saved my life that summer

  but I won’t because I don’t know for sure

  whether I would have drowned if