Counting Back from Nine Read online

  he hadn’t been there.

  Mom had told us a dozen times:

  Whatever you do, stay close to shore

  but I decided she only meant Jackson.

  I was old enough to look after myself. Until,

  that is, the shore slid farther and farther away and

  the tide started an argument that it seemed likely to win.

  Panic was closing its fingers around my chest when

  I heard my name and saw my father,

  running toward the water.

  Then I knew I was safe.

  Two other memories cling to that one.

  The way he clasped me to him. And

  Mom scolding that I had put us both at risk.

  But that was not true. He put himself

  at risk. To save me.

  Curious Companions

  I have begun to think of them as

  The Opposites—my new lunch-mates.

  Dee, the scattered, frenetic chatterer

  and Christine, quiet, serene and steady.

  That makes me wonder what invisible forces

  are at play, creating friendships that

  should not work.

  But do.

  It’s an idea I never gave much thought

  before because I always knew why

  I was friends with Morgan

  and Angie and

  Nina.

  Ducky Scott

  I’m walking with Scott by the pond in Elmwood Park, when

  a mother duck and her parade of fluffy young

  waddle past and slip into the pond like

  they’re entering on a water slide.

  Surrounded by her babies, Mom begins to

  quack and Scott insists that she is

  bragging about her kids.

  He drops to the ground, lying flat,

  (on her level, he says) and then

  he quacks back at her, all the while,

  translating their “conversation” for me.

  I join him, flooded with joy, with laughter,

  until there is no room for

  anything else.

  Socorro

  You’d think a head doctor would give you some

  advice, but all I get are questions. They

  sneak up on me, like some kind of

  pop-up therapy. Today, he starts off with,

  “Can you tell me why you think you’re here?”

  “Because my father died?” I say. And even though

  I am sure that is the right answer, he waits. Silently.

  I am certain that this is something he learned in

  Psychology School. It must be one of the ways patients

  are tricked into revealing things they would rather

  keep to themselves.

  “I am not going to talk about my father,” I tell him after I think

  he has waited long enough. “Not to a stranger. It’s too personal.”

  “That is always your choice,” he tells me.

  Sadness Schedule

  Ms. Ardena’s arms are crossed over her chest.

  “We have been more than patient with you,”

  she says. “Now the time has come for you

  to get back on track.”

  I sound like a derailed train, which might not

  be all that far off. I wonder,

  but am not foolish enough to ask,

  if she is speaking for all of my teachers.

  Apparently, there is a limit to how much

  slack I can expect to be cut, and that limit

  has been reached. By my calculations, the

  magic number is seventeen school days.

  Food Fight

  Jackson has decided

  to become a vegetarian and

  Mom has decided

  that he will eat what she tells him to eat.

  “No way am I going to start cooking

  separate meals for you, buster,” she says.

  “I have enough on my plate as it is.”

  (Which, I alone find funny.)

  I wonder where this idea came from

  or how it is that our own mother seems

  oblivious to how stubborn Jackson can be

  when he’s pushed.

  Finding a Voice

  He might deserve some of the

  credit so I have decided to tell

  Socorro about the idea I got at

  our last session. Writing has

  always been the one thing that

  works for me. It is an outlet, a

  sort of blood-letting, only what

  I am letting out isn’t blood. Or

  maybe it is.

  It begins with a poem that finds its way

  to the shredder because even when I am

  emotional I can recognize melodrama

  when I see it. Next there are rambling

  thoughts and words and feelings, none

  of which anchor themselves to anything.

  I am about to give up when, at last, my

  words find the form they need.

  Letter to Dad.docx

  Dear Dad,

  How strange is it for me to be writing a letter to you when you are never going to read it? Maybe I really do need to be seeing a psychologist—which I’m actually doing. Can you believe that? To be honest, it’s not as bad as I expected. For one thing, this letter I’m beginning today is because of something he said. He told me I should find a creative outlet—a way to put pain outside of myself where I can look at it later on.

  There have been a lot of bad days since you died. Not whole days—I wouldn’t want you to think we’re all falling apart—I know you’d hate that—but moments that sneak in and stop you in your tracks, if you know what I mean. Like yesterday, I was heating up a can of soup and I remembered the time you made me laugh so hard that I spit soup clear across the table. (Kind of poetic justice that it hit your shirt, don’t you think?)

  That got me laughing, but then it turned into tears, which happens a lot. I didn’t expect happy memories to make me so sad. Mom says that will change in time. She says that someday we’ll be able to remember the good things without them turning on us.

  Right now, the one thing I really want to tell you is this: I miss you every day.

  Sinking In

  Fooling yourself is pointless—

  did you know that?

  You start out feeling optimistic about

  something and you want to stay that way.

  You want it so much that you will

  invent all kinds of excuses to keep on

  believing.

  But let me tell you,

  when you run out of lies and hope,

  the crash is harder, more bitter

  because you have been party

  to your own deception.

  And, just for the record,

  Facebook is right.

  I have no friends named

  Morgan.

  Wrong Numbers

  Two hours have

  just been spent

  thinking of replacements

  for the gaps in my

  phone contact list.

  Even with Christine and Dee added,

  the damage Nina did left

  a lot of holes.

  I can’t believe My Ten

  now includes

  grandparents.

  Passenger

  This is not because of the stupid,

  anonymous

  note in my locker,

  but I am

  wondering.

  I am remembering

  the nurse at the hospital

  mentioning a passenger.

  And, I have realized that Tessa

  believed what she was saying,

  even though she was wrong when

  she said my mother was in the

  accident with my father.

  That must mean that someone was with

  my father when the accident happened.

&nb
sp; A co-worker, perhaps, or someone

  who needed a drive.

  And whoever it was, she may be able to

  tell us about his last day.

  Those final details of

  his life do not

  have to be

  lost

  to

  us.

  Conversation with Mom

  When I tell Mom that I believe there was

  a passenger in the car with Dad that day

  she doesn’t look surprised.

  She doesn’t look curious.

  She doesn’t look at me.

  I stand there while the clock

  patiently, relentlessly, counts out

  seconds and ice forms inside me.

  When my mother speaks,

  it is only to say, “I am tired, Laren.

  And I do not want to have

  this conversation.”

  Truth

  I am not a child.

  I know things.

  I know about life and betrayal.

  Lies and cheating have put down

  solid roots, even by my age.

  But there are things that are possible

  and things that are not possible,

  and this is not possible.

  Not by my father.

  Not to my family.

  I pull the impossibility of it to me

  wanting it to undo the awfulness that

  stares me in the face.

  It is a struggle I am terrified I will lose.

  Which is what happens when what cannot be

  crashes into what is.

  Best-Friendless

  I want to call my best friend.

  I want to talk and listen and

  laugh and cry. That is always

  how it works, reliable as the

  sunrise. We could drink cocoa

  with tiny marshmallows and

  lie out under the stars and feel

  the universe roll over our troubles.

  Because that is what you can do

  if you are not best-friendless.

  Rita

  Aunt Rita is one of those people who

  knows everybody else’s business. A gossip,

  news-bag, rumourmonger. She will chase down

  a scandal or dig through

  the ruins of someone’s life until she gets hold of

  the juiciest bit of news she can scavenge.

  I begin to watch her. And because I am paying attention

  I see things. I see

  that she knows about the mystery

  passenger in my father’s car that day. I also see

  that she is not sure whether or not

  my mother knows. I could

  tell her but I am a shadow.

  I am eyes and ears with a

  breaking heart.

  Scott’s Perspective

  According to Scott I should forget

  about this whole business because

  there is nothing I can do anyway.

  According to Scott nobody is

  perfect and you’ve got to take

  the good with the bad.

  According to Scott what I need is

  to go for a good run around the track.

  Apparently, that will clear my head.

  Wondering

  What was she like—IF (and I am not

  one hundred percent convinced)

  there really was another woman?

  Younger and prettier than my mother?

  I hate the thought of that. Worse is the

  idea that it could have happened because he was

  having a midlife crisis of some sort.

  Like a pathetic token in a game of cliché.

  I try to think of a reason that’s big enough to

  explain it. A reason that isn’t

  common and cheap.

  Letter to Dad.docx (continued)

  There have been some pretty big changes since I started this letter. I almost feel like going back and erasing the first part, but my psychologist said I should keep everything. No matter what.

  Anyway, I’ve got some things to say to you. First of all, you can’t even begin to imagine how furious I am. Because I know—I know you were NOT ALONE in the car that day.

  And just in case you care, I’m not the only one who knows. Mom does too. Remember Mom? Your wife? The woman you married and promised to love until death do you part? Looks like you blew that one, didn’t you? It makes me sick when I think of the way you used to talk about values and keeping your word. Oh, and honour! What a laugh. What a load of rot. What a liar.

  I wonder what excuses you made up. Did you decide you were having some kind of midlife-thing? Was it that pathetic and common? Buying a red convertible would have been better if that’s what it was. At least if you went off and killed yourself driving some super-fast car, people would have less to gossip about.

  And it wouldn’t hurt quite as much.

  Nina Speaks

  There are some things you never say to anyone

  no matter what they’ve done

  or you think they’ve done.

  Nina finds such words today.

  They land in my chest with

  a weight that I cannot

  carry by myself.

  And Christine says,

  “She is just angry. She did not

  really mean it.”

  So, I say, “I know.”

  As if choosing to believe something

  makes it true.

  Picture This

  I used to love to watch Mitch Hedberg on YouTube,

  laughing even though I knew the punch lines.

  Like, when he talks about a friend who said to him,

  “Here’s a picture of me when I was younger.”

  And Mitch says,

  “Every picture of you is when you

  were younger.”

  I like Mitch’s brand of comedy

  (which he took from us for one last high)

  but today I’ve been browsing

  my picture files and

  that particular line has turned

  sad and heavy.

  All of my photos are

  an earlier version of my world.

  The faces that are there,

  over and over. Pictures of

  Morgan and Angie and Nina.

  And my father. They’re like the

  Before Side of the story of my life.

  It strikes me that the

  After Side is empty—

  there’s not a single picture

  of my life now.

  I am

  emptied of so much.

  I try not to think about the losses—

  the ones I couldn’t prevent and

  the ones I could.

  Movie

  Scott likes:

  war movies

  action movies and

  comedies, unless

  they’re chick flicks.

  I can live with that.

  So we’re at the theatre,

  in the centre of

  the back row,

  watching car chases

  and shootings,

  sharing a gigantic

  bag of popcorn and

  a bucket of root beer,

  which I like almost

  as much as orange Crush.

  The Jackson Assignment

  Mom can’t take any more of Jackson’s

  foolishness. Or so she says.

  Would I please talk to him?

  She has tried until she’s blue in the face.

  “I am worried sick that if he doesn’t

  eat soon, there will be nothing left of him.”

  I tell her that vanishing vegetarians are not a

  big problem in our society.

  And she says, “If you think you are being cute or

  helpful, Laren, you are very badly mistaken.”

  No problem.

  I have been wrong before.


  The Jackson Assignment: Part Two

  It’s startling to see how

  neat Jackson’s room has become. I

  don’t mention that when I ask if I can come in.

  “I want to know more about this vegetarian thing,” I lie.

  His eyes narrow, which tells me he suspects I was

  put up to this, but he starts talking anyway.

  His face is small and serious and he counts on his

  fingers, reciting his reasons.

  Pinkie: His friend Brad’s family is now vegetarian.

  Ring: The food is healthy, even though he doesn’t like the taste of some of it.

  Middle: Brad’s mom says meat is gross.

  Index: Brad’s mom says we should not eat other living creatures.

  Thumb: Brad’s father’s cholesterol is getting better.

  There are no fingers left when he tells me that he tries not to

  think about Burger King too much.

  Mom corners me the second I emerge.

  “Did you talk to Jackson?” she asks, like maybe

  I just went in there and took a nap or something.

  I open my mouth to tell her about his

  reasons, but what I actually say is,

  “It’s fine. You should

  leave him alone.”

  Dee Takes a Breath

  Sometimes, Dee’s lunchtime orations

  can seem oddly restful.

  Like rain on a metal roof, the words just

  keep pouring out of her, ratatatatat, pliplipliplip,