Counting Back from Nine Read online

  until I’m suddenly aware of my

  unawareness.

  I think she might have a future as a hypnotist

  or sleep therapist. But today, out of nowhere,

  mid sentence—a sudden silence.

  Christine and I both stop chewing and

  turn to her, on alert. Which is when

  Dee asks, ever so softly,

  Are you doing okay, Laren?

  Friday Night

  This was a lousy week but it’s over now and Scott

  is taking me to a concert. Some local bands

  in the park, warming up for summer.

  Mom does her best to kill the mood.

  “Where are you two going?

  Is there going to be any drinking?

  What time will you be back?

  Do you have your phone with you?

  Is it charged?”

  Then her Mother Brain recites the exact words I hear

  every time I’m going somewhere with a guy.

  “Call me if you need me. I don’t care what’s

  going on or how late it is.”

  Once we’ve escaped, Scott gets me laughing,

  mimicking Mom.

  “Why won’t you kiss me?

  Do you like to see me suffer?

  Don’t you know I’m crazy about you?”

  I’m still giggling when he stops and pulls me tight

  against him. His kiss is long and slow and his

  voice is a soft moan when he tells me that he

  likes me—so much. I want to answer, but I

  can’t speak. All I can do is grab

  this moment’s perfection, and place it ever so

  carefully on memory’s shelf.

  We take our time, walking toward the park,

  watching the sun

  slide into a golden pool,

  and the world, with its night breeze and early summer

  flowers, swells with the beating of my heart.

  Too soon we are there. Too soon the magic

  is jostled and crushed by the feet and faces of

  the crowd.

  Year-End Report

  How did I not see this coming?

  I knew my grades were slipping, but not

  like this! This is a disaster. A free fall.

  I barely made it through.

  Meanwhile, Jackson’s grades have actually

  improved, which makes him eager to

  show Mom his report. That prompts her to ask

  about mine, which I’d hoped she

  might not think of until

  it was misplaced somewhere.

  Like in a shredder.

  I brace myself for the big freak-out. As expected,

  her eyebrows shoot up, then come together in a frown.

  But when she looks at me, there’s no anger. No

  yelling, no hands on hips—nothing.

  Instead, she lets out a small, sad sigh and says she

  understands and she knows I’ll get back

  on track in the fall and in the meantime

  I shouldn’t beat myself up.

  It is like I’ve moved to an alternate universe.

  Socorro

  Socorro’s notepad is in hand, as usual, while

  some manic version of myself has

  taken over my mouth.

  I can’t help but wonder what he might be recording

  from today’s rave.

  Patient’s brother dislikes eggplant?

  As I try to think of a new subject, Socorro wonders aloud

  if something about Jackson’s vegetarianism is bothering me.

  “Not exactly. It’s just—

  He’s never shown the slightest interest

  in healthy eating before.”

  It startles me to realize that Jackson must have

  a reason—one of his own, that wasn’t

  supplied by Brad’s mom. Why haven’t I seen that

  or tried to find out what it is?

  I wonder if that reflects badly

  on me as an older sister.

  I change the subject.

  Drifting Days

  I love the gentleness of early summer.

  The warm breezes.

  Walks in the evening’s

  whispering dusk.

  Food Fight: Part Two

  Mommie Dearest has a new strategy to

  force meat down Jackson’s throat.

  She’s decided to starve him into

  submission.

  At dinner, she plunks steaks

  on the table.

  Nothing else.

  I’m surprised the salt and pepper shakers

  are still there.

  She sits down to eat, acting like it’s

  perfectly normal. Like we’ve ever had a

  meal of nothing but meat.

  Jackson stares ahead with his

  chin up until Mom looks ready

  to crack, but all she does is tell him,

  “You can leave the table if you

  aren’t going to eat your dinner.”

  As soon as I can, I smuggle a peanut butter

  sandwich to his room. His door opens the

  second I tap on it.

  That tells me he

  was waiting,

  which means he

  knew I would come. And for

  some reason this

  breaks my heart a little.

  Disappearing Familiar

  Some kind of makeover frenzy has taken hold

  of my mother. It started slow—a new

  hairstyle, acrylic nails, a gym membership and some

  wardrobe additions that, if you ask me, are

  not quite right for someone her age.

  That was fine. But her new obsession is

  taking over the house. Everywhere you

  look there are stacks of home-decorating magazines with

  colour-coded Post-it notes in cryptic messages.

  A hieroglyphics professor couldn’t crack

  Mom’s codes. LvC W ov BMCr: H b X C

  She corners me at least once a day and

  forces me to invent an opinion, which depends

  more on my mood than anything else. It’s not

  like I could care a whole lot less—

  except, that is, about my parents’ room.

  Her room now and she has changed

  everything. My father wouldn’t know

  where he was if he walked in there today.

  Scott

  He insists that he is not

  insisting, but I feel the

  change, the way he

  presses me.

  I tell him wait because

  I do not want to say no

  even if no is what I am

  thinking.

  And when he asks me

  what I am waiting for

  I do not seem to know

  the answer.

  I only know there is one.

  Aunt Rita and Grandma “Help”

  Grandma and Aunt Rita remind me of chickens

  pecking away at each other non-stop.

  Peck, peck, peck. Pick, pick, pick.

  I don’t even think they notice

  what they’re saying

  half the time.

  Today is different. Today they have

  hatched a plan to talk Mom into

  signing up for a painting class.

  With them, no less.

  They lay out their persuasions.

  Anyone can learn to paint.

  It will be a hoot and, most of all,

  Mom spends too much time cooped up.

  Mom clearly doesn’t think their idea

  is all that it’s cracked up to be.

  She tells them thanks but no thanks.

  Painting doesn’t interest her and

  with work and errands and whatnot,

  she gets out more than enough.

  I am surprised when they give up wit
hout

  an argument, although Grandma does

  look a little like she has had

  her feathers ruffled.

  Suspicions

  The voices in the back of my brain will not stop,

  hinting, probing, whispering words that

  cannot be true and do not belong.

  I hate them because I know they

  are false—must be false and yet

  they will not leave no matter

  how many times I

  tell them to go.

  Socorro

  I say, “I am writing a letter but I do not want to

  talk about it and I still do not want to talk about my father.”

  To which he says, “Why do you think that is?”

  I could tell him that it hurts when I think of

  past things that are gone forever, or

  future things that will never happen, but he

  must know that.

  I wonder, though, if he knows that the greatest

  pain is in the smallest details and it is the

  details that I do not

  want to examine.

  5

  Where we were going or why has long since faded

  in memory. It is that place in the road that I recall,

  the place where our attention was caught by

  several men gathered around a fear-frozen

  young deer. They pushed and tugged until

  the frightened animal took a few halting

  steps and then began to move,

  jumping forward toward the ditch.

  Joy filled me. A crystal clear moment at the thought that

  these kind men had stopped to help

  a creature of beauty

  to safety.

  But then, a terrible sound shattered the air.

  The sharp crack of a shotgun and the truth

  penetrated my heart. The hands I thought were

  helping were instruments of death—

  driving the deer from the road

  so that they could shoot it.

  I sobbed so hard that my father pulled our car

  to the side of the road, where he came around to

  my side and knelt in the gravel

  circling me with his arms. He listened while

  I said appalling things about what I hoped

  would happen to those men.

  Dream

  Last night I dreamed that I had fallen

  from a great height.

  Down, down, in a plunge

  toward a dark and terrible

  place filled with

  nothing.

  I reached to grasp a rope,

  dangling there,

  but each touch

  of my hand

  made it unravel

  until my only hope

  was a single

  frayed

  strand

  that

  could

  never

  hold

  me.

  Jackson’s Fat Lip

  Jackson comes home from a Friday night at Grandma’s with

  his lip split and swollen to about twice the normal size.

  He heads straight for his room while Grandma tells us

  how he started a fight with a boy on her street. Mom yells,

  “Jackson, you get back out here right now.”

  His shoulders slump more with

  every step toward the table.

  She fires questions at him, the kind that have

  no answers, and quite frankly

  I don’t see the point of the interrogation since

  she already got the whole story from Grandma.

  I know he’s not going to answer but

  I wish I knew why he did it.

  Jackson never gets in fights.

  He likes everyone.

  Letter to Dad.docx (continued)

  Dr. Socorro says that we have built-in defences that can block things until we’re ready to deal with them. That must be why my brain changes the subject every time I think about The Passenger in your car that day.

  Scott says I should give you the benefit of the doubt. But I don’t know how much doubt I even have, considering Mom’s reaction.

  All I know right now is that I don’t want every thought I have of my father to be about That. I’m still adjusting to you being gone. That feels like about all I can handle right now.

  Do you remember last year when Mom moved the clock that used to be over the kitchen sink? I must have glanced at the empty space it left behind hundreds of times.

  Well, not to compare you to a clock, but it’s a bit like that. I keep “glancing toward you” and finding an empty space over and over again.

  Even when life seems normal, it isn’t. I miss you. So much.

  Empty Days

  This is the

  most horrible

  summer of my life.

  First of all,

  Scott is gone away

  with his family for

  the whole month of July.

  A month long holiday.

  Who does that?

  Meanwhile, I’m stuck in the house,

  babysitting Jackson. When he’s home

  that is. Sometimes he’s at

  his friend Brad’s place. I picture them

  sitting around eating chunks of

  tofu with lentils and beans and

  waiting eagerly for the after-effects.

  Even with that, I can’t helping thinking that

  Jackson’s life is more exciting than mine.

  Friendless

  Christine and Dee seem to have

  disappeared, which is a bit strange.

  Not that we got all that close, but to go from

  eating lunch together, chatting on

  the phone and even hanging out

  a couple of times, to

  a whole lot of

  silence ...

  I can’t help but

  wonder what happened.

  I try to sound casual on the phone

  when I ask Christine why

  I haven’t heard from her lately. Somehow

  it comes out like an accusation.

  There is silence before she asks,

  “But when did you ever call me, Laren? I

  wanted us to be friends, only

  sometimes I felt

  more like a stalker.”

  I have no answer. What she said is true.

  That will be that, I guess. I am about to

  end the call when she adds, “Dee and I are

  going to a movie tomorrow afternoon.

  Do you want to

  join us?”

  Standing My Ground

  I’m ready and waiting when

  Mom comes through the door.

  It is about time she found out that

  I am not

  a built-in babysitter.

  I am going

  to a movie with Christine and Dee

  tomorrow, if it means

  Jackson has

  to stay by himself.

  Rehearsed words are in my head but anger

  pushes them out of order and they fly

  out of my mouth and into the air

  like stray bullets.

  I brace myself because I know Mom will say,

  “I am not in the mood for this, Laren.

  You are not asked to do much around here.

  I do not like your attitude.”

  Instead, hugs and

  promises turn my

  anger to

  tears.

  It is a strange,

  guilt-filled

  victory.

  Show Time

  By the time the coming attractions begin to play

  I’ve learned that Dee finds Zac Ephron and

  Robert Pattinson super hot, but that if she

  had her pick, she’d go for Chance Crawford.

  This elicits an inside joke from Christine,<
br />
  which makes both of them laugh and reminds me that

  I am still an Outsider.

  I try not to think about Morgan and Angie and even

  Nina. I tell myself that I am here at a movie with my

  new friends, even though I don’t believe it, and then

  as the show begins, a scene makes us laugh and

  something shifts ever so slightly.

  A tiny shard of warmth makes its way into me.

  Socorro

  I let Socorro know how much I want to be there

  by flopping into a chair and answering his

  annoyingly pleasant greeting with a grunt.

  “You seem unhappy,” he observes.

  “Amazing diagnosis,” I say. “That must be

  why you make the big bucks.”

  He counters with silence

  an impassive face,

  out-waiting me.

  Classic Socorro.

  “It’s summer,” I grumble.

  “You might find it hard to believe but

  sometimes I have better things to do

  than sit here and talk about nothing.”

  “I see,” he says with his shrink voice.

  “In that case, please feel free to switch or even

  cancel now and then. My summer schedule is quite

  flexible and I want our sessions to benefit you.”

  Now I feel foolish because there were no big plans

  but I am still glad I told him how I felt. Finding out I

  have options changes everything. Sometimes,

  it’s just about having a choice.