Ask Him Why (11 page)

One was nothing but clown fish. Maybe fifty or more. Another housed fish that looked almost tiger striped, mixed with something bright orange with fanlike tails. Those tails never stopped waving. Here and there, a catfish or an eel came slashing up from the bottom of a tank, startling me. Some tanks had green water plants growing. Fish wound in and out between their tendrils. Tendrils that waved as if in a breeze, but I knew it was the push or pull of the filter. In one tank, the plants were less like plants and more like anemones that I was pretty sure waved under their own power. Some kind of bottom-feeder had its mouth attached to the glass of one tank. Cleaning off any stray algae. I could see what the inside of its mouth looked like. Which was eerie.

I don’t mean to go on and on about the aquariums. But they really grabbed me and held on.

“You like the fish,” she said. It wasn’t a question.

“I can’t stop watching them.”

“I find them calming.”

“Me, too,” I said.

“Tell me about your life,” she said.

“I can’t answer a question like that.”

“Why not?”

“It’s not specific enough.”

“Okay. Tell me about your life since your brother, Joseph, came home.”

“It sucks,” I said. “I hate it. But it’s not Joseph’s fault.”

“Tell me what sucks about it.”

I looked at her office door. “Not if she can hear me.”

“She can’t.”

“Why should I take your word for that?”

“I’m not asking you to take my word. You were sitting in the outer office during the last few minutes of the session before yours. Did you hear anything that was said in here?”

“Oh. Right. No. I didn’t.” I paused. Wanting to get restarted, but lost in my brain. “What was the question again?”

“I was asking about life at your house since Joseph came home. What sucks about it?”

“Everything. The kids at school say terrible things. Like I should be ashamed of him. And every time I leave the house, people videotape me walking away. And if my mom doesn’t come out and run interference for us, people stick microphones in our faces and try to get us to say things about Joseph. And in the newspapers and online, people say terrible things about him, and they never even met him and they were never in Baghdad and they don’t know anything. But that never shuts them up. And I caught a guy going through our recycling. And somebody painted the word ‘coward’ on our house. He’s not a coward. He was doing what he thought was right. And my father says I can’t contact Joseph in any way.”

I stopped. Ran out of gas, really. I watched two tall, flat yellow fish come together as if to kiss. Then one chased the other away.

“What’s the worst part of everything you just told me?”

“My father says I can’t contact Joseph in any way.”

“And who can you talk to about things like this?”

“Nobody.”

“Your parents aren’t good listeners?”

I snorted. And I decided, just very suddenly like that, that I didn’t like Luanne, after all.

“See? You don’t know anything. You know nothing about my life. Or you wouldn’t even ask a question like that. You don’t know me.
Or
my family.”

“Aubrey . . . ,” she said.

“What?”

She glanced at her watch, which she wore with the face on the inside of her wrist. “You’ve been in my office for two and a half minutes.”

“So?”

“I accept the fact that I don’t magically know all about your situation. We’re here so I can find out. You have to tell me. Then I’ll know. Then maybe I can help.”

“You can’t help me.”

“How do you know that?”

“Can you get Joseph out of prison and back home?”

“No.”

“Can you get people to shut up about him and keep their opinions to themselves?”

“No, I can’t.”

“Then you can’t help me.”

“I hope you’re not saying you’re a helpless victim of your own life.”

“What? No! I didn’t say that.”

“Sounded like you did. You said the only way I can help you is to get everything back the way you want it. In other words, the only way to fix your misery is to have everything in order in your life. All your ducks in a row. You’re not even allowing for the possibility that the world could stay a mess, but you could be less miserable about it.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Why can’t you?”

“I just can’t. I never could.”

“The fact that you never did doesn’t mean you never will.”

“I can’t relax about things. I don’t know how.”

“Ah. Now
that
I can accept. You don’t know how.”

“Right.”

“Do you know how to play the piano?”

“No.”

“But you could take lessons. Right?”

“I don’t like music.”

“You’re missing the point.”

I looked from the anemone tank to her face. I felt a little bit ashamed. Usually I had a good mind. But she was trying to tell me something. And I was being thick.

“I’m sorry. Tell me again, then.”

“This thing you say you don’t know how to do—keeping yourself a little more together while everything around you is falling apart—that’s what you’re here to learn. These are your lessons. You don’t take lessons only in things you already know how to do. You don’t refuse to take piano lessons because you don’t already know how to play the piano.”

“Oh,” I said. And my eyes drifted back to the clown-fish tank again. “I get it. Yeah.”

“So tell me more about what it’s been like at your house since Joseph came home.”

And, in a move that surprised even me, I did.

“What about this other man Joseph was so close to?” she asked, much later in the session. I could not have been more stunned. “This Hamish MacCallum. Is he somebody you can talk to?”

I made a strange snorting sound.

“I don’t even know who he is. I’ve never met the guy in my life. I never even heard his name until I read it in the paper. How do you even know about him?”

“I read it in the paper,” she said.

A long silence while I watched the fish swim. It wasn’t always peaceful. Sometimes it was jerky and chaotic. But it was nice not to talk for a minute.

“I thought Joseph spent every summer with him,” she said.

“You know as much about it as I do.”

“Is it not true?”

“I have no idea. I’m just his brother. I’m just his flesh and blood. It’s not like I have a right to know what’s going on or anything.”

She ignored the sarcasm and asked, “Was Joseph home during the summer?”

“No.”

“And you never asked where he would go?”

“I guess Ruth and I thought he was in some kind of summer camp or something. You have to know how it is in my family. You don’t ask a lot of questions. You just don’t. Nobody says straight-out that you don’t. You just figure that out after a while.”

I saw her writing notes down on her pad at that point.

“Tell me something about Joseph.”

“Isn’t that what I’ve been doing all along?”

“Not about the mess he’s in right now. About
him
. Before all this happened. Tell me something you remember about him. When things were better.”

“Oh,” I said.

Then I watched the fish for a while. Let my mind drift over a short lifetime with my brother. Although I don’t think it seemed short at the time. When you’re thirteen, thirteen years is a lot.

“Nothing?” she asked a minute later.

“No. Everything. There are just so many things. I can’t even figure out how to pick one. And now for some reason they all seem just the same amount of important.
Very.
They all seem
very
important. I think before this happened, I would have picked an obvious one. Like the time he saved my cat when my dad wouldn’t pay for his surgery. Or when he scared this kid who was bullying me, and the kid never came near me again. Or how patient he was with our grandmother when she didn’t know she’d already asked you the same question six times. I used to think those were most important. But now it
all
is. Like, every minute he ever spent with me.”

“That was my error,” she said. “I thought this would be a quick exercise. I’m sorry to say our time’s up for today.”

I thought that went fast. But I didn’t say so. Because that would have let on that I was getting along fine with the therapy so far.

Chapter Nine: Ruth

When I woke up the next morning, the unfairness of things came down on me like a fog that suddenly drops low enough to obscure everything but itself.

Aubrey was still fast asleep in his room, which made being suspended seem like quite the treat. To make matters worse, he’d been to see a therapist the previous day, which I figured he probably hated, but to me it sounded great: lie on a couch and have somebody focus on what hurts you and ask you all about it and treat you like you’re fragile and need lots of help and attention.

But I didn’t get all that, because I hadn’t pummeled anybody with my fists.

My dad was sitting in the living room, all dressed up in a three-piece suit and a tie, like he was on his way to court, but he wasn’t on his way to anywhere. He was drinking a glass of something brown at seven o’clock in the morning and staring off into space.

I stepped into the kitchen and asked, of nobody in particular, “Where do we keep the antacid? We do have antacid, right?”

My mom was pacing around the kitchen, tending to things that didn’t need tending. First she put away the big, tall wooden salt and pepper shakers, but they had never gotten put away before. They lived on the counter at all times. She saw a mug on the table and grabbed it and hung it back up on the mug hooks in the cupboard, as if it offended her sense of order by being out of place. She paced the other way, then suddenly stopped and turned back.

“Oh, wait. I was going to bring your father some coffee,” she said, and got the mug back down.

“I think he has a different kind of drink on his mind,” I said, settling at the table.

There was a fabulous breakfast laid out in front of me. Huevos rancheros, with two poached eggs, refried black beans, and what I knew by smell to be Isabella’s homemade ranchero sauce.

“Hush,” my mom said, pouring the mug full of coffee.

Then she did something that seemed bizarre, to put it mildly. She came rushing at me—and it alarmed me, I couldn’t help it. I felt like I was being charged—assaulted, almost. But when she got to me, she only threw her arms around me and held me, very tightly and for a very long time.

My face was smashed against her shoulder, so I couldn’t have talked even if I’d wanted to or had any idea what to say. I tried to relax my muscles, to relax into her embrace, but it didn’t work at all. Not even a little bit.

She kissed me hard on the top of my head, right where my hair parted, and then just as fast as she’d grabbed me, she let me go. I wanted to say something, but I didn’t know what it should be, and she had grabbed up my father’s coffee again and was back into that frenetic motion. And meanwhile, I didn’t have words for what had just happened.

As she hurried off into the living room with the mug, my eyes snagged on Isabella’s eyes. She was standing in the far corner of the kitchen, looking for something in the pantry. I hadn’t realized until that moment that she was still in the room, but that was Isabella for you—for a big woman, she sure had a way of not taking up much figurative space.

“Good morning, missy,” she said.

“Hi. This smells good. Thank you.”

“At least you can have a good breakfast. Even if nothing else is so good.”

“Why didn’t
you
get coffee for my dad? Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like—I didn’t mean you’re not doing your job. You always do. Just usually . . .”

“I know what you mean,” she said. “She needs more to do with her hands. So she’s doing lots of stuff I should be doing, and I’m not saying nothing. I’m just staying out of her way.”

“Oh,” I said, and took a bite of breakfast. It was fabulous. She was right—it was almost enough to make up for the fact that nothing else was okay. “Why’s my dad all dressed up but not going anywhere?”

“He’s hoping the partners will call him in. You know. Maybe need some help with something. Anything for some billable hours. But he’s got no appointments of his own today. So maybe just wishful thinking?”

My stomach turned slightly, but I took another bite of the food anyway. A moment later, a bottle of liquid antacid appeared beside my plate with a sterling-silver tablespoon beside it. I looked up into Isabella’s loving face, and she smiled back down at me, a little sadly I thought.

“You don’t feel so good, missy?”

“No. I don’t. I’m sick. I don’t think I’m going to go to school.”

I wasn’t sick—my gut was just in a twist, as it had been for days—but once the idea of staying home sick popped into my head, it seemed to be the solution for everything. It eased that nagging feeling that everyone got to go belly-up except me. If they could give up on life and just drift, so could I.

“Poor missy,” she said, and stroked the hair off my forehead, holding one warm palm there for a moment to check my temperature. I knew the sensation of the warmth of her palm was not a good thing. When you have a fever, the hand checking your fever should feel cool in comparison, and I knew she was feeling the same thing. “You want a different breakfast? Not so
picante
?”

“No. Thanks. I like this. This is good.”

It made no difference to my heartburn if the food I ate was spicy or bland, because it wasn’t food that was causing the issues.

My mom hurried back in. “What’s wrong with her?” she asked Isabella, as if I didn’t exist, or couldn’t speak for myself.

Isabella peeled away, off into the dining room without answering, which I appreciated. I think she knew it was important to me that she not say the wrong thing.

“I feel like I’m coming down with something. I think I should stay home.”

Then I turned my attention down to my plate and began shoveling in as much of the food as I could. It was good, and it was making me feel more grounded, and I honestly didn’t see until a moment later that it was hurting my case for the sick day.

My mom picked up the antacid bottle.

“You don’t get to stay home from school for heartburn,” she said. “If you could stop the world because you have heartburn, I wouldn’t have done a damn thing for the past twenty years.”

“It’s not just that,” I said, my mouth full of tortilla and egg. “I think I’m getting the flu.”

“Based on what?”

“My muscles are all achy, and I’m sick to my stomach.”

She looked down at my plate, and so did I. I had eaten almost three-quarters of my spicy food—scarfed it down, really.

“But you felt like a big breakfast.”

“I thought my stomach might feel better if I could hold down some food.”

She held a hand to my forehead the way Isabella had done, only not quite. Isabella’s gesture had felt caring, a question. An investigation on my behalf. My mom’s hand felt rough and hurried, and the only question in that touch was how quickly she could dismiss my complaints.

“Nice try,” she said. “Now eat up and I’ll drive you.”

When I got to school, I didn’t talk to anyone and no one talked to me, which was not unusual. In fact, I felt like I could clear a space in the hall just by walking through a crowd. I felt like the wrong end of a magnet.

When I got to my locker, I spun the combination lock and opened the door. There were two notes in there, and neither were anything I’d seen, and neither had been there the day before when I’d opened my locker. One was just a torn scrap of yellow lined paper, and the other was actually tucked into an envelope with my name on it. Someone—well, two someones—had pushed them through the vents on my locker door.

I picked up the scrap of yellow paper first.

In handwriting I didn’t recognize, it said,
I hope you didn’t shake hands with your brother before he went off to jail. Be a shame to get all that blood on your hands, too.

I stepped back and dropped the note.

Then I picked it up fast, so no one else could see it. I grabbed up the other one, the one in the envelope, even though I knew I’d never read it. I tore them both into tiny shreds as I walked, then dropped the shreds into the trash can in the corner of the hall. A path opened up for me as I walked—everyone jumped out of my way, and as they noticed me they stopped talking, so I created a ribbon of not only space but eerie silence wherever I walked.

I walked into my first-period class and right up to my English teacher, Mrs. Mallory.

“I’m not feeling good,” I said. “And I need to go see the nurse.”

Her brow furrowed—maybe because she didn’t believe me, or maybe because she felt bad for me, though if I’d been a betting woman, I’d have put money on some combination of the two.

“Wait, let me give you a hall pass,” she said.

I had a transformative experience lying on a cot in the nurse’s office. Seriously, my life changed in that moment. Not by magic, though—by me.
I
changed it.

We’d made a deal, the nurse and I, that I’d lie down through first period and then decide whether or not to go home.

But when all was said and done, I decided a lot more than just that.

I sat up suddenly when I realized it, and she didn’t notice at first.

All this falling apart was stupid. No, more than stupid—it was pathetic. My father was pathetic for drinking at seven in the morning and my brother was pathetic for beating up everybody who looked at him wrong and sitting in a shrink’s office, and I was pathetic for pretending to be sick—for trying to imitate the way they were solving things, when it was obvious their way was no solution at all.

I decided I would be strong, not because I had to be, not because they had used up all the weakness, but because strong was what I wanted for myself.

“I feel better,” I said to the nurse. “I’m going back to class.”

She was surprised, I think, and so was I. I’d only been lying on that cot for three or four minutes, but it doesn’t take long to change your life—at least, not when you finally get around to it.

I’ve never gone back on the decision to be strong, not to this very day.

Aubrey came to my bedroom with a soft knock about an hour before dinner.

“You can come in,” I said when he stuck his head through the partly opened door.

I’d been spending the bulk of the day feeling contemptuous toward him, but when I finally saw him, he just looked small and weighted down and sad, and I felt sorry for the poor guy.