Intentions (14 page)

I prolong the walk home, kicking rock after rock until I lose each one in the gutter and then find another so that a walk that shouldn’t take even fifteen minutes takes much longer.

But not long enough.

I should get home too late to see them at the top of the driveway leaning against his big black SUV, hip to hip, his hand reaching up to the strand of her hair that’s hiding her left eye. Too late to see her smile and hear the ripple of her laughter as his other hand reaches over and brushes away hair that is hiding nothing.

I am not too late for any of this. I see it all. But I do not trust it, or trust my gut, until I see him pull her face to his and

I stop dead in my last stone kick

to see the rabbi kiss my mother and my mother kiss him back.

CHAPTER 19

THE PUNCH LINE

I run.

I run fast and I run hard. Away from home, away from school, away from everything.

Feel punched in the gut. And still I run. Run through the twisted knots of pain.

I am not a runner. And these sneakers are not made for running.

They’re made for walking slowly home, kissing your boyfriend. They’re not made for running like hell because you just saw your mother making out with the rabbi.

I run and run, my messenger bag bouncing, thwacking me on my back, my hip, my stomach, pretty much every step of the way.

What the hell?

Right in our driveway.

She thought I’d be home later.

But—

What if Dad had come home early?

What if

Dad had

pulled up and

had seen them?

Maybe he did.

Good.

Bad.

I don’t know which.

My body says stop running it hurts I hurt my chest hurts

But I keep going.

Did they see me?

I doubt it. I was at the bottom, and there’s that curve.

But do I care?

Do I hope they saw me?

Am I going to tell Mom I saw?

Tell Dad?

Where am I going?

Am I going to run away from home?

Run until I die?

My heart is pounding in my chest, and I can barely catch my breath, but I do

not stop

running.

I don’t care what happens to me. Let my heart burst in my chest, too. I don’t care.

I really fucking don’t.

I look up at where I am.

Of course.

My feet have taken me to the only person in my family I can turn to, hopeless as it may be. Maybe she will be good today.

Maybe it will be

one

of her

I. Am. Going. To. Die.

good days.

Maybe.

I am here not a moment too soon. I can barely breathe. There are invisible nails digging into my feet, the bottom, the sides. Are my toes broken? Everything hurts. My back, my side, my chest, my legs, my head.

I thought I was in decent shape. I had no idea.

About anything.

I
have
no idea.

She can’t see me like this, sweaty, panting. Tears running down my face. I didn’t even know I was crying.

I sit down in front of her door. Take off my shoes. There is blood all over my feet. God, was it these same feet that were walking with Jake? Just—was that today?—minutes ago?

I lean back against the door, try to breathe normally. Yeah, right.

Reach into my bag and find a tissue. Wipe my face. Wipe the blood off my feet. It’s not as bad as I first thought, two blisters and a broken toenail. They are throbbing, but no permanent damage has been done. To my feet.

I keep trying to get a sense of humor about this, but I can’t find the damn joke. Must be here somewhere. A rabbi and a mother walk into a bar … no, onto a driveway.…

Not funny. Not even slightly.

What’s the punch line?

I am breathing about as normally as I ever will. But I hurt too much to get up.

Can’t reach the bell, so I knock loudly on her door. No answer. I knock really loudly and call out, “Grandma! It’s Rachel,” but nothing.

What am I thinking? The woman can’t hear me if I’m in the next room—hell, if I’m in the same room—why should she hear this? But I can’t stand up.

I call her. I hear Grandma’s phone ring and ring inside her apartment. Clicks to her voicemail. I don’t leave a message. Maybe she is in the bathroom. I wait five minutes, or an hour—I have no idea how long. I close my eyes tight, trying to get that image of my mother and the rabbi kissing out of my head, but it is all that is there. I call again. No answer.

I have a key. I should stand up and open the door. But it is not only my aching body that stops me. What if she’s lying there on the floor?

Bleeding.

Dead.

Do I really want to go in and see that?

What could be worse than seeing my mother kiss the rabbi? Seeing my grandmother lying dead on the floor.

I call again. Nothing.

I’d better go in there.

I could save her life.

What could be worse than seeing my grandmother dead? Knowing I could have saved her and didn’t.

I start to stand up, and then I see her.

She is not answering her phone because she is not inside. She is walking down the road in her bathrobe and slippers. Carrying her purse, and—what is that?—the cordless phone from her living room. Oh, Grandma.

Her hair is a mess, sticking out all over. My grandma, who never leaves her house without makeup, her “face” she calls it.

She’s crying. She walks past her door. She doesn’t see me.

I try not to sob as I hobble over to her in my bare feet. The cold street actually feels good, and I concentrate on that. She’s stopped walking. She is staring at the ground. When I reach her, her head is bent, and she is weeping softly.

“Grandma,” I whisper, touching her gently on the shoulder. She doesn’t look up.

“Grandma,” I say a little louder.

She looks up at me and says, “I can’t find my husband. Where is my husband?”

My heart is aching. “Grandma, it’s me, Rachel.”

“Who? I don’t know you! Where is my husband? What have you people done with my husband?”

“I’m Rachel, Grandma,” I say, choking up, feeling that granola bar rise in my throat. “Grandpa is not here anymore, Grandma. Grandpa died.”

Grandma looks at me, furious. “What are you saying?” she yells.

Hello, God? Do you hear me? I can’t take this.

I reach up and touch her on the shoulder, the tears now freely running down my cheeks. “Shhhh, shh,” I say, just like she used to say to me when I was little. “Shh, shh, it will be OK.”

She looks at me—sees me, I think.

But she pushes my hand away. “Go away. I don’t know you.”

“I’m your granddaughter …,” I manage, dizzy, the nausea threatening.

“Go to hell,” says my sweet grandma. “Go to hell,” she yells, “you stupid, lying BITCH.”

I can’t hold it in anymore.

The puke starts to come out, and I jump back quickly so I won’t hit Grandma, and instead of throwing up on her, I throw up on my bare feet.

CHAPTER 20

PARTY ANIMAL

Grandma starts to howl when she realizes who I am.

“Oh, Rachel, Rachel!” she cries. “Help me!”

I try to reassure her as I call Dad, not Mom, because, well, I have no idea what she’s doing at this minute. Kissing the rabbi? Or more? God.

“I’ll be right over,” Dad says calmly. “Try to get her inside.”

Which I do, with the help of Mrs. Philips, who magically materializes by my side with paper towels and a kind voice. I will love her forever. She asks no questions, just cleans me up and gets Grandma into the apartment. She pours me some ginger ale, makes Grandma a cup of instant decaf, chitchatting about absolutely nothing, calming us both down.

Maybe there are honestly good people in the world. Maybe there are.

And then my mother the slut walks in.

Dad is behind her.

“Here I am, Mother,” she says, and goes right over to Grandma, soothing, caring, but all I see is the image of her kissing the rabbi.

For the next hour or so that image is overlaid on everything, the lens I see it all through: Dad’s concerned face, his hand gently on Mom’s back, Mrs. Philips quietly leaving, Grandma sobbing again, Mom so upset, Dad trying to figure out why my feet are torn up.

My mother and I do not exchange more than a word.

She stays with Grandma for the night, and Dad drives me home. I want to tell him. Or do I? I could be the one who ends their marriage. How could I do that?

I debate this for a minute and then fall into a deep sleep even though it’s a ten-minute drive.

“Hungry?” Dad asks as he helps me out of the car.

“No,” I say. I crawl up the stairs and right into bed, dirty, sweaty, pukey, bloody.

Sleep until morning.

I want to skip school, but the thought of staying home is not appealing either, so I shower and go. Maybe I will see Jake. I read his text first thing this morning:

Rachel, beautiful Rachel
.

After one class, I know it’s not happening.

Pleading, I get the nurse to let me sleep on her cot. I tell her about my grandma and that my mother is too busy taking care of her to come get me. I text with Jake a little: he’s off to another swim meet. He’ll be back tomorrow night, maybe, or Sunday.

So much to tell you
,

I write.

Want to hear everything you have to say
,

he answers.

The nurse lets me stay until lunch and then kicks me out. I make it through the rest of my classes, and then, since it’s Friday, I drag myself to Union and to Randy.

When I get there, I see Mrs. Glick huddled in the corner with Randy and Mrs. Washington. Randy is crying. When he sees me, he comes running, and I take him into a big hug.

Mrs. Glick tells me over his head that his grandmother, the person he lives with because his mom is in jail and he’s got no dad, was rushed to the hospital last night. That’s all they know. A neighbor brought him to school and told them.

I don’t know what to do. What can I do? I take Randy to the car pillow, and he just cries into my shoulder. Eventually he falls asleep. Just before the end of class, the principal comes into the room.

“Randy,” she says, and I gently wake him up. “There’s someone here to take you home.”

“Who?” says Randy.

“A cousin of your mom’s.”

Randy shrugs and gets up.

I want to yell, Wait, I’ll take him home! He can’t go with someone he doesn’t know! But of course I don’t know if he doesn’t know the cousin; and of course I can’t take him home.

There’s nothing I can do.

Mrs. Glick speaks up, though. “Can I go up with you?”

The principal nods. “Of course,” she says, and they leave.

I wonder if I’ll ever see Randy again.

At dinner, which is takeout Chinese, something we never do on Friday night, Mom tells Dad and me what she and Uncle Joe
have decided to do about Grandma. They’re putting her on anti-anxiety pills. And after consulting with doctors, they are letting her stay at home, with a full-time aide, who will sleep on the couch at night.

Like Dad.

Through Mom’s talking I keep thinking about what I saw. Mom and the rabbi. I can’t believe she’s having an affair with him. Is she? How could she? He’s gross. So gross.

At midnight I get up to snoop. I tiptoe into Mom’s den.

I check her phone. There are numbers I don’t recognize, and when I Google them, most of them are doctors or nursing homes. One that is unlisted.

I look over caller ID on our landline. Nothing. No calls from the temple, which is kind of weird. Wouldn’t Mom have told him what is going on? Wouldn’t he call to check up on Grandma?

I try to log on to her email account. She’s changed her password. It used to be Rachel-1. I try all her usual passwords. Nothing works.

Why would my mother change her password?

I go into her bedroom, shake her awake, demand an answer. Yeah, in my dreams.

What I really do is tiptoe into the kitchen. I’m starving.

“Hey,” Dad calls out to me from the couch. “Can’t sleep?”

“No,” I say.

“Me neither,” he says.

He pads into the kitchen, and the two of us sit at the table and eat heaping bowls of cereal topped with Mom’s granola.

It’s like one of those sweet father-daughter scenes in a movie, only we don’t talk. I sit there and think about my mother cheating on my dad with the rabbi. God knows what my dad is thinking about.

Saturday afternoon, Alexis calls and tells me there’s a party. Do I want to go? When I say maybe, she says, “Can your parents give us a ride? My mom’s busy.”

Oh. Yup. And so I go.

We’ve been here ten minutes and she’s ditched me already. I’m by the food. She’s across the room, flirting with three boys
and
two girls around the pool table. I’m not a prude, but … yes I am. So what am I going to do at this party? I don’t want to be here. Unless Jake comes.

Half of me wants to go home. The other half is waiting for Jake. (Which half, Rachel?) When I last texted him, he said he might be back from his swim meet in time.