Intentions (20 page)

“Tell me about it.”

“He really—you really heard that? Rabbi Cohn? And your mom really was kissing him, too?”

“Yes,” I barely manage.

“I still can’t believe it, but …” He sighs, looks at me with what I think is kindness. Could be pity. “But I do. I do believe you.”

“Thank you, Jake. I—”

“But this thing with Alexis, it’s not who
you
are, Rachel. It’s not. That much I know. And I think you know it, too, don’t you?”

I nod.

“Rabbi Cohn … Wow … Some things make sense to me now … Some things I heard my parents saying … Oh boy …” He shakes his head sadly.

He looks a wreck. His hair is a mess, his face is red and pale at the same time, his eyes are wet, he’s so very intense and his
eyes are so beautiful and I think of him cooking for me, and I think of the feel of my head against his back, and I think of that little boy in the photos, and I want to feel him next to me again, and I blurt out, without thinking, without planning, but even so, I swear, with more
kavanah
than I’ve ever had about anything, “Look, Jake, I think—I
am
in love with you, and if you like me, or”—can I really be saying this?—“even love me a little, then please take me for me, the real me, not the me you thought I was, all good and pure and perfect, but the me who is real and makes mistakes and is still good at heart, I swear, and maybe I will do the right thing about this, and I hope I will, but I need you to help me, please help me, and please don’t leave me.”

So here I am, out on a damn limb, and I’m way far out, and the limb is too skinny and it is shaking.

I wait for Jake to answer, my head down, my eyes closed; I pray for his answer, and I hear his intake of breath before he speaks—he is about to speak—and then here is a car pulling up next to us, I can hear it, and Jake says, “Rachel,” in a weird voice.

I look up at the car. It’s my dad. He looks horribly upset.

“Grandma’s in the hospital,” Dad says. My phone. Vibrating this whole time. Oh no.

“How did you find me?”

“I’ve been driving around for almost an hour.”

“I’m so sorry. What happened?”

“Heart attack,” says Dad. “Massive.”

“Oh God!” I cry out. The tears that were already there flow faster, harder. “I don’t know what to do,” I sob.

“Please get in the car,” says Dad gently. “We’re going to go to the hospital. Mom is waiting for us.”

“I’ll help you,” Jake says. He opens the car door, helps me into the front seat. He buckles my seat belt for me and closes the door. He opens the back door and puts my messenger bag back there.

Dad pulls away very quickly, so quickly, practically burning rubber, but even so, when I look out the window for Jake—God I will need him now even more—to see his face, see whether he’s with me or not, all I see is his (beautiful) back walking away. Walking away from me.

CHAPTER 27

GOING BACKWARD

The next week and a half passes in a blur. “Hospital time,” Dad calls it. Grandma is in such terrible shape. She’s hooked up to all kinds of machines in the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit; she’s in what they call a light coma. A light coma? What would a heavy coma look like? They don’t know if she’s going to make it, or if she does, what her life will be like. What
she
will be like.

The ICU rules are strict. Only two people can visit her for fifteen minutes at a time. Mom is in there as much as possible. I take turns with Dad and Uncle Joe. But mostly it’s Mom and me, because both Dad and Uncle Joe find it too sad. Grandma looks unbearably tiny and fragile in that hospital bed. And she’s got all these tubes and wires stuck in her.

Sometimes, when it’s quiet and no doctors are around, the nurses let Mom and me stand by her bed and talk to her for as long as we want. The nurses say she can hear us. (The doctors say not. We choose to believe the nurses.) Mom and I tell her stories, and we say “I love you” over and over again. I bring her up to date about Randy in the reading lab, how the last time I was there he read to me. I remind her about how she used to take
me shopping, and how she taught me to make a Spanish omelet, and even about the time I got her on a bike down the shore and she wobbled and we laughed and then rode five miles together. When I talk to her like this and hold her hand, I don’t mind the way she looks. In my mind’s eye she is the Grandma I remember from my childhood. Not the Grandma from this past year.

Sometimes I ride to the hospital on my bike, but it’s a long way from our house. I can’t wait to get my license. I’m getting better at driving every time Dad gives me a lesson. Though I haven’t left the driveway, since I’m not sixteen yet.

It’s been pretty good between Mom and Dad since this happened—which seems like a lifetime ago. I haven’t been in school since. Dad called and told them the situation, and they said I could stay out. Nothing much gets done around Thanksgiving anyway. Jake and I have texted a little bit, but nothing much. I told him what was going on; he said he was sorry about it. He was going to relatives out of town for a couple of days.

We had awful turkey in the hospital cafeteria on Thanksgiving. Just the three of us, since Uncle Joe had gone home to his family. It was sad, but for the first time in a long time we felt like a unit, Dad making dumb jokes, Mom and me laughing at them. It’s been that way since, and they haven’t made me go back to school.

But today Mr. Wonderful waved his magic wand again.

The three of us were in the waiting room because they were doing some procedure on Grandma. We were alone in there, thankfully. Not like yesterday when that dad and his kids came in sobbing because the mom had been in a horrible car accident. That poor family.

Dad was doing a crossword puzzle. Mom was pretending to read a magazine, but I could tell she wasn’t. My hint? It was upside down. The two of them seemed a little off but not horrible. Mom closed her eyes, and I think she sort of fell asleep. So I sat next to Dad and did the puzzle with him.

“What’s a five-letter word for
storm
?” he asked me.

“Storm?” I said, and he laughed.

Mom jumped a little, opened her eyes, gave Dad a look, and then closed her eyes again.

I wanted to kick myself. I made it worse somehow. But I was in the minor leagues compared to what happened next.

The rabbi walked in.

The rabbi walked into the waiting room.

The rabbi walked into the waiting room, and he nodded at me and my father. Then he sat down next to Mom and tapped her on the shoulder and said, “Evelyn.”

She looked up at him and fell into his arms, crying.

“Oh, Rabbi,” she cried. “Oh, Rabbi.”

Oh, for God’s sake, I thought.

The rabbi put his arms around my mother and pulled her to him. He held her, stroked her hair, her back. He rocked her a little. I couldn’t stop watching, like it was a car crash.

I heard my dad mutter something under his breath, and then he slammed the newspaper down on the chair next to him, got up, and walked out of the room.

The rabbi kept stroking my mother’s hair.

I stayed for a few minutes, but she kept crying and he kept holding her and stroking her and murmuring to her.

I got up and walked out, too. I should have followed my dad, I guess. But I had no idea what I’d say. None.

So, since it was Friday, I thought, what the heck, I’ll go down to Union. I found out from the hospital information desk where to get the bus, and took it. Texted Dad that I was going.

I got to the school at the right time, but when I walked into the reading lab, Mrs. Glick shook her head and came over to me.

“He’s gone. I tried calling you at school. They told me you weren’t there and so I called your house, but no one answered.”

“My grandma is in the ICU.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“What do you mean, Randy’s gone?” Did she mean he died? I held on to the desk next to me. Was I going to lose everyone I cared about?

“He didn’t show up at all this week, and no one answered at home. Yesterday, someone finally picked up and said that Randy was leaving town, wouldn’t be back at school.”

“So where is he, where did he go, why?”

“I don’t know, Rachel. I’m still trying to find out. But my best guess is that his grandmother died and some other relative took him.”

“Can we find out?”

She shook her head, frowned. “The best I could do was confirm with social services that he isn’t in the system. So he’s not a foster child anywhere.”

“But how do we know he’s OK?” I said, my voice cracking. “I don’t think I can take not knowing.”

Mrs. Glick clicked her tongue.

“Do you know where he lived?” I asked.

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to go see what I can find out.”

Mrs. Glick wrote an address down on a piece of paper. I put it in my pocket.

“I shouldn’t really have done that,” she said. “But I trust you to be careful.”

I went to the office. “Do you know where this is?” I asked the secretary who always calls me honey.

“Not far from here. Down this street two blocks and make a left.”

So here I am, right where I wandered that first day. But today I don’t feel at all uncomfortable like I did then. So what, I’m rich and I’m white and I’m Jewish. I’m not that rich. And I can’t help it that I’m white. Jewish, well, I guess I’m still Jewish.

It takes me only a few minutes to get to the address. It’s a run-down apartment house. There are some moms with toddlers outside.

I go up to one of them.

“Do you know a little boy named Randy? Randy Gamez?”

“No,” she says.

“I know Randy,” says another woman, an older lady. “His grandma died. She was raising him.”

“I know,” I say. “Do you know where he’s living now?”

“What are you, a social worker?”

“I’m in high school,” I say. I’m flattered that she thinks I’m that old. “I’ll be sixteen in a month. I worked with him at his
elementary school. Helped him with reading. I want to know if he’s OK.”

She shrugs her shoulders. “I guess. He went to Jersey to live with his mama’s cousin. The guy’s been here before. Then I saw him the day of the funeral. Packed little Randy up right after and left.”

“What did he look like, the cousin?”

“I don’t know. Young, wearing jeans and a baseball cap, you know, backward. I didn’t really notice because they were just getting into the car.”

“What kind of car?” I ask, impatient now. I have a feeling I’ll know if Randy is going to be OK by the kind of car the cousin drives.

“Funny you should ask that. It was an old car, like one from thirty, forty years ago, a model I remember. But this one, it was all spruced up, shiny. Nice looking. Randy seemed excited, was asking the cousin all kinds of questions about it. Blabbin’ away like his grandma didn’t just die.”

“Was the cousin answering?”

She looks at me like I’m crazy, but then she says, “Yeah, he was.”

“Was he nice about it?”

Finally she smiles. “The cousin? Yeah, he was really into it. They got into the car chatting up a stream.”

“Thank you,” I say to the lady. “Thank you!”

And thank you, I say to God.

I am going to let myself feel good about this.

What else can I do?

CHAPTER 28

GOING BACKWARD II

It’s close to midnight, and I’m woken up by them yelling at each other. Then doors slamming, feet stomping. Damn, I thought they were doing better. That rabbi. I swear. He ruins everything.

I hear an engine start. Which car is it? Who’s leaving this time? It’s usually Dad. What am I saying? It’s always Dad. I crawl quietly across my bedroom and look out the window. Mom’s car is still in the driveway. Yup. Dad. Again. Where does he go? He goes somewhere but then ends up here, sleeping on the couch.

I have to know where he goes. If I hurry … if I take a bit of a chance … I’ve done it enough times with him. “If you can back out of the driveway,” Dad has said, “you’ll be able to drive, no problem. Reverse is the hardest.”

I am only in my flip-flops and sweats, but I don’t care.

Her purse is on the table by the door; her key right on top. I’m going to get in so much trouble. Visions of police cars, sirens blaring, dance in front of my eyes, fill my ears. But I don’t care. My poor Dad.

What has my dear, sweet, singing, curtain-opening, joke-cracking Daddy done to deserve this?

I get into the driver’s seat in Mom’s car and immediately realize two things: I have never backed the car down the driveway in the dark, and I have never backed a car down the driveway without Dad right next to me.

But if I don’t hurry, I won’t find him.

I push the power button as I’ve seen Mom do and put my foot on the brake. And then I realize one more thing: I’ve never backed Mom’s car down the driveway. I’ve never actually driven this car. She wouldn’t let me.

Tough.

I put it in reverse. It starts
beep beep beep
ing, shattering the quiet of the night. I can’t see out the back, and then I remember the screen—this car has a video screen for seeing out the back. Do I have to press a button to turn it on? I fumble around, and as I push the button, I realize I’ve turned it off, not on, and I push it again, but it doesn’t turn on, and meanwhile the car is going backward, and so I forget about the screen. I also forget about the slight curve in the driveway and the bump where the tree root has pushed it up at the end, and I forget that Dad always warns me about all of that and his Japanese maple that’s right there at the side at the end and—

Thwack. Thud
.

Crunch
.

Mom’s beloved Prius just hit Dad’s beloved Japanese maple. I have never heard anything so awful.

Not since “Oh, Rabbi.”

But this sound is worse. Because this one I made.

CHAPTER 28A

GOING BACKWARD III

I sit stunned for a minute. Terrified.

Shit, shit, shit.

I have to get out of here, get out of this. If I run into the house, put back the key, and pretend I’m asleep, maybe they’ll think it rolled on its own. Mom forgot to put on the emergency brake or do something.… I don’t know with this car, it’s practically alive, maybe …