Perfect Glass (A Young Adult Novel (sequel to Glass Girl)) (22 page)

“She hated that you’d been jumped into the gang?” I said.

He looked at me like I’d sprouted horns. “Hated it? She wanted me in the gang.” He rubbed the back of his head and stared at the floor. “She just hated the tattoos. But me in the gang…that helped her career. She told me once there were two ways for her to get inside the heads of these bangers. Either I joined, but stayed on the fringes, or she dated one. Guess which one I chose.”

I shook my head. “That’s no kind of choice, Raf. You were the man of the house and you did the only thing you could do to protect your mom.”

“But I didn’t protect her.” The lines around his eyes deepened. “I killed her.”

“You didn’t kill her,” I said. “They killed her.”

“
Sí
,” he whispered. “I keep telling myself that.”

I reached over and squeezed his shoulder. Raf’s body began to shake with the force of his sudden tears. He put his back to me to hide his emotion. For a gangster turned orphan, tears were the final humiliation.

“What would you do differently if you could go back?” I asked, after a minute.

He wiped his nose with the back of his hand and stared at the wall, truly considering a question he’d no doubt asked himself a million times.

“I really liked Ana,” he said. “My neighbor. ¿
Entiende
? We hung out after school every day. I stood on her porch that day and I heard her crying inside. I heard Franco,
un veterano
, telling her to shut up.”

I didn’t even want to move. I didn’t want to mess up this moment. “What’d you do?”

“I kicked the door in,” he said, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down in his throat. “It surprised him and she was able to run. I figured I was dead anyway, so I might as well take him down with me.” He brought his fist down on his thigh. “
Nunca pensé que dolerían a mi mamá
. I never thought it would hurt my mother.”

Raf’s voice wavered and broke, adopting the husky tones of a guy trying to control emotion. I’d been right there myself too often in the past months. This kid…he broke my heart.

“I know you don’t want pity,” I said. “And that’s not what I’m offering. I’m just saying I wish things had been different for you.”

Raf nodded and sucked in air, reining himself in again. In that moment, he was completely without guile. It showed in the way he let his shoulders fall forward, making his skinny chest look even scrawnier and in the way he pulled his hair off his forehead, self-consciously drawing attention to the faint, silvery scars that ran from his cheekbone into his hairline.

I saw him. I saw his dark eyes and dark skin. I saw how difficult it was for him to play the
tipo malo
.

“Listen, you’re a guy who’s seen a lot of bad things, but you’re smart enough to know there’s another side to life.” I stared at him, at all the details I’d missed. “You know good exists. Think about how many people you could reach just by saying, ‘I’ve been there.’”

“No one would listen to me.” He picked at a piece of tape on the floor until he ripped it away, balling it up and tossing it behind him.

“Oh, yeah, they would. They’ll be down in the muddy gutters until they see that clean water sings. You’ll show them.”

“Maybe.” He put his shirt back on.

I clapped him on the shoulder before I stood and got back to work. We worked late into the night. I heard the goings-on in the dining hall and dorms—John taking care of Aidia, Equis shooting hoops, Rosa serenading us with a Luis Enrique song. Under all those normal signs of life, an undercurrent of anxiety laced with sadness ran through Quiet Waters.

meg

J
o’s moments of clarity were rare—to the point I worried she’d pull a gun on me if I didn’t announce myself and my purpose loudly. She hardly recognized anyone, not Henry’s mom when she came to visit, sometimes not even Quinn’s mom, but she always knew me. That was more burden than blessing, actually.

Because, I mean, she knew me.

She had this way of making me open up like I hadn’t since Henry left. All my secrets slipped out like they’d been oiled. She knew how Wyatt died and how close I’d come to joining him. She knew about my mom’s depression and long treatment.

She knew I worried that if Henry didn’t come home soon my head would explode. And I feared that if he went to Laramie without me, he’d meet a tight-jean-wearing cowgirl. She knew how Quinn felt about me and what that did to my self-esteem. It was juvenile, really, my reaction.

She listened to me pray before I fed her dinner and, even if she didn’t bow her head or say, “Amen,” she stayed quiet and she watched my mouth move. One time I opened my eyes while I prayed and I caught a look on her face that changed everything for me. I saw the truth she’d tried to hide. Longing. A trust. A belief. She believed. But she was still angry.

She waited for me every day on her porch, huddled in a blanket in her rocking chair. Her body showed signs of malnutrition now. I knew the signs because I’d watched the videos in health class—the ones that pounded us over the head about anorexia. I hated seeing the sickness in time-lapse photography. Normal to dead in twenty seconds never looked pretty.

Today, she seemed too weak to stand when I parked in her drive. Neighbors stared from their front windows. I burned with shame for her as I lifted her and helped her inside, out of the freezing temperature. Lately, she seemed to forget that December in Wyoming could actually kill you. These people living twenty feet from her door couldn’t be bothered to walk over and make her go inside?

It felt like we’d been waiting too long for this “spell” to pass, since well before school’s winter break started. Once I had Jo fed and settled into her chair to watch
Wheel of Fortune
, I called Jenny and told her I was afraid Jo wasn’t coming back this time.

“Is there something we could do?” I said. “Vitamin E? Fish Oil? Yoga for the elderly?”

“A drop in the ocean,” she said. “Her brilliant, beautiful, creative mind is dying, chunks of it at a time.”

“No,” I insisted. “There’s got to be something that’s proven to reverse neurological damage. More puzzles. Sudoku. I’m going to teach her how to play a new card game.”

“Didn’t she agree to a show at your mom’s gallery?”

“Yes, but I pushed her to it. I annoyed her until she finally said yes to shut me up. She doesn’t remember it.”

“Is it scheduled?” Jenny’s voice had gone soft.

I hung my head and stared at the worn rug in Jo’s living room. “The Thursday after New Year’s.”

“Wow,” Jenny said.

“Yeah,” I whispered because Jo glanced up at me. I moved into the kitchen and leaned against the chipped tile counter. “Which is why I think I’d better tell my mom to pull the plug. She’s told me every day to bring Jo in with works from the last two years. I just couldn’t find the right time to disappoint everyone.”

“Wait on pulling the plug, okay?” Jenny said. “There is something that can help Jo’s mind. And that is called ‘having something to look forward to’.” Jenny’s voice faded in and out; she was trying to cook dinner while she talked.

Quinn’s smooth voice rose in the background. He was having a conversation with his sister.

“Can you sneak into her studio tonight and see what she’s got framed, just sitting around gathering dust?” Jenny said. “And, also, look at the paintings on her bedroom walls. I bet you and I are the only people who’ve laid eyes on some of those. I’m no art critic, but there are a few of hers I can’t stop staring at. That woman’s eyes see things we don’t see.”

“My mom quotes William Blake all the time—‘The eye altering, alters all,’” I said.

“I want to meet your mom,” Jenny said. “Hey, do you have a second? Quinn wants to talk to you.”

Yeah, because the Winter Formal is in less than four weeks and I’ve been avoiding him. “Sure.”

“Okay, bye, sweetheart. I’ll probably see you tomorrow at Jo’s. I’m bringing her some food to heat up on Christmas Day.” The phone dulled out as it passed hands and Jenny said, “I told you to hold your horses, Quinn.”

Then a low chuckle and a boy breathing and a squeaking door and, “Hey, Kavanagh, Merry Almost Christmas.” Why did Quinn’s raspy voice have to sound like the front man for a band?

“Hello, O’Neill. Merry Almost Christmas to you.”

He blew out a slow breath. “Look,” he said. “You completely ignored me the last day of school and we’ve hit crunch time. I kind of need to know what you’re thinking about this dance thing. I realize I’m in my salad days, but it seems to me most girls would’ve said yay or nay by now. Especially girls who are just friends.”

“Wait.” I suppressed a laugh. “Salad days?”

“You know, these are my days of youthful inexperience? Shakespeare?”

“Right.” Taking a deep breath, I put words to the decision my heart had made long ago. “I’ll go.”

“You’ll go because you want to?” he said. “Or you’ll go because Thanet laid the guilt on thick?”

“Does it really matter?”

Quinn grunted, a soft frustrated release of sound. “Yes, Meg. It really matters. My ego’s kind of on the line here.”

I clicked my tongue. “Your ego shouldn’t be on the line. You know the situation.”

The line went quiet for a few seconds before Quinn spoke again. “Yeah, I was going to ask you if I should call Henry or something. He’s not coming home for Christmas, is he?”

I tried not to laugh at him. “No, and I think it’s a supremely awful idea for you to call him. I talked to him and he’s okay. He’s biting his tongue and trying to be big about it.” I paused for emphasis. “But, hear this, he won’t be big about it if you call him.”

Quinn chuckled. “Message received.”

“Anyway, I told him you were in life skills and you have buck teeth and body odor, so now he just feels sorry for you.”

“All right,” he said. “Good thinking, Miss Smarty Pants. Because, probably, when he saw me on Skype that time, he didn’t memorize my face or anything for future reference.”

Jo started coughing in the other room and I stilled for a minute to listen. Usually, her coughing spells lasted seconds, but this one seemed to be dragging on for a while.

“She okay?” Quinn said.

“I don’t know. I’d better go. But, Quinn, I’m excited about the dance.”

I could hear the grin in his voice when he said, “See you tomorrow, Meg.”

By the time I made it to Jo’s side, I could tell this was serious. Jenny had given her a firm pillow to hug to her chest when she coughed and Jo had a death grip on the pillow. I poured her a glass of water and patted her back, waiting for her to take a breath.

Her lips turned blue, so I set the water down and started looking for my phone. When she fell out of her chair onto the floor, I pressed 911, got on my knees next to her and started trying to position her for CPR.

“911…what’s your emergency?” The dispatch operator had to repeat herself several times before I was able to yell between my clumsy puffs of air into Jo’s mouth.

“I need an ambulance at 212 Live Oak—Jo Russell’s house. She’s suffocating. I don’t know…she can’t breathe. Please help me.”

***

Banished to the waiting room at the hospital, I paced like a trapped animal. No one seemed to know what was going on and I wasn’t allowed in with Jo because I wasn’t a relative. By the time Henry’s parents walked in, I had collapsed on a small sofa. Miriam immediately joined me and wrapped me in her arms.

Clayton squeezed my knee and looked at me with the same compassion I always see in Henry’s eyes. “How’re you doing, honey?”

“I’m really worried about her. They won’t tell me anything.”

He took a folded paper from his back pocket. “I’ve got the magic paperwork. Give me a minute and I’ll find out what’s going on.”

After talking to the woman at the desk, he was whisked away to Jo’s side. Miriam and I sat together, holding hands and staring at the door that closed behind Clayton.

Miriam began to hum “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” and I relaxed against her, laying my head on her shoulder.

“You and Henry and your big, old hearts,” she said. “It’s no wonder you found each other.”

I tugged a tissue out of my pocket where I’d stuffed it earlier. “I miss him so much.”

“Have I ever told you about the days before Henry’s grandmother died?”

“No, ma’am.” I sat up to listen closely. Details about Henry’s childhood were like little surprise parties to me.

“Henry was fifteen when Clayton’s mother died.” Miriam rubbed my knuckles as she talked. “She lingered a while in hospice, in and out of a coma, and Henry spent every minute he could right by her bedside. I’d catch him arranging her pillow and wiping her face with a washcloth. It made me so proud of my son.”

I nodded and smiled.

“Anyway, in her last hours, she opened her eyes, saw Henry, and called him over. Henry pulled up a chair, and she started telling him why she loved him—his kindness, his eyes, the way he’d always taken care of her and their children. It didn’t take long for Henry to figure out she thought he was her husband, Henry’s grandfather. And she was saying goodbye to him.”

“Did she ever figure it out?”

“No,” she said. “And she died shortly after that. After Henry had fallen asleep on her couch. She waited until she was alone to finally let go. But the best part of the story is what Henry had to say about it.”

Leaning forward and fixing her eyes on the windows across the room, Miriam smiled. “He was so young, you know? And after the funeral, he said, ‘Mom, I think Grandma knew it was me. I think she was teaching me what love is so I’ll know it when I feel it.’”

I smiled at her reflection in the window and she smiled back. “Maybe he was right,” I said. “And the only thing that matters to all of us at the end is making sure the people we’re leaving know how to find love.”

Miriam took my hand. “That’s what Henry said, almost exactly. The point is—he was there for it. He got to soak up so much wisdom from his grandparents and he was smart enough to recognize the important moments.”

I voiced the question plaguing my mind. “Do you think Jo’s going to die soon?”

Miriam sighed. “I think, whether she dies tonight or next year, she’s living some final moments out right before our eyes and we’d be wise to pay attention. She’s not who everyone thinks she is.”