Shattered (12 page)

One of my favorite memories of my mother started
with her twirling her red umbrella in the space between our seat and the one
ahead of us. I couldn’t stop laughing as water splashed me. Again and again.
Stop after stop. It didn’t get old.

When our stop came, the bus driver said, “
Don’t make me put fire under your butts,
Theresa and Nathan. I have other stops to make
.”

As we passed him, he winked at Mom like
they shared a secret. Later, I came to know that he knew Mom wasn’t supposed to
leave the house and always made sure the bus was on time so we would make it
home before John.

Rain blew around us, and Mom stretched her
umbrella into the sky.

“
Theresa,
make sure you are here on time. I got in trouble for waiting on you two last
week
,” the driver, Bernard, said. The large African-American man was my
mother’s only friend outside of me.

“
You
fuss too much, Bernie
,” Mom said, pulling me away from the bus and onto the
sidewalk. Bernie drove away, and Mom kneeled down to tie my shoe. I was seven
and knew how to do it. I kneeled down to take the strings from her. “
Nathan, it’s raining. We need to hurry. Let
me get it
.”

The ends of her pretty yellow dress swept
against the wet concrete. Mom always dressed like someone from the sixties. At
that age, her makeup was always perfectly applied and she always had on pearls.
Even with her pajamas.

She double-knotted my laces and tugged me
across the street. I remember wondering why she wore such uncomfortable shoes
all day. These matched her yellow dress and made her as tall as the giants from
my cartoons.

At the door of a shop, she kneeled down
to my level again and fixed my hair. “
You
are very handsome, honey
,” she said. I knew what she was about to say
next–I could be on a cereal box. She said it every day. “
You could be one of those kids on cereal
boxes, you know? I’ll call around to see how to get you on one, cutie.”

She never called around to my knowledge.

A bell dinged over a door as she pushed
it. Mouthwatering scents raptured me in excitement as we stepped inside. I
could smell every piece of candy in the store. Caramel and chocolate and sugar
and heaven.

“
Remember
what you learned in our math lesson yesterday, honey?
” she asked.

I nodded. My head was always full of
advanced math. Every day, for most of the day, we did math. Because boys are
supposed to know it, and John would be impressed with how good I was at it. I
was seven and knew how to handle big numbers without paper or a calculator.

Mom opened her glittery purse and pulled
out two twenty-dollar bills.

“
Good.
You can get anything this can buy … if you don’t go over the price when we get
to the register
.”

“
Huh?
”
I asked, with my nose still in the air.

“
Add
the prices, remember what we learned about taxes. Stay under forty dollars, and
all of the candy comes home with us.
”

With the money in my pocket, I ran around
the store like a wild animal. The shop owner laughed and followed behind me
with a cart.

I liked the candy store. The scents
masked the dying flowers that were usually in my nose all day.

“
Mom!
What about this?
” I yelled, holding up a stick as long as I was full of
powdery sugar. She clicked her steep heels on my aisle. Her nose was tucked in
an issue of Better Homes and Gardens.

She didn’t look up from it as she said, “
If you can buy it, baby, it’s all yours
.”

I got three of them. I added them to the
running total in my head and went to the next aisle. I counted out ten
chocolate covered mints and tossed them into the basket. Those were for her.
She loved mint and chocolate. I planned to hide them in my room and give them
to her from time to time, like a present, or a thank you. Maybe she’d stay
after John came home finally.

I’d estimated a total of 38.95, but I
chewed on my nails at the register, suddenly nervous that I’d gotten too many
bags of sour worms. The shop owner checked us out instead of the clerk. He kept
telling Mom how awesome it was to see a mother take such interest in their
child’s education.

He nodded to the sparkly ring on her left
hand. “
Is your husband this into teaching
him math?
” he asked.

Mom stalled for a moment. “
He’s an accountant. He works long hours. I’m
just trying to get our son to follow in his father’s footsteps.
”

The storeowner smiled. “
I think he will
,” he said. “
Your total is 38.95, young man
.”

She let me keep the change, like she did
on every one of our field trips. My room was always bursting with candy and
toys when she took our math lessons out of the house. When I got older, we’d
hit the clearance aisles. We were never strapped for cash, she just wanted me to
practice percentages.

Those were the happy memories with my
Mom. But soon, days at the candy store couldn’t overshadow nights alone in my
room. Or that if John told her not to talk to me, she wouldn’t. Or if he didn’t
feel like seeing me at dinner, I would have to eat alone. Or the countless
times she’d made me embarrass myself by asking him to help me with a math
problem I already knew how to solve. He never wanted to help. He never wanted
to talk. She refused to see that.

She made me hate her. I didn’t want to. I
wanted to call her Mom all day like I did before five o’clock. I didn’t want to
be forced to call her Theresa for him. I didn’t want to hear her puking up her
dinner in the middle of the night. I didn’t want to smell her wilt and watch
her die.

It was easier to stay in my room after I
shifted. I had my animal form and my new muscular body to keep me occupied. And
I’d lost my patience with her and John. She could simply call my name for
dinner, and I’d want to throw something at the door.

When
he
would say something, I did throw things. The months before I left were hell. I
couldn’t control myself. I was too angry and too strong not to fight back. When
he would mention yet again that I didn’t belong in his house, I found something
to hurl at his head. Mom begged him not to throw me out. He didn’t get the
satisfaction. One night while she was in her sewing room and John was in his
chair, I walked out and left the front door open.

John thought I was being disrespectful by
not closing it behind me. Mom knew the door was open for her. That day, I’d
begged her to come with me. I promised to take care of her. I was going to make
her happy and healthy. We were going to be the mother and son we used to be
before he came home from work.

I watched her close the door. On me. On
us. I still didn’t leave. I waited out there until their bedroom light turned
off.

I walked into the shadowy night slowly,
still hoping she’d run after me, leave with me and start our life together. I
don’t think I ever stopped waiting for her to find me until I met Chris. With
her, I didn’t have to be this pathetic person waiting for someone to notice them.
She saw me. She laughed with me at all times of the day. She made everything
okay.

I needed her now. I was very close to
crying useless tears over a dead person, a dead person who sort of loved me. At
the risk of waking her, I rolled Christine into my arms and squeezed her until
I fell into a mercifully dreamless sleep.

Nate was sleeping horribly like he was
having a nightmare. He didn’t feel me get into bed with him. He didn’t even
wake up when I kissed him, trying to pick up where we’d left off, so I just
plugged my phone into the charger and closed my eyes.

When my mother’s ringtone chimed, I
answered in a hurry.

“Mom!”

The sudden thunderstorm rattled the pool
house. Going outside to take the call was out of the question.

“Angel. Hi. How was dinner?”

“It was fun. Well, at the beginning it
was kind of awkward. Dad and I had a little fight.”

She gasped and asked, “Why?” Then she
groaned, answering the question on her own. “Don’t fight with him over me,
Christine.”

“You don’t know what he said.”

I gave her a moment to figure it out. She
gasped again. “Asshole. I mean … I’m sorry, but that was a terrible thing to
say. Of course I wouldn’t sleep with Kamon. And no one else could possibly be
your father. I can’t believe he said that.”

“Don’t worry. I know that.” She made a
noise that kind of sounded like she’d kissed the phone. There was too much
static to be sure. “The rest of the night was okay … until he wanted to have a
heart to heart with Nate and kicked me out of his room.” She chuckled. “Do you
know about him trying to go to Trenton tomorrow?”

“Unfortunately, I do. I called him
earlier to speak with him about it”

“And?”

“He wasn’t very receptive to my opinion.
I’ll have Sophia try.”

I changed the subject from Dad and asked
her about her day. We only had a few minutes to talk usually. I felt them
winding down.

“My day was the same as always. I woke up
happy to be your mom and I will go to bed the same way. Whatever I do between
that is irrelevant.” I chuckled, knowing that what she did between waking up
and going to bed as my mom probably had something to do with Kamon and making
my world safe. “Tomorrow will be the same.
Oh, wait, no it
won’t.
Tomorrow will be different.”

“How so?”

“I sense that you’ll call me and tell me
you’re skipping school.” I hummed. That was interesting. I hadn’t missed a day
of school yet, even with Kamon out there. “Yep. I see it in my future. You’re
going to call and say you’re not going. I can’t see why. And–
splendid
–that’s wonderful.”

“What?”

“I’m going to see you tomorrow, angel.” I
squealed. “Because you’re skipping school, I think. I’ll come with your gift
for midterms, okay?” She kissed the phone, for sure this time. “I have to run. I
love you.”

“Love you too. Bye.”

I watched Nate toss and turn for a few
minutes, still unable to screw the smile off of my face. I was going to see my
mother tomorrow, actually see her. That was a good enough reason to skip school
right there.

The rain slowed into a mellow rhythm that
made it impossible to stay awake, and I curled closer to Nate. My eyes closed
as he tossed from his back to his side and back again.

When I opened them again, I was in his
sweaty arms. He was snoring softly and sleeping more peacefully, but I couldn’t
shake the feeling that I’d missed something.

In the morning, I turned off his alarm
and shook his shoulder. He didn’t respond.

“Nate?” A snore caught in his throat, and
he turned over to his side. He’d left a body-shaped sweat stain on his sheets. “Nate.
It’s time to…”

I stopped trying. This was what Mom had
meant. I was going to want a day off. Nate was paler than usual and sweating
buckets. “Honey?” I said. “Are you feeling okay?” He grunted. It was somewhere
between animal and human. He probably needed more rest, and the least I could
do was rest with him.

I called Mom, and she laughed as she
answered. “Let me guess what this is about,” she said.

“Nate’s still sleeping,” I said. “Maybe he
needs a day off.”

“Yeah. If he’s not at Trenton then … um
…” She cleared her throat and started again. “Make sure he calls in sick so he
doesn’t get in trouble with his job.” I barely had time to say goodbye before
she hung up.

I reached over my sweaty boyfriend and
grabbed his phone. He still had the flip phone Sophia had given him months ago.
I opened his call log, thinking it would be the fastest way to find his work
number. Yesterday, he’d only called Paul. Twice. The day before he’d called
GRIFF’S
DESK, me, WORK, and me again.

Since
GRIFF’S
DESK appeared before WORK, I dialed that one first. Maybe they had two lines or
something. It rang and rang and rang. Just as I was about to give up, he said,
“This is Griffin.”

“Griffin, hi. This is Christine. I’m
calling for Nathan.”

“Hi there, cutie pie. I’m just getting
in. Let me put my things down here. There we go. Just let me turn on the coffee
pot.” Nate grumbled and adjusted on the pillow, burrowing deeper. “Okay.
Coffee’s brewing. Now, what was it, cutie pie?”

“Hi. Um … Nathan’s not feeling well. It
looks like he won’t be able to make it today. I hope that’s okay.”

“Of course it is. I hope he feels better.
Tell him to take all the time he needs.”

“Thanks.”

I hung up and tried shoving Nate’s arm
again. He was still dead to the world. His hair was slick against his head and
a bead of sweat trickled down his neck.

“You’re trying to upset me, aren’t you?”
Dad said. I shook my head and met him at the door. “What are you wearing, kid?”

“Some people call these pajamas.”

“Some people call those booty shorts.”

Dad was officially banned from saying
booty
ever again. He could pass for
seventy now with how uncool he’d sounded. I shushed him and closed Nate’s door.
“He’s sleeping in. We’re taking a day off.”

“Says who?”

“Says Mom.” I felt another fight coming
on, so to avoid it, I added, “And hopefully you too.”

“
I
pay for Trenton, and it costs about as much as my car did per semester, so you
don’t get to skip days. We talked about this.” Despite his tone, he squatted in
front of me, an invitation for a piggyback ride. I gladly accepted.

“Nate looks sick,” I said.

“Yeah, yeah. Don’t make this a habit.”

“If we were normal people,” I said. “I
wouldn’t have to ask you to stay home.”

“If we were normal people, you would
still be in high school, and I would be making you breakfast before you caught
the bus.”

“The bus?!”

We laughed, and I rested my head against
his. I preferred him with the wild curly hair he had in Mom’s memories. This
clean-cut version of him was preachy and always seemed sad even when he was
laughing.

I helped him with breakfast and brought
Nate a plate. He was still snoring like it was two in the morning. I took his
plate back to the kitchen and ate with Dad. After, I looked in on my boyfriend
again. Still asleep.

I bounced back to my other guy. I found him
staring out of the window, in the same position he’d been in all day. Dad was
the content type. The type to be comfortable with Mom in captivity. In his
eyes, as usual, there was this look that said he could cry at any time.

It was up to me to cheer him up. He had
friends, but they didn’t know his deepest secrets–the dark parts about
Mom–and he’d kept his relationships light, so there wasn’t anyone serious
in his life. I was all he had.

There was always some random assignment
to be done, so I pulled a chair next to his and asked for help with a take-home
quiz I didn’t really need help with.

An hour into it, and still painfully on
number three, he said, “You’re wonderful. You know that?”

“So I’ve been told.”

“It’s kind of weird.” He stared into open
space and didn’t elaborate. I bumped his shoulder to restart the conversation.
“Maybe weird was the wrong word. It’s just that sometimes you remind…”

I smiled. “Remind you of someone?” I
asked.

“The way you talk sometimes, yes. And how
you laugh and … most of all … when you’re upset. Yes, you remind me of someone.
And that’s weird, given that you have some of her traits … it’s weird that you
still manage to be so wonderful.” I frowned. Of course he wasn’t having a gushy
moment about Mom. He hated her.

We both jumped when someone cleared their
throat behind us. It was Mom, with a huge box in her hands. “Speak of the devil
and she will come,” Dad said.

“Always a pleasure to see you too,
Christopher,” she said, ignoring the devil comment.

“Is that your real voice or are you
purposefully trying to sound like your mother?”

Mom’s jaw dropped. To her, those were
probably fighting words. She and CC didn’t get along at all. My guess would be that
Dad was fully aware of that.

“Hey,” I said. “You talked to her!” I applauded,
celebrating the little victory, and Dad rolled his eyes.

It took me a moment to remember that
seeing Mom in person wasn’t a normal thing, and I jumped up and tackled her. I
didn’t know why I expected her to look different, for time to change her in
some way, but there she was, Lydia Shaw, impossibly beautiful. My impossible
mother.

“How’s Nathan?” she asked.

“Still asleep, I think.”

“He works hard. He deserves a lazy day.”
She pushed my shoulders back and stared at me. “This is for you,” she said,
tapping the huge box she’d placed on the counter.

I peeled the gold wrapping paper slowly like
it was going to fall apart in my hands. I was also breathing slowly, savoring
the moment like it too could disintegrate. Despite the circumstances, my
parents were in the same room. Sort of talking. It was all I could ask for,
really.

Under the gift-wrap, there was a chocolate-colored
box with a gold ribbon binding it together. I’d spent enough time with Emma to
know I should be excited about boxes that said Gucci.

“What did you do?” I squealed.

“Those grades made me cry. It would be
impossible to make me prouder, honey. Completely impossible. Open it.” The
ribbon slipped off easily, and I lifted the top of the box. “Every girl needs a
simple black dress.”

There were lots of words I would use for
the dress, but simple wasn’t one of them. It was stunning, knee-length, with a diamond
cutout in the back.

“Mom, this is … wow.” I carefully placed
it back in the box and wrapped my arms around her. I stood on my toes to kiss
her cheek. She was a giant in heels. “It’s perfect. Thank you.”

“It’s my pleasure. I think you should
wear it tonight. I hope you two have a great time.”

“Wait,” I said. “You’re okay with us
going to the open house? Like together? As father and daughter?”

She shrugged her shoulders and sighed. “I
may or may not have a wee bit of a tendency to want to control everything,” she
said. Dad laughed, and I tried to hide my chuckle. “So for once, I’m just going
to let life go where life will go. Just know that I will always be watching and
making sure nothing bad happens to either of you.”

“Your brand of protection is not
appreciated by everyone,” Dad said.

He had a way of silencing a room. I
didn’t know how to respond, he didn’t seem to have anything else mean to say,
and Mom just stared at her feet.

“As always,” she finally said. “It’s very
nice seeing you, Christopher.”

“You too, CC.”

She smiled at the ground briefly, and her
phone rang. We both knew what that meant. We kept the goodbye short, less tears
that way. Then she was gone again. I held my breath until I didn’t want to cry
anymore. Then I tried on my new dress.

****

Nathan

When I opened my eyes, the sun was
setting on a day I’d slept through.

I threw on the t-shirt and jeans that
were crumpled at the foot of my bed and ran to the house. I found Chris and Mr.
Gavin eating in the kitchen.

“Feeling okay?” she asked.

“Uh …”

“If I didn’t know better,” Mr. Gavin
said. “… I would say you’re avoiding me. First last night, then you sleep all
day today.”

 
Chris scowled at him. “I’m not,” I said.
“I just … actually, I don’t know what happened. I’ve never slept this much in
my life.”

“Glad to see you’re finally awake,” she
said. “I came into your room like fifty times. Oh, Griff said take all the time
you need. You don’t have to go to work Monday if you’re not up to it. Or to the
open house tonight. Mom said we could go.”

 
“Really?” I said. She nodded, and Mr.
Gavin narrowed his eyes, maybe waiting for me to assert my opinion again. “That’s
cool, and I can go. I’m feeling okay. I’m sorry I’ve been asleep all day.”

“Not a big deal,” she said. “I enjoyed my
day off.”