The Opposite of Hallelujah (21 page)

“Oh yes,” Hannah said. I held my breath, completely incapable of predicting what she would say next. “Just now.”

At Mom’s urging, we sat down at the table and unfolded our napkins in our laps. Pawel was seated next to me. I couldn’t get a good look at him without turning my head and being obvious, so I just sat there, examining my plate as if I was afraid it might have the atom-sized remnants of a former meal on its tooth-white surface. Time rolled by like a car in neutral, slow and steady, and full of something—not tension, not really, but an awkwardness so thick you could choke on it.

The first half of dinner was mild and pleasant and as good as you could possibly expect for that sort of thing, the sixteen-year-old daughter bringing home a new boyfriend while her well-meaning but anxious parents and virginal older sister looked on. Hannah was even
eating somewhat normally, if glacially. And then Pawel asked something, and the house of cards I’d built with unnecessary, idiotic lies collapsed in on itself.

There had been a period of soft silence, and Pawel was trying to break it. He started out with nice, innocuous statements about the warm weather we were having for the season, which my parents followed up with questions about his family. He told them about his parents’ immigration and his siblings.

“Have you ever been to Poland, Pawel?” Mom asked.

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “My mom and dad like to take us back every few years to visit family.”

“That’s exciting,” she said.

“Sometimes, but it’s mostly, like, hanging out at my grandfather’s farm and stuff,” Pawel told her. “And eating until I burst. My
babcia
is an amazing cook and she pretty much feeds us constantly the whole time we’re there.”

“Have you ever gone anywhere else in Europe?” Dad asked.

“Yeah, we’ve gone to Italy a few times, and France and Germany,” Pawel said. “And my mom has a sister who lives outside London, so we’ve visited them a few times.”

“How wonderful,” Mom said. “We keep hoping we’ll be able to take the girls to Europe one day. We want them to see the world; Evan and I both traveled a lot
when we were younger, and it drives us crazy that they haven’t gotten to have the same experience.”

Pawel’s face contorted in confusion. The moment expanded and contracted quickly, and in that second I knew what he was going to say; I felt it coming at me like a freight train. I gripped my silverware hard; there was nothing I could do to stop him.

“But, Hannah, you’ve traveled around a lot, right? Caro told me you were in Africa.”

All the air in the room congealed, and it was like we were in suspended animation. Thoughts bounced around in my mind like balls in a bingo cage. I had asked him not to say anything! Was he doing it on purpose? He couldn’t be, he was Pawel, he cared about me, he promised me he wouldn’t. I couldn’t believe I had told him that stupid lie! My parents were going to kill me. What would Hannah say? What would
I
say? Why had I invited him to dinner? Why had I lied? Why oh why oh why had I
lied
?

Hannah’s eyes narrowed, then widened in disbelief. My parents both glanced in her direction and then glared at me in fury. Nobody knew who should say something first as Pawel spooned a piece of chicken into his mouth and chewed, blissfully unaware that he had said anything wrong. I dug the tips of my fingers into his leg; when he caught the look of alarm on my face, it dawned on him that he had done exactly what he’d promised not to do, and he mouthed,
Sorry
! But it was too late. He didn’t
even understand the gravity of what he had done. What
I
had done.

“Caro told you I was in Africa?” Hannah asked.

“Yeah.” Pawel squirmed. “In the, uh … Peace Corps.” He turned to me, my parents, sweeping an apologetic gaze across the whole table. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have …”

“Actually—” I began, hoping that if I could do some damage control, he might not think I was a total psycho, but Hannah interrupted.

“I wasn’t in the Peace Corps,” she said carefully, setting her fork down next to her plate and avoiding my eyes. “Until recently, I was living in a convent as a Sister of Grace.”

Pawel turned his head to look at me. I gave him a pained shrug, the only thing I could muster.

“You mean you were a …” He searched for the word.

“Nun,” she said with purpose. “Caro lied to you.”

“Why do you have to put it like that?” I demanded.

“Because that’s what you did,” Hannah snapped, her saintly facade breaking. Her eyes filled up with tears, and she looked like she might slap me.

“Why?” The bewilderment in Pawel’s voice made me want to cry, too. He had never considered the possibility that I would lie to him.

“Caro, I cannot believe you would do this again,” Mom said, raging.

“Again?”
Pawel and Hannah said in unison. At that, I
did start to cry. Not loud, ugly sobs that shook the room, but my eyes began to leak and I felt very close to losing it right there at the dinner table.

“I didn’t mean to …,” I said weakly, gripping the edge of the table with the tips of my fingers.

“I’m not hungry anymore, may I please be excused?” Hannah’s voice was so tight you could strum it. Mom nodded; Hannah got up from the table and disappeared into the hallway. We listened to her footsteps as she went up the staircase, and then there was silence.

“I’m sorry,” Pawel said after a while. “I didn’t know.”

“Of course not,” Mom rushed to assure him. “Please don’t feel bad. This is Caro’s fault.”

Pawel finished his dinner quickly, apparently sensing that it was not a good night to linger. I couldn’t wait for him to go, but I knew his presence was the only thing holding back the avalanche of my parents’ wrath, and that once he was gone, I’d get the lecture of a lifetime, full of the screaming and grounding Mom and Dad were so good at.

I was allowed to walk Pawel to the door, and once we reached it, he asked me if I would go with him to his car. I could hear the clatter of dishes being collected and loaded into the sink, so I nodded and followed him to the driveway.

“What happened back there?” he demanded as soon as we were out of my parents’ earshot.

“I warned you not to say anything,” I snapped.

“Wait,
you’re
mad at
me
? You lied to me, Caro!” He was trying not to sound hurt, but of course he was. And irritated, too, maybe even straight-up angry. “You made me look like a total ass in front of everyone.”

“I’m so sorry. Of course I’m not mad at you.”

He turned and stared at me. “You need to talk to your family.”

“No, I need to talk to you,” I insisted, taking his hand. He let me, but it was limp in mine. “I can explain the Hannah stuff.”

Pawel ran his fingers through his hair and sighed. “You know what? It’s not even that big of a deal, and I know it’s not, but it’s still so weird that you’ve been lying to me all this time about something I don’t even give a shit about!” He shook his head. “No, it’s not that I don’t give a shit about it, but it wouldn’t have changed the way I felt about you if I knew Hannah was a nun or a sister or whatever. What exactly was the point of lying to me about that?”

“Because I always have,” I told him. It was a stupid thing to say, but it was the truth. He rolled his eyes.

“You don’t understand,” I continued. “I just didn’t want to have to explain what was going on with her, and I know it doesn’t matter but, like, sometimes things that don’t matter actually matter a lot, so I lied.”

“You didn’t want to explain what was going on with
her, or you didn’t want to find out what was going on with her?” Pawel asked, and I felt my stomach go into free fall. Of course he was right. I knew that. Lying about Hannah was the way I avoided having to figure out what to say about it, or what I felt about it besides anger and resentment.

“Both,” I admitted. “But if it doesn’t matter, then why are you mad at me?”

“Because. Look, I’m a pretty honest person, I think. I tell the truth. I don’t make shit up. And it’s important to me that the people I trust and care about are the same way. And if you lie about something small like this, then how can I believe you’d tell the truth when it’s something big?” Pawel looked at the ground and took his hand from mine.

“You don’t understand,” I said again.

“Yeah,” he said sharply. “I don’t.”

“She’s so hard to deal with, Pawel, you have no idea.”

“There’s something wrong!” he cried. “Can’t you see that?”

“What?”

“I can tell, and I don’t even know your sister. She looks miserable, and she looks—” He paused to choose his words carefully. “She looks too thin. Have you ever even asked her what’s going on with her, or do you just ignore it altogether? There’s something wrong, and you’re too scared to face it, so you lie and lie. I’m sorry, but that’s just—it’s just fucked up, is what it is.”

“Pawel …” I couldn’t think of anything else to say, so I just let his name hang there like a white flag.
Please don’t be mad
, I thought, but I didn’t say it.

“I’m going to go. I’ll see you later.”

“When?” I pleaded, hating the desperation in my voice.

“I don’t know, just … later,” he said, getting into his car and turning the key in the ignition. “At school.”

I could feel the tears pressing against the backs of my eyes, but I bit down hard on my lip to keep them in. I had some dignity. I wasn’t going to cry out here, where people could see me—where Pawel could still see me, in the rearview mirror, if he’d been looking. Which he wasn’t, I knew. My vision blurred, but no tears fell, and I was proud of that.

15

When I went back inside, the tribunal was waiting.

“Caro, sit down,” Dad commanded, face like a thundercloud.

“You don’t have to lecture me, I know exactly what you’re going to say.” I pouted, taking a seat.

“Oh, I’m sure you do,” Mom said. “Because we had this same conversation
four years ago
.”

“This is not the same,” I insisted. “I didn’t tell Pawel she was
dead
, I said she was in the Peace Corps.”

“It’s not the
lie
, it’s the
lying
, Caro, Jesus!” Dad yelled.

“Yes, let’s talk about Jesus for a second,” I yelled back. “Isn’t it all his fault in the first place? Hannah elopes with
Jesus, they get divorced, and now we’re all forced to kill ourselves to accommodate her fragile self-esteem!”

“You’d better lower your voice right now,” Dad growled.

“Why? Because the baby might hear me? Come on, Dad, seriously. She’s not a child, she’s an adult, and I’m sorry if I hurt her precious feelings but how do you think
I
feel?” I asked.

“Oh, we know exactly how you feel,” Mom said. “We spoiled you growing up and now you’re jealous of Hannah coming back into the family. You can’t handle it when everything’s not about you.”

“That’s not true! I just can’t
stand
it that you both are so afraid of her. You think she left home because she didn’t love us, and now that she’s back, you don’t want her to hate you enough to leave again,” I said. Their expressions were stoic, but I could tell that I’d hit them where it hurt.
There’s something wrong
! Pawel had said. And they were just ignoring it. I wasn’t the only one who was afraid to face things. “She didn’t leave because she didn’t love us, she left because she was selfish and she came back because she’s selfish and we’re all selfish and that’s not going to change, so just stop treating her like she’s going to break and get a grip already. Can’t you see that all you’re doing is ignoring what’s really going on?”

“Please illuminate us, Caro,” Mom said angrily. “What is
really
going on?”

“Hannah is sick,” I said. Pawel had been the first one
to say it, but I’d known it was true since the first time I’d laid eyes on her. “She’s skinny and she won’t eat and she sleeps all day. She’s depressed, can’t you see?”

“That’s enough,” Dad said. “You’re finished talking. Now is the time to listen.”

“What are you going to do, throw me in jail?” I grumbled.

“First, you’re going to apologize to Hannah,” Mom said. “
Again
. You’re losing all your car privileges, and we’re grounding you indefinitely.”

“Indefinitely?” I shrieked. “For telling one lousy lie?”

“No,” Dad said. “For turning your back on Hannah and this family, for being hurtful to her when you should be supporting her. You’ve been rigid and mean about this from day one, you’ve never even made the smallest effort with your sister.”

“We were giving you time to adjust, but you refused to, and that’s over now. You’re going to shape up and get on board with the plan of helping Hannah, and you’re not going to get your privileges back until you do.” Mom folded her arms and set her mouth in a stern line.

“That’s what you think,” I said. “You can’t stop me from doing what I want to do.”

“You grossly underestimate our power over you,” Mom said. “You can rage and cry and lock yourself in your room, but at the end of the day you’re going to do what we say if you want to have any kind of social life
whatsoever, so if you’re smart, you’ll skip the drama and go apologize to Hannah right now.”

“Over my dead body,” I snapped.

“If it comes to that.” Dad got up and stood over me. “Go.”