The Other Way Around (29 page)

“Merry Christmas,” I say. Mom rolls her eyes and smiles.

***

After G finishes her food she drifts off again, and Mom and I go for a walk around the hospital grounds. The air is crisp and about fifty degrees, which is the strangest Christmas weather I've ever experienced. Everything's quiet, and there are only a few cars in the parking lot. For a while we don't say anything at all. I'm not used to this with Mom. Usually she's going on about some student or parent or meeting she has to attend and I'm nodding along, all the while thinking about how I'm going to hide this quarter's grades from her. I take a deep breath.

“I know I owe you a really big apology.”

“There'll be time for that,” she says. “I think I owe you one too.”

“About Mima?”

“Yes, about Mima. And the way you and I have been living, the things I've asked you to accept as normal.”

“Things were never that bad,” I say, thinking of Max and his wolf suit.

“Yeah, but they were never that great, Andrew. I've had some time to think about it.” She makes a noise that's somewhere between a cough and a laugh. “I haven't slept much. It reminded me of when you were an infant, waking every couple
hours. I remember how crazy I would get about your sleeping and eating and how much you were pooping.”

“Come on, Mom,” I say.

“Sorry, sweetie. But it's something you'll never know until you have kids. The unbelievable responsibility of it all. To be completely responsible for someone else's life. It was thrilling to me when you said your first words, or when you read a book back to us when you were only two. I wanted to take credit for it all—with your father, of course. But when it went badly with me and your dad, well, I didn't want to take credit or responsibility for that.”

I take this in. Does she really see it all? Will anything really be different when I go home? Anything other than me. “Thanks, Mom. I appreciate you saying that, but I think it's okay if I'm responsible for me from now on. Like with school and stuff, like, whatever comes after. Life, I guess. You can still make me dinner sometimes if you want to.”

Mom makes a little noise in her throat that's somewhere between a cough and a laugh. She stops walking and throws her arms around me in a big, uncharacteristically tight hug. I can tell she's crying because she's making little sniffly noises. It occurs to me that Mom needs to take responsibility for herself too, but I decide not to share this right then and there. It's funny, but in this moment, the person I'm thinking about the most is G.

I let her snurfle on for a little bit and then I pull away. “What's going to happen to G? She doesn't have anywhere to go. They'll send her back into state custody.”

“Where she'll have a chance to finish school and maybe even go to college,” Mom says.

I try and be patient. She doesn't know what I know now. “There's no way she'll stick around long enough for that, Mom.” I take a deep breath. “What about St. Mary's?”

“What about it?”

“Well, don't they have scholarship funds? I mean, you run the place. Couldn't we find some money for G to go there? Or if they won't let her go for free, maybe I could help. Maybe Mima left me some money?”

“Oh, Andrew,” Mom says. “What you're suggesting is very complicated. I mean, someone would have to become her legal guardian before she could go to St. Mary's. That's assuming of course I could convince the board to take on a scholarship student.” She sounds skeptical, but I can tell by the way she's talking that she's really considering it.

“G doesn't have a home,” I tell her. “And I don't mean she doesn't have a place to live. I mean she doesn't have a home.” My voice gets a little scratchy here. “She kind of helped me see what a big deal that is.”

Mom looks at me. Like, she really looks at me in a way that would make me squirm if I wasn't so sure about what I was saying. “I'll look into it,” she says.

***

G didn't say much when I told her about the plan. She just turned her head and looked out the window.

After filling out paperwork with Officer Hanley, Mom spent the next several hours on the phone. First she contacted the guardian
ad litem,
who agreed to release G into Mom's custody until the state could find a new placement for her. After Mom gave her a serious headmistress-style lecture
about neglecting her job and allowing the most vulnerable members of our society to drift about the country in near vagrancy. Then she set up meetings with the board at St. Mary's and called about renting a van in Albuquerque so that she could drive me and G back home without jostling G's leg too much.

The more the plan became a reality, the more nervous I got. And I dealt with my nerves by asking G over and over again if she was okay with the whole thing. Finally she started to get annoyed at me.

“What are my options?” she finally said. “I'm not going back to some foster home like this. I can't even imagine what kind of people would take on a teenager who needs help getting to the bathroom. What you and your mom are doing is incredible. I'll find a way to pay you guys back.”

“I know you will,” I said. “It seems like maybe you already have.”

“Yeah, I made a few phone calls on the sly.”

“How?”

“That day in Louisville when you called home, I memorized the numbers you dialed. I figured if you ever got to be real pain, I could just call Nancy and rat you out.”

“Nice.”

“So you're not mad? I just wanted her to know you were all right. And you were kind of busy dealing with other things.”

It was the first time either of us even indirectly mentioned Emily. “No, I'm glad you did it. My mom would have been way more freaked out if you hadn't. It's really weird to hear you call her Nancy, though.” But there was something else bothering me. “G, about the other night, about your
fall.” I paused and took a deep breath. “It could have been me. It could have been my fault.”

“It's okay. Stuff happens. And anyway, I checked the ropes too. I think we both know it wasn't your fault.”

“I know she didn't mean for you to really get hurt.”

G sighed. “You know, it's weird. I'm not even that mad at her. I mean, this sucks.” She wiggled her toes pointing out of the white plaster. “But it's probably my fault too. I mean I wasn't very nice to her a lot of the time. I thought she was using you. And it just seemed like a matter of time before she started drinking again. But maybe she wouldn't have if I hadn't been on her case all the time. If I'd really wanted to help her I could have gone about it some other way.”

Her words are like a knife in my gut, reminding me about my own choices. How I could have gone after Emily and I didn't. I chose to stay. Not only that, but I was proud of myself, for the way I was finally making choices in my own life. G stared at me like she knew what I was thinking. “She made her own choices. I'm just saying I might have done things differently, you know, if I knew what I know now. Anyway, it's just a leg. I've got another one.” She smiled weakly. “Like I said: stuff happens.”

***

G couldn't be released until the next morning, so that night Mom and I found a motel room near the hospital and ate takeout from the only place in town that was open: a Chinese restaurant called Lucky Dragon. Afterwards we picked up two pints of Ben & Jerry's from the gas station convenience store and parked ourselves in vinyl chaise lounge chairs beside the empty motel
pool. I was wearing a clean pair of jeans and a fleece jacket that Mom had packed in a suitcase full of my clothes. It felt great to be in clean clothes, especially clean socks. I kept wiggling my toes around in my shoes, relishing the feel of clean cotton. She'd also made sure to throw in a copy of
The Scarlet Letter
, which was on second semester's reading list. Mom was still Mom. “I figured you would want something to read on the drive home,” she said.

That was the first time I
really
thought about it; the thirtysomething hours in a very different kind of van with a very different kind of purpose.

At first we didn't say much; we just shoveled ice cream into our mouths and stared into the chipped green concrete walls of the empty pool. “How was Mima's funeral?” I asked after I was halfway through my pint of chocolate fudge brownie and thoroughly buzzed from the sugar.

“Simple, classy, short. Just what she would have wanted. In fact, she left explicit instructions about what she wanted and who she wanted to be there.” I expected Mom to go on and tell me about how my name was on that list and what a disappointment it was that I wasn't there, but she didn't. Instead she laughed. “She left a specific list of all the ‘old bags' at the nursing home that she didn't want to attend. And she said not to let anyone speak who didn't really know her. And she wanted this one poem read. I've got a copy of it back at the house if you'd like it.”

“How did Dad seem?”

“Appropriately sad. I think he missed having you there more than anyone. It meant a lot to him that you had such a close relationship with his mother, even though he didn't.” It was good to hear Mom skip an opportunity to bash Dad for
something. Mom sighed and stuck her spoon into the container of Chunky Monkey so that it was standing up straight. “I don't expect you to tell me everything that happened to you in the last month,” she said. “But I hope when you feel ready, you'll tell me
something
.” I wanted to tell her that I'd gladly tell her most of what's gone on while I was with the Freegans, that it's no big secret and that I haven't spent the last month feeling pissed at her. And that this trip hasn't been one big screw-you to her. But the sadness in her voice really choked me up, and I couldn't get the words out.

“Is Maria your girlfriend?” she asked after the silence stretched a bit too awkwardly.

I inhaled my ice cream too quickly, and a chocolate chip shot down the back of my throat, causing me to cough violently. “No, Mom, she's not.”

“Oh good,” Mom said quickly. “I mean, it would just make things awkward at home with your sleeping arrangements and everything.” She waved her hand in front of her face quickly while I blushed deeply.

“But there was a girl,” I added, finding that was all I could say. Answering Mom's questions honestly was harder than making up bullshit answers. But it felt a hell of a lot better.

Oh,” Mom said. “Well, I hope you'll tell me more, when you're ready.” She reached across to put her hand on my arm. Since I still couldn't speak, I just placed my hand on top of hers.

I woke up early the next morning. Mom was still snoring with her earplugs in. I took a quick shower, threw a few things in my backpack, and left her this note.

Dear Mom,

First of all, I just want to tell you this is absolutely the last jerky selfish thing I will do for a long, long time. Second of all, thank you for everything you're doing for G and everything you've already done for me. I'm getting on a bus (for real this time) and I'll meet you guys back in Glens Falls. I might even beat you home, depending on what time they release G. I'm sure you guys will have plenty to talk about on the way home. I can't explain it exactly, but I really need to come home different than when I left.

I hitched a ride on this adventure with the Freegans, until it became my own. I'm still not sure exactly what I figured out, but I guess I'm hoping the bus ride will give me some time to sort it all out. Tell G
I said that. She'll get what I mean. And I want to come home on my own. See you back in New York.

Love,

Andrew

The bus station is only a few miles down the road from our motel. I'm able to board the first bus to Albuquerque, and using Mom's credit card I buy a series of tickets that will take me all the way back to Albany and then home to Glens Falls. The sky is turning from pink to a hazy blue, changing all the dusty buildings from a romantic rose color back to the tired sun-beat light brown. I have a seat to myself, but unfortunately someone has stuck gum in the outlet for the headphones. I watch a little bit of
Night at the Museum
without any sound before taking out my notebook and finishing what I started back in the hospital.

This will not be a list. This will be a real story with all the guts and juicy bits and bitter unrequited endings. I'm going to stare them all down until I know what they mean about my future. Or at least that's what I hope will happen. At the very least, I'll have some really good extra credit for Ms. Tuttle.

I'm not sure what I expected coming back to St. Mary's. It's kind of amazing how everything can be the same around me when I feel so different on the inside. It was all kind of shocking at first, like jumping into the ocean all at once and having the air squeezed out of you by the cold. But that wears off, and I'm a little bit afraid I could slip back to where I was before. Some things are different. Having G here is proof of that. Everyone's intrigued by how she broke her leg and came to be at St. Mary's. I've heard rumors that she's a mobster's daughter and part of the witness protection program, or that she's the heiress to a Middle Eastern oil fortune. Alex loves her. I asked him if it was because they're both gay, and he just laughed at me and said G was tuff. He spelled it out like that too. He said I should have my own support group and I could call it AMFAG—all my friends are gay.

Mom even bought me a car so that G wouldn't have to hobble back and forth to school. It's a used Ford Focus—nothing fancy—but it's a car and it's all mine. And of course some of the interest in her has rubbed off on me. Everyone speculates about whether we're “together” even though we've
never said or indicated anything that would make it seem like we are.