Everything I Never Told You(57)

Lydia knew this was a lie, but she nodded. “Yeah,” she said hoarsely. “Next time.” As they turned onto Route 17, she blew a long column of smoke out toward the police car.

“So are you going to tell your brother we’ve been hanging out, and I’m not such a bad guy?” Jack asked when they were nearly home.

Lydia grinned. She suspected that Jack still took other girls out—some days, he and the VW were nowhere to be found—but with her, he was practically gentlemanly: he had never even held her hand. So what, if they were only friends? Most days she was the one climbing into his car, and she knew this had not escaped Nath’s attention. At dinnertime, while she spun stories for her mother about her grades and her extra credit project, or for her father about Shelley’s new perm or Pam’s obsession with David Cassidy, Nath watched her—half-angry, half-afraid—as if he wanted to say something but didn’t know how. She knew what he was thinking, and she let him. Some evenings, she came into Nath’s room, plopped down on his windowsill, and lit a smoke, daring him to say something.

Now, Lydia said, “He would never believe me.”

She hopped out a block early, and Jack turned the corner and pulled into his driveway while she trotted home, as if she’d walked the whole way herself. Tomorrow, she thought, she would pop the car into first and they would roll across the parking lot, white lines whipping beneath the wheels. On top of the pedals, her feet would feel comfortable, her insteps supple. Soon she would glide down the highway, shifting into third, then fourth, speeding off somewhere all on her own.

It didn’t turn out that way. At home, in her room, Lydia flicked on the record player, where the album Hannah had given her for Christmas was already in place—to Lydia’s surprise, she had been playing it over and over. She set the needle an inch and a half from the edge, aiming for the start of her favorite song, but overshot, and Paul Simon’s voice suddenly soared into the room: Hey, let your honesty shine, shine, shine—

A faint knocking punched through the music, and Lydia twisted the volume knob as loud as it would go. In a moment, Marilyn, knuckles smarting, opened the door and leaned in.

“Lydia. Lydia.” When her daughter didn’t turn around, Marilyn lifted the arm of the record player and the room went quiet, the record spinning helplessly beneath her hand. “That’s better. How can you think with that on?”

“It doesn’t bother me.”

“Are you done with your homework already?” No answer. Marilyn pursed her lips. “You know, you shouldn’t be listening to music if you haven’t finished your schoolwork.”

Lydia picked at a hangnail. “I’ll do it after dinner.”

“Better to get started now, don’t you think? Make sure you have time to finish it all and do a careful job?” Marilyn’s face softened. “Sweetheart, I know high school may not feel important. But it’s the foundation of the rest of your life.” She perched on the arm of Lydia’s chair and stroked her daughter’s hair. It was so crucial to make her understand, but she didn’t know how. A quiver had crept into Marilyn’s voice, but Lydia didn’t notice. “Trust me. Please. Don’t let your life slip away from you.”

Oh god, Lydia thought, not again. She blinked fiercely and focused on the corner of her desk, where some article her mother had clipped months ago still sat, furred now with dust.

“Look at me.” Marilyn cupped Lydia’s chin in her hand and thought of all the things her own mother had never said to her, the things she had longed, her entire life, to hear. “You have your whole life in front of you. You can do anything you want.” She paused, looking over Lydia’s shoulder at the shelf crammed with books, the stethoscope atop the bookshelf, the neat mosaic of the periodic table. “When I’m dead, that’s all I want you to remember.”

She meant: I love you. I love you. But her words sucked the breath from Lydia’s lungs: When I’m dead. All through that long-ago summer, she had thought her mother might really be dead, and those weeks and months had left a persistent, insistent ache in her chest, like a pulsing bruise. She had promised: anything her mother wanted. Anything at all. As long as her mother stayed.

“I know, Mom,” she said. “I know.” She tugged her notebook from her bookbag. “I’ll get started.”

“That’s my girl.” Marilyn kissed her on the head, right where her hair parted, and Lydia inhaled at last: shampoo, detergent, peppermint. A scent she had known all her life, a scent that, every time she smelled it, she realized she had missed. She curled her arms around Marilyn’s waist, pulling her close, so close she could feel her mother’s heartbeat against her cheek.

“Enough of that,” Marilyn said at last, swatting Lydia playfully on the behind. “Get to work. Supper will be ready in half an hour.”

All through dinner, the conversation with her mother writhed inside Lydia. She steeled herself with one thought: later, she would tell Nath all about it, and then she would feel better. She excused herself early, leaving half her plate untouched. “I’ve got to finish my physics,” she said, knowing her mother wouldn’t protest. Then, on her way upstairs, she passed the hall table, where her father had set the mail just before supper, and one envelope caught her eye: a Harvard seal in the corner, and beneath that, Admissions Office. She slit it open with her finger.