You'd Be Home Now (53)

I look at Joey, surprised he said that out loud. My mother doesn’t like to talk about that, all the textile dyes and chemicals the Mill used getting dumped in the river.

“Excuse me?” she says.

    I touch Joey’s elbow with my own. My mother is getting the Look. He should ease up a little. Things seemed like they were going well, for once.

“The river. Remember? It used to be called Salmon River way back when, in those good old days. Plenty of healthy salmon, flipping around, swimming upstream, living the sweet life, until they started dying and everyone figured out the Mill was dumping chemicals there. And now we call it Frost River, like the salmon were never there in the first place.”

“No one knew, Joe, that the chemicals would do that. Who could know such a thing all those years ago? My god, am I responsible for every bad thing that’s ever happened in this town? Is it all on my shoulders?”

“Maybe,” Joey says, and I can tell he immediately regrets it.

My mother slams the knife on the cutting board, sending up a spray of red onion bits. Joey and I lean back in shock.

I pick some out of my hair.

“That’s lovely, Joe. Just lovely,” Mom says bitterly.

She gathers the papers together and holds them to her chest. “I’m not quite hungry anymore, thank you. You two can make dinner. Make sure to leave some for your father.”

She walks out of the kitchen and we listen to her go up the stairs. In a few minutes, the door to her bedroom closes.

“That was kind of harsh,” I say.

“It is what it is.” He reaches out and grabs some scallions, popping them into his mouth. “But think about it, Emmy. See the bigger picture. Mom’s money paid for me to go to a fancy rehab where I dug holes for my shit. But what about our groundskeeper? Remember him? Jim Tolford? He literally busted his back making our lawn pretty, year after year, and where is he now? Living under a bridge, because those painkillers he had to take to keep his job making our lawn pretty also got him fired, because he got addicted. He had to take those pills because he literally did backbreaking work for us. Why didn’t Mom get him help? Was he not a person to her? How am I any different from him?”

    He stands up.

“He taught me to ride a bike, Emmy. Not Mom, and not Dad, because they weren’t around. And you know who wraps our Christmas presents in all that lovely paper? Goldie, the woman who washes our dirty underwear. Mom pays her extra for Christmas chores. If she suddenly passes out in the laundry room, is she gone, too? Just like that? Like she never mattered? She’s worked in this house for fifteen years. That matters.”

He rubs his face.

“I’m sorry. I’m tired. I’m really tired. I’m busting my ass, too, to do all the things she requires, and if I fail, I’m out. That’s what Mom does. If you fail her, you disappear.”

“Joey.” I’m sorry I even started the conversation about the Mill with Mom now.

“I’m going upstairs,” he says. “I have homework, remember? And I don’t want to be disappeared for failing to follow Mom’s rules.”



* * *



—

I toss and turn in bed, thinking about what Joey said. Disappearing. Like Candy. Like our groundskeeper. I kick at the sheets and comforter.

You up, I text.


It’s late

Come to the window

Hold on



    Gage appears in his window, rubbing his eyes.

Show me, I text. And I’ll show you.

He looks at me for a long time.

Takes his shirt off.

You now, he texts.

My heart pounds, but I do it. Slip off my T-shirt. I hold arms across my breasts at first, and then I lower them.

It’s a weird feeling in me then, to be open, in the window, separated by just glass and air, my body protected and unprotected at the same time. It feels scary, but also exciting. To see the expression on his face change, soften. To watch him see me.

I pick up my phone.

Start, I text.


You do it too



And that’s what we do, in the window, together but separate, until we are panting and spent.

I put my shirt on, lie back in bed, warm and electric, but I feel sad, too.

I have to find some words. I have to be someone other than me, always waiting.

I would like to be someone else. The kind of person who reaches out to take what she wants, where everyone can see, rather than in secret, like the velvet hatbox on the shelf in my closet.

I think I was just that girl in the window, but I need her more than just every once in a while.


Do you think maybe we could do something else sometime?

     Like what

I don’t know. A movie or something



We aren’t in the pool house now, so he can’t kiss my words away.

Show me, I want to say. Show me to the world, don’t disappear me.


It’s just our thing, remember. I like this, not all that other stuff.

…

If that’s not cool anymore it’s okay, but you have to say so



I stare at the ceiling, my heart dropping. I don’t want to be disappeared by Gage. He’s my one thing.

No, I type, it’s fine. It’s fine.