Only Child(56)

“I know that. But do you know what he just asked me downstairs? If you wished that he had died instead of Andy,” Daddy said. I got tears in my eyes again when I heard that.

Mommy was quiet for a while. Then she said, “I…we had a bad moment downstairs earlier. He gets so angry all the time, and it’s a lot for me to handle on my own. I’m suffering, too. Everyone seems to like to forget that.”

“I know you are, Melissa. And I wish you would accept some help. But when you just disappeared yesterday…Zach thought it was his fault, that he did something wrong.”

“When. I. just. disappeared?” Mommy said every word with a space in between, and she sounded very mad. The way her voice sounded gave me goose bumps on the back of my neck. “Are you serious right now? When I just disappeared? That’s really great, that’s great. YOU are the one who ran back to work the first chance you got. You’re as absent as ever. I’m not disappearing. I am here. I am always here. I dealt with all of it, all the hard stuff. With Andy…that was all on me. So don’t you dare talk to me about disappearing!” Mommy yelled the last part very loud.

“You made it that way! And you chose to be here,” Daddy yelled back. “There was no place for me in any of it!”

“That’s bullshit and we both know it. You wanted him conveniently medicated so we wouldn’t have to deal.”

“I never said that. I never fucking said that. That wasn’t my idea. It’s what the doctor said, the doctor that YOU wanted him to see so badly. You wanted him to see this doctor. He tells us what to do, and then you don’t want to do what he says. It was all up to you. It was all your decision. You called the shots, and I had no chance to participate whatsoever!”

Mommy made a snorting sound. “The sad part is that you actually believe that. You wanted to participate, but I didn’t let you? I suppose it’s my fault that you went out and fucked around, too?” Daddy started to say something, but Mommy interrupted. “Please, I’m not stupid, Jim. I know something’s been going on. You can stop lying now.”

It was quiet in the bedroom for a while after Mommy said that.

Then Mommy started talking again. “You didn’t want to deal with…this. You didn’t want to deal with Andy’s shit. A son with ODD wasn’t part of the plan. You left me completely alone with it. How was not being here ever an option for me? And now…now…I’m still alone with all of it—Zach…I know he is struggling. Do you think I don’t know that? I’m trying—” Mommy stopped talking, and I could tell she had started to cry. I heard her crying sounds.

“Melissa, can I please…?” Daddy said very quietly.

“No! Don’t. Just…don’t.” Mommy squeezed out her words in between crying sounds. “I don’t know how to live like this, OK, Jim? How do I live like this? I need to do this thing, I need justice.”

“How can we get justice?” Daddy asked. It sounded a little bit like when he talked to me in the closet and he was petting my back after I had the bad dream about Andy and it made me calm down.

But Mommy didn’t calm down. Her voice got louder again, and her crying sounds got louder, too. “For Andy. I can’t just do nothing, let them get away with it. If I don’t do this, then I don’t know how to live anymore.”

“Going on a wild rampage for revenge isn’t going to bring him back—” Daddy started to say, and Mommy interrupted him.

“Wild rampage for revenge? Wild rampage for revenge? What the fuck?” she screamed.

I tried to cover my ears—they were hurting from all the screaming and all the bad words. My whole head hurt.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that,” Daddy said.

“Yes, you did!” Mommy screamed. “You! So composed all the time, right? Don’t show your emotions, or better yet, don’t have any, right? How do you do that? I don’t see you cry. How is that possible? How are you not crying? It’s not normal!”

Mommy’s sadness I could hear so loud, and I could feel it like it was coming right at me from under the door. But I could hear Daddy’s sadness, too. It wasn’t loud like Mommy’s, it was quiet. Just maybe Mommy couldn’t hear it, because she was being so loud. And Mommy didn’t see Daddy in his car when I saw him after we left her at the hospital, when it looked like the sadness was hurting his whole body and he cried with no sounds.

“You know what, Jim?” Mommy said. “You want a chance to participate? Well, why don’t you take a stab at it for once? I can’t…deal with Zach right now. I don’t have the capacity. I don’t know how. I can’t…give anymore. I just can’t.” Mommy wasn’t screaming now. She sounded tired. After a while she said, “I need to finish packing.”

I heard footsteps come close to the door, so I got up quickly and ran back downstairs. In my head I remembered what Mommy said at the end of the fight: “I can’t deal with Zach right now,” and when I got back in the kitchen I gave the barstool a hard kick.





[ 33 ]


    An Impossible Life to Live


IN THE MORNING, Mommy’s side of the bed was still made, and Daddy wasn’t in the bed either. I went in my room and looked out the window. Daddy’s Audi wasn’t in the driveway, so he already went to work.