Only Child(78)

“We are his favorites at school,” I said.

“Oh, Zach, he says that to everybody,” Mommy said, and she closed her eyes again and I thought that that wasn’t true. He didn’t say that to everybody, just us.

Mommy’s breathing went in and out slow, and I could tell she was falling asleep. I kept lying very still next to her. I liked lying here with Mommy and we didn’t do that in a long time, not after Mommy got poked with the stick.

After a while it got too hot under the blanket and I got up slow to not wake up Mommy and I climbed back down the ladder. I went downstairs and Mimi was making dinner in the kitchen. It was going to be spaghetti with red sauce, and Mimi let me help make the salad—spin the lettuce in the salad spinner and cut the cucumbers. When we were almost done making dinner, Mommy came downstairs again, too, and her hair was messy on the one side and her eyes looked red and puffy all around. She sat down on a barstool and put her chin on her hands on the counter and watched me and Mimi make dinner, making a sad smile.

We sat down at the table in the dining room and started eating dinner, but nobody talked. Mommy didn’t eat anything again, all she did was move her fork around in the spaghetti. The phone rang in the kitchen and Mommy got up to answer it. After a few minutes, she came back in the dining room.

“OK, the Eatons are still coming tomorrow with the lawyer,” Mommy said when she sat back down at the table.

Mimi made her lips in a thin line and then she said, “Honey, I’m wondering…have you thought more about what we talked about…to maybe start thinking about this in a different way? Instead of focusing on Charlie and Mary? This group I mentioned to you—MOMS DEMAND ACTION—they’re really doing some important things. Use your voice, get involved to try and prevent—”

“I know…I mean, I want to,” Mommy said. “But not now. I don’t want to think about that now.”

“Who’s coming?” I asked.

“Oh,” Mommy said. “Um, the Eatons, remember? Juliette’s parents?”

“Yeah?” I said.

Mommy looked over at Mimi and Mimi pulled up her eyebrows high.

“Why are they coming with a lawyer?” I asked.

“Well, sweetie, it’s…we planned to talk to him about the next steps with…the Ranalezes, Charlie and his wife, to schedule a court date,” Mommy said.

“You’re going to go in court with Charlie?” I asked, and my stomach started to feel bad and I knew what that meant from Daddy’s work, going in court. It means that there’s going to be a judge and he decides who’s right, and the other person gets punished and has to go in jail. So Mommy was trying to do that—put Charlie in jail. When me and Daddy went to the diner and we had milkshakes on the first day of snow, Daddy said that Charlie didn’t have to go in jail, so he didn’t say the truth about that.

I started to feel hot all over and I got up fast from my chair. My knees were shaking a lot. “But you said you don’t want to be mad at Charlie anymore,” I said, and my voice came out loud, but it was shaking, too. “Earlier you said that, when we were lying down in Andy’s bed. That’s what you said!”

“Zach, honey, calm down. I did not—” Mommy started to say.

“Yes, you DID!” I yelled at Mommy, and then we stared at each other. I was feeling very mad at her. When we lay in Andy’s bed together it was nice, but I was wrong—it wasn’t going to get better. It was going to get worse now. Now Mommy was going to try to make Charlie go in jail, and that was making everything even worse.

“Zach, can you please come here? We’re just…this is just to talk about possible steps,” Mommy said, and she tried to take my hand, but I ripped it away from her.

“Leave me alone!” I yelled, and I ran out of the dining room and upstairs. I really wished I could go in my hideout and talk to Andy about it, but I wasn’t going in there anymore.

I didn’t know why I stopped feeling like Andy was in the hideout. A few times after I noticed that the feeling stopped, I went in Andy’s room and I looked at the empty top bunk and I thought I was going to check the hideout again, but then I didn’t because I knew it was changed inside, and I didn’t want to feel again that Andy was gone from there because it was like someone put a fist in my stomach.

So I went in my room instead and closed the door. I sat down on my chair and my breathing was going in and out fast and my stomach hurt a lot. Everything was getting worse and worse all the time, and it was giving me a big scared feeling. I felt like maybe I had to throw up, so I went in the bathroom fast and sat down in front of the toilet. The floor was really cold under my legs and my stomach felt bad, but nothing was coming out, only tears, tears, and more tears.

I heard a knock on my bedroom door, and I got up fast to lock my bathroom door and Andy’s.

“Zach?” I heard Mommy call in my bedroom. Then she knocked on the bathroom door. “Zach, are you in there? Can I come in?” Mommy said.

I didn’t feel like talking to Mommy, so I said through the door, “I’m going to the bathroom.”

“OK, honey. I just wanted to…make sure you’re OK,” Mommy said.

“Mhmm” was all I said back, and then I heard Mommy go back out of my room and close the door.

After a while I got up and washed my face with cold water and then I looked in the mirror. My eyes were red all around. I stared at them in the mirror, and when you look at yourself in the mirror when you feel like crying, then you cry even more.