When My Heart Joins the Thousand(37)

I can see the lake ahead, blue and peaceful, but the sick feeling in my stomach won’t go away. I’m not “in there,” Mama. I’m right here. Don’t you see me?

When we get to the lake, Mama spreads a picnic blanket on the sand and puts out sandwiches. I sit next to her, holding a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and looking out at the glassy smooth water. It’s part of Lake Michigan, Mama has told me, but just a little part; the lake is so big, it touches four different states, but this beach feels small and private. The sand is a little white crescent with a fringe of trees around the edge.

I take a bite. The sandwich feels dry and gluey in my mouth. I try to focus on the warmth of the sun, the cool breeze, and the soothing rush of the little waves lapping the shore.

Mama reaches out to stroke my hair. I’m not expecting it, so I flinch a little, and she pretends not to notice. “I love you so much. You’re my world. You know that, don’t you?”

A lump of sandwich sticks in my throat. I swallow it down.

I miss the real you.

I wonder which “me” Mama is talking to.

“You know that, don’t you?” she says again.

I manage a tiny nod. Normally I would say, I love you, too. But I’m suddenly too afraid to speak at all.

A hermit crab crawls slowly across the sand. I shut out everything else and observe the movement of its segmented legs, the wavering of its antennae, the gleam of its tiny bulbous eyes.

“Miss? Excuse me, miss?”

I look up, blinking. An overweight man with thin, graying hair stands outside my car, squinting at me. “May I ask what you’re doing here?”

I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting in the parking lot outside the school. But I’m surprised anyone is here this late. “Nothing.” I shift the car into reverse.

“Do I know you?” the man asks in a strange voice.

I freeze and look up again. It’s my old principal. He’s heavier than I remember, and there are more lines etched into his face, but he has the same tiny, watery eyes. “No,” I say. “We’ve never met.” Before he has a chance to say anything else, I pull out of the lot.

The windshield wipers swish back and forth, cutting through the rain. The world is a gray haze.

My phone buzzes. There’s a text message from Stanley. Are you okay? I stare at it until the words blur.

I pull over and text back: Fine.

You left so suddenly.

Sorry.

After a minute, he texts: Are you free tonight?

I reply: Meet me at 8. Buster’s.

I glance in the rearview mirror. My complexion is pasty, making the dark circles under my eyes stand out. My lips are chapped and bitten.

If I am going to see Stanley, I have to at least try to make myself presentable. I don’t own any makeup—I’ve always hated how it feels on my face—so I scrape together a few dollars from change buried under the seat cushions in my car and buy a small jar of foundation from the drugstore. I spread some over the dark flesh under my eyes and look in the rearview mirror. Not a big improvement, but it’s something.

You’re a beautiful, intelligent young woman, Stanley said last night at his house. It’s absurd, but I don’t want to give him any reason to stop thinking that.





CHAPTER SIXTEEN


“Alvie?”

I’ve been watching the cream swirl in my coffee. Now I look up, blinking. “What.”

“I asked if you’re thinking about anything,” Stanley says.

We’re sitting in a corner booth at Buster’s. Stanley was already there, waiting, when I arrived.

I trace the rim of my coffee cup with one finger and reply, “I was thinking about rabbits. About how logical they are.”

“Logical?”

“When a female rabbit is pregnant, but isn’t ready to give birth—if she’s under stress, or doesn’t have enough food, or if there’s something wrong with the embryo—she’ll reabsorb the young into her body.”

He frowns—uneasy, or maybe just puzzled.

A picture flashes through my head: the tranquil blue of the lake, and Mama sitting on the picnic blanket beside me, her bare, lightly freckled arms folded over her knees, her hair—the same red as mine—hanging around her face, her pale gray eyes fixed on a point in the far distance. Mama once told me that when she was a child, she was a lot like me. Very quiet, very shy. Maybe not to the same degree, but she was never the sort of woman who surrounded herself with friends. I suspect my father was the only man she ever slept with, and he didn’t stay long.

She was nineteen when she had me. Only two years older than I am now.

“With rabbits,” I continue, “no kits are born until the time is right.” My gaze drifts toward the window. Outside, a truck rumbles by, salting the roads. “Logical. Isn’t it.”

“I guess so.” His teeth catch on his lower lip, tugging. He always looks younger when he does that. “I mean, obviously it’s better if these things are planned. But lots of kids aren’t, and their parents still love them.”

Love.

A shudder runs through my body, and something inside me clamps tightly shut. “Love doesn’t magically fix a bad situation. It doesn’t pay the bills or put food on the table.”

“No. I guess not.” His voice sounds very small and faraway.