When My Heart Joins the Thousand(80)

His brows are drawn together, forehead wrinkled. “What?”

I take off my coat, walk slowly toward the couch and sit down. My deadened nerves are awakening with searing darts of pain, blasting the fog from my head. I run my hands through my loose, wet hair.

Stanley drapes a blanket around me, takes my hand between both of his and rubs it gently. “Can you feel this?”

“Yes.” I watch him rubbing my fingers. “I feel it.”

But inside, I’m still numb.

“Alvie.” He squeezes my fingers. His voice is gentle but firm. “Talk to me.”

I stare into space. This is what I wanted, isn’t it? “Mama never knew how to deal with me. She wanted a normal little girl, one she could cuddle and talk to and dress up, and instead she got this silent, broken thing who recoiled from touch.”

“You aren’t broken.”

But I am. I am. Slowly I rock back and forth on the couch. “I never told you how she died.”

Stanley doesn’t say anything. He just waits.

When I finally speak, my voice is strangely calm. “She drowned herself.”

His breath catches.

“It was my fault.” My voice sounds strangely indifferent, as if I’m just telling him what I had for breakfast. “In a way, I murdered her.”

“No.” He grips my hand. “No, Alvie, that’s not true. You can’t blame yourself for what she did.”

I stare at him. My face feels stiff, like wood. Expressionless. I should be falling apart—I’ve never talked about this with anyone—but there’s nothing. It’s as if the coldness of the lake leaked into my heart and froze my core.

Stanley bows his head and presses my hand to his cheek. “If I had a child, I could never leave her alone in the world, no matter how much I was hurting.”

“She didn’t leave me.”

His body goes tense. “What?”

I feel my lips stretching into an unnatural smile, though I’ve never felt less like smiling. “She tried to take me with her.”





CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE


Mama looks at me. Her face is pale and blank, her eyes red rimmed. “I’m so sorry, Alvie.”

Everything is broken.

Without those pills . . .

Things were just starting to get better, and now it’s all over.

I’m a failure.

I can’t keep going . . .

She reaches out. “Come here.”

There’s something in Mama’s face that makes me uneasy. I bite my lower lip, then approach. She pulls me into a hug, and I start to tense up, because it’s too tight. I squirm, but Mama just hugs me tighter. It hurts.

At last, she pulls back and smiles at me, her eyes bright with unshed tears. “Go wash up and do your homework, then we’ll have dinner.”

“I don’t have homework anymore.”

“Oh.” She rakes a hand through her hair and laughs, a little too shrilly. “Right.”

I go into the bathroom and wash my hands.

Mama calls me into the kitchen. She’s made my favorite dinner, chicken nuggets with macaroni and cheese. She pours herself some chamomile tea and pushes a glass of apple juice toward me.

Her eyes are glassy and a little too wide. When I say, “Mama,” she doesn’t seem to hear me right away. She stares into space for a few seconds, then smiles vaguely across the table and says, “What’s that, honey?”

“Aren’t you hungry,” I ask. She’s barely eaten two bites.

She looks down at her plate and says, “I guess not.”

The chicken nuggets are dry and gritty in my mouth.

“I love you so much, Alvie,” she says. “I want you to know that whatever happens, it’s because I love you. You might not understand, but please believe that.”

“Okay.” I don’t understand at all.

“Make sure you drink all your juice,” she says.

I take another swig of my apple juice. It tastes funny, like chalk, and I hesitate.

“Go on.”

I look at the juice, which is a little cloudy. Mama is staring at me, waiting, so I keep drinking, and it slides thick and bitter down my throat. I gag a little, but I manage to force it all down.

When the last drop is gone, Mama says, “I don’t want you to be in pain.”

“I’m not in pain.”

She doesn’t seem to hear me. She pokes a fork listlessly at her macaroni and cheese. “I never told you much about your father.” Her voice sounds faraway, like sleep talk. “That’s just as well, though. I guess I never told you much about me, either. But there isn’t much to tell. I’ve never achieved anything. School, jobs, relationships . . . none of it really went anywhere. And then when I met him, I thought finally, this was something . . . but then it was over. It isn’t your fault, Alvie.” She lets out a small sigh. “It doesn’t matter now, I suppose.”

Bits of powder slide down the sides of the glass. My vision drifts out of focus, and I blink. My head feels funny. I look down at my half-finished plate of chicken nuggets and macaroni; blobs of orange and brown. My head droops toward my chest, and a thin line of spittle falls from my open mouth and onto my shirt.

What’s happening to me?