When We Collided(5)

On my way upstairs, Bekah calls for me from the room she shares with Leah. She’s on her knees, digging through the lowest drawer of her wardrobe. “Have you seen my dark blue shorts?”

“No. Wait—maybe. They’re probably in the wash.”

“Uggghhh.” Groans constitute at least half of Bekah’s interactions with me. She’s eleven, which I don’t remember being nearly as difficult as she makes it out to be. “I wanted to wear them today.”

“Then do your own laundry.”

She moves toward her closet with another groan, stamping her feet. I take a sip of my coffee. It’s moments like these when I savor the bitterness.

“What’s wrong?” This is Silas’s hasty response when I call his number. My older brother works at Cove Coffee as a shift manager, and I can hear the familiar noises in the background: whirring milk steamers and choppy voices.

“Is there any chance you can get off work early?”

“What? I specifically took the early shift so I could be home in time for you to leave for the lunch shift.”

“I know. I forgot I have to take Leah somewhere.”

“You can’t take Bekah and Isaac, too?”

Sure, I could. I just might wind up leaving them on the side of the road like old patio furniture or a moldy couch. With a cardboard sign that says, Free: Take.

“I grounded them yesterday.”

There’s a pause from Silas’s end of the phone. The silence communicates words we’ve exchanged many times before. What if Isaac gets it into his mind to perform a science experiment or Bekah decides to meet up with friends at the pool without telling anyone? Would Mom even know? Maybe it would make her snap out of it. Maybe she wouldn’t care. Leaving them here could be the same as leaving two kids totally alone. But Bekah’s eleven. “Then leave them, and just tell Mom. They’ll be fine.”

The line goes dead, and I dread my next stop. I don’t know when I started to feel like the warden of an ailing shut-in.

I stand outside the barely cracked door for a moment before opening it. Since my dad died, my mom has spent more time behind this door than she ever did while he was alive. On the good days, I know it’s a matter of time before she wakes up. On the bad days, I think I’m watching her die in slow motion.

“Mom?”

Her head lags over toward me. She smiles weakly. I’ll never get over it—how seclusion has whitewashed her cheeks. They used to flush from laughing. From running around in the yard with Leah and Isaac. “Hey, pal.”

“Hey.” I step closer, but not near enough to sit on the bed. “I promised I’d take Leah to the pottery place. Silas is at work till ten, so it’ll be Isaac and Bekah here for an hour or two.”

“Okay.” She rolls over so she’s facing me. “Sorry I didn’t get up to fix them breakfast. I’m just so tired today.”

Today and every day for the past six months. Although she does get up for church most Sundays. These apologies are a pretense. So are the questions. Would you mind packing lunch for the littles? Could you walk Bekah to soccer practice? She always asks; she always says thank you. I’d do it anyway. She knows that.

“Don’t worry about it, Mom.”

There’s no point in guilt-tripping. She can’t make herself feel better. I can’t make her feel better—none of us can. The least we can do is not make it worse.

“Thanks, pal.” Her smile is almost real, I think. “What would I do without you?”

I honestly don’t know. With all her professed gratitude, my mom must understand that we’re doing her job. The three of us older kids are trying to make up for two parents, day in and day out. I’d probably try to shake my mom awake if she didn’t look breakable.

I throw on the same clothes I wore yesterday and catch a glimpse of myself in the hallway mirror. Man, when did my hair get to looking like that? I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. My last haircut happened when Candice Michaels pulled me out of the street and into her salon. Like a stray dog.

“Best behavior while I’m gone; I mean it. If I find out there was fighting, I’m going to walk back to the pottery shop and put your nail polish collection,” I tell Bekah, then turn to Isaac, “and your favorite books into the kiln.”

Bekah rolls her eyes. Isaac doesn’t look up from his book. Leah dances around in my peripheral vision. She can’t contain her excitement within her personal space. She has to spin it around the living room.

We have a van, but we only use it for trips out of town—to the mall for back-to-school clothes or to see movies at a big Cineplex instead of our town’s tiny theater. My older sister, Naomi, uses the van to get to her internship most days. None of us mind because we can walk everywhere in Verona Cove. Leah skips twice for every stride I take. We pass Mrs. Albrecht and Edgar, a poodle that looks so much like her that I’ve wondered if they’re actually related.

“Hi, kiddos,” she says. We wave, and Leah pats Edgar’s head. On our left, we pass a power-walking couple in Serious Workout Clothes, and they do not say hello. There are two types of people in Verona Cove: vacationers and townies. Leah and I, we’re third-generation townies.

I’m not saying there’s a turf war. That’s an exaggeration. Townies rely on vacationers—we like them, even. And vacationers loooove Verona Cove. That’s how they say it. But townies love Verona Cove like we love air. We don’t have to say it or even think about it every day. It’s in our lungs. It’s what we’re made of.