See You at Harry's(27)

My dad just shakes his head. “No. No dating. He’s too young.”

“You let me date when I was fourteen,” Sara says.

“That’s different. I didn’t let you date a senior! And you weren’t . . . confused.”

“Holden isn’t confused,” I say.

“No. No, no,” my dad says. He takes a long drink from his wineglass.

“Let’s talk about this later,” my mom says, standing up to clear the table. “Fern, go find your brother.”

Outside, the late September air is cold. Leaves crumble under my feet as I walk down the path to the road. I look down each way, but I don’t see any sign of Holden.

I wander over to our neighbor’s yard and our old tree. Inside, Holden is sending a text on his new cell. He stops when he sees me.

“What are you doing here?”

I shrug and sit down.

“I’m not staying. You should go home.”

“Why do you keep leaving?”

“Why shouldn’t I?”

I lean against the tree, even though I know I’ll probably get pine pitch on my shirt. “Because we love you. No one cares if you like boys. You know that, right? It just seems like sometimes you look for an excuse to leave — that’s all. Like you don’t want to have anything to do with us.”

“Whatever.”

“Why are you mad at me? I didn’t do anything.”

“I’m not mad at you. It’s just . . . No one gets it.”

I cross my arms. The tree digs into my back, but I don’t move.

“I get it,” I say quietly. “I understand.”

“What do you get? You think you understand what it’s like? I don’t think so, Fern.”

“Then, tell me!”

A car beeps and Holden jumps up, hitting his head on a branch. Suddenly, he no longer fits in our cave.

“I have to go,” he says.

“Whatever,” I say, using his favorite word.

He stoops under the branches and lopes across our neighbor’s lawn, leaving me alone. I sit forward and brush the loose pine needles on the ground into a pile like a campfire. I pick a small handful up and smell the orange needles.

There’s nowhere for me to go now, and there won’t be later, either. I wait as long as I can, but the night air is so cold, I finally go back home.

Charlie is upstairs in the bathtub, singing. The door is open, and when I walk by, I can see my mom sitting on the floor next to the tub, her feet propped up on the toilet. She’s reading a vegetarian cooking magazine and tearing out recipes. There’s a small pile on the toilet seat. At least she’s sort of paying attention to Charlie while he’s in the tub. Half the time she just leaves the door open while he plays in there, and I feel the need to check every two minutes to make sure he hasn’t drowned. Maybe today’s big scare in the parking lot has changed her.

I go to my room and check my e-mail. No new messages. How shocking. I think about calling Ran or even Cassie, but realize I don’t really feel like talking to anyone. So I do my homework and read myself to sleep instead.





WHEN I WAKE UP, I’m covered in sweat. It’s 5:14. My whole body is prickling with heat. I kick off my blankets to cool off. I stare at the ceiling and think about school and what I should wear today. I try to remember what I have that’s clean. The more I think, the more awake I become, and I know I am never going to fall back to sleep. I roll over on my back and stare at the ceiling with the quiet of the house humming in my ears. For a long time, I had to share a room with Charlie. I was so upset when my parents started assembling the old crib in the corner of my room. When I asked why he couldn’t sleep with my parents, they gave a lame excuse about my dad coming home late from work and not wanting to wake the baby.

Every night, Charlie would wake up crying. There was a baby monitor in the room, so my mom could hear when he woke up. She’d come in like a shadow and scoop him out of the crib. She’d nurse him while she held him in the rocking chair that took up a huge space in the corner. She’d hum quiet songs to him that helped me go back to sleep, too. I always wished she’d stop and pat my head or check on me on her way back to her room, but I always fell asleep before she finished, so I don’t know if she ever did.

When Charlie stopped nursing, my mom got rid of the monitor. But Charlie still never slept through the night. I would get up when he woke and rub his back until he went back to sleep. He was a loud breather, and at first it kept me up. But after a while, I got used to it and relied on that steady rhythm to help me get to sleep at night.

Last year my parents finally agreed that I needed my privacy, and my dad moved his desk into my parents’ room and gave Charlie his old office. I never admitted it to anyone, but for weeks I had trouble falling asleep in the quiet of my room. I wouldn’t say I missed him, but I missed his breathing.

I close my eyes in the quiet and try to fall back to sleep, but it’s no use. I finally drag myself up and take a shower. One good thing about being the first one up is a long shower with no worry about running out of hot water. By the time I’m done, it’s almost six thirty. Charlie, our family alarm clock, is usually awake by now. He runs down the hallway and bangs on everyone’s bedroom door as he makes his way to my parents’ room. I don’t like to shut my door, so usually when he gets to mine, he knocks on the door frame and calls, “Up, up, up, Ferny!” Sometimes he comes in and pokes Doll close to my face. I always know she’s there before I open my eyes because I can smell her odd Doll smell. A mixture of rubber and peanut-butter crackers.