I stood at the counter and stared out the kitchen window. I could see light in the big room, the one with the grand piano. I’d spent so many mornings watching Laurie’s fingers assault the ivory keys. All of those mornings, even the one the week before, felt like ages ago. Was I still sixteen? Or had I been standing in the kitchen for days, weeks? My toes were numb. They felt so cold and I couldn’t have told you why. Or if they even did. It’s possible that my body made it up so I could transfer the pain from my heart to another part of my body.
Someone knocked on the door, and I didn’t even jump. I thought it would be Meg, but it was Laurie. He was standing tall enough that I could see his shoulders and the tips of his blond hair through the window in the door.
What was he doing here? I didn’t answer the door, but I figured he would just come back. I didn’t understand why I didn’t want to see him. I just knew it made everything feel much more real than it would if he wasn’t around. I had been spending more and more time with him, and I knew him better than any other boy, ever, but I didn’t want him around for this. This was about to get messy. Everything that held the Spring house up was about to crumble. I could feel the floor humming beneath me; it was only a matter of time before it started to rumble. Then the cracking, then the crumbling—and somewhere down the line of Laurie’s lineage there was already too much crumbling and collapsing.
Laurie didn’t need to get involved. We were already too many, and with Aunt Hannah slurping away on Frank’s liquor, and Meg not even here . . .
“Who’s there?” my aunt said behind me, heading toward the door.
“Don’t!” I shouted, but it was too late.
Her hand swung open the door so fast that I realized she must have been expecting more bad news to be delivered. Laurie came walking in, a big smile on his face. He was holding a bag of Bugles in one hand and in the other a bottle of that fizzy apple drink he tried three summers ago in Munich and has been obsessed with ever since.
“Hey!” He walked around Aunt Hannah to me. His chin turned upward and he scanned my face with laser eyes. “What’s up? What’s wrong?” he asked, like he could easily read me in a second’s time.
I shook my head and untucked my stringy hair from behind my ears. He cleared his hands, dropping his stuff onto the counter. He didn’t stop walking toward me, even when the glass bottle rolled off the counter and dropped to the floor. Luckily it didn’t shatter, but I don’t believe he would have turned back around if it had.
“Jo, what’s going on?” Laurie turned to my aunt. “Hannah?”
She was immediately frazzled by Laurie. “Uh . . .” She looked at me for a second, then to Laurie. “It’s Frank.” She cleared her throat. “He—”
“Shut up!” I snapped at her just as Amy came into the room.
Her frail shoulders were shaking and she was wearing pajama pants that were too short for her blossoming legs. Her bottom lip looked like it had split open.
“Amy.” I moved to her, wrapping my arms around her shoulders. She pushed at me, ducking under my arms. She never liked hugs from anyone except Dad and Meg. Meg used to give pretty good hugs, though.
“Where’s Meg?” Amy hiccuped, and the oven starting screaming beeps into the room.
“Beth!” I snapped.
“Can you call her again?” Amy asked, tugging on the bottom of my T-shirt. She felt so small in that room, like she was eight again and had sliced her toe open on her pink Razor scooter. She’d cried and cried for Meg, until Meg came home from River’s house, albeit smelling like Smirnoff. Meg was lucky I never snitched on her, but I was starting to wish that I had every time Amy asked for her.
“I’ll call her again.” I patted Amy’s back, which was wet from sweat. “Laurie, can you call Meg please.”
The oven beeped again.
“Beth!” I shouted, and Amy cried harder. “I’m sorry,” I told her, rubbing. “You’re burning up.” I shook out the back of her shirt.
Laurie had my phone to his ear in no time and disappeared down the hallway.
“How long until we’ll hear from your mom?” Aunt Hannah asked us.
Wasn’t she supposed to know that? Or at least not be selfish enough to ask us that? We were kids, even me. Meg was the only one of us who was an adult. She had a car and paid her own cell phone bill and car insurance.
And she wasn’t here.
33
meg
When we pulled up to the gate, I was relieved to see Reeder on duty. It had me assuming that we would breeze right through and pull into my driveway in less than two minutes, but instead, we sat under the awning and John and Reeder exchanged Hey, bro’s and John went on a few sentences about his time in town and I held my breath on and off, waiting for the conversation to end.
“John. Let’s go,” Shia said, his head appearing between the front seats. “Meg needs to get home.”
John whispered something to Reeder, something about my dad, and that got Reeder moving to open the gate. We drove through and I stared out the window. When we pulled up to the driveway, I ran up to the door.
Jo came barreling up, her arms flying in front of her body. “What the fuck, Meg?” she shouted into the air. She pushed hard at my shoulders, and I tumbled to the ground, my body hitting it fast. I thought she was going to hug me, not push me off my feet.
I scrambled to my feet, and Shia was standing in front of Jo, seeming to hold her back as she yelled at both of us.
“Amy’s been crying for you! And you weren’t fucking here! Where the hell were you? It doesn’t take that long to fucking drive back!” Jo looked at the three of us, her anger rising. “You probably stopped on the way back to blow John Brooke! Or both of them!”
I had never seen Jo so angry before. She kept coming for me, and Shia kept her at bay. I got to my feet and headed for the house.
Amy ran to me and sobbed in my arms. “Is he going to die, Meg? Is he?” Her voice was so high-pitched.
“No, babe. No, no.” I petted her hair. “Come on, let’s sit down.” I told her, not looking back at Jo, who had called me every name I had been called in the hallways of my high school in Texas. In the house, I went to Amy’s room to get her quilted blanket with the little patches of color and carried it out to her on Dad’s recliner.
My brain kept going back and forth between Jo’s being pissed at me—Jo, who always seemed so in control and didn’t need anybody or anything—and how my family was going to handle what was happening. I wanted to slap Jo for being such a selfish little bitch, but I knew it would just cause more and more drama in our family. I was so tired of drama. We had more important things to worry about now, like how our dad was holding up in the hospital and how we would make it weeks without my mom around.
34
jo
Amy was asleep on the couch, her cheeks still red two hours later. Shia covered her with a blanket while Meg slipped out from under her head. I sat on the floor staring at the three of them, with no words in my throat.
“Are you hungry?” Shia asked Meg.
The way she looked at him made me sad for her, for John Brooke, and, mostly, for Shia, who never stood a chance with my oldest sister. When Meg nodded, Shia immediately led her into the kitchen. Laurie was so quiet next to me that I had nearly forgotten he was there.
“You can leave, you know,” I told him, staring at Amy asleep on the couch. Sometimes she looked so young.
“I’m fine.”
I looked over at Laurie, and I couldn’t figure out why he lingered. It had been hours since he popped into our chaos, and yet he was still sitting on the living room floor, long legs stretched out, as always. He looked the same as before my life changed in an instant, only his eyes were glossy and his hair was wavier at the ends.
“You can go, seriously. I’m fine,” I told him.
He bent one of his legs at the knee and scooted closer to me. “Why do you want me to go so bad? I’m just sitting here.”
“Exactly,” I snapped. I
didn’t mean to be so harsh, but I didn’t have the energy to apologize.
Laurie didn’t say anything; he just leaned against the wall and shook his head a little. It pissed me off. Who did he think he was?
I was getting angrier and angrier with each passing minute. Laurie started clicking his tongue, and it pushed me over the edge. I shot up and went outside. It was cold, but the air was still sticky somehow. The porch was ice under my bare feet. The screen door slammed shut, and I kept walking into the yard. The door opened, and I groaned, spinning around on my heels.