Canary (4 page)

“So it's a big deal now?” I pulled my hand away from Mom's.

No one responded.

I thought about myself at the basketball game today and all the games I'd played this month. Running up and down the court, I'd cared only about winning these stupid games while Mom was sick and I hadn't known.

“It's a big deal now,” Dad answered.

In that instant, when nothing more was said, when eyes remained clouded, when my entire life switched to slow motion and it was hard to move forward, it truly hit me just how big a deal it was.

“It's natural to want to talk about things,” Mom told me gently after she and Dad finished explaining what they knew about the cancer. She tilted her head, waiting for my questions.

What the heck was I supposed to ask? Cancer was a word I'd heard before, but I'd never paid attention to it. Why would I? No one thinks they'll have to deal with it. But now, here was Mom telling me she had it and I was supposed to act as if I was 
learning
 something. I couldn't speak. What sort of questions do you ask when you find out your mom is dying?

“We want to continue to live as we always have. We don't want your life or Brett's to stop,” Dad insisted, like that could happen, like we could continue as if Mom would live, when we knew she wouldn't.

I excused myself and went outside to do the only thing I could do well. I picked up the basketball that rested in the bushes next to the garage. I dribbled, the ball slapping against the concrete, echoing all around me. Really, it was too late to play outside. This was usually the time Mom would come out and tell Dad and me to stop and come inside. She'd say the neighbors didn't need our racket while they were having dinner, getting homework done, or watching the evening news.

But everything was different tonight. No one came out to tell me anything.

It was impossible to focus on what lay ahead. Instead, I continued to bounce the ball and wonder what I had been doing when my parents found out it was cancer. Where I'd been when they were getting tests done, seeing doctors, and worrying about what would happen.

I took a shot, pushing the anger out of me, smacking the ball against the garage just above the hoop. I thought about myself at the game that day. I shot again, missed again, the ball rattling off the rim. I remembered practices where I had joked with my friends. I shot basket after basket, trying not to think about all the times I'd had fun, all the times when I'd cared about nothing but the fight to win, while my parents were fighting to save Mom's life.

I slammed my basketball against the side of the garage.

I hated it. I hated basketball.

I hated it because I'd loved it. And by loving it, I hadn't noticed anything else happening around me. Basketball had made me selfish and blind.

The ball felt solid in my hands. The little bumps in the texture sunk into my palms as I squeezed it.

“I'm done with basketball,” I yelled to the sky, a purple night where wisps of clouds brushed against the moon before moving on to taunt the stars. A night too nice for anyone to hear news like this. It should be raining and storming and awful out when you learn your mom is dying.

“I'm quitting basketball,” I yelled to the windows in the neighborhood, some dark, some full of light, as people went on with their normal routines as if the world hadn't changed.

I waited for Dad to join me, to explain what was going on, to promise we weren't going to lose Mom. Dad always stood up for me. He was the one who sweet-talked Mom into letting me stay up past my bedtime to watch the end of a basketball game or skip a day 
of school to
 take a trip with him to scout a rival school's team. Dad was the one who explained the world when I was confused. Dad was always there when I needed him. So I waited for him to come out and be there for me on the night I needed him the most.

I threw the ball at the garage over and over, waiting for him, the bouncing of the ball his cue to join me.

Sweat dripped into my eyes and my arms ached, but I kept shooting at the hoop.

I waited for him until I finally collapsed in a heap of exhaustion, not sure if it was from the news about my mother or from Dad, who for the first time in my life had left me standing in the driveway alone.

Ali's friend Jenna joined us at lunch on the first day. I'd noticed her in my second-period class because she rushed in when the bell rang and took a seat in the back, leaving behind a scent of vanilla and cigarettes. She was tiny with long, thick hair so black the lights reflected in its shine. Her eyes were green like my neighbor's cat and her face was covered with freckles. I half expected her to say hello to me with an Irish accent.

“Jenna and I have been friends since seventh grade, when our parents forced us to take a junior lifesaving course at the pool,” Ali said.

“But you were more interested in laying out in the sun than learning how to save lives,” Jenna shot back. She sat with her legs tucked under her and a sketchbook on her lap. She doodled flowers all over a blank page.

“A lot of good that did,” Ali muttered. “We had to wear one pieces, and I got awful tan lines.”

I liked the two of them, and on the second day at lunch I headed to the same table. I didn't ask if I could sit but dropped my tray on the table as if I belonged there.

A few other girls joined the three of us. They gossiped about classmates, pointing out some of them, and tried to fill me in on the important stuff, such as who had a nose job, who cheated on who, who snorted drugs in the bathroom but denied it to everyone, and who might or might not be carrying a knife in his boot. I made a mental note to avoid the potential weapon carrier.

The third day at lunch more girls joined us, and the entire table was full, all eight seats. They talked a bit about their classmates, but it was now old news. Everyone seemed to be more interested in something else: the new girl.

It was uncomfortable to have all the attention on me, but a part of me kind of liked it. People were here for me. They wanted to get to know me.

The fourth day at lunch, another table was pulled up and some boys joined us. The conversation revolved around three things: basketball; the boys' hopes of making the varsity team; and, by association, me.

People kept joining our table the fifth, sixth, and seventh days of school, until we were our own section in the cafeteria.

I didn't have time to be lonely at Beacon. My life filled up before I'd noticed the holes.

It was weird to be surrounded by basketball again. I wasn't sure how I felt about it. I'd spent the last two years avoiding the sport and the loss it reminded me of. But if basketball was the reason Beacon was so welcoming, maybe I could give it a second chance.

Brett's first day of school was different from mine. He sat alone at a table by the frozen dessert cart. His table also had eight seats, but only one was filled. I'm sure he could've found people who'd let him sit with them, but he acted as if he didn't give a crap. He sat there with his head down, a scowl on his face, and posture that would scare even the bravest person from approaching him.

The second day of school Brett sat alone at that table, and the other seven seats remained empty. He did the same the third, fourth, and fifth days. I watched him sitting there by himself, looking angry as he paged through some recruiting catalogs from the two Marines seated at a table near the entrance of the cafeteria, the ones who tried to hand them to all of us when we walked in. Most of us shoved the papers into the garbage, but Brett studied them as if he were reading the secrets of the world or, more realistically, a porn magazine.

I kept telling myself someone would sit next to him, but every day he was alone.

The afternoon we started our second week at Beacon, I knocked on his bedroom door. Dad had left a Post-it on the microwave telling us, 
“Don't wait for me to eat. I may be home late.”
 I figured I could get Brett to come out of his room if Dad wasn't around.

“Hey.” I barged in without waiting for an invite.

I leaned against the doorframe, not wanting to venture in and navigate the mess of clothes and magazines scattered all over the place.

Brett sat on an old armchair he'd found in our basement. He didn't look up, just flipped through the television stations.

I cleared my throat. “I wanted to tell you that you can sit at my table during lunch if you want.”

Brett didn't answer.

“Everyone is really nice. You'd have fun sitting with—”

“Oh, wow. How sweet of you letting me sit with 
your
 friends.” He ripped out a page in his magazine, crumpled it in his hand, and tossed it against the wall.

“Sorry. I thought since you sit alone every day . . .”

Brett stood and headed toward me. “I don't need your help. I'd rather eat by myself than with your new friends.” He pushed me back and slammed the door in my face. The lock clicked into place.

Brett's disinterest stung. I understood why he was mad at Dad for making him transfer to Beacon, but he could at least try to fit in. He acted as if he didn't care, but I knew how important it was to find a place where you mattered. And now that I'd found my place, I wouldn't do anything to mess it up.

www.allmytruths.com

Today's Truth:

If you step too close to the fire, you may get burned.

September starts, and Dad breaks the vow of silence he instituted when Mom died.

Brett is a hot topic on Dad's lips, and their arguments rage through the house like a fire.

The flames climb the walls, the curtains, and wooden ceiling beams until they push into my room, making it too hot to come out.

Their words burn.

I crouch in my room above, my ear to the floor, listening.

Dad's voice sparks, questions sounding like accusations, insults, threats burning my brother.

“Is there a reason why you don't complete your Spanish homework and won't speak Spanish in class?”

“Do you really think refusing to change into your gym uniform is going to get you a passing grade in the class?”

“You're failing math. If you don't get your act together, you're going to fail the grading period.”

“Are you even trying to make friends at Beacon, or are you sitting around with the same pissed-off look on your face that you have at home?”

“Your English teacher called and said you didn't turn in your paper. Do you plan to stop sitting on your ass and complete it?”

“Do you care about your work? Yourself? Your future?”

“You've been caught four times in the parking lot during lunch. What are you doing out there? Do you want me to take the car from you? Search your room? Are you doing drugs?”

“You need to do something with your hair. Cut it. I didn't raise my son to look like a slob.”

The words break through the calm of the evenings.

Fault after fault is flung at Brett, who says nothing back.

I think Brett's silence is his way of fighting fire with fire, using Dad's best tricks to give him a taste of his own medicine.

So while Dad breaks the long stretches of silence we're used to in our house, Brett manufactures his own.

Night after night, Dad comes at Brett asking him for explanations. He wants to know what changed. What made Brett's grades drop? Why he is behaving so unlike himself?

Brett never answers, but Dad keeps pushing.

And I sit helpless. I want to run down and extinguish the fire by sticking up for Brett, but I'll only cause smoke so thick no one would be able to see. You need to smother a fire to put it out; my fanning will only encourage the flames.

They scare me, these fires. Sometimes the night burns so hot I worry once the fire is out, all that will remain are the skeletons of the house frame, the rest stripped bare.

Posted By: Your Present Self

[Monday, September 2, 11:07 PM]

I learned about the winter equinox in Mrs. Dreiling's fourth grade science class. She'd explained it was the start of winter, the one day a year when the night is longer than the day.

September 7 was my winter equinox. It was the second anniversary of my mom's death. I didn't need winter with its freezing earth and everything icing over to believe this date was the darkest of the year. All day long I tried not to think about how much had changed, but it was hard to get my mind onto anything else.

Last year Brett and I went to the cemetery. He drove us there after school instead of heading home. He didn't say where we were going, but I knew. Dad was waiting at the entrance, and the three of us spent the afternoon at her grave, not talking, but for once we didn't need to.

Now, with Brett still angry at having to go to Beacon and Dad immersed in basketball, I was left alone to remember Mom. I heard an announcement earlier in the day reminding students of the basketball clinic after school. I wasn't surprised Dad agreed to a practice on the anniversary of Mom's death. It was so easy for him to lose himself in basketball that he forgot there were others around him who also needed help.

Brett drove me to school without speaking, and I told him not to wait for me when the day ended. Ali and Jenna didn't know what day it was, and I didn't feel like telling them. It wasn't something I wanted to talk about.

I took the bus home and walked around my empty house, not quite sure what to do. Finally I put on my swimsuit and dove into the pool.

I swam laps and thought about Mom and my family two years before. After people found out about Mom's sickness, they said we were lucky to have the time with her, time to prepare. But to me, it was a constant reminder of what was being taken away from me. Instead of being granted time to spend with her, we were granted time to watch her fade away from us. Summer vacation was spent in a haze of hushed voices, funny smells that made my nose twitch, the sound of pills falling out of bottles and water filling glasses.