Dana's Valley (20 page)

The discussion stopped as we entered.

“Erin, please take Corey upstairs for a little while. Maybe you could read to him.” Mom's voice was strained, and she sounded tired again.

We left, and their voices resumed when we reached the top of the stairs. It sounded like they were arguing. I hoped Brett hadn't told them he was quitting church. Or maybe he'd received a poor grade too. That might explain a lot, but it was odd that it would have brought Dad home early from work. We all knew he was struggling to catch up. He'd been gone a lot when Dana was going in for treatments.

Dana was in our room, typing at the computer Uncle Patrick had delivered for her. Now she had her own e-mail address and, apparently, a number of pen pals. She looked up at us as Corey and I entered.

“Hi. I thought you must have come in. It got quiet all of a sudden downstairs.”

“What's going on?”

Dana looked back at the computer screen, then clicked the standby mode on the monitor. Apparently she felt it would take some time to explain. “Corey, why don't you put your school books on your desk? Then get your reader and bring it back, okay?”

“Okay.”

I wanted to tell him not to hurry.

Dana turned her chair to face me. “Brett came home partway through the afternoon and surprised Mom—or maybe
she
surprised him. We hadn't heard him drive up, and it turned out he'd sneaked into the kitchen and was looking through the cupboards. Mom showed up just as he took some money and put it into his pocket. They argued a little, and then Mom called Daddy at work.

“When Daddy came home, they started arguing all over again. He wanted to know why Brett was home in the middle of the day. Brett said he didn't need school. I think he's been skipping some of the time. And Daddy wanted to know why he was stealing. Brett said he wasn't. That he was going to pay it back. It got pretty ugly for a while.”

“What did
you
do?”

Dana shrugged and gave a heavy sigh. “I stayed up here. I know he doesn't like me. I know he thinks this is all my fault. So I just stayed out of the way.”

It was awful to hear her say the words. “What makes you think that?”

A tear welled up and rolled down her cheek. “He said so.”

All at once I was angry too. I wanted to march right downstairs and tell Brett what I thought of him. I wanted to yell at him and fight with him and make him pay for what he'd said to hurt Dana. I stood up, my jaw clenched.

“It's okay.” Dana rose to face me. “He doesn't like me
right now.
And I don't really blame him. I've had so much of Mom and Daddy's attention for so long. He just wants to be noticed too.”

“But not like this. He has no right—”

Dana didn't let me finish. “It's not about rights. It's about feelings.” Her eyes were earnest and pleading. “And he
has
those feelings whether we want to let him or not. We won't be helping Brett if we get angry too. It'll just make everything worse. We've got to pray for him, Erin. And, too, we've got to love him. Otherwise we might lose him. And I don't want to lose my big brother.”

If you only knew,
I found myself thinking. Stories had been filtering back to me through school friends—reports of some things Brett might be involved in. I'd even heard talk about some of his friends using drugs and stuff. I couldn't say that to Dana. All I could do was stand and look at her.

I had been wrong when I'd thought earlier that the old Dana was back. Now I realized just how much she'd changed—not only the physical changes from her illness, but the fact that she had matured far beyond the simple passage of time. I needed to stop thinking of her as frail and weak, because I suddenly recognized the enormous amount of strength she'd gained—inner strength.

She had just had her fourteenth birthday in the midst of her last chemo, but in a way she seemed almost an adult. She used words I could not fully grasp and had a look in her eyes as if she were fourteen going on forty. She didn't fit the mold of what it was to be a teenager.

Corey came back into the bedroom and crawled up onto my bed, the one Mom had been using for so long. “Okay. Which one of you guys is going to read with me?” His anxious look begged for more than a story. The voices downstairs had not ceased.

“I will. Dana, go ahead and work on your letters.” I curled up with Corey and began the torturously slow process of phonetic reading. Corey's tongue wrapped every direction around the sounds before stumbling upon the correct pronunciation. Even so, I couldn't help but notice how much he'd improved. I forced myself to smile and encourage him. His effort to concentrate probably kept him from hearing the argument downstairs. But I could hear it—rising and falling for a long time. Mixed in were Corey's tortured attempts at reading and the sound of Dana clicking away at the computer. The combination was almost more than I could stand.

The next evening our youth pastor paid us a visit. There were no casseroles preceding it as had happened before his last call, and the mood was a little tense and secretive this time. Brett had agreed to the meeting, but he was slumped in a corner chair in defiance. Apparently he'd decided on his course of action and had determined that he would not be moved from it.

Their discussion began in the early evening and went rather late. Upstairs I tucked Corey into bed, singing to him for a while. He loved this little ritual. Then I went to Dana's room and threw myself down on her bed. She was back at her computer again. I flipped open my geography book, knowing that I wouldn't be able to study for my last final exam. But at least I wouldn't be alone.

The rest of us were told very little about the meeting with the pastor, and Brett still wasn't around much. I did manage to gather that his behavior could largely be traced to the new set of friends he'd found since he began skateboarding. In fact, Travis was the only past friend who seemed to be sticking with Brett. I think Brett might have dropped him too, had Travis been willing to let him. But Travis called at least once every week with some excuse to get together.

I also found out that Brett had lost his grocery-store job a month before, and he had been in some trouble at school. He tried to defend himself by saying he hadn't
intended
to let it all happen—that he had tried to get out of some of the marginal situations himself. But I could tell that Dad was very disappointed. I was also well aware that my parents had enough to deal with right now—with Dana's illness and all—without this kind of difficulty with Brett.

We were informed that counseling appointments had been set up for every Tuesday night. Brett would be going alone for a few weeks and then Mom and Dad would be joining him. I was afraid Dana would take the blame and feel it was her fault, but she seemed relieved. She figured things the way I did—that it was Brett's way of getting his share of the parenting. At any rate, he had them noticing him now.

There were still frequent trips to the cancer treatment center for Dana and Mom. I was never invited to go with them. And to be honest, it would have been a struggle to make myself go—but I would have felt guilty if I had declined. To my relief, Dana seemed to have no interest in sharing her private world with the rest of us. I wondered what the reason might be. But mostly I was just glad to be excused. Besides, I was often needed to take care of Corey. Mom preferred that I supervise Corey since Grandma's soft heart made it difficult for her to enforce the rules.

I also assumed that Mom knew she couldn't drag us all along and still give full attention to Dana and to her doctors. So I usually asked for permission to spend my summer days with Marcy, and Corey came along. Brett chose to fend for himself at home—especially now that his use of the car had been severely restricted.

One day as Corey and I passed a yard where a small boy played with a puppy, Corey got it into his head that he wanted a dog. When Dad got home, Corey explained that if he just had a puppy of his own, he could be so much happier because he'd have a friend. Dad was un~convinced and quickly brushed him off by saying it wasn't the right time to train a puppy—we all were much too busy for such a responsibility.

So Corey went to Mom. Mom's reaction was much softer and gentler—but it amounted to the same thing. It was just not the appropriate time to be taking on a puppy.

I'd never seen Corey throw a temper tantrum. I suppose in the past we had showered him with so much attention that he didn't feel such a display was necessary. And then, when Grandma had taken over much of his care, she had given him pretty much whatever he wanted. When summer arrived and I was watching him most of the time, I had fallen back on diversion tactics instead of saying no to him outright.

Now Corey was face-to-face with a denied request. One upon which he had set his heart. And, I assume as I look back on it, in a dreadful expression of all the stressed relationships that he'd recently seen displayed in our home, he pitched a fit. It was painful to see. Mom was shocked. Dad came immediately.

They managed to remove him to his own room and to get him quieted down. Then Dad explained to him that his behavior was absolutely unacceptable and that it was not to happen again. Corey was sniffling and hiccupping by then, though his heavy crying had subsided. He was put to bed, but I heard Mom and Dad both expressing how much they loved him as they turned off his light and closed his door.

Then I heard the two of them walking to their own room and the door closing softly. This was followed by the muffled sounds of my mother crying quietly. I knew she was trying to hide it, but I couldn't help myself. I tiptoed up the hallway and rapped gently to see if they would answer. When Dad's voice did, I pushed the door open.

Mom was lying on their bed, and Dad was sitting next to her. I moved over to them sheepishly and gently touched her arm. “It's okay, Mom. It's going to be okay.”

She gave a wobbly smile through her tears and whispered that she knew it would. That it was just so much to happen all at once. I agreed with her and added, “Don't worry about Corey. He'll be himself again tomorrow.”

She nodded, and I left them alone. I was pretty sure she just needed a good cry. But I couldn't have stopped myself from going to her. I wanted one of her children to remind her that she was loved. And I believed with my whole heart that we each loved her deeply—even Brett.

I will never forget the summer of my thirteenth year. So many things seemed to happen at once that it made my head spin.

As my birthday was drawing nearer I could sense that something was going on. Dana and Mom seemed to always be sending each other little signals and whispering together until they knew I was approaching. I was sure something was up.

Marcy and her mom came to pick me up the morning of my birthday and managed to keep me busy for the entire afternoon. When I arrived home in the evening, our whole yard was like an outside carnival with streamers and balloons and party decorations. Then cars started arriving, mostly occupied by friends from church. Not just the kids my age, but entire families. We had a huge BBQ in our backyard. Mothers brought salads and other side dishes, and the gifts began to heap up on the table Mom had placed there for that purpose.

It was the grandest celebration I had ever seen. Even bigger than Dana's thirteenth party had been. And Dana seemed to enjoy it even more than I did. Wearing a cute summery hat decorated with flowers, she pretty much took over as hostess, then cheered and exclaimed over every gift I opened. She was right beside me when I made the first slice into the huge birthday cake.

And Brett came. I guess that was my very best present. He stood back and didn't mix much, but he did give me a smile and a little wave. He even handed me a gift—personally. In typical Brett style, it was tucked in an obviously used brown paper bag. But inside I found a brand-new basketball. I hugged Brett and almost cried, I felt so good. There was something in his eyes that seemed to say he hadn't decided to completely abandon us.