Life Is Funny (21 page)

And I tell her I have to think on it because it's a lot she needs to know and to come back tomorrow and we'll talk again for sure. And she backs down the stairs holding on to the rails and shaky glides off into Brooklyn, leaving me to watch her like she's my own.

And I feel the warm on my arms and the cool on my butt, and I see the trees and the leaves and the stacks of books on stoops and the bikes and the dykes, and I think about waiting. Drew's waiting for peace and Tory's waiting for being grown and Keisha's mama's waiting for a baby and Keisha's waiting to come home and I'm waiting to be still, and waiting is everything because when you're done waiting, there's either more or nothing and because it's like the second before someone laughs when you know it will be good and it is, and when they're done, you get to wait some more to hear it again.

Linnette

Eric

Mickey

MY MOM ALWAYS used to say there's a whole lot more of real good and real evil in this world than most people could ever imagine possible.

She knows about that kind of thing from her job. My mother's the woman who sits near the witnesses and the judge and types practically every single sound in a courtroom, right down to stutters and swear words. In ten years she's heard more true stories of good and evil than the average person probably hears in a lifetime, TV and gossip included.

She used to talk a lot about it at dinnertime.

“You wouldn't believe the ugliness we had to sit through in court today,” she'd say. Or, “I never saw so much kindness inside of one person as I saw this afternoon.” Sometimes she wouldn't tell a whole story, exactly, but just certain parts, like how a witness tilted his head when he answered questions, or how someone in the third row cried the whole way through a thirty-three-day trial, or how every single person involved in such and such case seemed to have confusion about the Truth. My mother used to notice that a lot of us can be a part of the same exact thing and have whole different memories of how that thing went. People's emotions and biases mix in and mess up their accuracy, she used to explain to me and my brother. And that's what makes life so mysterious.

Now, though, my mother is pretty quiet at dinnertime. She doesn't set Jackson's place anymore, and it seems like his empty chair across from me is assigned to some invisible hall monitor taking a rest, a strict spirit who won't allow loud talking or much smiling, who might be offended if we seem too happy.

*  *  *

Jackson died two Augusts ago, when I was nine. Now I'm older than he ever was, which was never supposed to happen and which makes me want to cry but not be able to. When I was nine, I believed in God, and the day before Jackson died, I asked my mom and dad why God was making my older brother so sick when Jackson never did anything truly evil in his life. Even though there were lots of times when he would hold me down and pretend to dribble spit right into my face or make me hit myself with my own hand and go,
Why are you hitting yourself, Linny? Why are you hitting yourself?

My parents said that dying wasn't a punishment on the dead person; it was just that God sometimes takes people when they're young. And I said,
Well, it's a punishment for us, isn't it?
And when my parents didn't answer, I started thinking that maybe God was a lie.

The next day, after I went to get a candy bar from the machine in the waiting room near to the nurse's station, and the machine took my fifty cents without giving me E17, and I came back into Jackson's room, and he was dead, and my parents let me look at him and tell him
see you
, I was pretty sure God was fake, but I still wasn't positive.

A week later I couldn't fall asleep because of hearing my father try not to cry under his pillow and my mother whispering to him the way she whispered to Jackson in the hospital. I tiptoed out of bed and snuck into the living room to the telephone. I crouched down behind the sofa to make sure my parents wouldn't hear me, and then I dialed zero.

Operator. May I help you, please?

I need to make a collect call.

The name of the person who's calling?

Linnette.
I tried to whisper, partly not to be heard by my parents but partly to be able to hear them.

The name of the person you're trying to reach?

Jackson.

Number please. Area code first.

I sucked the inside of my cheeks.

I don't exactly know the number.

City or state?

Heaven, please.
The operator didn't say anything for a minute, and I thought she had hung up.

Excuse me. Could you repeat the city or state?

Heaven.
I said it louder this time, with a little more backbone.

I have a Heavener in Oklahoma.

That didn't sound right to me.

Heaven. The one with God.

The operator took a while to say anything again. I wondered if maybe she was eating.

What is the age of the caller please?

What?

How old are you, miss?

Why did she need to know?

Nine.

Please hold.

I held for a long time. So long that I shifted positions behind the couch and got the buzz in my legs to fade away before she came back.

Miss, Jackson's line is busy at the moment. But if you'd like to leave a message, I'll be sure he gets it.

I tried to think.

Miss?

Well, could I speak to God then?

The operator had a coughing fit, and when she was done, she said,
God's unavailable at this time, miss.

I don't know how I knew right then, but I did. Maybe it was that the operator's cough sounded more like a laugh. Or maybe it was because I sort of knew all along.

Miss?

Just tell them I called.

I hung up the phone, my palms slippery and my face prickling with disappointment and embarrassment.

*  *  *

Now when my parents ask me about their new plan, with the empty chair listening silently across from me, I can hardly believe it.

“We can't do that,” is the first thing I argue.

“We could,” my mother says carefully, “if we wanted to.” She rakes ridges into her mashed potatoes with the prongs of her fork. “We thought maybe you'd want to.” She looks up from her plate and straight at me, the way she used to. “We thought maybe you'd like to have someone else in the family again.”

“But it wouldn't be family,” I tell them. “It would be fake. A fake family. What's wrong with just us?”

“There's nothing wrong with just us,” my father says, folding his napkin into tinier and tinier squares. “That's not the point.”

“What is the point?”

My father waits awhile before he answers.

“I guess the point is that Linnette's not comfortable,” he finally says to my mom, who drops her fork. The room rings with the sound of it. “If you're not comfortable,” he tells me, “we won't do it.”

Usually they just go ahead and make decisions on their own. Like when to take vacations and where to go. Like when and how to change around the living room furniture.

“I don't want to,” I whisper. My father slowly unworks his napkin until it's spread across his dirty plate. With the creases that came from his folds, it looks like a checkerboard. I glance over at my mother. She has tears ballooning out of her eyes. The only time I've ever seen her cry in my whole life was two Septembers ago, when she got a notice from school saying that Jackson had missed the first fourteen days and would need a note from a doctor to excuse his absence. She sees me looking at her and reaches out to grab my fingers. She's lighter than I am. The backs of her hands are the color of my palms and soles.

“It's okay, Linny,” she says. “I'm just a little disappointed, is all.”

I wish she would say more, like she used to. I wish she would keep looking at me straight in the eyes and say words the way she used to that made things fit into their place. Made things either easier to understand or magic in how they refused to be understood.

I don't want a new brother or sister, already half grown. I wouldn't want a baby either, if they'd asked. It's not even that I don't want it. I can't. I can't do it.

My father pushes his chair back and circles the table. My mom is still holding on to my fingers. He stands behind her and strokes her hair, cupping her forehead a little first, and then petting backward, slowly.

*  *  *

I never even think all that much about Jackson anymore, much less dream about him, but he comes in my sleep tonight.

Trade you my Milky Way for your Life Savers,
he offers.

E17 doesn't work,
I tell him, eyeing his candy bar.
How'd you get that?

Thanks for trying to call,
he says, unwrapping his Milky Way and taking the tiniest little nibble off the top.

Don't make fun of me,
I warn him.

I'm not,
he says.
You want a bite?

He holds out the chocolate, and I wake up.

*  *  *

It's my father's eyes that are spiderwebbed pink in the morning. My mother has her bottom lip fixed under her top one. That's the look she had the whole time Jackson was sick, and months after, too. I wait until they have their keys out and the front door almost open. They take the same bus to work at first, but then my mom switches at the Port Authority in Manhattan and takes a train two more stops.

“I changed my mind,” I tell them.

“What?” my mom says. She looks pretty in her plum suit and suede black heels, even if her mouth is fixed into a flat line.

“Maybe I could try it,” I say.

They look at each other.

“Are you sure?” my father asks.

“As long as we can send him away if I don't like it,” I tell them.

I expect them both to get on me for being so evil, but instead my father says, “Of course.” He looks like he's going to cry again.

“Are you really sure, Linny?” my mother asks.

“Yeah.” I nod.

My father pats at his eyes with the heel of his palm. He's wearing a white shirt under his dark suit and cufflinks I made in camp before Jackson died.

“Linny,” my mother checks, “what's in your head?”

“As long as we can send him away,” I say again.

*  *  *

The thing is, we don't get one. We get two. Eric and Mickey. They look exactly alike, except Mickey is eight, and Eric is sixteen, and Mickey's the one with the shine leaping out of him, and Eric's the one with the hatchet murder face. They're both dark-skinned like me and my dad, and Eric is as tall as a man.

They're supposed to get to our house at three, but they don't show up until five-thirty. They each carry a black knapsack hung over one shoulder.

“You can call me Mr. Wheeler, and this is Ms. Wheeler,” my father starts off, after the welfare woman leaves, and we're left feeling stupid in the foyer. My father holds his hand out to Eric, who ignores it the way you would ignore a spot on a wall.

“This is Linnette,” my father tells them.

“Hi,” I say.

“This a castle?” Mickey says, looking all around and sounding impressed.

“This is a house,” my dad says. “I guess it feels big, huh?”

Mickey nods. Eric doesn't say anything.

“Linnette,” my mom suggests, “why don't you show the boys their room?”

Jackson's room has two twin beds, now, with blue bedspreads trimmed in cream, two light-colored wooden bureaus, and two light-colored wooden desks. The curtains are blue-and-cream checked, and the floor has a cream rug trimmed in blue. My mother is very good at matching things.

Before, when Jackson lived in here, the room was a mess. Mostly it was filled with balls. All kinds of them. Orange basketballs, red zippered baseballs, swollen softballs, pitted golf balls, sweatery tennis balls, hyper handballs, geometric soccer balls, ugly eye-shaped rugby balls, hard squash balls.

Eric and Mickey are staring at the blue-and-cream room, still holding their knapsacks.

“This was Jackson's room,” I explain.

Mickey looks at Eric.

“You can put your stuff down if you want,” I tell them.

Eric tosses his knapsack onto the bed nearest the window. Mickey walks over to the other bed and sits on it. He bounces a little.

“My mom says you're from Brooklyn,” I try. They don't answer. “I used to live in Manhattan,” I say. “When I was little.” I nod toward Mickey. “Like not even his age.”

“I'm not little,” Mickey says.

“Have you ever been to Montclair before?”

“This called Montclair?” Mickey asks Eric.

“Uh huh.”

“We going to stay here now?” Mickey asks.

“Long as you like it here,” Eric says, “we stay.” He looks at me. “You got a bathroom?”

*  *  *

Eric won't help my mom make a list.

“Don't need nothing,” he says. Mickey's sitting so close to him their legs are touching.

“Clothes?” my mother asks. “Notebooks? Shoes?”

Eric shrugs.

“I could have new sneakers?” Mickey pipes.

“Let me see,” my mom says, and she leans out from her armchair to grab Mickey's heel. She examines his torn-up Super Mart shoes real carefully, twisting his foot around slow. He starts to giggle. He's a cute giggler. I see a blip of a smile on Eric's face. It makes him look less like a criminal for a second.

My mother leans back and nods. I know she's trying to goof around, but it seems like she doesn't remember how to do it right. Mickey's looking up at her, all eyes and worry lines, to see what she's going to say.