Secret for a Song (15 page)

J
ack’s
dad volunteered to dispose of all the decorations, so Zee’s car was empty. She
agreed to take Pierce and Carson home so Drew and I could hang out.

“I
feel so bad for his parents,” I said, driving out of the park. “Do his mood
swings just happen without warning?”

“Usually,”
Drew said. “Sometimes it’s more of a steady dip. It seems to be happening more
and more, though. I’m worried about him.”

“Did
his dad say anything about the petition?” I’d seen Drew take Jack’s dad aside
before we’d left to talk to him in private. Zee and I had been tossing all the
decorations into a box and popping the balloons with a hair pin. It had felt
strangely cathartic to have the offending items meet such a swift, violent end
after the reaction they’d caused in Jack, even if I didn’t know him that well.

“Yeah.
They’re having trouble with their finances, so they’re not sure if they can
hire the lawyer they want. It’s a criminal defense attorney who’s supposed to
be the best with out-of-the-box cases. He won’t do it pro bono, though.” He
shook his head. “Fucking lawyers.”

“Who
is it?” My dad was in criminal law, and he was fairly well-known. I couldn’t
imagine him taking on a case like this one, where he had to help a poor young
dying kid, but maybe it was one of his friends.
And what if it is?
a
small part of my mind asked.
What are you going to say? Dad, I need help
because one of my friends in the terminal illness support group I joined for
fun is dying and he needs representation?

“Noah
Preston,” Drew said. “Some guy in Portsmouth.”

The
name stuck in my mind like a piece of melted candy. There was something about
it, something familiar. I shook my head. “Sorry Jack’s not doing so well.”

Drew’s
hand covered mine, firm and cool. “Let’s not talk about Jack anymore tonight.”

I
looked at him. In the fading light, his eyes seemed to be rimmed with gold.
“Okay.”

I
got home and let myself in right around dinner time. The living room was quiet,
and so was the den, the TV turned off and silent. I’d never noticed before that
our house smelled weird.

Every
house had a smell. Ours had an
anti
-smell: the absolute absence of any
kind of scent that would give a clue about the people who lived there. There
wasn’t a trace of the food we ate, the perfume we wore, or the scent of our
clothing.

I’d
once been to the Hood Museum of Art on a school field trip. The entire place
had felt like a mausoleum, and I’d been sure it was haunted by the spirits of the
ancient cultures whose works were on display. There was no smell, no warmth, no
feeling of life. Even the curators seemed to me to be fake. Our house felt
exactly the same way.

Crossing
into the kitchen, I found Mum seated at the table eating a salad and drinking
tea. It was the first time I’d actually had a minute to talk to her since the
discovery I’d made in her car. It seemed she was always slipping in and out of
the house, retreating to her bedroom just as I came out of mine.

“Been
learning anything useful in drunk-driving class?” I didn’t even try to disguise
the venom in my voice.

She
barely glanced up from her food. “Hello, Saylor.”

“What’s
the matter?” I pulled out a chair and sat next to her, putting my chin in my
hands. “Don’t you want to tell me all about your fun curriculum?”

The
corners of her mouth pulled in, as if she tasted something sour. “Sarcasm doesn’t
become you, dear.” She took a sip of tea.

“No,
a mother who’s a fucking drunk liar doesn’t become me.” I waited for her to
startle, to tell me to watch my language, but she calmly pierced a spinach
leaf, put it into her mouth, and began to chew, her eyes steadfastly on her
plate.

“I
found your fucking bottles of ‘water’ a few days ago,” I said. “Except when I
went to take a drink, it wasn’t water at all.”

She
finally looked up at me, the only hint that what I’d said had gotten to her the
slight twitch of her eyebrow. “You had no bloody business taking my car. I told
you not to.”

I
laughed. “Oh, right. This is my fault. Tell me one thing. Did you always drink
and drive while I was in the car with you?”

She
turned back to her salad. I pushed my chair back, stood up, and grabbed her cup
of tea. She fumbled for it, but I was faster. I took a sip. Coughed.

It
was plain vodka with a splash of tea, the alcohol almost odorless.

I
set the cup back down on the table and we stared at each other for a long moment.

“Is
your whole life a lie?” I whispered, my throat closing around the words.

She
kept staring at me, but didn’t answer. She didn’t apologize, didn’t refute what
I’d said. I saw the accusation there. It was because of me. She was a drunk
because of me.

I
went upstairs to my room and sat on my vanity bench, staring at myself in the
mirror. If her life had always been a lie, had mine, too, by association? I was
her child. My life had been molded around hers, like all mothers and children’s
lives are. When had she started drinking? And why? Was it to forget, to numb
the pain, to simply cease to feel? Was life with me so bad that she had to be
drunk to go through it?

I
opened my closet and pulled out the duffel bag I’d gotten from college. From
inside a textbook I’d hollowed out to stash some of my supplies, I got a small
baggie of Tylenol. Emptying out all fifty of them into my palm, I tossed them
into my mouth, five at a time, and dry-swallowed them. Then I sat back down on
my vanity bench, stared into the brown hollow of my eyes, and waited.

J
ust
to be clear: I wasn’t trying to kill myself. We Munchausen freaks are big on
getting sick, but not so big on dying. We leave that to the depressives. I knew
when I took the Tylenol, due to extensive research, of course, that I wouldn’t
die. I might just send my liver into a state of panic and cause some nasty
stomach pain and vomiting. After I’d waited about twenty minutes, which I
figured was just enough time to let the pills begin to metabolize in my system,
I went downstairs to Mum.

The
rest of the process was vaguely familiar. I drove myself to the hospital
because she couldn’t drive me, which was different from before. But then they
checked me in the instant I told them what I’d done. Their computers showed, of
course, that I had Munchausen, so they didn’t do a psychiatric hold on me for
attempted suicide. The nurses still treated me with respect, because acetaminophen
is not something you want to fuck around with. In tiny amounts it did great
things for your body like take away aches and pains and reduce fever. In large
doses, well, it could kill you.

After
they gave me some activated charcoal and NAC mixed with juice, which was the
antidote for acetaminophen poisoning, I was set up in a bed to be monitored. Mum
went outside the room to talk with the doctor. It was some tall guy with silver
hair I’d never seen before. I settled against the pillows, reached for the
remote and turned the TV on to a reality show. My fingers traced the nurses’
call button.

That
was what life should’ve been: someone waiting to hear from you, someone willing
to come to your aid because they knew you were in need. Attention shouldn’t have
been such an expensive commodity. Imagine if people knew all they needed to get
help was a simple push of a button. No explanations, no money changing hands,
no skeptical looks. Just a sweet person in scrubs, smoothing back your hair,
asking what she could do for you.

On
the TV, the laugh track screamed.

Mum
came back in, her face closed off, distant. “They want to keep you overnight,
to make sure you’re going to be all right.”

I
nodded. “Are they going to have me speak with the psych team?” I even knew the
lingo.

“No.
I was able to convince the doctor not to. I gave him Dr. Stone’s number so they
can work that out between the two of them.” She looked out the window at the
snow. “I should go. It’s supposed to get worse, the snow.”

Our
house was only a couple of blocks away. “You could stay here.” I tried to say
it casually, like I didn’t care. I really wished I didn’t care.

But
Mum sighed. “No. I want to sleep in my own bed tonight, Saylor, unlike you.”

“You
mean you want to drink until you pass out,” I said, glaring at her.

She
got up. “I’m leaving. I have to walk, and I don’t want to walk in a bad
snowfall.”

She
could’ve called a taxi; having to walk was just an excuse so she could leave. I
turned on my side so I wouldn’t have to watch her go.

My first thought as I woke up the next morning: Fucking
sun. Someone had opened the blinds in my room and the sun was merrily blasting
its full force through into my room. When I blinked and opened my eyes, I saw
Drew sitting in a chair, watching me. He smiled.

My
palms were sweating. What did he know? How did he know I’d been admitted? Had
they told him what was wrong with me? But surely if he knew, he wouldn’t be
smiling at me like that. “What are you doing here?” I rubbed my eyes, sat up.

“It
sounds
like you don’t want to see me, but I know better than that.” His
smile morphed into a mischievous grin which I found hard to enjoy while my
heart battered against my chest.

 “Seriously.”
I tried to keep the panic out of my voice, but I couldn’t be sure that I’d
succeeded. “How’d you get in? Don’t you have to be family for them to admit
you?”

“I
let him in.” Mum came striding in, her eyes moving between Drew and me.
Something glittered there, something dark and amused. It frightened me.

Drew
smiled, his expression heartbreakingly innocent and unsuspecting. I had the
distinct feeling that he was some harmless creature—a ladybug or a
grasshopper—that had wandered into the web my mother and I had spun. I hadn’t
intended for him to get caught in it, but now that he was here, there was
absolutely nothing I could do but watch him get trapped.

“It
was a pleasure meeting your friend,Saylor.” She kept that glazed smile
on her face, toying with me.

I
couldn’t look at Drew or my mother. So I stared down at the IV tube in my arm
and fiddled with where it was taped to the back of my hand. The pain helped me
focus. It helped me remember
I
was the victim, that I had a legitimate
reason to be there. But that was just on the surface. Underneath, I had the
feeling my world was turning into insubstantial cotton, ready to float away on
the first big puff of air to leave my mother’s mouth.

But
just as I was becoming resigned to this, she sighed. “Well, nice as it has been
to meet one of Saylor’s friends, I’m afraid I must run. I have a class to get
to.”

Her
drunk-driving class. “Oh, right.” I forced a smile, my heart speeding up again.
Was she really leaving? Or would she drop the bombshell on her way out the
door?

But
she extended her hand out to Drew and let him shake it.

“It
was nice to meet you, Mrs. Grayson.”

“And
you, Drew.” She smiled, held his eyes for a moment longer, and then turned to
me. “I’ll be by later.”

I
nodded, and we were quiet as she walked out the door.

Drew
turned to me. “She’s really nice.” When I didn’t answer, he said, “Pierce was
in the ER last night when they admitted you. I texted you late last night and
this morning, but when you didn’t answer, I came over.” He frowned. “Are you
okay with this? Me being in here, I mean. You seem kinda freaked.”

I
was more than kinda freaked. This was bad. As a rule, no one came to visit me
in the hospital because that just led to messy questions and messier answers.
The only people allowed were my parents, and that was only because I had to
have someone take care of me after. “Um, yeah...it’s just, I don’t like people
seeing me like this.”

He
nodded. “Sick, you mean. I can understand that. But, you know, you’re not alone
in this.”

Questions
clustered at the base of my throat, making it hard for me to breathe. I
extricated one delicately. “What, um, what did my mother tell you? About why
I’m in here?”

He
shrugged. “She didn’t. All she said was that they were monitoring you, and that
I could ask you for details.”

Mum
had covered for me. I knew better than to think it was because she cared about
me being embarrassed; it was her own reputation she was concerned about. “Oh,
okay. Did you tell her you were from the TIDD group?”

“No.
Just that I was your friend.” He smiled again. “I thought it might be premature
to call myself your boyfriend, since
you
haven’t officially called me
that yet.”

Relief
coursed through me. TIDD hadn’t come up. And then another thought: Drew thought
of himself as my boyfriend? I had a legitimate boyfriend. I wondered if my hair
looked horrible, if my breath smelled bad. Then I wondered when I’d gotten to
be one of those girls who worried about stupid shit like that.

“You
can tell people you’re my boyfriend,” I said. “I won’t mind.”

Only
a very small part of me also thought: If you introduce yourself that way, there
won’t be the danger of TIDD group coming up to someone who shouldn’t know about
it.

“Oh,
um, is Pierce okay? Why was he in the ER?” Now that I was certain my secret was
safe, I was free to worry about other people.

“Another
complication from the sarcoma.” Drew sighed. “He was spitting up blood, but
they got him stabilized.”

The
nurse bustled in then, a pleasantly plump young woman with long, wavy black
locks. She smiled at the two of us. “Just coming in to take your vitals,” she
said to me. “How you feelin’ this mornin’?”

“Um,
I’m okay.” I glanced at Drew. He seemed to get the message.

“I
was just leaving,” he said. “Talk to you later?”

“Yeah.”

He
took two steps before his feet tangled together. I watched him try to lift his
left foot, then overcompensate with his right when it didn’t lift as much as he
expected. The result was that he fell in a twisted heap, the arm that was
holding his cane tucked under his torso.

“Oh!”
The nurse left my side and hurried over to him. I jumped out of bed, was
overcome with a wave of dizziness, and sat back down abruptly. The nurse looked
at me.

“Stay
in bed,” she ordered. “I got him.”

With
her help, Drew picked himself off the floor. His jaw was hard, blue eyes
ablaze. He refused to look at me. “Thank you,” he said to the nurse. “I have
Friedrich’s Ataxia.”

She
nodded. “You okay? Why don’t I get a doctor to check you out? Make sure you
didn’t hurt anything?”

“No,
thank you,” he said. “I’m fine. I have to leave anyway.”

“Wait,”
she said, putting her hand on his arm as he began to walk again. “At least let
me get an aide to take you down in a wheelchair.”

He
turned to her, and in that moment, I didn’t recognize him. He looked lean and
mean, a little like a fox fighting over a scrap of food. “No, thank you. I can
walk.”

He
took his time, but he walked out of the room by himself. He didn’t say goodbye.