The Song Reader (14 page)

When we got there, Peter’s mom Vicki stopped me before I could get out the door. Vicki was a high school friend of Mary Beth’s and a former customer; she was also one of the nosiest people I’d ever met. She wanted to know how Mary Beth was “coping.” I said fine. She wanted to know if George was upsetting my sister with all his talk. I said no. And then she hinted there was going to be trouble because she’d heard a rumor George had talked to a lawyer.

Tommy had already run off with Peter into Peter’s room. I looked at Vicki. “A lawyer? For what?”

Vicki took a step closer. “Who knows? Maybe slander, since Mary Beth accused him of—”

“She
didn’t accuse him. Holly accused him.”

“Well, he’s saying it’s the other way around. And he says it’s already hurt his business and his family.”

I was furious, but I forced a laugh. “Hey, maybe we’ll sue him, too. For saying all this crap about Mary Beth. For ruining her business.”

“Good idea,” Vicki said, and then she started to tell me about her cousin who knew a good lawyer, but I cut her off before she could give me the name.

When I got in the Ford, I turned the music up and reminded myself all this was just gossip. I had other, real problems, to think about. My sister was lying in bed in the middle of a Saturday afternoon. And she wasn’t sick; she wasn’t even sad, at least not in any way I could recognize.

But it couldn’t last much longer. I told Darlene that when I dropped by her place to explain she couldn’t come to dinner tonight. I was planning to pick up Tommy from Peter’s at five and take him to Burger King. I wanted to give Mary Beth some time alone.

“She’s just freaked out right now,” I told Darlene, who seemed almost as stricken about my sister’s situation as I was. “She’ll get her act together.”

“If I was her, I’d blow this whole stupid town.” Darlene was painting her toenails. She held up the little brush to make her point. “Why should you guys stay in this dinky shit hole anyway? It’s not like you have family forcing you to.”

I shrugged. “It isn’t that easy. You can’t just pick up and move without a job.”

Even as I said this, I caught myself wishing for the hundredth time that Mary Beth and Ben had never broken up. Then we’d be in Philadelphia right now, a thousand miles away from the whole mess. Mary Beth would have Ben, who had money and a great job. And more important, I would have Ben to help me fix my sister.

But of course she wouldn’t need to be fixed if we’d gone with Ben to Philadelphia. None of this would have happened.

After I picked up Tommy and took him to Burger King, I decided to take the long way home. Give Mary Beth a little more time. We were over on Fifth Street, across from the library, when I saw Mike.

He hadn’t been in school all week. His empty chair in English class had been a constant reminder of everything that had gone wrong since last Saturday.

Part of me knew our date was out of the question now, part of me even knew he might be mad at my sister, just like his grandparents. But still, when his truck pulled up to the traffic light right next to our Ford, I was so relieved to see him, I couldn’t help it. I smiled a little and waved.

He looked at me but only for a second. Then he turned around and stared straight at the traffic light. Immediately I turned around, too, but I glanced over at him several times, unable to believe he wasn’t even going to mouth hi. The instant the light turned green, he was gone. I sat there, unable to move, until the woman behind me started honking her horn.

Tommy was kicking the dashboard.

“Don’t,” I snapped.

“I wish Mama picked me up. She doesn’t get me a cheese-burger.”

“That’s what you wanted.”

“I wanted chicken nuggets.”

He repeated that three times; he also said again he wanted his mom with him, not me. Then I couldn’t take it anymore. I started crying, but it was dark enough that Tommy didn’t notice. I listened to him gripe; then he changed the subject to Peter’s cool Hot Wheels, and still, the tears streamed down my face. I told myself this had to be PMS. Why should I care how Mike felt about me? I hardly knew him.

As I followed Tommy up the stairs to our apartment, my plan was to go to my room, put a tape in my Walkman, and lie on the bed. Take it easy. Try not to worry about anything. This time, if Mary Beth wouldn’t get up, I’d shake her. Tell her Tommy needed her. Tell her I was going to crack up if I didn’t get a break.

It took me several minutes to accept that she wasn’t home. Even though she didn’t come to the door when Tommy banged on it, even though the apartment was quiet and her bed was empty, I kept wandering around the kitchen, the bathroom, back to the living room, expecting to see her. She was hardly in the mood to go anywhere; plus, I had the car, where would she have been able to go?

For the first few hours, I couldn’t obsess on how odd this was, I was too busy dealing with Tommy. He’d burst into angry tears as soon as he realized Mary Beth wasn’t there and it took all my energy to cheer him up, getting him playing again, and later, talk him down, get him in his pajamas, keep him in bed with his eyes closed long enough to fall asleep. Of course I kept hoping Mary Beth would walk in the door any minute, explaining that she’d taken a walk or gone to the QuikTrip for a magazine or dropped by to see Mrs. Haverly down the block, who’d been laid up for several weeks since she broke her hip. It was nine-thirty by the time I began making phone calls. Juanita first, then Sherry, then everyone else I could think of. Nobody had seen or heard from my sister. Most of them sounded concerned, which only made it worse.

At midnight, I called Juanita again. She was at work and I hated to bother her, but I had to talk to someone. After I told her Mary Beth was still gone, she whispered, “Shit.” Then she put me on hold for what seemed like forever.

“I’m going out looking for her.” She was out of breath. “It ain’t that busy here. Bobbie said she could handle it.”

“But where?” I began, before I realized Juanita had already hung up.

I was dozing on the couch when the phone rang. I looked at my watch: two-fifteen.

After I told Juanita that Mary Beth still wasn’t back, she said, “I drove everywhere I could think of, kiddo.” Her voice was flat but I could hear the tension behind it. “All the way over to the highway, downtown, everywhere. I had to get back to help Bobbie with the after-bar crowd.” She paused and I could hear the cook’s bell. “Call me as soon as she gets in.”

I told her I would, but by the time Mary Beth opened the door it was four forty-five. I was so tired my eyes were burning and I was way too angry with my sister to think about calling Juanita.

“Where have you been?” I sat up and glared at her. “I’ve been worried sick!”

She unbuttoned her coat and let it slide off her shoulders to the middle of the floor. “I went to see Holly.”

“You walked to that rehab hospital? Ten miles?”

“Yeah.” She looked wobbly, uneven, and then I realized why: the heel had come off her left shoe.

“But why?” I stood up and walked over to her. “And why didn’t you leave us a note? Why didn’t you wait for the damn car?”

“To tell her I’m sorry.”

“But she’s in a coma! She can’t hear you!”

Mary Beth shrugged weakly. “They wouldn’t let me see her anyway. They said visiting hours were over.”

My sister was being so weird, I wanted to shake her. But she looked like if I even laid one finger on her, she would break into pieces right before my eyes.

“For chrissakes,” I stammered, “couldn’t you have called to find that out? You didn’t have to walk—”

“Yeah I did. I had to go there. I had to, don’t you see?”

“No, I don’t see!” I heard Tommy stirring and I lowered my voice. “All I know is Tommy was bawling because you weren’t here. He’s a little kid, he doesn’t get all this.”

“Poor baby,” she said, as she looked down to the hall toward his room. “It’s all my fault, I know. But it hurts so bad. I can’t take it. I just want to sleep. I have to sleep.”

She did look exhausted. The circles under her eyes were as purple as bruises. “Okay,” I said, and took a breath. “Go on. We can talk about this later I guess.”

She didn’t respond; she just stood there, motionless, with her hands clutched together like she was praying. Finally she said, “I thought if I just kept trying and trying, it would be all right. But it isn’t all right, is it?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I wish I could stop this.” She was looking out the living room window as though she was seeing something, as though it wasn’t just blackness. “I wish I could snap my fingers and everything would be fine.” She looked at her hand. “But I’m too tired to snap my fingers. And even if I did, they’d still be my fingers. They’d still be mine and I’d still be me.” She exhaled. “And I’m so tired of being me, you know?”

T
he next day, she didn’t get out of bed at all except to go to the bathroom. She ignored Tommy’s crying; she ignored my pleas to help me out here, or at least let me fix her something to eat. Monday morning it was worse. She lay looking at the wall, as I yelled that she’d get fired and Tommy and I would starve to death. When she wouldn’t even speak, I broke down sobbing that I wanted Mom and she said, “Me too, baby. And I’ve been calling her and calling her, but she just won’t come.”

My sister has gone crazy, I thought, as I walked away sniffing, and into Tommy’s room to coax him into dressing for kindergarten. Something in her has snapped. What if she doesn’t get over this? What will happen to her—and to Tommy and me?

When she didn’t go to work on Tuesday either, Juanita freaked. She came over that night and harangued Mary Beth, calling her irresponsible, telling her she was being a wimp, saying she had to pull herself together. After a while, she sighed and said she would try to talk the manager at the diner into giving Mary Beth a leave of absence, rather than firing her. When my sister didn’t reply, Juanita shook her head. “It’s all right. You can thank me later when you decide to get off your ass and quit feeling sorry for yourself.”

I was standing in the hallway, listening. I was relieved Juanita was there, even though it made me nervous, what she was saying. She seemed so sure Mary Beth had a choice in the matter, but what if she didn’t? What if she needed to see someone, like a doctor, even a shrink?

We were in the living room when I mentioned this to Juanita. I put it indirectly; I said I wondered if Mary Beth could use some help.

She took a drag of her cigarette. “You damn right she could. I’ve been thinking about calling him myself. But you should do it, that would be better.”

She said she didn’t really know him, had only seen him a couple of times. He seemed very nice, even if he was kind of an egghead. Then I realized she had misunderstood. She thought I was hinting at calling Ben.

“But what can he do? He moved to Philadelphia.”

“Hell if I know,” Juanita said. “Talk to her. Fly down here and kiss her. Whatever it takes.”

“Yeah,” I said, as it hit me this was a good idea. Maybe Ben could help. He loved Mary Beth; plus, he was an expert on depression. And Mary Beth certainly seemed depressed, or worse.

As soon as Juanita left, I picked up the phone. It was late: ten-thirty my time, eleven-thirty Philadelphia time, but I felt like I couldn’t wait. My desperation had made me optimistic. Of course Ben would know what to do. Ben would solve everything.

The phone rang four times before a woman answered.

“I was trying to reach Ben Mathiessen,” I explained, sure I dialed the wrong number. “I’m sorry to bother—”

“If you want to wait, he should be back any minute. He just stepped out to get some juice.”

Her voice was young, confident, but a little bit sleepy. Like my call had woken her up. Like she was…in his bed.

I felt a blush creep from my eyebrows to my neck, and hung up quickly without saying good-bye. For a while I sat at the kitchen table, trying to convince myself I’d been too hasty—but it didn’t work. Why else would a woman answer his phone at eleven-thirty? And why was I surprised? Sure, he’d said he was only working the last time I called, but I knew that couldn’t last. It had been so long since Mary Beth dumped him. Even if he didn’t end up with that Catherine person, he would end up with somebody eventually.

After I checked on Tommy, I decided I might as well go to bed, too. I turned on the lamp to read myself to sleep, but I couldn’t concentrate. My eyes kept wandering over to the poster Ben had given me when he first moved in with Mary Beth. It was done by M.C. Escher. At first it seems like black birds flying against a white sky, but if you look closer, you see those white shapes are really birds, too, flying in the opposite direction.

Ben used the poster as an opportunity to go on and on about his favorite subject: the Complexities of the Brain. He said it’s really important that you can’t keep both colored birds in your mind at the same time, no matter how hard you try. He said this demonstrates perception is a lot more complicated than we think because what we see can vary even if what we’re looking at doesn’t change.

It was one of the few times I thought I really got what he was talking about, and I remember feeling proud I even knew someone who could think about such important things. A few weeks later, when the junior high counselor asked what I wanted to be, I didn’t hesitate. A scientist, I said. I want to study nature and the brain.

But Ben was gone now. And even if he could help us, I wasn’t going to ask. Not if he was involved with a new woman. Sure, my sister was screwed up, but she still had her pride. Forget about him.

Pride had become a big deal to me in the last few days. It allowed me to handle school now that Mike was back and clearly avoiding me, not even glancing at me during English class. It allowed me to go to the store and to Tommy’s kindergarten, sure my sister was being gossiped about, even overhearing bits and pieces sometimes. It allowed me to answer the phone, not knowing if it would be a friendly call or another obnoxious one, maybe even a stranger who would mumble some crap about my sister being antifamily and hang up before I could reply or demand to know their name. It allowed me to let Juanita go home without asking when she was coming again, without begging her to stay awhile longer. After all, it wasn’t her family that was having trouble, it was mine. And we had our pride, at least. We had our pride and nothing could take that away.

Our pride wasn’t solving the problem though, and the next morning, I decided to skip school. Pride was all well and good, but what my sister needed was a whole lot more. She needed a professional.

After I dropped Tommy off at kindergarten, I went straight into the kitchen and got out the phone book. I started with the crisis section I found in the front of the yellow pages: no question, this was a crisis. First, I tried St. Margaret’s Helpline, knowing it probably wasn’t right, but figuring whoever answered might be able to tell me who I should be calling. It was a woman and she was busy with another call; she asked me my age and when I told her, she said dial the 800 number youth hotline. The girl who answered listened to my whole problem before she said they only dealt with runaway kids. “You need mental health. Is there a listing for that in your phone book?”

After I said no, she asked, “How about suicide prevention?”

“But my sister isn’t going to kill herself,” I said, as I picked at the skin around my thumbnail. “She’s just really tired.”

“I still say suicide prevention is the way to go. They will know who to call in your area.” She paused. “You can’t always tell when someone is so depressed that they’ll—”

I told her I would and hung up. But I didn’t, I turned on the TV. Around noon, I made grilled cheese sandwiches and took in a plate and set it on the table next to my sister’s bed; then I watched a talk show while I ate mine. The topic was “The Appeal of Dangerous Men” and it was distracting for sure, especially when they brought out three so-called dangerous men: all with long hair and tattoos, but all extremely cute in a macho guy way. It was the kind of show Mary Beth would have found hilarious. One of her old boyfriends, Nick, had been a little like this, but she used to say he was dangerous only to the bathroom floor.

I had the volume up louder than necessary. I couldn’t help hoping maybe if she heard, she’d get up to watch.

At least she ate some of her sandwich. Almost half, I noticed, when I finally turned the TV off and went into her room. But she didn’t say a word, not even when I tried Juanita’s tactic and griped at her for not thanking me for the sandwich. So I decided I had to do it. Call the suicide prevention number.

I told the guy who answered that I was worried about my sister because she wouldn’t get out of bed, wouldn’t talk, wouldn’t work, wouldn’t take care of her son. He said it sounded like she needed some help, then he cleared his throat. “Tell me, who is taking care of her son now? Is he being fed properly? Attending school?”

“Oh sure,” I said, as I looked at my watch: two forty-five. I still had more than an hour before I was due to pick up Tommy. “I’m doing everything and it’s fine. It’s just that my sister—”

“Aren’t you in school yourself?”

“Yeah. I mean, I got off early today, but I’m in school. Normally I get home around three.”

Then he asked how old I was and I told him before I realized what was going on. He didn’t like the idea of a teenager taking care of a little boy and a depressed woman. And he was getting ready to do something about it—I could tell from his serious tone of voice as he asked for my address.

“Of course my father helps out,” I said quickly. “He does most of it. He’s good with little kids.”

“Your father.” He exhaled. “Oh. Perhaps I should be speaking to him?”

I babbled that he was at work now, but sure, I’d have him call back later. When I hung up, my hands were trembling so hard I had to put them between my knees. I couldn’t believe how close I’d come to ruining my own family. Sure, maybe the hotline guy wouldn’t have done anything, but maybe he would have arranged for both Tommy and me to be deposited in some stupid foster home before the day was over. And my sister to be put in a hospital. A psych ward.

I’d prevented a disaster and was filled with relief. It wasn’t until I was driving to the after-school program, to pick up Tommy, that I realized I hadn’t accomplished a thing. I’d skipped my classes to solve the problem, but my sister was still in bed. Tommy and I were still on our own. And I was dreading the evening, when I would have to take care of him.

Poor Tommy. In just days, he had become a completely different child. Mary Beth rarely spoke, but a couple of times she muttered something about what a terrible mother she’d been—usually when I was begging her to get up and deal with him. It obviously wasn’t true though: he had been such a happy kid before, with her. Now he was miserable, I knew that even as I grumbled to myself about how difficult he was.

He hated the clothes I laid out for him in the morning. “They’re stupid. They don’t match.” He hated the lunch I packed. “The potato chips were the red kind that burn my mouth. The jelly fell out of the bread.” He said it was my fault his room was a mess; he even said it was my fault one of his goldfish jumped out of the tank and died on the rug. On Monday, he accused me of being late picking him up at after-school: “Mama never left me standing here all alone.” Then when I came early on Tuesday, he accused me of not wanting him to have any fun. “You never let me do the blocks! You never let me do anything!”

This time, as soon as he spotted me walking into the room, he burst into tears, sobbing that I wasn’t his mother, he didn’t want to go with me. While the after-school teacher held him in her arms and explained that he had to go home, all the other kids were staring in my direction like they were looking for my hat and broomstick. One dark-haired girl dropped the ball she was holding to come over and ask if his mother was dead. I said no, she’s just sleeping and the girl crossed her arms. “I’m eight. I know grown-ups say sleeping when they mean dead.”

“Well, sometimes they say sleeping when they mean sleeping. And that’s what I mean, okay?”

When she shook her head, I started to argue with her before I realized how ridiculous it was to be arguing this point with a little kid. I got Tommy’s stuff from his cubbie and finally coaxed him out the door by promising to build the biggest Lego structure ever when we got home. For two hours, I sat on the floor in his messy bedroom, clicking plastic blocks together. Then I cooked a frozen pizza for his dinner. Then I played Star Wars with him for another hour, with the couch as our starship, and paper towel rolls as light sabers. But the whole time, I was thinking about that lie I’d told the hotline guy and how much I wished it was the truth. I wanted Dad here, bad. I felt like I wanted him here more than I’d ever wanted anything in my life.

Even if he was messed up, he couldn’t be as bad off as Mary Beth. And maybe he could help her. After all, he was her father, too. He’d been with her through her entire childhood, even built her a jungle gym that was the envy of the neighborhood.

And if he was better off where he was, tough. Our family needed every member to get through this. My sister needed him.

It turned out to be easy to find his address now that Mary Beth was oblivious to everything. Tommy was asleep, I was cleaning up the living room, when I realized it had to be in the cedar box under her bed. The box had been Mom’s. It still contained a lot of Mom’s jewelry, but it also had a brown envelope on top filled with official papers: stuff from the funeral home and the cemetery and about fifteen forms relating to Mom’s life insurance disbursement. Dad had signed some of these and on one, his address was sitting just as pretty as you please. Typed no less, probably by the notary whose seal made the papers official.

I didn’t write him until the next night. Those forms had made me start thinking about something even more important: money. For the last few days, while I drove Tommy to school, while I sat in my classes, ignoring my teachers’ discussion of biology and calculus, I’d been wracking my brains, wondering how on earth I could get a job that paid enough to pay the rent and feed us and still finish high school. But according to these papers, Mom had been insured for fifty thousand dollars. A small fortune.

I grabbed my sister’s purse from the hook by the door and dumped all the contents on the coffee table. There it was: a little blue plastic-covered savings book I’d never laid eyes on. Mary Beth had withdrawn a lot over the last few years, but we still had more than twenty-nine thousand left. If I hadn’t been so relieved, I would have been annoyed with her for keeping this account a secret. But instead I repeated the sum to myself, even said it aloud, traced it with my finger. Twenty-nine thousand, six hundred and eighty-five dollars. More money than I’d ever seen, more money than I could imagine having. I could make that last a long time, if need be. Mom always said I was the cheapest kid on the planet, hoarding my allowance, always sure I’d need it later for something. Before I went to bed, I made a frugal but doable monthly plan. I also wrote my first check, to Agnes, after looking through my sister’s checkbook and realizing the rent was twelve days overdue.