Finding Hope (3 page)

 

I
knew he'd come by today. I'd left a note at the stump telling him Mom and Dad were going into town for a movie. He'd have the run of the kitchen and a shower if he wanted it.

Eric came in through the back door, which I left unlocked, despite Dad's rule. “Hey,” he said, coming up to the couch, a banana in his hand, already unpeeled and half-eaten. He wasn't high. His eyes didn't jerk around like they were on a marionette string. “What's up?” His voice flat.

I moved over on the couch so he'd sit beside me. Pictures of us as kids lined the mantel. First day of school; Eric in his hockey gear, a menacing grin on his face and another photo of him holding a trophy. Like a time capsule, we didn't change in those photos.

“Remember I told you about that school, Ravenhurst?” He gave a noncommittal nod. “I got accepted.” I waited for a reaction, not sure what it would be. His rages were unpredictable.

He raised his eyebrows. “You're leaving.” Not a question.

I nodded. “Next Monday. School starts Tuesday.” Things he'd know if he still went to school.

He tossed his banana peel onto the coffee table. It sat there, limp and empty. “So, that's it, huh? Mom got one of us out of this fucking shithole.”
Not the one she'd expected, either.
He didn't say it out loud, but we both knew it was true. Stuck here her whole life, Mom's biggest regret was staying in Lumsville. She should have left when she graduated, but she'd already met Eric's dad. Five years later and she was the widowed mom of a three-year-old and needed her parents nearby. Then she met Dad and had me.

Trapped.

Every fingernail scrapes

On shut doors,

Ripping off.

At least the blood

can escape.

She wasn't going to let Eric and me fall into the same trap. Her plans for us had always included leaving Lumsville. I would go to a big city for university, that was a given. Money from my grandparents was banked for tuition. But Eric, his ticket out had been hockey.

He'd been scouted the year he turned fifteen. Coaches wanted him on their teams, they took him to special practices and tournaments in places so far he had to fly there. Dad worked overtime to pay for it. Mom would flutter with excitement when coaches called to talk with her about Eric's future. She'd tousle his hair with pride when he walked in the door.

And then it all changed. One day, his coach dropped him off after a tournament in a town too far for us to go. Mom asked Eric how it went, but he ignored her, went to his room, and shut the door. He didn't come down till the next day, for school. Mom blamed his moodiness on hormones, his real father, the pressure of hockey.

Finally, I think she blamed herself. She'd pushed him too hard. He burnt himself out. Somewhere along the way, he found meth. Or meth found him.

It was a win for me by default, because all the money that used to be funnelled into Eric's hockey would pay for me to attend the Ravenhurst School for Girls.

“You could come visit me,” I said, knowing it was a stupid thing to say. How would he get there? Drive to the city with Mom?

He nodded like it was a possibility. Sometimes we kept the lie going, pretending things were normal.

I tucked my hands between my knees and looked at him, my mouth twitching with an unasked question.

“What?” he asked.

“If I'm not around, how are you going to, you know, manage?”
Without me?
No one would be around to drop food off for him, or clothes. Or money. I know Mom gave him some when she could, but it came at a price. He had to be clean and sneak around so Dad didn't see him. “Are you going to be okay?”

“Pfft.” He blew air out of his cheeks like it was no big deal. “Yeah.”

“Really? Because I've left you a lot of money this summer. What are you going to do without it?” Twenty percent of my babysitting earnings went to the stump and he was acting like it didn't matter.

His eyes got cold. “I don't have a bed, or food, either, but I'm surviving.”

A dig. A reminder that I was still at home and he wasn't. I bit back my retort. I'd stuck out my neck for him a hundred times.

His words hurt. I felt my insides curdle. It was his choice to live this way, I reminded myself. We'd all given him chances, even Dad. But when he'd stolen Mom's bank card and drained her account of hundreds of dollars, that was the last straw. Mom and Dad had the locks changed, and left a pile of his clothes on the front steps.

“You could stop using,” I said, “and move back.”

The suggestion hung between us. He pinched his mouth closed and shut down. I'd wrecked his coming over. Now he'd leave angry, slamming the door and disappearing for days.

It wasn't my fault he was a user.

But somehow, I felt like I'd let
him
down.

 

I
'd
acted like it didn't matter. Like losing Hope was no big deal.

But inside, I shrivelled.

And then felt like an asshole, because the real reason I didn't want her to go was because it meant I'd have to find money somewhere else.

I told her it was for food. She believed me because she wanted to.

I wished it were the truth. I fooled myself into believing that I went to see her because I missed her, but the reality was I needed my next high and Hope would give me the money to make it happen.

I didn't blame her for leaving, though. She was smart to get out of this shithole. I should have gone when I had the chance, now it was too late. Hockey, my ticket out of Lumsville, was done. I'd sold my equipment months ago, using meth to burn away the hurt.

I couldn't think about hockey anymore without thinking about
him.
The two were intertwined. I swear, I could even smell
him
on my gear. He'd infested it.

I wanted to kill the germs he'd planted in me, but I didn't know how. They grew like dark, twisting vines, coiling through my insides. Suffocating me from the inside out.

“Fuck,” I mumbled. The meth was messing with my mind. I was starting to think like a fucking poet too. Spewing mental diarrhea, just like my sister.

 

M
om
and I in the car, contained. Pale wheat fields stretched out to the horizon on each side of the road. The sky was a watery blue but grew darker as it met the land. Occasionally, a farmhouse or service road dotted the landscape.

Harvest

Farmers (wheat killers).

Threshers; the monsters that mow it down

A battle

Against what they sowed.

Irony of the prairies.

Grabbing an old gas receipt, I jotted the words down and stuffed it into my pocket.

“Oh,” Mom sighed, “I forgot to pack your bathing suit.”

Like I was going to the moon. Ravenhurst was three hours away, door to door. She'd be seeing me in less than three weeks when she came in for my birthday. So far, no swimming parties were planned.

But still, her constant second-guessing made me nervous, like I wasn't prepared. She was quiet, comparing the list of things she'd wanted to pack for me to what had actually made it into my bag. The last time we'd barrelled down the highway had been for the interview. She'd been more nervous then, gripping the steering wheel. Dad had come too, even though he hated driving. Hated leaving Lumsville. But he was willing to do it for me.

“If you get in or don't get in, it doesn't matter to me, Hope. I'm proud of you, no matter what.” He'd craned his neck back from the front seat and given me an encouraging smile. He'd shaved that morning, but already stubbly whiskers had appeared on his chin. If it had been up to him, I'd have stayed in Lumsville. But Mom was determined that going away to school was the right choice.

How many times had Dad said the same words to Eric? When he left for a tournament: “Win or not, I'm proud of you.” Or a tryout: “Make the team or not, I'm proud of you.” He'd been Eric's dad since Eric was four years old, marrying Mom because he loved her and couldn't stand the thought of a boy not having a dad, that's what Mom told me once. “He's a good man. I'm lucky to have him.”

Not anymore, according to Eric.

Our family used to be normal. We did things other families did together: barbecues in the backyard, rounds of minigolf, car trips, and movie nights. Those days ended when Eric started using. Now, every event screamed with his absence. We filled our lives with distractions. Like getting me into this school.

Mom had surprised me at the interview, pulling out a sheaf of papers, scraps, napkins, old history tests, whatever had been closest for me to write on. “I brought these for you,” she told the interviewers. “She's so talented, I wanted you to see.”

My poems. Not meant for public consumption. I'd blushed, watching the interview panel read my thoughts. And after, when we were driving home, words strung themselves together in my head like a gemstone necklace. A poem about the interview. I wrote it on my palm with my fingertip, trying to imprint onto my body. It had ended up on my wall that night.

Poems plucked

Like wildflowers from my wall.

A bouquet of fragrant words

My gift to you

Taken.

I was leaving everything behind: my home, my parents, my school, and Eric. I stared morosely out the window. The city skyline stretched across the horizon, hazy with heat. Swaths of farmland would give way to urban sprawl soon, pulling me farther and farther away from who I was.

T
hrough
the space between the fence boards, I could see Dick flipping burgers. One hand at his waist, the other holding a spatula. Mom and Hope sat on lawn chairs, sipping tall glasses of iced tea.

Hope had left a note for me in the stump, inviting me to her going-away party. Eternal optimist. As if it was something to celebrate.

Through the sliver of space I saw a metallic cellophane
BON VOYAGE
banner taped across the deck railing. And there were balloons.

This was what my life should have been. A going-away party on the deck, the hockey team over to celebrate. Instead, I was out here, on the other side, fighting my way through waist-high thistles and prickly dandelion weeds.

I hoped this was what Hope wanted, and that Mom hadn't bullied her into it. It had always been Mom's dream for us to get out of Lumsville. Hockey, school—whatever would take us far away from this town.

I pulled myself away from the fence, kicking at a rock in the alley. A weird pain ached in my gut. I tried to shrug it off as hunger, but I knew that wasn't what it was. I was going to miss my sister.

I'd score tonight. She'd left me some money with the note. Maybe she knew I'd want to celebrate on my own.