Never Enough (32 page)

The nurses kept her on an IV, so at least something was going into her that she couldn’t throw up. The doctor took my parents aside, which left me uncomfortably alone with silent Claire. I stared at her for a long time, hardly believing how scraggly her hair looked. It was the first time in my life that I would have actually said I preferred my hair over hers.

“We didn’t do this to you, you know,” I finally murmured, annoyed by the silence.

She huffed but didn’t reply.

“Do you think if Mom had said yes to Ohio, your stomach would have been fine? Is that really what you think?”

When she didn’t answer, I stood to leave. I hated her for what she was doing to herself. To all of us.

On the car ride home, I lay my face against the back window and tried to tune out my parents’ arguing, but it was useless.

“The doctor suggested the same clinic in San Diego, but we could find a different place,” Mom said in a pleading tone.

“They’re not going to release her until we have her registered somewhere. Do you have time to look into hundreds of places around the country?”

“I’ll make time,” Mom practically growled. She reminded me of a mama bear protecting her cubs on one of those nature shows.

*   *   *

The next night I kept my shift at the Arts Club. There seemed to be no reason to go to the hospital if Claire wouldn’t speak to any of us. Apparently Claire
did
talk with my parents that night. To tell them she refused to go to another clinic. My parents were still arguing about it when I got home.

“We can’t afford to keep her in the hospital indefinitely,” Dad practically shouted.

Mom marched for the computer room, ranting something unintelligible, but I was sure she’d be researching other clinics through the night.

*   *   *

No official decisions about clinics had been made by the time Claire came back home, but as I understood through my parents’ constant bickering, they had assured the doctor they’d get her checked in somewhere for help.

My mouth dropped open when Claire walked through our front door. She’d chopped her hair short, and looked like a boy. Besides that, her skin looked saggy and yellow and her gut stuck out above her sweatpants like she was pregnant. I wondered if this was from her stomach problems or from the hospital trying to get her weight up quickly.

She didn’t even look in my direction.

“We’ll figure out somewhere you’ll like,” Mom said to her from behind. “We’ll figure it out together.”

“Forget it. I’m not going to one of those places again,” she said in a monotone from halfway up the stairs.

Dad stood in the foyer with his jaw tightening, watching Claire retreat. Without even saying a word, he stepped back outside the door and slammed it behind him. Mom’s whole body reverberated from the slam.

*   *   *

Dad didn’t come home for the next two days. He’d never, in my whole life, done that, and it freaked me out. Mom took her frustrations out on anyone in her path. I had my usual excuse of having to work, but now I saw it as that—an excuse. An escape from the tension. Just like Dad. And that only made me feel like more of a failure.

When I did come home, I could tell immediately that Claire had been Mom’s only target, and if Mom couldn’t fix her with love, she’d fix her somehow.

“You will eat what I made you!” Mom shouted from the bottom of the stairs.

“I’m not eating another chicken breast, Mother,” came Claire’s reply from the computer room.

“Claire, you get down here this minute!”

“I’ll eat when I want to eat. What are you going to do,
shove it down my throat?” Claire’s door slammed.

I thought for certain that the whole hospital incident would have been a dose of reality for Claire, but it was like she was driven now to
not
get better. She puked in our bathroom with my door ajar. She wasn’t even bothering to try to hide it.

“Stop it!” I yelled toward the bathroom in a voice so loud it made my throat raw. “Just stop it!”

Seconds later the toilet flushed and she went into her room. I lay in bed shaking, crying, hating that I couldn’t go talk to her. Because all she would say was, “What are you talking about, Loey?” and I was sure I’d feel like killing her myself.

*   *   *

On Friday when I got home, there was a tray of untouched food outside Claire’s bedroom door. The door was open and I could hear Mom inside, pleading with Claire.

“Honey, I don’t know what to do. Tell me what to do. I’ll cook you anything you want. I’ll drive you to any clinic in the country.”

Claire didn’t respond. At least nothing I heard.

“I’m going to go squeeze you some fresh orange juice. That’ll be good for you.” The way Mom said it, it sounded like she had finally found the solution. Orange juice would solve
everything
.

When she glanced over at me as she left Claire’s room, though, I realized Mom’s assurance was an act. She didn’t look like my confident mother. She looked like a scared little girl. It was the first time I’d ever really seen her as a person who hurt and tried and failed. She was trying—she had always been trying—but her best wasn’t good enough anymore.

Dad got home just as I headed to bed that night. The truth was, I didn’t trust him anymore either. If he could so easily walk out the door once, would he do it again?

Without even saying good night, I headed up the stairs.

“Loann,” Dad said, and he sounded exasperated, even though it had been the first time he’d spoken to me in days. I stood in place waiting for more, but I couldn’t turn to face him.

“Loann, honey. I was talking to Bill at the office today, and his daughter went to Kettleton College. Great school,” Dad said, his tone suddenly much softer. “So is that still the plan? Because I’ll need to figure out the due date for the deposit and see if we can swing it.”

I’d inched my way to the top of the stairs. “Uh, I’ll let you know soon.” But what I wondered was this:
How did he suddenly have money for college, but not to go to counseling or to send Claire for help?
At the same time, it didn’t seem like Claire
wanted
the money, or the help, and I
did
want to go to college.

“What about Claire?” I asked from the staircase, a hurricane of indecision brewing in my chest. “Don’t you need the money to send her to another clinic?” My voice was lifeless, like I wasn’t really trying to convince anyone.

“She says she won’t go,” Mom said, now at the bottom of the stairs too. “And your dad says we haven’t got the money, and I just don’t know what to do anymore.” Mom’s voice broke on every second word.

“I’m not just
saying
we don’t have the money, Beth. And what did the last clinic do for her?”

This arguing wasn’t going anywhere. Claire could wither away to nothing in her bedroom before my parents came to an agreement on anything.

I stormed down the stairs. “I don’t want your money for college!” I yelled before I reached the landing. “Use the money for Claire. She needs it and I don’t. There have to be better clinics, and I’ll make the money to go to college. I’ll get a scholarship. I’ll take care of it.”

Mom and Dad both stared at me, open-mouthed.

“I mean it,” I said.

Dad tilted his head and pulled on his tie. “Well, that’s really sweet of you, Loann, but your mother says that Claire won’t go anyway. She’s eighteen. She has to make this decision.” Even though Dad’s words sounded soft and caring, they made my blood boil. At him, not at Claire.
Why should Claire
think she’s worth anything if her own father didn’t think so?

“Please,” I said. “Why didn’t you let the doctor make her go?” I couldn’t believe my desperation to get my sister out of the house. She was wrecking us—all of us.

I knew his next statement would be about student loans and why it’s not that easy to give my college money to Claire. I didn’t care if it was true. It wasn’t a good enough reason. I left Mom and Dad standing at the base of the stairs and marched back up to my bedroom. Maybe,
maybe,
left to their own resources, they’d think of some way they could make an effort here.

But thirty seconds later, I heard the front door slam.

Dad was gone. And I wondered if this time it would be for good.

In art class the next day, I stared down at the composite I’d been working on. I
wanted to rip it up, throw it against the wall.

I had centered all the pictures around my one-word ornate title in the middle. But I could barely look at the pictures of Claire. This girl, this beautiful sister of mine, she didn’t seem real to me anymore.

And I couldn’t base my entire grade—my entire possibility of a scholarship—on some fabrication.

I sat in the darkroom with my head in my hands, staring down at my useless work. Moving a few pictures aside, I tried to replace them with some of Mom, one of Marcus’s Camaro, but the whole thing was garbage.

I left it in the art room, since it was too big to cart around.
But I needed to come up with a new idea, and fast. Something I could complete quickly so I didn’t miss getting graded on it, and hopefully I would still have time to submit it for a scholarship.

*   *   *

Leaving the school that afternoon, I saw a familiar car across the parking lot, standing out from all the newer cars surrounding it.

It honked.

I bit my lip, reining in my emotion. Marcus seemed to have impeccable timing for knowing when I needed him most.

As I walked toward his car, I could see he was wearing what I suspected was his favorite yellow shirt, since I’d seen him wear it at least once a week since his dad had been gone. “Hi, sunshine,” I said. “So you got it running, huh?”

He motioned his head to the passenger side. “Get in.”

It was still covered in rust patches, but the engine idled smoothly. I moved around to the other side. The door stuck a little, and I had to give it a good pull to get it open.

“I’ve still got a few kinks to work out.” He motioned to the sticky door.

“But it runs!” I said again, my enthusiasm bubbling over.

Marcus smiled at me.

“Wait, you don’t have your license.” I quickly scanned the parking lot, as though there might be cops lining the place.

“Yup. I got it last week.”

My heart sank that I hadn’t been around to celebrate with Marcus. I had my learner’s permit, but I didn’t have any money for lessons. “Wow, things change, I guess, huh?”

“Yeah.” He nodded. “And some things don’t.” He reached over and put his hand on top of mine.

My heart skipped a beat. I had so much to tell him, but at the moment all I wanted to do was sink into him. It felt like forever since I’d been able to breathe this easily.

“I’m glad you’re here,” I said.

“Me too.”

We sat like that, his hand on mine, looking at each other, for a long time. I wondered if he remembered he still had three wishes. I wondered if he still wanted to kiss me, or if we’d just been through too much together now and he didn’t think of me that way. There was such a thing as being
too
close of friends, right?

Marcus pulled his hand away and grasped the steering wheel at ten and two.

I sighed inwardly. But at least we were driving off together.

On our way off the school grounds, several students pointed at Marcus’s car in appreciation, and Marcus’s eyes lit up. I could tell it meant a lot to him. At the first intersection, he turned away from my house, and the Arts Club. Then we missed the turn we’d have taken to his apartment.

“So where are we going?”

“For a drive. Armando gave us the afternoon off.” Marcus took one hand off the wheel and adjusted the rearview mirror. “I want to show you what this thing can do.”

I laughed. I’m sure he knew whatever his eight-banger engine had in it, I was the last person who would be impressed, but for some reason I was excited right along with him.

When we got onto the north highway, a road that could barely be called a highway because it was almost always deserted, Marcus slowed the car down until it was almost stopped. Then, after glancing around to make certain there were no other cars around, he dropped his foot to the metal.

I grasped for the armrest beside me. We must have sped up to at least eighty miles per hour, though I couldn’t take my eyes off the road to check. I sat rigidly, fear-struck in my seat. He didn’t keep it up for more than thirty seconds, then took his foot off the gas and coasted down to a normal speed.

“Could you
not
do that again?”

“Come on, Loey, you’re not the tough chick I thought you were.”

“Maybe I’ll start wearing a skirt,” I said with annoyance.