Tell Me Something Real (25 page)

I finally coaxed Marie into telling us what happened on the playground. Two girls were spinning on the monkey bars, apparently so fast that Marie worried they'd get hurt: skulls splitting on metal, spinal cords broken on the blacktop. The lord told her that they needed her protection, to keep them safe, so she pulled them to the ground. They taunted her, shoved her down on the blacktop, the asphalt digging into her skin. Marie didn't fight back.

I look at Adrienne's note again. If she skips the meeting with Dr. Whelan, she'll surely get detention or worse. Our family can't take a second school crisis.

At school, I don't see her all day, even at lunch, when I wait at her locker. After the final bell rings, Dr. Whelan, Mrs. Albright, and I sit before the portable tape player ready to listen to my piece. Mrs. Albright is pressuring me to give it a title, but I can't, not yet. Everything that comes to mind is too personal. I can say what Mom did, but it's something else to describe Mom as a person. Not just the lies and betrayal, but all of her. The intersection of memories. Sea
World and the clinic. Laetrile and Christmas cookies.

How can I name that?

Ten minutes pass and Adrienne still isn't here. I hope she hasn't done something stupid, like painted a mural of Zach in a compromising position, covering the wall facing the parking lot. A crazy but plausible stunt.

The second hand travels the circumference of the clock, and Dr. Whelan says, “Okay, let's go ahead and get started.”

Mrs. Albright pats my shoulder before reaching to press play. As I listen to the recording, objectively, away from the piano, I realize my intent. I'm not processing what happened—what Mom did. I wrote it for Mom to hear. This is my good-bye, all of the words I want to say to her but can't. Maybe my song can get through to her, “my healing music,” as she always called my playing. Mom might understand the meaning of the piece—or not. Six years of clarinet gave her a glimpse into my world, even if she never felt the same pull. Music can't compete with prescriptions and syringes, with exam rooms and doting nurses. Dr. Whelan and Mrs. Albright may be listening with me, but they're secondary. I have an audience of one in mind: my mother. It's a relief that Adrienne didn't hear it.

“I'm proud of you,” Mrs. Albright says once the song ends. “You've done well with composition assignments, but you never produced anything like this.”

“It helped that I didn't have time to overthink it,” I say.

Dr. Whelan smiles. “That's a good point. How can you
express yourself more without ‘overthinking,' as you put it?”

“I do in orchestra. I wish I could spend the whole day there.” I hope they don't check my attendance and notice my complete avoidance of English class, where they're reading
A Separate Peace
, exploring themes of death, guilt, and grief.

“You could do that if you attended one of the conservatories,” Mrs. Albright says.

I glance at the clock, losing faith that Adrienne will show, and listen to them discuss the benefits of my transferring. A moot point after talking to Dad.

“You're sure she's coming?” Dr. Whelan asks.

“I think so,” I say.

Mr. Klein walks in as Mrs. Albright says good-bye. He looks nothing like an art teacher. His gray buzz cut is more suited for the ROTC recruiting officers stationed at the top of the concrete stairs in front of the school cafeteria. He wears an industrial apron over his neat slacks and polo shirt. Paintbrushes peek from the apron pocket.

“No Adrienne?” he asks. “She missed class today.”

“I'm surprised,” Dr. Whelan says. “Did you know that?” she asks me.

“No. She made something. She worked really hard on it. She'll be here.”

Please come, Adrienne, please.

“I thought you'd like to see some more of her work.” Mr. Klein lifts sheet after sheet of drawings, some in charcoal,
others in pencil. “Here's what she made yesterday. She's discovered
Los Dias de Muertos
. Day of the Dead. It's her strongest work yet.”

I can't stand to look at Mom in skeleton form, with protruding cheekbones and clavicle, jutting joints as pronounced as the Rocky Mountains, hills and valleys once occupied by muscle and flesh. In the sketch, a crown of bright flowers sits upon her head, and Adrienne's dressed Mom in a frock as festive as a piñata. Three dead babies, helpless skeletons, writhe on the ground. One sketch after another, all bare bones, violence parading as pageantry.

He collects Adrienne's sketches, rolls them closed, and secures the paper with a rubber band. Just like the photos, I can't look at them, at any version of Mom's face.

Adrienne appears in the room—finally. I recognize the glass panes and clipped pictures, which she assembled into a building, model scale, just like Dad's architectural work. Before I get a closer look, her elbow hits a bookshelf and her project crashes to the ground.

I rush to her and see blood dripping from a gash in her left palm. “You're hurt,” I say.

“I don't care. I just care about my piece.”

Shards of glass scatter across the floor, but the structure is still intact. Adrienne starts to cry. Mr. Klein first helps her up and then, with great care, he lifts the piece and puts it on the desk. Dr. Whelan retrieves a first aid kit and delivers it to Mr. Klein. While he bandages Adrienne's hand, I clear the
glass from the floor. Adrienne doesn't stop crying.

I wonder what aches more: Adrienne's wounded hand or the disappointment of the broken project.

“How deep is the cut?” Dr. Whelan asks. “Do you need to go to the emergency room?”

“I don't think so,” Adrienne says, her eyes still full of tears.

Mr. Klein nods in agreement. “It isn't deep. The hand bleeds a lot. Like the head.”

“I'm sorry I was late. I've been working on this for hours. I didn't sleep. I got the idea from this office,” Adrienne says as she points to the orchids. Blood seeps through the bandage.

“You're here. That's what matters,” Dr. Whelan says.

Mr. Klein gestures at the piece. “Go on. Continue,” Mr. Klein says.

“It's a greenhouse. See?” She runs her index finger over the roof.

So that's what she was doing with the glass. She assembled an A-frame structure with wood and metal, fusing picture frames together. Inside, flowerbeds shaped like coffins cover the floor. Felt flowers lie on the beds, resting like dead bodies rather than plants growing upright. Mom's face blooms on each flower. Marigold petals cover the floor.

“Your mother?” Dr. Whelan asks.

Adrienne nods.

“You look just like her,” she says.

“I know.”

Half of the glass panes are shattered or cracked, but the
interior is untouched. I didn't see it before, but I like the way it's cracked, like it survived a hurricane, like it's ancient but still standing.

“You did a magnificent job,” Mr. Klein says. “Everything is the correct scale. The repetition is powerful. What glue did you use?”

“My dad's wood glue, mostly. Some crazy glue. After everything was stable, I ran a match up and down the sides to make it stick more. See that?” She points to the base of the structure, to the corners where the panes come together. “I melted candle wax over the glue. I like how it looks. It softens the glass too, takes away the sharpness. Makes it safer to handle.”

We lean closer to the piece and note the different expressions and poses of Mom. In the far corner, two figures rest in a coffin bed. I squint to see Adrienne, grade-school age, curled against Mom.

I take my eyes away from the piece and look at Adrienne. She looks disheveled and exhausted. Paint and glue dirty her fingernails. A stray marigold petal clings to her hair. She wears the same ripped jeans and wrinkled T-shirt as yesterday. For the moment, there's an absence of anger. Just a bandaged hand and a broken memorial to Mom. Hothouse flowers exposed to the cold.

That afternoon we go to the Catholic school as a family, the three of us and Dad. I expect the classrooms to resemble a
chapel with burning candles and biblical-themed stained-glass windows. While it has religious flourishes, portraits of Mary and ornate wooden crosses, the school is as institutional as mine. Smaller rooms, cleaner desks, and fewer students, all looking crisp in their ironed uniforms.

A circle of girls speak in hushed tones. I wander over to find out what they're talking about: a
Little House on the Prairie
episode. They all wear dainty sterling crosses, and one of the girls added a few saint medallions to her necklace. I want to ask if she emulates the saints, if this is some phase only obsessively religious nine-year-olds share.

Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception accepts Marie, along with Dad's generous check. The school principal, Sister Mary Margaret, a woman we recognize from Mass, isn't disturbed by Marie's behavior, not even surprised. Instead, she jots down notes and suggests books that will focus her piety and prayers. We don't go as far as to tell her about Marie's shorn hair, how she thinks her prayers somehow spared Mom's life.

We sit in the principal's small office, the only adornment a picture of the pope.

“What about clothes?” Adrienne asks. “Marie likes to wear these special shirts.”

Sister Mary Margaret smiles, yet still manages to look stern. “Yes, I've seen them and they are quite impressive, but you can't wear them here. We have uniforms.” She presents Marie with a folded bundle.

Marie accepts the plaid skirt as though it's a gift from the holy spirit. Who knew cheap polyester could be regarded as divine? She smoothes the fabric.

“I have something else for you, Marie,” the sister says as she runs her finger along the spines of a full bookcase. “Here.”

Butler's
Lives of the Saints.
“I think you'll enjoy this more than any of the other students. I've had that since high school.”

“Thank you for loaning it to me. I'll take good care of it.”

“It's for you, Marie. Think of it as a ‘welcome to school' present.”

My heart swells with gratitude for this woman, as nondescript as a Ford sedan, dressed in a simple khaki skirt and white blouse, who just saved my baby sister. A superhero without a cape. That guidance counselor was right. It's an obvious choice, the best one, to send Marie here, a place where she feels safe. She isn't the first to be rescued by myths and invisible friends. As we say good-bye and walk out the office door, Marie looks over her shoulder at the stained-glass windows.

Adrienne and Marie drop Dad and me at the house before setting off to buy knee-highs and Mary Janes—items Adrienne thinks will somehow complete Marie's new school wardrobe. A makeover: less tortured martyr and more studious school girl.

Dad and I sit in his study, a long and pale room the color of the sky on a breezy afternoon. His drafting table
faces the window. Stacks of books and files cover the surface. More stacks, some on the floor, blanket the carpet. The piles obscure the framed photos, most of our family with a few scenic shots, the rest architectural. As I glance around, I notice that all of the pictures of Mom—wedding, honeymoon, island vacations—are flipped over, face down, completely hidden from view. But not packed away.

“Will it work for you and Adrienne to drop Marie off and pick her up like usual?” he asks. “We need to get back into a routine.”

“You sound like Barb.”

“I'm trying to be like Barb.”

I'm not prepared for his voice to catch, for his knuckles to turn white, revealing a fresh scar. It's then that I notice the window, the pane cracked like a fault line, the point of impact the size of his fist.

I inspect his hand. “When did you do that?” I ask, searching my mind for a memory of Dad losing it. Not a single one. “What happened?”

He avoids my eyes. “I did it after I told you about your mom. When you were asleep.”