The Downside of Being Charlie (26 page)

Something light lands on my head. Mom's hand, weak and fluttery, like a small bird landed on me. I don't move, not an inch, so it won't be scared away. It flutters around. I reach up and hold it. I hold the cold broken bird, make it warm, and close my eyes again.

I wake up with a cramp in my neck and with Mom's hand still in mine. I turn and look at her. Her eyes are closed and she doesn't stir.

“Mom?” I whisper, but she doesn't move. I touch her arm. “Mom,” I say louder, “wake up.” I want to see her alive.

She moves, and I keep calling her, trying to get her back, pulling that rope that will bring her back to us. She opens her button eyes. Empty.

“Mom . . .”

“Charlie?” she murmurs.

“I'm here. We're here.” She nods. “We're here,” I tell her. “You're not alone, Mom. Not anymore.”

She nods. And looks at the ceiling.

“Mom?” she blinks. “Mom?” She won't look at me. “Please look at me.” Tears roll out of the corner of her eyes.

Dad comes in with three cups of coffee.

“Thought you might want some,” he says to me, and then looks at Mom. “Carmen,” he says, and I'm amazed how her name, that he's said a million times, can come out like that, like a breath.

He walks over to Mom and leans down next to her. “Coffee?” he whispers. She doesn't respond, but he sets it down in front of her and kisses her cheek. She winces. He jerks back and quickly tries to wipe away the hurt written on his face.

She looks at the white paper cup, then to Dad, then to me. She looks startled, like we just appeared out of nowhere. It's like she's never seen us before.

“You're here,” she says.

“Yeah,” Dad says.

“Why?” she whispers, fresh tears making her blank eyes glisten. I look over at Dad and say, “Because we love you.” And then he starts sobbing uncontrollably and tells her he's sorry, and she's weeping, too. I feel more screams gurgle up and out of my throat, but instead they're choking sounds and tears. And we cry and hold on to each other because we're really all we can hold on to anymore. All along we've been flailing and thrashing and barely treading water, and if we don't hold on to each other, we'll never make it. We'll end up sinking to the bottom and then float lifelessly to the top.

While they run some more tests on Mom, Ms. McKnight comes back and asks to speak to Dad and me. She leads both of us to a room with chairs and boxes of tissues. Some small tables are scattered with magazines and a TV is mounted to the wall in the corner. I wonder how many people have waited here or how many other kids have sat here after their moms tried to kill themselves.

I try to pay attention to what Ms. McKnight says, but my ears still don't quite work. Everything comes through like I have water in them. Words sound muffled, deep, and far away. She drills Dad with questions. Ms. McKnight is short and thin, and wears a fixed frown on her face. She asks about Mom's history and how long she's displayed this kind of behavior. Dad slumps further into himself, and from somewhere that sounds far away, I hear him say that Mom has always
kind of been this way but that she had gotten worse little by little over the years. I concentrate harder and their conversation becomes clearer. She suggests that upon our return home, we put Mom in a facility where she can get the appropriate evaluations and help she needs. Her suggestions are more like demands. She hands some papers to Dad and goes on about the long term effects of this on the whole family, eyes me specifically, and goes on to discuss the absolute necessity of family therapy.

“It's not his fault,” I tell her, a little tired of Ms. McKnight. I look at Dad and say what I couldn't before, “It's not your fault.” He bites his lip and looks down.

“It's nobody's fault,” Ms. McKnight says, her frozen face thawing slightly, “but you still have to deal with it the right way. You have to be willing to acknowledge it.” She takes the edge out of her voice.

“Your Mom does need help, Charlie. And even if you might not think it, you and your father need help, too. Things can only get better that way. You want things to get better, don't you?”

“Yeah,” I tell her, wondering if it's really possible, and so wanting to believe her.

While we wait for final test results, Dad gets our stuff from the car so we can change our clothes. We both realize Mom will need fresh clothes, too, for when she leaves. Dad says he'll go get them but instead returns an hour later with jogging pants and a T-shirt with
price tags on them. It occurs to me that Dad isn't planning on going back to the motel room. I catch Dad outside Mom's hospital room.

“What about all her stuff?” I say, an image of her things scattered about some strange, dark room flashes through my mind.

“We have her purse and wallet. Jim from the motel brought it by last night after you fell asleep,” he says.

“Really?” The old man's face floats in front of me again. “What about everything else?”

Dad takes a deep breath. “Any other stuff can be replaced,” he says. “We have her. That's all we need. Anyway, I can't go back there.”

“Right,” I mumble. The image of the motel room where Mom had been living goes through my head again. And Mom floating on the surface of the pool. “Sorry for bringing it up.”

“No, God, Charlie. Please don't apologize to me, never again. I'm the one who is sorry. I am sorry, Charlie. And we will talk about all of this. We can't just go on pretending. There's a lot we have to work through.” He gives me a hard hug.

“Dad?” I have to tell him. If I don't tell him now, I might never tell him. I'll go on pretending.

“Yeah, Charlie?”

I look down at the floor. “I gotta tell you something.”

He looks at me, searches my eyes for some clue of what I'm about to lay on him. I take a deep breath.

“Dad, I . . .” How do I say it? “Um . . .” He waits. “Dad . . . I . . .” I look down at my shoes. There's only one way to say it. “I throw up.” His face goes from uncertainty
to confusion. Holy shit, I can't believe I said it.

“What do you mean? Are you sick?”

“No, I mean . . .” How do I explain this? “I throw up. When I eat too much. I eat a lot. Not all the time, but, sometimes I try not to eat at all and then I can't take it anymore and . . .” I think he realizes what I'm saying. “Then I eat everything and then I just, I . . . get rid of it.”

“Charlie.” It comes out slow and quiet, the way he said Mom's name. I look at Dad's fallen face, his hunched over shoulders; I just let out the last bit of air in him.

“I'm sorry,” I say. I'm sweaty from the heat and shame that has risen up my back and pooled in my face. Dad doesn't say anything. For a minute, I think he's going to yell at me, but he grabs me by the shoulders.

“Don't apologize,” he says, digging his fingers into my shirt. “Never apologize to me again. I'm the one who's sorry, for every stupid thing I've done, for making you feel this way, for putting too much pressure on you. Don't you ever be sorry. None of this, none of it, is your fault, okay?” I don't answer him because I'm not sure I believe him.

“Okay?” he says. He shakes me, hard. “Okay?” he insists.

I'm frozen. He's wrong. It is my fault.

“Charlie, none of this is your fault,” he repeats. “You have to know that, please.” He squeezes my shoulders harder and harder with each word. I wonder if he could break my bones if I don't answer. “Please?”

I nod. “Okay,” I say finally because his eyes are red
and bloodshot, because his face is sagging with guilt, because he looks the worst I've ever seen him. But I'm still not sure I believe him.

“I love you, Charlie,” he says, not letting go of my shoulders. “I love you.”

“Me too, Dad.”

He hugs me. When he doesn't let go, I tell him we should get back to Mom.

“Yeah, okay, go ahead.” His grip eases up and finally, he lets go. “I'll be there in a minute.” He puts his head in his hands, and I go back into Mom's room, trying not to think about the look on Dad's face.

Dad decides it'd be better not to fly home, so he arranges for us to drive back in the rental car. I'm glad. I'd been worried about getting on a plane with Mom. What if she freaked out while we were thousands of miles in the air, with nowhere to go? Images of Mom opening the door and jumping out of the plane had been flooding my mind. Driving was definitely a better choice.

The doctors say it's okay to go and they discharge Mom.
Sick and broken people leave
. We walk out of the hospital, to a strange world in a strange place and we have to find our way home.

I feel like we've been living in the same day, but everyone else has kept going. The past and the future don't exist. I can't remember yesterday. Was yesterday the day I saw Mom's limp body floating in the pool? I don't know anymore. Days, weeks, years have gone by since then.

I don't know how Dad is awake. I don't know how he drives without blinking. We stop only for gas, bathroom breaks, and once for food. Dad steals sideways glances at me as we drive and eat, no doubt wondering if I'm going to throw up in the take-out bag. I don't, but I want to because it always makes me feel better. Even if it leaves me feeling empty.

Mom barely makes a sound the whole drive home. We never leave her alone. We go to the bathroom in turns. She barely moves. Dad put her in the backseat when we left the hospital. At first I thought it was because he wanted her to be able to lie down and sleep if she wanted to, but then I caught him clicking the child safety locks, and every time we got in or out of the car, he made sure to hit the automatic lock button.

I'm awake when we drive into our town. It's dreary, or maybe it just looks that way because it's so early in the morning. There's no traffic on the streets, and everything is eerily still, everyone and everything still sleeping. It all looks familiar, but at the same time everything feels different, like I've been gone for a really long time.