Authors: Kate Messner
The Seventh Wish (15 page)
When I get home. Mom and Dad are at the door with their winter jackets on. “You didn't forget pizza and bowling night, did you?” Dad says.
“Oh! No,” I say, even though I did. I've been so busy not thinking about Abby that I guess I forgot our plans for the night too. And I'm a little surprised we're still going, with everything that's been happening. But I'm glad.
The pizza at Alberto's has a crispy crust and gooey cheese. The bowling alley is loud in the same great way that Irish dancing is loudâwith lots of activity and big booms and a few flying pins thrown in too. Mom and Dad aren't on their phones or computers or talking about Abby. We talk about ice fishing and what kind of dress I want to get, and they cheer when I get two strikes in a row. It's a perfect night, until I ask about our plans for Sunday.
“Can we go to the office store tomorrow morning? I need stuff for science fair. We're going to do that insect project, so we're all meeting at Catherine's house before dance. Dasha and I have to leave early because our class is first, but we'll have time to start on a poster.”
Mom looks at Dad. Then she looks at me. “Tomorrow is visiting day at Forest Hills.”
“But I have dance. And homework. And I need to work on that science project. We agreed to meet Sunday
afternoon.” I try to keep talking so they can't say anything, so I won't have to think about Abby and heroin and farmhouses full of chickens and drug addicts. But Dad puts a hand on my shoulder.
“Abby needs our support, Charlie.” He looks at me over his glasses. “You can have friends over next week to work on your project. But we're going to Vermont tomorrow. We're going to sit in on one of her meetings and have brunch. As a family.”
The chickens scatter when we pull into the parking area at Forest Hills, but the goat comes running over to the car, probably looking for Abby's duffel bag again.
“Go on,” Mom says, shooing it with her hand as it tries to take a bite of her purse.
“Sedgewick!” a guy in a green jacket hollers from the barn. He jogs over in his work boots, pulls the goat away from Mom, and tries to wipe the slobber off her handbag. “Sorry about that.” He smiles at Mom, and his green eyes sparkle. He looks like a film star playing a farmer in a movie.
“That's all right,” Mom says. “It's great that this is still a working farm. Do you take care of the animals?”
“I'm actually a counselor,” he says, giving Sedgewick the goat a scratch on his head, “but we all wear lots of hats
around here, so being a drug counselor also means being a goat herder and chicken wrangler.” He looks at his watch. “I'd better finish my work and get cleaned up for our meeting. Enjoy visiting day.”
He hurries back to the barn with Sedgewick, and Mom, Dad, and I go to the reception area where we dropped Abby off on Wednesday. It's busier today, full of moms and dads and husbands and wives, I guess. You can tell the patients from the visitors because the guests are all wearing winter coats and boots. The people who stay here are just dressed in their regular clothes. Abby's in jeans and a bright-green sweater. I see her before Mom and Dad, but I don't know what to say, so I just wave.
“Hi.” She comes over and hugs Mom first, then Dad, then me. Then she takes a deep breath and sighs.
“How're you doing?” Dad asks.
Abby shrugs. “Okay. Thursday and Friday were awful, but I'm starting to feel a little better. I slept some last night.”
“Well, that's good.” Mom looks around the room at all the people. “Have you made any . . . friends?” The way she says it I'm not sure if she's hoping Abby will say yes or no.
Abby shrugs again. “You're kind of friends with everybody here, I guess. We have group therapy every day, so you get to know people fast.” Abby turns to me. “How's school?”
“Good.” I feel like I should say more. I've wanted to talk with Abby for so long, but it feels weird now. How could she care about entomophagy or math equations or Bobby O'Sullivan's love apps when she's stuck in here?
“How's dance?” Abby asks.
“Good.”
The movie-star goat wrangler hurries in from outside and saves me from trying to figure out what else to say. “Hey, everyone!” he calls as he's taking off his coat. “If you'd like to join us for an open AA meeting, we're going to be in the conference room down the hall. Plenty of room, and this is an open meeting, so everyone's welcome.”
I look at Mom. “What's AA?”
Abby answers instead. “Alcoholics Anonymous. But it's a program for anyone with an addiction problem. We had a meeting Thursday night, and it's pretty good. People talk about their issues.” She glances at me, then back at Mom and Dad. “People's kids and siblings come to the open meetings, so everyone's careful what they share. It won't be the detailed, awful stuff we hear in group.” She hesitates. “Do you want to come?”
“Of course,” Dad says at the same time I say, “No thanks.” Mom doesn't say anything aloud, but she gives me a look that says plenty.
You're coming too.
Don't even think about arguing.
Abby needs our support.
So I follow them down the hall and take a seat in a folding metal chair. Abby sits between Mom and Dad, and I sit on Dad's other side with an empty chair next to me. I put my coat on it, but pretty soon the room fills in and there are no more open chairs.
A lady about Mom's age steps up beside the chair and looks down at my coat. “Do you mind if I sit here?” she asks, smiling.
“No, go ahead.” I pull my coat into my lap, relieved that I'm sitting by another mom instead of one of the shadier-looking people here. There are a few that really do look like the addicts in those D.A.R.E. videos. There's a guy with bad skin and a too-long beard sitting across the circle from me. Two chairs down from him is a girl with snarly long black hair and a sunken face. She looks barely older than me, even though I'm pretty sure you have to be eighteen to come here. A woman who must be her mom is sitting next to her, wearing a nice wool skirt and tall brown boots. You'd never guess they were from the same family if the woman didn't have her arm around the girl's skinny shoulders.
The other people in the circle look pretty normal. There are two girls and a guy about Abby's age, a handful of people who are probably in their twenties, and one older man who keeps picking at a scab on his chin. He's sitting by a worried-looking woman who hasn't taken off her winter
jacket. Some of the younger people are sitting with parents, like Abby is, but others are on their own. I look at the woman next to me and wonder whose mom she is.
The movie-star goat wrangler pulls up a chair, sits down, and says, “Hi, everyone. I'm Jason, and I'm an addict.”
I think I must have heard wrongâbecause didn't he say he was one of the counselors? I'm leaning over to ask Dad when almost everyone in the room calls out, “Hi, Jason!” They say it all together as if they practiced it before we got here.
I stare at Jason while he welcomes everybody and reads some stuff about Alcoholics Anonymous from a big book. Then somebody else reads other stuff about traditions and rules. The words swirl around the room like dust in the winter sunlight coming through the window because I'm still staring at Jason, the movie-star-goat-wrangler-counselor-drug-addict and wondering how somebody who has the same problem as Abby is supposed to help her.
I look over at Mom and Dad and Abby a few times, but they're sitting and listening as if all this is normal.
Then Jason introduces Kali, who looks a little older than Abby. She's wearing skinny jeans and cool purple sneakers. She starts her talk the same way: “Hi, my name is Kali, and I'm an addict.”
“Hi, Kali!” everyone says. This time, I hear Dad say it too.
“I'm going to tell you how I ended up here for the third time,” she says, and starts talking about her childhood
growing up in Brooklyn. I miss most of it because I'm thinking,
The third time? Why would somebody be here a third time when it's supposed to work the first time?
Kali tells us all how she loved horseback riding, how she got thrown from her horse and took pain meds while she was recovering. She tells us how she depended on those pills, how she needed more and more of them to feel okay, and it got worse from there. She says it all in this matter-of-fact voice, like she's talking about how she made herself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich instead of how she met scary strangers in parking lots to buy little waxed paper bags full of powder.
Little waxed paper bags full of powder.
I look over at Abby, and what I see is not Abby-today but Abby of winter break, when she took me to dance class, when I found that little bag on her car seat and thought she'd been to the bakery.
Did you get cinnamon donuts without me?
No, that's Seth's.
Who's Seth?
One of the cooks. You should see how high he can throw the pizza dough and still catch it.
And then I'd imagined Seth and his pizza dough and I'd run off to dance class and forgotten all about the little bag that wasn't full of cinnamon and sugar at all.
My chest gets tight. I stare at Abby and wonder what else she lied about.
Then the woman next to meâthe one who is supposed to be somebody's momâstarts talking. “Hi, I'm Carolyn, and I'm an addict.”
“Hi, Carolyn!” everyone says, as if they're meeting her at a bake sale and not in a room full of liars who ruin everything for their families. And that is about all of the fakeness I can take.
“I have to go,” I whisper to Dad. “I'll meet you in the lobby.” I push my chair back and walk out the door and down the hallway. I walk through the lobby and outside because tears are streaming down my face, and I can't breathe in this place anymore.
The goat comes running up to me. I push him away and sit down on a wooden bench outside the barn. It's freezing out here, and my jacket is still on my chair next to Carolyn, the addict disguised as a mom.
The goat walks up and stands in front of me.
“What?” I say. “Are you an addict too? Go on . . . Hello, my name is Sedgewick . . .”
He lifts his head and nibbles the fringe of my scarf. He's obviously addicted to chewing other people's stuff. I tug my scarf out from between his teeth just as a minivan pulls into a parking lot. When the driver gets out, Sedgewick runs up to her.
“Careful,” I call over. “He likes to eat clothes.”
“Thanks for the warning,” she says, and laughs. I'm
trying to figure out why she looks familiar when she turns to the passenger's seat. “Come on, Leah. We've missed the meeting, but we can still have brunch with her.”
When Leah gets out of the van, I know where I've seen her mom. At dance class, picking up her daughter.
“Hey,” Leah says. She gives me a weak wave and looks down.
“Oh. Hi.” I stand up from the bench but don't know what to say either. “I'm . . . uh . . . here with my parents. Visiting someone.”
She nods. “Me too.” She looks at her mom.
“Well,” Leah's mom says. “The care here is excellent.” She steps up and shakes my hand. “I'm Leah's aunt Kathleen.”
“Oh.” She's not Leah's mom. I wonder who they're visiting, but I know enough about not wanting to talk about it to know I shouldn't ask. “I'm Charlie. I've seen you at dance.”
She tips her head. “Are you in Leah's class?”
“No. I'm in Advanced Beginner, but I'm hoping I'll do well at the next feis andâ” And I stop. Because it seems weird to be talking about Irish dancing here.
“I saw you dance at the nursing home performance this fall,” Leah says. “You're really good. You're totally ready for Novice.”
“We should head inside,” Leah's aunt says. “Are you going back in, Charlie?”
“Yeah, I should.” The meeting is probably over by now. Mom and Dad will wonder where I am. Plus Sedgewick is eyeing my scarf again.
“Are you going to the Albany feis?” Leah asks. I nod, and she starts chattering away as if we're walking into dance class or school or someplace normal. “I love that one. They have it at the college, and the gymnasium is huge. They had four different stages last year, and then they do the championship round in the student center.”
She pulls open the door, and we step into the lobby. “They even have good food.”
“That's like the feis of my dreams,” I say. “I've had more five-dollar slices of dried-out pizza than I can count since I started Irish dance.”
“I know, right?” She laughs, but then her eyes drift away from me, and her smile turns sad. She waves. And the mom who was sitting beside me at the meetingâ
I'm Carolyn, and I'm an addict
âwaves back.
