Up High in the Trees (28 page)

It'll be okay, Jackson's mom says. Then she gets up. Come, she says and reaches her hands down to me.

I let her pull me up and we walk downstairs to the couch. Jackson and Shelly and Baby Chester are sitting, watching TV.

Where is he? asks Jackson.

Their mom doesn't answer.

She says, I want you all to stay right here. Then she goes.

Where is he? Jackson asks me.

Upstairs, I say, and bite the inside of my cheek.

We watch the Nickelodeon show—the one where they dump green slime on people's heads.

Cass is going to meet us at the hospital.

We're in the waiting room. There are rows of chairs and, hanging on the wall, a TV with no sound. I'm holding a bottle of Coke. Jackson's mom gave me a dollar to put in the soda machine. Now the bottle is making my hands cold and I want to throw it away.

I'm watching the door. I see Cass right when she walks in. Her eyes are looking everywhere. When she sees us, she puts up her hand to wave.

I'm Cass, my sister says.

Alison, says Jackson's mom.

Then they hug each other.

His hand is badly bruised, so they've bandaged it and given him pain medication, says Jackson's mom. She looks down at me and then back at Cass. Your father doesn't want to see anyone right now, she says.

Cass bends down to me.

Are you okay? she asks.

I nod yes. It's hard to talk. Cass keeps looking at my eyes. I look away.

Then Cass stands back up and says, You should go. We'll be fine.

All right, says Jackson's mom, call me.

I will, Cass says.

They hug each other again.

Sebastian, says Jackson's mom. Then she doesn't say anything else. She bends down and kisses my forehead before she goes.

Cass sits next to me. Do you want to take your coat off? she asks.

No, I tell her.

I walk over to the garbage can and throw away my bottle of Coke.

In the car I ask Cass, Where are we going?

Home, she says.

But we have to get Cham, I tell her.

Shit, she says, I forgot about the cat.

Cass pulls the car over to the side of the road. She reaches into the backseat for her bag.

I'm sorry, Cass says and pulls out her pack of cigarettes. I watch her light one. She takes it out of her mouth then and looks at it. With her other hand, she rolls down the window a little bit.

I thought he'd be fine at dinner, she says, he seemed better. She holds the tip of her cigarette out the window.

We sit there and Cass smokes her cigarette down until it's small.

Who named the cat, anyway? asks Cass.

I put my hand on the cold window. It leaves a wet handprint.

Dad did, I tell her. Cham is short for champagne, because of the color of his fur.

Oh, she says and flicks her cigarette out the window. Cass pulls the car onto the road again. At the stoplight, she turns around and we drive the other way to go to the white house.

You know, says Cass, Dad has to stay in the hospital for a while. Things are all mixed up in his head and he needs to rest, she says.

I keep looking forward at the long, black road.

When can he get out? I ask her.

I'm not sure, says Cass.

I look out the side window at the tall trees. They're gray and quiet in the dark.

I know where to find the cat. Cass follows me upstairs to the room where Dad sleeps. I turn on the light and see Dad's bed with the covers all messed up. It looks like he's still here. I don't want to touch anything.

Cham, I say to the cat, it's me. I get down on the floor and look under the bed. The cat is sleeping with his head tucked under his tail. I say his name again, but he doesn't wake up, so I crawl underneath and pull him out.

Here, I say and hand him to Cass.

I'll put him in the car, she says, you get your clothes and whatever else you want.

In my room, I pack lots of clothes and also the paper bag from under the bed into my green and blue duffel bag.

The old man holding a dead bird in his hand knows that I'm leaving. In my head, I'm telling him good-bye.

I turn off the light and run downstairs. The front door is open and Cass is standing outside, smoking another cigarette.

I'm going to run up and make sure we're not leaving anything important, Cass says.

Okay, I tell her.

She drops her cigarette on the ground and steps on it.

I stand in the driveway, waiting. Everywhere is dark except for the red tip of Cass's cigarette still glowing. I step on it to squish it all the way out.

Ready? asks Cass. She's running down the front steps.

Yes, I say.

In the car, the cat's meowing and walking back and forth across the backseat.

He never meowed this much before, I say. Dad thought maybe he couldn't.

Well, lucky for us, says Cass, I guess he can. She backs out of the driveway and turns up the radio loud. The cat meows louder.

Fuck it, Cass says and shuts off the radio.

The cat's meows are long and sad. If you really listen, then the sound sort of goes away. I close my eyes and try to sleep.

I was walking in circles around the white house. I could see Mother walking in front of me. She was a girl in a shiny blue nightgown.

I'm tired, I told her.

She kept walking.

Mother, I said, stop.

She turned around the corner and I went to the shed to sleep. I needed to sleep, just for a little bit.

Dear Ms. Lambert,

The song that got stuck in Dad's head is called “Cypress Avenue.” Van Morrison says the same words over and over again when he sings and he wears black sunglasses. I asked Mother once if he was blind like Stevie Wonder. She laughed and said no.

We left Dad at the hospital and he has to stay.

I am back home now. I am here with Cass and Leo and the cat, Cham. Please don't tell Katya.

I woke up in the night. I was trying very hard to think about Mother. I wanted to see her in my head, but I was only seeing myself. I saw myself jumping in the water and walking in circles around the white house. Then I stopped looking in my head and I saw my hands petting the cat on my lap. I was there on the floor in my room and now I am here at the kitchen table writing a letter. Mother is farther and farther away from me. I miss her.

Bye, Sebby

Cass is folding laundry on the couch—three piles, one for each of us. On TV, soldiers are riding trucks in Somalia. Cass has been watching all day.

Three hundred thousand people died there in the last year, she tells me again. They're starving. Do you know how many people that is?

I don't answer.

We forgot to bring the yellow bike, I tell her.

She folds a white T-shirt on her lap and then puts it in Leo's pile.

Can I turn it off now? I ask. I don't want to watch the soldiers anymore.

Fine, says Cass. She's quiet and I don't know if she's mad or not. You want a bike? she asks.

I nod.

How about I buy you a new bike if you go back to school? she says.

I think about Ms. Lambert sitting on her desk in the front of the classroom. I think about what's inside my desk: the two sharpened pencils and the purple pencil sharpener and the pack of skinny markers. I think about Katya. Her desk is in the third row and my desk is in the fourth row. I think about all the rows of desks and who sits at them.

Okay, I say to Cass.

Good, she says, it's a deal.

I follow her to the kitchen. She opens the dishwasher and I watch how hot steam comes out.

Then I sit at the table and look at a book that Leo checked out of the library for me. It teaches you how to draw things by mixing easy shapes together. I open the book to a page with a race car track. The race car driver is made out of circles and rectangles.

Hey, says Cass. She puts her hand on my back.

Do you want to go visit Dad on Sunday? she asks.

Yes, I tell her. In my head I count forward to Sunday. Sunday is in four days. We've been home now for almost a whole week.

I was thinking, Cass says, we could make him some cookies. She sits down next to me at the table.