What We Saw at Night (16 page)

I know what I’m going to do with my life
. It was an epiphany, the kind only a horrible trauma can induce. I wasn’t going to be the female David Belle. No, I was going to stick a pin through insects like Blondie with their own blood and tissue, insects that sucked the life out of friends and turned them into zombies. At work in the dark of a lab, I could wield a sword like Joan of Arc in the sunlight. I had never thought
much in terms of my destiny as an adult. It wasn’t territory where I was comfortable going. XP kids can think all they want about college online or in person, but usually, the reality is they’re going to grow up single and kind of disabled.

I decided right then that I was not. I had reentered my love of the natural world. And I was going to study it, beyond college. I was going to study Biology first, and Criminal Justice, then Forensics.… People like Blondie would fear me, their time as predators like an hourglass slowly emptying, one they could not dislodge or turn over.

“Juliet, if I am your best friend, you owe me,” I said, returning to the moment. “You owe it to me to tell me everything.”

“I can’t.”

“Then I’m not really your friend.”

“No, really, you
are
. It’s because I love you that I can’t tell you.” She stood again and began to tie up her hair in a bun. I was exhausted, by the events of the night, and by the time I’d spent here. I looked at the clock, and it was already past two. What time had it been when I’d arrived? All I wanted was to sleep.

With her hands fiddling with her hair, she unintentionally bared her mid-riff. I glimpsed her tattoo.

“The ‘Great and Terrible’ Juliet Sirocco,” I muttered.

Her hands abruptly fell to her sides, as if I’d caught her stealing something. “If I tell you something, you have to swear to God that you won’t ever tell a living person, not even Rob. Even if you think you’re doing the right thing, and if you think it’s for my safety. I get to decide that.”

Slowly, I nodded. “What are you talking about?”

Juliet raised her eyebrows. “Say it.
Swear
it.”

“I won’t tell anyone,” I said. “Not even Rob.”

“G.T.”

“What about it?”

“It represents … my ticket out of here,” Juliet said.

“A person? A drug? Are you talking about a way to end your life, Juliet? You said it meant the great and terrible.”

“It does, sort of.”

“But not completely.”

“No. Not completely. And that’s all I can tell you right now.”

W
hen I got home that night, I found something tucked in my backpack: her little stuffed penguin on skis. Juliet still slept with it even when she came to my house. It was the closest thing to a security blanket she’d ever admit holding onto. (Not surprisingly, she’d named him “Penguin.”) He smelled of the only cologne Juliet ever wore, Cartier de Lune. She’d never parted with him.

Part of me melted. The other part hardened. Was this just a cynical chess move on her part, to try to stay one step ahead of me? If she was willing to entrust me with Penguin, it meant our friendship could never be violated … right? It meant nothing fundamental had really changed and that she’d felt terrible about the minor things that
had
changed. Or she just wanted me to be her heart again, so I would leave the whole Blondie issue alone until she was ready to confide in me.

I was too tired to think about it. Angie had fallen asleep on the couch. I thanked Mrs. Staples for the emergency
babysitting gig and sent her on her way with cash from the drawer, then carried Angie up to bed. I sat in the kitchen, waiting for Mom and eating crackers until I was nauseated and my stomach literally popped out. Glancing in a night-blackened window, I noticed I looked like crap, my unremoved makeup all running in the wake of my shower, my wet hair pulled up on top of my head in a ponytail. I basically resembled the Lorax from Dr. Seuss.

I must have fallen asleep at the kitchen table. When I lifted my head, the kitchen windows were still black. My mouth tasted awful, like dirty socks. I sat up and rubbed my eyes groggily. Mom was sitting beside me, knitting a quilt. As Jack-Jack is not a natural with any kind of needle except the kind you stick in a person, this was very slow going with much quiet swearing.

“What time is it?” I croaked.

“Around four,” Mom said. “You looked so peaceful. I didn’t want to wake you. And there’s no way I can sleep after the night I had.”

I bit my lip. “How’s Nicola’s mom?”

Jack-Jack sighed. “She’ll live. That’s what matters.”

I nodded. I stood and stretched. I filled a glass of water at the sink and sat back down. Mom kept her eyes on her needlework.

“I’ve been thinking about … my future,” I said. “I want to apply to colleges that specialize in criminal justice.”

“Okay,” my mother said. She held up two squares, different colors of purple, to see if they matched in size. “I kind of thought you’d study online.”

“Like a bird in a cage?” I said.

“No, like a person with a chronic illness who has to avoid certain situations. Your dad has provided for your education.
You have a fund. I don’t want to do anything to stand in the way of whatever it is you want to do.”

“You sort of sound like Dr. Andrew right now—the way he talks to me in front of you. I have a theory, you know.”

“Oh? Please share.”

“He wants to get into your pants.”

“Well, if that’s true, then I appreciate that about him,” Jackie said. “He’s handsome and smart and could have his pick of the litter.”

I laughed. “Please don’t humiliate me by becoming a gold-digging mistress. Gina would do that, but not you.”

“Gina would not do that. Don’t humiliate yourself by putting down someone who loves you so much.”

“Ow! Guilt trip!”

“You are spoiling for a fight, Alexis, and I am not going to give you one. Maybe it’s because of your friend’s death. Maybe it’s because you’ve had hard times with Rob and Juliet. Maybe it’s hormones. Don’t take it out on me.”

“Let’s face it. Things would be easier if I hadn’t been born.”

Mom slammed her needles down on the table. “You’re an idiot,” she snapped.

I saw the dark rings under her eyes, purple bruises after a night of dealing with God-knows-what at the hospital. “You wish I didn’t have XP,” I said. I couldn’t stop.

“Don’t you?” Mom asked.

“Yes, but I’m not my mother.”

“Allie, just give it up. Whatever it is, just let it go. Don’t pick away at me like this. Say what you have to say and be done with it. I’m too tired right now.”

“That’s why you have Angela. She’s your backup kid. Right? She’s not the same as you, but at least she’ss healthy.
You could get married again. You’re young enough to have another normal.…” I’m not sure why these words came cascading out, but I was too tired and confused to plug a hole in whatever dyke had held them back until now.

My mom stood. “I’m going to sleep. See you when you come back from Mars.”

She stomped to her room and turned up the volume of the radio so loud that the kitchen counter shook. It was possibly the most annoying song in the universe: “The Sound of Music.” The hills of Iron Harbor were definitely alive with its overblown theatrical crap. I almost had to laugh. Mom knew exactly how to punish me.

Angie woke up, of course, and stumbled into the kitchen, rubbing her eyes. She asked me what was wrong. I started to cry. Then
she
started to cry, almost out of obligatory duty. I banged on Jack-Jack’s door until my hand got sore.

Finally Mom appeared. Her eyes were huge and blotched with her own tears.

“Listen, Allie. Both of you. I wanted another child,
for me
. And yes, Allie, I wanted you to have a sibling because most kids who have what you have
don’t
have sisters. I wanted as big a family as I could have without a husband. And you know what? I might want to adopt another baby. And if I do, even if he or she is doomed to die of cancer at the age of four, I’ll love that child the same as I love you two.” Her voice sharpened. “The way I love you and Angie is not subject to debate. Do you understand?”

I swallowed. Angie and I exchanged a quick glance. I opened my mouth, and then closed it.

“What?” Mom barked.

“Juliet says … you only want to believe there’ll be a cure. As in, you want to believe in leprechauns.”

She sagged against the doorframe. “Why wouldn’t I? Juliet is smart, but she’s cynical enough for five Chicago politicians. If I could pray, I would pray. Some people see the hand of God in this and it actually comforts them.”

I nodded. If I opened my mouth again, I’d probably start crying again. Besides, my mother isn’t religious.

“Your grandmother is a practicing Catholic,” she mused, staring up at the ceiling and at the same time somehow staring straight through my skull again. “She said that it was wonderful how President Kennedy’s mother kept her faith. Because after Mrs. Kennedy’s second son, Senator Bobby Kennedy, got shot, old crazy Rose said something like: ‘God gave my children beauty and intelligence but not long life.’ ”

“That’s probably the best thing she could say,” I said.

“No,” Mom replied, her lips tight. “It sounded to me like Old Rose had ice instead of blood in her veins. I wanted to scream in my mother’s face: That woman loves God more than she loves her children!” She glanced down. Snapping out of her reverie, she kneeled in front of Angie and me. “Listen. I would rather let the world blow up and everyone in it than let anything hurt you. A God that gave up his own son for other people … I have to be honest. I don’t get it. I love you too much. I couldn’t do that.” She sniffled and arched an eyebrow. “Maybe that’s why I’m not God.”

I reached for her hand. She took it.

AFTER THAT THE three of us ate a half-gallon of ice cream. My mother didn’t even pretend she was going to put it in dessert bowls. She just yanked out the carton and cut the big rectangle into three blocks, which she doled out on dinner plates. Then she slopped on everything in the house she could find, from raspberry sauce to marshmallow fluff.
Daytimers that they were, Mom and Angie started rubbing their eyes once they were finished. As soon as they’d gone to bed, I sat on the screened porch and tried to savor the last moments of darkness. I focused on how I was going to determine Blondie’s identity. The fact that Juliet refused even to say his name was the most telling piece of information I’d pulled from the horrible night. She couldn’t say who he was because she was afraid.

I could tell Jack-Jack everything Juliet had told me. But I couldn’t break my promise to Juliet. Or: Did she want me to break the promise? Did she know I would break it, anyway? There was no way out. I had built the birdcage myself.…

The rumble of an approaching car pierced my thoughts. I froze in panic for a second, and then I recognized the sound. I smiled crazily. A moment later, the headlights of Rob’s Jeep lurched into view and then went dark.

He flung open the door and hopped out.

I leapt like a cat into his arms.

I kissed him and he kissed me. We fell into the pine needles near the mouth of the driveway. Both of us were sweating, and I was afraid that I smelled and nervous that I didn’t have mascara on and hadn’t brushed my hair, or come to think of it, my teeth, since the previous night. He said, “You taste like marshmallows.”

“I was eating ice cream sundaes.”

“Do you want to go bouldering? I brought rope and gear. I thought maybe we could do what—”

“No, that’s not what I want,” I interrupted.

“What do you want?” Rob said, smoothing back my sweaty hair.

“I want to live,” I said. And Juliet’s words echoed in my brain:
Everybody dies. But not everybody really lives
. I
glanced back at my mom’s bedroom. The window was dark. “Right here, right now.”

Rob hesitated. “Allie, are we …?”

“I am,” I finished for him. “With you. All my life. Always.”

A
t my four-times-a-year checkup that week, Dr. Andrew asked me if I was sexually active.

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to tell him, because he’d been my doctor ever since I was a kid. But right then, it felt as though he’d been always watching all of us in Iron Harbor, as though we were little figures in a snow globe.