Girlhearts Read online

  “Sarabeth, you can’t stay here alone, not tonight, of all nights. You’ve been through too much to be alone.” She picked up the World’s Best Mom cup and turned it between her hands. “She was, wasn’t she?” she said, and she started talking about the time we all went camping at Roger’s Rock in the Adirondacks.

  I knew she wanted to distract me. She thought I was out of my mind right now—yelling at her in the car that I would stay in my own house—and maybe I was crazed, but I still wasn’t going with her.

  “I’m staying here,” I said for about the tenth time. “Here. Right here. My house.”

  “I want tea, too,” she said, as if I hadn’t spoken, and opened the cupboard. “Tomato soup. Cornflakes. Tuna fish. Where’s the tea? Just herbal tea? Did Jane like that stuff?”

  “It was for Leo.” The rye sesame crackers she was taking out had been for Leo, too. They were probably stale by now. “The regular tea’s on the bottom shelf.”

  “Oh, right.” She came back to the table and dropped a tea bag in each cup. “We have to call Leo, let him know. Who else? We should draw up a list.”

  A list of who we should politely call and let know about Mom? Bizarre. Everything was bizarre. Sitting here was bizarre. Making tea when Mom was dead was bizarre. I grabbed the teakettle, tipped the spout over the cups. Boiling water splashed out.

  “Watch it,” Cynthia cried.

  I threw down a handful of napkins to soak up the spilled water, then sat down and dumped spoonfuls of sugar into my cup. The tea tasted awful.

  Cynthia sat down next to me. “I just can’t believe it,” she said, and then she was crying.

  I chewed on my thumbnail, biting and ripping. I didn’t want to look at Cynthia, at her scrunched-up face, wet and slimy with tears. And I didn’t want to hear her, the way she was crying in rhythmic bursts, almost like singing. “Ahhh … ahhh … ahhhh …” I couldn’t stand it. I didn’t even want her to be here. I hit the saltshaker with the back of my hand, knocked it over. Dead saltshaker. I hit the pepper shaker, knocked it to the floor. Dead pepper shaker. I swept the sugar bowl off, and it shattered into pieces. Dead sugar bowl.

  Cynthia stared at me. “Take it easy,” she said. She wiped her face with a napkin. “I’ll clean that up, don’t worry.”

  Fine. I wasn’t worrying. What was there to worry about anymore? I poured my tea into the sink. Good that Mom wasn’t here to see me wasting food. A weak sun broke through the clouds. Mom always said it was a great thing to have a window over the sink, where you spent so much time.

  “Where’s Mom’s car?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure.” Cynthia tipped the sugar bowl fragments into the garbage can. “Cops probably have it. I’ll check on it. Go get some clothes together. Don’t forget your toothbrush. Oh, who can we get to watch Tobias? One of your neighbors, or how about Leo?”

  I thought of Mom in her room, crying over Leo. I took the box of rye crackers and threw it in the garbage can. If Leo were here, I’d throw the box at him. I’d hit him with all the boxes and cans in the cupboard, and then I’d beat him with my fists, make him cry the way Mom had cried.

  “I told you enough times, Cynthia. I’m not going with you, and if I were, I wouldn’t ask Leo to watch Tobias.”

  Cynthia took her cup to the sink and rinsed it. “Sarabeth,” she said, putting the cup in the drain. “Listen to me once more. You cannot stay here alone.”

  “I’ve stayed alone before, plenty of times.” I was proud how calm I sounded. Yesterday morning when Mom had been upset, I’d been calm, too, sitting with my feet hooked over the chair rung, mushing up my cornflakes, while Mom ranted on about vio-lent colors offending her eyes. I smiled. Mom could be funny.

  “You’re not thinking straight, honey.” Cynthia gripped my arm. “This is not an ordinary time. You should not be alone now. Go and get your things, and don’t be stubborn.”

  Her soft, whispery voice had deserted her, and my so-called calm deserted me. “Be quiet, Cynthia! I don’t want you to speak to me. I don’t want to hear your voice. I don’t want to hear anything else!” I wrenched away from her.

  In the living room, I sat on the little red velvet couch, wrapped in the afghan Mom had bought last spring, at the same garage sale where we bought the couch. The couch had been sitting outside on a newly tarred driveway with a bunch of chairs. Mom had gotten down on her hands and knees to check out the springs, her blue-jeaned butt sticking up in the air, as if she could care less what anybody thought.

  “Look, we’ve got to stop fighting about this.” Cynthia sat down next to me. She was too close, her breath too warm. “It’s horrible now, but it will be okay. I’m telling you, it will be okay in time.”

  For a moment, her voice soothed me. I sagged against her. I wanted to believe her. I was so tired.

  But then she went into my room and started taking clothes out of the drawers—underwear, socks, shirts. “You don’t need much,” she said, “just a few things.” As fast as she took stuff out, I put it back.

  All at once, she sat down on my bed. “Sarabeth, we’ve been doing this for two hours! Okay, okay, you win. I’m not going to drag you out of here by your hair. And I need to go home, I’ve left Darren with my neighbor too long.”

  She went into the kitchen and put on her slicker. “Your mom always said you were stubborn. I just didn’t know how stubborn. I’ll call you in the morning,” she said, and she left.

  I lay down on the couch again and fell asleep instantly. When I woke, it was dark and silent, and I was struggling out of the folds of the afghan, my heart snapping in my chest as if it was a zipper and someone was yanking it up and down, up and down.

  “Mom,” I cried out, and then I was listening for the rattle of her car, for her footsteps coming fast up the walk, for the kitchen door creaking open and the thud of her boots as she kicked them off.

  Listening for her to call out, “Where are you? Anything good happen in school today? I want to hear about it!”

  I rolled off the couch onto the floor and buried my face in my arms. “Sarabeth, what are you doing? Get up off that floor.”

  I could hear Mom saying it.

  I’m thinking, Mom, I told her in my mind. I’m thinking about that wheel that killed my father. Do you believe it was marked for him, written in the stars? And your heart attack, how about that? Actually, I know you don’t believe in that stuff. Neither do I, but then I don’t believe you’re dead, either. You’re not the dead kind, Mom; you’re the alive kind. Did you know that there were people who used to believe that when someone died, the soul jetted right up to the stars, settled down, and watched over the ones left behind? I hope your soul is watching over me, Mom. Are you on the job? Could you answer me, please?

  Toward morning, the wind came up, rattling the windows. Something clanked against the wall outside. I had been sleeping on the floor with Tobias tight against my ribs. He lifted his head, his ears stiff. “If you’re listening for her, forget it,” I said. “She’s not coming home. We’re alone now. Don’t you know that?” I picked him up, grabbed him around his belly. I was too rough, and he squealed like a pig.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. I kissed his face, and he wriggled to get out of my grip. “Okay,” I said, releasing him. “Don’t worry, though, you’re not going to be alone. Not you. It’s me. I’m alone.” A door opened in my mind and that word entered. Alone. It marched in, sat down, and the door slammed shut.

  I’d been alone before, but this was different. Before, I’d always known that Mom was coming, that in two or three or four hours, she’d be home. Before, alone had been like a little path with the end in plain sight. This alone was like being in a box. A sealed-in place. No opening. No air. No way out. This was alone without an ending.

  NINE

  “Chips, dip, sodas, coolers, beer,” Billy enumerated, emptying grocery bags onto the kitchen table. He took off his cap and slapped it against his leg. He was wearing his army uniform. His face was wet, his hair plastered to
his forehead.

  “Pouring wet snow out there again,” he said. “What do you say, girls, should I have bought another six-pack of diet Coke?”

  “Looks good to me,” Cynthia said.

  We were holding an open house for the neighbors. Cynthia’s idea. “They all knew your mom,” she said. “We have to do it.”

  I said okay, fine. When she said we should phone the people Mom had cleaned for and tell them, I said okay, fine. I said okay, fine to everything. Even when she told me after the first night that I had to go sleep at her place. Okay, fine.

  All afternoon, people came in, stamping snow off their boots and handing Cynthia and me bowls of food and sometimes flowers. Some people looked around, as if they expected to see Mom, and then they’d see me, and their faces would go all loose and teary. They put out their arms and held me and patted me. The things they said blended together in my mind, as if they were one long, pitying wail. “… poor thing … poor girl … now you have to be strong … have to be brave …”

  Later, I couldn’t remember anything I’d said, or if I’d said anything at all. I did remember, once, looking at my feet, surprised at their large size. And I remembered not knowing where to put my hands. Should they be clasped demurely in front of me? Or maybe behind me, the prisoner pose, or should they be crossed over my chest?

  My dress had long sleeves and a straight skirt. Mom and I both hated it, but it was the darkest thing I had, and Cynthia said I had to wear something dark. It was a rule. I wished I knew the other rules on how to behave when your mother died. Someone should really write a book on what to wear, what to do with your hands, and if smiles were okay or forbidden. What about tears? Okay to skip until you were alone?

  The door opened and closed continuously. Waves of cold air rushed in. Billy offered food and opened soda bottles. Coats, hats, and scarves piled up on the bed and the chair in my room. Suddenly, though, I noticed that people were using Mom’s bed, too. I gathered armfuls of coats and scarves and threw them into my room. I closed Mom’s door. It was warped and had never shut easily. I pulled it hard into place.

  Someone took me by the arm, turned me around. “Sarabeth, your poor mommy.” It was Mrs. Chung, one of the neighbors Mom was sort of friendly with. “Are you going to be okay?” Mrs. Chung said, holding me at arm’s length and staring into my face. “What will you do now, poor thing?”

  Howl. Scream. Knock my fist through the window. Bash my head against the wall. Stand guard in front of Mom’s door forever.

  Mrs. Chung shook her finger at me. “You can’t be a little girl anymore. Got to grow up.”

  I nodded, thinking that if she knew my thoughts, she’d shake her finger twice as hard. I paced through the house. I couldn’t sit still. I roamed from the kitchen to the living room, to my room, and back to the kitchen. Every room was jammed with people. Every table and counter was burdened with bowls of food. And every particle of air was filled with words. “Shocked … couldn’t believe … paper said … heart … sudden … tragic.…”

  At one point, I sat down, then instantly stood up, as if the chair, one that Mom had never liked, had ejected me. Then I sat down on the floor, but that was no good, either. Drove Mom nuts when I sprawled on the floor. I sat on the red couch. That was always good. I’m like Goldilocks. An amusing thought. Would it be okay to laugh?

  I kept my feet flat on the floor, hands in my lap, and people started bending down to speak to me, almost bowing, as if I was royalty now. Their voices were hushed, their eyes watery, sometimes curious and sometimes, I thought, frightened. I didn’t like looking at the scared eyes.

  “I heard it on the radio,” Dolly Krall boomed at me. She and her husband, Fred, owned the trailer court. She didn’t have scared eyes. “WDNY, five o’clock news. Twenty-nine-year-old woman dies of heart attack. And I said to Fred, ‘No way! Too young.’ Then, don’t ask why, but Jane Silver’s name jumped smack into my mind. I never thought I had ESP before! So, how is Sarabeth doing?”

  How is Sarabeth doing? Quite well, actually. Feels as if she’s in a cave, looking out. No one’s looking in; no one sees her. They only think they do.

  “I’m Alison Milleritz,” a woman in a puffy green coat said. “I knew your mother. She was wonderful, such a strong woman.”

  She went away and another woman, wearing slacks and big silver earrings, stood in front of me. “We live over there,” she said, pointing. “My kids go to school with you. Ricky Albertson and Shawness Albertson.” She said her husband was here, too, and she pointed at him. He was talking to Fred Krall. “Mitch,” she called, and he came over and patted my shoulder.

  I thanked them both for coming. I was doing better about talking. I answered some questions. I said I was fine. I said not to worry about me. This was the way Mom would want me to speak, in control, good manners, no crying. Never cry in public. One of Mom’s “Rules of Life.”

  Old Mr. Symborska bent over me, thin and shaking. Ever since I was a little girl, whenever he saw me, he’d break into song: “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine …” And then ask if I’d marry him when I grew up. But now, he just said my name and sighed deeply, and I wondered if we were thinking the same thing, that he was so old and still going on, but Mom, so young, was gone.

  Suddenly, Jennifer and Patty were there, one on each side of me, hugging me, crying, saying my name. “Sarabeth … Sarabeth, oh, it’s so awful … so unfair … Sarabeth.…”

  I couldn’t speak. I drew in a deep, shaking breath. “Please stop.” My eyes filled. “Please don’t cry here. Please don’t.”

  “Mr. Dunsenay made an announcement about your mom,” Jennifer said, blinking and looking at me from wet eyes.

  “What? The principal? He talked about me?”

  Patty nodded and looked down at my hand, taking it and touching each fingernail, one after the other.

  “He told us over the intercom,” Jennifer said. “He told us about … about your mom.”

  There was something in her voice that reminded me of Mrs. Coppel’s when she had handed me the phone in the office. I remembered her saying my name. And then, afterward, in the car, Cynthia saying my name, the same pulsating note in her voice that had been in Mrs. Coppel’s, that was in Jennifer’s now. I knew what that sound was now—pity. Pity, and something else, too. Fear.

  “Poor child.” The pitying voice seemed to speak right out of my mind, but it was Patty’s mother, whispering, hugging me against her chest. She smelled so good, like roses, and for a moment, all I wanted was to stay there in her embrace, breathing in the delicious smell of her perfume. Real perfume, the stuff that came in a tiny crystal bottle and cost more for a single ounce than Mom earned in a month.

  I stood and walked away. I traveled through the house again. Room to room to room. Everywhere, people were clustered, eating and talking, laughing, telling stories. It was a party. Maybe I was the guest of honor, or was it Mom? Could the guest of honor be missing? It was hot in the house, noisy, crowded. I wanted to get out, get away, go someplace cold and fresh and quiet.

  I went outside and stood by the kitchen door. Snow was falling, sticking to my hair, melting as it hit the ground. Just as Billy had said, snowy rain. Or did he say rainy snow? Whatever. I was getting wet, and that was good. I wanted to get wet. I wanted to get soaked, the way Mom and I had been soaked on the night she woke me up.

  “Sarabeth, there you are! Get back inside here.” Dolly Krall clamped her hand on my arm and half dragged me back into the house. “You want to catch your death of cold? You want to follow your mother?” She slammed the door. “Cynthia, here, tells me your mom wanted to donate her organs. Liver, kidney, eyes, everything. Good for her. I congratulate her. Hey. Don’t look so pasty about it; it didn’t happen.”

  “Jane wanted it,” Cynthia said, putting her arm around my waist. “Her donor card was in her wallet. She always carried it, but it turns out they only take organs from people on life support.”

  “Oh, the ones that have been in car acciden
ts and whatnot,” Dolly Krall said. “That’s right, I knew that. My cousin Mariel, her name’s like that actress Mariel whachamacallit, only the actress is good-looking and my cousin’s homely as a post, but she got a kidney from a donor who smashed up on I-Eighty-one. Whole new life for my cousin.”

  Later—I wasn’t sure how much time had passed—I found myself sitting across from Leo at the kitchen table. He kept looking at me, as if he was trying to find the answer to some big problem in my face. He was sort of a funny-looking guy—big chest; little waist; short, skinny bowed legs; but then there were his eyes, deep brown eyes, with long, girlie lashes.

  “Pepper and I have been talking,” he said. “We think you should crash with us until we all can dope things out for you.”

  It was the way we’d sat a hundred—no, a thousand other times. Me and Leo … and Mom. Leo talking, me doing homework, Mom painting her sneakers white or mending a blouse. But now it was Pepper sitting here, not Mom. Pepper, wearing a long black skirt, lifting an arm covered with thin silver bracelets.

  “You listening, Sarabeth?” Leo said. “We gotta figure out what you’re going to do. We don’t want you to worry about anything; we’re going to hang with you all the way.” The same thing Cynthia had said, only in Leospeak. “Just count on staying with us until you get sorted out.”

  Pepper nudged him. “Leo, that sounds as if Sarabeth’s a pack of cards that needs to be reshuffled.”

  Cute, but if she hadn’t been there, I could have said it and laughed with Leo. I tried to think of a funny remark, but the phone rang then, and it was for me. Asa and Grant calling.

  They both started crying. “Sorry to be so predictable,” Asa sobbed. Grant cried softly, hoarsely, in the background.

  My eyes throbbed and burned. I forced myself to think of the miracle of their tears traveling over the long, looping wire across the city from their eyes to my ear. The world was so full of miracles. Telephone miracle. TV miracle. Computer miracle. Only, no miracle for Mom.