A Blue So Dark (12 page)

How's this for metaphor, Kolaite? Sanity is a sonnet with a strict meter and rhyme scheme-and my mind is free verse.

journalmg can be useful in keeping track of a schizophrenic family member's behavior. Often, the changes are so slight, families can be caught offguard by a psychotic break. Journaling can help family members nip said psychotic break in the bud.

appy birthday, pretty girl," Brandi coos in her Betty Boop voice as soon as the door flies open. She smothers me with a fakey-poo, sorority-sister-style hug and kiss, then gives me enough room to step inside the downtown loft apartment she shares with Dad and Carolyn.

School's been canceled for some sort of teacher betterment crap, and I can think of about a million things I'd like to do with my free Friday other than coming over here-like, say, putting my head in a vice or getting all of my toenails extracted one by one. But it's my birthday, which means it's time for Dad and Brandi to pretend they can be labeled Really Good People Who Are Hip To Hanging With Keith's Other Daughter.

As the door falls shut, Brandi lets out a squeaky "Whew" while she smooths some bottle-blond flyaways toward her ponytail and flashes her enormous neonatal eyes at me. "Caterer just left. I swear, I didn't think he was ever going to get here."

"Caterer?" I say, my feet going cold. "I didn't want some awful party. I told Dad that. Isn't it just us?"

Brandi nods. "You, me, Keith, and Carolyn," she agrees. "But how often do you turn sweet sixteen?" She waves a hand at me, shakes her head. Tugs at her blouse as though she's just so frazzled between the baby and the husband and freaking pool boy they probably have for their nauseating whirlpool tub, she couldn't find anything decent to wear. But the truth is, her blouse and skirt smell like the high-end department store I know they came from, and they do an amazing job of showing off her Pilates-toned waist and her dancer's legs.

"Don't know that I'll ever call that place again. Not exactly friendly, if you know what I mean," she says as she rolls her ice-blue eyes behind her thick, black mascara.

I want to tell her I'd probably be ticked, too, if I was them-after all, Brandi's the one who just treated some professional catering service like a neighborhood pizza delivery boy. Not that Brandi believes she could ever truly wrong anyone-not even me, or my mother, who was still married to my dad when she arrived on the scene.

"You like curry, right?" Brandi says, shimmying her tight little ass into their kitchen, loaded to the gills with granite countertops, a hand-cut travertine floor, and all the stainless steel appliances that the world says you're supposed to like.

I prefer the thirty-year-old olive refrigerator in the kitchen I share with Mom, actually.

"Hey, sweetie," Dad says as he bursts from a bedroom, a blond and pouty Carolyn on his hip. Sweetie. The word's like electricity shooting up my spine. Because it's replaced my real name, since he's too embarrassed to even say it anymore-Aura, like it's a tattoo he got when he was eighteen and now hides under long-sleeved shirts, even in August. Aura, like it's some silly notion of his misspent youth, something he outgrew.

"I'm afraid we're in a bit of a weepy mood today," Dad says, kissing the top of Carolyn's head, then smoothing her corn-silk bangs.

"Another one of our commercials is on," Brandi yells from the kitchen, pointing to the ridiculous TV in their refrigerator door while she dishes up our lunch of Indian food, which smells a little like gym socks to me. "I really like this one," she says, staring at the small screen. "Have you seen it, Aura?"

Get real.

The only consolation in this whole stupid mess is that I'm sure Brandi's parents hate Dad. And I mean, hate. Their baby girl was supposed to marry a CEO, or a NobelPrize-winning chemist, or better yet, the president of Outer Mongolia. Not some stupid old insurance agent with a previous marriage and another child. I figure Thanksgiving's a real bitch for him-imagining it (and the impending divorce that will surely, surely come once Brandi meets said Nobel-Prize-winning chemist) is really the only thing that'll get me through this crummy day.

"Come and get it," Brandi sings, carrying our plates to the table.

I've got two boxes stacked next to my place setting (along with a card containing my obligatory fifty bucks), each professionally gift-wrapped. But I couldn't care less about a couple of crappy presents, not with what I left at home. The words down there in the pit of my stomachMom's a rope raveling down to nothing-fester like a giant pile of salmonella, making me feel like I'm about to throw up. I want to tell Dad-just blurt it and have it over with. I want to tell someone, especially since Janny's no help at all. (And do I blame her? Do I, with everything that's falling on her right now? Yeah, in all honesty, I guess I really do.) But I promised Mom, too-no meds, no more, not ever again-and that's exactly what Dad's going to want to do. Tie her arms behind her and shove a funnel in-between her lips, if that's what it takes to get the pills down. And I swore, too, no Dad. If I break my promises, I'm terrified Mom will snatch her love away, like it was never truly mine to begin with, but a library book that I'm now supposed to return.

I guess I stare at the presents a long time, thinking all this, because Brandi says, "Go on-they're yours, you can open them if you want."

"No-I just ..." I stutter. "I ..." The words try to crawl up, they really do, as I look at Dad, eyes pleading. But he's too busy tying Carolyn's bib on to notice.

It occurs to me, maybe I don't have to say it. Maybe Dad could just see it for himself, right? Kind of accidentally? So I say, "You guys going to bring Carolyn by the house to trick-or-treat this year?"

Dad just looks at me, offended that I've even mentioned his old house. Like I'm bringing up the time he went streaking across the football field when he was a drunk philosophy major out for a teensy bit of fun.

"We're taking her to the club," Brandi says. She bites into something brown and slimy and lets out a "Mmmmm."

"The club? The country club?" I say, wrinkling my nose as I look across the table in complete and total disbelief at my dad.

"Carolyn is getting to the age where we can really enjoy the holidays," Brandi says casually. "I actually can't wait until we've got a little tween in the house. I mean, there are just so many things to do, once they get old enough," like I'm the fucking next-door neighbor. "And Keith is so good about the holidays. Some men aren't, you know."

This practically lights my whole scalp on fire. "Yeah," I say, glaring at Dad. "Really good. Especially with picking out Christmas trees."

The silence that falls over the table has a pulse. An actual pulse. Because Dad and I are both thinking about the same thing: that last Christmas, when Keith was still my dad, back when I was thirteen years old. Mom had voluntarily gotten on her meds to please him-not another mirage like the one she'd had on the soccer field, and no more running away from home to climb a Colorado mountaintop (the episode that had officially filled the bathroom cabinet with amber bottles). Everything was going so well at home, and stupid me, I actually believed the ground under my feet was solid.

Dad and I split up, each of us racing through the Christmas tree lot that was like a forest that had suddenly come to roost beside an out-of-business gas station. When I found one-not too tall, nice and full-and I knew, this is it, I turned to call him.

But he wasn't alone. He was with a woman-blond hair, neonatal eyes, and it was all so obvious it should have had theme music behind it, the score from some sweeping love story. As he tightened Brandi's pink cashmere scarf around her throat, it occurred to me just how much like a lie pine trees smell.

The way they smiled at each other ... God, that sickeningly sweet smile. I swear, that look they exchanged, even from the other side of the lot, I could taste it. The back of my tongue actually burned.

I tightened my grip on the neck of the spruce I'd wanted to show him, like I was strangling the thing-like I'd have strangled him if I could.

Brandi skittered off across the tree lot like a scared house cat when she caught me watching them. Of course, I didn't know that was her name-not then, and Dad pretended not to, either.

"Never seen her before," he insisted, clearing his throat repeatedly. "Just a lady who dropped her scarf." And I knew. Merry fucking Christmas, Aura.

I stomped off, into the thick of trees, wishing I really were in the midst of a forest and not some parking lot, that I could get turned around in the dense sameness of branches like some kid at a wilderness retreat, and never be heard from again. Because he was changing all the rules, Dad was, and even then, I was wondering about the rule that went something like, must love Aura. And I was thinking that maybe he'd revise that one, too. Or cross it off the list completely. Cross it off the list completely, I think as I stare at him from the other side of the antique dining table. Definitely.

"Yes," Brandi says, ridiculously oblivious to the elephant in the room. How stupid could one woman be? "Keith is really good at picking out gorgeous trees."

"Yeah," I say, tightening the hold on my glare. "A real, chainsawed tree, killed in the name of the jolly good hoho-holidays."

"And gifts," Brandi says, winking at Dad.

"Gifts," I snarl, shaking my head. Because the dad who lived with me had railed against Christmas, or modern Christmas anyway, screaming about commercialization and how we weren't going to be manipulated by an ad campaign. And we never once bought a single gift for each other, never, not in all the years we lived together. Not for Christmas, and not for birthdays, either. Made plentybut never bought one. Somehow it was always so special, because anybody can get some crummy old sweater, but who else in the history of the world ever got an Ambrose Original?

I'm about to ask him, Don't you ever remember the way wed once avoided store-bought presents like the plague? But Brandi squeaks, "We're actually going to the Caribbean for Christmas."

"You're what?"

"Mmm-hmm. Keith's idea," she says, patting Dad's hand. "Tropical paradise. White sands and blue water. It's going to be our new family tradition. To the ocean for Christmas. Someday, when Carolyn's just a teensy bit older, we'll all go snorkeling together."

I let my fork clunk against the edge of my plate, feeling like the Ambrose Original has just fallen from the sky to squash me into a pile of bloody guts. "And surfing competitions, too, right?" I say, eyebrow raised. "Riding on the backs of dolphins?"

Dad sighs and glares at me, like I'm doing something rotten on purpose.

"How is your mother, Aura?" Brandi asks, like our ohso-pleasant conversation is just meandering along so delightfully-if, by delightful, what you really mean is an experience that brings to mind descriptions of water torture.

I tense up. "Fine," I say defensively, before I can even stop myself. Before I can realize that my knee-jerk lie is the exact opposite of what I'd really hoped to say. "Fine." What a liar I am. Not that they care. Not that they really want to know.

"Well, eat up," Brandi says, "because I ordered coconut barfi for dessert."

"Coconut barf?" I screech. "What?"

This sends Brandi and Dad into hysterics, which makes me feel like a complete idiot.