Brother/Sister (17 page)

Keith raised an eyebrow at me. “Man, I’m totally stoned,” he said. “No way I’m making my way out of here tonight.”

“That’s okay,” I said. “There’s always Mom’s room.”

“Exactomento,” he said. “Maybe I’ll do those dishes for you guys before I crash. Earn my keep.”

He stood up and stretched, clasping his hands above his head and arching his back like a little kid.

I just hung there, watching him go.

Halfway to the house he turned back toward me. “You coming?”

“No,” I said. “I think I’m going to sit here for a while more.”

And that’s what I did. I curled my legs up into my chair and stayed out there for like an hour or more. Not really doing anything. Just sitting. Just feeling. Wondering what Keith would do if I told him the rest of what had happened with Craig and Naomi. Thinking, maybe I should.

Maybe an hour later,
Asheley finally came back inside.

Keith had already skulked off to Mom’s room to pass out. Not much I could do about it. It was a classic ask-Mom-if-Dad-won’t-give-you-what-you-want sort of thing, and Ash had already told him he could stay. I’d been hanging around the living room, waiting, trying to keep my imagination in check, wondering what the hell he’d said to her to get her to go soft, and what that might mean for our future plans together. By the time she came in, I’d worked myself up into . . . I was a mess.

“What was that all about?” I asked her.

“It’s nice out there. I was just hanging out. Thinking. Watching the stars. This squirrel was playing around on the roof of the shed. It was interesting.”

“Not that. You know what I’m talking about.”

She was playing dumb, scrunching up her face in a kind of confused expression.

“With Keith.” Even though the light in Mom’s room was off, I knew he might be listening in, so I whispered this. Sort of hissed it, actually. Like I said, I was pissed.

“That was nothing. We were just talking.”

“Yeah, obviously. But why? I mean, why would you want to . . . he’s, I mean, did he try to touch you?”

“No,” she said. She sat down on the step leading up to the door and I could tell she was uncomfortable. Her posture was too perfect. Guarded. Tense.

“That’s a surprise,” I said. “Anyway, even if he didn’t, he wanted to. I know it.” A flash image of Keith walking his fingers up Asheley’s thigh burned through my mind and I spasmed into a whole new kind of anger. “He’s been looking for the chance forever. What? Did he sweet-talk you? Tell you how much he cares about how hard it is to be you in the world? I wouldn’t trust him. No way would I trust him.”

She shot a glance at Mom’s door and she shushed me. “He’s fine,” she said.

I shouted, “No!” Then more quietly, I said, “He’s not fine. He’s got a thing for you. It makes me sick to my stomach. The thought that he might try to—”

“Will! Will, listen to me!” she said. “You’re talking crazy. Keith’s just trying to, I don’t know, be a dad or something. He’s awkward, okay, but he’s not bad. He comes around every few days or so, and he scratches his head and asks how we’re doing, and I mean, so what? You know? Tell him we’re doing fine. Smile for him. Let him walk away thinking he’s accomplished something. How hard is that? And then you and me, we can keep on doing things just like we have been. You know? Trust me. We’re a team. You and me. He’s just a guy who shows up every once in a while.”

Something released in me when she reminded me that we were a team. Some of that anger leaked out and I felt slightly better. At least I hadn’t lost her. That was a relief. But, still, what had she said to him? I don’t know why I hadn’t thought about this earlier, but the real issue was whether or not she had let slip anything that might lead him to realize what we’d been up to. I mean, I knew she was having a hard time with all that, and if she trusted Keith now, who knows . . .

“Did he ask about Craig?” I said.

Totally not the right thing to do. She almost looked like she was going to come flailing at me with her fists.

“Drop it, okay, Will?” she said. “We talked. I can talk to whoever I want. You don’t own me. But no, okay? We didn’t talk about Craig. Or Naomi. And even if we did, you think I’d be so stupid as to tell him what really happened? Come on!”

She was keeping something from me. It was there in her face, in the way she was trying so hard to get me to believe her. But what? I had no idea. All I knew was that she’d shifted away from me, psychologically, emotionally. She was inching away, getting ready to abandon me.

Then her face went soft—the love returned to it. I almost teared up I was so relieved.

“Give me your hands,” she said.

I did, and she held them, lightly and looked deep into my eyes.

“You really think I’d let Keith touch me? You really think I’d ever betray you? Trust me a little bit,” she said, “Okay? I’m a big girl. We’re in this together. Whatever happens, I’ll be right there with you. Okay? You believe me, right? Will, you’re my best friend.”

“I’ll try,” I said. It was the best I could do.

“I love you, Will,” she said. The tenderness in her smile when she said this was maybe the nicest thing I’d ever seen in my life.

“Okay, I’m going to bed. You should go to bed, too,” she said then.

As she passed me on her way toward the stairs, she paused. She took my face between her hands and tilted it upward and she kissed me on the cheek. And then, like a message written in the sand, her smile faded.

“Really,” she said, “come to bed.”

“I will,” I said. “Soon.”

I wanted to believe her. You have no idea how badly I wanted to believe her. And the more I thought about it, after she was gone and I was alone again in the living room, the more I understood that it wasn’t her I had to worry about. She was as devoted to me as I was to her. The problem was with Keith. He’d already started trying to insinuate himself into her trust. Now that he had an in, I was sure he’d exploit it. And then what? Would Asheley really be able to fend him off?

The next morning
I had to get up at eight to open Milky Moo’s. Even though I’d gone into overdrive the night before, begging Will to just be normal for once, to, like, not do any of the crazy shit that might be rattling around in his brain, I was worried anyway. I couldn’t control him and I couldn’t warn Keith about what he might do to him without spilling everything that had already happened. So it ended up with me laying awake all night, itchy and panicked, afraid of what Will might have planned for us next. I think I got maybe two hours’ sleep, tops.

I don’t know how I managed to get myself out of bed—I was so exhausted. But I did. I took my shower. I pulled on my corny black-and-white-splotched Milky Moo’s uniform. I got myself ready.

The house was quiet as I headed downstairs. Will was asleep. Keith was asleep—I peeked into Mom’s room to check on him, because—well, you can imagine why I did that. The morning sunlight was pouring in through the skylight, bright golden cones of almost solid brilliance. It was really pretty, actually. It made me wonder if maybe things would change that day. Maybe a little air and light would come seeping in and open a little goodness up into my world.

Fat chance. The first thing that happened once I got downstairs was I looked up the
Central Valley News
on my computer to see if there was any new news on Craig and Naomi, and turns out they’d finally found Craig’s body. It was weird, seeing the headline. “Second Local Teen Found Dead in Morro Bay.” I didn’t feel much of anything. And then I felt this kind of creeping horror at myself for not feeling anything. If you only knew how tired I was.

Driving to work, I kept thinking I saw things that weren’t there—like, something would move in the corner of my eye, and then when I looked at it, it turned out to just be a mailbox or a shrub or something. It was like there were hidden spirits in the world, and in my exhaustion, my mind wasn’t blocking them out like it usually did.

At work it was slow. Once I’d gotten the soft-serve machines running and done all the prep stuff—setting up the topping containers and putting the money in the register and all that—there wasn’t much for me to do but just sit there, listening to my iPod, leafing through the book I’d brought along with me, nodding off and jolting my head back up every ten minutes or so. Once in a while, someone would come in, like an ex-hippie—we have loads of them—in jeans and a peasant blouse out for a stroll with her barefoot, dirty-faced four-year-old granddaughter, and they’d quiz me on where we got our milk from and whether or not we made the ice cream in-house and all sorts of things, whether or not our chocolate sprinkles were organic. Then, after about fifty free samples, they’d order a small cone that the kid would either plop onto the floor or just stare at, complaining, “I’m not hungry, now.”

Yeah, good times, I know. Welcome to my world.

And I kept seeing things. Like, ants and cockroaches crawling across the counters that turned out to not be there when I looked closely.

Or—and this was the scary one—splotches of blood in the ice cream. Really. That happened, like, four or five times. I’d look up from whatever I was doing and there’d be these oozy red clumps of frozen blood lodged in the gallon containers, and I’d think, my God, the things Will and I did have started to leak out into the physical world, like all these things around me, natural or man-made, are pushing back at me for what I’ve done. Then I’d look again and it would turn out that what I’d been seeing was just cherries and strawberry swirl.

I was really falling apart. I mean, I was shaking. I was afraid to look at anything. I couldn’t carry a thought for more than half a second.

Then, to top it all off, sometime around ten thirty, Mom called me.

Given how my day had been going, this was almost a relief. Instead of sending her to voicemail and finding out what she wanted before talking to her, I actually answered.

“Ash!” she said. Her voice was wispy and thin, just hearing it filled me with a kind of almost-happiness.

She told me how things had been going at Hope Hill, all about the activities and therapy sessions and all that. She talked about how hard it had been to face the carnage she’d created in my life and Will’s life. It’s not like she said she was sorry, but I could hear, in her plain, undramatic descriptions of her thinking about her experiences now that she wanted my forgiveness.

“It sounds like you’ve been working really hard,” I said.

“Oh, can it,” she said. “You don’t have to pump me up. Anyway, that’s not why I’m calling. I’ve had about all I can take of me, me, me. It’s time for me to start thinking about you.”

Hesitantly, I said, “Oh, I’m fine.”

“That’s not what I hear from Keith. I hear you two had a purging, deep talk last night.”

“We did.”

“He’s a good man,” Mom said. “A space case, yes, but tender. He’s maybe the kindest person I’ve ever met. I’m glad you two were able to connect a little. Nobody knows how to listen like Keith. There’s not a judgmental bone in his body.”

I wasn’t going to cry. No matter how overtired I was, no matter how overwhelming everything was, no way would I stand there and cry
again
—especially not to my sad, broken mother.

“And then, this news today about Craig. I figured I had to call. I can’t imagine how you’re holding it together,” she said. “If it were me, I’d be so shit-faced by now that I’d probably not even know my own name.”

“Well, that’s the difference between you and me, Mom.”

I meant this jokingly, and believe it or not, she got it. She laughed.

“Amen to that.” She went silent for a minute, then she said, “Really, Ash, I need you to know that I’d kill to be there rocking you to sleep right now.” Before I could protest, she went on. “I know, I know. That’s not worth much right now. But it’s true. I wasn’t completely gone this past year. I know how important Craig was to you. I mean, yeah, okay, there were tears a lot of the time. There was sometimes shouting going on behind your closed door. I caught all that. But it was the exception, wasn’t it, hon?”

So, so quietly, I said, “Yeah.” That’s right about when I lost all my defenses and just started bawling. And I couldn’t believe it! She hung on the phone and listened. It was like she was holding me. I never thought I’d see that happen!

When I’d cried myself out, she cooed at me a little and then she said, “We’ll get through this. It’s going to take a while, but we’ll get through this.”

“It’s so
hard
though,” I said.

“But you’re tough. You’ve had to deal with me. That’s enough to make anybody strong.”

It was like she was holding an image of a better me up in front of me, and I wanted to believe I could be that person. That got me going again with the tears. I missed her. I loved her. Wow. I’d never thought I’d be willing to say that.

“When are you coming home?” I asked her.

“They’re telling me three more weeks. We’ll see. I’m doing good, but it can only go as fast as it goes. I’m trying, but—”

“I love you, Mom,” I said. I couldn’t stop myself. I had to tell her before the feeling faded.

There was a pause, then when she spoke again, she did so carefully, deliberately. “Don’t say that, Ash. Don’t try to soften it for me. I know what I’ve done to your life. If you’re going to forgive me, at least let me earn it.”

“I just want you to—”

“Oop, they’re calling me,” she said. “I have to go. Bye. I’ll call again soon.”

And she was gone. I knew her well enough to realize nobody had been calling her. That was just her excuse. She shied away from mushy stuff, especially when it was directed at her. That’s fine. She’d heard me at least. That’s what counted. One bright spot in a pretty shitty day.

Then the ants and cockroaches and the splotches of blood were back. I had visions of this going on for the rest of my life, getting worse, of me losing touch with reality completely, turning into a crazy, raving lunatic seeing signs of her own guilt written all over the world.