If Only (3 page)

Pam

When I wake up my heart is racing, and for a few seconds I don't know what's the matter with me. Then I remember. Ice spreads from my toes to my head.

My sheets are tangled in a knot, and my quilt is on the floor. I could swear I've been lying awake all night. But when I last checked it was three o'clock and I thought the night would never end, and now the room is filled with gray light. So I must have slept. My stomach hurts like it does when you're really hungry, but I know I'll barf again if I eat.

I hear Danny through the wall. His dresser drawer scrapes open, and his footsteps go back and forth across his squeaky floor. Danny always gets up before me. He has this thing about being late, so he gives himself tons of time for everything. He even eats a real breakfast.

I roll over onto my side and look at the clock on my dresser. Eight o'clock. Time to get ready for school.

Only I'm not going to school. Not today. Maybe never. I know Mrs. Glassen went straight home and told Julie what happened, and Julie will tell everyone else. School is just not possible.

I listen to Danny's door close and wait for him to pound on my door like he always does.

But this time he doesn't. His footsteps stop outside my door, and I know he's standing there. I imagine I hear him breathing. I picture his face with that worried look he gets. Then he's gone.

Without any warning, tears spurt out of my eyes. I flip onto my stomach and cry into my pillow. After a while I stop crying and just lie there, hating the feeling of the soggy pillowcase on my cheek but too tired to move. I must have drifted off to sleep, because when I look at my clock again, it's nine thirty.

Sun is shining through the slats on my blinds, making patterns on the wall. The house is quiet. Maybe Dad has gone out somewhere and I'm alone. I don't even know if the front door is locked. My heart starts pounding again, and I can't move.

I take some big breaths. I force myself out of bed and go out into the hallway. Dad's bedroom door is shut, and I can hear snoring. Next, I check the front door. Danny has left it locked.

Suddenly I'm starving.

The kitchen sink is crammed with dishes, and there's a plate of half-eaten toast on the counter. I get out a bowl and a spoon and the box of cornflakes, and I fill the bowl with cereal and then pour on some milk. I stand beside the kitchen sink, shoveling cornflakes into my mouth. Milk dribbles from the spoon and onto my chin. When I'm finished, I add my bowl to the pile of dirty dishes.

That's when I see it, on the inside of my arm between my shoulder and my elbow—a long purple bruise.

I feel like someone has kicked me hard in the stomach. I'm staring at a stranger's arm, not my own. Everything floods back. The man's fingers digging into my skin. My blouse ripping. The knife flashing and all the time a voice in my head screaming,
Danny! Where's Danny?

Cold sweat breaks out on my back. This whole thing was my fault.
My
fault. I run to the bathroom and make it just in time. I throw up the cornflakes and then rest my head on the side of the toilet bowl.

I go back to my bedroom and lie on my bed and wrap myself tightly in my quilt.

There's no way I can leave this house.

Danny

He should've saved Pam.

What kind of brother hugs a tree while some creep is attacking his sister? A coward, that's what kind. Danny saw the look in that cop's eyes. He saw it in Dad's eyes too.

More than anything, Danny wants to tell Pam he's sorry. He stood outside her bedroom door this morning, but he didn't have the guts to face her. Not that she would have wanted to see him.

Instead of taking the railroad trail, he
walks to school the long way, along the road. He left the house early because he wanted to get out of there before Dad got up. He grabbed a piece of toast, but he only ate a few bites. And he didn't bother to make himself a lunch. Even though he missed supper, he just isn't hungry.

Danny passes the house where Carol and Prince live. Her car isn't there, and the curtains on both sides of the duplex are closed. Four more blocks, and he hears running footsteps behind him. His stomach jumps and then Hugh's voice calls, “Wait up!”

Hugh and Danny have been friends since last November. Danny noticed him in the school hallways before that, but they never talked. Hugh is hard to miss. He's the shortest boy in grade ten by far, and he looks like he belongs in an elementary school.

One day Danny was walking down the hall behind Hugh and this hulking kid in grade twelve stuck out his leg.
Wham
!
Hugh hit the floor with a thud. His binder flew out of his hands and sprang open, spewing papers everywhere. His glasses slid off his face and clattered to the other side of the hall.

A bunch of kids laughed. Danny was going to mind his own business and keep walking. But for some reason he stopped and picked up the glasses before someone stepped on them. He handed them to Hugh, who was squatting against a locker, looking dazed.

Hugh took the glasses and jammed them on his face. Then he looked up at Danny and said, “Piss off.”

Danny stepped back and raised his hands. “Hey! Don't take it out on me.”

They glared at each other for a moment, and then Hugh started to gather up his scattered papers. Danny crouched down to help him. They walked out of the school together and discovered that they lived in the same direction. They walked for about six blocks, talking a little bit about teachers and classes, and then separated.

Hugh glommed onto Danny after that, and most of the time Danny doesn't mind. He waits for him now. “What are you doing walking this way?” Hugh demands.

Danny shrugs. “I feel like it. It's a free world, isn't it?” He starts walking again, fast.

“Just wondered,” Hugh says. “Where's Pam?”

“Sick.”

“Oh,” Hugh says.

Then he sighs and starts jabbering about his grandma coming to visit. She comes every few months from Toronto, and Hugh hates it.

He is moaning now. “I have to give her my bedroom and sleep in Martin's room in the basement.”

Martin is Hugh's brother. He's way older than Hugh and is away at a university in a place called Berkeley, all the way down in California. He is so smart, he won a full scholarship. Danny met him at Christmastime. He isn't at all like Hugh—he's tall and thin and serious, and he doesn't talk nearly as much. He's studying to be some kind of scientist.

“You always have to give your grandma your room,” Danny says. “You should be used to it by now.”

“But I can still hate it, can't I? I don't want to sleep in the basement.”

“Won't Martin need his room?” Danny says. “I thought
university ended soon.”

“He's not coming home this year. Well, just for a few days. That's another bummer. As soon as he's finished his exams, he's got a job up north collecting lichen specimens or something weird like that.”

Hugh's voice drones on. “We'll have to have what Grandma calls
real conversation
at the dinner table. Stuff from the news. She thinks I should read the newspaper.” He sighs again and says, “She's coming for my
birthday.
”

Hugh's birthday isn't for another month, and Danny wonders if he'll have to listen to weeks of this. Hugh's problems are nothing compared to his. Danny almost tells him that. But he keeps his mouth shut and walks even faster.

When they get to school, Danny mumbles something to Hugh about going to the washroom. “Meet me at the lockers,” Hugh says quickly, and Danny nods. Hugh has a history of trouble at the lockers. A bunch of grade-twelve boys still pick on him. Danny doesn't know why. Maybe because Hugh is so short and wears glasses. Maybe because they just feel mean.

Danny would hate it if they did that to him, but it seems to mostly roll off Hugh. He never talks about it. One time a kid spilled tomato soup all over his Social Studies essay, and Hugh just laughed and pretended he thought it was an accident, even though everyone knew it wasn't. But he's nervous at the lockers, and he's happier when Danny is there too.

Danny knows that, but this morning he stays in the washroom, sitting in one of the cubicles, until the bell rings. He feels guilty about abandoning Hugh, and he doesn't meet his eyes when he sits down at his desk in their first class, social studies. Hugh sits beside him, and Danny can feel him staring at him while he pretends to look for something in his binder.

Their teacher, Mr. Leary, comes in, carrying a mug of coffee. Mr. Leary is tall and balding, and he wears little round glasses like Hugh's. He is American, and no one can figure out what he is doing living in Canada because he is the most patriotic guy you'd ever meet. There is a story going around that he's a draft dodger, but Danny doesn't believe it.

Mr. Leary tells everyone to be quiet, and then he waits like he always does. For some reason kids respect Mr. Leary, and after a few last whispers and slamming of books, the class gets quiet.

Mr. Leary turns to the blackboard and writes in huge block letters
APRIL 4, 1968.

What is that all about? It's yesterday's date; today is April fifth. It's also weird that he wrote it so big. Mr. Leary clears his throat. “Take note of that date, boys and girls,” he says. “That date will go down in history. Something terrible happened on April fourth.”

Danny's stomach lurches. So Mr. Leary knows. He already
knows
about Pam, and he's putting it on the blackboard for everyone to see. A wave of heat surges up Danny's neck, and he stares down at the top of his desk.

“Can anyone tell me what happened?” Mr. Leary says. “Did anyone watch the news last night?”

It was on the
news
? Danny's heart jumps into his throat. A few hands shoot up, and Mr. Leary says, “Nancy?”

“Martin Luther King was shot,” says a girl sitting in the front row.

“Yes,” Mr. Leary says. He clears his throat again. “Last night, at one minute past six. He was standing on the balcony of a motel in Memphis, Tennessee.”

For a second Danny doesn't get it. Then relief slams into him. He glances around and realizes that no one is looking at him. No one knows.

Maybe Mr. Leary can tell that the class isn't impressed, because he looks a little disappointed. Danny is pretty sure that some of the kids have never even heard of Martin Luther King. He knows who he is because he wrote an essay about him in the fall. He picked his name off a list that Mr. Leary gave them of people who were making a significant difference in the world.

“Danny?”

It takes Danny a second to realize that Mr. Leary has called his name. His heart is still racing.

“You wrote about him. What can you tell the class about Martin Luther King?”

“Uh…he's a leader of the American civil rights movement,” Danny mumbles.

“
Was
,” Mr. Leary says. He looks overwhelmed by sadness. “He
was
a leader. He died an hour after he was shot, at five minutes past seven last night.”

It's weird how Mr. Leary knows the exact times. Someone snickers, which kind of bugs Danny. He'd actually found it interesting writing about Martin Luther King. King was always standing up for the rights of blacks, trying to get them better working conditions and fair treatment and stuff like that. Danny probably should care more now that he's been killed, but his brain is numb.

“When we remember Martin Luther King, we will remember his courage,” Mr. Leary says. “The courage to stand up against injustice.”

Mr. Leary's glittering eyes probe his students. “Martin Luther King once said, ‘We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.' ”

Everyone is quiet.
The flood of fear
. That was exactly what Danny had felt when he saw the knife. Fear, gushing through his limbs, turning his knees to water.

“Years from now, people will ask you what you were doing when Martin Luther King was shot,” Mr. Leary says. “April fourth. One minute after six. Think about it.”

That's easy. Danny was lying on his bed, wishing he was dead and listening to his sister throw up her guts.

Mr. Leary talks for a while about the life of Martin Luther King and all the brave things he did. Then he turns and writes on the blackboard in block letters
COURAGE IS A KIND OF SALVATION
.

“The Greek philosopher Plato said that over two thousand years ago,” he says. “Take out a piece of paper and write a paragraph about what you think it means.”

When the bell rings, kids drop their papers on his desk as they walk out of the room. Danny screws his into a ball and throws it into the garbage can. He has written nothing.

By the end of lunch hour, everyone knows. Danny has stayed away from Hugh by hiding in the back of the library, where he looked at car magazines without really seeing anything. When the bell rings for classes to start again and he comes out in the hallway, he senses the change right away.

Whispers.

Kids staring at him.

Then Julie Glassen walks right up to him and says in a loud voice, “Oh, Danny, we're so sorry. How's poor Pam doing?”

Hugh is standing behind her, looking miserable. Danny shoves past Julie, bumping her arm so hard she squeaks, “Ow! Danny!” He heads for the front door of the school.

He stands on the front steps and takes a deep breath of cool air. Then he starts to run.

Pam

I'm huddled on the couch, wrapped up in my quilt, when Danny finally comes home. I'm only sort of watching
TV
. This guy called Martin Luther King was shot last night. Riots are breaking out everywhere, and I'm watching some black guys throw bottles and rocks at the police when I hear Danny come in.

Dad hears him too. He storms out of the kitchen and meets Danny in the front hall. “Where have you been? It's almost five o'clock.”

“School,” Danny says. “And then walking around.”

“You're lying,” Dad says. “The school phoned. You were
gone all afternoon. So where have you been?”

“I
said
, walking around.”

Danny is asking for it. I try to focus on the
TV
, but my stomach is twisted like a pretzel as I listen to Dad and Danny. But for once Dad doesn't blow up. He says, “Get washed up. Supper's ready,” and then he goes back into the kitchen.

We eat in front of the
TV
. Dad has burned Mrs. Glassen's tuna casserole. We only get two channels, and both of them are showing stuff about Martin Luther King. In one city, people are breaking into stores and buildings are on fire.

“Thugs,” Dad says.

He puts his plate of barely touched casserole on the floor and opens a can of beer. I count the empty cans. Six. Over a whole day that doesn't make him drunk, but he better stop soon.

So this is what Dad does all day when we're at school. Watch
TV
. Drink beer. Sleep. He made a few phone calls this afternoon and ended up shouting at the last person he talked to. “Three weeks tops. And then I'll be able to work again. My job better be waiting!”

“Did that cop come back?” Danny says suddenly. He doesn't look at me or Dad, just somewhere in between.

None of us have been talking, and Danny's voice makes me jump, coming out of the blue like that.

“Yeah,” Dad says. He swigs his beer and stares at the
TV
screen.

I tear at a cuticle, leaving a strip of tender red skin. The cop came in the morning. He made Dad stay in the living room with me, and I was so freaked out and shaking so much, I could hardly talk. He kept acting like I should remember more, but I don't. It happened so fast. Finally he said to Dad, “That pretty well fits with what your son and Carol said.” As if we were making things up.

I don't want to talk about it now. I scoop up my quilt and go back to my bedroom.

I stand by my window and look out at the street. Two boys are shooting baskets into a hoop at the end of the driveway right across from us. A girl who looks about sixteen is pushing a baby stroller along the shoulder of the road. The ball almost hits her, and she stops and yells something at the boys and then keeps walking. I swallow. Everything looks normal outside, but it isn't. That guy is out there somewhere.

I open my closet door and reach for the ball of scrunched-up clothes. I get the box of laundry soap from the shelf above the washing machine and then take everything into the bathroom. I pour some soap flakes into the sink and turn on the hot and cold taps.

I untangle the blouse from the skirt, throw the ripped blouse on the floor and then push the skirt down into the sudsy water. I swish it around for a long time, until the suds disappear and the water turns muddy brown. I squeeze the water out of the skirt and stare at it. It has turned into a lime-green rag covered with pale brown smudges, and I think about the way it looked when Stacey loaned it to me. My heart misses a beat.

I drain the sink and fill it with clean water and more soap. I soak the skirt for a long time, and when I finally take it out, the brown stains have disappeared. I carry it back to my room and drape it over the edge of my closet door to dry. Then I go back to the bathroom for the blouse. I roll it into a tight ball and take it to the kitchen.

I open the back door and walk over to the garbage can. I open the lid and stuff the blouse down the side, burying it under a broken-up box and some empty cans.

When I go back into the kitchen, I hear the front doorbell ring. I freeze, terrified that the cop has come back. Danny calls my name and I stand really still, my heart beating fast, and a moment later he appears.

“It's Carol,” he says. “She wants to see you.”

I stare at Danny. I can't see anybody. I shake my head.

Danny stares back at me, and then he leaves. I follow him as far as the kitchen door and listen.

I hear him say something in a low voice and then I hear Carol's voice, loud and sure.

“I'll come back,” she says.