Never Enough (34 page)

I stared at her, watched her mouth tremble, and remembered when she had seemed so strong. The illusion had been pretty believable.

“It all seemed so easy once.” A mock tinged her laugh. “I was better than everyone.” The way she said this made it sound like being better had never been a good thing. “But once the snowball starts down the hill, I don’t know that there’s any way to stop it. At least, there isn’t for me.”

What was she saying? That she was just giving up? She was going to let this kill her?
We both turned back to the TV. This subject was too big not to have something trivial to balance it out.

“You have to try, Claire. You
have
to,” I finally said.

“I’m so tired, Loey. I’m tired of being sick, but I think
more than that, I’m tired of the cycle. I’m tired of what I see in the mirror, but that seems to be the least of it now. There’s no way out—when I went away, I learned so many new ways to hide my problems. Myself. I don’t know how to pretend that I’m okay even if I’m not. Because the thing is, I don’t know how to live without it. The clinic was the only place I fit in, but I hated who I became there.”

It was the first time I’d heard her use the word “clinic” instead of a “campus.” I grabbed her hand and held it. It was bony and limp and cold. We both stared at the screen.

“Please,” I whispered, but I didn’t even really know what I was asking.

After several minutes, she spoke again. “I’ll go away again. I’ll do it for now because I don’t know what else to do, but I don’t know what will change. And in some ways I’m scared of how
I’ll
change.”

I was scared of that, too. “I wish I could help you.” It felt like I had a hunk of lead in my throat. “I wish I could go with you, or there was something—anything—I could do.”

“You said you’d give up college for me,” she said in a quiet voice. She must have heard my fight with our parents. “I know you’d do anything for me, Loey, and that’s why I’m going to go.” She smiled and a tear slid down her cheek. “I’ll try to find another way. I’ll—”

Just then, Mom’s car rattled on the driveway. Claire
abruptly stopped what she was saying and her voice changed. The sweetness and emotion were gone. “I’ll tell her tomorrow. I will,” she added, knowing I needed the reassurance. “Would you . . . help me up the stairs?”

I knew what she was asking—anything not to face Mom right now. In one swoop, I picked her up in my arms and headed up the stairs, feeling like I was carrying little more than air.

Most of the time, one day is like the next when you’re in high school. There
are moments and events that stick out, but entire days have seldom stuck with me.

I walked to school one day in the middle of October.

One day.

Claire had been to see Dr. Quinton and decided on another clinic, this one only a few hours away in Chicago. She was set to leave the next week.

I strolled along, feeling the weight of it all falling away from me. It was peaceful, blue skies all around, the crisp air brushing my skin.

A sparrow glided along in tranquil flight. When it hit the windshield of the sedan driving beside me on Hawthorne
Street, the thud made me jump. I think it shocked me as much as the driver of the car.

The bird tumbled off the windshield and onto the road. The car drove off, but I stayed in place, waiting for I don’t know what. Slowly I inched from the sidewalk into the street. The little sparrow lay still.

It wasn’t until I got to school, half an hour late, that I realized how long I’d stood there transfixed by the poor sparrow. My first period teacher reprimanded me for my tardiness, but I could only stare back blankly. Even when I saw Marcus at lunch, I was still dazed.
It’s just a stupid bird,
I kept telling myself.

I stared out the window during my last class, wondering if Marcus and I might practice driving after school, when suddenly there he was, leaning up against his Camaro in the parking lot. My stomach fluttered a little, and I was glad I was finally returning to my normal self.

Even though I was sure Marcus couldn’t place which classroom I was in, he started leaning on the car at different angles and striking poses with his non-existent muscles and I knew it was just for me. I slapped a hand over my mouth to suppress a laugh.

One of the teacher’s assistants poked her head into my history class, distracting me.

“Loann Rochester, you’re wanted in the office.” She
looked so serious. As I pulled my hand from my mouth, my smile went with it.

People get called to the office all the time. I, however, had never been sent to the office in the middle of class. My pencil clattered to the floor when I tried to slide it into the front pouch of my backpack.

On the walk down the hallway, I could barely focus on the TA leading the way. I rattled my brain for a viable reason for my summons.
Was it because I was late? Did someone find out I’d been doing Marcus’s homework? Would they really pull me out of class because of that?

I slowed my pace when the school office came into view. The wind was sucked out of me like I’d stepped into an airless chamber. It felt like I was watching a movie where the waiting room was on one side of a big hospital window and the cameras on the other. I could envision a scene where a doctor gives a family bad news.

In those made-for-TV movies, there’s always music, but no real sound. No crying, gasping, screaming. You see all the mouths moving and all of the tears, but you don’t really hear any of it. I always loved the ingenious way moviemakers could make a scene so powerful and yet so surreal. So not like real life, and yet enveloping so much of the deep emotion of real life.

Ms. Remmers, the school counselor, saw me through the office window and started toward me. She had tears in her
eyes, and when she stood before me, her mouth moved, but I couldn’t hear a word she was saying. I tilted my head. Even though I didn’t know what was happening, I felt a knot in the pit of my stomach. My whole world became hazy. I figured I must have been crying, because a Kleenex was pressed into my hand.

There was only silence.

Nothing else was tangible about that moment, that gap in time, however long it might have been. Just that I knew in my heart that Claire was gone.

*   *   *

The next thing I remember was yellow. It was bright and it was right in my face. It was Marcus in his sunshine shirt.

He hugged me and patted my back methodically. His voice leaked in from far off in the distance. “Tell me what to do, Loey,” he said. “Tell me how to help you.”

One of his hands ran over my hair. He drew my head to his chest and it was then, I think, that I stopped holding my breath.

When I eventually pulled away, I realized we were behind the school, between the two portable classrooms.

Marcus’s eyes were red. I wiped mine with my tattered Kleenex.

“My camera,” I mumbled. I didn’t even know why I said it, but it was like the word made my brain shutter into action. “Oh no, the pictures!” I cried.

“What? What is it, Loey?”

“I can’t look at them. I can’t . . . I can’t . . . get any more.” I knew I wasn’t making any sense, but all I could think of were those last pictures I’d taken of Claire. They were her last pictures. I gasped out a cry. She really, really wasn’t coming back. Those pictures were all I had left of her.

Suddenly I felt desperate to get away from the school, away from this realization, away from my camera in my locker and my project in the art room. “I have to go home,” I said, surprised that home was the place I wanted to go for comfort, and even more surprised by the sureness of my voice.

“I know.” He stroked my hair again. “Do you want me to go with you?”

I could barely imagine what it would be like to go home and not find Claire in her room, but as much as I wanted Marcus to come with me, wanted to hold on to his arms and never let go, I couldn’t. I had to get away from everything. Right now. “No. I need to go alone.”

He opened his mouth to argue, but I held up a hand and backed away.

Each day it felt a little more real. Life quickly became busy and exhausting,
with a million decisions to make for Claire’s funeral. Mom spent many hours on the phone, on e-mail, or running between the funeral home, the church, and the florist. It seemed like there was no time to stop, no time to eat together, just barely enough time and energy to respond to messages of either disbelief or sympathy. The morning of Claire’s funeral, when things were finally on track, Mom spoke to me for the first time in what felt like ages.

“Tell me where I failed, Loann,” she said from the living room couch, staring across at a blank patch of wall. Her voice was as flat as the wall in front of her.

I fiddled with the buttons on my jacket, hoping the question
would disappear. But it didn’t. It just hung there, unavoidably stuck in midair between us like the Goodyear Blimp. I’d hoped for things to slow down enough for us to have a conversation, but this, this was too hard. I wanted to shrug my shoulders and grumble, “I don’t know,” like a normal teenager might answer a question about their weekend plans. But the truth was, I had a million questions of my own for her.

Why didn’t you listen to me? Or to her? Why did you have to fight with Dad all the time and demand so much from everybody?

But would any of it have made a difference anyway?

“Where did I go wrong?” she asked, not willing to let it go. I could sense the wetness around her eyes, and suddenly I realized how much
she
was hurting about this. How much she had
always
been hurting over Claire, over me, over not feeling like a good enough Mom or wife or person.

It shocked me. My whole life Mom’d been confident. Able. Strong.

Dad appeared in a dark suit, mumbling something about starting the car. Even though he had been around the house every day for the last week, I barely noticed him. He didn’t return phone calls or talk to pastors. I caught him staring at the wall or the washing machine or the flowers that had been delivered, but other than that, he never seemed to actually be
doing
anything. Both my parents were like walking outlines,
moving through our house. No shades of gray or dimension to either of them.

I watched Dad go and was about to follow when Mom pushed again. “Loann, where did I go wrong?”

“Wrong?” It came out of my mouth as though I was too daft to grasp the English language. Mom didn’t react, just kept shaking her head, then staring into space with tears rolling down her face.

“What’s right or wrong anyway?” I said, not really knowing what I meant. “Can there even be right or wrong in this?” Nothing I could say would make her feel any better, but there really wasn’t any way to feel better now anyway, was there?

Mom rubbed small circles on her forehead. I faced the window and went on, maybe for my own benefit.

“Were you supposed to tell her to eat? Was I supposed to yell and scream and follow her around all day long? Would she have listened to either of us? Maybe you’re not a good mother, maybe I’m not a good sister, but exactly what part of this mess should Claire have been responsible for?” I choked on the last part. It felt like such blasphemy to say these things now. But they were true. And I, for one, needed to hear them.

*   *   *

The funeral was a big haze.

With the nice weather, my parents had opted for a graveside service. The first person I registered seeing was Shayleen.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, coming right up to me with tears streaking her face. I accepted her expression of condolence. Friends or not friends, I believed she was sorry.

I couldn’t concentrate on Shayleen, though, who was still saying something to me. My eyes went to the mounds of bright blossoms. To the open casket in the middle of them.

I couldn’t see inside the casket from where I stood a few feet away, thank God, and I tried to focus on Shayleen, then Deirdre, who had appeared beside her.

Were they friends again? Had Claire’s death done that? I knew these weren’t big questions—I had so, so many bigger ones—but I couldn’t help tilting my head and staring between the two girls.

I felt Marcus behind me before he touched my shoulder. I felt his strength. He’d wanted to come over every day of the past week, but I’d told him no over and over again. It just didn’t seem like there was room in our house for anyone from the outside. My parents and I seemed to need all the space we could get. But now, looking up at Marcus, I realized how wrong I’d been.

I stared at him, feeling stronger by the second.

As if Shayleen and Deirdre could sense our need to be alone, they cleared away. Marcus led me back toward a tree, away from the casket and all the people, and suddenly my chest felt lighter.

He was wearing dark pants and a blue button-down shirt. He looked so handsome, and I found myself gazing absent-mindedly again, as I had with Shayleen and Deirdre.