Reasons to Be Happy (8 page)

I looked up at her, not sure I understood.

“My body started to cannibalize itself,” she said. “My heart. My brain. I’ve got an irregular heartbeat because of those years, did you know that? I stopped having periods because I was so malnourished. I didn’t produce enough estrogen for my bones, so now I have these brittle, old-lady bones. I can’t run anymore because I get stress fractures. But, hey, I was thin, right?”

I’d thought Mom was too thin at the end, but she’d looked downright hearty, even in her last days, compared to these pictures.

“I couldn’t see myself at all,” Izzy said, flipping through the photos in her hand. “I would do anything to lose weight.
Anything
. Once, my therapist even asked me if I’d cut off an arm or leg to weigh less and I said
yes
. That’s…that’s just obscene to me now.”

I thought about that Sierra Leone video and what I’d wished.

Aunt Izzy shuffled through the photos some more. She stopped at one picture, putting her hand over her mouth.

I took the photo from her. Her face looked like she’d gone through a windshield. Her left eye was dark where it should be white, and the bruised lid stretched huge and puffy. The entire left side of her face was swollen to twice its size, and along her shaved hairline a row of stitches looked like barbed wire against her white scalp.

“I passed out in the shower,” she said. “Your mother found me lying there bleeding.”

I burst into tears picturing my mother young, frightened…
still
alive
.

Izzy scooted closer to me on that splintery attic floor, wrapping her arms around me.

“I
want
to stop,” I cried. “I really do. I don’t know
how
. She won’t leave me alone!”

Aunt Izzy leaned back so she could look in my face. “Who won’t leave you alone?”

My stomach fluttered. “I didn’t mean a person, I just—I don’t know how…I don’t want to…do that”—I’d never said the words “binge” or “purge”; they made it seem too real—“but then, it’s like it tells me that nothing will make me feel as good as it can.”

Aunt Izzy’s eyes were bright. “So the bulimia? You referred to the bulimia as a person. You said, ‘She won’t leave me alone.’ Do you think of her as a person?”

I hesitated. Would she think I was certifiably insane?

Before I could answer, she said, “I did that. I still kind of do. I started thinking of anorexia as a person. That was her name, you know, like she was this girl I actually knew called Anorexia.”

My heart lifted. I nodded.

“It’s like I could…picture her.” Aunt Izzy drew her knees up to her chest. “I used to think she was beautiful, so tall and willowy, with this pearly white skin and big eyes, but now…now I see her for who she truly is. Some kind of monster. She’s got fangs and these long limbs that are too bendy to be a real person’s.”

Wow
.

“So,” she asked me, “what does Bulimia look like?”

“I-I used to think she was pretty too, but now…she’s short. And pudgy. She has bloodshot eyes and rotten teeth. And really frizzy, fried hair.”

Aunt Izzy laughed. “That’s good. That’s great. It’s
not
crazy, you know, to picture them. Especially to picture them as monsters. They are
not
our friends. They want to kill us.”

Tears surprised me—for real, I didn’t know I was going to cry again. “But…”

“There are no buts in this, Hannah! Bulimia could rupture your esophagus and you could bleed to death out of your mouth. That’d be a pretty way to go, huh? Or she could stop your heart. She could be making your bones brittle too. When was the last time you had a period?”

I shrugged. I couldn’t remember. “I can’t be malnourished,” I said. “I’m fat.”

“You are
not
fat.”

“I am too! My face is all pudgy, and I’m gaining—”

“You know who made your face pudgy? Bulimia. All of this”—she cupped my ridiculous giant cheeks in her hands—“is your salivary glands. They’re swollen. They’re desperate. They’re working overtime to absorb any bit of nutrition from you at all before you puke it up.”

I flinched. It sounded so ugly, so harsh. And
wasn’t
it?

She touched her fingers to my face. “Your eyes, your beautiful eyes, look like you’ve been in a fight. No amount of makeup can hide those dark circles. It’s from the pressure when you vomit. Eventually, you start busting those blood vessels. And your teeth, they’re so dark. She’s rotting your teeth with all that stomach acid.”

“Shut up!” I said. “Stop it, just stop. Are you trying to make me hate myself?”

Aunt Izzy stroked my hair. “No, sweetie, I’m not. I think you’re doing just fine at that on your own.”

Reasons to Be Happy:

Nope, still can’t think of any.

I wanted to hate Aunt Izzy, but I couldn’t. She told the truth.

I hadn’t told the truth in a long time.

Neither had my mom. Or my dad.

Certainly not any of my “friends.”

Please. The only friends I had were a completely made up rotten-toothed demon and a bunch of backstabbing gossips.

What about Jasper? I’d been mean to him just to please the B-Squad. And then I’d grossed him out. He may have been my friend once, but I’d put a big fat stop to that.

• • •

I didn’t get to talk to my dad for three more days, and when I did, it was an excruciating phone call. His misery seemed like a stream of black spray paint hissing on the phone line between us, so strong and real I thought I could catch it in my hand. I imagined it would burn me, leaving charred spots on my palms. I didn’t blame him for the shame, but it’s painful to hear your own dad like that. What was I supposed to say? My father, my only parent left alive, was as big a loser as I was.

“Hannah, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay, Dad.”

Why
did
I
say
that?
It
wasn’t
okay, but I didn’t know any other answer.

“I’ve been so sad,” he said, “and I haven’t dealt with my grief. That’s not an excuse, but…”

But
that’s your excuse.

Just
like
it’s mine.

“It’s okay,” I repeated.

“I’m…what I’ve done is unforgivable. I can’t…I can’t go on like this. I need help.”

Hello? Just call him Sherlock
.

“I’m going to go into a rehab program.”

“Oh. Okay. Are you still in the movie?”

“I…um, I don’t think so, no.”

Kevin’s hateful voice floated into my brain.
Your
drunk
dad
better
not
wreck
my
movie
.

There was a long, tortured pause.

“So,” I said, determined to make this call I’d wished for last longer than two minutes, “are you okay? Were you hurt…in the wreck?”

“I’m okay. I…have some stitches in my chin…thank God nobody was seriously hurt.”

I’d read in the newspaper that he was paying all the medical bills for the Indianapolis tourists.

“I’m glad too, Dad. What…um, what will you do in rehab?”

I could almost
see
him squirming. We were out of practice at being so honest. It was hard. “I’ll mostly have therapy, I guess. I need to learn to deal with, you know, my feelings, without covering them up with drinking.”

My heart banged so loud in my skull it reminded me of the pounding from my horrible nosebleeds. I took a deep breath. “Daddy?” I hadn’t called him that for years. It just floated out of my mouth, sounding too high and girly. “I-I think I need rehab too.”

A long silence.

“Not for drinking,” I said. “But for my…bulimia.” I had to brace myself to say it out loud, and I swear, I could feel
him
brace, even with a thousand miles between us. “I need help.”

“Have you been talking to your aunt about this?” His words were clipped, skeptical.

“Yes, but…Dad, this is for real. I don’t want to do this anymore. I need help too.”

“Honey, if you don’t want to do that anymore, why don’t you just
stop?
”

The cruelty of it took my breath away.

“I
can’t
just stop, Dad. I’ve tried. I don’t know
how
.”

“It’s a question of willpower, Hannah.”

“Is that your problem too?” I asked. “No willpower?”

“Hannah, that’s not fair. Addiction is a serious illness.”

“So is bulimia!”

His sigh was so loaded with irritation it made me want to smash this phone down on his head. So
he
got to need help, but I didn’t?

“Hannah, think about it: it’s a choice. Why don’t you just stop bingeing?”

“Why don’t
you
just stop drinking?” I said.

Then I hung up.

• • •

I
hated
feeling mad at my dad. How did that happen? All I had wanted for a whole week was for him to call me! Then he did and what did I do? I had to get all nasty and mean. Of
course
, all I wanted to do after that call was binge. The anger buzzed like hornets trapped under my skin. I couldn’t sit still. I paced the hallway. I started picturing it: how I could go fill up my gym bag with food from the cupboards while Aunt Izzy worked in her office.

My phone vibrated. It was Dad. I let it go to voice mail.

I went to the kitchen and made myself a cup of licorice tea. I stood at the sink and drank it.

Dad called again.

Then a third time. I still didn’t answer.

The buzzing under my skin got worse. I circled the kitchen five times. I looked in the cupboards. There was plenty I could scrounge up for a binge. I reached for a box of Life cereal.

I put it back.

Come
on.
You
know
it
will
feel
good.
You’re under so much stress.

I took the box back down. I opened it.

Think
of
it.
Peace
and
quiet.
Relief
.
Just
something
to
release
the
pressure.

With trembling hands, I poured one bowl of cereal, then put the box back in the cupboard.

That’s it? That’s all?
You
expect
that
to
help?

I poured milk over the cereal, got a spoon, and walked into the living room. I heard Aunt Izzy and Pearl talking in her office.

I sat on the couch and ate a bite of cereal.

You’re not going to really just eat this, are you?
What’s the point?
You
could
eat
the
whole
box
and
feel
better.
And
not
have
any
of
the
calories.
I
thought
you
wanted
to
be
skinny.

I picked up the remote and turned on the TV. Just to drown out the voice. I found a stupid
Where
Are
They
Now?
program, publicly humiliating toppled celebrities. How long before my dad ended up on one of these shows?

Dad called back a fourth time. I ignored the phone, upped the volume on the TV, and ate my cereal, not even tasting it.

Then Aunt Izzy came out of her office, shutting the door behind her, on her cell phone. It didn’t take me long to figure out through her one-sided conversation that she was talking to my dad. Guilt rushed through me for not taking his calls. What kind of daughter was I?

Aunt Izzy talked in the kitchen. When I heard my mother’s name mentioned, I lowered the volume on the TV and strained my ears. I couldn’t turn the volume off; it would be too obvious I was eavesdropping. I flipped through some channels, found something quieter, and tried to hear what Aunt Izzy said.

“Well, Annabeth can’t be used as a real judge, though, because she never entirely understood it. It was always an issue between us.”

What was she talking about?

“Yeah…right, right…she said that to me often…but, Caleb, there’s nothing simple about eating reasonably to someone with an eating disorder. Just like there’s nothing simple about drinking reasonably to an alcoholic.”

She was quiet a long time. I froze, cereal spoon in my hand.

“It stops being about being thin. That’s not the issue any more than the point of your drinking is to get drunk, am I right?”

Aunt Izzy wandered into the living room, noticed me there, and walked back into the kitchen. When she spoke again, I realized she’d gone up the stairs. I couldn’t make out what she was saying anymore.

I looked down. My cereal bowl was empty. I didn’t remember eating it. I got up and poured myself another. I flipped through channels until I returned to the
Where
Are
They
Now?
show.

Pretty soon, Aunt Izzy’s voice became audible again. “Of course. What about school?”

Was he asking for me to stay here? I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. I didn’t want to go home and face the train wreck of our lives, but I wanted Dad to
want
me there.

School. That meant Brooke and Brittany and Bebe. And Kevin. My skin itched. The hornets buzzed.
You’d feel better.
Just
do
it.

“I leave for Ghana again next Wednesday,” she said.

I’d forgotten about that.
How long was Dad in rehab? If Aunt Izzy was out of the country and Dad was in rehab, where was I supposed to stay?

Suddenly, a blast of loud drum music blared from the office.
Really
loud drum music, with people singing in the background. When it stopped, I heard just a few syllables of Aunt Izzy in the kitchen before the exact same drum sequence played again.

Then a third time. Then a fourth.

“Perfect!” Pearl yelled from the office.

But by that point, Aunt Izzy was off the phone. She sat beside me on the couch.

“Didn’t Dad want to talk to me?” I asked, sounding offended.

She pursed her lips into sort of a smile. “Oh, I think you made it pretty clear you didn’t want to talk to
him
.”

“Is he mad?”

“No. You made him listen. Good for you.”

Before I could say anything else, though, she reached for the remote and shut off the TV. She gestured to my cereal bowl and said, “I’ll let you in on the only eating tip you’ll ever need. It’s not a dieting tip. It’s a life tip. When you eat something, just eat.”

What?
I cocked my head and raised my eyebrows, expecting more.

“When you’re eating, only eat,” she repeated. “Don’t watch TV, don’t read, don’t drive. Just eat with your entire awareness. Taste every bite. Pay attention. Learn to listen to your body.”

I wanted to say that was the stupidest thing I’d ever heard, but then I thought about that first bowl of cereal.

I looked down at the second bowl, half-eaten.

I wasn’t hungry anymore, not really, but it was comforting to crunch the cereal. I liked how it felt in my mouth.

“I’m telling you,” she said, “it’s the simplest thing in the world. No one would be fat or anorexic or bulimic if we’d just learn to do that one thing. But, as you well know, simple and easy are two very different things.”

I nodded. “How long will he be in rehab?”

She didn’t seem bothered by my change in subject. “Twenty-eight days. At least.”

“Does he have to live there, or does he go during the day?”

“He has to stay there. He’s actually not allowed to leave. It was this or jail, Hannah.”

Oh. I hadn’t known that part.

“Did he say where I’m supposed to stay if you’re leaving the country?”

“He has no idea, but how would you like to go to Africa?”

I froze.
He
has
no
idea?
That terrified me. Was he no longer capable of the most basic things a father was supposed to do?

“He’ll never let me go to Africa,” I said, in a voice I hardly recognized. I said that instead of shouting, “I can’t go to Africa! My dad needs me at home!”

Because he was supposed to need me, right?

Because he was supposed to want me to come home, right?

I didn’t
want
to go to Africa.

I was scared of Africa.

How would I binge? How would I purge?

My dad would never let me go so far away from him, right?

Wrong.