The Gifting (17 page)

Cold eggs and overcooked bacon sit in front of me at the kitchen table. Mom—a constant swirl of motion—has not yet changed out of her robe or taken the curlers from her hair. Pete looks from me to Mom to Dad’s empty seat while the clock on the wall ticks into the silence. First period has already begun.

I cross my arms, my confusion morphing into anger with each passing tick. I don’t understand why this has to be a big family meeting. I don’t understand why Mom had to call Dad, who left early this morning for work, or why she won’t say a word until he arrives. She should have told me the truth in the foyer. It’s more than obvious grandma is still alive. Pleading the fifth only confirms it.

A car door slams shut outside and the front door opens. Mom stops her frantic movements at the sink and walks out of the kitchen. I want to follow her, make sure they aren’t coming up with more lies out in secret. But I know they will only send me away. So I curl my fingers beneath the bottom of the seat and ignore Pete, who only has me to stare at now.

Dad comes in first, loosening his tie. Mom follows, worrying her bottom lip. He scoots out Mom’s chair for her to sit, then takes a seat with a loud sigh. When he meets my gaze, his face is as neutral as Dr. Roth’s. “What makes you think your grandmother is alive?”

I raise my chin. “Does it matter?”

Mom and Dad share a look.

“It’s obvious she is. If she were dead you would just say so. Mom wouldn’t have called you back from work.”

Pete looks at all three of us with narrowed, interested eyes. If he were a rabbit, his ears would be cocked back. The thought reminds me of the man with the scar. Why did he call me Little Rabbit? And what did he mean when he said Luka was dangerous company?

Dad folds his hands over the table. “Your grandmother isn’t well.”

“Isn’t? As in present tense?”

He nods.

Pete sits up straighter in his chair, his mouth open.

I shake my head, confusion completely replaced by a hot anger that courses through my veins. “Why did you lie to us? Why did you say she was dead? Where is she? What’s wrong with her?” The questions come out in quick sputters, so close together it’s as if they are tripping over each other’s heels. I think about the old woman from my dream—her frail, wasted form shackled to that bed. I think about her raspy plea for help and her frantic eyes. “Is she safe? Is she—?”

“Calm down, Tess,” Dad says. “She’s in a facility.”

“A facility?”

“Honey, we weren’t lying about her suffering from psychosis.” Mom twists and untwists a napkin with nervous fingers. “We weren’t.”

“Why? Why would you lie about her being dead?”

“We thought it was better this way.”

“Better? How is this better? Tell me where she is. I want to go see her.” I scoot back my chair, but Dad reaches out and stops me from standing.

“You can’t see her, Tess. None of us can.”

“Why can’t we see her? Where is she? And what do you mean, ‘a facility’?”

Dad slowly releases my arm, his shoulders rising and falling with a resigned breath. “She’s in a home for the mentally unstable.”

“Where?”

“Oregon.”

“For how long?”

“Fifteen years.”

“Against her will?” I glare at him, then Mom. Tears pool in her eyes, but I don’t care. I never imagined my parents to be cruel or uncaring. Yet my father has had his own mother locked up for fifteen years?

“She was delusional, Tess. She had very incoherent thoughts. Nothing she said made sense. She was admitted to a hospital for almost a year. The doctors diagnosed her with paranoid schizophrenia. Your mother and I would visit. She seemed to be improving. But then …” Dad folds his hands again and shakes his head.

“Then what?”

“Then she escaped. I was away at work and she showed up at our home while your mother was at the doctor for Pete’s two week checkup. A babysitter was with you. Your grandmother showed up and tried to take you. Thankfully, your mom got home before she could. She had you in her arms and she was babbling like a madwoman. We had to call the authorities. Your mother was terrified she was going to hurt you.”

Dad’s story hits me like a glass full of ice water to the face. I sit there, in shock, blinking dumbly. My grandmother tried to kidnap me? Why? None of it makes any sense. “I don’t get it. Why did she want me? What did she say?”

“It doesn’t matter. She had crazy thoughts in her head. She was unwell. By the time the police arrived, she didn’t even know where she was.”

I look at my brother, who stares at me in the same way he stared at me back in Jude, after the séance—a glimmer of intrigue in his dark eyes.

“After that, she was admitted into an institute for the mentally insane. We visited a few times, but our visits made the psychosis worse. Every time we saw her, she would …” Dad’s voice trails off. He stares at some spot over my shoulder, his expression far away.

I lean over the table. “She would what?”

“It doesn’t matter. She was completely lost by then. The doctors discouraged our visits. When she knew we were coming, she would refuse her medication and her condition would accelerate. So we followed the doctor’s orders and stopped coming. We never told you or Pete about this because it wasn’t your burden to bear. And anyway, it doesn’t matter. There’s nothing any of us can do.”

“Doesn’t matter?” I push back my chair. “You didn’t see her the way I saw her. She was locked up like a prisoner. She was terrified.”

Mom’s face pales. “See her? Honey, what are you talking about?”

“She was in my dream last night.” Mom and Dad exchange worried, skeptical glances. Pete’s mouth gapes even wider. “You don’t understand. She was locked up. She was trying to get out, but she couldn’t.”

The doubt on their faces makes me want to scream. It’s like I’m slipping away, dropping off into some unknown oblivion, and they are just sitting there watching it happen.

“You don’t believe me.”

Mom reaches across the table and puts her cold hand over mine. I want to jerk away from her touch. “Sweetheart, it was a dream.”

“No, it wasn’t.” The words escape through clenched teeth. “It was real.”

Dad rubs his jaw. “Tess …”

“I’m not crazy.”

“We don’t think you are.” Mom looks at Dad, then at me. “We’re just worried. And confused. We thought things were going well for you this past month. You’ve looked so happy. Leela’s a great friend. And Dr. Roth seemed to be helping.”

“It was. He was. It was good. But then …” A headache forms in my temple. I close my eyes and dig my fingers into my hair. “I don’t know.”

“We’ll talk to Dr. Roth. I’m sure there’s some medicine you can take.”

“Medicine?” The word escapes like a pathetic squeak.

“If there’s something that can help you with these nightmares, then there’s no shame in taking it, sweetheart.”

My shoulders sag. Maybe Mom’s right. Maybe medicine is the only way I’ll ever get a shot at being normal. It’s obvious that something is not right in my head.

“This is a hurdle, kiddo.” Dad cups his large hand around the back of my neck and gives it a reassuring squeeze. “Not an impenetrable wall. We’ll get over this. You’re not going to become my mother. We won’t let you.”

“Dr. Roth is the best,” Mom says. “He’ll know how to handle this.”

Dad nods. “We don’t want you to worry.”

He says it like the choice is simple. Like all I have to do is put it out of my mind and go about my day. Only they don’t know. They didn’t see my grandmother and they didn’t see that man sticking a gun in his mouth. They don’t know that what happened in my dream happened in real life. They don’t know anything.

A Ruse

I
walk to Ceramics with a late slip in hand. When I step inside, there isn’t the usual chattering or wandering energy as students work on various projects. Instead, everyone sits at tables, heads down, pencils scratching against paper. There are a sum total of two tests in Ceramics and I forgot that today happens to be one of them.

Our teacher stands behind his desk, so absorbed in the glazing of his latest masterpiece that he doesn’t notice me in the doorway. But Luka does. He stares at me with his wiry muscles coiled, as if ready to spring like a lion across the length of the room. His green eyes burn with questions. Swallowing, I shuffle over to our teacher on wobbly legs and hand him the late pass. Without looking up, he nods at the stack of tests. I take one off the top, looking from the empty seat next to Luka to the empty seat next to Leela. I’m not brave enough to take the former, so I pretend not to notice his intense stare-down and walk over to my friend, who watches me with wide, eager eyes.

Before my backside makes contact with the stool, she leans close and whispers, “I’ve been going crazy. I called you a million times last night but you didn’t answer.”

I look over my shoulder, then whisper back, “My phone was on silent.”

“You have to tell me everything that happened. You were in Luka’s house! What did you talk about? Were you nervous? What does his room look like?”

Our teacher clears his throat loudly and gives Leela and me a high-browed stare. I give her a helpless shrug, secretly thankful to be caught. I have no idea what to tell her.

“After class.” Leela mouths the words, then turns her attention to the test.

My stomach tightens as I jot my name on the top of the paper and try to focus on the questions, but they are a blur of incoherent lines and loops and curves. While I fill in bubbles and write answers that can’t be correct, I try to think of something—anything—to tell my friend. But nothing comes. So I stall. By the time both sides are meticulously filled, class is thirty seconds shy of ending. I hand in my test, the bell rings, and when I turn around, Luka stands behind me with my bag.

He puts his hand on the small of my back and ushers me out of class. I manage a quick glance over my shoulder. Leela stands with her mouth open, watching us leave. As soon as we’re out in the hallway, he pulls me toward the wall. Students shuffle past, all of them looking at us, some more discreetly than others.

“I waited for you in my driveway all morning, but you never showed.” He leans closer, bringing with him the clean, fresh scent that is him. “What happened? Where’ve you been?”

The chill that’s haunted me since that man put a gun in his mouth ripples up my spine. I cross my arms as Leela walks out of class. I try to muster up the energy for a friendly smile. She clutches her books to her chest and hurries past, but not before I catch a glimpse of hurt in her eyes. She thinks I’m intentionally leaving her out.

“Tess, you’re killing me.”

My attention zips back to the boy in front of me, waiting for an explanation I’m not sure I’ve found yet. His attractiveness doesn’t bring any coherency to my erratic thoughts either. “Last night, in …” I look around, checking for eavesdroppers. We’re about to enter into a very strange conversation. “Our dream. What happened to me? Where did I go?”

“I don’t know.” His voice is low, for my ears only. “One second you were in front of me, the next you weren’t. But I could hear things. It sounded like you were struggling, like you were fighting to escape something. And then you weren’t in class this morning.”

I look into the green depths of Luka’s eyes. “I wasn’t the one struggling.”

“Who was it?”

“My grandmother.” I press cold, clammy fingers against my temples. I still can’t believe she’s alive.

“Your grandmother? Wait a minute, you mentioned her. Right before …”

A group of seniors walks toward us, their pace slowing like cars at the scene of a crash. They obviously don’t get it—me and Luka. Their skepticism oozes into the air.

Luka leans even closer, so much so that his breath tickles my neck and tingles my skin. I close my eyes, wishing everything but him and the feel of his nearness would disappear. “We can’t talk about this here. I’ll find you at lunch.”

By the time my eyes open, he is already gone.

*

I step out of line with a tray of my usual—apple, sandwich, chocolate milk—and catch Leela waving from our table. Uncertain as to whether I should join her or not, I wave back. Then Luka’s hand presses firmly against the small of my back. “Follow me,” he whispers.

So I do. Because if I don’t dispel all the junk expanding inside my head, I will explode. I just wish me not exploding didn’t have to hurt Leela. Her face clouds with confusion as I give her a helpless shrug and follow Luka past his friends. Summer and Bobbi and Matt and the others stare at me like I’ve grown a beard or a third ear. I can feel the entire room’s eyes on me as we find a table on the periphery of the cafeteria. Luka pulls out my chair and takes a seat beside me, his back to the student body, which ogles with equal parts curiosity and disbelief.

My attention snags on Pete, who sits at the same table as yesterday, with Wren and Jess, the school freaks. Only instead of sitting in silence, their heads are bent together. Pete’s lips move and I have this unexplainable sinking sensation. Pete and I didn’t debrief after this morning’s impromptu family meeting. Surely he knows that the things we learned are strictly confidential. But when he finishes whatever he’s saying, Wren leans back in her chair, a disturbing, enigmatic glow to her cheeks.