The Way Back from Broken (8 page)

His mother wiped away her tears and spoke to her hands. “Your dad and I have processed your sister's passing in very different ways.”

“So that's it?” Rakmen said. “You're getting divorced without even trying?”

His mom's head snapped up. “I didn't say divorce.”

“But that's what you are saying, isn't it? Enough with the therapy talk.”

“You will stop, son,” said his dad, finally meeting his eyes. “Stop with the drama like this is all about you. We're not getting divorced—”

The
yet
dangled in the air between them.

“But we do need some time to refocus our marriage,” his mom finished.

Rakmen imagined that he could hear the shattering of glass as things fell apart. Death. Divorce. They were fighting words, permanent words. And he was mad again, ready to punch someone in the face even if it meant getting the shit kicked out of him again. He spread his arms toward his parents in a gesture that said be my guest. They could knock themselves out trying to fix what was broken.

“Right now,” said his dad, “we're very focused on you, your grades, and now this.” He gestured at Rakmen's black eyes. “Fighting. You don't have a job lined up or any activities this summer. It's not a recipe for success.”

“I'm not a cake mix,” Rakmen muttered.

“We need some space to work on our issues,” said his mom, “and we think you need a change of scene. Away from the memories.”

Rakmen was rocking back and forth in the bed the way he'd been rocking Dora to sleep the night she died. He hadn't noticed her breathing change until it was too late. And then there was screaming and his dad wrenching her from his arms and the way he could remember the pattern on the rug in that room exactly.

“You're sending me away,” he said.

“It's a great opportunity for new experiences.” The false cheer in his mom's voice slid down his spine like ice water. “Leah said she spent all her summers at the lake cabin when she was a kid and loved it.”

Of course, they were sending him away. He was the left-behind reminder of what they had lost. They would be better off without him.

“You can swim and fish,” his dad added.

“I don't know how to fish,” said Rakmen, then the exact meaning of what they were saying fell into place and he nearly choked. “You want me to go with Mrs. Tatlas and her psycho daughter to the middle of freaking nowhere? Are you crazy? I'm not doing that.”

His mom began to explain, but his dad cut her off. “This is not a choice.”

Rakmen swung his head from one to the other and back again, trying to read their faces. He knew they were desperate, but he'd had no idea they were so far gone. Mrs. Tatlas wasn't a life raft. She was a sinking ship.

“You can't do this,” he protested. “She's not right in the head. You've seen her. She's worse than you guys—”

His mom stiffened. “She is grieving. There's nothing wrong with that. And she's been good to you. Extra help on that last test and now this offer to take you on vacation.”

“Vacation?” Mrs. Tatlas was half in this world and half in the grave. His mom couldn't see it, and his dad didn't seem to care. Fear slid through Rakmen. Nothing good could come from following her. “Please, Dad” he said, imploring. “I won't get in the way. I won't fight again. I'll find a job.”

A tired, sad smile rolled across his dad's face and then faded. He reached over and squeezed Rakmen's shoulder. “This family has been through a lot. I'll do what I have to do here. You might be surprised what you get out of the summer if you're open to it. It's time to man up. For both of us.”

CHAPTER 9

Molly leaned into Rakmen's shoulder. “I can't believe they're sending you away.”

“Me neither.” It was the last day of June, and the two of them sat on the porch steps leaning against his dad's old army duffel, waiting.

“Promise House is going to suck without you,” she said.

“It sucked with me.”

Molly laughed. “You're right. It did.”

He shifted against some unidentified lump in the duffel. Bear mace? Snake bite kit? Who knew what Mom had packed in anticipation of his two-month sentence to the wilderness. She'd gone off her rocker at the army surplus store buying boots, rain gear, bug repellent, a flashlight, and even a sheath knife that looked more gang-banger than Boy Scout.

“This is gonna be worse,” he said.

“There's nothing worse.”

“Jacey,” Rakmen offered, raising one eyebrow.

Molly elbowed him. “She's not that bad.”

Rakmen snorted. Jacey had called three times this morning to remind him to eat dinner early because they had to leave for the airport at six o'clock sharp. “You could be wrong,” Molly continued. “You're staying on a lake. Maybe you can learn to water ski.”

“I'll probably break my neck.”

“That's cheery.”

He kept the lid on his real worry—Mrs. Tatlas. He doubted she could keep it together long enough to do anything as complicated as water skiing. She could do far worse than break plates, and he'd be a long way from anyone who could help. “Anyway,” he said, nudging Molly's forearm and staring at the sprinkling of freckles there. “You didn't have to come for the send-off. Couldn't wait to get rid of me, huh?”

She snorted. “There's your girlfriend.”

The Tatlases' battered blue Subaru wheezed around the corner. Jacey hung out the window waving so hard he thought her arm might fall off.

“I can't believe this,” said Rakmen.

“Hey, before they get out, I want to give you something.” Molly handed him a small wrapped box.

“What? You didn't have to do that.”

“I thought it would be nice if you came back.”

Rakmen tore through the paper to find a Garmin GPS. “Wow! Thanks. This is amazing.” He couldn't imagine ever affording something so nice. And his hand was very close to Molly's on the box.

“Promise you won't get lost?” Her fingers slid closer. Warmth rushed through him, an unfamiliar lightness. She knew him and understood him and still wanted to graze his fingertips with her own.

And he was about to fly nearly three thousand miles away from her.

Still, Rakmen grinned. If Molly Campbell didn't want him lost, he was definitely NOT getting lost.

Jacey bounded, rabbit-like, toward them, jittering to a stop inches from his knees. “What's that? Can I see it? What's it do?” She squeezed in between them and wheedled it out of his hands, squealing.

Save me
, he mouthed over the girl's rumpled head, but Molly only smiled and shrugged. Jacey's parents joined them, her dad awkwardly shaking Rakmen's hand and Mrs. Tatlas looking like the effort of standing was almost too much. Rakmen could see red rimming her eyes. The heaviness flooded back in, dousing the spark that had passed between his fingers and Molly's. He was condemned.

“I've got something for you too, kiddo,” Molly said, taking the GPS out of Jacey's hands and handing it back to Rakmen. She reached into her purse and gave Jacey a small box wrapped in yellow tissue paper. “Here you go.”

Jacey tore off the wrapping. “Wow, wow, wow!” she shrieked, flinging her body into Molly's arms. “You're the best!” She rushed to her parents to show off the pink digital camera. “Can you believe this?”

“Oh, Molly,” Mrs. Tatlas said. “We really can't . . .”

“I wanted to,” said Molly, standing to hug Mrs. Tatlas. She squeezed Jacey's arm again. “Rakmen will teach you how to use it.”

Behind them, the screen door opened, and Rakmen's and Molly's parents came out for the big goodbye. Rakmen wished everyone wasn't making such a big show of it.

“It's time to go,” said Mr. Tatlas. “Can I give you a hand with that, Rakmen?”

Jacey wrapped her arms around his duffel. “I got it!” When she'd hefted it a foot off the ground, her whole body began to wobble.

“You're gonna kill yourself,” Rakmen said, scooping it out of her arms before she toppled.

The three mothers froze, and Rakmen felt the chill that followed the word he couldn't call back. For several moments, there was too much silence and too much space. When the women forced themselves back into motion, each one looked at her empty hands as if she could weigh absence. Together, they walked to the car like mourners. Only Jacey jigged and bopped like she was going to a party.

Rakmen breathed in the summer evening—the bite of diesel in the air, garden dirt, and burgers cooking next door. This was what he knew, but it no longer felt like home. He was a runaway truck with burned out brakes. The ache that filled Rakmen pulsed in his bones, white-cold and penetratingly deep. With leaden arms, he hoisted his duffel into the trunk. Dad swept him into a bear hug, slapping his back so hard it sent a jolt of pain through his healing rib. Molly was next in line. She whispered, “Come back safe,” and her lips grazed his ear. He thought of the moth against the bars and wanted to crush her to his chest.

Jacey pulled him into the backseat, and the smile on her face was so wide you could drive a semi through it. His mom leaned in to kiss him one more time. “I'll miss you,
mi corazón
.”

Another fragile thing in a cage of bone.
Mi corazón
, my heart.

That was the place he didn't want to go.

Dora's heart-shaped face, every detail of her tiny lips and silky eyelashes. The way he'd noticed everything but her overworked heart grinding to a halt.

The car's engine whined to life.

He choked out his last good-byes.

And before he knew it, Rakmen was skimming through his city as if he didn't belong there. Beside him, Jacey snapped pictures with her new camera—Juan's favorite taqueria, a bedraggled Chinese New Year dragon rotting in a parking lot, the bridge that reminded him of church windows.

CHAPTER 10

Rakmen slept for most of the flight from Portland to Chicago, waking only once when Jacey spilled ginger ale in her lap. Mrs. Tatlas mopped up the mess in strained silence. The girl's apology spilled out after the mess—
I'msorryI'msorryI'msorry
. When her mother didn't respond, Jacey curled up, stuck a piece of hair into her mouth, and buried her face against Rakmen's shoulder.

They slept until the plane thudded down the runway. Rakmen's sleeve was damp where she had pressed against it, but he didn't know if the wet was sweat or drool or tears. It was dark in Chicago, the middle of the night. Rain streaked the windows. They dragged themselves off the plane and into the terminal to wait for the next flight.

Their gate was near a security checkpoint. A TSA agent with a wispy mustache and a paunch that strained against his uniform swabbed hands for bomb residue. Another, an older woman with a bad dye job, stared into the luggage scanning screen, the contents of each carry-on revealed in X-ray black and white.

Rakmen flattened his notebook against his thigh.

September 11th. Homemade explosives. Planes going down.

He'd been little when the towers fell, had grown up in a world where they could.

Nauseous and unsettled from the time change and sour airport smells, Rakmen shifted in the uncomfortable plastic seat, watching Mrs. Tatlas out of the corner of one eye. She felt dangerous. He didn't want to get on the airplane with her.

The security line had thinned, finished. The TSA agents were talking. He couldn't help overhearing. The woman had a husband with cancer. The fat guy said his mom did too, and he knew he should stop smoking, but he couldn't. It was the only pleasure he had.

D'Shawn hadn't smoked. No one in his family had. But cancer snuck in, waiting for an opportunity, quiescent until it exploded.
Civilian casualties. Hidden threats. Security breaches.

As soon as they boarded the flight from Chicago to Toronto, Rakmen balled up his jacket and tried to sleep against the window, but when a family with a sleepy toddler and a baby sat across the aisle from them, Mrs. Tatlas nudged him awake. “Switch with me.” He blinked at her, blurry with exhaustion. “Take the aisle.”

The baby squawked as the dad tried to settle him against his chest.

Mrs. Tatlas winced. “Please,” she said through gritted teeth.

They snarled the procession of embarking passengers as he, Jacey, and Mrs. Tatlas switched places. She plastered her face to the window, staring out into the dark nothing and the rain.

The baby cried all the way to Toronto. “It's okay, baby. It's okay. Everything is okay,” the baby's father whispered ceaselessly.

There were men who put bombs in bags at the finish line of marathons.

People lost their legs.

. . .

In the thin light of dawn, they were in a rental car heading north. Mrs. Tatlas, hunched over the wheel, hit scan on the stereo. The radio flicked past Christian stations and French stations and classical music and talk shows about fishing. She settled on
'80s
rock.

Next to him in the backseat of the moving vehicle, Jacey took pictures of the roller coaster at Canada's Wonderland, a captive herd of buffalo, and fields of corn.

“They won't come out,” he told her.

“They will.”

“They'll be blurry.”

“But the good kind. The blurry that says go fast!” She bounced in the seat, pointing her camera at him. He held his hands up in front of his face, but she took his picture anyway.

An hour outside of the city, they stopped for coffee and donuts at Tim Hortons. Bright signs inside proclaimed that he could donate and help the Children's Foundation send a child to camp. The posters had pictures of all kinds of kids—black, white, Asian, Indian—grinning ear to ear as they navigated a ropes course.

Mrs. Tatlas had promised the summer would be something like that, all sun sparkly and wholesome, but she hardly looked like a camp counselor. Her clothes were wrinkled from sleeping in them all night. The lines of her face were thin cracks, spreading out from her eyes, rumpling around her lips.