When We Were Friends (24 page)

I heard myself scream, a high-pitched sound like a rusty hinge that suddenly stopped as I hit the ground.

I stared at Sydney wide-eyed—
ohnoIcan’tbreathe, I can’t breathe!—
and Sydney saw the panic on my face and screamed. She flew back over the fence and knelt by me. “Lainey? Lainey! What’s wrong? Say something!” Absurdly she reached for my wrist to check my pulse while I writhed against her, fighting for breath. My eyes were watering,
can’tbreathe, can’tbreathe I’mgoingtodie!
And then, my diaphragm loosened. I sucked in a breath and then another, and then I started to cry.

Sydney hugged my head, stroking my hair. “What’s wrong? Where’s it hurt?”

But
all
of me hurt, my head, my butt, my back, and oh my ankle. My ankle! The pain in my ankle was wrenching, a dagger radiating up my leg. I made a sobbing sound as I eased off my sneaker, tried to peel down my sock and sobbed again.

“You think it’s broken?” Sydney said, staring at it in awe. Already it was swollen to twice its natural size. “Can you walk?”

I couldn’t even breathe without sending the dagger up through my entire body. I shook my head, then started to wail.

“Okay, hold on,” she said, and flew back over the fence, threw the towels on my side and then returned. “You think we can wrap it? Like an Ace bandage?”

“No!”

“Okay, okay, just let me …” She folded the towels and slipped her hands under my calf, easing my ankle to rest on them. I cried out again and she rubbed gently at my knee. “Listen,” she said, “listen … I’m going to have to leave you for just a little bit, okay? But I’ll be back real soon, I promise.” And then something occurred to her. Back over the fence she went, and a minute later Popsicles were raining to the ground beside me. Back on my side, she gathered them and packed them carefully around my ankle. She stood and kissed the top of my head. “Just don’t move,” she said—somewhat unnecessarily—and then, she was gone.

I don’t know how much time passed. I found myself woozing in and out of a state of delirium, surrounded only by the pain. As I lay there, wailing pitifully, I became more and more sure that she wouldn’t return. That I’d be left in the middle of the woods, stranded, shivering, wasting away until I was found a year later, dead, the only evidence of what had happened to me the multicolored Popsicle stains on my sock. I started to scream for help, but the tensing it took shot straight to my ankle. I threw up, hunched forward, felt the dark sheet of death draw over my consciousness and then …

I heard voices and the snapping of twigs underfoot. I cried out again and three men appeared with a stretcher, Sydney leading them. She was out of breath, ponytail loose and lopsided, her face streaming with dirt and tears.

It only occurred to me much later what Sydney had risked to save me. She’d known how her mother would react when she found out what we’d done: the screaming, the grounding, the months of sarcastic comments about Sydney’s “criminal nature.” She could’ve abandoned me, realizing that of course I’d be found the next morning—I was only feet away from the swimming pool, after all—and when found I never would’ve admitted she’d been with me. No one
would ever have known. But I’d seen the pain on her face when she returned with the EMT, like my agony was her own, and the only thing she’d cared about was making my agony go away.

Sad, thinking back, how much this had amazed me.

And now more than two decades later, I was trying to find comfort from the memory, believe it meant she was telling the truth, that she’d never turn me in. I’d never fully trusted Sydney even back then, but I’d also known she had two sides. And now I had to believe in the side I’d seen the night I’d broken my ankle, a girl who hadn’t wanted me to hurt, had sacrificed herself to save me.

As foolish as believing in Star’s tarot cards, I guess, the cards she drew chosen by a universe that had never had any compunction about screwing me over. And I imagined that universe now watching me and shaking its head, wondering how many times it had to show me before I learned.

I’d called Pamela after getting Sydney’s message, asked her to confront Sydney, find out what the hell was going on. I tried to convince myself I was overreacting, that the fists speedbag-punching my insides were just a hereditary overreaction. But I felt so absurdly vulnerable here alone with the baby, not knowing what the authorities might have learned that they weren’t disclosing to the media. Like those dreams where you try and run to escape some impossible unspecified danger, but find yourself pedaling air.

My first instinct was to leave immediately, just move, stay on the run traveling from cheap motel to cheap motel. Or maybe I could just stay here in the house, emerge only in winter when it wouldn’t look so odd to hide behind a ski mask, perhaps also a burka.

I slept fitfully that night, waking several times with a start and listening for police sirens, gripping the covers to keep myself from going back to the computer to look for updates, search for my name.

The next morning, hoping the distraction would keep me from slipping into actual clinical insanity, I started work on the yard.

I visited a nursery on the outskirts of town and filled the car with weed killers, bug killers, cedar mulch, fertilizer and masses of flowers, the nursery owner instructing me on how to prepare the soil, planting depths and required amounts of sun. And then I carried it
all home, Molly in the backseat surrounded by plants, like an Anne Geddes photo.

While Alex finished a book review and Molly napped in her carrier on the porch, I set to work preparing the garden. It was harder than I’d thought it would be, lugging the spreader in parallel paths over the raggedy, rock-strewn lawn and tilling the loamy soil with compost. The sun, which in the beginning had been intoxicating, by late afternoon had become cloying, and I could feel the sweat trickling down my sides. But there was also something primally satisfying about physical labor in the outdoors, being able to put all my attention on hauling and digging and the ache in my muscles, which made the terror of the past evening seem peripheral in a way. I wasn’t usually all that big on nature; earth was dirty, plants gave me allergies, and birds woke me up too early and dropped white crap on my windshield. But that afternoon, surrounded by the open, seductive green, I started to understand why a person might want to hug a tree.

“It looks great!” Alex said, walking out the front door.

I looked over the torn up land, the spreader-squashed dandelions, the flowers still in their plastic trays all wilting in the sun. “It does not,” I said.

He gave an exaggerated wince. “Okay, I’m glad you said it first. I didn’t want to insult you. It’s looking like the yard was attacked by giant worms. But I’m sure it’ll look better as soon as the flowers are in.”

“Well I’m about seventy percent sure it’ll look better. Can’t look much worse, anyway.”

Molly started squirming in her carrier so I approached her, then noticed the state of my hands. “No worries,” Alex said, unstrapping her. “You want to get cleaned up? I’ll get dinner started. Just grilling up some salmon so it’ll be pretty quick.”

“Oof, more food,” I said. “I thought all this work might make me lose some weight, but the way you’ve been feeding me, I’m on my way to an early death and burial in a piano-sized coffin.”

But in fact, I’d stepped on the bathroom scale that morning and found I’d lost three pounds. Three pounds! In a week! Maybe it was dehydration, a loss of sweat and tears. Or maybe his scale needed calibration, but still, I felt different. Lighter. Like if I jumped, I might actually not ever come back down.

I was getting dressed after my shower, wearing only a bra and underwear, when Star called.

“Ma.” I sat on the bed with a thump. “Have you heard anything? Do you know what’s going on?”

I heard her breathing accelerate, a two-toned rasp, like a hacksaw. “What do you mean!” she said. “What’s going on?”

I shook my head quickly. What the hell was I thinking, asking her? “Nothing,” I said weakly, “I heard there’s nothing new. And that David’s the only one they suspect.” And then to prevent myself from blurting any more inanities I said, “So how are you?”

“I …” She hesitated, then started again. “I …”

“You what?”

“Am not great.” Her voice was hoarse. “Okay? You’re right and Pamela’s right. I’m failing at taking care of myself. But I’d rather die than keep failing you as a parent, so if the trip up there kills me then so be it. It would all be a wash.”

I looked down at my pale thighs, feeling an unexpected punch of fear. “Ma … you’re coming? Really?”

“Let’s not talk about it, okay? I already made myself sick just thinking about it. I should tell Pamela to bring Craig tomorrow in case they have to actually drag me into the car. Or maybe he can slip me a roofie.” Her voice trailed off, and then she made a hissing sound before she said, “Pamela’s a saint, you know that? They should make a Pamela medal. She had to get me into the shower and dressed today. How pathetic is that? What’s wrong with me?”

It was so long since I’d heard her like this; like those days she’d had panic attacks not just when I pulled her out the door, but also
when she just imagined the attack she’d have once I pulled her out. We’d realized pretty soon that there was no point in trying, that it was ludicrous to keep pretending she’d get better. And at the time, to be honest, my main reaction had been disgust and anger. Because I was fifteen, a disgusted and angry age, but also because I needed her to be normal. Needed her to take care of me, when she couldn’t even take care of herself.

But now, with distance I could see how hard she’d tried, how tenaciously she was fighting. “Stop, Ma,” I said gently. “Maybe you think you’re weak, but you’re really the strongest, most generous person I know. Yeah, your brain’s screwed up, but leaving the only place you feel safe, it’s like you’re jumping into quicksand to help me. And if it turns out you don’t make it into the car after all, I’ll understand.”

Star was quiet a long time, and I imagined how she must be feeling: gratitude, relief, new resolve. But when she finally spoke she said, “You little witch, you knew that’d make me feel like crap, didn’t you.”

“Honestly, that wasn’t my intention,” I said, smiling. “But if all it takes is a guilt trip to get you out of the house, then I’m here for you anytime.”

“I have to ask you a huge favor,” I told Alex that night, as we sat by the fireplace with mugs of cocoa. “And honestly if you say no, I’ll completely, totally understand. But the thing is my mother, she has problems. I’ve told you some of it, but not all.” Why was this so hard for me? Because Star was embarrassing, because she was a mirror of sorts, making
me
embarrassing by association. Because of the day Sydney had seen Star sitting on the floor in front of the evening news, doing reading after reading for the women and children at Chernobyl, and had pulled me out of the living room to whisper, “Your mom’s
weird.
”

I set down my mug. “I told you how she’s agoraphobic. If she tries to leave the house, it’s like the floor drops out from under her. And she gets these attacks, these panic attacks. She’s scared of everything.”

“And you’ve been dealing with this since you were a kid?” He looked into my eyes, shaking his head slightly. “Jesus, Leah, no wonder you’re so strong.”

“I’m strong because of who she was
before
she got so sick.” This was the first of his compliments that I hadn’t immediately discounted, and it shocked me a bit. I replayed the words in my head:
I am strong
. “But now she’s been worrying about everything that’s
going on with me and Molly, it’s getting so she can hardly take care of herself.”

I looked over at Molly who was on the floor, exercising her pincer skills with a plate of Cheerios, and I wondered if being here in Molly’s presence would make things better or worse. Whether Star would be able to absorb the innocent joy Molly pulled from every day, or if it would just remind Star of all there was to fear. “A friend of mine, she stopped by and said my mom’s piled furniture against the front door, piled
herself
against the door, and I don’t know what else to do.” I wrapped my arms across my chest. “She can’t stay alone anymore.”