I walked over to the cabinet and grabbed a cup to get her some milk. Amy said she wanted to go to bed, and Meredith kissed her forehead before she wrapped her arms around Amy’s waist and squeezed.
“Ten minutes on your phone, then put it down. I’m going to come up in thirty minutes. That gives you enough time to shower and wash your washables, brush all your brushables”—Amy was suddenly five again, smiling at the saying my mom used on all of us growing up—“put your pajamas on, play on your phone, and be in bed, blankets covering your coverables”—another smile from Amy, and me, too, this time—“and lights off. Okay?”
Amy nodded, and my mom told her she loved her.
After my sister left, my mom settled into drinking warm milk and waiting on an edible batch of cookies to finish in the oven. It was a little after nine, but it was a Saturday, so it was okay for Amy to be up and Jo and Meg to be gone. With my being homeschooled, every day sort of felt the same after a while. I stayed up later than everyone else in my house on most nights, and sometimes my mom would stay up late with me watching horror movies or talking over infomercials. Other nights she would make Jo and the rest go to bed and I would be lying on the couch listening to music and all she would do was kiss me on the forehead and tell me she loved me.
More than a few times Jo threw an absolute fit over me being “the favorite” child, but it was because I was the one who helped our mom run the house while Dad was gone.
“Have you heard from Dad?” I asked.
My drained mom stared at me for a few seconds. She even took a drink of her milk, swished it around in her mouth and all, before she responded. A slow shake of her head was enough for me to know she hadn’t.
Something between an earthquake and a sigh came out of me, and I put my elbows up on the table and rested my head. “How many days has it been?” I asked, even though I knew good and well.
“Four.”
“Fo-our,” I repeated. Four days had felt like four hundred. “Did you ask the FRG?”
My mom nodded. “Two more days and I’m going to reach out to the Red Cross like I did when my dad”—she paused and corrected herself—“your grandpa died. They’ve helped me get ahold of your dad.”
“What if Jo or Meg, or even Amy, asks?” But I wanted to know what was up, too.
Meredith’s robe was falling off her shoulder, and I saw that she was wearing my dad’s clothes. She did that a lot, but during blackouts it was worse. Since my dad was an artillery officer, he would go on missions for days at a time without being able to speak with us. Unfortunately, this felt the same as when someone was injured or killed, when the Army would block out all communication until the family was notified. Those days usually felt like holding your breath while someone repeatedly kicks you in the gut.
Jo and Meg hadn’t asked about Dad, but I wasn’t judging them over it. They had to handle things in their own way, and they both had busy lives. I was the one who spent 90 percent of her time inside the house. The other 10 percent was split up between the grocery store, sometimes to the PX, and random walks to the Shoppette down the street.
“I don’t know, Beth. We’ll just have to tell them. I don’t want to hide anything from them. I just hoped we wouldn’t need to mention it.” Mom’s lip quivered, but she sucked it right back in. “I hoped he would message me by now.”
There was a knock at the door, and my mom’s face curled into something that looked like a creature from the stories Jo used to write. My brain flew to exactly what Mom was thinking.
We both sat perfectly still.
“It’s not possible.” My mom’s breath was ragged, and waves of tears were just on the brink of spilling over.
I moved toward the door and my mom grabbed my arm. Her fingers were tight and I saw only panic on her face.
“No, it’s not possible,” I told her, and gently unhooked her from me.
I looked at her again to tell her it would be fine. She usually believed me, but swirled up in that moment, I didn’t know if I could be trusted.
My heart was violent inside my chest as I crossed from the kitchen tile to the soft carpet of the living room, and my throat was closing, my chest a tick away from heaving as I pulled back the blinds. A car was parked in the driveway, but our porch light was out and all of us kept forgetting to replace it, so I couldn’t make out what type of car it was.
Another knock.
Just before my head started swimming along with my insides, I wrapped my hand around the door handle and yanked it open.
And instead of a destructive landslide, I found Shia King walking backward away from the porch, muttering something to himself.
He raised his hands in the air when I stepped onto the porch—if you could call our series of cement blocks a porch. “Sorry, Beth. Were you sleeping?”
I shook my head.
“Oh, okay, good. Is Meg here?”
His T-shirt had a lion’s face on it and looked like it had been worn a lot.
I shook my head.
He nodded, and his tongue slowly skated across his lips. “Okay,” he said, sounding defeated.
I always liked Shia, even though I didn’t talk to him much. By the time he’d started coming around, hanging out with Meg, I had begun distancing myself from people.
“Well, I’m going”—he drew out the words—“to go.”
The street was so quiet and even more lights were on inside the Laurence house.
“Wait,” I managed.
Shia whipped back around and waited for me to speak.
“She will be back Monday.”
“Where is she?” I must have worn my apprehension on my face because before I could respond he said, “I’m sorry for asking. If you don’t want to tell me, it’s okay.”
I wasn’t as transparent as Jo, but I was close. “No, it’s fine. She’s with John Brooke.” I felt a jab of guilt right below my ribs.
He nodded like he already knew, and I thought he was going to say something besides “How are you, Beth?”—but he didn’t.
I told him I was good, and after ten more seconds passed, my mom came out onto the porch and barreled past me. She was crying and her sobs were slicing through the still Louisiana air as she rushed toward Shia with her robe flowing behind her.
He stepped back and nearly tripped. His face was twisted into something I could only describe as pure panic. He had to be confused by her rabid behavior. I was, and I knew that she assumed he was a messenger delivering earth-shattering news and she was so tired.
“Why are you here?” Her fists were crunched into balls kept still at her side.
“I came to talk to Meg.”
My mom let out a little sound like something between a sigh and a scoff. I thought she was going to push Shia, and I guess Shia thought so, too, because he moved out of her way, backing slowly to his car.
“Why would you think Meg wants to talk to you?” my mom practically yelled, no longer crying. It went away that fast.
I shut the front door behind me and took a few steps toward where they were on the grass.
“I don’t know. I’m not sure she does,” he told my mom in a tone that made me wonder what Shia did to Meg.
I knew all about Meg and Shia’s drama while it was going down. I held my sister’s hair back while she threw up into our kitchen sink after one particular fight with him. She never could handle stress and, just like our mom, vomited easily. It was one of those Friday nights where she told my mom she was “going out,” which meant she was parking the car in the back of the gym parking lot on post and waiting for Shia. Meg told me about their make-out sessions once, but I let the secret slip in front of Meredith, and Meg never forgave me. She called me “Ophelia” for months. I hated being called my ex–best friend’s name as an insult, but I had betrayed her the way Ophelia had betrayed me.
The last time Meg cyberstalked my old best friend, she was dating River. It wasn’t that I expected Ophelia to return even a speck of what I felt for her, but I never
could have expected her to date someone as disgusting as River, even if she didn’t know firsthand how slimy and slithery he was. But she did know, some of the story at least.
Ophelia helped us tear down the demeaning sheets of betrayal. Then she dated him. More than once. But when we first moved here and Meg met Shia, we spent a few nights a week at “my piano lessons.”
“She’s with John Brooke, Shia. That’s where she is!” my mom exclaimed, sounding slightly deranged and more like my oldest sister than herself. “He took her down to the French Quarter for a couple of nights. John Brooke just graduated from West Point, Shia!”
Shia didn’t say a word.
“John Brooke is a nice man who makes my daughter very happy.”
Shia remained stone-faced.