Forever Changed

“I have to go back to school on Thursday,” I said, sinking down on the mattress next to her.

“Okay,” she said listlessly.

“What are we going to do with Peanut?” I asked.

“She can go to her school,” my mom answered, looking at me, but not completely focusing on my face.

“Her gymnastics school?” I asked confused. “Will they let her go all five days?”

She shrugged one of her shoulders.

I sighed, trying not to let my impatience show. “Are you going to call and check?”

“I can’t. They’re bound to ask about your dad, and I just can’t handle that right now,” she said as tears

welled up in her eyes.

“I know Mom,” I said, patting her hand. “I’ll take care of it.”

“Thank you,” she said in a cracking voice.

“Why don’t you get a little sleep,” I said, taking in the dark circles under her eyes that marred her pale face. I knew she wasn’t sleeping since I could hear her rattling through the house at all hours of the night.

“It’s just too hard to sleep without him there.”

“I know Mom,” I said, feeling my own eyes fill with tears. “Why don’t you try to nap in one of the guest rooms?” I added, tugging on her hand so she would stand up.

She followed meekly from the room with exhaustion spurring her on. I settled her in the guest room directly across from mine, and she was out the instant her head hit the pillow. I watched her sleep for several minutes thinking about how my father's heart would break to see her so sad.

Once I was positive she was fast asleep, I covered her with one of the quilts that hung from maple rods my father had hung from the walls of the room and softly closed the door behind me. I found Megan waiting silently for me in the hallway.

“Hey, Peanut, are you hungry?” I asked, swiping the last tears from my cheek, hoping she had missed them.

She nodded her head, looking beyond me at the closed door where my mom rested.

“Mom’s going to sleep in there for a while. Hey, let’s go get some lunch,” I said leading her down to the kitchen.

She trailed behind my every step as I pulled out one of the endless casseroles from our oversized stainless steel freezer and set it out on the counter so it could thaw for dinner. Megan held the fridge door open while I pulled out the sandwich fixings for our lunch. I tried to entice her to talk while I assembled two towering sandwiches for us.

“So guess what?” I asked, slathering ranch on my sandwich.

She looked at me silently, waiting for me to elaborate.

“You get to go to school,” I said, injecting excitement into my voice. A month ago when school had started, my words would have had her squealing with joy. She begged my parents for months to let her to go to school like me, but my mom told her she would miss her too much if she were gone all day. They had compromised by signing her up for a morning gymnastics class, twice a week. Megan thrived in her class and loved to share her tumbling stories with us at the dinner table. She’d been on her way to her Tuesday class when the accident happened. I was left with the task of stripping her out of her ruined leotard. I remember the rust-colored stains as I stripped her down to her cute little panties with the day of the week etched across the bottom. A kind nurse had disposed of the leotard for me as I dressed Megan in cheap pajamas the hospital had provided for us.

“I’m thinking maybe I’ll call the school your friend Mandy goes to,” I said, dragging my thoughts to the present. “Would you like that, Peanut?”

She looked at me critically, wise beyond her years. She’d always been insanely smart and I could tell that she saw through my false cheerfulness. “Mom just needs to figure things out. Okay?” I said, dropping down on my knees so I could cup her chin. “She still loves you, she just misses Dad.”

She nodded. I leaned my head forward until our foreheads touched. “You’ve got me, Peanut. I’m not leaving you,” I said as her lower lip trembled. Her cast clanked me in the back of my head as she threw her arms around my neck. Silent sobs shook her slender frame, and I gently rocked her back and forth while my own tears fell from my eyes.

It seemed impossible to think that we would ever recover from the pain we felt.

I spent the afternoon on the phone, withdrawing Megan from her gymnastics class and getting her enrolled into Mrs. Mimi’s Jr. Academy. They didn’t usually take enrollees after the school year started, but made an exception for us once they heard my last name. Our family had been splattered across the news for weeks so that everyone knew our name. I quietly explained Megan’s catatonic state and asked if that would be a problem. Mrs. Mimi herself assured me that they would be more than happy to take her and see if they could get her to open up again.

It felt like a huge weight had been lifted by the time I hung up the phone. I was anxious to be surrounded by my friends in a familiar environment. I can honestly say I've never hated school and being popular definitely had its perks. Hanging out with my friends at lunch and texting during class, that was my world. School was the social outlet I had always gravitated to. I missed my group of friends, even Lacey. I was thinking maybe I had overreacted when she visited the other day. Maybe her shallowness was just an act to cover up how she felt about the whole death thing.

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