“Marin—”
“She knows who I am,” I promise. “It’s fine, Camille, honestly. I’ll be quick.”
Camille takes a step closer then—to try to block my path down the hallway, maybe, or to catch me by the arm—but I’m too fast and too determined and possibly a little too wound up, skirting past her and slipping down the brightly lit corridor to the door of Gram’s suite. It’s all the way closed today, which is unusual, but I knock lightly before pushing it open, same as always.
“Hi, Gram,” I call, all slightly manic sunshine—then stop where I’m standing in the doorway, caught short. The woman sitting vacantly on the love seat doesn’t look anything like my grandmother. She’s not wearing any lipstick, her mouth so pale it’s nearly vanished into the rest of her face. Her white hair is a matted mess. She’s still in her pajamas, the undone top button revealing her sharp, jutting collarbones. Most of all she just looks frail.
“Who are you?” she asks, her blue eyes watery and suspicious.
I bite my lip. “Hey Gram,” I say again, careful to keep my voice breezy. “It’s me. Marin.”
Gram shakes her head, stubborn. “I don’t know you.”
“I’m your granddaughter,” I remind her, working hard to swallow down the sudden lump in my throat, knowing instinctively that getting emotional is only going to make this worse—which, I think bitterly, is something of a theme in my life lately. “I’m Dyana’s daughter, remember?”
I take a step closer, but Gram holds her hands up, like the victim in an old murder mystery on the classics channel.
“Who? I don’t know you,” she repeats. “Where’s the nurse?” Then, raising her voice toward the open door: “Hello! There’s a strange woman in here! I need help!”
“Gram,” I plead, “come on,” but Camille is already here, laying a firm, gentle palm on my back.
“Well, hey there, Ms. Fran,” she says calmly. “You’re okay, I’m right here. I’m just going to take a stroll with our friend here, and then I’ll be right back to get you some iced tea, how about?”
“I don’t know her,” Gram insists again—sounding more irritated than scared now, like I’m more inconvenience than threat. I don’t actually know which one is worse.
I shouldn’t have come here, I think dully. All I do is wreak disaster everywhere I go.
“I know,” Camille says, wrapping an arm around my shoulders and squeezing once before steering me toward the door. “Come on, sweetheart.”
“I’m sorry,” I say once we’re out in the hallway. “I’m sorry, I know you tried to tell me, I just—” Thought I knew better, I realize, feeling abruptly like an idiot on top of everything else. “I’m sorry.”
“Marin, honey.” Camille lets a breath out—not mad at me, exactly, but not as warm as she usually is either. “Why don’t we call your mom, okay?”
Right away I shake my head. “It’s fine, I’ll just—I’ll go. I’m sorry. You can go back in there and check on her. I didn’t mean to make things worse.”
“Marin—” Camille starts, and I know she’s going to try to comfort me, even though it’s not her job to do that. I hold my hands up to stop her, then turn and make a beeline for the stairs, tears aching at the back of my throat.
Down in the parking lot I sit in the car for a long time, wiping tears and snot and so much sadness from my face. I remember when I was a kid, before Gracie was born, even, when I used to stay with Gram overnight at her house in Brockton. It wasn’t long after Grandpa Tony had died and she used to let me sleep in the big bed with her, the two of us watching reruns of nineties sitcoms while the AC unit hummed in the window. She used to pet my hair until I fell asleep.
Finally, exhausted, I pull out of the parking lot and head for home. The fastest route takes me back by school, and I glance over at the parking lot as I’m idling at the red light: eighth period got out a while ago, and the grounds are mostly empty. In fact, I realize with a quick, nasty jolt, Mr. Beckett’s Jeep is one of the only cars still parked in the lot. It’s sitting there smugly under a blooming dogwood tree not far from the senior entrance, his stupid Bernie Sanders sticker fading on the bumper.
I think, very clearly: Don’t be such a good girl.
That’s when I turn into the lot.
I pull up beside the Jeep and yank the emergency brake, leaving the engine running while I pop the trunk and jump out onto the concrete. I haven’t even really articulated a plan to myself when I grab the poster paint left over from the day of Elisa’s volleyball game—still sitting in the trunk next to my mom’s first aid kit and a couple of overdue library books, like deep in the back of my own secret brain I knew I might need it again. It feels like a relic from a totally different past.
I clamp a dry, crusted-over paintbrush in my teeth and twist the lid off the tub of paint with shaking hands, glancing over my shoulder to make sure no one is coming; the parking lot is deserted, even the birds have gone home for the day. It’s like I’m totally outside myself as I scrawl the first word I can think of, the letters huge and red and dripping across Bex’s back windshield. When I’m done I throw the rest of the paint at the car for good measure before standing back for a moment, admiring my handiwork.
Then I get back in my car and drive away.
Thirty-Two
I’ve barely made it through the door of my first-period French class the following morning when Madame Kemp nods in my direction.
“Marin,” she says distractedly as she lopsidedly scrawls this morning’s irregular verbs on the whiteboard, “there’s a pass for you on my desk over there. Ms. Lynch says they want you down in the office.”
I freeze where I’m standing, fingers curled tightly around the strap of my backpack. All at once I think of Thelma & Louise, this old movie my mom and I watched last year on cable about two friends who kill a guy in self-defense and then go on the run. The movie ends with the two of them driving into the Grand Canyon rather than giving themselves up to the police—this incredible, shocking freeze-frame of the car flying over the cliff that I couldn’t get out of my head for weeks after I saw it. It was weirdly exhilarating, the idea of these two women refusing to engage with an unfair system. Looking at a menu of shitty choices and deciding to go out on their own terms.