The Everafter Read online

  mysteries, afraid of being sucked into that black hole by

  gravity, of becoming that baby who has no words to express

  the impressions of her mind.

  There's no way I'm going anywhere near that rattle

  again.

  l:.'

  UNCORRECTED E-PflOOF—NOT fOR SALE

  HaiK'C?iHnsPu|?li5h^s

  cell communicotion

  age 16

  The door opens. I step across the threshold and announce

  the obvious into my cell phone: "I'm here."

  "So I see," Gabe replies into his cell and then flips it

  closed. I do the same, noticing a strange scent in the house

  at the same time. I can't quite identify what it is.

  He doesn't exactly look thrilled to see me. L h-oh.

  We had plans to go out tonight, but Gabe called me a

  half hour ago and said, "Sorry, I just can'c go tonight." I

  asked what was up. His voice sounded odd, sort of quavery

  and distant, but he wouldn't tell me what was wrong. Just

  I f :

  He sighs. "Maddy . . . no. No way in hell." He steps

  forward and puts his arms around me. "That's not it at all.

  I'm j u s t . . . in a bad mood. I couldn't be decent to anyone

  tonig;ht." He pulls away as suddenly as he enfolded me.

  Strange again.

  "But why?" I'm pushing it here, and I know it.

  "I don't want to talk about it."

  "Okay. I'm sorry. I'll just leave." I turn to go, hoping

  he'll stop me, but instead he opens the door to help me on

  my way. I'm contemplating how appropriate that saying

  is about not letting the door hit you on the way out when

  there's a crashing sound upstairs. It's followed by the ceiling

  shuddering in protest from whatever's happening on the

  floor above. Gabe's dad.

  And suddenly everything makes sense.

  Horrible sense.

  Ohmygod, I recognize the smell that's been bothering

  me since I arrived. How could I have been so idiotic? I'm

  dense.

  Now Mr. Archer is stumbling down the stairs. I want to

  flee the house, spare Gabe the embarrassment. But I can't

  seem to move.

  The smell of alcohol gets stronger as Gabe's father

  descends. He appears at the bottom of the stairs, bloodshot

  eyes crying to focus on me, I nearly choke in the cloud of

  alcohol surrounding us all now.

  ill:

  said again that he couldn't go, was really sorry, would call

  me tomorrow.

  Too strange.

  I just didn't feel right letting it go. I was worried about

  him.

  So that's when I made the (possibly bad) decision to

  come visit. And I did at least warn him I was coming. (Oh,

  okay, so I didn't give him a whole lot of warning about that.

  But calling him as I was walking up his driveway was better

  than nothing, right?)

  Now that I see the frown on his face, I'm thinking

  mavbe that wasn't so much better than nothing. He's wearing

  a what-are-you-doing-here expression. This deflates

  me. I'm used to the you-light-up-my-life one (even if that's

  corny, it's true) that usually crosses his face every time I

  approach.

  .My stomach takes a dive down to my toes. What i f . ..

  ? How can it have taken me so long to figure out that he

  might have ditched me for some other girl?

  Maybe even Dana.

  Is she . . . here':

  My expression must reveal my absolute horror as I ask,

  "Is there some other girl?" because appalled shock flitters in

  his eyes as he says, "Is that what you think?"

  "Well . . . I didn't. But it suddenly occurred to me just

  now."

  HI

  "Is this the new girlfriend, Gabe?" he asks.

  I glance at Gabe, but he won't even meet my eyes. "Yeah,

  I am," I say. He's never officially called me that, so amid all

  this other discomfort I start to wonder if I'm being presumptuous.

  Can this situation get any more nightmarish?

  Uh . . . yeah.

  "Invite her to stay, Gabe," he says. He tries to slap Gabe

  on the back but stumbles into him instead.

  Gabe still won't meet my eyes. I can tell he wants me as

  far away from here as possible, and, okay, let's be honest, I

  feel like he's shutting me out.

  It hurts.

  But so does the pain emanating from Gabe, and more

  than anything, I want to make Gabe's life easier.

  "Uh, sorry," I say. "I can't stay. My mom's expecting me

  home."

  Gabe's dad grins. At least I think that's what he's doing.

  Hard to tell in his current state.

  "Well, then, I'll leave you two to say good-bye to each

  other." Now he's trying to give us some kind of I-knowhow-you'II-say-good-bye-to-each-other look. Disgusting.

  It would be horrific on any parent, but a drunk one? "I just

  came down to g e t . . ."

  Gabe's dad remembers suddenly why he made the Great

  Trek down the stairs. "Crackers. 1 want some crackers. I'll

  get those and go back upstairs." He trundles along, a little

  '.ii

  extra carefully, to the kitchen.

  "Call me tomorrow?" I ask. I'm terrified Gabe will never

  talk to me again now that I've intruded into this grim scene

  from his life.

  He doesn't say anything.

  I swallow hard. "Is there anything I can, y'know, do for

  you?"

  Gabe finally meets my eyes, reaches for my hand, and

  says, "Yeah."

  I wait. And wait.

  "What is it?" I finally ask.

  "Stay," he says.

  "I thought..."

  He puts a finger to my lips to stop me. "I know," he says.

  "And you were right. I did want you to leave. But now I want

  you to stay."

  He leads me into the living room and we sit on the sofa.

  He puts his arm around my shoulder, and I lean into him.

  "Whv'd you change your mind?" I ask.

  "You've already seen the worst."

  "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have just marched over here. It

  was just, well, you didn't sound so hot on the phone, and

  I thought something was wrong, and, well, it was, but still

  I should have respected your need for privacy because I

  should have known you wouldn't just dump me lor the night

  without some reason, and that you'd tell me if you wanted

  feels to me as if Gabe is . . . older than me. "Gabe, I don't

  know anything about this, but I do know that I've never

  been able to keep my parents from doing something they

  were determined to do. Can you actually stop your dad from

  drinking?"

  He sighs again, pulls away from me, and flops over sideways

  on the sofa. "I don't know," he says. At least I think

  that's what he's saying. It's hard to tell for sure because he's

  mashed a pillow on top of his face.

  I try to pull the pillow away from him, but he's strong.

  "The thing is," he says, "I know he manages to drink

  even when I am here. But how much more would he drink if

  I weren't here to try to stop him?"

  Obviously not a question I can answer.

  "Maybe having to try to hide what he's doing from me

  slows him down some, y'know? The
n again, maybe I'm just

  fooling myself thinking I'm doing any good at all."

  I'm still scrambling around in my head trying to find

  a reply to this when he says, "Still, if there's a chance I'm

  making it better, I have to try."

  Seems like a psychologist would have a few things to say

  about that. But even if I could figure out that he was taking

  on too much responsibility here, it doesn't seem like he's

  quite ready to think about that.

  I run my fina;ers throuqh his hair. I'm not sure exactly

  what I'm managing to say with that, but it seems to work:

  1)4

  me to know, and—"

  "Take a breath," Gabe interrupts.

  "Huh?"

  He squeezes my hand. "Take a breath. Calm down. It's

  not the end of the world. I'm fine. We're fine. And now you

  know."

  "But I don't."

  He looks at me quizzically.

  "I don't know at all. What it's like, I mean. To deal with

  all this. To be you."

  We hear his father stumbling up the stairs.

  Gabe sighs. "It's been a year since the last time he had

  anything to drink. Then tonight—wham! Well . . . not

  even tonight. I came home from school and he was already

  blotto. Must've come home from work early. Who knows

  how much he managed to drink before I got here? I tried to

  throw away what alcohol I could find, but shit—"

  Okay, this surprises me. Gabe doesn't swear. At least not

  around me. This draws my attention to how worked up he

  is.

  "—when he gets like this he hides that fucking stuff

  who-k nows-where."

  Now I'm getting freaked. The F word?

  "The thing is," Gabe goes on, "I somehow feel like I can

  keep him from drinking so much if I stay here with him."

  My heart quivers as I come to understand irby it always

  133

  He lets me pull the pillow farther away. I stretch out next to

  him, and navigate my way between his face and the pillow.

  And since we're horizontal anyway...

  And since his dad has disappeared into an upstairs stupor

  . . .

  And since the feel of Gabe's lips on mine and his hands

  wrapping around my waist is so fantastic . . .

  Yeah. W e l l . . .

  At least until Gabe's dad stumbles back down the stairs.

  We sit up quickly as he wanders into the living room. Mr.

  Archer looks at me all surprised. And even though I know

  he's drunk, it's still a little disconcerting to be so easily

  forgotten. Makes me wonder what other important things

  about his son he forgets when he's like this.

  Then Mr. Archer wanders into the kitchen, and things

  start clattering out there. Gabe jumps up and start taking

  care of Drunk Daddy Dear, so I tell him, "I better go. I told

  my mom I wouldn't be gone long."

  "I'll call you tomorrow," Gabe promises.

  I decide I should call mv mother to tell her I'm on the

  way home. That's when I realize I don't know where my

  cell phone is because—and this is totally me—I set it down

  somewhere when I came in and wasn't paying any attention

  to what I was doing. We check every surface in the

  iivinq room and the front entry hall. We look under the

  sofa. Behind the cushions (no kissing detours there this

  85

  time, unfortunately). In desperation, Gabe finally uses his

  cell phone to call mine. We track the sounds of Beethoven's

  "Fur Elise" back into the entryway.

  Where my purse is sitting on the entryway table.

  Imagine that. For once, I put something where it

  belongs.

  No wonder I couldn't find it, I think in disgust as I open

  the bag to pull out—

  m

  uriCORRECTED E-PROOf-NOr FOB SALE

  rii!B«£9.HLnsP.Hbnste.^ _

  infected

  oge IS

  They're my favorite pair of earrings . . . made from old

  watch parts. No one else I know has a pair like them. But

  one of my ears has become so infected that turning my head

  hurts, so I take the earrings out. I wish I had a convenient

  pocket to put them in.

  The doctor pulls the bandage away from the ulcer on

  Mrs. Simpson's calf. The sight of i t . ..

  My earring makes an unscheduled landing on the whitegray

  tile of the exam room floor, and the contents of mv

  stomach are about to proceed to the nearest exit.

  1)7

  A few minutes ago, the doctor had said, "You girls should

  give us some privacy." Now I understand why. One patient

  is enough. Cleaning up after us won't exactly make anyone's

  day around here.

  But here we are anyway because Mrs. Simpson's reply

  to the doctor was, "My daughter can stay. Can't you, Sandra?"

  So we stayed.

  Unfortunately.

  I swallow extra hard—several times—hoping to keep

  all previously ingested substances proceeding in an orderly

  fashion on their journey through the digestive track.

  Why did Sandra's mom encourage us to stay?

  I glance at Sandra. She looks... stressed. N o . . . distressed

  would be a better word. She wants to take her mother's pain

  away. A powerful force of will emanates from Sandra's eyes,

  an unexpected strength at odds with the soft green of her

  irises. She believes she can heal her mother through willpower.

  I'm pretty sure she can't. That would bring the force of

  Sandra's will up against her mother's. And Mrs. Simpson

  doesn't intend to get better.

  That sounds cynical, I know, but I think it's true. Having

  an ulcer that mysteriously won't heal no matter what

  the doctors do . . . returning to the doctor's office every

  week . . . all the attention . . . yeah, this is so Mrs. Simpson's

  l)B

  thing. She definitely gets off on it. Apparently, the ulcer's

  been bad for a while now, but in the last few days, infection

  has set in . . . wonder how that happened. Has she been

  doing any of the things the doctors have told her will help?

  Or is she hoping this ulcer will become bad enough that

  she'll need that skin-graft surgery she keeps mentioning?

  And, gee, won't that just be such a risk to her life? To hear

  Mrs. Simpson talk about it, you'd think it would be. I'm sure

  she'll need the entire universe to revolve around her for a

  good year after that.

  And Sandra doesn't see how badlv her mother wants to

  be sick.

  So there she is, all sympathy, trying to will away her

  mother's ulcer, and I'm the only one her force of will is

  working on. My eyes are magnetically drawn to the same

  location Sandra's are gazing—the ulcer.

  It's as large as my fist. It's mostly raw and bloody-looking—

  except for where the infection has started to set in.

  That's whitish, and it's oozing pus.

  Suppurating.

  I remember reading that word once in a book about a

  wounded Civil War soldier. I wondered at the time who in

  their right mind would ever use that word.

  I glance up at Mrs. Simpson's face and see an expression

  that t
errifies me . . . the pure joy on her face is evil. She's

  gforf to see Sandra suffering for her.

  I]'-And the word suppurating flashes in my mind again. It's

  the perfect word to describe this thing on Mrs. Simpson's

  feg.

  And the perfect word to describe her soul.

  "I'll be in the waiting room," I tell Sandra, then stomp

  out of the exam room.

  The earring I dropped just doesn't matter anymore.

  I-:I

  change at all. It'll be just fine for her. Me? Oh, crap. That

  walnut in my throat just got even bigger,

  I can't stand the sight of the ice cream anymore. Besides,

  the whole world-around-me-getting-blurry thing is making

  me feel more and more like crying, so I set the ice cream

  down on the picnic table behind me. "Don't let me forget to

  take that home," I manage to choke out of mv tight throat.

  Thank God for something mundane I can talk about. That

  makes it a little easier to elude the tears trying to escape.

  "Mom will kill me if I leave that spoon here." And don't 1

  know it, too? As Kristen and I were leaving for the park,

  pints of ice cream in hand, there was Mom trailing along

  like a magnet attached to the spoon, warning us, "We're

  getting low on teaspoons. Don't you dare lose that. I mean

  it. Wait! I'll get you plastic spoons instead."

  We were so out of there before she could get back with

  the stupid plastic spoons.

  "Oh, screw Mom," Krister* says. It comes out in this

  completely offhand way, like she's announcing that Mom

  will be home from work on time today. It cracks me up.

  But the laughter that wanes to escape seems trapped

  behind the tears, and suddenly it's all gurgling up to the

  surface. Tears, sobs, laughter.

  Oh, gross! It's just way too much for my body, and now

  there's snot trying to explode from my nose.

  Kristen to the rescue with a fast move for the napkin.

  I-,

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOE-NOt EOfl WLE

  Hacps(CojKnsPul)Ji5hers

  the spoon

  age 17

  Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia . . .

  The best ice cream in the world.

  But I still can't eat it. There's a walnut stuck in my throat.

  I can't swallow around it, and yet I won't allow myself to cry

  because Kristen's trying so hard to make me feel better. I

  stab at the ice cream with a teaspoon, making little halfmoon

  indentations in it.

  "C'mon, Maddy," Kristen says. "I'm sure it's going to

  be okay."

  Yeah. No matter how this turns out, her life won't

  'i

  She holds it out to me, and I blow my nose. Well, kind of.