Page 41 of Good Half Gone

“Take your shower and you can find out…”

“I feel like this is a trick.”

As soon as he closes the bathroom door, I drag a chair to the fridge and retrieve the dusty bottle of house red. I pour myself a glass and grab two bags of peanut M&M’s from my secret stash. By the time Cal is in his pajamas, I’ve polished off one glass and my head is spinning. I pour the rest of the bottle down the drain. No matter how much I want to, I can’t drink away the facts.I don’t want my days at home with Cal to be fogged over with alcohol.

We spend the weekend goofing off at home, playing Xbox and watching movies. I try not to think about the fact that I won’t be there for Gran’s first day home, or the fact that I’m not going to see Cal for three consecutive nights. It is going to be hard for all of us. A nurse will see her through the transition day. After that, Billy is going to take care of her during the day, and the neighbors are pitching in to drive her to and from her physical therapy.Check, check, check!Cal will start taking the bus home from school now that Gran is home, and one of Gran’s neighbors—a wiry, middle-aged lady named Roshana who owns her own yoga studio—will walk him to the house, check on Gran, and text me an update about both of them. Mary-Ann is making their meals and dropping by every night to eat with them. I have all eyes on Gran, but they aren’t my eyes, and for that I feel guilt. I should be the one taking care of her, she deserves that after all the years she’s taken care of me.

On Monday morning I hug Cal at the front door and wave to Mary-Ann before I lower myself into my car. Focus now, cry later. I chug water from my bottle, my eyes glazing over. Pretending to be fine is exhausting. I park in a lot nearby and walk to the ferry terminal, wondering for the hundredth time if I’m doing the right thing. I stare at my hands until it’s time to get off the ferry and switch to the water taxi. The day is colder than it looks. Everyone stands huddled together on the dock waiting to be let on. No one speaks to anyone or makes eye contact; it’s entirely too early and too cold to be friendly.

The drenched air pierces my parka as soon as I step off the water taxi. I smile woodenly at the captain, who ignores me. It’s a windy day; the water is choppy. Bouncer’s face is green as she gets off behind me.

My backpack is heavy, stuffed with three days of necessities.Three days!I focus on the guy in front of me, who has an egg sandwich in one hand and a cigarette in the other.The smell ignites a handful of memories: my mother frying eggs wearing only a stretched-out white T-shirt. The ash from her cigarette falling into the pan as she burns our dinner. I turn my face away and let the wind do its thing, breathing the fresh sea air to anchor myself to the present. My sister’s body has never been found. Seven years after she disappeared, my mother filed the paperwork to have her legally declared dead. When Gran found out, she threw her coffee mug against the living room wall, brown droplets streaming against the basic white paint like muddy water. If Piper were declared dead, no one would be looking for her. My mother had done it to hurt us when we wouldn’t let her see Cal.

The most I can give Gran at this point is answers. It’s what I owe her after losing Piper. It’s the least I can give Cal after losing his mother.

Chapter14Past

Our Mother Was Mean, she didn’t feel bad about it either. Her words hit harder than her hands; we liked it best when she was sleeping. She hated us with the most intensity right after a breakup. That’s when she’d detail her resentment about our existence. I wanted a son and God gave me two girls, that’s how I know he hates me.

We made ourselves as small as she needed us to be.

When she was high, usually passed out on the brown sofa we tiptoed around, taking care of ourselves to the best of our ability while she mumbled incoherently in her sleep.

I was in the kitchen heating a can of soup when I started thinking about our father. Piper didn’t like to talk about him, but I loved the idea of a father. The kids at school talked about their dads more than their moms. Dads were funny, they built things, and they ordered pizza. Maybe our dad didn’t know we existed. I liked to picture how happy his face would be when he found out that he had not one, but two daughters. I’m so happy, he’d say as he hugged us.

I split the soup between two mugs and put the pot in the sink as quietly as I could. A few feet away Mom stirred on the couch where she lay under her favorite blanket.

“She’s talking in her sleep,” Piper said. “It’s creepy.”

I lick the drop of soup from the rim of my mug. “You should ask her who our dad is.” It was a joke, but Piper got a look on her face.

“Do you dare me?”

“No,” I said. “She’ll get so mad if you wake her up.”

It wasn’t the first time we tried to find out his name, but her answer was always the same: “No one.”

I watched the back of Piper’s head as she crept in. She had a chunk of hair chopped short near the nape of her neck due to a bubblegum accident. Scrawny shoulders poked out of her T-shirt as she leaned forward.

I heard her whisper it: “Who is the twins’ father?”

Suddenly Piper jumped back, falling on her butt. She scooted backwards, and I could see Mother’s open eyes, yellow disks. She half lifted herself on her elbow, and opening her cavernous mouth, she screamed, “NO ONE, you little fucks! Get out of here! Go the fuck to your room!”

We scurried away—game over, skinny dirty rat children. Iris and Piper, daughters of NO ONE! There was no tripping up that junkie; she was dedicated to keeping us fatherless.

At 4:46 a.m., the morning of November 9, one year and one month after Piper went missing, the house phone rang. I’d been a light sleeper for the last year, so when I heard thepriiiiing, I sat straight up in bed, wide-awake. I listened for another ring, but there was none. Either Gran had gotten to it, or the person dialing hung up. I was concentrating on the silence, lowering myself back to the mattress, when I heard Gran speak:

“Virginia, stay right where you are. I will be there shortly.”

I was in the living room in a flash. She was sitting upright in her recliner; she fell asleep there sometimes when she was watching TV.

“What’s wrong? What happened?”

Gran hadn’t moved, she was still as a stiff. I dropped down beside her to feel her pulse, and she smacked my hand away. It stung, but I was too relieved to care. Not only alive, but alive and feisty. I rested my face against the tufted arm of her recliner to hide my relief. It was short-lived relief when I suddenly remembered what she’d said. Virginia was my mother’s name. It was a name we didn’t say in this house. Something happened. She was processing, and I wished she could process faster. After about a minute, she snapped to. Looking directly into my eyes, she said, “Get my shoes and my bag. We’re going to see your mother.”

She wouldn’t tell me anything on the drive. Only, “I have to see it for myself, then we’ll talk about it.” What the hell did that mean?

She played one of her Christian CDs on full blast to drown out my questions, so I sat on my hands, rocking back and forth as we sped down the nearly empty freeway, Gran leaning into the wheel like she needed the car to go faster.

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