Page 50 of The Last to Let Go
I nod, encouraging her to tell me more.
“I came out to them in eighth grade. I sat them down at the dining room table, Tori next to me for moral support, and I flat-out told them, no two ways about it, I’m a lesbian. They sat there, listened, then asked if I wanted ice cream. Never talked about it again. They’ve never acknowledged it, never asked any questions. It’s like they pretend it never happened. That’s just the way it is.”
She hoists herself up from the bed and walks over to the mirror to look at the pictures again. “You know, I used to have tons of friends,” she tells me, her smile wavering, making it clear she’s trying not to cry. “When I was this person”—she holds up the photo of herself with shoulder-length hair—“but that person’s gone, and so are all of those so-called friends.”
“They stopped being friends with you when you came out?”
“Not exactly,” she says with a shrug. “They just sort of faded slowly, one by one. But I still had Tori, and later, Tyler, and somehow that was enough.”
“Until this year,” I add. “Right?”
She nods and bites her lip, trying not to cry. I stand and walk over to her. I put my arms around her, the way that I’ve needed these past several months. “I don’t know what I would’ve done if I hadn’t met you, seriously,” she whispers into my hair.
“Yeah,” I tell her, “I know.”
“I guess,” she says, sniffling as she lets go of me, “the thing that bothers me most about my parents is they should be able to understand. You know, their families were not okay with the two of them getting married. My mom’s parents wanted her to marry an Indian guy. My dad’s parents thought they we were too different from each other—they didn’t get it, they worried about things like, what religion would their grandchildren be raised in, stuff like that, you know?”
I nod.
“But they loved each other and they did what was right for them. I’ve always really respected that—respectedthemfor that. Except now they can’t see that I need to be different in the same way that they needed to be different from their parents. They can’t see me.” She lets herself sink down onto the small stool at her vanity mirror. “It’s so frustrating!” She pulls a tissue from the box that sits on the desk and wipes her eyes. “They’re such hypocrites, sometimes I can’t stand it.”
I kneel down on the floor so we’re at eye level. “I see you,” I tell her.
“I see you, too.”
No she doesn’t, my brain argues. I do my best to ignore it.
We eat in the dining room, the room Dani said they use only when guests are here. The food is great. Her parents are perfectly lovely and sweet and polite, and she does have her dad’s eyes. But she’s right; they don’t see her at all. They don’t want to see her. This is no dollhouse after all. I look at Dani across the table, feeling like maybe we’re more alike than I thought, like maybe someday I could let her see me, too, all of me.
SEEKING WATER
SINCE FOURTH GRADE I’VEmissed two days of school, and that was only because I was contagious with strep throat. I’ve never even considered skipping school before. Until today.
Dani has been texting all morning with updates about all the stupid stuff I’ve been missing—Robinson yelled at a student, student cried; someone dropped a lunch tray in the cafeteria; a kid was sent to the principal’s office for making sex noises in AP American History; Tyler’s wearing mascara and got really mad at Dani for pointing it out; and so on.
I told her it’s a flu-like thing. Which is believable, probably brought on by the sudden cold snap. The second week of December and we’re in the single digits, which seems wrong when there isn’t even any snow on the ground yet.
I had to wait until the seats filled in, so I could sneak in the back of the courtroom without being seen—Mom was very clear, she didn’t want me here. She told Aaron, Jackie, and her lawyer to keep me away. But I couldn’t force myself to go to school and sit there through all my classes and pretend like this was an ordinary day.
Aaron sits at the very front, Jackie and Ray next to him. There’s a table with Mr. Clarence, Mom’s lawyer. He turns around and says something to Aaron. I see Aaron shake his head, and then he nods—what they’re saying, I can’t tell. I notice that Carmen isn’t here.
People start talking all around me, chattering, and that’s when I realize it: They’re bringing my mom out. She’s thinner, lighter, like she might just float away, if not for the two officers flanking her. They each hold on to an arm, as if she’s dangerous, in need of being kept under control. She’s wearing a blue dress, one with a tiny flower print, the one she used to wear to work all the time. I watch them escort her to the table, where Mr. Clarence pulls her chair out for her. She sits and then turns around to look at Aaron, but she doesn’t say anything. Then, as if she can sense I’m here, her eyes flick up in my direction, almostatme. I duck my head quickly, watching her scan the faces around me once more before turning back around.
Behind me I hear a raspy whisper: “I’m hiding too.”
As I turn around, the voice and its words sink in slowly. Caroline. My grandmother. I open my mouth, but no sound comes out. I turn back around, trying to remind myself how to breathe. I have trouble paying attention knowing she’s right behind me, the keeper of family secrets, the cause of so much pain, according to Jackie and my mom.
A whole group of cops in uniform are in the seats on the opposite side of the room. A few rows ahead of me I see Tony, sitting in between two people. He is the only police officer on my mom’s side. I know those can’t be good odds. I see Mrs. Allister from downstairs, her signature permed puff of old-lady hair on the top of her head. Both Mr. Clarence and the other lawyer make their statements. Various people are called up to the stand—it seems like everyone is an expert on something.
It all feels very tame, anticlimactic, until Mr. Clarence calls a woman up, Dr. Montgomery. He approaches the witness stand, addresses the doctor with a casual tone. “You know, one of the first things many of us think whenever we hear about a woman being abused by her husband is, why did she stay? Why didn’t she tell someone? Why couldn’t she simply ask for help? Can you explain it—for those of us who have a hard time understanding—what is the thought process here?”
“You’re absolutely right, it can be extremely hard to understand, especially for anyone who’s never experienced it firsthand. It’s not just about the physical abuse,” she tells Mr. Clarence. “Before Mr. Winters ever struck Mrs. Winters for the first time, he had already beaten her down emotionally, mentally—destroyed her confidence, made her feel worthless, like everything that was happening was her fault....”
I try so hard to listen, but her voice goes in and out. Something’s happening to me—each word is like a punch in the stomach, a slap in the face, a kick in the teeth. They echo over and over, pounding like a stake being driven into the side of my head. I’m suddenly plagued by an overwhelming rush of nausea through my whole body—not only my stomach, but in my throat and arms and legs—every part of me feels sick somehow. I notice my body tilting; I lean forward in my seat, my head feeling so heavy I think I might fall all the way over. But there’s a hand, strong on my shoulder, squeezing lightly, pulling me back from the edge of wherever I went just now. When I’m sitting upright, Caroline lets go and rests her hand on my back for a moment.
When the other lawyer gets up to ask Dr. Montgomery questions, there’s this tone in his voice; it’s hard to say what it is, but it sounds so familiar. It feels like he’s bullying her—the same way Dad would bully Mom, making every word out of her mouth sound stupid, sound like a lie, twisting and bending every point she tries to make. Why didn’t Mr. Clarence get a male doctor to testify? That was stupid of him. They’re not taking her seriously. She’s too young, too pretty, too honest. She steps down from the witness stand looking defeated.
Before I know what’s happening, I feel motion behind me, chairs shifting; they’re calling Caroline. She makes her way up the aisle and my mom turns to watch her. I wonder how long it’s been since they were in the same room. It takes her a while to get up there—the same shuffling gait she had at the funeral, like maybe one of her legs doesn’t quite cooperate.
