but her worried eyes
say something different
from her words.
Because how do you get better
when what happened
can’t be fixed?
A QUIET CHRISTMAS
Just the three of us.
Mom’s not talking to Grandma again.
So I’ll bet Uncle Andy’s enjoying a nice
Christmas ham right now.
Just the three of us
in our house so quiet and steady
with mysterious clicks and tickings,
the rumbling of Tay’s tummy
as we play endless Monopoly,
and the chanting prayer of Mom in the kitchen
swearing under her breath over the food.
Just the three of us,
making it
even though the food might be a disaster,
making it
without Grandma’s ham.
Just the three of us.
And then Dad’s
holiday call
erupts all over our
quiet Christmas.
MAYBE I SHOULDN’T HAVE TOLD
He was just so mad, Mom says.
Your dad isn’t really going to
sue for custody.
As if she doesn’t look like she’s
just been hit by a truck.
He didn’t really mean it.
Like I won’t notice how her voice
wobbles like Jell-O.
Mom says she should have told him
right away,
sooner;
she just kept putting it off.
I think maybe I shouldn’t have told
him
her
anyone.
But I also think:
you can’t protect someone from seven states away.
Dad must think he’s some kind of superhero.
The kind where time and space don’t matter.
Though maybe he’s right.
He could’ve protected me,
come and checked things out—
EVER.
He could’ve gotten on a plane.
Or not gotten on one in the first place.
IS THAT ME?
I’m on my floor
looking,
looking at a girl
who’s silly
(making bunny ears)
and goofy
(a half-cartwheel pose)
and good at choir
(fourth-grade regionals trophy).
Looking,
looking at a girl
with a best friend
(the heart charm Rhea gave me,
our county-fair pie win pic),
with an irritating sister
(more bunny ears),
and a look-alike mom.
I like that girl.
Did she leave forever?
I don’t touch
the flipped-over
family reunion picture
on my bookshelf,
the one with cousins and great-aunts
and Him.
Because what if it answers:
Yes, she’s gone.
DAD’S REALLY HERE
A week later Dad picks me up
in a brand-new, bright red truck.
How about that?
he says way too merrily,
It was the only rental they had left.
It’s nice, I say,
glancing over at Mom and Tay
as I step onto the sideboard.
Tay stares at the truck like she wants
to run her hands over it.
But I know she’s just trying
not to look at Dad.
Hey, Tay, you been a good girl?
is all he’s said to her.
His eyes seem to only
see me and avoid Mom’s
hard-as-stone face,
which she always wears
just before exploding at Dad.
I climb in quick, swing my legs in.
I’m bringing her back, Dad tells Mom,
kinda snotty, through my open door.
For now, he adds, and I slam
the door shut fast before
more words start to fly.
Let’s go, I say.
But I can’t help
peeking back at Tay,
shoulders drooping,
flat hair falling in her face.
I know what she’s thinking
because I would be thinking it too:
Dad didn’t threaten not to bring HER back.
THE STRANGER
Remember how we always
played Bear Catcher?
Dad says as he steers
through traffic.
I remember it.
Of course
I remember it.
Da-a-addy, I shriek, pretend-whiny,
his nose nuzzling the top of my head,
eyes staring into mine,
face delighted by me,
by us.
Now I stare at two long, hairy arms
I haven’t touched in a year,
at a thin nose sniffing from the cold,
gaze sneaking from the windshield
to his charging phone,
the uneasy face of
a stranger to me.
And then I remember something,
remember that night years ago.
Of course.
Remember that body-snatcher movie?
I say because
it was real,
I just didn’t
know it yet.
An alien really did take Dad over.
BEV’S DINER
Sticky vinyl seats and
a junky old jukebox,
the yummiest
milkshakes in town.
And, right at the table,
a straw dispenser so
you can blow off wrappers,
as many as you want.
This is the place
of my memories,
the one we always
begged to go to,
Tay and me, though
she was just copying
me back then.
And it was the best
to go with just Daddy
on a special occasion.
Right now, at the booth
across from the prize machine,
that special-occasion feeling
bubbles up in me like it used to.
I blow a couple tops off straws.
I order a strawberry milkshake.
I stare out the window at a long-
forgotten paper blowing by…
Do you want a quarter for a prize?
… and I wonder how
I got here again,
this time with
the stranger
who doesn’t know
how old almost-
eleven is.
SHE’S OKAY
Tell me what happened.
I trace the wooden edge
of our booth, the barest sliver
separating us from the couple
eating right behind me who
I think I can hear
breathing—yikes—
that’s how close they are.
You can tell me, sweetheart.
I need to tell him.
I need to be good
so he doesn’t think
I’m having a problem.
I need to tell him
because maybe,
if I’m a good girl,
if he thinks, Hey,
she’s okay,
she’s just fine,
then he won’t try
to take me away.
But I can’t.
So instead
I order another
strawberry milkshake
even though I’m already
sick to my stomach
and ask Dad
about his new wife
Melanie
(like I care)
to distract him.
Honey, tell me what happened
so I can understand, so I can
figure out what to do here.
I already told Mom, I say.
And it’s the wrong thing
to say because his eyes
retreat behind a cloud and
another thick block gets added
to the growing wall
between us.
All because I can’t bring myself
to say It.
And yet he’s here,
he IS.
Come to rescue me,
I guess.
It’s hard to believe,
but he’s really here.
So…
I get
a little bit
out
in a whisper:
what happened
in the basement
on the couch
My tiny words seem to smack Dad
in the face
and he finally stops asking.
LUNCH MATH
Math’s never been my favorite.
But what I really don’t like is
lunch math.
Sometimes we still sit together,
Rhea and me. But even
addition’s hard these days.
It would be easy if
the answer always
came out the same,
reliable,
like regular numbers,
instead of these always-
shifting
calculations of where to sit
and what to think about it.
Does 1 + 1 =
2 friends,
almost like before?
Before it became 2 =
1+1, together but apart,
for no good reason?
Or is it just endless
1+1 = 1+1
1 + 1 = 1 + 1
1 + 1 = 1 + 1
1 + 1 = 1 + 1
like each lonely one can’t,
not ever again,
get together to make two?
SCOOTING
I sit down next to Rhea today…
and she scoots
to make room.
So I scoot.
But she scoots
again.
Scoot-
scoot.
Scoot-
scoot.
Scoot-
scoo-
Sto-op! she says,
getting up and grabbing
the edges of her tray to move.
Oh.
Wait! I say, and
she looks so startled
to hear my voice that
she sits back down.
BEST FRIEND BLOWUP
Well? says Rhea,
and I know enough not to
say, Well, what?
but I don’t know
what TO say.
Rhea does.
YOU CAN’T JUST SIT THERE AND ACT LIKE EVERYTHING’S NORMAL, TORI! YOU IGNORE ME, AND THEN JUST EXPECT EVERYTHING TO BE THE SAME? YOU TUNE OUT WHEN I’M TELLING YOU STUFF—IMPORTANT STUFF! YOU PRETEND NOT TO BE HOME WHEN I COME OVER—DON’T YOU DARE DENY IT—I KNOW YOU WERE THERE! I MEAN, WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO THINK? DESTINY SAYS—
Destiny? I interrupt.
Your neighbor?
Because, of all the yucky things
Rhea’s saying,
this name sticks like gum
on the shoe of my brain.
The one who only talks
about nail polish?
My eyes flick to Rhea’s
rainbow sparkly nails that
I only just now notice.
Yeah, well, at least she’s
been there for me. SHE’S
not jealous of me liking Mason—
WHAT?!?
—and SHE didn’t leave me
stranded with no one
to trick-or-treat with
FOUR days before Halloween.
??????????
You went trick-or-treating
with Destiny?
Something is not clicking
in my mind.
Didn’t she make fun of us
for that last year?
Rhea sniffs and lifts her chin.
She does happen to think
Halloween is more for
the early elementary crowd.
Then—before I can stop myself—
What, so
you just
painted your toenails
instead?
That does it.
Rhea’s up and out of there.
Based on the poisonous glare
she shoots me as she leaves,
I think I am lucky she takes
those rainbow nails with her.
JEALOUS
California, I announce,
peeling off my special
faux-leather gloves,
flinging them carelessly
at the closet shelf,
wouldn’t require
so many clothes.
Oh! says Mom.
I forgot something!
I pretend not to see
that she’s crying as
she ducks back
into the kitchen
just as Tay comes out.
Don’t you see, says Tay,
glaring at me as I take off my boots,
home from another diner date with Dad.
Don’t you see how
you’re hurting Mom?
Acting like you’d be all excited to go
and live with Dad.
A sting where my heart is, but
I don’t want to feel it.
I liked Dad’s stories
about California
and the beaches,
and even
a new baby brother,
which he makes sound
not-so-bad
even though
I should know better
from every single toddler
I’ve ever met.
I didn’t even have to be
good this time.
I could just listen to him
and dream of
this problem-free
Fantasyland.
Besides, Disney’s there,
I’ve never been, and
why should that baby
get to have all the fun?
You’re just jealous ’cause Dad’s not trying to take you away!
I clap my hands
over my mouth,
but it’s too late.
Seems my voice has gone
lately from vanished
to wishing-it-would.
A CLASSROOM LIST
One teacher:
straight-backed ruler of
expectations,
has-your-back defier of
expectations.
One old whiteboard:
past never fully erased,
haunting today’s lessons with
marked-up ghost-streaks
from the day before
the day before
and the day before that.
One L-O-O-O-O-O-
O-O-O-O-ONG fluorescent light:
buzzing and flickering with
barely enough
energy to
make it
through the
day.
Twenty-eight kids:
looking out the window
looking at their hands
looking where they’re supposed to…
… looking across the room at a friend
who used to be a friend
looking and wondering
looking and thinking
maybe it makes a little
bit of sense that
Rhea’s mad.
I TOLD HER!
I told
Rhea
today at recess,
and it wasn’t
weird!
Well, it was
weird.
But it wasn’t
weird-weird.
I just took her
red-mittened hand
in my blue one
and pulled her over
to our place for
telling private stuff,
between the climbing wall
no one ever uses
(because of the spiders)
and the giant maple tree.
Rhea looked at me with her
eyebrows all the way up,
like what could I possibly
have to say to her now,
me looking around nervous
’cause the spot suddenly
didn’t feel so hidden
with the big tree that bare.
But I took a breath and
did it anyway.
I didn’t use the M-word
(which I hate;
it doesn’t sound
like what It’s
like, AT ALL).
I just said,
I’ve been
acting weird,
huh?
and she said,
Yeah, you have,
and I said, It’s
because my uncle
did something
bad
to me.
And her eyes got
wi-i-i-de
and she got it,
she knew what I meant
right away.
I didn’t even have
to say anything
else.
She grabbed my mittens
in her mittens
and gave them a squeeze.
And we just sat there for a while,
just comfortable together.
And THEN—
she started
talking about
Mason.
Well, I guess it IS
only a month
until Valentine’s Day.
AIR
Telling Rhea felt so good—
somehow so freeing—
like a boa constrictor
wrapped around my neck
finally letting go.
It feels so amazing now,
from telling her, that
something else buried deep
starts crawling its way up
to the surface of my mind,
where I kind of still don’t want