Tell Me Something Real Read online

  Caleb liberates my heart—Barb liberates us all.

  Except Mom. Nothing can free Mom, but Barb tends to her in a way none of us can. Not even Dad.

  When I sit at the piano, I play with a newfound attention, as though I’m playing for my future, like everything depends on it.

  Caleb doesn’t understand that I’m not a performer, not in the way he assumes. Being in orchestra allows me to focus on music. Recitals and concerts are nothing more than requirements, transactions, a small price for hours alone with the piano. Come practice time, he sneaks into the room, which throws me off the clear constellation of notes. Too shy to ask him to leave, I fumble through new pieces, cringing at my crappy progress.

  My compromise: Whenever he enters a nearby room, I switch to a mastered piece, one of the six I included in my conservatory applications. This works for a couple of days until Adrienne calls me out.

  “You promised you’d never play that one again. Ever.” She turns to Caleb. “Holy crap, we had to listen to that for two months.”

  I slam the lid shut.

  Mom defends me, telling Caleb about her favorites, itemizing my solos, recitals, and awards. How she asks me to play the same piece over and over again, her “healing music,” she calls it.

  But even Mom’s praise doesn’t ease my nerves. Whenever Barb insists that I practice, excuses roll off my tongue and I find myself vacuuming under my parents’ bed, cleaning Mom’s vanity table, and tackling other intimate chores. There are windows of time, half an hour here and there, when the house empties for errands, and I stay behind to play without an audience. As long as I muffle the piano, I can practice while Mom sleeps, an increasing amount week by week.

  Mrs. Albright assembled my summer homework with care. She organized the sheet music by level of difficulty, not in regards to skill, but emotion. She understood that I can’t touch the keys without feeling, and some of the pieces paralyze me, especially Chopin, with his uncanny knack for leaving me breathless.

  I may play by myself, but I don’t play alone. Her spidery handwriting adorns the folder, her standing invitation to call or visit.

  She wouldn’t approve of how I break her carefully constructed order, but I can’t squeeze in Liszt minutes at a time. He requires more—hours, even days.

  After a few days of struggling with Liszt, I tell Caleb I need to skip the clinic sleepover. He studies the sheet music, reading the title, Piano Sonata in B minor, with an expression of bewildered jealousy. Even with cancer, he is unaccustomed to a rival.

  They all leave without me. Dad comes home hours later, his arms filled with blueprints. “It’s not like you to play hooky.” He rests his oversize paper, building designs rolled like scrolls, on the dining room table.

  “I’ve got to finish this,” I say. “I’m not even close.”

  He wrestles off his tie and gives me a tired smile. “We’ll work together. I think I can get this done by the end of the week. We’re that close. Want anything from the kitchen, sweetie? I need a beer.”

  “No thanks. I’m good.”

  Even drinking a beer, Dad looks kind of elegant, handsome in an old movie sort of way. He pulls out a chair and taps a few keys, rapidly, like a player himself. “You need a better place to play. You shouldn’t be cramped in here.”

  I release the piano from my sloppy soundproofing, covering the floor with blankets, a large pile that takes up too much space. I play a small part of the sonata, the few proficient notes. The sound can’t compete with school’s grand piano, despite its age and overuse.

  “It’s fine,” I say.

  He glances around the house. “We’ll figure out something better after—”

  Our eyes meet, both of us startled by the acknowledgement that she’ll be gone soon, that we could consider rearranging furniture without protest, without negotiation. Without her.

  I feel slapped by the brutality of the truth, something implied every day. She will die before long, a plain fact, but for how much we deal with the daily details, we never speak of our lives without her, not beyond the abstract. He covers his face with his hands. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  I close the piano, hoping that by hiding away the keys, I’ll erase the betrayal.

  “Yes, you did.”

  “I didn’t mean for it to sound like that, Vanessa.”

  His eyes possess a pleading quality, and I understand that only I can assuage his guilt. Her death will destroy us, but it also will free us of small burdens, of the constraints of her fatigue and nausea and strong opinions. He is speaking of more than redecorating our house. They are horrible thoughts, thoughts that I have too, and I regret each and every one.

  We had a dog once, a border collie, Smiling Joe. I don’t remember, but apparently I begged for a puppy, and after a solid year of asking, I woke to bundle of black-and-white fur licking my face. Dad said that he liked having another male in the house, even if it was just a dog. My seven-year-old legs were too short to keep up with his bounding pace. He was built to run and herd sheep. I was twelve when he bolted out the gaping front door in order to chase a trespassing cat. Our neighbor tried to swerve. I doubt she could have missed him. Afterward, he howled and then let out a sound that was so close to human that I still remember it. I crouched next to him, avoiding the sight of his crushed hind legs, and stroked his ears. I didn’t want to add to his pain by putting any weight on him. Just an hour earlier, I’d rested my head on the scruff of his neck. So, I hovered above him and whispered any reassuring thought that came to mind. Mostly a mantra of I’m right here; it will be okay.

  Even in that moment, guilt was paramount, almost as powerful as grief. I should have shut the door. I should have taken him for a walk. I should have put him in our fenced backyard.

  He kept making that human sound. I wanted him to be out of pain. I wanted him not to suffer. I wanted Mom to come out and help, but she was somewhere inside doing something that involved planning a dinner party. I wanted him to be quiet. It only took a second for me to realize that meant I wanted him to die.

  “It’s okay, Dad. Really.”

  He kisses the top of my head. “I’d do anything for you, kiddo.”

  “I know.”

  He fiddles with the handle on his briefcase. “What’s that smell?”

  I scrunch up my nose. Barb instructed me to stir the stew simmering in the Crock-Pot, a thick blend of stringy eggplant and crushed tomatoes. “Dinner.”

  The front door swings open. He freezes. They’re home early. Too early.

  I follow Dad to the front of the house. Adrienne carries a large box, the month’s supply of medication and supplements. Marie holds Mom’s hand like she’s coaxing her inside. Mom walks through the door cautiously, as though she forgot how to put one foot in front of the other. Her skin is the color of aged newsprint. It must be eighty degrees outside, but she wears a thick sweater and shivers. Her hair, once a shiny gold, hangs limply on her shoulders. Despite her morning bath, she looks like she hasn’t showered in a week.

  “She wouldn’t stay the night,” Adrienne says. “There’s a new doctor and he wanted to do some tests.”

  “Why?” This time Dad directs the question to Mom.

  She stands in the hallway and rests her weight against the wall. “That doctor was barely out of medical school.”

  “Why did you let her come home?” This time Dad looks at Adrienne.

  Adrienne gives him a furious scowl. “Why haven’t you started your leave of absence? I can’t tell her what to do. You’re the one who should be there. Barb moved in five weeks ago and you’re still working.”

  He flinches. “Where was Barb?”

  “Where do you think? Caleb’s getting his own infusion. She’s not our mother, you know.”

  He turns to Mom. “Iris, why didn’t you stay?”

  She sweeps her hair from her forehead. “I couldn’t let someone that inexperienced take care of me. I need to lie down. Vanessa?”

  I turn on the hallway
light and guide Mom to her room, the only consistently orderly room in the house. She sits on the edge of the bed and I pull off her shoes. She is impossibly thin; her ankles almost as small as my wrists. I watch as she closes her eyes and takes a series of deep breaths.

  “Would you please fetch my robe?” Her voice sounds low and gravelly.

  I open the closet and look at the long row of neglected dresses: the gown she wore to the museum’s gala tucked next to her Christmas party cocktail dresses. We spent spring break placing them in clear garment bags, preserving Mom’s favorites. I pluck the soft robe from its hook. I construct a cocoon of blankets and quilts. Even bundled, she still shivers. She tries several different positions—side, stomach, back—before getting comfortable. The peonies resting on the nightstand bloomed days ago, and now their petals spill over the vase, wilted and brown at the edges.

  “Do you want to go to sleep?” I ask. “I can get you a sleeping pill.”

  “No, it’s a struggle to stay awake. Stay with me?” She reaches out her hand. “I want to keep you close.”

  I rest my head on Dad’s pillow and try not to think about Smiling Joe as I listen to her labored breathing.

  “I won’t go back if I have to see him again,” she whispers.

  Is she dreaming? Is she talking to me? “Who?” I ask.

  She takes a deep breath, and just when I think she fell asleep, she says, “That doctor. He’s a sadist.”

  I watch her face, and even on the verge of sleep, she looks afraid. I realize that she must be fighting fear like a low-grade fever, a constant threat of spiking. I almost take her hand, but she uncurls her fingers, her muscles relaxing as sleep overpowers her. I stay until her face loses its worried expression, frown and furrowed brow, and she falls into a sleep too deep to dream.

  She sleeps through the night, and when she wakes, Adrienne, Marie, and I take turns in her room, even after Barb returns with Caleb, even when Barb tells us to let Mom rest. Adrienne rolls her eyes at Bossy Barb and lounges on Mom’s bed, sketching portraits of Mom, filling out her cheeks and brightening her eyes in the drawing. I serve Mom tea and toast. Eventually she begins to improve; soon she’s strong enough to help Marie organize her saint cards, their new project. Mom pulls out a photo album, a metallic gold one she’d been saving for Christmas pictures, and gives it to Marie. In elegant script, almost calligraphy, Mom copies Marie’s favorite quotes, dying words of murdered virgins. A holy and morbid scrapbook.

  She clings to us, though, telling us how much she loves us, how she is our mother, to never forget that, especially given how Barb has taken charge of the house. She doesn’t mention the doctor again.

  Adrienne, however, does. Dad makes her repeat every detail, but Adrienne and Marie spent the afternoon in the courtyard and never saw the doctor, much less met him. Lupe didn’t mention a new doctor. Adrienne describes an ordinary afternoon at the clinic: heat and boredom and the smell of the ocean and blooming jasmine.

  I feed Mom a sleeping pill so she can get some more rest. I’m desperate to see a hint of pink in her cheeks—anything to remind me that she is still alive. At least her breathing returns to normal, no longer low and rattling.

  Caleb, stretched out on my bed, bolts upright as soon as he sees me. “Skate?”

  After spending so much time staring at Mom, I can barely stand to look at the life in him: a slight sunburn, freckles, enough energy to stand, to walk, to hop onto his board. If I ignore the redness around his eyes, violet rings like Saturn’s, he could be healthy. “Where are Adrienne and Marie?”

  “Backyard. Adrienne’s drawing and Marie is doing that catechism thing.” Almost as a reminder, he takes a moment to get his footing, briefly closing his eyes, blinking them open.

  I catch myself staring. He waves his hand. “Laetrile hangover. Let’s go.”

  On the driveway, Caleb kneels down to bend my knees, moving my legs into position. Gently, he pushes the board. “Go. Now veer to the right. If you bend your front leg more, you’ll go faster.”

  I glide down the sidewalk and then pause as I wait for Caleb to catch up. I watch him walk toward me, scrutinizing his face and his pink cheeks, fuller now than before, so unlike Mom’s. The breeze presses his shirt against his body, emphasizing his broad shoulders. I want to run a hand across the width of them. He hops onto the board and places his hands on my hips.

  We ride down the street, cupped against each other, venturing nine blocks, a record, before turning toward home. The sun dips in the sky, paling behind the clouds, the clouds pink and golden.

  “You’re quiet today,” he says.

  “I’m just thinking about my mom.”

  “That whole thing was crazy.” He tightens his grip on me.

  “You know what happened?”

  “Yeah, I was there. My mom too.”

  I don’t know how to brake. I drag my foot on the asphalt, but instead of slowing us down, I rock the board, tilting to the right, almost crashing. He brings us safely to a halt.

  “What exactly did he do to her?” I ask.

  Caleb shifts his weight from one foot to the other. “I thought she told you.”

  “Only that he’s a sadist.”

  His eyes widen. “I don’t know what the big deal was. He just wanted to take a blood sample. He said her medication is wrong and he wanted to check. She . . . I don’t know how to describe it.”

  He stops talking and I resist the urge to shake him, restart him like a stalled battery. “And?”

  He flips up the board and rests it against his knee. “It was nuts. She started screaming that he was going to hurt her and that he was stupid. She said he didn’t know anything.”

  “But what did he do to her?”

  He won’t look at me. “Nothing. He didn’t do anything but take a blood sample.”

  Finally, he looks up, and I wish he hadn’t, because he looks at me with such pity, something I thought I’d never see from him. “I’m sorry, but she lost it. I mean, she went completely crazy. The nurses had to hold her down.”

  Mom, with brittle bones and sepia skin, disappearing right in front of us. Mom, who couldn’t get out of bed. Restrained by nurses, not one, but plural, pinned down by firm hands.

  “Why would they hold her down? What are you talking about?”

  He shifts again, the sun hitting his face at a different angle, and in the change of light, he looks strange, backlit, two-dimensional.

  “She was out of control. They were trying to calm her down and give her a sedative. Sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  When he meets my eyes, something passes between us. I wonder if he’s holding back, keeping details from me.

  “Did you see anything else? Did the doctor say anything?”

  He coughs. “No, that’s it.”

  He looks at the ground.

  “You know more, don’t you? You’re just not telling me.”

  “It’s hard to understand what’s going on down there.”

  “But you know something,” I say.

  “Not yet, but my mom is trying to make sure your mom’s okay. She wants to figure out what happened so she can help.”

  “Did anything else happen?”

  He nods. “Not to your mom, though.”

  “Then what?” I hate it when my heart picks up speed like it’s doing now. “Tell me, Caleb. Please.”

  He must hear the desperation in my voice, because he meets my eyes and they don’t contain any pity, or the devastated look they do when he talks about his dad or chemo. “I want to end treatment. I don’t need Laetrile, and I’m beginning to think that it doesn’t matter if I take it or not. I’m in remission. My mom’s worried about my cancer coming back, but Laetrile can’t stop that. It’s a treatment, not a vaccine. I don’t think it’s good for me. Maybe they’re right and Laetrile is dangerous. I told her when we drove back, but she shot me down. She’s making me finish the cycle.”

  “It’s your body. You can say no.”

  He s
hakes his head. “Not until October. I’m a minor until then.”

  “This is messed up. Tell the doctor. Pitch a fit like Adrienne. She’ll teach you.”

  He smiles. “Believe me, I don’t need Adrienne to teach me how to have a big argument with my parents.”

  This is the first time he mentions his dad—using “parents” rather than “parent”—and doesn’t flinch.

  “Then do it.”

  He waves his hand between us. “I want to end treatment, but what will happen with us? Mom and I are supposed to move out when I’m done.”

  “You’re going to stop Laetrile no matter what. You’re two-thirds done with your cycle.” I look away. The thought of him going back to Seattle is unbearable. “Has she been looking at houses here? Are you moving here?”

  “She circled some listings in the classifieds. She hasn’t found anything yet. Is your dad still okay with us being here? Even though you’re starting school so soon?”

  God, school—I haven’t even thought about it because it seems impossible that they’ll actually make us go, especially now.

  “Wasn’t that the unspoken agreement?” Caleb asks. “That we’d be out by then?”

  I shake my head. “We talked about seeing how things are going by the time school started, but don’t worry about being here. It’s so much easier, you know, with your mom cooking and everything. I think Dad’s happy not having pizza every night. He likes talking to her. My mom does too.”

  He looks at a jagged crack in the sidewalk, the damage of a large oak tree’s rebellious roots. “It’s going to get harder with your mom.”

  “I know.” I wipe tears off my cheeks. “I’m scared of you seeing it. Her getting worse.”

  “Six months ago, I was almost ready to give up. I couldn’t get out of bed because chemo made me so sick. I didn’t have any energy. I threw up all of the time. I couldn’t concentrate. I could barely think. I didn’t think it was worth it if the rest of my life was going to be like that.” He pauses, and I watch his face as he chooses his next words. When I reach for his hand, he weaves his fingers with mine.