If Only Page 4

  There were some days when I came home and Mom was so weak that she just lay there with her eyes closed. You couldn’t avoid seeing her even if you wanted to, because her hospital bed was in the middle of our living room, which is practically on top of the front door. It was awful to open the front door or walk downstairs for breakfast and see her that way.

  My mom told me, “Corinna, I know I should be talking to you about everything that’s going on with me. Everyone tells me I should. But it’s just too hard.”

  I told her, “It’s okay, Mom.”

  My dad was the one who shared a lot with me during the time when Mom was sick, maybe too much, like about different chemo treatments and stuff like that. I liked having talks with him, feeling included, but sometimes it was just too much for me, hearing so many scary things. I didn’t tell my friends. I didn’t want anyone to know. If they knew, then it would be even harder for me to block it out.

  “I really wish you were in the show with us,” Lena is saying when I tune back in to the conversation. “Remember last year?”

  Last year, the six of us did a skit in the talent show, called “A Brighter Future,” about energy conservation. Our social studies teacher made us do it because she liked our class project so much, but the audience didn’t know if it was supposed to be funny, and we felt really stupid.

  Joci makes a loud announcement: “Ever since my mom saw Juliette and me practicing our dance, she has been driving me crazy with all her warnings to keep it ‘appropriate.’”

  My back stiffens and I quickly tune out again to avoid what to me feels like fingernails scratching on the chalkboard.

  I know moms can be annoying, but she’s lucky to have a mom. I used to complain about my mom, just like everyone else does about their own mom. It would be totally fake to pretend we didn’t ever get mad at each other. Of course we did. I remember when I was in first grade and I kept changing my mind about what I wanted to be for Halloween. She made me a Tweety Bird costume after I told her I really, really, absolutely wanted to be Tweety Bird. She spent days cutting and sewing it. But the costume was so yellow and didn’t have feathers and didn’t look at all like the real Tweety Bird, and there was just no way I could be that Tweety Bird. I had a total spaz attack and then she had a total spaz attack and . . . it was not my best Halloween.

  Now when I look at the Tweety Bird in my ginormous stuffed-animal collection, I can’t believe I ever liked him. He has a grand total of three eyelashes per eye and one sorry tuft of hair on top. His eyes are open big and wide, but with a look of terror, like he’s about to fall into a huge bottomless pit with no way out. It’s not a happy face at all. It’s a seen-too-much look, like he’s freaked out about something. I wonder if my eyes looked like that when Mom was dying in our living room. I think I should get rid of Tweety Bird as soon as I get home from school today so I won’t have to see that look, so I won’t have a three-haired bright yellow reminder of how I felt when I looked at my mom.

  “Corinna, let’s go,” Joci’s saying as she touches my shoulder.

  Suddenly, everyone is getting up from the lunch table and I’m thrown back into my school world.

  Clare

  “Corinna, we need to have a little talk,” Dad says when I walk into the kitchen. He’s using his serious voice, like when he told me about Mom’s diagnosis. His words send my heart down into my stomach. But instead of devastating news, Dad starts lecturing me about my forgotten social studies homework, which he found out about thanks to an annoying call from Mr. Spinolli. As soon as he’s done, he goes back to fixing the faucet, and I walk over to the computer. Rather than telling Joci about Mr. Spinolli, like I would have done before, I start on my homework. I type three paragraphs about the causes of World War I and print them out before going online to check my e-mail, which I haven’t done in ages.

  A minute later, I get an IM from a girl in my grade named Clare, who moved to our school in the middle of last year. She plays soccer, too, but she’s on a travel team in a different league.

  soccergrlc: hey Corinna, what’s up?

  maki226: not much. U?

  soccergrlc: just wondering if u knew my dad died 3 years ago?

  maki226: no. wow. I’m so sorry.

  soccergrlc: thanks.

  maki226: so you were 10 when he died?

  soccergrlc: the big one zero.

  I can’t believe it. I’m not the only one in the entire eighth grade — no, make that the entire middle school — who knows what it is like to have their parent gone, dead, lost, whatever. I’m sad her father died but also happy that I’m not actually completely alone. I type like crazy.

  maki226: how’d he die?

  soccergrlc: heart disease

  maki226: was he sick a long time?

  soccergrlc: yeah

  maki226: that must have been so hard

  soccergrlc: ur right

  maki226: do u ever get over it?

  soccergrlc: no, I don’t think so, but it gets a little easier. tiny bit by tiny bit

  maki226: ouch

  soccergrlc: yup

  maki226: so was it hard to concentrate?

  soccergrlc: totally. I don’t remember very much from 5th grade

  maki226: yeah, tears and exponents don’t mix. haha

  soccergrlc: let’s keep this on the DL

  maki226: yeah, totally

  soccergrlc: good

  maki226: no way am I talking about this with anyone else at school

  soccergrlc: yeah they don’t understand

  Suddenly, it makes sense that Clare was one of the few kids who sent me a note after Mom died. Then I think about Joci. I’m not sure Joci will ever “get it.”

  The ref blows the final whistle of our Saturday afternoon soccer game, and I’m relieved. It’s hot, I’m tired, and I’m glad the official season is more than half over. Maybe it’s good I didn’t switch to the travel team. They’re much more serious and intense. In today’s game, I messed up big time. I had the perfect shot on goal and I missed it. I hate that. My team hated it, too. We lost, 0–1.

  “Girls, you’ve got to stay focused out there,” my coach says after the game. “You’ve got to concentrate.”

  I know he’s talking to me.

  Tonight as I’m trying to fall asleep, I see that play over and over. After a lot of tossing and turning and reliving my pathetic shot on goal, I finally drift off. At some point, I start dreaming. Three lion cubs are walking in the tall grass. They seem lost and their mother is nowhere in sight. They don’t know yet that she’s dead. My first thoughts when I wake up are: Will they be able to survive without her to feed them and teach them how to hunt? Will they find another adult to care for them? Will their father appear? I tell myself that the cute little cubs are going to all survive, somehow.

  During my daytime reality, it turns out I have my own Animal Planet to deal with at school. Dumbhead Jake, who I somehow had a crush on last year, looks up when I pass him in the cafeteria and says to Dylan in his totally annoying, sarcastic voice, “I sure hope her dad knows how to cook.”

  Dylan laughs really hard and says, “He should. He probably works at McDonald’s!”

  I want to kill them! In a split second, I have to choose whether to a) say something back, b) give them “The Look,” c) ignore them altogether, or d) vaporize them. Since I can’t destroy them, I decide to ignore them. It’s easier, and I don’t have the energy to fight back. Besides, it’s hard to think of just the right comeback to say to those jerks. I never seem to have something ready to say in situations like this. Next time, maybe I’ll try bossy Beth’s “Whatever” expression that she uses whenever she gets insulted. I can learn something from our eighth-grade Queen Bee without having to eat her club’s super Caesar salads or follow her ridiculous fashion rules.

  School seems so irrelevant, especially math. I just don’t care about math equations and solving for x and y. Other subjects are too relevant, like in biology, where our review of Punnett squares reminds me
of how I got my green eyes and heart-shaped face from my mom. When Mr. Spinolli talks about World War I and the piles of dead bodies and the rats that were big as rabbits from feasting on them, it’s hard not to think about my mom’s body. But Mom’s body is now ashes, and those ashes are in an urn in my house, in our living room, safe from rats.

  By the time I get home, have a snack, do homework, and eat dinner, it’s eight o’clock. We are supposed to learn new pieces for band because we’re performing at a retirement home next week, but practicing flute is the last thing I feel like doing. Clare and I made plans to instant message on the computer tonight. During the day, we have to save up our questions, because when we’re at school, we have to keep on our protective armor. There’s a look we give each other, a knowing look, the way you might if you were part of a secret club.

  Tonight, Clare tells me that her dad wrote her a letter before he died. Her mom gave it to her when she turned twelve. I totally wish my mom had done that. After I get off the computer, I check with Dad.

  “Did Mom write any kind of letter for me?”

  “She wrote you cards on your birthdays. Is that what you mean?”

  “No, I mean for the future. Like for my sixteenth birthday or my wedding or something.”

  “Not that I know of.”

  Dad seems clueless.

  There are so many things I want to ask my mom and even more things that I want to tell her. One of the things I wish is that I’d said more of a good-bye. I never really found the right moment. Even after I finally figured out she was dying, it was so hard to know what to say. So hard to think. So hard to feel. Much easier to be on “autopilot,” as Dad would say, getting through each day, taking care of things, helping out my dad or the nurses, trying to ignore the ache in my belly.

  I still have stomach pains. I don’t think that was one of Mom’s symptoms, but I can’t help but worry that the different aches and pains I get might be some kind of cancer, or something else really serious. Some of my stomach pains might be connected to the Joci situation.

  Joci was the first one to find out that Mom was sick, just after school ended in June. I had stopped inviting friends over. I guess my parents told Joci’s parents, and they told Joci. Right after she found out, I saw her in CVS. We were picking up more medicine, and she launched right in.

  “Corinna, are you scared?”

  “Um, yeah, I guess so.”

  “Well, my mom said to tell you that we want to help.”

  “Okay, thanks. Can you do me a huge favor, though? Please don’t tell anyone.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I just can’t deal with it now. Everyone will talk about it. Everyone will know. Plus, it’s freaky seeing my mom connected to an IV.”

  She scrunched up her face, then said, “Gross.” I stared at her in shock and then closed my eyes while she continued. “I’m sorry, but I hate medical stuff.”

  “Joci, I’m serious. Please, please don’t tell anyone.”

  “Okay, okay.”

  I took that as a promise.

  Joci’s family invited me to come with them to the beach for a week, and my parents thought it was a good idea, so I went. That meant that I missed most of Aunt Jennifer’s visit when she came to help Mom. After Aunt Jennifer left, Joci’s mom started bringing over dinner two nights a week, which was really sweet of her. Mom could only handle liquids by then, so it was just Dad and me eating what she brought. Joci came with her one time in the middle of July, but that was the one and only time. She stood in the doorway, with only her eyes moving. I’m sure it freaked her out. In a way, I don’t blame her, but still, it hurt that she didn’t come back again. She called me, but not very often, and it felt so awkward. Neither of us knew what to say.

  There were lots of times when all I wanted to do was go for long walks with Maki or watch TV, but I tried to find things to do to be helpful. I could feed Mom ice chips or give her a foot rub like Aunt Jennifer did, or open a can of chocolate Ensure for her to sip when she could still sip. I tasted the Ensure one time, thinking it would taste like a chocolate milk shake, the way the picture on the label promised. Man, was I wrong! It tasted like watery, chalky, fake chocolate toothpaste, but without the mint. Yuck. My mouth gets all puckered when I think about that awful taste.

  Sometimes I read cards to her from people trying to sound cheerful. “Get well soon” certainly was popular. The white basket now sits on our coffee table, and it’s overflowing with cards to her and cards sent to us after she died, a reminder of all the people who cared about her. We still get cards once in a while, when someone else hears about her.

  Sometimes I just sat there next to Mom. She was so weak that we didn’t really talk a lot. Kind of like she was half there, half already gone. There were lots of times I couldn’t sit with her, though, when I just needed to get away from all those smells and boxes of rubber gloves. I usually got out of there when Deborah was with her, not to get away from Deborah, but because I needed a break.

  There was all this pressure to do the right thing to help her, and then she was gone. Going, going, gone. I can’t believe she’s gone.

  Most people feel sorry for me that my mom died, but they don’t really get it. They don’t understand that my life has changed forever. Forever. They also don’t have a clue what it’s like to be terrified that your other parent might die. That could be the worst part. I don’t have a backup plan.

  The great thing about Clare is that she understands the serious stuff. Another great thing about Clare is that we can joke about things that no one else gets, like baked ziti. We have even developed an online ziti routine. I don’t think they would welcome it in any talent show.

  maki226: did ur family eat a lot of ziti after your father died?

  soccergrlc: I don’t ever want to c baked ziti again. we ate it every night for a month.

  maki226: my neighbors think baked ziti is what everyone needs when they’re sad.

  soccergrlc: do they want us to eat ziti so we get all ziti?

  maki226: haha

  soccergrlc: do u still have some in your freezer? maybe we can have a ziti party & put some on our faces for a serious case of teenage zits?!

  maki226: LOL!

  It took me about five minutes to stop laughing about the ziti. Laughing with Clare is the best. But I don’t like hearing her mention her mother’s boyfriend.

  I’m staring out the car window, looking at the trees. There don’t seem to be as many bright red trees as I remember from other Octobers. I ask Dad to pull over at the farm stand so we can get a pumpkin, and I pick out a big round one. When we get home, there are three phone messages waiting for us on our answering machine from some random person trying to schedule an earwax cleaning. I never even knew that there were professional earwax cleaners. What a gross job. The messages get madder and madder. It sounds so crazy and bizarre with him yelling at us, like we did something wrong. Besides the wrong number calls from the screaming earwax maniac, we also have a message from Deborah. She asks if I want to go out to lunch with her, like it’s something we’ve done a thousand times.

  “Are you going to call her back?” Dad asks.

  “Maybe someday.”

  I can’t explain why, but I just don’t feel like it.

  Deborah used to be at our house all the time. She and Mom would take over the house for their rehearsals, and during her divorce, Deborah would sometimes stay for dinner. During the time Mom was in bed so much, Deborah would come over and play sad cello music for her.

  I know Deborah is just trying to be nice to me and get me talking, but I don’t want her poking and squeezing me about my mom.

  The last message on our answering machine is from Mrs. Simmons, the neighbor who keeps calling to invite us to dinner. Before I even finish listening to it, the phone rings. As soon as I hear the deep voice on the other end, I know it’s her and I wish I hadn’t answered. She has always been pushy. My parents used to tell me to “be kind, be patient; remember she�
��s old and lonely,” but I can’t stand her. Her voice sounds like she smokes five packs of cigarettes a day, not that I’ve ever seen her smoke.

  “Corinna, dear, this is Phyllis Simmons. You and your father must come have dinner at my house this week. How’s Tuesday?”

  My eyes roll back into my head when I tell her, “I’ll get my dad, hold on.”

  Dad makes up some excuse, which saves me from telling Mrs. Simmons that I am never going to set foot in her house.

  About ten o’clock, I’m lying in bed reading the last few pages of my English homework. I can hear Dad on the phone.

  “I’m just not up for it yet,” he says.

  What is someone asking him to do, I wonder? Go out on a date? Now I have something else to worry about. I can’t fall asleep. The streetlights are humming louder than usual. After I get up and go to the bathroom, I see that Dad’s light is still on, so I decide to knock on his door.

  “Dad, you awake?” I whisper through the door.

  “Yeah. What’s wrong?”

  I open the door. Dad is lying in bed with a book on his chest.

  “Who was that on the phone?”

  “Mike.”

  “What did he want?”

  “He was asking me to play tennis or basketball with him next Saturday,” Dad says, trying to sound upbeat.

  “Well, are you going to?”

  “Nah. Not this time.”

  “You should, Dad,” I say to encourage him, but he doesn’t seem to hear me.

  “Good night, Corinna.”

  “Night,” I say as I close the door.

  On Saturday, I’m the one with plans. The eighth grade is having two car washes this year to raise money for our graduation dance. While we’re getting soaked by sponges, hoses, and soap, Joci invites me to see a movie in downtown Bethesda with her tonight.

  “Come on, it’ll be fun! We can get that yummy custard ice cream or go to Georgetown Cupcake after the movie. My mom said she can give us a ride.”