I scrambled to pick up my bass and held it up between us, like it was garlic and Will was a heartthrob vampire. Keeping my stare fixed on my hands, I returned to playing like the last five minutes hadn’t happened at all. I did not look at Will. Nope, I did not.
Until I did. Alas, he’d gone back to his chair, reading his textbook like nothing had happened.
Except it was the right-way up this time. And he’d angled his body away from me.
It’s an indisputable truth that one of the best things about holidays is getting to sleep in. Waiting until the sun rays drag you out of your coma, tossing around in bed a few times, maybe falling back asleep once or twice. Then rolling out of bed and down the hall to plonk in front of the television, phone in hand, cereal bowl in lap, with English class all but a faraway dream.
The night before Thanksgiving I burrowed into bed all satisfied and eager, knowing I didn’t have an alarm clock the next morning. My biggest problem was deciding if I’d go for Cheerios or Cinnamon Toast Crunch. The last thing I remembered before drifting off was deciding I’d combine them both into a monster bowl, maybe with chocolate milk instead of regular.
Three hours later, I was very rudely awakened. I peeked through bleary eyes into the pitch-black room, trying to piece together what was going on. Hand on my shoulder. Voice telling me to wake up. A voice that was not an alarm clock. Why did I have to wake before the sun, though? Wasn’t it Thanksgiving? Had I overslept somehow?
“… hospital. Come on, grab a change of clothes. You don’t need to get dressed, you can sleep in Roy and Linda’s bed. Quick, Ollie, come on.”
It was Dad. I staggered out of bed, and he thrust a shirt and jeans against my chest. I felt around for my shoes, trying to form a coherent picture of the situation in silence. Dad was muttering to himself in a panic, digging through my underwear drawer. “Jesus, Ollie, why don’t you pair your socks?”
“Grab any two. It doesn’t matter.”
“It does matter. You should fold your socks together. How lazy do you have to be to just shove socks in a drawer? You don’t even do the washing, or the drying. All we ask is for you to keep your room neat. One small request—”
I rubbed the crust out of my eyes while I tried to catch up. Dad barely ever even came in my room. He’d never cared what it looked like before. “So what? They’re just socks.”
“You’re eighteen years old now, Ollie.”
“I’m seventeen.”
He slammed the drawer shut so hard the pencil tin sitting on the bureau tipped over. “For fuck’s sake, Oliver.”
Dad never swore. Never, ever, ever. I shut my mouth and sat back down on the bed, my cheeks burning. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out something was going on with Aunt Linda. Something probably worse than usual. “Who’s with the kids?” I asked.
“Roy is. He needs to go to the hospital. We need to get you over there now.”
“Wait, we’re not going?”
“Use your brain, Oliver. It’s three A.M. in the morning. Crista and Dylan are asleep.”
But I wanted to go with the adults. I didn’t want to be at home, not sure what was happening. Waiting for the worst. But arguing with Dad in this mood was like asking a wasp for a handshake. With some effort I forced my head to clear and collected the things I figured I might need for the day. At the last second, I turned back and grabbed my phone charger before following Dad downstairs.
Mom was bustling around with puffy, bloodshot eyes, collecting magazines, fresh wipes, and blankets under her arm.
“Get in the car,” Dad barked at me. Like I’d somehow done this to Aunt Linda. I started toward the garage, then hesitated. “What?” he demanded.
“Um … uh … if I drive my own car, I’ll be able to bring Crista and Dylan to the hospital tomorrow if we need.”
Dad stared me down like I’d said the stupidest thing in the world. I racked my memory to figure out if I’d done something to piss him off. Nothing came to mind.
Thankfully, Mom came to the rescue. “Great idea, honey,” she said, pushing past me to throw her load into the backseat of the Honda. “You can follow us.”
I trailed after her, still carrying my own small collection of stuff. Dad made a beeline for the Honda, telling me to hurry up.
Mom shut the back door and flipped around, wrapping me in a fierce hug out of nowhere. “It’s gonna be okay,” she whispered. “Think positive thoughts for me. We need to combine our energy. We’re stronger together.”
“Okay,” I said. But it was a lie. My brain was already preparing the show reel of horrors it liked to deliver in moments of crisis. Aunt Linda was already dead. Aunt Linda was alone in the hospital, crying for Uncle Roy with no one around. Aunt Linda’s body was under the ground with bugs burrowing under her fingernails to lay eggs.
The drive to Linda and Roy’s house went by in a hazy fog. My body drove on autopilot while my mind floated somewhere near the car ceiling, chanting “doom, doom, doom” like it was in a trance. I guess I was. In a trance.
Mom and Dad stayed in their car, and I swapped batons with Uncle Roy. Him to the hospital. Me with the kids. Team break.
I felt super weird sleeping in Aunt Linda and Uncle Roy’s bed, so I dug through their linen closet until I found a blanket. I cocooned myself on the sofa, fluffing up the hard cushions as best as I could. Then I proceeded to stare at the ceiling. Like I was going to get any damn sleep now.
It’s funny how you can spend weeks, or months, or sometimes even years preparing yourself for a nightmare that’s more “when” than “if.” Then just when you’re fooling yourself that you’ve accepted the world’s end, and you’ll roll with the impact when it hits … suddenly, it might be hitting, and you’re not rolling. You’re collapsing, sitting where you stood, totally overwhelmed by a loss you were never really ready for.
How could I have thought I’d cope with losing Aunt Linda? The reality of it all made me feel helpless. My life stretched out in front of me, made up of hundreds of thousands of hours, which were made out of millions of minutes, which were made up of billions of seconds. And right now, each second pinned me down like rubble. I’d have to somehow get through all those billions of seconds without Aunt Linda being alive anymore.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
13
I woke up to three missed calls and a text. My stomach plummeted, and I steeled myself to open the message.
Thursday, 7:16 AM
Linda’s doing okay. Bring the kids
when you can.
Okay.
Okay was good.
I moved through a bubble, getting the kids up, dressed, and fed. Neither of them had a clue their mom was in the hospital, it turned out, and I didn’t know how I was supposed to frame this. In the end I just kind of minimized it, passing it off as a minor blip, sounding as chirpy as I could. Which was a hell of an effort, considering I’d had about four hours’ sleep by my estimate. Luckily for me, the kids didn’t seem suspicious. They were too busy chattering about what they wanted to have for Thanksgiving dinner. How Aunt Linda had promised she’d do the potato gratin with bacon pieces, and that they could have a glass of Coke if they were well-behaved.