“Garage?” I suggest. Dad nods, and Connie hurries down the stairs to check in on Yasmín.
“We’ll be there in a minute,” Dad says before closing the door behind him, closing me out of the family. They might have been worried about me, but nothing’s changed.
Three more weeks until we’re all free. Three weeks until I’m gone.
That’s all they want.
30
I flick the garage lights and blink at the glare. I stare at the concrete floor, visible and navigable now except for the staggered towers of plastic boxes, labeled and stacked along the far wall, and a scattered handful of flat cardboard boxes deemed in good enough shape to move out with. There’s still a smattering of trash piles and donation boxes, but this place is more or less ready for remodeling. The one thing I didn’t fuck up this summer.
I take a seat on one of the plastic boxes and stare at the water-stained ceiling. Things aren’t really that bad, despite the deep pit of dread in my stomach. I’m proud of my team. I’m happy for Melissa and Karey. I made up with both my best friends. I’m excited about Nico. Shouldn’t all of that be enough to outweigh whatever the United Front is about to throw at me?
What are they going to throw at me? And what’s taking them so long to come out here and get it over with?
The door opens. I guess I’ll find out.
“Ellen.” Connie comes into the garage alone. “Greg and I thought it might be better if we talk to you separately.” The way her mouth twists, it seems more like Dad’s idea than hers.
I rise to my feet, gelatinous muscles and all. Connie takes a few steps toward me, and I hurry to meet her at the door. “Here.” I offer the phone to her. “It’s getting confiscated, right?”
Connie stares at my hand for several seconds, then accepts the phone and holds it between her palms. My fingers twitch to snatch it back, to pursue my phone like a lost bludger and wrap Connie in a tackle until she lets it go.
She walks past me, dusts off the box I was sitting on, and perches on its edge with a grimace. With nowhere else to sit, I sink to the floor several feet in front of her, knees to my chest.
“I came to apologize,” Connie says. With her face aimed down, her stiff words thunk to the floor. “I’m sorry.”
I didn’t see that coming, and I’m afraid that anything I say will change her mind.
“Greg thinks . . .” She stops. “Greg and I talked this weekend.” With a pained smile, she shoves my phone back into my hands. “He helped me see that in the past year I’ve been . . . harsh. Hard on you. I’m sorry.”
My fingers close around warm plastic, and I stare, mouth open.
“It doesn’t mean there won’t be consequences for going to Austin,” she says quickly. “But we wanted to make sure we did this.”
I still can’t think of a safe response.
“It’s just that”—she frowns, staring at her feet as she adjusts her skirt—“you always seemed so big. When I met you, you were so tall and serious, and I didn’t have any sense of kids past my five-year-old students. And Yasmín was so tiny, and she needed me, and it seemed like you could take care of yourself.”
I cradle the phone, afraid to breathe and break the spell.
Connie gives a real sigh, letting all her breath out instead of gathering it in. “You were only eight years old. Younger than Yasmín is now.”
I remember thinking Connie was so tall, so full of energy and ideas that she made Dad excited, too.
“Your father is always going to see you as little. You’re always going to come first, no matter how big you get.”
Since when? I want to ask, but I stay quiet.
“So I have to be the adult, and you get to be the kid.” Connie pops to her feet and paces the perimeter of the garage, grabbing the broom from the corner and dragging it along beside her while I watch from the middle of the floor. “I’m sorry I forget that sometimes.”
She sounds mostly sincere, except for the tiny barb of accusation. That I’m immature, hard to deal with. The implication hurts a little, but there was more than one apology, too, and besides, her approval isn’t how I measure my life.
“You all did seem so young today,” Connie says, “playing your game—your sport. When I was your age . . .” She shakes her head like she’s trying to dislodge a fly. “Things were different, or I was different. I guess it’s just hard for me to relax when I know how quickly teenagers can get into trouble.”
“I’m not getting into trouble,” I groan. But my face flushes as I think about following Nico up to his room. I would like to be able to talk to Connie about stuff like that. I wish she would tell me what being a teenager was like for her.
“Maybe it would be easier if you were.” She sighs. “I don’t understand what you’re doing. On your phone worrying about politics and pollution all the time—it’s not normal.”
“Why not?” I ask. “Why is it not normal to care about the world? It’s important. Things are bad, and you know the world isn’t just going to fix itself if we don’t—”
Connie’s shaking her head already. “You want to fight to . . . change all the laws and all of society? You want to tell me the world is unfair, unsafe? I know that. That’s why I’m trying to keep you from . . . I’m trying to raise you to be . . . you’re going to get mad if I say ‘normal,’ but you know what I mean.”
I stare at my stepmom, mouth slightly open. I’ve never heard her talk like this, vulnerable, agreeing that the world is every bit as messed up as I say.
“You can’t fight the world,” she says. “You just have to survive it.”
She knows. She sees that the world is a mess—of course she does, how could she not? But she wants to hide, and hide us, from it.
It’s infuriating. It’s kind of understandable. It’s not who I want to be.
“My job is to keep my kids safe.”
Her kids. Plural. Something prickles behind my eyes, and it’s only half frustration. “I just don’t think we’re ever going to be safe if we don’t stand up for things that matter.”
“Okay,” she says. “Okay.” Her voice is confused and resigned, and I recognize it. She hears me the way I hear her. She doesn’t think I’m right, but she doesn’t need to prove me wrong.
She spins slowly, like she doesn’t know where she is, leans the broom against the wall. “It’s looking good in here,” she says. “We’re almost ready to start putting in new sheetrock and flooring, and you still haven’t looked at any of the plans for your new room.”