“Shh!” Mom says when I let myself into the kitchen. “Lara’s resting. She tires very easily.”
“Is she in the family room?” I ask. “Because I have homework to do and I need to use the computer.”
“No, she’s in her room,” Mom says.
“So … why do I have to shush, then? She’s upstairs. I’m downstairs. I can’t even talk in my own house?”
We’re inside the house, so the Paranormal Smile is nowhere to be seen. Mom gives an exasperated sigh. “Sit down, Sydney. I need to explain a few rules going forward,” she says.
This doesn’t sound good. I slide into a chair at the table and perch on the edge, waiting for the axe to fall. What are my parents going to take away from me this time because of Lara?
“Your sister is still in a … fragile state,” Mom says. “We have to keep a close eye on her to make sure she doesn’t come to any harm.”
“Wait, you mean she might try to kill herself again?”
“There’s no immediate risk but —”
“If they thought she might try to do it again, why’d they let her out of the freaking hospital?” I ask, my voice rising in anger at the doctors who made the decision.
I don’t want to knock on my sister’s door or the bathroom door and get no answer and wonder if she’s okay or if she’s dead. I don’t want to feel that sick, gut-wrenching panic ever again.
“Sydney, keep your voice down!” Mom hisses. “Lara’s sleeping.”
“How am I supposed to sleep knowing my sister might try to kill herself in the next room at any random moment?”
“Can you just listen to me before you start with the drama?” Mom says.
Oh, I’m the one with the drama? Wow, Mom.
“Lara will be seeing a therapist regularly, and I have to keep her under constant observation,” Mom continues. “That means she has to keep her bedroom door open and even the bathroom door has to be kept cracked open when she’s inside.”
“What, even when she’s, you know, going?”
“Yes, even then,” Mom says, her face grim.
“That’s kind of creepy,” I say.
“It’s a whole lot less creepy than finding her unconscious in the bathtub surrounded by pill bottles,” Mom says.
I have to admit she has a point there.
“Wait — those rules don’t apply to me, though, do they?”
Mom looks confused.
“No. Why would they apply to you?”
“Because last time, when Lara was trying to lose weight, you made me stop eating cookies, too.”
The look on Mom’s face would be comical if it wasn’t my life we were talking about. It was like this was some huge revelation to her, when she was the one who made the freaking policy.
“I didn’t do that!” she protests.
“What do you mean, you didn’t do that? Of course you did! You don’t buy cookies anymore. You don’t make any. This house has been a Cookie-Free Zone since Lara was in middle school.”
“But … that was because I was trying to create a supportive environment for Lara to lose weight,” Mom protests. She looks down at her fingers and fidgets with her engagement ring. “I never intended it to feel like a punishment for you, sweetheart.”
“Sure doesn’t feel that way.”
“I’m sorry.”
She says it so softly I think I’ve misheard. I’ve never heard Mom say those words to me before. Apologies are a one-way street in our house, a street that goes in the parental direction. Until now.
But when I look at Mom her eyes are glistening. There’s no Paranormal Smile. I think this is the real deal.
“I’m doing the best I can, Syd. I try, but I don’t always get it right,” she says, an unfamiliar wobble in her voice.
I’m not used to seeing her like this. Hearing her admit that she’s not right all the time, that she’s sorry, that she’s not the Paranormal Queen of Perfection, is what makes me get up and hug her, even though I’m still mad.
“It’s okay, Mom. Nobody’s perfect.”
She hugs me back, and I breathe in the scent of the perfume she always wears and the smell of her shampoo. So what if Lara is falling to pieces — Mom still puts on makeup and dresses like she’s on a photo shoot. Maybe that’s the glue she uses to hold herself together.
Mom releases me and sighs heavily.
“I don’t have to tell you how having to be here to watch Lara constantly is going to impact my campaign,” she says.
And that’s when our little “moment” ends with a thud.
“Maybe you can get Lara to apologize for the poor timing of her suicide attempt,” I say before taking my backpack and stomping upstairs, ignoring the stricken look on my mother’s face.
“DID YOU hear? Sydney Kelley’s sister got let out of the hospital.”
“You mean the girl who tried to kill herself?”
“Yeah. My sister said some dude dumped her on Facebook and that’s what made her do it.”
That’s the kind of buzz going around the cafeteria at lunch.
I see Sydney walk in with her friend Cara. She stands in line to get her food. At first she’s chatting with Cara. But then I watch as her back tenses up and her hands clutch the tray tighter. As she starts hearing what people around her are saying. Then she says something to Cara and rushes out of the cafeteria, leaving her tray.
“Yo, Liam — you zoning out or what?”
Oliver waves his hand in front of my face to get my attention.
“What?” I ask.
“Did you hear anything I just said?”
“You asked me if I was zoning out.”
He gives me an “Are you kidding me?” look.
“Duh. Before that.”
“Uh, no.”
“Are you going to debate club after school?”
“Yeah,” I tell him, but my mind isn’t on debate. Or on the fantasy football league, which is what the other guys at the table are talking about. I’m wondering where Syd is and if she’s okay. I want to find her and ask, but I’m afraid she’ll think I’m weird if I do. So instead I pretend I just got a text, and under the pretext of replying, I send one to Sydney.
Hey, saw you rush out of the caf. You okay?
She doesn’t answer right away. I start to think she isn’t going to, so I force myself to join in the fantasy football league discussion and act like I care.
And then my phone vibrates.
Not really.
Anything I can do?
Tell everyone to shut up about Lara? Make the world go away?
I wish I could do that. But I can just see me standing up in the middle of the cafeteria and shouting, “Could you all just shut up about Lara Kelley? And now, back to your regularly scheduled programming …” That would only make people talk about it more — and then they’d be talking about me, too, and how crazy I am.
Wish there was something that I could ACTUALLY do, I text back, before saying, “Are you serious? I can’t believe you played the Bills running back over the Bears last week. You left twenty-five points on your bench.”
As Roger Cohen launches into his reply, Syd texts back.
There’s nothing anyone can do. That’s the worst part of it.
My fingers tighten around my phone. I feel like throwing it at the wall. Someone should be able to do something. I want to do something. But I don’t know what to do or how to do it.
So I just type, Hang in there, Syd, and go back to talking about fantasy football.