“At a motel with Ronnie. Did you see the school?”
“Yeah. It’s trashed. They said there won’t be any more school this year. Obviously. So it’s summer break now. What a crappy way to start summer break. You hear anything from Jane?”
“No. You?”
“No. A lot of people still can’t get cell service. I tried to call you, by the way, but it wouldn’t go through. But everybody I’ve heard from seems to be pretty much the same. Freaked out. Lost all their stuff. I’m glad you guys made it through okay.”
I paused, blinking rapidly. I opened my mouth, but my throat felt closed tight. We didn’t. We didn’t make it through okay at all.
“What about Kolby?”
I took a deep breath, steadied myself. “He’s fine. He went to Milton. But, Dani… I have to tell you something.” I paused again, unsure of how to say it. I’d never had to give anyone bad news before—not like this—and I wasn’t sure how you eased into it. Instead, I blurted it out, my mouth working faster than my brain. “My mom died. And so did Marin.”
There was such utter silence on the other end of the line, I could hear myself breathing into the speaker. When Dani spoke again, her voice was barely more than a whisper. “Are you serious?”
I nodded, unable to speak, even though I knew she couldn’t hear me nodding, and I felt stupid, but there was nothing I could do to stop it. The words wouldn’t come out.
“Oh my God, Jersey. I don’t know what to say.” There was a long, wrenching silence. “I’m so sorry.”
“So yeah, we’re in Prairie Valley right now,” I said, swallowing, trying to get control of myself and get as far away from the word “died” as possible. “I don’t know when we’ll be back home. Our house is pretty much gone.”
“I know. We drove around a little last night. My mom wanted to take pictures so she could send them to my grandma in Indiana. I guess all those houses have to be rebuilt. Is Ronnie going to rebuild yours?”
“I don’t know. He isn’t talking.”
Dani’s voice went soft. “Yeah, I guess he’s pretty messed up right now. I can’t believe they died. Do you know when the funerals will be?”
“No. Ronnie isn’t talking. About anything. He’s not even getting out of bed.” I considered telling her that I’d been stealing money out of his pants so I could eat, and that I was wearing the same underwear I’d been wearing when the tornado hit, and that I was starting to get scared that he would never get out of bed and that I would starve to death or something stupid because I was too numb to think of how I could save myself. But I didn’t want to worry her any more than I already had, so I let the silence sit between us again.
“Listen,” she finally said. “I’d have to ask my mom, but if you need to come stay with us, at least until the funerals are over, I’m sure it would be okay with her. We don’t have any power and our roof is leaking in, like, ten places, but they’re going to fix it today and they’re saying we might get power back by the end of the week, maybe.”
Part of me wanted to jump at the chance. I wanted to tell Dani to come get me right now, wanted to hop into her car and let her mom soothe everything the way my mom would have done if she had just stayed home, if she had just skipped Marin’s dance class. I would borrow Dani’s clothes and be happy to wear something that smelled like fabric softener rather than sweat and rainwater, even though she was easily two sizes smaller than I was. I would eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, thick on the peanut butter, and drink endless sodas, even if they were warm and I had to eat by candlelight.
But I couldn’t do it. I kept thinking about how much Mom loved Ronnie and how disappointed she would be in me if I left him, stinking up the bedsheets and mopping his unwashed face with the pillow, starving himself to death because he wouldn’t get up to eat. Even if I’d never had a deep connection with Ronnie, Mom had loved him like mad, and I couldn’t leave him, because Mom wouldn’t want me to.
“Okay, thanks, I’ll tell Ronnie.”
“Just call me.”
“I will. I should go. If you hear from Jane, let me know, okay?”
“Of course. I’m sure she’s fine. You shouldn’t worry.”
“Yeah,” I said, but how did we know? Not everyone came out of the tornado fine. I didn’t come out fine at all.
“And, Jers?”
“Huh?”
“Let me know when the funerals are? I want to come.”
I squeezed my eyes tighter; a tear slipped out and down one cheek. Burying my mother and my sister seemed like something I just couldn’t do. I wasn’t strong enough. I wanted my mom. I needed her. How depressingly ironic that the one person I needed to give me strength to face my mom’s death was the one who’d died.
“I will.” I hung up and sat with the phone in my lap for a few minutes, staring at the water that dripped off the bottom of the window air conditioner into a plastic tub on the floor.
“You okay?” the desk clerk asked, leaning over the counter to peer at me. She twisted her watch around on her wrist anxiously.
I nodded. “Fine.” A lie. I got up and started to walk toward the door.
“It’s real terrible what happened over there in Elizabeth,” she said.
“Yeah.”
“I’m real sorry about it.”
“Thanks.” I hurried out of the office as quickly as I could. I didn’t want to hear anyone else tell me they were sorry. What did I’m sorry mean, exactly, when someone had died? Wouldn’t it be much more accurate to say I’m grateful when someone close to you was hit by tragedy? I’m grateful, as in, I’m grateful that this didn’t happen to me. At least that would be honest.
I stood outside and looked up at the sky. The day was sunny and warm again, and here, twenty miles away from home, it almost seemed like a normal day. Except on a normal day I would be in chem class right now, excited about theater club practice and the lighting cues I still had to learn. On a normal day I would be seeing Mom tonight, would be telling Marin that I was too busy, too busy, always too busy.
I gazed down the line of motel room doors. Behind one of those, Ronnie was drowning in his own grief. Behind one of them, he was alone and I was alone, only feet apart, unable to talk about the things we needed to say.
I couldn’t go in there. Not yet.
Instead, I turned and walked down the sidewalk, Ronnie’s credit card in my pocket.
I wandered past a strip mall, which was filled with real estate offices and computer repair shops and dry cleaners, and headed toward a big chain pharmacy a short distance away. My clothes and shoes felt coarse and gross against my skin. I gazed at all the perfect buildings, the perfect people. Why had they been spared?
I stopped at the pharmacy and filled a cart with packages of ugly underwear and socks that I normally wouldn’t be caught dead in, T-shirts and flip-flops emblazoned with the logo and mascot of a high school I’d never attended, and packs of chips and cookies and cups of Easy Mac. I stood for a long time in front of the cold section, letting the refrigeration fall over me in waves, closing my eyes and soaking it up until my arms were goose bump-y and tight. After I’d bought as much as I could carry, I walked back to the motel, shopping bags looped over my arms, wondering how I was going to lure Ronnie out of bed.
What would Mom want me to do?
If Ronnie and I had been closer, maybe I would know. But Mom had always been the buffer between us, had always been the one trying to bridge a relationship where there really wasn’t one.
“You can call him Dad, you know,” she’d said one night not long after they got married. “He’s technically your dad now.”