They kept fighting, fighting over the broken glass, even though Jeremiah was about to lose his flip-flops. A few times I said," Stop!" but they couldn't hear me. They looked alike. I'd never noticed how alike they looked. But right then they looked like brothers. They kept struggling until suddenly, in the midst of it all, my mother was there. I guessed she'd come through the other screen door. I don't know--she was just there. She broke the two of them apart with this incredible kind of brute strength, the kind only mothers have.
She held them apart with a hand on each of their chests. "You two need to stop," she said, and instead of sounding mad, she sounded so sad. She sounded like she might cry, and my mother never cried.
They were breathing hard, not looking at each other, but they were connected, the three of them. They understood something I didn't. I was just standing there on the periphery, bearing witness to it all. It was like the time I went to church with Taylor, and everyone else knew all the words to the songs, but I didn't. They lifted their arms in the air and swayed and knew every word by heart, and I felt like an intruder.
"You know, don't you?" my mother said, her hands crumpling away from them.
Jeremiah sucked in his breath, and I knew he was holding it in, trying not to cry. His face was already starting to bruise. Conrad, though, his face was indifferent, detached. Like he wasn't there.
Until his face sort of opened up, and suddenly he looked about eight years old. I looked behind me, and there was Susannah standing in the doorway. She was wearing her white cotton housedress, and she looked so frail standing there. "I'm sorry," she said, lifting her hands up helplessly.
She stepped toward the boys, hesitant, and my mother backed away. Susannah held out her arms and Jeremiah fell right in, and even though he was so much bigger than she was, he looked small. Blood from his face smeared over the front of her dress, but they didn't pull away. He cried like I hadn't heard him cry since Conrad had accidentally closed the car door on his hand years and years ago. Conrad had cried just as hard as Jeremiah had that day, but this day he didn't. He let Susannah touch his hair, but he didn't cry.
"Belly, let's go," my mother said, taking my hand. She hadn't done that in a very long time. Like a little kid, I followed her inside. We went upstairs, to her room. She closed the door and sat down on the bed. I sat down next to her.
"What's happening?" I asked her, faltering, searching her face for some kind of answer.
She took my hands and put them in hers. She held them tight, like she was the one holding on to me and not the other way around. She said, "Belly, Susannah's sick again."
I closed my eyes. I could hear the ocean roaring all around me; it was like holding a conch shell up to my ear really close. It wasn't true. It wasn't true. I was anywhere but there, in that moment. I was swimming under a canopy of stars; I was at school, sitting in math class; on my bike, on the trail behind our house. I wasn't there. This wasn't happening.
"Oh, bean," my mother sighed. "I need you to open your eyes. I need you to hear me."
I wouldn't open them; I wouldn't listen. I wasn't even there.
"She's sick. She has been for a long time. The cancer came back. And it's--it's aggressive. It's spread to her liver."
I opened my eyes and snatched my hands away from her. "Stop talking. She's not sick. She's fine. She's still Susannah." My face was wet and I didn't even know when I had started to cry.
My mother nodded, wet her lips. "You're right. She's still Susannah. She does things her way. She didn't want you kids to know. She wanted this summer to be-- perfect." Her voice caught on the word "perfect." Like a run in a stocking, it caught, and she had tears in her eyes too.
She pulled me to her, held me against her chest and rocked me. And I let her.
"But they did know," I whimpered. "Everybody knew but me. I'm the only one who didn't know, and I love Susannah more than anybody."
Which wasn't true, I knew that. Jeremiah and Conrad, they loved her best of all. But it felt true. I wanted to tell my mother that it didn't matter anyway, Susannah had had cancer last time and she'd been fine. She'd be fine again. But if I said it out loud, it would be like admitting that she really did have cancer, that this really was happening. And I couldn't.
That night I lay in bed and cried. My whole body ached. I opened all the windows in my room and lay in the dark, just listening to the ocean. I wished the tide would carry me out and never bring me back. I wondered if that was how Conrad felt, how Jeremiah felt. How my mother felt.
It felt like the world was ending and nothing would ever be the same again. It was, and it wouldn't.
chapter forty - three
When we were little and the house was full, full of people like my father and Mr. Fisher and other friends, Jeremiah and I would share a bed and so would Conrad and Steven. My mother would come and tuck us in. The boys would pretend they were too old for it, but I knew they liked it just as much as I did. It was that feeling of being snug as a bug in a rug, cuddly as a burrito. I'd lie in bed and listen to the music drifting up the steps from downstairs, and Jeremiah and I would whisper scary stories to each other till we fell asleep. He always fell asleep first. I'd try to pinch him awake, but it never worked. The last time that happened might have been the last time I ever felt really, really safe in the world. Like all was right and sound.
The night of the boys' fight, I knocked on Jeremiah's door. "Come in," he said.
He was lying in bed staring at the ceiling with his hands clasped behind his head. His cheeks were wet and his eyes looked wet and red. His right eye was purpley gray, and it was already swelling up. As soon as he saw me, he rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand.
"Hey," I said. "Can I come in?"
He sat up. "Yeah, okay."
I walked over to him and sat on the edge of the bed with my back pushed up against the wall. "I'm sorry," I began. I'd been practicing what I would say, how I would say it, so he would know how sorry I was. For everything. But then I started to cry and ruined it.
He reached over and kneaded my shoulder awkwardly. He could not look at me, which in a way was easier. "It's not fair," I said, and then I began to weep.
Jeremiah said, "I've been thinking about it all summer, how this is probably the last one. This is her favorite place, you know. I wanted it to be perfect for her, but Conrad went and ruined everything. He took off. My mom's so worried, and that's the last thing she needs, to be worrying about Conrad. He's the most selfish person I know, besides my dad."
