Here Without You

Tears stung my eyes and tracked down my face, and I gave myself that one time to cry over the loss of a child who would be better off without me, along with the cold-hearted boy I was better off without. Staring at the unused rocking chair in the corner of the homey little room, I swore I would leave that place and put it all behind me. I would go live my life and establish my brilliant career. I would forget all of it, starting the moment I stepped out of the hospital.

Two days later, my breasts were swollen and leaking. The doctor had mentioned this probability, but I didn’t count on the reality of it. My stupid body assumed it had a baby to feed. Or a dozen babies, from the looks of things.

‘What the hell?’ I wailed to Kathryn. ‘What the hell is this?’ I felt like someone had shoved soccer balls beneath the too-stretched skin of my once-perfect breasts.

‘Honey, your body doesn’t know you don’t have him.’

I sputtered with indignation. ‘This is disgusting! Make it stop!’ My nipples dripped painfully, soaking my T-shirt, and I sat on the floor and cried, all previous strength vanishing under hormonal shifts I couldn’t bring under control. My body was betraying me.

Kathryn called the doctor, who refused to prescribe anything but painkillers, which I refused to take. For three weeks, we bound my comic-book giant boobs, and Kathryn gave me packages of frozen veggies to hold against them while I watched television and read scripts.

Observing this, Kylie, home for the weekend, suggested I think of it as a bizarre sports injury. ‘Basically, your tits are on injured reserve,’ she said, and we laughed hysterically as Kathryn just shook her head at us and brought me two new bags of frozen peas.

‘I will never be able to look at peas the same way,’ she observed, pressing the cold bags to my chest and carrying the thawed, squishy bags to the trash.

Kathryn. She’s who I need now. Without another thought, I grab my phone.

‘Brooke, how are you, honey?’ Just those words from her and I’m bawling. Dammit. ‘I’m here,’ she says, waiting while I give up the search for a box of tissues and use a decorative hand towel to soak up the spontaneous tears and stop up my runny nose. Good thing I wasn’t planning on going out tonight.

‘I found him, Kathryn. I found him, and I think maybe … he needs me.’

‘Slow down, Brooke. You found who?’

I sniffle into the phone, unprepared to speak just yet.

‘Oh. Oh.’

This is why I called my stepmother. She’s so perceptive, and always so attuned to me. I hadn’t even told her I was searching for River, but I tell her I found him, and she knows.

3

RIVER

I am small. I am quiet. I wish I was invisible.

In my old house, I hid when people came. One time, I was asleep on the couch next to Mama when her friend Harry came over. Harry is mean and loud, and I hate him the most. I pulled my blankie over my head. I held my breath and didn’t move.

But he pulled the blankie away. ‘This worthless critter’s still here?’

When he grabbed my arm, I shook my head until he was blurry. I’m not a critter. I’m not.

He laughed, and his mouth smelled like the trash under the sink. ‘Critters like this are even scrawnier when you skin ’em.’ His hand was like a claw, and I couldn’t make him let go even though I tugged hard as I could.

‘Harry, let him be.’ Mama’s eyes were squinty, but her lips weren’t pressed together, like when she was about to yell or hit. She never hit me very hard, but I didn’t like her to be mad. Sometimes she hugged me after and said she was sorry.

Harry squeezed my arm harder, like he wanted to snap it into two pieces. I wondered what sound it would make if he did.

His fingers looked like bones from a skeleton.

I found bones in the yard one time, under some old boards. They were a bird shape, but flat. I was real careful when I dug it loose and took it to show Mama, but her mouth made a flat line and she squinted and yelled to get that dirty dead thing out of her kitchen. I dug a hole in the dirt and put the bones in and covered it, because you’re supposed to bury dead things in the ground.

Skeletons are a lot of bones that make up a whole thing. I saw a person skeleton once, at Halloween. It was sitting in a chair, like it was waiting for somebody. There were big holes with no eyes, but it looked like it was smiling. No guts or brains or heart, either. It was empty.

Harry was like a skeleton wearing a skin T-shirt stretched over his whole body. Mama told him all the time he didn’t have a heart. When he wasn’t around, she told me he didn’t have a brain. I don’t know if he had guts.

‘Don’t he ever talk?’ Harry stared at me like I was a bug. Like he was thinking about squashing me.

‘Not really.’ Mama sighed, because I made her sad.

‘A boy his size that won’t talk? So he’s a retard? You should give him to me for a week or so. I’d learn him to talk.’

I stared at Mama, telling her no with my eyes. My eyes promised her that I would be good every day. I would do everything she said.

‘This little shit don’t even look like you. You sure he’s yours?’ When he laughed again, I tried not to breathe in the stink.

‘He’s adopted.’

‘You adopted him? Why the fuck would you wanna do that?’

Mama looked at me and shrugged her shoulders. ‘I wanted a baby, I guess. A family …’

‘Shit, woman – you better not start whining about your old man again, because I will up and leave right now –’

Mama’s eyes got wide. ‘I won’t. I wasn’t.’ Her voice was shaky.

‘Uh-huh.’

Harry’s fingers let me loose a little bit and I yanked my arm away and ran to the stairs. My heart was bouncing inside me like it wanted out. It swished so loud in my ears that I couldn’t hear my footsteps or his. I got to Mama’s room and her closet door was open. I slipped into the dark and pulled the door shut behind me. I fell down on my hands and knees and crawled through the shoes and clothes and trash on the floor.

I found my spot in the corner and pulled my knees up to my chin. I wanted my blankie, and my stomach growled that it was hungry, but I wasn’t going back downstairs. Not until Harry was gone. Not until Mama came to find me.

*

Wendy never forgets to make dinner. I eat until my tummy’s full, but I hide food in my napkin and take it to the room that I share with Jerry and Sean. Sometimes I look in the kitchen trash can and find food in there too. I hide it all in my room. In a box under my bed, or in my closet inside my shoes.

Wendy breathes out a big breath when she finds it. She almost always finds it, but sometimes not for a few days. ‘Phew, what a horrible smell! Good Lord almighty. River, you don’t need to hide food any more. You get three squares a day here. Don’tcha know that?’ She pinches her nose and throws the chicken sandwich into a trash bag. I had to tear it into three pieces to hide it in my shoes.

I nod and stare at the floor.

Wendy doesn’t squint, and she never hits me, but she looks sad when she finds the food. When I have bad dreams, she shakes me a little to wake me up. She always says, ‘You’re safe here.’ I don’t say anything back. I don’t say anything ever. She’s sad about that too.

But I still hide food, and cry at night, and miss Mama, even if I feel bad for making Wendy sad. Just like I made Mama sad.

DORI

I just told my parents what Reid did for Deb last fall. They’re shocked, and grateful, but it hasn’t changed their opinion of him where I’m concerned.

‘He’s using his money to buy you.’ Mom shakes her head, aghast. ‘He has an endless supply of financial resources – as impossible as it would have been for us to pay for that private room, how is it a sacrifice for him? He’s not stepping out on to any limbs for you.’

I peer at her. ‘What do you expect him to do to prove himself to you?’

Her arms crossed over her chest like a shield, she slumps back into her chair and scowls at the tabletop. ‘I don’t know if it’s possible, to be honest. We’re always going to be worried that you’ll end up hurt.’

‘Mom, horrible things happen, and we can’t prevent them. There isn’t some grand destiny controlling it all –’

‘Oh, Dori.’ Dad has tears in his eyes. ‘Have you lost your faith? Have you really?’

I stare at my hands, because I can’t look at him and answer truthfully. ‘Maybe what I have faith in right now is the fact that Reid loves me, and that I love him. And maybe some day that, too, will no longer be true … But we all had faith that Deb would become a doctor. We had faith that Bradford and she would get married, and they would be happy together. She had faith in those things too. I always thought that some day, when I lose you and Mom, I would have Deb to lean on. We’d share each other’s grief. And now, I’ll go through that alone. Or maybe tomorrow someone will run a stop light and you’ll lose me too –’

‘Dori!’ Mom gasps, and I glance up and see the shock on her face. ‘Don’t say that. Please don’t say that.’

‘But it’s true, isn’t it? Deb just slipped and fell, and now her life is basically over.’ At the agony painted on their mirrored faces, I amend, ‘She’s not who she was, and I can’t pretend she is. Nothing is certain. Nothing is preordained.’ Dad closes his eyes, and I hate knowing I’m causing him pain. But I have to make them understand how I feel, so they can learn to accept who I am. ‘All I know is this – I’m loved by my parents, and my dog.’ I lay a hand on Esther’s wizened head and she nuzzles into my hand. ‘And I’m loved by Reid. I don’t want to think about ten years from now, or two years, or next week.’

They exchange a glance, and I know they’ve already discussed their united reaction should they fail to talk me out of him. Their Parental Plan B.

‘Okay, Dori. Okay,’ Dad says. ‘What do you – what do you expect us to do?’

I know that any compromise reached will be strained, but I’ll take it.

‘I want you to give him a chance. You wouldn’t object if everything else in this relationship was identical, but it was with Nick instead of Reid.’

‘Nick doesn’t have a worldwide reputation for womanizing!’ Mom says, her blurted words finding a too-easy target.

My answer is subdued, because of course it hurts to think of all of the girls he’s been with, and all he has access to. ‘Reid didn’t love those girls. He loves me.’

‘You’re darn right he didn’t love them. Or respect them.’ My father shades pink, but doesn’t stop there. ‘How do you know what lies he may have told them to get them into bed?’

‘I only know what he’s told me.’

‘Exactly,’ he huffs.

‘He wouldn’t have to lie, or say an untrue thing, to get girls into his bed.’

Mom eyes me. ‘And that doesn’t worry you just as much? If not more?’

Esther’s muzzle sits lightly on my thigh, her eyes staring up at me, anxious. I reassure my dog with careful strokes, but I can’t convince my parents that their fears are misguided. The atmosphere is unbearably tense, and their protectiveness – a shield behind which I’ve always moved freely – has become a thick bridle. Even as I try to relax within it, I’m pulling against the restraint.