“Industrious,” I deadpan.
“Right?” Cliff exclaims, as if he agrees with the compliment he thinks I just gave.
Johnny sighs in exasperation and I know he’s scrubbing his hands up and down his face like he does when he’s frustrated. “That was sarcasm, Cliff.”
“Oh,” Cliff says.
Johnny brings us back to the story and my question. “When we found you, Cliff told me about the pills and going through your room. He counted the pills and made sure they were all the same ones he’d swapped out. Pills and amount matched, so we knew you hadn’t taken anything. That you’d just fallen asleep.”
I’m nodding my head absently. Thoroughly stunned by his thoughtfulness. “You could’ve saved my life if I’d gone through with swallowing them, Cliff.”
His reply is delayed and quieter than usual. “Yeah, well you kind of saved mine too…so we’re even.”
I’m confused. “No, I didn’t.”
“The day you took the rap for me at the QuikMart. I would’ve gone to juvie and you knew that and you stepped in for me. I’m too pretty for juvie, Toby. It would’ve been ugly.”
I can’t help it and a chuckle silently vibrates in my chest. He’s trying to joke because this conversation is too serious for him to deal with, hell, it’s too serious for all of us to deal with, but we need this. We needed this a long time ago.
“Anyway, things changed that day. I realized some stuff. I don’t want to be a fuck-up. I don’t want to be like my pops. I don’t want to be in and out of jail my whole life. I’m not the smartest guy, I know that, but I want to graduate and get a job afterward. I want to make something of myself.”
This doesn’t sound like the Cliff I’ve known for the past year, but I say the only thing I can say because I mean it. “Good for you, Cliff. That’s all you.”
“When you’re used to being kicked down, I guess all it takes is that one person who comes along and stands up for you instead. That can change everything. Besides, now we’re cousins, which means we have to be bros, right?”
“I’m still not watchingSid and Nancywith you.” I sound serious, but he knows I’m just giving him a hard time. “I’ll try not to act like an asshole since you’re trying not to act like a dick.”
He laughs, but it sounds watery like he might be crying. “Deal.”
It’s quiet for a minute before Cliff says, “Johnny, we should go out in the hall, there are a few more people who want to talk to Toby.”
“What?” Johnny sounds weary but surprised.
Cliff pleads his case. “Yeah. I went and talked to a few people in the house earlier while you guys were discussing family stuff. People who I know care about Toby. I think he needs to hear them out.”
The chair Johnny is sitting on creaks under his weight and screeches on the linoleum when he stands. Then I hear the door open.
“Hi, Chantal,” Johnny’s greeting is friendly even though it’s after one o’clock in the morning now and I know he’s exhausted.
“Hey, Johnny. I want you guys to stay, you should hear this too. And Alice, you should come in here.” The nerves are evident, maybe not to people who don’t know Chantal well, but I can hear them.
More footsteps enter the room. “Hi, everyone. Hi, Toby.” I’ve thought it before, but sadness is all wrong in Alice.
I want to open the door and hug her. But I don’t because even after everything that’s happened the past hour, I can’t face them. “Hi, Alice.”
“Toby isn’t ready to come out of his room yet and face this full-on, but he’s listening. I promise you, he’s listening,” Johnny explains.
Chantal half coughs, half clears her throat, she does this when she’s ramping up to say something she doesn’t really want to say. “I’m not quite sure where to start. Other than my grandma, Toby, you’re the one person in my life that I always know I can count on. You’ve helped me more times than I can count and you’ve never asked for anything in return. Joey,” her voice cracks on his name and then her voice breaks down, “is so lucky to have you in his life.”
That’s all it takes for the lump to return to my throat.
“That little boy loves you. You spend time with him. You play with him. You read to him. You feed him. You hold him for hours when he sleeps because you know you’ll wake him if you try to put him in his crib. You buy diapers when I’m running low. And formula. I know whenever I find a plastic shopping bag hanging on the outside of our door that you put it there and it always seems to come just when he needs it most. I know when you do that, you go without so that he doesn’t.” Tears have distorted the words. She sniffles and then I hear her blow her nose.
“He’s a good dad,” Johnny says quietly. I picture him trying to awkwardly comfort her. They both aren’t touchy-feely people, so I bet it’s not going well.
She sniffles again. “He’s the best person I know. Toby, I know that I get stressed and I get busy and that I worry about me and Joey and my grandma. Sometimes I forget that other people have problems too because our problems seem so big that I can’t see past them. I let you down. I always knew you carried around this sadness, but I never realized how profoundly heavy it was. I never saw that it was smothering you. I guess I figured that because you always found it in you to be there for us that it wasn’t that bad.” She sniffles again and the next words are quiet. “But I never asked.I never asked,” she repeats. “I should’ve checked in with you like you’ve checked in with me.”
I interrupt her because she’s being too hard on herself. “You have plenty on your plate. It wasn’t your job to take care of me too.”
