And I reach back, realizing that while her love and attention may have tipped disproportionately toward Jason, I’ve never lost it and I never will. Nobody can cry like my mom, but I give her a run for her money today. The truth is appalling—hide in the garage to cry, sob in the shower and weep with her spouse at night unbearable. And not just what Jason did. It’s what we’ve all done this year as a result—hide and ignore and pretend. It feels good to be held by her though, to shore myself up for what comes next. Because things have to change. Laura and I have already started, and the pain is so much more bearable when we carry it together.
“There’s something I want to tell you about,” I say to Mom and Dad after she’s reclaimed the seat next to him. “Someone I want to tell you about. And please hear me out before you react.”
They both go painfully still and Laura nods at me to go on.
“I’ve been lying to you,” I say, and the admission makes me want to shrink in my seat but I know I can’t. “I’ve been seeing Heath Gaines.”
Mom’s hands jerk around Dad’s and he seems to stop breathing. “Why?” she asks. “Why would you do that?”
“I didn’t do it to hurt you.” I shift my glance to include Dad too. “Any of you. I needed to talk to someone about what things are like now, and the last time I tried talking with you...you sat right in that chair and told me never to mention Calvin’s family ever again.” Mom winces, but I have to keep going. “I could never pretend the way you all needed me to.” I focus on Mom. “That he was away for a little while.” I shift to Dad. “Gone forever.” And lastly I turn to Laura and squeeze her hand under the table. “Or never was. I know we were all doing the only thing we could, and I understand why, but I couldn’t. And Heath...” Mom’s wince is smaller when I say his name this time, but still there. “He was going through his own issues with his family, and we didn’t start out knowing we’d end up helping each other at all, but we did.”
“He—” Mom clears her throat and tries again. “He let you talk about your brother with him?”
“I didn’t try at first. It was more that we talked about what things are like now.” I’d briefly mentioned my nightmares during our last family session with Pastor Hamilton, but I didn’t want to cause more of Mom’s silent tears in this moment, so I say only that Heath has trouble sleeping too. “It’s hard for him with people in town too, except it’s pity in his case, not...” I don’t want to give a word to the way I’m often treated in town. “Anyway it’s different but it’s also the same in a lot of ways.”
It gets easier the longer I talk, not because Mom or Dad relax their rigid postures, but because Laura holds my hand the entire time. It also gets easier because talking about Heath, even to people who’ve long associated his name with pain, fills me with so much hope and happiness that I can’t keep it in anymore. I don’t want to.
I see the point in my story where Mom’s expression changes from one of disbelief to dimly masked horror and I choke off before she can interrupt me.
“Brooke. No. You can’t mean you—not with him—baby, you know you can’t—” She casts her stricken expression toward Dad, but he hasn’t looked away from me.
“You like this boy?”
When he holds me with his gaze like this, when it feels like my entire fate hangs in the balance, I feel like an animal caught in a trap. Not because he could forbid me from seeing Heath anymore, but because it would devastate me if he tried. “Yes, sir. I more than like him.”
Beside Dad, Mom makes a whimpering sound.
“I like him too,” Laura says in a quiet voice, drawing all eyes to her. “I met him today after—” She cuts off then, looking at me to know if she just revealed something she shouldn’t have. It’s not fair to hit them again so soon, but I have to consider it a small victory that no one has fled or stormed from the room yet. I’m not letting go of Heath. It will take time to show them that, to show everyone. But he’s worth it. He’s worth all of it. But he’s not the only thing I’m not letting go of.
I nod my head a little at Laura to let her know it’s okay and Mom notices the exchange.
“What?” she says. “What else?” I can see the familiar panic beginning to seep into the edge of her eyes, and I know I can’t hold off any longer.
“Laura and I didn’t just go skating this afternoon,” I say. “She came to help me film my audition video forStories on Ice.I know I said I decided on community college instead, but that was only because I thought—I thought I couldn’t go and leave you all, not with everything the way it’s been this year.” Beside me I feel Laura press her leg against mine, offering silent support. “And with Jason where he is.” Mom’s lip trembles but she doesn’t object. “Jason is where he has to be, but I’m not.”
“You haven’t seen her on the ice in so long,” Laura says, capturing Mom’s heart-heavy stare. “She has to try—I want her to try.” She starts to lower her eyes, but instead holds them up. “I think Jason would too.”
I think, maybe, this is the first time in a year that Laura’s said his name out loud, and it has the effect of a tree suddenly sprouting full grown through the center of the dining table. Three sets of eyes turn to her in shock.
Two months ago, the four of us sat around this table and she could barely look up from her plate, let alone speak even a single word. She’s been little more than a shell of her former self since witnessing Cal’s murder, and we’ve all been helpless to watch as she diminished day by day until barely anything was left. Now, her voice is still timid and her chin still wants to drop, but it’s like watching someone fighting back from a long, life-threatening illness.
She wasn’t fighting before.
It’s impossible for Laura’s support not to carry weight with our parents, with me too—and not just about auditioning, about Heath too. I haven’t told Jason about my plans, but I will. And I think Laura’s right. He’ll be happy for me.
I stare at my sister in wonder even as I continue talking to Mom and Dad. “I’m still going to keep visiting Jason. It won’t be every week like it is now if I join a tour, but I promised him I’d still come. I won’t ever break that promise.”
I hear Mom’s relieved exhalation, and her eyes are shiny again as she reaches for my hand and I meet hers halfway.
“Do you have it with you?” Dad says. “Your audition?”
“No,” I say. “Maggie’s editing it for me, but I can show it to you when it’s done.”
Dad’s beard twitches and I know he’s smiling beneath all that hair. “I think we could all do with seeing you skate again.”
CHAPTER 48
Four months later
