That was the perspective I’d been raised with, and it had kept me from pursuing large dreams, the same way it had for my parents. As boxed in as I’d been in our sad, dark apartment with the hum of the fan that never managed to cool things off and the dark cloud of my father and mother’s unhappiness hanging over us like the smell of cigarettes and last night’s dinner, in my imaginary life I knew no limits.
I held the pen over the page, considering. I began to write, and because, for me, the world had suddenly opened up, I let my thoughts take me wherever I wanted.
8
Hear Everything
The next morning I got up early again. Forrest was making the coffee.
“Looks like mornings will be our time together,” he said, pouring me a glass of orange juice, freshly squeezed. “We’re the only two people in this house who know how great it is to catch the sunrise.”
I knew this about Forrest: He was not the kind of person who felt a need for a lot of small talk. He got right to the important topics, but in a way that never felt as though he was fishing around for gossip.
“Listen,” he said. “I know your mom and dad are going through some difficult things. I bet it’s been hard on you. That was part of my thinking when we invited you up here this summer. To give you a break from all of that.”
As was often the case, I didn’t know what to say. I also knew that with Forrest I didn’t have to say anything.
“To be honest, it’s not like things are ever easy between Regina and me either,” he said. “I know it’s no secret. She’s had ... problems. I can be a real idiot sometimes.
“Certain things happened,” he said. “Life isn’t easy for Regina. The people who judge her don’t know her story.”
Neither did I. But as forthcoming as Forrest could be, particularly about himself, it was plain he wasn’t saying more about that, and I had nothing to contribute.
“Regina and I have an unusual kind of relationship,” he said. “It might seem more obvious that she needs me, but the truth is, I need her too, and not just because it’s her money that pays the bills around here. We actually love each other.”
This was Forrest for you. I’d never known anybody before who talked to me as if I was a person who mattered, not some random kid.
“I’m hoping we can show you a wonderful time here this summer,” he told me. “But more than that, maybe, I’m hoping that this can be a time for you to discover that you’re in charge of your own destiny. After a point it doesn’t even matter so much who your parents are or what they do. You can find your own path, same as I did.”
I spread a dollop of jam over my toast. At that moment it felt like too much to meet his eyes.
“You’re a wonderful girl, Frances,” he said. “You deserve to have an amazing life.”
I was glad there was toast in my mouth; that was my excuse for not responding. Young as I was, it had seemed that for me the horizon had always sat low. How was I ever going to get myself beyond the confines of my parents’ dark, quiet, anger-filled apartment, our dirty little neighborhood? In the books I checked out of the library, I could read about other kinds of lives people might live. I just never saw myself as having a life like that. More than anything, I wanted to believe that what Forrest said to me now was possible.
I had a blue desk. A yellow bicycle. A leatherbound journal in which to write whatever I wanted. A whole other family, almost. For ninety-two days, anyway—the number I’d get to be at Wonderland. I was keeping count.
That night I wrote in my journal again. I told the story of how, at dinner, Hayward had looked up from his hamburger and said to me, “I hate to tell you, Frances, but your epidermis is showing.”
For a moment there, I’d felt my cheeks grow hot, wondering which body part I’d left exposed.
“I know what you were thinking!” A burst of laughter came out of him then, like Woody Woodpecker. “It’s just your skin, stupid!”
After closing my journal, I lay stretched out in my little bed under the eaves, looking out the skylight to the stars. I heard a noise that sounded for a moment like some kind of animal.
But it was just snoring. It was Forrest in the spare bedroom. That was where he slept, alone. Directly below my bed. Where I could hear everything.
9
A Tight Ship, a Red Typewriter
Regina took a lot of pills. It was Forrest’s job to keep track of them all. Every few hours he’d be there with a glass of water and another pill—more likely a few of them. Sometimes she protested. “What does it matter, anyway?” she’d sigh. “Whether I take this or I don’t, I’ll still feel bad.”
Times like that, he’d just put his arm around her and stroke her hair. She basically ignored this—though sometimes, too, she treated him like a fly buzzing too close around her head. Flicked him away.
I’d never be like that if it were my hair he stroked.
He never stopped trying. If the two of them were out on the patio together, or in the living room, he’d rest a hand on her knee or adjust the shawl around her shoulders. He kept checking to see if she needed anything. Water, shade, her book, her knitting, something to put her feet up on. The way some new parents are with a baby, that was Forrest, overseeing Regina. If she was there in the room, his eyes looked over to where she reclined. If she was out of the room, he went to check on her.
