The Calculus of Change Read online

  It was awful. I tried to be the secure sister who supported this, because that’s what I do. I’m the foothold for my dad, Jon, Marissa, because if I weren’t, they might all float away. But I lost both of my best friends in a minute, not to mention all the attention I wasn’t getting whenever Marissa and I were in the same room together. And observing brother-best-friend make-out sessions, the hand holding, the cuddling, was gross. I became the third wheel when I was supposed to be the engine. The center of things. And them together? It meant I was more alone.

  I took it out on Jon. Lashing out randomly, refusing to let him have the remote under any circumstances. He didn’t notice. Worse was that I felt like a jerk all the time for hating their relationship so much, and neither Jon nor Marissa noticed I was suffering.

  I thought I’d be happy when Marissa finally moved on from my brother. It was Zane Casey. A junior. Had to be the lead singer of a band. He was tatted up, sporting pierced eyebrows.

  I caught Jon crying into his pillow that night. I went in and sat down on his bed. I didn’t care if he was embarrassed. A boy shouldn’t go through his first real breakup alone. He should have a mom to tell him everything’s going to be okay. And second best, a sister.

  “Do you think I should get some tattoos?” he’d said to me through puffy red eyes. He was serious.

  “No. I think you should wait on it.”

  He buried his head back into his pillow and shuddered.

  I put my hand on his head and petted him until he fell asleep. A little boy. Soft, small whimpers, snot. My little brother. It hadn’t occurred to me that maybe he’d loved her.

  I couldn’t fault Marissa for breaking Jon’s heart. She couldn’t help herself. So young, so messed up, so much life to live. Jon knew she was a flight risk going into it.

  “Just fun, I swear,” Marissa says now, as she pushes the door to my bedroom open. I’m trying so hard to take myself out of this because I know it’s not about me. Even though deep down I want it to be about me, it’s not about me. It’s about Jon and Marissa.

  “Mutually agreed upon, no strings,” she says.

  I think about Jon’s shiny red broken eyes and how I stroked his hair as he fell asleep that night. The whimpers. I realize I’m angry with Marissa, and I wonder if Jon will recover this time. I wonder how kissing, bodies intertwined on beds, can be “no strings.”

  Marissa tosses a candy bar and a soda on my desk.

  “Peace offering,” she says.

  I open the candy bar with force and tear it in half. I throw the other half on the bed and sit down with math.

  “Good, I’m glad you’re sharing,” she says. “I’m starving.”

  “Way too much information right now.”

  Dad

  If there are five nonlinear stages of grief, my dad is caught in a hamster wheel of anger, depression, and surrender. I’ve heard the last stage called acceptance, but for Dad, and mostly for me, it’s never been about acceptance but surrender. A surrender like drowning. Relax, inhale, and sink.

  It’s been ten years since my mom died, but some days it might as well have been yesterday. My dad hasn’t “moved on.” What do people mean when they say “move on”? As though any one of us can control time or pain or longing. A few years after Mom died, my dad put most of our pictures of her into the attic. It felt awful to have her image disappear, because I was just starting to forget what she looked like.

  “Dad, what happened to all the pictures of Mom?” I’d said. I was ten.

  “Attic.”

  “Why?” My eyes had filled with tears then, but I wouldn’t let them spill because I already knew he couldn’t take care of me in the way I needed. I’d learned that the hard way when she died and he held me limply, saying so little. What was the point? My dad didn’t know how to exist in sadness. For him, sad was a thing to beat and destroy. His anger started showing itself a few months after her death.

  “Because it’s time for us to move on,” he’d said. “It’s been three years.” And there it was—move on—an impossible, elusive command.

  “But what if I forget what she looks like?”

  “All you have to do is look in the mirror,” he’d said. “You’re the spitting image of her.” He had placed a hand on the top of my head and patted as if a head pat would grant me respite from having a dead mom.

  And it was strange: the more of her he took out of the house, the more it felt like she was ever-present—this giant, un-talked-about energy hovering everywhere. And I get it. The pain of having lost my mom is too much for my dad. And surrendering to it means succumbing to the rage. Seeing that rage, being the object of it, is scary, but I understand it because it’s in me, too. The anger. The surrender. The cycle is irresistible. The anger addictive. Because the anger? It touches the sadness like a match to lighter fluid, setting everything on fire. Anger is radiant and uncontrollable—a beautiful release. But the pain of sadness? It’s ice-cold and so, so lonely. I’d rather feel the heat than the piercing, freezing pain.

  To cope with the sadness and anger and emptiness, I started playing guitar. Because she played. If she was going to hover around with her energy everywhere, I’d find a way to channel it. I couldn’t play her old twelve-string because it felt like touching the guitar with my own hands would erase her. So I stashed her guitar in the back of my closet and bought myself a hundred-dollar Fender. It’s one of the least expensive guitars on the market—my dad had saved up for my mom’s thousand-dollar twelve-string for six months.

  After the first month or two of struggle, I found that playing the guitar and singing was freeing. Music became an actual place I could go where my mom’s energy wasn’t oppressive; singing and strumming my guitar was deliverance—from not talking about her, from the pressure to “move on.” I didn’t have to be controlled or restrained when I channeled my mom or myself or let both of us intermingle in the music. I could just let it happen. Let me happen. My dad didn’t say much when I started playing. But sometimes I’d catch him lingering in the hall outside my room, listening.

  Now I hear him in the basement, welding. My dad owns a hardware store. Welding is his art. He welds sculptures and mailboxes, fusing together metal that won’t bend unless under fire. I stand in the doorway of his workroom where the flames from his blowtorch hiss as the metal sizzles beneath the blues and oranges.

  He looks up from the flames and steps back. He pulls the HAZMAT-looking mask up from his face.

  “Hey, Peanut.” Ah. Peanut. Check. We’re okay right now. He’s okay, approachable.

  “Hey, Dad.”

  “What’s up?” The trick is to gauge his mood. Green light if he uses a pet name. Don’t engage him if you get gruff, one-word answers.

  “You hear about Jon’s date?” Talking to him about Jon feels like safe ground.

  “No,” he says with interest. He sets the torch down and wipes his hands on the apron he wears.

  “Her name is Sabita. A sophomore.”

  “Huh. Interesting. Tell me more, my dear.” He says this with clasped hands and a mock accent.

  I roll my eyes at his sense of humor, but smile in spite of myself. “In your dreams. That was your only morsel, Dad.”

  I love this dad. The one who’s dorky. The one who laughs. He only comes around every so often. But when he does, it’s gold. It’s safe. The other side of Dad would never do anything to hurt us, at least not physically, but that dad is moody and unpredictable.

  Me

  I’ve never kissed anyone. Unless you count that time in first grade when Bill Ditsman dared me to kiss Mike Fredrickson. I don’t. Count it. My lips, my face, my whole body is untouched. I’m a senior in high school.

  I wonder if it’s because I’m not pretty. Or if it’s because I’m overweight. I’ve read blogs written by sizeable women embracing their bodies and the men who cherish their voluptuousness. I even have a few pictures of “plus-size” models taped to the inside of my choir binder. But the truth is, who would want me?
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  I’m on my way to math class, wet hair from my morning shower thrown into a mess on top of my head, flip-flops slapping my heels as I shift my backpack from right to left, left to right. It’s too heavy, and the edge of my history book keeps jabbing my butt through the fabric of the pack.

  I look up, and to the left of the door frame, pressed into a wall of lockers, is Tate with his hand above Maggie’s head, his lips on hers. My breath slams hard into my diaphragm. It’s a punch. She’s wearing a loose, high-cut top and leggings, and I can see her thin—her stomach—because her arms are reaching up to wrap around Tate’s neck. My eyes water involuntarily at the sight of them together. Kissing.

  Maggie

  I am not a quote person. Don’t lose hope. When the sun goes down the stars come out. This is the quote taped to the front of Maggie Tiley’s choir binder. It’s accompanied by a picture of the sun setting behind a lake. Maggie has recently taken to sitting in front of me on the choir bleachers. I can smell the faint hint of her vanilla body spray. It makes me think of cupcakes.

  I say fuck the stars. The stars don’t provide vitamin D. The stars aren’t a natural mood enhancer. You can’t feel the stars. The stars don’t even really exist anymore. They’re just burnt-out memories.

  Maggie turns around to look at me, and her hair flips a little, wafting the vanilla my way. I wonder if Tate would want to kiss me if I smelled like a cupcake all the time.

  “Hey, Aden,” she says.

  I can’t remember the last time Maggie and I greeted each other.

  “Hi,” I say.

  “Are you trying out for the solo?” she says.

  “No.”

  “You should.”

  I wonder if she’s saying that so she can beat me. We all know she’s going to get it. For a minute I consider it. I know if I could just let go and sing, I might just take it. But the thought of standing in front of our whole choir for an audition is nerve-racking enough to make me vomit the ugliest notes ever sung. This isn’t open mic night. This is the audition choir where everyone’s better than you and everyone judges everyone. Even me; I judge. I know that Sandra isn’t as good as Chelsie, because Chelsie sings on key and her voice is thick and deep. Maggie? Her voice is beautiful, a perfectly crafted vanilla cupcake.

  “Nah,” I say.

  She smiles and turns back around.

  Tate

  They say you have to know the rules before you can break them. It isn’t true. There are no rules. Because whatever this is with Tate, it can’t be named or boxed in. So there can’t be rules. Or games. Whatever this is . . . it needs room to breathe.

  Tate drives because he said he needed his “stick-shift fix.” And because when he looks at me with that spark and his gold fleck, the word no evaporates from my vocabulary. My whole being is yes.

  First and third gears are awkward, and I laugh as the car jolts. He stalls once and says, “I’m not embarrassed.” We laugh loudly, for a long time.

  Finally, he puts the car into fourth gear as we speed onto a dirt road, headed away from town, the wind blowing our hair into tangled messes, mine more than his. We’re blasting the Shins, because now it’s what we do together, before we move on to something more contemporary. He’s singing at the top of his lungs while I try to move pencil across notebook paper, the wind messing with everything. No melody right now. Just words. About scars and love and rivers and holding hands and exploding.

  I look up from what I’m doing and Tate glances at me, holding me there for a beat. I lose the rhythm of my writing when I try to go back to it—the words all muddled with the Shins’ lyrics and the gray-blue of Tate’s eyes.

  Tate pulls into a drive-thru without us having discussed getting something to eat. It’s late. We both stayed after school for math help, and then we hung out in the music room with Paul and Alana. Tate played piano while Paul, Alana, and I did terrible renditions of Broadway shows, laughing and falling into each other until we couldn’t sing anymore. While we sang, Tate’s gaze stayed with me, his eyes aglow, as though my laughter and happiness brought him joy.

  We order Mexican junk food and sodas. Tate takes a bite of his makeshift nachos before we pull out, and then tosses the remainder of his chip into my lap. I eat the chip.

  I concentrate on eating my grossly amazing fast-food burrito because if I don’t, I’ll start thinking about how badly I want to kiss Tate. Another chip lands in my lap.

  “Dude,” I say.

  “Dude,” he responds.

  “I don’t need your cast-off chips.”

  “You absolutely do need them.”

  I roll my eyes.

  Tate parks the car in the lot. Simultaneously, we move our seats back. He turns the car off, but leaves the key in the ignition so our music can still color everything.

  We eat together in silence for a song before I ask, “So do you go to synagogue every week? Is it like going to church?”

  He smiles. “Isn’t your mom Jewish?”

  “She.” I pause. I’m not going there yet. Because if we’re there, this early on, then maybe having a dead mother becomes what defines me to him. Maybe it makes me seem sad. And I’m not. Not most of the time.

  “She’s barely Jewish.” I know it’s not real, but talking about her as though she were still . . . alive—it’s like coming up for air.

  “I mean, she doesn’t practice or whatever it’s called.” Even though discussing my mom is liberating, I’m afraid if I keep going Tate will see through me to the truth. I’m not ready. So I’ll hold on to this, too. Tell myself I’m in control.

  “So what about you? Do you go? To temple or synagogue or whatever?” I say.

  “I do.” He says this with soft eyes, as though he knows my questions aren’t just a curiosity, but a longing.

  “Hold on,” Tate says. He turns the volume of the music way up, opens his door, and runs around to my side of the car. “Come on. Out.” He says this as he reaches for my hand, tugging me out of my seat.

  “What are we doing?”

  “Follow me,” Tate says. He pulls me by the hand to the farthest outdoor table at the fast-food place. We’re the only two people out here. Tate lets go of my hand and climbs onto the table. He puts his food in his lap and faces the setting sun as it barely dips behind the mountains. He pats the table, an invitation to join him, and extends his hand. I take his hand in mine and sit.

  We sit side by side, our arms touching, legs touching, dangling next to each other. Tate hasn’t let go of my hand. He sets his food to the side and pulls our held hands into his lap. The intimacy of this gesture catches in my throat, and I’m so glad I don’t have to say anything right now.

  He points with his other hand to the expanse of mountains and the waves of orange and pink clouds hovering over them. The sky is a torrent of sunlight assaulting massive storm clouds.

  “Who needs a synagogue, though,” he says, “when we have that?”

  He’s right. It’s not just beautiful. It’s holy.

  I lean my head on his shoulder. He leans his head back down onto mine.

  “But you still go,” I say.

  “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  He shrugs, pulling his head off mine, and I follow his lead, though I could’ve kept my head resting near his for longer. We sit together, eating in silence under the pink clouds the sun left in its wake.

  When we’ve finished eating, we make eye contact and grin at each other before he leans his forehead into mine, pressing hard. Then he brushes a strand of hair behind my ear.

  What is this?

  I can’t speak. I’m afraid if I move my lips, they’ll betray me, so I sit next to Tate, holding on to everything I could say to him. Surely he can see how much I care about him. But if I say it out loud, it could ruin this thing. Whatever is happening here, it’s alive, but it’s thin, wispy like the head of a dandelion.

  Tate crumples the wrapper from his food and tosses it into a nearby trashcan.

  “Three points
,” he says as he heads back to the car.

  And just like that, the moment is over, and I’m left wondering if it was real.

  Marissa

  Marissa drags me to the mall over the weekend. I hate the mall. Not because I hate clothes or fashion. I like clothes themselves—the colors, the variety of style options. I loathe putting clothes on my body. Bottoms never fit, no matter the size or style.

  Bubbie, Mom’s mom, used to take my brother and me on “shopping sprees” at the beginning of every school year. That was before she moved to Scottsdale. Relocating was her way of “moving on.” I can wrap my head around why she might’ve left now—needing to leave the place and even the people who remind her of the daughter she lost. At the time, it was a desertion. Just another adult I couldn’t trust to stay, like my mom. Maybe I don’t yet forgive her, but the older I get, the more I begin to understand my grandmother’s grief.

  Bubbie is wealthy, and she likes high-end department stores. I hate high-end department stores. I get the feeling my mom hated them, too. My dad always says she wasn’t very high-maintenance despite having Bubbie for a mother. Department stores—they’re so sterile, and the elevator music makes me want to crawl out of my skin. I don’t do “shopping sprees” anymore. I used to, because I wanted to be with Bubbie. Spending time with her still makes me feel closer to my mom. Back then I’d convinced myself that to know Bubbie was to know my mom.

  Each year, Bubbie would get excited about our “spree” weeks in advance. She’d make a reservation for lunch and plan on spending hours at the mall. What Bubbie didn’t know was that I couldn’t have cared less about spending her money. I just needed her there. Being there is not, nor was it ever, Bubbie’s forte, and when I was a kid, it made Mom being gone worse. Bubbie lives in some kind of la-la land where they drink cocktails every evening at five and skip to big-band music. You’re not invited unless you’re tra-la, skinny, and of age.