NOVEMBER
This weekend we take a campus tour. Just Mom, Dad, a tour guide, a wheelchair, and me. I clumsily push her along brick walkways and uneven sidewalks in the freezing gray air. She is wearing her huge fur coat, her tiny head protruding like a turtle's, her hands placed pleasantly on her lap as she nods approvingly at the size of the dorm rooms, the dark wood dining hall, the cavernous library.
"And the flight home is so short." She smiles. "You'll be able to come back for weekends, if you want."
As Dad struggles to put the wheelchair in the trunk of a cab, I stand on the sidewalk to take one last look. I feel her gaze on me through the window. She never should have traveled with us. She is way too weak. But she had insisted on coming in her quiet, unquestionable way. I turn back toward the street and catch her eye. I haven't been accepted to school yet. She hasn't announced her death yet. But in that glance is our first goodbye.
Back at the high school the tightness in my chest is suffocating. I slip into my guidance counselor's office. Before I know it, I'm crying and shaking and saying things I didn't even know I felt. "Everything is catching up with me," I say. "Everyone has the same stuff to deal with, SATs and applications and everything. But I just feel like I can't handle it anymore. I can't do my work. I'm so tired all the time. I'm not sure what else to do." I've already quit volleyball. It was such a relief, that letter to the coaches, that quick flick of the pen. "My mother is very sick and I need to spend more time at home. I will not be completing the rest of the season with the team." Why did I even tell them my mother was sick? I've hardly even been spending more time at home. Am I using her sickness as an excuse?
My counselor asks if I want him to tell my teachers about my mother. Maybe they'd give me some breaks—they'd be more understanding. No, I shake my head. That's okay. I just need to step up to things. It's my own fault for slacking off. My mom has been sick since I was in eighth grade. I have always managed to stay in control. But he remains unconvinced. He's going to talk to my teachers, and my brother David's too. At least I won't have to say it to anyone's face.
I leave his office ashamed, angry, stifled with guilt.
How did this all happen, the crying, the pity? Maybe I like people feeling sorry for me. Maybe I'm the kind of person who takes the easy way out. While my mother is sick at home, I'm here sliding by on her pain, using her.
I want to go home, fess up and tell her everything. Instead I cut class and stand with friends, stamping feet near the tennis courts, hands stuffed in our coat pockets. Cigarette smoke melds with our freezing breath into tiny white clouds above our heads.
BLUEPRINT
Stories like loose nails jut out
from your structure—
French rock stars, hippie boyfriends, the Beatles in Paris.
St. John's in the '60s: Homer and Aristotle,
an anorexic roommate, the Maryland air.
The day you told me about the first time you had sex
we were driving to your mother's in the blue van.
Parked outside, keys stripped
from the ignition, casually, in conversation,
like it was something we discussed every day.
I wondered if your mother told you
the things you tell me.
Now I hoard your stories, scavenge
for your words like water. I want the glue that holds you
together. I need the architecture, the angles
of your inside.
I want to ask: what does love smell like,
what color sky makes your skin melt,
what does death taste like,
and are you afraid?
Continues...
Excerpted from At the End of Words by Miriam Stone Copyright © 2003 by Miriam Stone. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.