Chapter Twelve
Eddie has never been inside my house before. You wouldn't know that by watching her bounce through the front door. She's still pulling me along behind her when we walk inside. My mother is sitting on the sofa, watching this stranger scamper toward her with a smile on her face, dragging her angry daughter behind her. I have to admit, the surprise on my mom's face is gratifying.
Eddie pulls me to the couch and pushes my shoulders down until I'm seated next to my mother. Eddie proceeds to take a seat on the coffee table directly in front of us, posture straight, head held high. She is in charge.
"I'm Eddie, your daughter's best friend," she says to my mother. "There, now that we all know each other, let's get down to the nitty gritty."
My mother looks at me, then back at Eddie and doesn’t respond. I actually have nothing to say either. I don't know where Eddie is taking this so all I can do is allow her to continue.
"Julia, right? That's your name?"
My mother nods.
"Julia, Layken has questions. Lots of questions. You have answers." Eddie looks at me. "Layken, you ask questions and your mother will answer them." She looks at both of us simultaneously. "That's how you do it. Any questions? For me, I mean?"
My mother and I both shake our heads. Eddie stands up. "Alright then. My work here is done. Call me later."
Eddie steps over the coffee table and heads for the front door, but spins on her feet and comes back to us. She wraps her arms around my mother's neck. My mother looks at me wide-eyed before she returns the hug. Eddie continues to squeeze my mother's neck for an unusually long time before she finally lets go. She smiles at us, hops over the coffee table and walks out the front door. And she's gone. Just like that.
We both sit in silence, staring at the front door-confused as to where exactly things went wrong with Eddie. Or where exactly they went right. It was hard to tell. I glance back at my mother and we both laugh.
"Wow, Lake. You sure know how to pick 'em."
"I know. She's great, huh?"
We both settle into the couch and my mother reaches over and pats the top of my hand.
"We better do what she says. Ask me a question, I'll answer it best I can."
I cut right to the chase. "Are you gonna die?"
"Aren't we all?" she replies.
"That's a question. You're supposed to just answer."
She sighs, like she's hesitating, not really wanting to answer.
"Possibly. Probably," she admits.
"How long? How bad is it?"
"Lake, maybe I should explain it first. It'll give you a better idea of what we're up against."
She stands and moves to the kitchen and takes a seat at the bar. She motions for me to sit with her as she grabs a pen and a sheet of paper and starts to write something down.
"There are two types of lung cancer. Non-small cell and small cell. Unfortunately, I have small cell, which spreads faster."
She is drawing a diagram. "Small cell can either be limited or extensive." She points to an area on a sketched pair of lungs. "Mine was limited. Which means it was contained into this area." She circles an area of the lungs and makes a pinpoint. "This is where they found a tumor. I was having some symptoms a few months before your father died. He had me go in for a biopsy and that's when we found out it was malignant. We researched doctors for a few days and finally decided our best course of action would be a doctor we found here in Michigan-in Detroit. He specializes in SCLC. We decided on the move before your father even died. We-"
"Mom, slow down."
She lays down the pen.
"I need a minute," I say. "God, it feels like I'm in science class."
I rest my head in my hands. She's had months to think about this. She talks about it like she's teaching me how to bake a cake!
She patiently waits as I get up and go to the bathroom. I splash water on my face and stare at my reflection in the mirror. I look like complete crap. I haven't even glanced in a mirror since before I went out with Gavin and Eddie last night. My mascara is smudged under my eyes. My eyes are puffy. My hair is wild. I wipe the makeup off and brush out my hair before I go back to the kitchen and listen to her tell me how she's going to die.
She looks up at me as I walk back into the kitchen and I nod, giving her the go-ahead.
"A week after we decided we were moving to Michigan to be closer to the Doctor, your father died. I was so consumed with it, with his death and the arrangements and everything. I just tried to push what was going on with me out of my mind. I didn't go back to the doctor for three months. By that time, it had spread. It was no longer limited small cell, it was extensive."
She looks away, ashamed. Her voice lowers. "I blamed myself-for your dad's heart attack. I knew it was the stress of the diagnosis that caused it." She stands and walks to the living room and looks out the front window.
"Why didn't you tell me? I could have helped you, Mom. You didn't need to deal with all of it on your own."
"I know that now. I was in denial. I was angry. I was hoping for a miracle, I guess. I don't know. The days turned into weeks, then months. Now we're here. I started Chemotherapy again three weeks ago."
"That's good, right? If they're giving you chemo then there's a chance it'll go away."
She shakes her head. "It's not to fight it, Lake. It's to manage my pain. It's all they can do now."
I drop my head in my hands and cry. It's amazing how many tears one person can have. One night after my father died, I had cried so much I started to become paranoid I was doing damage to my eyes, so I googled it. I googled 'can a person cry too much?' Apparently, everyone eventually falls asleep and stops crying in order for their bodies to process normal periods of rest. So no, you can't cry too much.
I grab a tissue and take a few deep breaths in an attempt to hold back the rest of my tears. I'm really sick of crying.
I feel my mother's arms go around me so I turn into her and hug her. My heart aches for her. For us. She eventually starts coughing and has to turn away. I watch her as she continues to cough, gasping for breath. She's so sick. How did I not notice? Her cheeks were even shallower than before. Her hair is thinner. I hardly recognize her. I've been so focused on my own misery that I haven't even noticed my own mother being swept away right before my eyes.
The coughing spell passes and my mother returns to her seat at the bar. "We'll tell Kel tonight. Brenda will be here at seven, she wants to be here since she'll be his guardian."
I laugh. Because she's joking. Right?
"What do you mean his guardian?"
"Lake. You're still in high school, soon you'll be in college. I don't expect you to give everything up. I don't want you to. Brenda has raised children before. She wants to do it. Kel likes her."
Of all the things I have been through this year. This moment, these words that have just come out of her mouth-I have never been more enraged.
I stand up and grip the back of the chair and throw it to the floor with such force that the seat comes loose from the base. She flinches as I sprint toward her, pointing my finger into her chest.
"She is NOT getting Kel! You are not giving her MY brother!" I scream so loud my throat burns.
She attempts to subdue me by putting her hands on my shoulders but I spin away from her.
"Lake, stop it! Stop this! You're still in high school! You haven't even started college yet, what do you expect me to do? We've got no one else," she walks after me as I head for the front door. "I've got no one else, Lake," she cries.
I open the door and swing around to her, ignoring her tears as I continue to scream.
"You aren't telling him tonight! He doesn’t need to know yet. You better not tell him!"
"We have to tell him. He needs to know," she says. She's following me down the driveway now. I keep walking.
"Go home, Mother! Just go home! I'm done talking about it! And if you ever want to see me again, you WILL NOT TELL HIM!"
I hear her sobs fade as I slam the door to Will's living room behind me. I run to his bedroom and throw myself on the bed. I don't just cry; I sob, I wail, I scream.
***
I've never used drugs before. If you don't count the sip of my mother's wine when I was fourteen, I've never even willingly had alcohol before. It's not that I was too afraid, or too straight laced. Honestly, I'd just never been offered anything. I never went to parties in Texas. I never spent the night with anyone who ever tried to coerce me into doing something illegal. I have frankly just never been in a situation where I could succumb to peer pressure. I spent my Friday nights at football games. Saturday nights my dad usually took us out to a movie and to dinner. Sunday I did homework. That was my life.
There was one exception when Kerris' cousin had a wedding and she invited me to go. I was sixteen, she just got her license and the reception had just ended. We stayed late to help clean up. We were having the best time. We drank punch, ate leftover cake, danced, drank more punch. We realized pretty quickly that someone had laced the punch when we both noticed how much fun we were having. I don't know how much of it we drank. Too much that we were already too drunk to stop when we noticed we were even drunk. We never even thought twice when we got in the car to go home. We got a mile down the road before she swerved and hit a tree. I got a laceration above my eye and she broke her arm. We both ended up being okay. In fact, the car was still drivable. Rather than do the smart thing and wait for help, we turned the car around and actually drove back to the reception to call my dad. The trouble we got into the next day is a different story.
But there was a moment, right before she hit the tree. We were laughing at the way she said 'bubble'. We just kept saying it over and over until the car started to glide off of the road. I saw the tree, and I knew we were about to hit it. But it was as if time slowed down. The tree could have been five million feet away. That's how long it took for the car to actually hit the tree. The only thing I thought about was Kel. The only thing. I didn't think about school, the boys, the college I would miss out on if I died. I thought about Kel, and how he was the only thing that was important to me. The only thing that mattered in the seconds before I thought I was about to die.
***
I somehow fell asleep in Will's bed again. I know this, because when I opened my eyes, I was no longer crying. See? People can't cry forever. Everyone eventually falls asleep.
I expect the tears to return once the fog clears from my mind, but instead I feel motivated, renewed. Like I'm on some sort of mission. I get out of bed and have an odd urge to clean. And sing. I need music. I head to the living room and immediately find what I'm looking for. The stereo. I don't even have to search for music when I turn it on, there's already an Avett Brothers c.d. inside. I crank up the volume to one of my favorites and get busy.
Unfortunately, Will's house is surprisingly clean for two male inhabitants, so I have to search hard for something to keep me busy. I hit the bathroom first, which is good. I know nine-year-olds don't have very good aim so I start scrubbing. I scrub the toilet, the floors, the shower, the sinks. It's clean.
I move on to the bedrooms where I organize, make beds, re-make beds. Next, I hit the living room where I dust and vacuum. I mop the bathroom floors and wipe down every surface I can find. I end up at the kitchen sink where I wash the only two dirty dishes in the house; mine and Eddie's glasses.
It's almost seven when I hear Will's car pull up. He and the two boys walk in the house and come to a halt when they see me sitting in his living room floor.
"What are you doing?" Caulder asks.
"Alphabetizing," I reply.
"Alphabetizing what?" Will says.
"Everything. First I did the movies, then I did the c.d.'s. Caulder, I did the books in your room. I did a few of your games, but some of those started with numbers so I put the numbers first, then the titles." I point to the piles in front of me. "These are recipes. I found them on top of the fridge. I'm alphabetizing them by category first; like beef, lamb, pork, poultry. Then behind the categories I'm alphabetizing them by-"
"Guys, go to Kel's. Let Julia know you're back," Will says as he continues to watch me.
The boys don't move. They just stare at the recipe cards in front of me.
"Now!" Will yells. They both jerk their eyes away and start back toward the door.
"Your sister's weird," I hear Caulder say as they leave.
Will sits down on the couch in front of me as I continue to alphabetize the recipes.
"You're the teacher," I say. "Should I put 'Baked Potato Soup' behind potato, or soup?"
"Stop," he says. He seems moody.
"I can't stop, silly. I'm halfway finished. If I stop now you won't know where to find…" I grab a random card off the floor. "Jerk Chicken?" It would be that one. I throw the card back in the pile.
Will eyes the living room, then stands and walks into the kitchen. I see him run his finger along the baseboards. Good thing I thought about those. He walks down the hallway and returns a couple of minutes later.
“Some of you in here have performed at the slam this semester. I appreciate it. I know it takes a lot of courage." He holds up his own copy of the collection of poems.
"These are your poems. Some were written by students in my other classes, some by students in here. I want you to read them. Once you’ve read them, I want you to score them. Write a number between zero and ten, ten being the best. Be honest. If you don't like it, give it a low score. We're trying to find the best and worst. Write the score in the bottom right of each page. Go ahead.” He sits at his desk and watches the class.
I don't like this assignment. It doesn't seem fair. I'm raising my hand. Why am I raising my hand? He looks at me and nods.
"What's the point of this assignment?" I ask.
His eyes slowly make their way around the classroom. "Layken, ask that question again after everyone's finished."
He's acting strange.
I start reading the first poem when Will grabs two slips of paper off of his desk and walks past me. I glance back just as he lays a slip on Eddie’s desk. She picks it up and frowns. He walks back to the front, dropping the other slip on my desk. I pick it up and look it over. It's a detention slip.
I glance back at Eddie and she just shrugs her shoulders. I wad my slip into a ball and throw it across the room to the trashcan by the door. I make it.
Over the next half hour, students begin to finish their scoring. Will is taking the stacks as they are finished and he's adding up the totals with his calculator. Once the last of the points have been added up, Will writes the totals on a sheet of paper and walks to the front of his desk and sits.
He holds the paper up in the air and shakes it. "Is everyone ready to hear which poems sucked? Which ones got the most points?" He's smiling as he waits on a response.
No one says anything. Except Eddie.
"Some of us who wrote those poems may not want to know how many points we got. I know I don't."
Will takes a few steps toward Eddie. "If you don't care how many points it’s worth, then why did you write it?"
Eddie is quiet for a moment as she thinks about Will's question.
"Aside from wanting to be exempt from your final?" she asks.
Will nods.
"I guess because I had something to say."
Will looks at me. "Layken, ask your question again."
My question. I try to remember what my question was. Oh yeah, what's his point?
"What's the point of this assignment?" I ask cautiously.
Will holds the paper up in front of him that contains the tallied scores, and he rips it right down the middle. He reaches behind him and picks the stack of poems up that everyone scored and he throws them in the trash. He walks to the chalkboard and begins to write something on the board. When he's finished, he steps aside.
"The points are not the point; the point is poetry." ~Allan Wolf
The class is quiet as we take in the words sprawled across the board. Will allows a moment of silence before he continues.
"It shouldn't matter what anyone else thinks about your words. When you’re on that stage-you share a piece of your soul. You can’t assign points to that.”
The bell rings. On any other day, students would be filing out the door. No one has moved; we're all just staring at the writing on the board.
"The points are not the point; the point is poetry." ~Allan Wolf
"Tomorrow, be prepared to learn why it's important for you to write poetry," he says.
There was a moment, in the midst of all the distraction in my head, when I forgot he was Will. I listened to him like he was my teacher.
Javi is the first to get up, soon followed by the rest of the students. Will is facing the desk with his back to me when Eddie walks up, detention slip in hand. I had already forgotten he gave us detention. She gives me a wink as she passes me and stops at his desk.
“Mr. Cooper?” She’s being respectful, but dramatically so. “It is my understanding that detention proceeds commencement of the final class period at approximately three-thirty. It is my desire, as I’m sure it is Layken’s desire as well, to be punctual, so that we may serve our fairly deserved sentences with due diligence. Would you be so kind as to share with us the location in which this sentence shall be carried out?”
Will never looks at her as he walks toward the door. “Here. Just you two. Three-thirty.”
And he’s gone. Just like that.
Eddie bursts out laughing. “What did you do to him?”
I stand up and walk to the door with her. “Oh it wasn’t just me, Eddie. It was both of us.”
She spins around wide eyed. “Oh my god, he knows I know? What's he going to say about it?”
I shrug my shoulders. “I guess we’ll find out at three-thirty.”
***
“Detention? Duckie gave you detention?” Gavin laughs.
“Man, he really needs to get laid,” Nick says.
Nick’s comment causes Eddie to laugh and spew milk out of her mouth. I shoot her a cease and desist look.
“I can’t believe he gave you detention," Gavin says. "But you aren’t positive that’s what it’s for, right? For skipping? I mean, he already mentioned that at the slam last week and he didn’t seem too mad.”
I know what the detention is for. I’m pretty sure I know, anyway. He wants to make sure he can trust Eddie. I'm not positive, though, so I lie.
“He said it’s for not turning in the assignment we were supposed to do the day we skipped.”
Gavin turns to Eddie. “But you did that one, I remember.”
Eddie looks at me as she replies to Gavin. “I guess I lost it,” she shrugs.
***
Eddie and I meet outside the door to Will's classroom at approximately three-thirty.
"You know, the more I think about it, this really sucks," Eddie says. "Why couldn't he just call me or something if he wanted to talk about what I know? I had plans today."
"Maybe we won't have to stay long," I say.
"I hate detention. It's boring. I'd rather lay in Will's floor with you than sit in detention," she says.
"Maybe we can try and make it fun," I say.
She turns to open the door but hesitates, then spins around and faces me. "You know, you're right. Let's make it fun. I'm pretty sure detention is an hour long. Do you realize how many Chuck Norris puns we can make in a whole hour?"
I smile at her. "Not as many as Chuck Norris could."
She opens the door to detention.
"Afternoon, Mr. Cooper," Eddie says as she flurries inside.
"Take a seat," he says as he wipes the point of poetry off the board.
"Mr. Cooper, did you know that seats actually stand up when Chuck Norris walks into a room?" she says.
I laugh as I follow Eddie to our seats. Rather than taking the two front seats, she keeps walking until she's in the very back of the room where she scoots two desks together. We sit as far from the teacher as possible.
Will doesn't laugh. He doesn't even smile. He sits in his seat and glares at us while we giggle; like high school girls.
"Listen," he says as he stands back up and walks toward us. He leans against the window and folds his arms across his chest. He stares at the floor like he's trying to think of a delicate way to broach the subject.
"Eddie, I need to know where your head's at. I know you were at my house. I know you know Layken spent the night. I know she told you about our date. I just need to know what you plan to do about it; if you plan to do anything about it."
"Will, I already told you," I say. "She's not saying anything. There's nothing to say."
He doesn't look at me. He continues to look at Eddie, waiting for her response. I guess mine wasn't good enough.
I don't know if it's nerves or the fact that I've had the strangest last three days of my life, but I start laughing. Eddie shoots me a questioning glance, but she can't hold it in. She starts laughing, too.
Will throws his hands up in the air, exasperated. "What? What the hell is so funny?" he says. He's getting agitated.
"Nothing," I say. "It's just weird. You gave us detention, Will." I inhale as I try to control my laughter. "Couldn't you just like, come over tonight or something? Talk to us about it then? Why'd you give us detention?"
He waits until our laughter subsides before he continues. "This is the first chance I’ve had to talk to either of you. I didn't sleep all night. I wasn't sure if I even had a job to come back to today." He looks at Eddie. "If anything gets out, if anyone finds out that a student slept in my bed with me, I'd get fired. I'd get kicked out of college."
Eddie straightens in her seat and turns to me and smiles. "You slept in his bed with him? You're holding back vital information. You didn't tell me that," she laughs.
He walks back to the front of the room and throws himself into his chair. He leans onto his desk and sets his face in his hands. This isn’t going how he had planned.
"You slept in his bed?" she whispers, low enough so Will doesn't hear her.
"Nothing happened," I say. "Like you said, he's such a bore."
Eddie laughs again, causing me to lose my composure.
"Is this funny?" Will says from his desk. "Is this a joke to you two?"
I can see in his eyes that we're enjoying detention way more than we're supposed to. Eddie isn't fazed, however.
"Did you know Chuck Norris doesn't have a funny bone? It tried to make him laugh once, so he ripped it out," she says.
Will lays his head on his desk in defeat. Eddie and I look at each other and our laughter ceases as we respect that he's attempting to have a serious conversation with us.
Eddie sighs and straightens up in her desk. "Mr. Cooper?" she says. "I won’t say anything. Swear. It's not that big of a deal anyway."
He looks up at her. "It is a big deal Eddie. That's what I'm trying to tell both of you. If you don't treat this as a big deal, you'll get careless. Something might slip. I've got too much at stake."
We both sigh. The energy in the room is non-existent now. It's like a black hole just sucked all the fun out of detention. Eddie feels it too, so she attempts to rectify it.
"Did you know Chuck Norris likes his steaks med-" Eddie doesn't finish her sentence as Will reaches his limit. He slams his fist against the desk as he stands up. Neither Eddie nor I are laughing at this point. I look at her wide eyed and shake my head, letting her know that Chuck Norris needs to retreat.
"This isn't a joke," he says. "This is a big deal." He reaches over and takes something out of his drawer and swiftly walks to where we're sitting in the back of the room. He smacks a picture down on the crack where the edges of our desks meet and flips it over. It's a picture of Caulder.
He points his finger to the picture as he says, "This boy. This boy is a big deal."
He backs up a step and grabs a desk and turns it around to face us as he sits down.
"I don't think we're following you, Will," I say as I look at Eddie. She shakes her head in agreement. "What's Caulder got to do with what Eddie knows?"
He takes a deep breath as he leans across his desk and picks the picture back up. I can tell by the look in his eyes that his recollection is unpleasant. He lays the picture down on the desk and leans back in the chair, folding his arms across his chest.
"He was with them…when it happened. He watched them die."
I suck in a breath. Eddie and I give him respectful silence as we wait for him to continue. I'm beginning to feel this big.
"They said it was a miracle he survived. The car was totaled. When the first person came on the scene, Caulder was still buckled up in what was left of the backseat. He was screaming my mom's name, trying to get her to turn around. For five minutes he had to sit there alone and watch as they died."
Will clears his throat. Eddie reaches under the table and grabs my hand and squeezes it. Neither of us says a word.
"I sat in the hospital with him while he recovered for six days. Never left his side-not even for their funeral. When my grandparents came to pick him up and take him home with them, he cried. He didn't want to go. He wanted to stay with me. He begged me to take him back to campus with me. I didn't have a job, I didn't have insurance. I was nineteen. I didn't know the first thing about raising a kid…so I let them take him."
Will stands up and walks to the window. He doesn't say anything for a while as he watches the parking lot slowly empty. His hand goes to his face and it looks like he’s wiping at his eyes. If Eddie wasn't in here right now, I would hug him.
He eventually turns to face us again. "Caulder hated me. He was so mad at me he wouldn't return my calls for days. It was in the middle of a football game when I started to question the choice I made. I was studying the football in my hands, running my fingers over the pigskin, across the letters of the brand name printed on the side. This elongated spheroid shaped ball that didn't even weigh a whole pound. I was choosing this ridiculous ball of leather in my hands over my own flesh and blood. I was putting myself, my girlfriend, my scholarship-I was putting everything before this little boy that I loved more than anything in the world.
"I dropped the football and walked right off the field. I got to my grandparent's house at two in the morning and grabbed Caulder right out of bed. I brought him home that night. They begged me not to do it. Said it would be too hard on me and that I wouldn't be able to give him what he needed. I knew they were wrong. I knew all Caulder really needed-was me."
He turns and slowly walks back to the desk in front of us and places his hands on the back of it. He looks at both of us, tears streaming down our faces.
"I've spent the last two years of my life trying to convince myself that I made the right decision for him. So my job? My career? This life I'm trying to build for this little boy? It is a big deal. It's a very big deal to me."
He calmly returns the desk to its place in the aisle and walks back to the front of his room, grabs his things and leaves.
Eddie gets up and walks to Will's desk and grabs a box of tissues. She brings the box and slumps back down in her seat. I pull out a tissue as we both wipe at our eyes.
"God, Layken. How do you do it?" she says.
She blows her nose and grabs another tissue out of the box.
"How do I do what?" I sniff as I continue to wipe the tears from my eyes.
"How do you not fall in love with him?"
The tears begin flowing just as quickly as they were ceasing. I grab yet another tissue. "I don't not fall in love with him. I don't not fall in love with him a lot!"
She laughs and squeezes my hand as we willingly sit out our much deserved detentions.
14.
“And I know you need me in the next room over
But I am stuck in here all paralyzed.”
-The Avett Brothers, 10,000 words