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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781416996774 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers |
| Publication date: | 09/15/2009 |
| Sold by: | SIMON & SCHUSTER |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 224 |
| Lexile: | 670L (what's this?) |
| File size: | 2 MB |
| Age Range: | 9 - 14 Years |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Chapter 1
When my mother died I imagined God was thinking, "One down, and one to go."
We were an ordinary family up until Mom got sick. I don't really remember what it was like to be ordinary, since I was only four years old when it all changed. Most of my life I've been different from everybody else.
But sometimes I look at the pictures of us from before. A regular family. A mom, a dad, a little girl. I can tell when Mom was getting sick by how old I look in the pictures, and whether or not I have bangs. The fi rst time Mom got really sick was right around the time I started to grow out my bangs, so my favorite pictures are the ones where I still have bangs and I know for sure that she was healthy. When my bangs are too long and clipped back from my forehead, I know that means Mom is closer to dying.
I don't remember the first time Mom told me she was sick, and that I could get sick too. It seems like something I've always known. At fi rst, Mom just had a cold. It wasn't a big deal, because people get colds all the time, even though Mom was the kind of person who never got sick. But I was in preschool, so she thought maybe I'd brought home germs from the other kids and given them to her. She figured it was just a normal cold like regular people get. Except Mom's cold just wouldn't go away. She went to the doctor and he put her on antibiotics and said it should clear up in a few days, but Mom got worse. One night she couldn't breathe at all, and Dad rushed her to the hospital. It turned out she had pneumonia, but it was more than that. The doctors at the hospital said the reason Mom had pneumonia was because she also had a disease called AIDS. They said Dad and I also had to be tested to see if we were infected with it too. Dad wasn't, but I was. They figured out that Mom had gotten infected before I was born, and I got it when she was pregnant with me.
Mom went on special medication for people with AIDS, and she got better for a while. Even though I wasn't sick, the doctors said I could get sick at any time because I was HIV-positive, which means the virus that causes AIDS is in my blood. From then on, Mom and I had to go to the doctor every couple of months. They tested our blood for things called viral loads and T-cells. If our viral loads were high and our T-cell levels were low, it meant we could be really sick. My blood was drawn so many times I wondered if I would eventually run out. Every time Mom or I got a cold or a stomachache, we had to go to the doctor to make sure it wasn't something worse. After a while, I started having to take the medication too. Sometimes Mom would look at me and start to cry, but usually she pretended she wasn't crying. She would say something dumb, like there was something in her eye or she was remembering a sad movie.
The last thing Mom said to me was "I love you to the sky." It was this game we used to play from when I was little. "Do you love me to the top of my head?" I'd ask. "Higher," Mom would say. "Do you love me to the top of that tree?" "Even higher." "Do you love me to the roof?" "Higher than that." "How high do you love me?" I'd finally ask, and Mom would say, "I love you to the sky."
She died on a Tuesday morning. Afterward the men from the funeral home came to take her body away, and Mom's friend Lisa took me outside. It was too hard to breathe in the house, but the air outside was cool and crisp. It was April, and we sat on the lawn in front of the house. I bent my legs and rested my chin on top of my knees. It had happened way too fast. She was coughing and coughing for months, but she didn't seem that sick. And then all of a sudden she was really sick. My parents had divorced when I was eight years old, so my dad didn't live with us anymore. When Mom got too sick for us to live on our own, different people came to stay. Mom's father came up to Connecticut from Florida; then her sister, my aunt Laura, came in from Colorado. The last two weeks Lisa had come. And we had nurses in and out of the house. But I still didn't really believe that Mom would actually ever die. Even after it happened, I wasn't sure I believed it. I always thought that we would be all right, just because I couldn't imagine it any other way.
Lisa put her hand on my head. I had known her my whole life. She and my mother were best friends from college. I pretended it was Mom's fingers running though my hair. Lisa was pulling at a knot in my hair and my mother was dead. I could hear the ordinary, everyday sounds — wheels against pavement, wind rustling the leaves in the trees. A car drove by, like it was any other day. Why was everything still moving? I felt like everything should have stopped. How was I still breathing? I sucked in my breath and held it to see if it was possible to make time stop, but I could still feel my heart beating in my chest and I let my breath out slowly.
"What can I do, Emmy?" Lisa asked.
I didn't answer. Mommy, I said to myself silently, matching up the word to the beats in my chest. Mom-my, Mom-my, Mom-my. I said it over and over again in my head, like I was calling out to her. Mommy. It was a weird word. It was two words put together, like a compound word: "Mom" and "me." As if we were connected, even though there wouldn't ever be a mom and me again.
I thought about who I was right then, on the last day I had a mother. I had just turned thirteen. I was finishing up seventh grade. I was on the short side; my hair was just past my shoulders. That was how she knew me. The problem is, when someone dies, you keep growing. Things about me would change and she wouldn't be there to see them.
And what if I forgot things about her? My grandmother had died when I was nine, and there were things about her I couldn't remember. Like her voice. I couldn't remember anything about it, not even how she sounded when she said my name.
Sitting on the grass with Lisa, I could still hear Mom's voice in my head. I closed my eyes and could hear her saying my name. I decided to practice remembering it every day so I wouldn't ever forget it.
"Emmy," Lisa said, and I opened my eyes. "I spoke to your father. He said he wants to come over, but I told him I needed to ask you."
I thought of my father driving up our block in his white sedan and pulling into the driveway behind Mom's red car. "No," I said. "I don't want him to come here."
It didn't seem right for Dad to be at Mom's house. After all, he had divorced Mom. He had a new wife, and they were even having a baby. Mom had wanted to have another baby after me. I had heard her once talking about it with Lisa. She wanted me to be a big sister, but then she was diagnosed with AIDS. Now Dad was having a baby without her. "I wonder if he even cares that she's dead," I said.
"Oh, Emmy," Lisa said. "Of course he does."
I knew Lisa was probably right, but I didn't want to think about Dad anymore. There would be plenty of time for him. I used to see him only every other weekend and for dinner on Tuesday nights. The last couple of months I hadn't seen him as much because Mom didn't feel well and I was spending time with her. Anyway it didn't matter because now I'd be living with him...and with Meg, my stepmother, his new wife. I hated thinking about her as my father's wife, since that's what Mom used to be.
I wanted to concentrate on Mom and no one else. I tried to hold a picture of her up in my mind. I was full of Mom, but Mom was gone, so I was full of emptiness. It felt like something sharp was pressing behind my eyes. I squeezed them shut but they still felt raw and open. What happens when you die? Did Mom get to see her mother? I didn't want Mom to be alone, but I didn't want anyone else to get to be with her. I still needed Mom with me. I hooked my arms around my legs like I was hugging them. Lisa moved closer to me so there was hardly any space between us. "It's all right to cry," she said.
I pressed my face hard into my knees. The top of my jeans felt sticky. The inside of my chest hurt like it was bleeding. Was that what it meant to be bleeding internally? I hated blood. I always tried to stay away from sharp things so I wouldn't get cut and start bleeding. Seeing blood always reminded me that I was infected, and most of all I hated this stupid disease. I was curled into a ball and Lisa rocked and rocked me. It was getting cooler. During the day the sun beats down on our front lawn, but the sun had already moved, so it was behind the house and we were sitting in the shade. Soon it would be dark. I didn't want the day to end. At least today I had seen my mother. But tomorrow I wouldn't see her at all, or the day after that, or the day after that, or ever again. I made myself say it in my head: You will never see Mom again. I kept my face pressed against my knees for as long as I could, until all the snot and tears made it hard to breathe, and on top of that, I had to pee. I hadn't been to the bathroom since Mom had died. It seemed ridiculous to have to sit up and blow my nose and go to the bathroom. How could I still have to do things like that? I knew later on Lisa would try and make me eat dinner so I could take my pills without getting nauseous, and then I would brush my teeth and change my clothes and get into my bed.
There were so many things to do. I had to keep breathing, and I would have to put things into my mouth and chew and swallow. And I would have to go to the bathroom and go to school. None of it made any sense, since Mom was gone.
And then there were the other things we would have to do because we were still living and Mom was not, like pack everything up and give things away. Right now all of Mom's clothes were still in the big closet in her bedroom. But it would all get packed up. My stuff would be packed up too. The pictures would be taken off the walls. Lisa would go back to New York City, where she lived, and I would go to Dad and Meg's house.
Technically Dad and Meg's house would be my house now too. But home was where all Mom's stuff was — the furniture, the pictures. I wasn't sure where I would put all the pictures of Mom. I knew Meg wouldn't want me putting them up on the walls around Dad's house. And what about the rest of Mom's stuff? I wondered how I would squeeze everything important from Mom's house into my one little room at Dad's. We wouldn't have crunchy peanut butter in the fridge anymore. That was something only Mom liked.
From now on, everything I did would be things I did without a mother. No matter how much I wanted her. No matter how much I needed her. Mom was the only one who knew what it was like to have to take pills every day, and to be scared of getting sick, and to feel different. Now I would have to miss Mom too, and I wouldn't even have her to help me. It wasn't fair.
I didn't want to go back in the house without Mom. But I really had to pee. I lifted up my head and wiped my nose with my sleeve, just like a little kid. My mother was the kind of person who always had tissues in her purse. I turned back to Lisa. "I wish you could live here forever," I told her. If Lisa stayed, I could still live in my house. We wouldn't have to clean out Mom's closet or take all of the pictures off the walls. I thought maybe if I said it out loud, it would come true, even though I knew really it was impossible. Lisa lived so far away. She had a husband and a baby. Her husband called every day to check in. I knew he wanted her to go back home.
"Oh, Em, I know," Lisa said. "I'm so sorry."
"How long are you staying?"
"I'll be here until the end of the week," she said.
Did the end of the week mean Friday or Sunday? Friday was only three days away. I really hoped she meant Sunday. Then I thought it was awful of me to be worrying about the difference between Friday and Sunday. My mother had just died, after all.
"Can I stay here with you until you have to leave?" I asked.
"Absolutely," Lisa said.
"I have to go to the bathroom," I told her. I stood up and watched Lisa push herself up from the ground. She wiped her palms on her jeans and put her arm back around my shoulder. We walked up the steps and into the house together. This is the first time I'm walking into my house without having a mother, I thought, and then I stepped inside.
Copyright © 2009 by Courtney Sheinmel
Chapter 2
The funeral was two days later. My aunt Laura, my uncle Rob, and my grandfather had all come in the day before, and of course Lisa was still there. The house felt strange, like it was too full. I was still used to it being just Mom and me. I thought maybe if I fell asleep, when I woke up it would turn back to the way it was before. But it was impossible for me to sleep at all.
In the morning the sun came through the window and lit up my room. I had let it get very messy. The clothes I'd worn the past couple of days were on the floor, along with a hundred other things that had been in my closet. It had been hard to figure out what to wear. All those months that Mom was coughing, I didn't think she was dying and I never thought about asking someone to take me to the mall to buy an outfi t to wear for the funeral. The thing was, Mom was always the person I went shopping with. I tore everything out of the closet and threw it on the floor. Afterward, I looked at all my clothes lying there. There was no reason to put them away. I was going to have to pack it all up anyway when I moved to Dad's, so I just left them there.
Lisa came in to make sure I was awake, which of course I was. She was holding a cup of coffee. I could see the steam rising off of the top. I watched her step around my clothes carefully so she wouldn't fall and spill the coffee everywhere, but she didn't say anything about the mess. I sat on the edge of my bed with my legs crossed. I was wearing a light gray dress that Mom had bought me a year before, at our favorite store. It had been at the very back of my closet and when I tried it on it was too short, but when I stood in front of the mirror I actually thought it looked better that way. My hair was pulled back tight in a half ponytail. It gave me a little headache but I didn't want to loosen it because I kind of liked the way it felt.
"You're dressed already?" Lisa said. She was still wearing pajamas — leggings and an old shirt of Mom's. It said Fleetwood Mac: Sold Out on the back. I nodded. "You look very pretty," she said.
"Thank you," I said.
Lisa sat down next to me on the bed. She put the coffee mug down on my nightstand. Once when I was visiting Dad, I put a can of soda down on one of the side tables and Meg got upset because I didn't use a coaster. She said the wood could get ring stains. But I didn't care if the coffee mug left a mark. Lisa moved her palm across the comforter to smooth it out. I kept thinking, This is what I will be wearing when my mother is buried. I was watching Lisa's hand move across the bed, but I was picturing the coffin being lowered into the ground, and me standing next to the grave in my gray dress that was too short, with my hair pulled back too tight. Then I thought of the other outfit — the one Mom was wearing. Lisa had showed me the dress she'd picked out before she had it sent over to the funeral home. It was rose colored and had a tie around the waist. I blinked quickly so I could stop seeing it.
"Do you want to come downstairs?" Lisa asked. "You can have some cereal."
"I'm really not hungry," I told her.
"I know," she said. She stood up and held out her hand. "Come on." "Is everyone downstairs?"
"Your grandfather went for a walk a little while ago. I think Laura went with him."
"What about Uncle Rob?"
"He was on the phone with someone from his office a few minutes ago," Lisa said.
"His office?"
"Well, it's a weekday," Lisa said.
"Oh yeah," I said. It was hard to remember the difference between weekdays and weekends. I hadn't gone to school in almost a week, and it felt like forever. The last time I was at school, Mom was alive. It was strange that people had to go to school and to work now that she was gone. It still felt like the whole world should have just stopped. But right then, as I was sitting on my bed in the dress I would wear to Mom's funeral, everyone else in the seventh grade was in homeroom.
Lisa was still holding out her hand to me. She shook it a little to remind me it was there, and I took it. We walked out of the room. Lisa's coffee mug was still sitting on my nightstand, but I didn't remind her to take it with her. I don't know why.
I followed Lisa downstairs and into the kitchen. Someone had lined up my pill bottles on the table. That's the thing about AIDS. You can never forget that you have it. Technically I don't even have AIDS — I'm HIV-positive, which means I'm infected but I'm not sick. But I have to take pills every day, like clock work, to make sure I don't get sick. I take them three times a day — with breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And I have to take them at the exact same times every day, which isn't always the easiest thing to do.
Some people think as long as you take the pills, you'll stay healthy. They think people die of AIDS only if they live in poor countries where they don't have medicine. But it's not that easy. It's just so hard to take medicine all the time. It's like a constant reminder that you're not normal. And some people have really bad side effects, so they can't their pills like they're supposed to. That's what happened with Mom. The medication made her sick, so she couldn't always take the right amount. I only get a little bit sick when I take my pills, and the sick feeling goes away pretty quickly.
At school when I have to take my pills, the nurse doles out the exact dosage, like she doesn't trust me to remember how much to take. But at home it's up to me. I pressed down on the child-safety lock and popped open one of the bottles. When I was little I used to cry every time I had to take my medicine. It tasted so gross and I hated feeling nauseous three times a day. Mom would hold the bottle up and kiss it. "I love this for keeping you well," she would say. I closed my eyes for a second and thought of Mom's voice again. I had learned to swallow pills, so I didn't have to take that awful liquid stuff anymore. But I still hated it.
Uncle Rob was standing in front of the fridge, leaning inside with the door wide open, his cell phone balanced between his ear and his shoulder. "Well that's what you're paid for, buddy," Uncle Rob said. He was speaking loudly, the way he always did. When I was little I asked Aunt Laura what Rob's job was, and she said he put deals together. I pictured him at his office with a deck of cards, dealing them out to a bunch of guys in suits. I still had no idea what his job really was. Uncle Rob turned from the fridge and saw me at the table. "Sorry," he mouthed, and walked out of the room. I heard him start cursing in the hallway.
Lisa put a bowl of cereal in front of me. "Just do your best," she said. I picked up the spoon and pushed down on the flakes floating in the milk. I liked the way they popped back up. Lisa sat down across from me. "Just a few bites, Emmy," she said, like I was a little kid. I felt like a little kid, but I also felt older. I closed my eyes and thought about dipping the spoon back into the bowl, scooping out cereal and bringing it to my mouth, chewing and swallowing. It seemed impossible. My hand felt heavy. I opened my eyes and made myself lift the spoon up in my hand. I dipped it into the bowl and brought the spoon to my mouth. I could still eat. I just didn't want to. "Good girl," Lisa said.
Rob came back into the kitchen. He snapped his cell phone shut and put it in his shirt pocket. He put his hand on my shoulder and tapped his fingers up and down. I took another bite of cereal, but it tasted funny. I could taste the metal from the spoon. I made myself swallow so I wouldn't throw up. "Aunt Laura and I want you to know that you can come to Colorado anytime," Uncle Rob said. "Anytime at all. You can come for Christmas break, if you want. We can go skiing. You'd like that, right?"
"You mean winter break," I said.
"What?"
"You said Christmas break, but they call it winter break, so it includes everyone."
"Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, winter break," Uncle Rob said. He pulled out the chair next to me and sat down. "Whatever you want to call it, whenever you want to come, you are welcome." I nodded, even though I didn't want to go to Colorado. Mom had said maybe we would go to Paris. She liked us to have special vacations. She said we needed to take advantage of having time together.
I didn't want the cereal in front of me anymore. "Do you want the rest?" I asked Uncle Rob. He was always hungry. When we would all go out to eat, he would finish his meal and then eat the leftovers off of Aunt Laura's, Mom's, and my plates.
"Sure," he said. I pushed the bowl over to him and he picked up my spoon. The phone rang and Lisa stood up to answer it. I hoped it wasn't Dad. He had called about a dozen times since Mom died, but I didn't want to talk to him. Lisa said he wanted to see me, but I told her to tell him not to come. I figured if he really wanted to see me, he would come over no matter what I said. Besides, I would have to see him at the funeral anyway.
"Em, it's Nicole," Lisa said. Nicole Lister — my best friend. She had also called a bunch of times since Mom died, but I didn't feel like talking. We'd text-messaged each other. She had written, "luv u xox," and I wrote back, "thx luv u 2." Mom used to read over my shoulder when I was texting, and she would laugh because she thought it looked like another language. "MOS!" I would write Nicole, which meant Mom over shoulder.
I looked at the clock and thought Nicole should be in French class right then, conjugating verbs or something. Maybe she had snuck into the bathroom and was using her cell phone in a stall, or maybe she told the teacher she was calling me and got special permission to leave class. She seemed like a stranger, in a way. I hadn't seen her since Mom died. I realized that was how I was measuring time — by when Mom died. If the last time I did everything was before Mom died, then she didn't feel as far away. Lisa was still looking at me and I shook my head. "I'm sorry, Nicole," Lisa said. "Emmy can't come to the phone right now." I wondered what Nicole was saying back to her. Lisa hung up. "She says the principal is canceling all the seventh-grade classes this afternoon and she'll see you at the funeral," Lisa said.
"It will be good to see your friends, don't you think?" Uncle Rob said. I nodded even though there was only one person I wanted to see, and she would be in a box.
Uncle Rob finished my cereal and left the room to make another phone call. Lisa put the dishes in the dishwasher. I heard the front door open and close and I knew Grandpa and Aunt Laura were back from their walk. The house was full again. Everyone had to get ready for the funeral, but I was already dressed.
Copyright © 2009 by Courtney Sheinmel