Our New Normal (ARC) Page 5

I set Dad’s iPad on the nightstand and lean down to kiss his cheeks. He opens his mouth and exhales in a loud snore. It makes me smile. “Good night,” I whisper, turning out his light.

  And then I head into darkness, back to the cottage.

  4

  Hazel

  I’ve been lying on my bed all morning trying to count how many times the ceiling fan goes around in one minute. I even used the stopwatch on my phone. It’s not going that well because, even on the slowest speed, I can’t really tell when it makes a full spin because it’s already on the next one.

  Waiting for Tyler to call me back. Avoiding Mom and Dad and my weirdo brother.

  I don’t know if Sean knows. I don’t know if Mom or Dad told him or not. But he keeps looking at me every time I walk through the living room where he’s camped out in front of the TV, shooting zombies.

  If he does know, I wish he’d just come out and say whatever dumbass thing he’s going to say and be done with it. Or better yet, stop looking at me like that and just ask me if I picked out my car yet. He and I have this running game that I know is stupid, but it’s fun, and it’s a way to talk to the weirdo. We pretend that zombies have taken over the world, like in The Walking Dead, this TV show we used to watch together before he got too cool to hang out with me much. So, in our game, we’re making plans as to what we would do if zombies really do take over. We play a round until we get bored and then we start a new one with new parameters. Sometimes Mom and Dad haven’t been eaten yet. Sometimes they’re alive and we even have to haul Gran and Granddad around. In this round of the game, our family is all long gone, turned into zombies and stumbling around Rockland or somewhere eating stray dogs and cats. Sean and I have decided we’re going to Key West because it’s too freakin’ cold here in Maine. And in the Keys, we can pick an island and better defend ourselves. We’re taking two cars down, just to play it safe, so I’m supposed to pick mine. He keeps saying he wants a motorcycle—like he thinks he’s Norman Reedus or something. Like he could ever look cool on a motorcycle. Or drive one. He’s backed into Dad’s car twice already.

  I’m thinking about stealing a Toyota Land Cruiser. Well, it’s not really stealing because in the zombie apocalypse there will be cars abandoned everywhere, just parked on streets and in garages. Our neighbors have a green Land Cruiser. I could take his. Because Sean and I are the ones controlling the game, I can just say the Petersons are all dead and I can take their car.

  I pick up my phone, just to make sure the ringer is on. I know it is. I’ve already checked. Ten times. Maybe twenty.

  This is killing me, not being able to talk to Tyler. He’s going to freak out. I didn’t even tell him I was late. It just seemed too weird to talk to him about my period. When I’m on, I don’t tell him. I just say I don’t want to have sex with him because he’s being a dickwad. Which can almost always be true at any given moment.

  Guess we’re going to have to talk about it now.

  I cannot believe I’m pregnant.

  I cannot believe I’m pregnant.

  I cannot believe I’m pregnant.

  That thought just keeps going through my head over and over again. I’m devastated. You hear people throw that word around. Kids in my Algebra 2 class were devastated because they failed because Mrs. Binner is a mean, fat cow. Tyler’s dad is devastated that it doesn’t look like some guy is going to win the Coca-Cola 600 NASCAR race. Devastation means ruin. It means something is destroyed. I’m devastated because my life as I thought it was going to be is ruined. It’s destroyed. It will never be what I thought it was going to be. What I hoped it was going to be.

  I throw myself back on the bed on my favorite quilt. I’ve been carrying it around since I was a baby. I pull it over my head and breathe in the weird smell of old cotton and the eco-friendly lavender fabric softener Mom buys. When I was little, Mom said I used to scream when she took my quilt I called Blankie away from me to wash it when it got too gross. And then I’d stand in front of the washing machine when we had a front loader and watch it go around and around. And then I would want it while it was still wet, and I’d scream when she put it in the dryer.

  I wonder if I should get my baby a blanket he can still be sticking in his overnight bag when he’s sixteen. If I do get him one, and I already know he’s a boy, I’m going to be smart about it. Smarter than Mom was. I’m going to get him something new so it doesn’t start out being ratty like mine did. My quilt was from way back when my mom was in college. Somebody her mom knew made it.

  It’s hot under Blankie so I throw it off and check my phone again. Jeez and crackers. Where is he? I’d call his house, but I don’t want to risk having to talk to his mom. She always asks me weird questions like where I get my nail polish and if my dad had any dead patients this week. Tyler’s parents are weirdos. Not like Sean is a weirdo. Not smart weird like he is. Just weird weird. They eat too much McDonald’s. That’s my theory. That stuff is so bad for you, full of carcinogens like TBHQ, dimethylpolysiloxane, and L-cysteine, an amino acid made from DUCK FEATHERS. I keep telling Tyler it will kill him. It’s a wonder any of his sperm could even swim, he’s so full of trans fats and who knows what else.

  “Come on, Tyler. Come on,” I whisper. “Call me, please.” The last words come out sounding so pitiful.

  And then, freakishly, my phone rings. Tyler’s name pops up on the screen, and I sit up, grabbing it with both hands.

  “Tyler?” I practically holler.

  “Hey.” He sounds like he’s far away.

  “Where have you been?” I ask, afraid I’m going to start crying. Which I know I can’t because Tyler’s not like Dad when Mom cries. Not that she cries much, but when she does, Dad gets all sweet and talks quiet to her, hugging her and stuff. Tyler gets angry with me and makes excuses to get away from me when I cry.

  So, I’m not going to cry. “Why didn’t you call me?” I ask, stalling really because I’ve been going over in my head what I’m going to say, how I’m going to say it, but now . . . I don’t know if I should just blurt it out.

  “What?” Tyler says. “I can’t really hear you.”

  The connection is bad. Not scratchy like landlines can be after a big snow, but it’s like I can only hear some of the sounds in his words, so I have to guess what he’s saying. “I said, ‘Why didn’t you call me?’ ” I say louder. As if I’m talking to Granddad when he can’t find his hearing aids. “I need to talk to you about something important.” I get out of bed and start to pace. All of a sudden I feel like I have to pee. Like I really have to pee. I’m so scared to tell him. But I have to. I know that. I mean, it’s his baby. And how are we going to make plans if he doesn’t know? “It’s really important. Tyler, it’s—”

  “I can’t hear you. You’ll be home tonight, yeah?” I decipher.

  “Yes, but—”

  “I’ll talk to you then. I have to—”

  I lose the next few words and then his voice cuts back in again.

  “Tyler, this is serious. I need to tell you that—” I hold my phone tight with both hands. I’m trying not to cry.

  “Talk to you later,” I hear Tyler say.

  Then he’s gone.

  I look at the phone screen. I debate whether or not just to text the asshole. But that’s not right. We need to talk. We need to talk about our life together with our baby. About how we’re going to do it. On 16 and Pregnant, sometimes the teenagers move in with their parents. I’m not dumb enough to think that’s going to happen. There’s no room for me in Tyler’s parents’ house. Tyler already shares his bedroom with his stepbrother. And Mom and Dad would never let Tyler live with us. I wouldn’t want him to anyway. That would just be too crazy, living with the guy I had sex with, and my dad.

  I sit down on the end of my bed, holding my phone, trying not to cry. Crying anyway. Then I call Katy. My best friend. I wasn’t going to tell her until I told Tyler because that’s only right. Right?

  Katy answers. “Hey. I thought you were at the cottage.”


  I slide off the bed, to the floor, the footboard against my back, pulling my knees up to my chest. “Katy,” I whisper. I don’t even try not to cry now. “You’re not going to believe this.”

  5

  Liv

  I drag the garbage can to the refrigerator. We’re packing up to go home. I haven’t seen anyone for an hour. Hazel is hiding in her room from the reality of her pregnancy. Sean is hiding from the world inside a virtual combat game. And Oscar is somewhere, hiding from me.

  I yank open the refrigerator door. Something stinks inside. It’s been smelling for at least two weeks. I smelled it two weekends ago when we were here on a Friday night for family game night with Oscar’s siblings and their families. I kept thinking someone else would go on this expedition: Oscar; Marie, his sister; his brother, Joe; somebody’s kid. Marie’s twins are just a little older than Sean; you would think that eighteen-year-olds would be able to suss out the stench. But even Joe’s twelve-year-old, the youngest of the cousins, is old enough to smell something in the refrigerator that stinks like Limburger gone bad in a fourteen-year-old boy’s gym bag.

  I crouch and my knees crack. I bounce a couple of times. I don’t work out, but I watch what I eat, not hard to do with my chief of food police, Hazel, and I do yoga as many mornings a week as I can manage. I like to hike; Oscar and I used to hike together. First with the kids and then, when they got older and whined that they wanted to stay home on a Saturday morning, we would go alone. I’d always looked forward to our Saturday morning hikes; it was a way to connect without the noise of the pile of bills on the kitchen table and the kids’ latest needs. But Oscar’s put on a few pounds and doesn’t seem as open to doing things like that anymore. Whether it’s me or just the fact that he’s older and more tired, I don’t know. I’m hoping with the new job I’ll be more active, get more exercise just being on the job site.

  I reach for the nearest thing: a carton of free-range eggs. I open it. No eggs are broken, but I take a sniff anyway. They’re fine. I scoot them to the left. Next is a glass container of something unidentifiable from the outside.

  When I got home from my parents’ this morning, I climbed into bed with Oscar, my clothes on. I drifted off to sleep. I’d hoped we could talk when we got up, but I slept until after eight. When I woke up, he was gone. Downstairs, the coffeemaker was on and he’d left a mug out for me. I found him out back in his chair, just sitting there with a cup of coffee in his hand, his book on his lap, staring at the water below. The tide was coming in, crashing on the rocks. Willie Nelson was sprawled at his feet. We exchanged a few words about my mom’s trip to the ED and then I tried to broach the subject of our daughter and her predicament. Our predicament.

  He wasn’t receptive. He mumbled something about a man wanting to have a cup of caffeine without having to settle the unrest in the Middle East and I left him to his coffee, his dog, the Nazis.

  I find shriveled green beans in the glass container. They’re not the source of the stench, but they’re certainly beyond edible. I set them on the floor and lower myself to my knees because my calves are starting to cramp.

  As I dig in for another treat, I hear Sean’s footsteps. Funny how a mother knows the sound and rhythm of the footsteps of everyone in her home. He comes up behind me, reaches over my head, and grabs a bottle of fat water—my children’s name for an unsweetened, carbonated water. I glance up at him. He’s gotten tall in the last year. I wouldn’t say he’s handsome because he hasn’t put on the weight yet that his almost-six-foot frame needs. He’s still gangly and awkward and his acne is just beginning to clear up since his latest visit to the dermatologist. But he’s got nice eyes, his father’s blue eyes, and his father’s hair. It was Oscar’s dark-auburn hair and the eyes that made me swoon so many years ago.

  “Hey,” I say, glancing over my shoulder at him.

  He’s got his enormous noise-canceling headphones wrapped around his neck. A nice change from last year when he wore them over his ears all the time, so he never heard when anyone spoke to him.

  “Hey,” he echoes.

  “See your sister?” I ask.

  “Nope. Probably upstairs talking to Tyler.” He cracks open the bottle. “The douche.”

  I eye him, but I don’t comment on the name-calling because if I do, my son will just wander back to his army buddies on the big screen. A mother takes any conversation she can get from a son who’s about to fly from the nest.

  “What a loser. To get your sixteen-year-old girlfriend pregnant. Didn’t he take health class in the ninth grade?” He screws up his face and takes a sip of water. “Probably flunked the class. Douche,” he repeats.

  I want to agree, but that doesn’t seem like good parenting. “So . . . she’s talked to him? Talking to him?”

  “I don’t know.” He grimaces. “She wouldn’t tell me. She barely speaks to me.”

  “I wasn’t asking if she told you she’d spoken to him.” I gaze into the refrigerator, planning my next attack. “I just wondered if . . . maybe you overheard a conversation?” Sean was a great spy when he was young. So good that eventually I had to have a talk with him about not being a tattletale.

  “I say we don’t tell him at all. This is a big enough shit show without putting Tyler Taylor into the mix.” Again, the grimace. “And his parents?” He takes another sip. “Anyone who would name their kid Tyler Taylor? You think they’re going to have any reasonable input?”

  I can’t help myself. I laugh. Because he has a point. And then I want to hug him. Sean’s still coming out of his shell, but I like the person I see emerging.

  I change the subject. “Seen your dad?”

  “I think he’s washing his car.”

  I grab a suspicious-looking wad of tinfoil. Not from our house. Has to be Marie’s or Joe’s. We don’t use commercial wraps, at least not in Hazel’s presence. We have squares of fabric covered with beeswax that we use to cover containers and wrap leftover food. My daughter intends to save the world, one roll of plastic wrap at a time. We give her a hard time about it, but we’re actually starting to get used to it, the recycling, the glass rather than plastic containers, buying food in bulk and bringing it home in our own glass mason jars. And I’m so proud of her, proud of her for not just talking about how to change things, how to change the world, but because she’s going to do it.

  Which is maybe why I’m so sad about this pregnancy. Because no matter what happens, I know this will change her. I just hope it won’t break her spirit.

  I glance up at Sean. “Order your books for your classes?”

  “Check.”

  “Give notice at work?”

  He shrugs. “They knew I was going to school, I just told them my last day. Mr. Jenkins was nice about it. He said to just let him know whenever I want to work, like if I’m home for the weekend or Christmas or whatever. He said they could always use me to fill in for somebody who’s called out or whatever.”

  “That was nice of him.” I open the ball of foil slowly, waiting to be bombarded by the stench I’m still smelling. Nope. A petrified dinner roll. I toss it in the compost bin. “You hear back from Richard?” His new roommate, assigned to him by the college. Sean won’t know anyone at school. Surprisingly, he seems okay with that.

  “Yeah. He e-mailed me last night. His mom has some kind of list. Something about us not bringing two refrigerators? I gave him your e-mail. Told him to tell her to e-mail you. Richard and I are going to decide what equipment to bring. Who’s bringing the TV, the Nintendo Switch, stuff like that.”

  I laugh. The school did a good job of assigning roommates. Richard is in the same major, but they put them on a floor with some math and science nerds. At orientation last month the parents and students all had lunch together and the boys on his floor all sat and talked together. I tried not to look their way too often, but when I did, Sean seemed to be attempting to engage. “Good. You guys going to meet?”

  “I think so. Portland this week.”

 
I’m so excited that Sean is reaching out to his roommate-to-be like this. He’s struggled socially his whole life. He has a few good friends now, but they’re all pretty much like him. Gamer nerds. I’m hoping college will not just introduce him to an academic world but to a social one, too.

  “He, um . . .” Sean taps the trash can with his bare foot. “His sister and some friends of hers are coming.”

  I almost don’t catch that because he’s swallowing water as he says it.

  “Other people will be there, too,” he mumbles.

  I keep my gaze fixed on a glass bowl that is definitely the leftover nacho cheese from family game night two weeks ago. I don’t want to spook Sean. “Like . . . a party?”

  “Outdoor concert or something.” He walks away. “What time we leaving?”

  I’m thinking an hour, but I say, “Soon.” I don’t want him getting involved in a game with someone in Germany and have us all sitting around waiting for someone to use up his last life so we can go home.

  It’s happened.

  I dig in the refrigerator for another five minutes. I find an apple with a bite out of it, some floppy celery, and a bottle of BBQ sauce missing the lid. But no Limburger. I surrender, empty the food in the compost bin, and load it in the dishwasher. As I bag the trash, I see Oscar through the window. He is washing his car. I have no idea why. He never does it here, always at home. I carry out the trash bag and drop it in the Dumpster, which I roll out onto the edge of the driveway, so we don’t forget to put it on the curb when we leave. There’s always a discussion about whose turn it is when we leave because we have a long driveway that snakes back to the house that sits right on the water.

  I watch Oscar for a minute, debating whether to go talk to him or let it go for now. We’ve got two cars here, so we aren’t going to be able to talk together on the ride home. Unless we let Sean take one of the cars home and make Hazel ride with him. We do that sometimes. But there’s always a discussion as to who has to take the dog because he’s almost always wet on the ride home. Willie Nelson loves to swim in the bay and it seems as if he always sneaks off to jump in, right before we go. And something tells me Oscar isn’t going to go for it, sending the kids home in my car, even if I agree the dog can ride with us in his car. Because he doesn’t want to talk to me. Because he’s still seasoning the issue of our daughter’s pregnancy.