Bird (16 page)

Grandpa's shoes were by the door when I got home, which meant that he'd returned. Mom was home from work too, going through the pile of bills on the kitchen table. She always insists on doing the bills, since she does the same kind of thing at work. When I see her with that big stack of papers saying that we owe money, though, she gets these worry lines on her forehead and around her eyes. I always know not to make her more upset than she is. The easiest thing to do is just leave her alone and be as quiet as possible.

But John's sadness and Grandpa's sadness were pressing down on my lungs, and I was bursting to ask Mom about all this. For some reason I didn't think she'd want to hear about Grandpa being sad, so instead I said, “Mom?”

She sighed, switched to another bill, and propped her forehead in the palm of her hand. “Yes, honey?”

“How do you make someone feel better when they're sad?”

She was reading whatever was written on the piece of paper, her eyes moving back and forth really fast. “Sometimes it's hard,” she said, but I knew she was thinking about the letter. Then she took out her checkbook and wrote something on it.

I shifted my weight. She wanted me to go away. “What about John?” I asked.

Mom raised her head. My stomach tightened. Now she was listening.

“He's sad,” I said.

“About what?”

A beat of silence.

“I don't know,” I lied.

Mom put down her pen. “You just do your best, Jewel. But sometimes being sad needs to run its course. It can take a long time, depending on what it is.” She paused, as if she'd suddenly thought of something else. But the next moment she was back, studying me carefully.

She eyed the dirt on my legs, my hands. “Go wash up, okay? You have leaves in your hair.”

“All right.”

“I'll get started on dinner soon.”

My breath caught when I opened my bedroom door. Grandpa had put another cassette tape on my bed. My skin prickled with excitement. He was on the other side of my wall, probably waiting for me to find his gift. Did he want me to listen to the cassette now and thank him afterward, or the other way around? I grinned and slipped the tape into the cassette player.

Just as I was about to hit the play button, Mom knocked.

“Jewel?” Her voice sounded funny.

“Yes?” I said. I pulled off the headset and tucked it under my pillow.

Mom opened the door. “I just talked with Mr. McLaren on the phone.”

I froze. “You did?”

“I was going to surprise you kids by inviting John over for dinner.”

“You talked to Mr. McLaren about John?” This was not good. Not good at all.

“Jewel, there is no John.”

I made sure not to move a muscle on my face. “What do you mean?”

Mom was looking at me, her face a swirl of clouds and confusion. “What is going on, Jewel?”

I looked down at my hands. Mom wouldn't understand about Eugene changing his name—and after all, I did say I would keep his secret. Do I lie to Mom and act surprised, too? But if I tell her the truth, she'll be upset I kept a secret from her. Tears of frustration welled in my eyes.

I guess I took too long to respond, because Mom's eyebrows narrowed, and she stepped into my room. “I asked you a question, Jewel.” She cocked her head. “What is going on? Where is John staying?”

“I don't know,” I said. Even I could hear the guilt in my voice.

Mom crossed her arms. “What has gotten into you?”

A tear slid down my cheek. I shrugged.

“Mr. McLaren said that he was coming right over.”

My head jerked up, sending another tear down my face. I looked at her with wide, wet eyes.

“Jewel Campbell, you're going to talk with Mr. McLaren, and then after that you're grounded to your room for lying.”

Grounded.
I sat there, stunned. I'd never been grounded before. But much worse than being grounded was the look on Mom's face before she closed my door.

It seemed like a part of her love had just flicked away.

I started sobbing. I couldn't help it. I was still sobbing when the doorbell rang.

“Jewel!” Mom called.

I gulped in air and blew my nose on some toilet paper. Then I trudged to the front door, where Mom was waiting.

With Mr. McLaren.

And John.

Mom looked just as stunned as I was to see John there. John stood next to his uncle, his hands so deep in his pockets he could have punched a hole in his shorts. When he saw my puffy, red eyes, his face dropped.

“Hi, Mr. McLaren,” I said through my stuffed-up nose.

“Rose.” His voice was stern. “I'm so sorry.”

I jerked my head up at him, surprised. He was sorry?

“Eugene told me that he had cleared things up with you.”

Mom's eyebrows knit together. “Eugene?”

“But from the looks of things, I guess he didn't.” Mr. McLaren frowned, shooting a killer look at John. John shrank away.

“So he does live with you?” Mom asked.

“Yes. But his name is Eugene, not John.” Mr. McLaren put a hand on John's shoulder. “Right?”

“Right,” John mumbled.

“Oh, I'm so relieved,” Mom said, her hands fluttering up to her face. “For a moment there I was afraid he was a runaway or—”

“It was a cruel joke, what Eugene did,” Mr. McLaren said flatly.

“A joke?” I asked, my voice thin.

“Tell them,” Mr. McLaren said.

John was silent. He glanced at me, then away. “Uncle Tim told me about you guys when I got here.”

“Go on,” Mr. McLaren said, exhaling with anger.

“He told me about, you know. Your brother. John.”

My heart dropped and fell to the floor. He knew. He'd known about Bird and my family all along.

“And at first I thought it would be funny to pretend my name was John, as a joke.”

My breath froze in my lungs. It was all a lie. The cliff, his questions—he was pretending he didn't know anything. And the way he was upsetting Grandpa, the way Dad thought that John coming to our family was a sign, the happy way Mom kept looking at the two of us,
Jewel and John
. . . all of this was a joke.

Grandpa had been right.

John
was
tricking me.

“How could you do this to us?” I said quietly. Fresh tears streamed down my cheeks.

Mom put her hand up to her forehead. “I think you better go now,” she said, her voice cracking.

“How could you do this to us?” I repeated, louder. John cringed. A surge of anger quaked through me. “I hate you!” I exploded. “You're not John! You will never be John! You have a dumb, ugly name, and you're a dumb, ugly person, and you're not my friend!”

“Jewel!” Mom cried.

But I wasn't done. “No wonder your mother gave you away.”

His face was crumbling right in front of me, but I didn't care. I turned, ran to my room, and slammed my door on them all.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

AFTER
Eugene and Mr. McLaren left, there was a soft knock on my door.

“Yes?” I asked, wiping my nose on the back of my arm.

Mom poked her head inside. “How are you doing?”

“I'm fine,” I said. I pushed my face back into my pillow.

Mom came in and sat next to me, putting an awkward hand on my shoulder. She's not great at giving hugs or even half hugs; it's almost as if there's an invisible plastic glove over her hand and the touch doesn't fully go through. Sometimes she surprises me, like the day we were sledding or when she was so happy and smiling with John. When she does things like that, though, it hurts—a place in my chest actually hurts—because those moments never, ever last long enough.

“I'm so sorry, Jewel,” Mom said. “I was fooled too.”

I didn't know what to say about that. I was fooled at first, but then I was lying to Mom. Eugene was lying to us all.

“Here.” Mom pressed something soft into my hand.

I looked down. It was a bunch of tissues. The soft kind. I pulled myself up, and we sat on my bed in silence. A pressure headache settled between my eyes.

Finally Mom cleared her throat. “You broke his heart, Jewel.”

The world was caving in on itself. Like Eugene hadn't broken our hearts? Everything was so confusing, so awful. I ached to have Mom throw her arms around me and rock me to sleep like a little kid. But she stared at some unknown speck on the wall. “You'll have to work hard to repair the friendship,” she said.

“I don't want to be his friend anymore,” I said bitterly, and this time, I was mad at Mom. Why didn't she get that Eugene was a fat, cruel liar since the moment we met?

“I understand, Jewel. I really do. But I raised you better than to talk to people so disrespectfully.” She brushed back some tendrils of hair from my face.

“He lied to us. He said he was John as a joke,” I burst out.

“It was wonderful with the two of you playing together; he had been so nice. For a moment, I—” Her voice wavered.

The muscles in my back stiffened. “I don't want to be his friend anymore,” I repeated. I suddenly didn't want to talk about this. Not any of it. Not about Eugene or John or adoptions. I didn't want to think about how I thought I understood him or how I thought he understood me. My throat thickened. I wanted to smash his binoculars.

After a while, Mom got up and left. When she closed the door I hugged my stuffed rabbit and rolled onto my side. This was just a big, elaborate joke on my family. But then why did he look so . . . ashamed? Like he wanted to shrink into an atom. If this was all a joke, wouldn't he be happy that he'd tricked us so bad? For so long?

I grabbed the porcelain Xolo dog on my nightstand and turned it in my hands. I liked the expression on the dog's face—not happy, really, but a strong face, one that didn't seem to be afraid of anything, human or spirit. Maybe it had even known that Eugene was an intruder, in a way, and was protecting me by kicking him out. I don't know how long I lay there holding it, but when I stopped thinking so loudly I heard a strange noise. Raspy. I walked to my door and opened it a crack. There it was again, coming from Mom and Dad's door. I went over and stood in front of their room, my ears pricked up and open.

Mom was crying.

I swallowed. I hated seeing Mom cry. Or hearing her. And I didn't want to know how sad she was because now she's stuck only with me. I retreated to my room. There, I dug under my pillow and put Grandpa's headphones over my ears. “Mento music,” it read on the cassette, written in a careful, curved penmanship. Grandpa's.

The sound was coarser, older; different, not really reggae. The drums and the guitars and electronics of reggae were gone, and in its place were sounds of wood and wire and the ends of saws. At first it was strange, a little boring compared to the other music he'd given me. But something happened by the time I flipped the cassette over to listen to the other side: The rhythms had settled into my bones, and I could feel the dark, humid winds blowing over Jamaica. It was a subtle thing, this mento sound, but it clung to my brain like moss to a tree.

I listened to the cassette over and over, and the edges of my sadness slowly washed away. I imagined Grandpa, maybe my age, dancing. Being happy. Palm trees standing proud like kings. Ripe smells of unseen fruit wafting in the air.

My legs hung over the sides of my bed, my toes twitched to the beats of the songs. But my feet wanted more. So I stood up, carrying the cassette player in one hand, and found the rhythms on the floor. Another song started. I could see the black, forested hills, the dirt paths crisscrossing the earth, the flicking lights, the stars above. I think my arms were flailing, trying to touch the sky.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I opened my eyes. Grandpa was standing in my doorway, a soft look on his face.

My mouth dropped into an O. I didn't know if I was in trouble or not. I clicked the stop button and pushed back the earphones. “I-It's your music,” I stammered, as if he didn't know.

His cheeks lifted, like how people's do when they're going to smile. I felt shy all of a sudden. “I like it. Mento,” I said.

He nodded. His shoulders were squared to mine, open. I don't think he'd ever done that before.

“Thank you for sharing it with me,” I said. I held out the headset and player. “Do you want it back?”

No, he was saying with his hand, waving it slightly. He pointed at me, then his ear.
Listen to it some more.

“Okay,” I said. I struggled to find something to say. I didn't want him to leave. “What's your favorite song?” I asked.

Grandpa thought for a moment. Then he took the cassette player and pushed the forward button, then the play button, then the forward button, over and over until he found the starting place for his song. Finally he pushed play and turned the volume all the way up so we could both hear the music slipping through the earphones.