You Shouldn't Have to Say Goodbye (10 page)

I realized I was staring at them when Robin turned back to me. “Let's go to my room,” she said. She spoke quietly, not the way she does at school or at my house.

In her room, I said, “Your mom's a nice lady.”

Robin was getting her shorts on, and she didn’t look up, but she nodded. “Yeah, she is.”

“Robin.” I said it quickly, unsure if I should, never having done it before, but I wanted to know. “Robin, what's the matter with your mom? I mean, I know you told me once that she's depressed, but…”

“Shush!” Robin put a finger over her lips, and she glanced quickly at the door.

I looked, too, but no one was there, and Robin went to the door and very quietly closed it. “Do you know what agoraphobia is?” she said.

I shook my head. “I couldn’t even
say
it.”

“It means fear of open spaces, fear of going outside. That's what my mom's afraid of. Actually, she's afraid of lots of other things too, even people coming to the house. But she's getting better. I told you about her medicine, and she's seeing a doctor.” She paused, as though debating something, then added, “She was really trying to see if she could go to the gymnastics show tonight. But I don’t know if she will. It's so scary for her.”

“Wow! Really? You mean she's scared just to go out of the house?”

I must have sounded shocked, because Robin looked at me, annoyed. “Yeah, and it's not her fault! Think how bad she must feel.”

“Oh, I know. I mean…” I didn’t, but I realized it was hard for Robin. Her life's always been so different from everyone else's. She's never been able to have anyone visit her, and her mom never attended any of the school events. “Do you think she’ll be there tonight?” I asked.

Robin shrugged. “I don’t know. She seems more scared tonight than she has before, possibly just because she's thinking about it. But when my father comes home, maybe. Who knows?” She shrugged, then smiled at me the way she usually did, with that half-laughing, half-teasing look. “But we’re going to be great, so it doesn’t matter.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah.” But I knew it mattered to her a lot.

“Robin?” It was Mrs. Harris, calling from the kitchen.

Robin opened the door quickly. “Coming, Mom.”

Together, Robin and I went down the hall to the kitchen. A plate of cookies was on the table, as well as two mugs of hot chocolate. There were marshmallows floating in the cups, and steam was rising from them. I realized then how hungry I was. I had forgotten to eat! We smiled at each other and sat down. “Thanks, Mom!” Robin called. But Mrs. Harris wasn’t in the kitchen, and she didn’t answer.

B
Y THE TIME ROBIN AND I GOT BACK TO SCHOOL AT SIX o’clock, the gym was open. I had a feeling that Robin knew something was wrong at my house, but she didn’t ask and I didn’t say anything. I was thankful, though, that she hadn’t asked. It's always been that way with Robin and me. She seems to know when we can talk about things really personal and when not to ask.

In the gym we stripped off our sweat suits and began doing warm-ups. I felt good, and my muscles were loose. Something was building inside me, a feeling that I wanted to do something dramatic, really show-offy. Why I wanted to do it, I wasn’t sure, but I did. I thought about chinning off the bar the way Robin had done that day and wondered again if she had forgotten it.

We finished our warm-ups and began rehearsing the rope routine. When we were way up near the ceiling, I looked at Robin. “Robin,” I asked, “are you going to chin off the bar the way you did that other time?”

Robin laughed. “Funny you thought about that right now. I was thinking the same thing.”

“Going to do it?”

Robin paused for a minute. “Depends.”

“On what?”

“Don’t know. Things.”

“Like what?”

“Just things. Don’t bug me.”

I looked at her, surprised. Robin never tells me to mind my own business. “Sorry,” I said, just a little sarcastically. “Don’t be so touchy.”

“Well, I just don’t know, that's all.” She looked away and up at the bar. “Just depends.”

And just like that, I knew what it depended on. It depended on whether or not her mother was there, but I didn’t know whether she was going to do it if her mother
was
there or if her mother wasn’t there. I also knew I shouldn’t ask.

We shimmied down the ropes then and ran to get the mats for our floor routines. Neither of us spoke for a few minutes while we tugged the mats into place. All the time I was wondering what I could do that would be dramatic, that would really show off. If it couldn’t be chinning off the bar, it had to be something else, maybe a forward midair flip. I had never done it before—Robin and I were each going to do a backward one in our floor routine— and I didn’t think I could learn it that fast. In a forward flip, you have to get really high off the floor, almost as high as you can get by springing on a trampoline. The trampoline! That was it! I wasn’t scheduled for the trampoline, but I bet I could do it. I looked over. It was set up in the other part of the gym, across from where the ropes were. Maybe after Robin and I finished our rope routine and just before we were to climb down, if I swung my rope really far out, I could drop on the
trampoline? I tried to measure with my eyes. I thought I could reach. Maybe. I’d have to check.

“Oh, Sarah?”

Robin was standing on the mat, watching me, waiting for me.

“Oh, hey,” I said. “I’m sorry.” I bent and did the first rollover of our routine. “I was thinking.”

“About what?” Robin asked.

I grinned at her from my upside down position. “Something.”

She grinned back. “We have lots of secrets tonight, don’t we?”

I laughed, but I didn’t feel good about it. We worked hard then, practicing our routines over and over. We didn’t need much practice because we were as perfect as two people can be with our routine. I know that sounds stuck-up, but it was true. After we had practiced for a while, some of the other kids began arriving, and even some of the parents. Since most of the gym was filled with gymnastics equipment, there was space for only a few rows of chairs around the edges. Most of the parents would have to stand, so a lot of them were getting there early. I took a quick look at the arriving parents, just in case Mom and Daddy were there, but they weren’t. Thinking about them, watching the other parents come in, I felt a lump in my throat and swallowed hard. But I didn’t begin to cry.

Robin and I went to the lavatory then to wash up and get ready. Standing in front of the mirror and combing my hair, I saw Robin watching me, and I smiled. We don’t look at all alike. I’m kind of tall and blonde, and she's little and dark, but we did look really good dressed alike in our red-and-white outfits. We
both had our hair done the same way, too, pinned up at the sides with the back hanging loose. It would have been better to have it in a pony tail, but then the knot on the back of the head would get in the way when we did backward rollovers. Robin smiled at me in the mirror. “Ready?”

“Ready.”

We went out to the gym and took our places with the rest of the kids. There was a special section set up for participants, and we all sat down together. There was also a special place for little kids because a kindergarten class had been invited to do the first part of the show. I guess they didn’t have a big enough gym in their own school. I took one more quick look for Mom and Daddy and for Robin's parents too, but I didn’t see any of them.

At exactly seven-thirty, Mr. Anderson went to the front of the gym and made his speech about how hard we had worked and all that, and then there was a song and the show began. The little kids went first, and they were fun to watch. There was one tiny one, and she was great on the balance beam. Everybody cheered her, and then, for some reason, she broke into tears. Then people cheered her even more, and eventually she smiled and finished her routine. Robin and I smiled at each other.

Our class came next, and then it was almost time for Robin and me. We exchanged looks, and suddenly, even though I knew we were as perfect as we could be, I started to get nervous. What if we made a mistake? What about the trampoline? What about Mom and Daddy—had they come in while I was sitting there? I wanted to turn and look for them, but I didn’t because maybe
they weren’t there. I wondered about Robin's mom too, and I noticed Robin twisting around every so often, but I didn’t ask if she had seen her.

Finally, when Julia began her routine, Robin and I knew it was our turn next. We went up and took our places out front, ready to go on. I saw Robin glance once more over the crowd, but I didn’t look anywhere except at Julia. When she did the rollover that marked the end of her routine, my stomach felt like a knot in my middle. I looked at Robin, but she seemed cool, and that helped. I took a deep breath.

People applauded Julia, and then Robin and I ran out on the mat. We had rehearsed everything, even the way we would run out: hand in hand, then doing a twisting handspring in the center of the mat. As we did it, I heard the audience suck in their breaths, and we got instant, spontaneous applause. Robin grinned and winked at me. I was definitely less nervous. We ran to the ropes then. Up like a pair of monkeys, swing hard, exchange ropes. We had done it so often for so many months that I didn’t even have to think. Flip over, hang down, dangling by our legs held tight around the ropes. Swing upside down, reach over, clasp hands. The audience was applauding at each new thing, but I heard it only dimly. Robin and I had our eyes glued to each other, marking each move, each bit of timing. We straightened up finally, marking the end of our rope routine. The floor routine was next, but first the descent. I paused for just an instant. Would Robin swing out over the bar, that slippery metal bar that supported the ropes? Should I try the trampoline descent? How
far was it? I was aware that Robin had paused too, that even the audience was silent. I looked at Robin, then looked down. Every eye in the place was turned up, watching us, Daddy smiling, Mom biting her lip. Mom! Daddy! Mom was in a wheelchair near the back door, a wheelchair! But she was there. I looked at Robin. She reached out and took my hand. We had never done this before, but together we shimmied down, holding hands.

I knew there were tears in my eyes, but happy tears, sad tears, it didn’t matter. I blinked them away fast. “Oh, please, please, let Robin's mom be here, please!” I prayed silently.

On the mat, we swung into our routine, fast, smooth. First the backward walkover, then the two-person roll, leaping over and over each other, as in leapfrog. That brought loud applause. Splits, cartwheels, two-handed walkovers, and then our finale— the midair backward flips. First mine, Robin standing close by, hands out to support my back if I fell. But I didn’t. And then hers, me spotting her for safety. Perfect. We swept to one knee, hands clasped, in a deep bow. The audience roared. And then they all stood up, and for the first time, Robin and I lost our cool. Neither of us had expected a standing ovation. We looked at each other, and I could see tears forming in Robin's eyes and feel them in my own. We both smiled at everybody and whispered, “Thank you.” And then we ran off the floor and fled to the lavatory.

“S
HE'S THERE!” ROBIN EXCLAIMED WHEN WE GOT TO THE lavatory.

“I know,” I answered, wiping tears from my eyes, feeling stupid for crying.

“My father was holding her hand tight, and she looked terrified. But she was there!”

For a second I was confused.
Her
father was holding my mother's hand? I looked at Robin, and she was wiping away tears, too, and then I realized what she meant. Her mother was out there! Her mother and my mother. And both of our fathers.

We looked at each other in the mirror then, both of us scrubbing away tears, and then we began to laugh. We laughed so hard that we had to lean back against the wall to catch our breaths. “Now, are we stupid or are we stupid?” I asked at last when we had recovered enough to speak. “Crying because we’re happy!”

“Yeah.” Robin took a deep, shaky breath. “Imagine what we’d be like if we were sad.”

That started both of us laughing again helplessly, but after a while we stopped, although we both giggled again every once in a while. Then we washed our faces and smoothed our hair. Robin bent way over, flipped her hair up over her head, and ran
her fingers through it. While she was bent over like that, she said, “Why's your mom in a wheelchair?”