A Friend at Midnight (11 page)

“Michael won't even talk to
you,”
Amanda pointed out.

This was true. Lily and Michael had agreed not to talk to other people, but Lily had not expected to be one of them. Michael wouldn't tell Lily one thing. Now and then she brought it up. “If we told Mom…”

“No!” Michael would cry. “You promised.” He had seemed so young to her when he said that. So thin and little. A toddler at the playground, calling out the brief desperate judgments of little kids—That isn't fair! You promised!

Amanda came up with a dozen solid excuses why Lily should break a foolish promise to a little boy. When she sat with her best friend in the sun, it was clear: Amanda knew how to handle things. When Lily got home and saw Michael, it wasn't so clear.

Monday evenings, Mom was never home. She rehearsed the community band. She loved teaching adults for a change. The band was doing a Gustav Holst suite called
The Planets.
Mom played the CD continually, studying her full score, directing an invisible orchestra, bringing in an invisible oboe and getting more substance from invisible strings. Lily e-mailed Reb that if she had to listen to
The Planets
one more time, she would go into orbit.

Mom's musical life was so absorbing that she assumed everybody else's life was equally absorbing. Kells, on the other hand, was a tired kind of guy who didn't much like his job and had a long, difficult commute. As usual, the moment Mom left for rehearsal, Kells headed for the TV room, backed into his recliner, dropped, flipped and flattened.

The recliner used to make Reb crazy. “Kells really is a dusty blue corduroy recliner kind of a guy,” she used to complain. “I'll never know why Mom married him.”

The four of them were in the TV room. Kells watched baseball. Nathaniel struggled with a jigsaw that had three pieces. Michael lay on his back on the carpet, thinking ceiling thoughts. Lily was facedown on the couch, so she could moan now and then and slam her forehead against her Latin book.

Kells turned the television off.

In the sudden quiet, Nathaniel put his puzzle pieces down. Lily glanced over at her stepfather. Even Michael turned his head.

“So what really happened?” said Kells.

Michael had been lying on his back, his eyes fixed on the ceiling.

Today at the mall—there were four malls Mom loved, each (according to Mom) with a different atmosphere—Michael had spent several minutes in a card shop. Greeting cards were difficult to read, with their peculiar script and meaningless poetic thoughts. He found no card to send to his father.

Reb e-mailed Dad. Michael couldn't do that. He lost track of sentences he had to create by himself. Of course there was the telephone. But although he desperately wanted Dad to call him, he did not want to call Dad.

Mom was speeding home from the mall when Michael saw his father coming out of a convenience store with a quart of milk. His heart leaped, his eyes watered and he had to stifle a scream to his mother—Stop the car! It's Dad!—and even though Michael knew it wasn't Dad, it was Dad.

Mom turned a corner and the man was no longer in sight. The minute she parked, Michael told his mother he was going over to Jamie's, and his mother of course believed him, because she was that sort of person, very believing, which you would think somebody teaching high school would have gotten over by now. Michael sped back to the convenience store, even though he knew he couldn't get there in time and the man wasn't his father anyway.

Kells wants to know what happened, thought Michael dully. He turned his face to the ceiling again. He didn't know. Except he hadn't been good enough.

“Happened?” said his sister in a casual voice.

“About Michael coming home,” said their stepfather. “I need to know.”

Nathaniel beamed at his father. “Inna pane,” he explained.

“Right,” said Kells. “You and Lily went to pick up Michael from the plane.”

“No,” said Nathaniel, irritated.
“I went inna pane!”

It was an impressive sentence for a little boy not two years old: correcting his very own daddy; explaining his big adventure; telling the truth.

Michael did not back him up. Neither did Lily.

Kells sighed. After a while he said, “How about popcorn?”

“Popcorn!” shouted Nathaniel, who found the hot-air popper mesmerizing. He raced back and forth from the kitchen keeping Michael and Lily informed. “Popping!” he shouted. And on the next trip, “Butter!”

Michael looked at his sister. He knew she wanted to tell. He knew Amanda was on the telling side. “Don't,” said Michael. “Don't talk about anything.” Michael had not figured out how to repair things, but he could keep it from getting worse. Silence was his only choice.

“Kells isn't so bad, Michael,” said his sister softly.

Kells was now taking him somewhere every Saturday, and Jamie's dad, Mr. Mahanna, was taking him somewhere every Sunday afternoon. Lily was right. It wasn't so bad. But good—that was something else.

Nathaniel dropped a stack of paper napkins all over Michael. “Keep kween!” he shouted.

“Who wants to keep clean eating popcorn?” said Lily. “Half the fun is spreading the butter around.”

Kells came back with the popcorn. He had poured it into a heavy white bowl with a wide blue stripe. He flopped into the recliner and held it on his lap, so he could have some control over the mess. If they wanted popcorn they were going to have to crawl for it. He found the remote and clicked the ball game back on. As was often the case with baseball, nothing had happened.

Nathaniel climbed into his daddy's lap, arranging himself around the bowl and completely blocking Kells's view of the television.

Lily flailed an arm in the air, but no popcorn arrived, so she rolled off the couch and crawled across the carpet, taking a route over Michael's body and digging her kneecaps into his ribs so he'd have to do
something.
At least scream in agony. But he didn't.

She felt as if she could see through him; as if he were not a person anymore, but liquid; a pool of water. All that was left was his reflection.

She had some popcorn, finding out once again that butter and salt are as good as it gets, and crawled back to the sofa.

“Come on, guys,” said Kells. “What happened, Lily? Tell me about it.”

“I know what,” said Michael. “Nathaniel, you feed me. Throw the popcorn into my mouth, Nate.”

Nathaniel favored his brother with a huge smile, and began hurling popcorn everywhere. Not one kernel came close. Michael got onto his knees and opened his mouth wide to be a better target. Lily took the pottery bowl and knelt between Nate and Michael, supplying ammunition and assisting Nate's throwing hand, and still Nate did not manage to get anything in Michael's mouth, and they were all laughing—real laughter, happy laughter—the first Lily had heard from Michael since before the visit to denrose—and Kells said, “You see, Michael, a few weeks ago, we got an e-mail.”

Lily had been about to tell the truth, because Amanda was right and Kells was right; the parents had to know.

But Kells was headed in a whole different direction.

Michael did not know about the e-mail. Michael did not know his real father was not going to send one more dollar to pay the cost of Michael's life on earth. Michael did not know that not only had he been thrown out of his father's house, not only had he been thrown out of his father's car, but he was also thrown out of his father's checkbook.

“There's the question of child—” Kells went on.

Oh, Kells, I hate you, too! thought Lily. How dare you tell Michael that denrose is gleefully no longer paying child support?

God is lying. There are no friends at midnight.

Lily flung the heavy bowl into the television and smashed the screen.

The school psychologist's tiny waiting room had one tiny window, tightly curtained. It had four old wooden chairs, painted yellow. It had one poster of cheerful meerkats and one of a whale whose expression was unreadable. Its interior door was tightly closed so nobody could see into or hear anything from the actual office where the actual counseling happened.

Or, in Lily's case, didn't happen.

Lily had asked herself a hundred times whether to tell Mom and Kells, but she hadn't asked herself once whether to tell a school shrink. Never. Still, hiding her rage for thirty solid minutes made second-year Latin look easy.

Hate is un-American. Americans are supposed to like everybody; supposed to make excuses for everybody. “Aw, give him a second chance,” you're supposed to say, whether he's a mass murderer or a high school vandal.

“Aw, she didn't mean to,” you insist, whether she's a shoplifter of lipsticks or a corporate thief of millions.

“Aw, he couldn't help it,” you point out, whether he's a hit-and-run driver or a cheater in arithmetic.

But Dennis Rosetti had had chances. He
had
meant to. He
could
have helped it.

The outer hall door opened. Lily looked out to see who her fellow sufferer was and it was Trey Mahanna. They stared at each other. “
You're
in counseling?” she said.

“Me?”
Trey was appalled that she could think such a thing. “Of course not. I just bumped into Dr. Sherman down the hall and he asked me to tell his next patient that he'll be another five minutes and for you not to leave.”

I'm the
patient
? thought Lily.

“What are you in for?” asked Trey, cheerful as a meerkat.

“Anger management.”

Trey laughed. “I should have guessed.”

“Get out of here, Trey.”

“Lemme give you some advice,” said Trey. “The key to ending this torture is to let Dr. Sherman talk. You don't have to listen or anything. Nobody else does. Then, at the end of the session, you go, ‘
Oh. I
see.
Thank
you.' Then he's all happy because he illuminated your otherwise dark and pointless existence.” Trey laughed again. “You plan to tell Dr. Sherman about the twenty or thirty times eighteen?”

How dare Trey give her advice? How dare he mention the seventy times seven? Nothing in her entire existence had ever been so important, so personal or so terrible. It was a trespass, and Trey was a trespasser in the sense of the Lord's Prayer—
those who trespass against us
.

There were no weapons in the room other than the chairs. Lily grabbed the heavy wooden back of one chair and hoisted it over her head.

The school psychologist opened the door.

Under his shocked stare, Lily set the chair back down. Carefully. She was going to be in Anger Management for years.

“We were flirting,” said Trey, his expression as unreadable as the whale's. “Cavewoman style.”

chapter
9

R
eb didn't come home from college until Thanksgiving. She was stunned and offended to find a completely different family. “Who are you guys, anyway?” Reb demanded of Michael and Lily. “I don't even know you!”

Perhaps she had assumed that her family would stay exactly the same. She would dip into Lily and Michael and Mom and Kells and Nathaniel, as one dipped a toe into water at the pool, and they would be the same temperature, color and depth they had been before. But the force of a single day had changed Lily the way September 11 and the destruction of the World Trade Center had changed America. Some parts of Lily were no longer standing. Some parts of her were stronger. Michael—who was Michael after that?

Lily never knew. The busy, talky, dirty, exuberant little boy who left in August came back in body only. The kid who used to ride his bike off the shed roof and use his safety helmet for a kickball was gone.

At dinner Wednesday night of Thanksgiving break, Reb asked things like—“How's your divorce support group, Mom?” an activity they had all forgotten about. It seemed a hundred years ago. Reb didn't ask Kells anything. He was just so much furniture to her. And quickly, she lost interest in what other people might be doing, and shifted into talking about herself, her friends, her classes, her fun times and her wonderful wonderful perfect boyfriend, Freddie.

Reb had catapulted into a new world so demanding and rewarding and full of love that she barely remembered the existence of earlier worlds. Reb had gotten what Michael had hoped for. Perhaps it was too much to ask that out of one small family, two children could have their dreams come true.

The more Reb chattered, the more exhausted Mom and Kells and Michael and even Nathaniel became by her presence. But Lily had the odd sensation of falling in love with her sister. There was something enchanting about a person so sure that she had the best life on earth.

The joy of reunion lasted until nine-fifteen that evening, when the twenty-three-month-old in their midst was way past his bedtime. Since the evening Michael had come home and given him sleeping orders, Nathaniel had gone to bed easily. But the excitement of his big sister being here was too much. Although his eyes were red from rubbing, his mouth drooping, his shoulders sagging, Nate screamed and fought being taken to bed. Hauled bodily up the stairs, he gripped the railings and kicked the walls, refusing to lie down in his crib. When he got left there anyway, it was motivating; in two seconds he learned how to climb out. Mom and Kells grimly carried him back up again, and twice more he came stumbling and sobbing down the stairs. Reb said to Michael, “I thought
I
had a tough roommate. You must hate him.”

“He's okay,” said Michael, which was immediately proved wrong as Nathaniel moved into full tantrum mode. Reb watched incredulously, as if she had known people were stupid enough to have kids, but hadn't known she would be expected to tolerate one.

“I'll take him up this time,” said Michael. “I'll sleep with him.”

“No!” said Reb. “Mother! Ruining Michael's life is not the solution to a spoiled brat. Discipline Nathaniel for a change!”

Mom did not look glad to have Reb home.

“He's just tired,” said Michael, taking his little brother.

Upstairs, Michael squinched himself into the crib with Nathaniel and put his arm around his little brother's back, both for comfort and to force him down. “Go to sleep now, Nate. I'm staying.”

In spite of the night-light, Michael had a dark moment, the dark of his first night in the new house, when York got torn from his arms, when the door got closed, when his father's last words were “Grow up!” and Michael was alone in the dark.

“I'm staying,” said Michael again.

“Okie, Mikoo,” mumbled Nathaniel, and he slept, limp on his wrinkled sheets, and Michael felt a sort of terror for him.

Thanksgiving Day was very busy. Mom's family came, Kells's family came, even Dad's family came, because of course they still loved Reb and Lily and Michael, and they were hanging on wherever they could. Mom roasted the turkey, because even she could shove a bird in the oven and take it out again later. The relatives arrived with enough dishes and desserts to feed another church picnic. All the grown-ups were careful and polite and accommodating so that mention of divorce did not raise its ugly head.

Most of the talking was done by Reb, correcting each relative and making them call her Rebecca now.

All the whining was done by Nathaniel.

When the Rosetti children were in the kitchen scraping dishes to go in the dishwasher, and Nathaniel was with his grandparents in the living room, hideously overdue for a nap, Reb said, “Michael, you have got to tell Mom you want my bedroom so you can be by yourself. Nate is too awful to bother with. I don't plan to come home a lot anyway after this. You might as well have your own room.”

Michael was horrified that Reb didn't plan to come home a lot. He wanted to deliver a response that would please Reb, so that she'd change her mind and come home a lot after all, but he had not figured out how to please Dad and he could not marshal a plan to please Reb, either. He only knew he would never ask Mom to give him Reb's room.

Because for Nathaniel at least, Michael was joy.

Lily hadn't been able to sleep off her rage against Dad. She couldn't shop it off or run it off, eat it off or party it off. She hadn't even been able to smash it with a bowl. But she knew she and her sister would stay up all night, and at last, to Reb, Lily could confide everything. Reb would understand and care and give advice and make everything better. If she could just tell Reb, and have Reb cry with her, she wouldn't be so angry.

And God. Lily wanted to talk about God.

Lily had tried to get rid of God. She told God she hated Him, didn't believe in Him, wasn't listening to Him again. But she could not crawl out from under religion. She turned her back—there it was on the other side. She slammed the door—there it was in the next room. She closed her mind—there it was in her heart.

“Reb,” she began.

“Shut the door tight,” said Reb. “I'm totally exhausted from Kells's relatives. You forget when you get a stepparent that you have to tolerate yet more grandparents. I don't like them much. And Nathaniel! Listen, Lily, come visit me. You need a rest from Little Prince Whiny. You're so smart, you can skip a few days of school. You'll love it at my college. You'll love Freddie. Actually, you'll love not being
here.
And what's the matter with Michael? He used to have a personality. Take a train up to Rochester or make Kells buy you a plane ticket. He might as well be good for something.”

Lily flinched. Reb didn't notice. “Kells isn't so bad,” said Lily finally.

“Let's set a date. How about the second weekend in December?”

“But doesn't Christmas break start about then? Won't you be headed home only a few days after that?”

“No. Don't tell Mom, but I'm spending Christmas break with Freddie. Four whole weeks. I was going to split my vacation between here and there, but I've changed my mind. I forgot how messy Mom is. It's like living in a Laundromat. Plus Nathaniel! Ugh. And I can't wait to see Texas. Did I tell you about Freddie's house there?”

Twice, thought Lily. But she said, “No. Tell me about Freddie's house.”

Sunday morning when they went to church, Michael was amazed to find that it was no longer Thanksgiving. It was the first Sunday in Advent. It was still November, yet here they were, skidding into Christmas.

In Sunday school, Michael's teacher discussed the Star of Christmas. Had it actually been a comet? Maybe the juxta-position of two planets? Had there been a star at all? Probably the whole thing was a myth, giving simple peasants something sparkly in the midst of their dreary lives.

Only a minute ago, Michael had believed in Santa. He did not want to hear that the Christmas star was just another con game. He decided his Sunday school teacher was a loser (there was evidence of this already) and he stopped listening.

He was taking Christmas seriously, the way it needed to be taken.

Dad didn't remember my birthday in October, thought Michael, but that's okay. He was busy and he's still mad. He forgot that I would be nine years old. But nobody doesn't remember Christmas. He'll remember Christmas.

Michael thought about UPS.

FedEx.

The post office.

That company wonderfully named G.O.D.—Guaranteed Overnight Delivery.

He hoped the presents from Dad would be delivered by G.O.D. Dad would write a Christmas card too, and Christmas morning, Dad would call. Probably he'd call earlier, to make sure the box came. Everything would be all right, because that was what Christmas was, the day when everything was all right.