Read Online Among Friends by Caroline B. Cooney - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Caroline B. Cooney
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home forever.
“Do you want me to call an ambulance?” asked Emily quietly.
An ambulance? It wasn’t like Mom was bleeding or anything.
Emily kept supporting my mother, but she put her hand on mine. It was warm, and large, and her fingers were fingers that work hard: not elegant, not pretty, but strong. “My father used to be drunk all the time,” she said. Her voice was very calm, as if she had done this for years. After her next sentence I knew she had. “We used to have to go to the railroad station and scrape him up off the parking lot into the back seat.”
“She’s not drunk,” I managed to say. “She’s having a nervous breakdown.”
“Oh, Paul,” said Emily, and her eyes filled with tears. Tears for me. I picked up the saltshaker with my free hand and felt the hard edges of it. “Listen, Paul, with my father the only thing that worked was to get him into an institution.
You
can’t be responsible. It’ll kill you.”
“I have to be responsible,” I said. “There isn’t anyone else.” I tried to crush the saltshaker in my hand but I couldn’t quite do it. If my father had been around I would have crushed him, but I couldn’t do that, either.
Emily blew out her breath hard. “Well, I guess I have some of the answers, Paul Classified. I know why you’re thinner. I know why you’re always clamming up. But what they taught us in Al-Anon is, the first step is talking about it.”
“I told you, she isn’t drunk.”
“Paul, I believe you. Anyway, I remember the smell too well. But she looks half dead. You do, too. And I’m serious about the ambulance. Maybe she needs to be in the psychiatric ward at the hospital.”
My mother wasn’t even listening. She could have been a very large rag doll.
“If you get her home like this, then what’ll you do?” said Emily practically.
Her hand was still on mine. It was comforting. But I changed the subject. “What happened to your father, Emily?”
She shrugged. “Mom divorced him, he’s remarried twice, he’s very handsome, you know, very dashing when he’s not on a binge. He really isn’t part of our lives any more. It’s terrible, it still hurts us all. But there you are, these things happen and you have to get past them.”
I couldn’t believe she talked about it. I can’t
stand
talking about it.
“Is that all?” Emily said then. “Is that the secret, Paul? Your mother fell apart?”
I ended up telling her the whole thing. My real mother, my real sister, my real father. Three people abandoning us was too much. “Mom couldn’t take it,” I finished. “Something in her snapped.”
Emily listened, keeping her hand where it was, like a lifeline. “When you say Mom, you mean your stepmother?”
I shrugged. “Only mother I had. Biological doesn’t count.”
But oh, it counted for Candy! She wrote off her whole childhood and walked out the door with a strange person who said, oh by the way, I’m your mother. And Mom, Mom died inside when Candy abandoned us.
I didn’t say that to Emily. But maybe she knew. She told the kid manager to call the ambulance. She went with me to the hospital. She gave me lots of advice I didn’t listen to. She promised not to talk, but what is a promise? Nobody I know ever kept one.
I went home to an empty house. I’d forgotten to get the hamburgers. I was starving. What a great guy you are, I thought. You just checked your mother into the psychiatric ward, and all you can think of is a Big Mac.
That was yesterday.
Today I avoided Emily like the plague.
I couldn’t stand to look at her or think about her.
So I ended up closeted with Jennie Quint.
It was so crazy. Jennie’s flirting, I’m trying to survive; Jennie’s asking me to a New Year’s party, I’m wondering if there will
be
a New Year.
I am, after all, the girl who knows Paul’s secrets.
But it’s just your typical sad sordid suburban secret, and if he’d talked about it all along, it wouldn’t hurt so much and he
“Do you want me to call an ambulance?” asked Emily quietly.
An ambulance? It wasn’t like Mom was bleeding or anything.
Emily kept supporting my mother, but she put her hand on mine. It was warm, and large, and her fingers were fingers that work hard: not elegant, not pretty, but strong. “My father used to be drunk all the time,” she said. Her voice was very calm, as if she had done this for years. After her next sentence I knew she had. “We used to have to go to the railroad station and scrape him up off the parking lot into the back seat.”
“She’s not drunk,” I managed to say. “She’s having a nervous breakdown.”
“Oh, Paul,” said Emily, and her eyes filled with tears. Tears for me. I picked up the saltshaker with my free hand and felt the hard edges of it. “Listen, Paul, with my father the only thing that worked was to get him into an institution.
You
can’t be responsible. It’ll kill you.”
“I have to be responsible,” I said. “There isn’t anyone else.” I tried to crush the saltshaker in my hand but I couldn’t quite do it. If my father had been around I would have crushed him, but I couldn’t do that, either.
Emily blew out her breath hard. “Well, I guess I have some of the answers, Paul Classified. I know why you’re thinner. I know why you’re always clamming up. But what they taught us in Al-Anon is, the first step is talking about it.”
“I told you, she isn’t drunk.”
“Paul, I believe you. Anyway, I remember the smell too well. But she looks half dead. You do, too. And I’m serious about the ambulance. Maybe she needs to be in the psychiatric ward at the hospital.”
My mother wasn’t even listening. She could have been a very large rag doll.
“If you get her home like this, then what’ll you do?” said Emily practically.
Her hand was still on mine. It was comforting. But I changed the subject. “What happened to your father, Emily?”
She shrugged. “Mom divorced him, he’s remarried twice, he’s very handsome, you know, very dashing when he’s not on a binge. He really isn’t part of our lives any more. It’s terrible, it still hurts us all. But there you are, these things happen and you have to get past them.”
I couldn’t believe she talked about it. I can’t
stand
talking about it.
“Is that all?” Emily said then. “Is that the secret, Paul? Your mother fell apart?”
I ended up telling her the whole thing. My real mother, my real sister, my real father. Three people abandoning us was too much. “Mom couldn’t take it,” I finished. “Something in her snapped.”
Emily listened, keeping her hand where it was, like a lifeline. “When you say Mom, you mean your stepmother?”
I shrugged. “Only mother I had. Biological doesn’t count.”
But oh, it counted for Candy! She wrote off her whole childhood and walked out the door with a strange person who said, oh by the way, I’m your mother. And Mom, Mom died inside when Candy abandoned us.
I didn’t say that to Emily. But maybe she knew. She told the kid manager to call the ambulance. She went with me to the hospital. She gave me lots of advice I didn’t listen to. She promised not to talk, but what is a promise? Nobody I know ever kept one.
I went home to an empty house. I’d forgotten to get the hamburgers. I was starving. What a great guy you are, I thought. You just checked your mother into the psychiatric ward, and all you can think of is a Big Mac.
That was yesterday.
Today I avoided Emily like the plague.
I couldn’t stand to look at her or think about her.
So I ended up closeted with Jennie Quint.
It was so crazy. Jennie’s flirting, I’m trying to survive; Jennie’s asking me to a New Year’s party, I’m wondering if there will
be
a New Year.
I am, after all, the girl who knows Paul’s secrets.
But it’s just your typical sad sordid suburban secret, and if he’d talked about it all along, it wouldn’t hurt so much and he
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