Between Here and Forever - Elizabeth Scott [65]
“You might not remember,” Mom says, passing me a bowl of corn. “You were twelve, and—”
“The night Claire went home because she was sick from eating too much ice cream, only I never saw her eat any, right?” I say, and Mom nods.
I always knew something had happened then. I just didn’t know what.
“Anyway, we sent Claire home because—well.” She clears her throat.
“You were surprised,” I say, still feeling pretty surprised myself, especially as I watch Dad take the smallest amount of corn he can, just like he always does. Shouldn’t there be drama? Shouldn’t we at least be speaking in hushed voices or something? Shouldn’t it not be so … normal?
“Well, yes,” Dad says. “We were surprised. But Tess—well, she was the one who asked Claire to go.”
“Dave,” Mom says, fondness and exasperation lacing her voice, and gives him another scoop of corn before looking at me. “So then your father and I talked to Tess. And yes, before you ask, that’s why we let you stay up late and watch television downstairs.”
“Right,” I say, watching as Dad sneaks the extra corn back into the bowl just like he always … just like he always did back when us eating dinner like this was normal.
But this isn’t normal.
We haven’t eaten dinner together in ages, not like this, so why now? Why tonight? They didn’t know I knew about Tess, there’s no way they could have, so this dinner—
They planned it. Before Mom found me in Tess’s room, this was going to happen. They set this up to tell me something, I’m sure of it.
But what?
“What’s going on?” I ask, my voice sharp, and Mom glances at Dad, and Dad glances back at her like I thought they would at first, like how I’d pictured. Like they’re trying to figure out what to say. How to say it.
“Just tell me,” I snap when neither of them speaks, and Mom looks at me as if she’s never seen me before.
As she does, I realize there is a lot she doesn’t know about me. I’ve kept myself hidden from her and Dad just like Tess kept herself hidden from me.
“First of all, don’t talk to your mother like that,” Dad says. “And second—” He picks up a piece of chicken like he’s going to take a bite, like this is still a real dinner, like Tess is going to walk through the door. Like she’s still really here.
“Stop it,” I hiss. “Stop pretending, stop—just stop all of this and tell. me. what’s. going. on.”
Dad frowns, clearly unhappy with my tone, but Mom leans over and squeezes his hand. “We spoke to the hospital today,” she says. “We’ve made arrangements for Tess. The day after tomorrow, we’re having her moved and we—we’d like you to be there, Abby.”
I crack into a million pieces then. How can I not, with Eli and Claire and Tess—who she was, who she is—how can I not crack when I have all these unknowns? How can I not crack when Tess’s being taken out of the hospital? When she’s being written off?
How can I stay whole when everything has changed so much, so fast?
“I—you’re really doing it? You’re willing to say this is it, this is the rest of her life, forever lying in a bed somewhere not seeing the world, not seeing anything?”
“Abby, honey, we’re only moving her,” Mom says at the same time Dad says, “Abby, it’s not like—you know it’s not like that. Tess could wake up, she could. But we—”
He breaks off then, and looks at Mom.
“We’re moving her,” he finally says, his voice very soft. “We have to. She’s just—” He clears his throat. “She’s just not ready to come back. At least not now.”
I can’t believe this is happening. Why now, when I see that I’ve been so wrong about Tess, that I don’t even know her at all? I mean, her whole life; all the plans and excitement about seeing guys, about talking to them, all of that—all of them—meant nothing to her, but Claire—Claire meant everything. Tess and Claire were together, and Dad found out and Tess asked Claire to …
Wait.
“Hold on. You said Tess told Claire to leave when you—when you found them?” I ask Dad, and just like that dinner collapses. Oh, we’re still here and the food is still here, but nobody’s eating now, and the tension I was sure