I shake my head. Embarrassing sobs and inappropriate laughter force their way out like vomit I cannot stop.
I get up and Mama leads me out of the living room, away from the questions, away from the cameras. But I feel exposed in this house.
Mama whispers comfort and encouragement to me, but I tell her I really just need to be alone. She stares at me for a long minute, then nods and squeezes my shoulder and goes back out to do her piece for the news crew. I don’t want to listen. Instead, I sneak downstairs in the dark and burrow out a place for me among boxes marked ETHAN and books about lost things.
CHAPTER 11
Things are happening backward. I didn’t want it to be like this, out of control. Emotional. I feel like I really fucked this up.
I lie curled up on my side on thin green carpet in my basement hideout and try to figure out how I can fix this mess. I’ll explain to Mama that I felt threatened by the reporter and that’s why I was crying. I’m just not ready to talk about Ellen yet. I mean, everybody in my life now—they’re all strangers. All of them. You don’t just blurt out stuff like that to strangers when you have no ally. I hear their voices and footsteps above my head and, not long after, the steady, soft rumble of the reporter and crew walking from one end of the house to the other. Doors closing.
Mama doesn’t come after me and I’m glad. I wonder if she even saw me sneak down here, if she’s worried about where I am. I hear her footsteps overhead walking from one part of the house to another, as if she’s looking for me. But soon I hear her at the top of the stairs, calling down, “It’s time for me to pick up Gracie from kindergarten. Dad’s working in the den. He’d love to talk if you want to, just go on in—but we understand if you need some alone time. I left you some lunch up here . . . it’s your favorite sandwich.” She pauses. “Maybe later you and Gracie and I can go shopping, get you some clothes and toiletries and things of your own before Grandpa and Grandma come over. I’m locking the doors, so don’t, you know . . . don’t go anywhere. Don’t let anybody in.” She laughs anxiously, like she knows how paranoid that sounds, but keeps going. “Just stay inside while I’m gone, okay?”
She doesn’t wait for me to answer; she just goes. I like that. Maybe she’s not too pissed at me for ruining the taping after all.
A while later I go upstairs and sit at the table, where there’s a sandwich wrapped in plastic on a plate. I unwrap the sandwich and stare at it, open it up carefully. Bologna and smashed potato chips between two pieces of buttered white bread. “This is my favorite?” I mutter, and then I take a bite. It’s not half bad. I get up and grab a soda from the fridge, and then I feel weird, like maybe there’s a rule about soda at lunchtime like at the group home, so I put it back and drink water instead.
The phone rings three times while Mama is gone. I don’t answer it, but once I hear Dad talking from the den.
Mama and Gracie come home just as I finish eating. “Thanks for the sandwich,” I say sheepishly as Mama gets the bread and bologna out again, this time for Gracie.
“Of course! How are you feeling?” When Mama finishes making Gracie’s sandwich, Gracie presses it flat with her hand so that the chips crunch.
“Fine.” I watch Gracie eating. She’s like a flamingo, all pink and poised. “Didn’t you already have lunch?” I ask, pointing to her lunch box, picking up the game again.
“Mama,” she says coolly, looking straight at me. “Efan is trying to get into my private property.”
“Now, Gracie. Be nice. He’s just curious,” Mama says, phone to her ear and distracted as she’s trying to listen to the voice mails.
I flash Gracie a triumphant look.
She scowls and takes her lunch box to her bedroom.
With Gracie gone, Mama comes over to me and hugs me. Holds me tight and whispers, “I’m sorry about the TV thing.”
“Me too. It was my fault.”
“Not a chance. You’re perfect.” She doesn’t let go. Just asks, still whispering, “So . . . that woman Eleanor didn’t hurt you?” She can hardly get the words out before she’s crying again.
“No, Mama,” I say. “No. She didn’t hurt me. She just wanted a kid.” I want to tell her how it really was with Ellen. I want to. But I can’t hurt Mama like that, and I need to stop thinking about it now so I can focus on remembering. I just pat her back and let her cry it out.
We go to the mall. Mama asks what styles I like, and I don’t know the answer.
“You’re supposed to wear your jeans so your butt hangs out,” Gracie says when Mama goes off to find more shirts.
I laugh. “Then my butt gets cold. I’m tired of being cold.”
“Why did you live outside, then? How come I never seen you before if you’re my brother?”
I look at Gracie in one of the mirrors. “I went away. A long time ago, before you were born. I lived somewhere else. And then that person couldn’t take care of me anymore so she dropped me off at a bad place. And I ran away and lived on the streets until I found you. I even lived at the zoo for a while.”
“Ha-ha, the zoo!” Gracie says. She ponders it for a while. “I would have runned away too.”
I nod. “Of course you would have. Because you’re smart like me.”
She laughs. “I’m smarter than you.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah.”