Freaky Green Eyes by Joyce Carol Oates

speaking matter-of-factly but gently: “Your mother is in her own zone, girls. More and more, that’s where you’ll find her.”
    Mom was away for two days in a row. Then she returned, and next time she was away for three days. She took Rabbit with her in the station wagon. The house was strange and sad and lonely without them.Almost you could hear the echoes of voices, and of Rabbit’s little panting yips. In her own zone. More and more. Where you’ll find her .
    It felt wrong, to return from school and Mom wasn’t there. You couldn’t help but think bad things.
    Samantha said, “Franky, doesn’t Mom love us anymore?”
    â€œAsk her. How would I know?”
    â€œSometimes I hate her!” Samantha’s small face crinkled with an impish defiance. “I don’t care if she ever comes home.”
    Later, Samantha said, worriedly, “Franky? What if Mom doesn’t ever come home?”
    â€œDon’t be silly. Mom is coming home day after tomorrow.”
    â€œShe is?”
    â€œYou know she is.” I pretended to be exasperated with my dazed little sister.
    Samantha smiled, poking her thumb at her mouth. “Oh, well. I guess I did. But I forgot.”
    We didn’t miss her! We went to school like always. We had our friends. We had our school activities that mean so much when you’re involved in them, though afterward you’ll hardly remember why. It felt good to be out of the house and at Forrester, where I was a lanky, red-haired, ponytailed sophomore who had a quick, just-slightly-scratchy-sounding laugh and never gave the impression of taking myself too seriously. “Franky, what’s up?” friends would call out to me, swinging along the corridors between classes. I was numb much of the time like I’d been injected with novocaine. In lavatory mirrors I’d catch myself smiling Mom’s cheery stapled-on smile.
    People like you when you’re upbeat, a little rowdy, unpredictable. They don’t like you when you mope.
    Dad began saying to Samantha and me, “You know, nobody likes girls who mope.”
    You know, Franky’s going through this thing .
    What thing?
    Her mom and dad .
    I wasn’t sure if I heard this, exactly. At Forrester. In the locker room, before our last swim meet of the season.
    No, what? That’s why she’s been so spaced out?
    At Forrester, I was on the yearbook committee, and I belonged to the Drama Club and the Girls’ Sports Club. Although I wasn’t one of the stars on the swim team, I had my isolated, unexpected moments when I swam like a suddenly crazed/demonic fish. Freaky Green Eyes racing for her life . I helped our team win a crucial meet, but I wasn’t big enough or strong enough or good enough to be consistent, which means reliable. Yet Meg Tyler, our swim coach, was sympathetic with me, and had a way of taking me aside as if I was someone special, or should have been. At the last meet, which Forrester won, if just barely, she said, “Franky, good work! Next year you’re going to come into your own, I predict.”
    Next year, I hope I’ll be here .
    I told Miss Tyler thanks. I told her she wasa terrific coach. I was touched by her faith in me though I didn’t believe it for a nanosecond.
    Faster and faster the days went. Everybody was looking forward to summer. I tried to feel that way, too. I stayed up late finishing papers for English and social studies that were overdue, telling myself Freaky can handle this. Like a tricky dive: take it slow . Studying for exams, cramming my head so it felt almost good. With Mom not home much, I could stay up half the night and nobody would know. (Dad was often out. He’d come back around two A.M . some nights.) I took my exams, walked out of school with my mind wiped blank like a blackboard.
    I did okay. I didn’t fail any subject. Actually I raised my grade in honors English to A–, where I’d