you.” She ran her hand over her eyes. “He did care about you and Tommy, I really believe that.”
I dropped the record and threw my arms around her. “He cared about you, too. He must have. He did, I know he did.”
When she didn’t respond, I said, “Maybe he’ll realize he’s made a mistake. You know, like the guys always do in the songs.”
She laughed, a weak laugh but better than nothing. So I kept it up. I lowered my voice to sound like a guy’s, knelt down and grabbed her foot, and sang the first verse of “Baby Come Back.” Then I went through a few lines from “Miss You,” while pretending to collapse in grief. I got back up and belted out all I could remember of “I’m Sorry,” clutching my heart like the pain was overwhelming.
It was working, she was laughing—until she turned toward the kitchen, where the bouquet of dried lilies and violets Ben had given her when they first started dating was sitting in an empty wine bottle on our table. She mumbled that she had to check on Tommy and disappeared down the hall. I sat very still until I was sure she wasn’t coming back; then I picked up Ben’s album from the floor. It was Talking Heads, a group he’d introduced me to, a group I liked, but still I took off the cover, and scratched her name across the grooves of Side Two with a ball-point pen.
I’d already put the scratched record back when I remembered the ten-dollar bill he’d given me in the pocket of my jeans. I ripped it up and slid the pieces in the cover before stuffing the album back on the shelf.
• • •
If Ben had just hurt my sister, I think I would have gotten over it soon enough. But there was something else at stake here. Something that kept upsetting me every time I thought about it for months.
It was back in December, when he was still living with us. Weekdays, Mary Beth would go to work and Tommy would stay at Mrs. Green’s until she picked him up at four-thirty. Ben had offered to take care of him, but Mary Beth said no. She wanted him to spend the time reading and researching. She was still trying to motivate him to get back to his own science work. When I got home from school, he’d be lying on the couch, sometimes with a chemistry journal but just as often with nothing. (He was thinking a lot in those days, but Mary Beth said that was good, too. He had a lot to think about after what had happened to his friend.) But he always sat up and said hi and asked how my day was, usual things. And then we had a routine. We’d go into the kitchen for a snack, usually potato chips and dip, and head back into the living room to watch TV.
Ben was funny about the TV. He’d never owned one before; he said his parents had been opposed to television while he was growing up, and he hadn’t thought of buying one in college or grad school. I thought this meant he’d only want PBS or the After-School Special, but I was way off. He was so TV starved that he was happy watching anything now, no matter how awful.
I was a little TV starved myself, since my sister always insisted on the stereo. Ben liked to joke that we had to get our TV fix before MB came home. (MB was his pet name for her. I thought it was sweet, even if it did sound like a nuclear weapon.)
Most of the time we just sat there and watched, but occasionally we’d talk through the commercials. If he’d had a good day reading, he’d bring up some point or another, although I usually couldn’t follow it. Mary Beth loved to hear him talk about his brain chemistry stuff, but I thought he was more confusing than the worst junior high teacher. Sometimes he told me about his family. Just little comments, like his dad was a college professor. His mom didn’t believe in serving dessert. His sister Rebecca used to date a golf fanatic.
I made little comments, too, about school and my friends. Rarely about the family, because he knew the family already, that is Tommy and Mary Beth. One time I told him that Linda,
I dropped the record and threw my arms around her. “He cared about you, too. He must have. He did, I know he did.”
When she didn’t respond, I said, “Maybe he’ll realize he’s made a mistake. You know, like the guys always do in the songs.”
She laughed, a weak laugh but better than nothing. So I kept it up. I lowered my voice to sound like a guy’s, knelt down and grabbed her foot, and sang the first verse of “Baby Come Back.” Then I went through a few lines from “Miss You,” while pretending to collapse in grief. I got back up and belted out all I could remember of “I’m Sorry,” clutching my heart like the pain was overwhelming.
It was working, she was laughing—until she turned toward the kitchen, where the bouquet of dried lilies and violets Ben had given her when they first started dating was sitting in an empty wine bottle on our table. She mumbled that she had to check on Tommy and disappeared down the hall. I sat very still until I was sure she wasn’t coming back; then I picked up Ben’s album from the floor. It was Talking Heads, a group he’d introduced me to, a group I liked, but still I took off the cover, and scratched her name across the grooves of Side Two with a ball-point pen.
I’d already put the scratched record back when I remembered the ten-dollar bill he’d given me in the pocket of my jeans. I ripped it up and slid the pieces in the cover before stuffing the album back on the shelf.
• • •
If Ben had just hurt my sister, I think I would have gotten over it soon enough. But there was something else at stake here. Something that kept upsetting me every time I thought about it for months.
It was back in December, when he was still living with us. Weekdays, Mary Beth would go to work and Tommy would stay at Mrs. Green’s until she picked him up at four-thirty. Ben had offered to take care of him, but Mary Beth said no. She wanted him to spend the time reading and researching. She was still trying to motivate him to get back to his own science work. When I got home from school, he’d be lying on the couch, sometimes with a chemistry journal but just as often with nothing. (He was thinking a lot in those days, but Mary Beth said that was good, too. He had a lot to think about after what had happened to his friend.) But he always sat up and said hi and asked how my day was, usual things. And then we had a routine. We’d go into the kitchen for a snack, usually potato chips and dip, and head back into the living room to watch TV.
Ben was funny about the TV. He’d never owned one before; he said his parents had been opposed to television while he was growing up, and he hadn’t thought of buying one in college or grad school. I thought this meant he’d only want PBS or the After-School Special, but I was way off. He was so TV starved that he was happy watching anything now, no matter how awful.
I was a little TV starved myself, since my sister always insisted on the stereo. Ben liked to joke that we had to get our TV fix before MB came home. (MB was his pet name for her. I thought it was sweet, even if it did sound like a nuclear weapon.)
Most of the time we just sat there and watched, but occasionally we’d talk through the commercials. If he’d had a good day reading, he’d bring up some point or another, although I usually couldn’t follow it. Mary Beth loved to hear him talk about his brain chemistry stuff, but I thought he was more confusing than the worst junior high teacher. Sometimes he told me about his family. Just little comments, like his dad was a college professor. His mom didn’t believe in serving dessert. His sister Rebecca used to date a golf fanatic.
I made little comments, too, about school and my friends. Rarely about the family, because he knew the family already, that is Tommy and Mary Beth. One time I told him that Linda,
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