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Myrna
Part 4
The summer before I started 8th grade, they told us about
Justin's sight. That's when they told me and Sarah. Everyone else, all of the
*adults,* had been filled in gradually in the few months before that.
Of course Sarah knew something major was up before they told us anything.
Sarah's as much of a busybody as Gran is, which is totally fucking annoying
when she's after me. When she's onto someone else, I don't mind so much.
One night after the first Sunday dinner my Dad and Justin had come to in
probably two months, Sarah came in my room when I was doing homework and sat
down on my bed.
"The dads were fighting tonight," she said, in her,
I-know-something-you-don't voice.
I rolled my eyes, but didn't bother looking away from the computer. "They
fight all the time except when they're all over each other," I said.
"I would've called this one of their all-over-each-other nights myself,
but whatever."
She sighed dramatically. "Not your dad and Justin. Your dad and my
dad."
Okay, so that was a little interesting. My dad and Michael were totally tight.
My dad could walk in a room and announce that he'd decided to join a cult that
celebrated, like, Hitler or something, and Michael would be right there
sticking up for him. Justin would probably be back at their place shoving Dad's
stuff into trash bags and throwing them out on the front lawn.
I pushed away from my desk and swiveled the chair around to look at her.
"When?" I challenged. "I didn't hear anything."
"When Daddy B went out on the porch to smoke," Sarah answered.
Yeah, that's right, Daddy B.
Here's one of the worst kept secrets in the world-my dad is a total sucker
where Sarah's concerned. I mean A-one, first class Sucker with a capital S. Me,
he can see through from a hundred paces, but all Sarah has to do is give him
one of those wide-eyed looks, whine, "Daddy B!" and he is toast! Ma
gets pissed when I use Sarah to do my bidding, but you've gotta go with what
works. You think we'd have a state of the art home theater if I whined and
hinted around for it? No way. Dad would have been like, 'Your mother doesn't
think it's a good idea,' and, 'I'll check with her again around Christmas,'
when all Sarah has to do is hug him and say, "But Daddy B EVERYONE has a
one-wall TV and I can't even have anyone over without them feeling sorry for
me, and it's not fair!" and then boom, the appliance center truck is
backing up the driveway and unloading the newest model into the basement.
"Look at it this way," I explained to Mom who was fretting over the
whole thing while the tech guys were finishing the installation. "My
friends and I are gonna totally hang out here all the time now. I mean, this is
the total Kool-Aid house, Mom, I swear!"
Of course, when Ma got home from work, she was all, "Lindsay, God damn it,
you let that boy sweet talk you into anything!" But I just reminded Ma
that she was going to help me fill out these forms so I could get an internship
with a law firm for one of my class projects. Then she totally blew off the
whole TV thing.
"You could hear Dad and Michael arguing outside? Super-hearing one of your
comic book powers now?"
Sarah just rolled her eyes. "I keep telling you if you run the water on
low, everyone thinks you're doing the dishes and aren't listening to what's
going on. As long as Gran doesn't catch you, you're golden. And that's only if
she doesn't want to listen in too, and let's face it, it's Gran. I hear all the
good stuff that way."
"So what did they say?"
"Just my dad was all pissed because they weren't going to New York for
that award thing. And my dad was all, 'When did Justin decide he was too
fucking good to acknowledge Rage,' and your dad was all, 'Let it go, you don't
know what the fuck you're talking about,' and my dad was like, 'I know everyone
else will be there.' Then my dad said something like, what's with the two of
you anyway, and why are you working all the time again and weren't your dad and
Justin rich enough already and didn't they have enough fucking stuff already
that they could miss one day of work for family and your dad was like,
"Fuck you, Michael, you don't know shit!"
"He said 'fuck you' to Michael?"
"He says 'fuck you' to everybody."
"Not Michael usually."
"Whatever. So my dad was all, 'Then talk to me, Brian, tell me what's
going on.' And then your dad got, like, the wrongest look on his face, which
made my dad, all, like, bothered, and he was going, 'Brian, what, tell me,
what?' and your Dad was just like shaking his head, looking all wrong then Gran
shouted at them to quit being such bitches and get in the fucking kitchen and
help move the fucking refrigerator."
"What do you think Daddy B was going to say?" I made a face at her
name for my dad, but felt a little, I don't know, disconcerted maybe?
We hadn't seen much of Dad and Justin lately, but that wasn't particularly
strange or anything. Dad traveled all over the world, and Justin often went
with him. One time, they spent almost six months in Europe and Japan, even
bringing over the moms and me and Sarah for two weeks in August.
I wondered if maybe Dad and Justin were splitting up, but that seemed unlikely,
given that they were making out in Dad's car when the moms and me and Sarah
left Gran's. Come to think of it, Mom and Ma had traded a weird look between
them at the time. I figured they were just kind of rolling their eyes 'cause
Dad had made these excuses, like, fifteen minutes earlier about why they had to
get going, and then they went out to the car and messed around.
But then a couple of weekends went by without Justin turning up anywhere, and I
just started to kind of obsess about it until I finally just asked my dad if
they were breaking up.
My dad was working at his computer, and he kept typing for, like, a full
minute, then stopped and slowly rolled his chair back from the desk. He turned
and looked at me for a beat, then opened his mouth and laughed harder and
longer than I'd ever heard in my whole life.
"Where the fuck did that come from?" he asked.
I shrugged and mumbled something about Justin not being around and Sarah
hearing Michael being all...there for Dad and how was I supposed to know
anything around this place.
Shaking his head, my dad reached for his phone and damn if that mother fucker
didn't call Justin! "Guess what?" he said before Justin even had the
time to say hello. "Gus just asked if I finally wised up and kicked your
ass to the curb," he gloated, while I stood in the background going,
"Dad! God damn it, that's not what I said! Don't listen to him!"
I tried to grab the phone away from him, but he just held my at arms length
with his hand on my head.
"You are the world's worst father!" I groused at him while I fixed
omelets for dinner that night. "Like, rule 1 is never ridicule your
kid."
"That rule's just for parents of kids who don't do ridiculous
things," my dad said, coming up to peer over my shoulder. "Hey, watch
the butter and no cheese in mine."
"Do you want to make dinner?" I threatened, waving the spatula at
him. He lifted his arms in surrender and sat back down.
Still, he kept snickering and shaking his head the whole rest of the night. You
know, sometimes spending a weekend with Michael and Ben wasn't such a chore
after all.
A few more weeks passed, and suddenly there were lots of hushed voices and
discussions that ended abruptly when Sarah and I entered the room. By the time
the moms and Justin sat me and Sarah down a few weeks later , I'd decided they
were going to tell us that Dad and Justin were moving to New York or LA or
something. That seemed major enough to piss off the family and justify everyone
sticking their noses in.
Justin started out by apologizing if things had seemed weird for awhile. Then
he went off on this tangent about sometimes when something happens so
unexpectedly, and you have to get to this specific place in your own head
before you're able to talk about and once you get everything settled in your
own mind, you can face everyone else and move on.
"Is this about me not getting a new bike for my birthday?" Sarah
interrupted to ask. "'Cause, like, Daddy B already said I could, and Dad
bought the helmet last week and..."
"No Sweetie, it's not about that," Mom said.
Justin made a face like he'd dropped something really expensive and kind of chuckled
and said, "Let me start over."
But when he started talking again, he didn't make any more sense. He was saying
stuff about a medical condition and how it was really rare and sometimes
there's treatments and things they can do and sometimes even if they caught it
early there was little they could do to halt the degenerative effects of the
illness. It was Ma who reached out and took Justin's hand.
"Justin, honey, let me try," she said. "You guys, Justin's lost
the sight in his left eye, and he's gradually losing the sight in his right as
well. Eventually...eventually, he's not going to be able to see."
It was quiet for a second before Sarah helpfully continued, "Until they do
an operation or something? Like my friend Kara's dad, remember? He had to get
one of those synthetic livers but now he runs marathons and does those bike
races, right Mom? We went and watched them once."
"Well, right now," Mom said, "There isn't an operation that will
help."
Sarah started to cry. "But who'll help me with the colors!" she said,
which didn't make sense, but we all knew what she meant.
Sarah has always wanted to be a fashion designer. My dad says if Gran was one
of the first people you were ever exposed to, that makes perfect sense. He was
always teasing Sarah that there was no way the daughter of two lesbians would
ever be allowed to design clothing for anyone. Ma sort of thought the whole
idea was kind of frivolous and she was always telling Sarah to concentrate on
English and math, on something more practical. She was funny about Mom, kind of
overly sensitive or something. If Mom made the slightest suggestion about one
of Sarah's drawings, Sarah flipped out, tore it up and ran up to her room
screaming about how we all hated her and never wanted her to succeed at anything
and that she couldn't wait until she was old enough to move away. And Michael
wasn't much help either-he thought every stray scratch on a piece of paper was
the most amazing thing anyone had ever done in the history of the universe.
Of course Justin was the one Sarah looked to for encouragement. For her sixth
grade class project, she designed a line of clothes for the hip and with it
junior high schoolers. After about the fiftieth screaming battle between Mom
and Sarah, Ma dumped everything in the car, including Sarah, and dropped it all
off at the loft.
I watched Mom hug Sarah, and Justin teasingly told her that even blind, he'd be
more help to her than her lesbian mothers could ever be. Ma pretended to be
offended and Sarah kind of coughed and laughed and hiccupped and quieted down.
"Does my dad know?" I asked suddenly, feeling...I guess bewildered is
the best way to describe it. I thought wildly, stupidly, desperately that maybe
Justin hadn't wanted to, like, bother my dad with all of this, but I was sure
that all we had to do was turn Dad loose on the situation and we'd be fine.
Justin would be fine.
Justin got this tender look on his face that he always gets when we say
something he thinks is oh-so-sweet, and he nodded. "Yeah," he said
gently. "We've known for awhile now. I just needed some time before I let
everyone else in on it."
I felt a little better then. God, what drama queens everyone in this family
was. "Well if Dad knows then he'll fix it," I said, looking from my
moms to Justin, not understanding now why everyone was so doom and gloom.
"He'll find a doctor or a hospital or some medicine. He can fix it!"
Justin opened his mouth to say something, but the words got stuck. He looked
helplessly from Mom to Ma and back at me, then ducked his head.
"Oh, honey, believe me, if something could be done, your dad would have
done it," my mom said. "It's beyond that now, Sweetheart."
There really wasn't much else to say, but we all just sat there for awhile.
What do you do when someone tells you they're going blind. What was I supposed
to do, say, "Rough break there, J, think I'll go shoot some hoops
now."
It was really uncomfortable, and I was kind of relieved when Ma said she'd drop
Justin off at the loft. He stood up and took my arm so I'd follow him to the
door. "You want to talk about any of this, you have any questions,
anything, you can talk to me, okay?" he said.
I nodded, staring at my toes, embarrassed I guess, and mostly just feeling so
awful for him, but not knowing what I should say.
"Can I ask you a favor?" he asked.
I felt tears sting my eyes as I nodded quickly, still unable to look at him.
"Gus, you know how you thought your dad could just fix all of this?"
Justin said, cocking his head so I would finally meet his eyes. I shrugged and
nodded again. "Well, that's kind of what your dad thought too. It's
really, really hard for him knowing that he can't. So I'm thinking maybe for a
little while, maybe you'll just talk to me about this stuff, okay? Just for
now."
I shrugged some more and nodded, and I wanted to say something, I don't know,
profound or whatever. I wanted to be grown up about it, but Justin turned
toward the door just as I mumbled something.
He turned back around. "What?" he said.
I shrugged and shook my head, but he started to leave again, and I just blurted
it out. "I'll play varsity next year," I said. "Will you still
be able to see? Will you see me play? It's varsity!" And then I started to
cry.
God, I was so embarrassed. Justin was the one who was sick, who was going to be
blind, but there I was bawling over something so fucking stupid.
But Justin didn't act like I was an idiot. He just hugged me and said, "I
hope so. 'Cause that's gonna be awesome."
He never did get to see me play ball again. He was completely blind two months
later.