I rested my head against the doorframe. She was sitting up in bed, the lyric book in her hand, memorizing the words to the song.
“Don’t worry, I’m being super careful with them,” she said, as she patted the CD case beside her. It was six inches thick. “I haven’t even scratched one. Mint condition.”
“I trust you.”
“You sure you don’t want to stay home tonight?” she asked. “The new TGIF lineup is just riveting. I’m sure Sabrina can compete with Jen Klein’s party.”
“If anyone can, it’s Sabrina.”
Fuller, our terrier, was whining beside the bed. He was too arthritic to get up on his own, so I snuggled him to my chest and slid in beside her, letting him lick my chin.
When they first delivered the hospital bed, I’d hated it. It was too big for the room, and even though Sara was fourteen, she looked like a child inside it. But now I’d gotten used to tucking in next to her and watching TV, or just lying back and staring at the white Christmas lights we’d strung across the ceiling. Fuller would curl up with us and we’d rub his belly and count the spatter of gray spots across his chest.
“I would definitely rather do that. But I promised Amber and Kristen I’d go. Don’t tell Mom it’s a party…I said we’re seeing The Wedding Singer again.”
Tubes snaked underneath Sara’s flannel pajamas, a metal clamp biting down on her finger. Guignard’s Disease. When I’d heard those two words I didn’t realize they’d hold so much power over us, that from then on we’d be consumed by tests and prescription bottles and whirring machines. It was a rare blood disease—so uncommon that only a few dozen cases had been documented. Sara was too weak to walk anymore, and the doctors recommended palliative care to keep her comfortable as the disease progressed. We never talked about what that phrase really meant, that the disease kept progressing, that Sara kept getting sicker. That there was no cure.
“You’re going because Tyler will be there,” Sara said, smiling.
I rolled my eyes. “Well, I did tell him about it. I’m hoping we can hang out without it being a big deal or whatever.”
“It’s still a big deal.”
Amber and Kristen knew I liked Tyler, but Sara was the one who heard all the minutiae: how he’d poked me in the side when he walked past me in study hall, or how he had snuck into my lunch period just to say hi. We’d spent the other night analyzing our interaction in the storage closet, and what it all meant. You definitely have that effect on me.
Tyler was flirting, that was obvious. The question was how far he’d take it and if there was something real there. I’d heard a rumor he’d dated a girl from his camp over the summer, but he’d never mentioned it to me then or since, and Sara and I had interpreted that as its own sign. Maybe we weren’t just friends.
“This would all be a lot easier if Mom wasn’t watching my every move.”
“You can’t start sneaking out again.”
“I’m not an idiot.”
Last year, in an attempt to get around my curfew, I’d started sneaking out the door by the garage. I’d pretend I was just staying up late, watching TV, then I’d leave for an hour or two at a time. Kristen and Amber would pick me up one block over and sometimes we’d go to a party, but mostly Henrietta Park, where the upperclassmen hung out.
It all ended one night in May. I must’ve left the door unlocked, because when I came home the whole first floor of our house had been burglarized. The television was gone, and so was our brand-new stereo system, along with my mother’s engagement ring, which had been sitting in the soap dish next to the sink. The police had been there until five in the morning, taking notes and dusting for fingerprints, and as soon as they left, my mom broke into tears. I’d felt so guilty that I eventually confessed everything. After our neighbors heard about what happened, they hired a private alarm company to do regular rounds. Now you couldn’t go anywhere without seeing one of the white and red SWICKLEY ALARMS cars driving by.
It didn’t matter how many times I’d said I was sorry and promised it would never happen again. My mom’s list of rules had grown, and there was always this unspoken suspicion between us. I could do the dishes every night and rake the leaves and wear the green corduroy skirt she had gotten me, telling her how much I loved it, but she’d never trust me again. Not really.
“The other night at dinner,” I started. “Were you just annoyed at Mom? Why were you looking at Lydia like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like you were pissed about something.”
I rubbed the back of Fuller’s head, careful to avoid his right ear, where our neighbor’s German shepherd had bitten him last week. Now two purple stitches kept the skin together.
“I wasn’t mad…” She squinted like she couldn’t quite see me, even though there were three different lights on. “I guess I just didn’t know what you were talking about the other day. You were serious about hearing that stuff?”
“Why wouldn’t I be serious?” I asked. “You must’ve heard it too, right?”
“Yeah, I heard it.” She was still looking at me like she didn’t know who I was.
“So?”
She didn’t say anything for a good thirty seconds, just tilted her head to the side and studied me. Then she shrugged. “I don’t know?”
Sara had shone brightest when she was a kid, running around the house singing the opening of Beauty and the Beast, a dishrag tied around her head like she was some maiden from the French countryside. It was hard to watch her lately, how she always seemed frail, how thin she looked now that she’d lost the baby fat in her cheeks. Sometimes it seemed like she wasn’t listening to what I said, like she was only half there.
Fuller lifted his nose and licked my cheek. It was almost seven thirty. Amber and Kristen were supposed to be here any minute. “Have you ever seen this thing, it’s this silver and glass like…cartridge? This big…?”
Sara watched me size it up with my hands. “I don’t think so?”
“It fell out of Amber’s backpack, and then she got all weird when I asked her about it. She’s lying about it for some reason, and now Kristen won’t tell me anything either. It’s like they both know something I don’t.”
“I feel like it’s always something with them.”
It was true. At some point in the last few years Amber and Kristen had gotten closer, and I’d drifted further outside our three-person orbit, laughing along to jokes I didn’t really understand. We still ate lunch together every day, and they still came over after school sometimes to see Sara and bring her Dunkin Donuts. But things were different. I’d thought about it dozens of times, trying to pinpoint how exactly it had happened, and when this space had ballooned between us. Was it because that middle-school awkwardness had clung to me so much longer, because I had to wait for my period, then my first kiss? Or was it after I got in trouble and started spending most weekends at home?