The Summer We Fell Apart Read online

  I barely waited until I got to the doorway when I said, “Finn’s here.”

  My mother stopped in mid-toss, widened her eyes at me, and said, “Well.”

  For a second I reveled in the moment—she and I were thinking the same thing, we had a blip of connection—then I blurted out, “With Miriam.”

  She dropped an armful of paperback books into the bag on the desk and rubbed her hands along the tops of her thighs to rid herself of the dust and dirt. The corners of her mouth turned up, though not enough for a smile.

  “Let’s go,” she said.

  We arrived in the front hall just as the door opened. I was behind my mother and I had a moment of déjà vu, of standing in this exact spot years before when I’d first met Miriam. Of course neither my mother nor Finn had been present then. It had only been George and me. Oh, Georgie. I was torn between running to the phone to call him and tell him what was going on and staying put to see what was going to happen.

  The last time I’d seen Miriam was four years ago, the weekend after our high school graduation. She was moving upstate. My father had managed to get Miriam into Skidmore College where he taught. He’d also arranged the student visa and a summer job at the racetrack in Saratoga. She would be taking over my father’s rented room while he was away on vacation. In the fall she would move into the dorms and he back into his room. It had occurred to me at the time that my father had not assisted a single one of his biological children in their college search, even financially, he’d encouraged (insisted is a more accurate word) all of us to take out student loans and work. In other words, to do it on our own just as he had. To get Miriam into the college where he worked, the tuition waived as one of his benefits even though she wasn’t his dependent, was never something he’d even offered as an option. Not that I would have accepted.

  If I hadn’t already spent the better part of my senior year ferreting out information, making sure that Miriam was not my father’s fifth child, I would have accused him of this as well. To this day whenever her name came up George maintained his theory was the right one: that our father slept with the wrong woman and taking care of Miriam was payback. A theory I conceded was not without merit. I supposed one misstep in a lifetime of infidelity was bound to happen.

  At least this explained why she was driving his car.

  What our father never counted on during the year Miriam lived here was that she would fall helplessly in love with my brother Finn. I had thought at the time her love for Finn was unrequited, but now looking at the two of them I wasn’t so sure. Of course my experience with love so far was that it was never around when you wanted it, so I could hardly be counted on as an expert.

  My mother stepped forward and opened her arms to Finn and he allowed himself to be hugged. Their relationship mystified me. In the sibling lineup Finn came second, born two years after Kate. Family lore had it that he was a fussy baby calmed only by my mother and a bottle. The bottle part still applied. Miriam looked around the clump that was my mother and Finn and smiled unsteadily in my direction. No matter that I’d been out in the world for the last four years, Miriam still seemed exotic to me. Maybe it was my old insecurities. Maybe it was being in this house standing in the exact same spot I’d seen her for the very first time. Maybe it was that despite the warm April air she had a scarf wrapped dramatically around her neck several times. Maybe it was all that plus the love of my brother. Maybe.

  When Finn and my mother parted, I fully expected her to say something to Miriam. At least acknowledge that Miriam had returned him to her alive. Instead, she led Finn into the kitchen. I looked at Miriam and sighed. “I’m sorry.” Noting with irony that the first thing I said to her after four years apart was an apology for my mother’s behavior. It was just like the old days.

  She shrugged like she fully expected nothing more from my mother.

  Oddly enough I thought to defend my mother who moments before had seemed so fragile and undeserving of my sarcasm. But I didn’t, too much to explain and so I let it go. Instead, curiosity forced the words out of my mouth that, really, had I cared about decorum should have waited until at least after I said hello. “What are you doing with Finn?”

  Miriam’s eyes were downcast. Her eyelashes grazed the tops of her cheeks when she said, “He came up to spend the week with me.”

  “Ah,” I said, alarmed and nauseated; the rice mix was not a great thing to eat on an empty stomach. I was getting the nagging feeling that maybe Finn hadn’t been on a bender like my mother implied.

  Quickly Miriam rushed on. “It’s not like that, I mean, we’re not together like that anymore.”

  Anymore? I tilted my head to the side but didn’t say anything. So forget the unrequited part. I suddenly flashed on the picture of all of us skinny-dipping in the pond.

  “I’m trying to get him to”—she blinked rapidly and then shrugged—“I’m trying to help him dry out. But it doesn’t seem to be working.”

  “It’s not your problem.” I realized I sounded a lot like my mother or Kate when I answered Miriam.

  In a flat, unaffected voice she stated, “He’s going to kill himself, Amy.”

  In that moment I suddenly knew what was so different about her. Miriam’s accent had taken a backseat to her fluent English. I felt Miriam staring at me. She was obviously waiting for a follow-up to her declaration of Finn’s suicidal intentions.

  So I offered lamely, “He’s been trying for a long time. I don’t think you have the power to stop him.”

  Despite her stoic front Miriam paled at my statement and yet I couldn’t do anything to take back my words because suddenly I knew I was going to throw up. I ran upstairs and barely made it to the bathroom before I lost it. When I was sure I was done, I slumped against the wall and closed my eyes. I was so damn tired, and now with Finn and Miriam here and the prospect of a yard sale there was going to be too much going on to get to CVS for a pregnancy test. Like I needed one. More like I needed the address for the clinic.

  “Are you okay?”

  I opened one eye. Unfortunately I’d not had enough time to even think about closing the door. Miriam walked over to the sink, took a washcloth from the towel bar, wet it, wrung it out, and handed it to me.

  I pressed it against my mouth and my forehead. “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome,” Miriam said as she put the lid down on the toilet and then took a seat on the edge of the tub. I closed my eyes but I knew she was watching me. I could feel it.

  “I’m not drunk,” I mumbled.

  Miriam laughed a little, like she’d had plenty of experience recognizing drunk from sick. “I didn’t think so.”

  “I’m tired,” I said, reluctantly opening my eyes and then added, “and hungry.” I winced. “That’s weird, huh?”

  Miriam shrugged. “Not so much, I guess. Do you want me to go get some food?” She started to stand and I shook my head no so she sat back down. She was trying so hard and I knew it was because somehow I’d made her nervous.

  “What’s Finn going to do after this weekend?” I swallowed; there was too much spit in my mouth. I dabbed the washcloth at the corners of my mouth. “Can he even work?”

  “He’s not that bad. He looks worse than he is.” Miriam chewed her bottom lip. “I’m trying to get him to stay in Saratoga.” She left off the “with me,” although I knew that was implied. Miriam continued. “At least I know some people and maybe he could get a job.” She plucked at something on her bare knee that I couldn’t see.

  There was a lot left unsaid as we sat in silence. My mother called upstairs, and I stood shakily, my knees buckling once. Miriam followed close behind not quite with her hand on my elbow. I didn’t have the strength to shake her off so I let it be.

  With the four of us working, what was left in the house quickly either became trash for the Dumpster or yard-sale merchandise. With the exception of my mother’s presence and the absence of George it reminded me of the summer of Miriam. When she had been abandoned by my fa
ther on our doorstep and we had reluctantly forged a friendship that was somewhere between stranger and sibling. That summer the unexpected arrival of Finn had changed everything, just as it did this weekend.

  Physically, Finn was weak, so Miriam and I hauled most of the heavier stuff and we were able to set up the sale on the lawn in front of the house. We didn’t even stop to consider if there was a possibility for rain overnight. My mother just wanted it out of the house and as far as I was concerned, it all could be carried the fifty feet to the Dumpster wet or dry.

  Somehow Finn was able to make dinner out of a box of pasta and two cans of beans he’d found in the pantry. We finished with coffee and stale shortbread cookies. My mother barely ate, spoke only when she had something to say to Finn, and otherwise smoked and frowned down at her plate. Unlike my dinner companions, I was starving, and so when she finally pushed her food into the center of the table and excused herself, I finished hers as well. I could have gone on to eat from Finn’s and Miriam’s untouched plates too, but I refrained.

  Finn insisted on cleaning up and while he hunched over the sink, the room filling with warm moist air scented with dish soap, Miriam and I sat at the kitchen counter making signs for the yard sale with drawing paper and crayons I’d salvaged from my desk drawers. I had never been more aware that from the outside, a stranger looking in at the warm glow coming from the kitchen, would easily misinterpret this scene—the truth contained in these walls was never transparent.

  Miriam disappeared to get sleeping bags from the car and Finn dried his hands on his jeans as he looked over my shoulder at the posters. He’d taken a shower before dinner and I could smell the same shampoo on him that I’d used that morning. He looked a little better now, some normal color had returned to his face. But his old athletic body was now frail and he held himself like someone recovering from surgery.

  We had tried to get close my last year of high school when he’d lived here, but he hadn’t taken the place of George, and then I went off to college and he went on drinking. Eventually, the only contact we’d had were the couple of times I found him and brought him back home to dry out. The best conversations we’d had were when he was loaded. I seriously doubted he remembered a single word.

  Sometime between then and now Miriam had assumed the role of caretaker, although it was obvious from my mother’s absolute refusal to acknowledge Miriam’s presence that my mother was trying hard to ignore that fact.

  “Nice poster,” Finn said as he picked up my recently discarded crayon and read the color on the label. “Good use of cornflower blue against the yellow in SALE.”

  I laughed and yanked the crayon from his fingers. “Don’t you have a dish to wash?”

  He picked up another crayon and drew on my poster a circle with dots for eyes and a wide smile. “It’s great to see what four years of art school has done for you,” he cracked. “What’s next?”

  I put down my crayon and watched while Finn scribbled smiley face after smiley face until all members of our scattered family were accounted for. “I could ask you the same thing.” I raised my eyebrows and waited.

  Finn dropped the crayon and shoved his hands deep inside his pockets and studied the kitchen floor. “How about I go back to Providence with you?”

  My first reaction was to laugh. Then I saw the expression on Finn’s face and I knew he was only half-joking. With that came the realization that Finn was just like me: unsure of the next step. It would seem that my brother and I shared a lack of motivation; a refusal to accept that a future existed seemed to be a common bond. Still, that didn’t keep me from stumbling through a litany of excuses: small apartment, roommate, and finals, until I just stopped talking. If I admitted to Finn that I didn’t want to be responsible for him, that I was barely capable of being responsible for myself, it would sound trite. I could never put into words that Finn, when he was with me, reminded me that I was not that unlike him, and it scared me and made me feel like a horrible person for not helping my own brother.

  Finn waved me off. “I get it, you have a life.”

  “Give me a break.” I paused and said, “I’ve worked hard.”

  “I get it, Amy,” Finn repeated as he gathered the trash from dinner, tied the bag tightly, and headed out the back door.

  I followed quickly behind him but despite his frailty he was steps ahead of me and had already dumped the garbage and was headed toward the barn. I followed him inside although he didn’t turn to acknowledge me. The air was cool but acrid, tinged with the earthiness of the damp dirt floor and mold, and I promptly sneezed. In the center of the barn was a pile of furniture that towered over my head. A mattress shredded and stained, chairs with no legs, chairs with three legs, tables, cabinet doors, paneled doors, and random pieces of lumber. There were things in the pile that I recognized: a metal desk, a floor lamp, and the very first television from the den. At an angle to the pile, like a seat pulled up for front-row viewing, was our old couch: the one with the nubby beige fabric that I used to rub my eczema-plagued arms against, searching for relief when I was under strict orders not to scratch. When I was a child my skin reacted to every emotion by erupting in a raised, angry, itchy mass of water-filled bumps. When my nervous system overloaded I was a walking, oozing mess.

  “What are you doing?” I asked Finn as he began to dislodge things from the pile and toss them outside onto the dirt drive.

  “What does it look like?” he asked, huffing as he freed a broken desk chair and flung it behind him.

  I jumped out of the way just in time. “Hey, let me help you. It will go faster.”

  “No,” he said, more softly than I would have expected, “faster would be to take a match to everything and we can’t very well do that, can we?”

  Miriam appeared just then in the open door with her arms around two rolled sleeping bags. Finn abruptly stopped what he was doing and moved to help her. Miriam glanced over at me quickly as they left the barn. Either she sensed our exchange or she was just nervous.

  I walked over to the pile and half-heartedly tugged on a table leg but I couldn’t budge it from beneath the desk. Instead I picked up the chair Finn had tossed into the drive and added it to the Dumpster on my way back into the house. The way Finn mentioned taking a match to everything led me to believe that he was still as angry at our father as he ever was and apparently he was nowhere near letting go of that.

  I returned to the kitchen and Miriam reappeared, asking if I wanted to go hang the signs. I had been hoping for another moment with Finn, to make him understand that what I’d said earlier, my reaction to his request, the state of my life, was not so cut-and-dried. I didn’t want to disappoint him but at the same time, how could I be his savior when I was incapable of saving myself?

  Instead I agreed to Miriam’s suggestion and gathered the pile of signs off the counter and walked back through the dining room while Miriam grabbed her keys and leather backpack. In the corner of the room I saw the sleeping bags rolled out on top of the threadbare Oriental carpet. The bags, I noticed, were side by side. I was about to ask her why they didn’t just take one of the empty bedrooms upstairs but then I thought better of it.

  We got into my father’s car. It smelled sweet and sour at the same time, like booze and candy. Miriam turned the key in the ignition and rolled down all four of the windows then glanced over at me as she backed down out of the driveway. “Do you mind?”

  I shook my head and stared out the window back at the house. The furniture we’d arranged room-like all over the lawn looked like the house had been turned inside out.

  Miriam drove up and down the streets close to the house. Each time she stopped I got out and taped the posters to a lamppost while she waited with the engine running.

  As she drove closer to town I said, “I need to stop at CVS.”

  “Okay,” Miriam agreed as she concentrated on the light in front of us. We were the only car at the intersection but that didn’t seem to make a difference. I noticed that Miriam was
a careful driver—her hands were always in the ten o’clock and two o’clock positions and she rarely took her eyes off the road.

  “It’s over at that new plaza by the grocery store,” I said as I dropped the remaining posters and tape gun down by my feet and folded my arms against my chest.

  “I know where it is,” Miriam said softly. “Are you cold? Should I put up the windows?”

  I turned so my face was to the wind. Despite my eyes tearing up I said, “No.”

  We stopped two more times to put up signs and then we headed over to the drugstore. Miriam signaled to get into the CVS parking lot. I read the shopping plaza marquee. There was a pizza place as well as a karate studio and a hair salon. The lot was nearly empty but there was a neon sign in the window of CVS that read, OPEN 24 HOURS, right next to a sign that advertised two-liter cola products on sale for 99 cents each. Miriam pulled into a spot directly in front of the door and turned off the engine.

  After a few minutes Miriam said, “Are you going to go in?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “What?”

  “I really don’t need to.”

  “Oh.”

  “I thought I did but—really—it would just be a waste of money.”

  Again Miriam said, “Oh.”

  I kept my arms folded tight against my chest. I tried to sound casual when I said, “The fath…” I paused and swallowed and corrected myself, “The guy doesn’t matter, so don’t ask me what he thinks about this, okay?”

  Miriam unbuckled her seat belt and turned to face me. To her credit she didn’t even pretend to look surprised.

  “I mean I know him, of course I know who he is, but we’re not in any kind of thing you know?” I closed my eyes and leaned back against the headrest. The last time we’d had sex, the time that obviously got me here, we’d done it in his car in the parking lot. It was a car a lot like this, with bucket seats, and even though he’d reclined his seat I’d had bruises from the steering wheel all along my lower back for weeks afterward. It seemed they’d only just faded.