Life and Other Complications Read online

  “Good,” he said, and seemed to mean it.

  It didn’t feel good to me. But I guess we were at least talking to each other.

  “Interesting shirt.” I pointed at the I ♥ Guinea Pigs t-shirt he was wearing.

  “Natalie made them for all of the musicians.”

  Caroline came back into the lobby holding a metal trash can.

  “I found Houdini. And he bit me.” Caroline glowered down into the container.

  I said, “You did make fun of his name and stick him in a trash can.”

  Neither of those observations improved her expression.

  “Did his teeth break the skin?” Luke asked.

  “No.”

  That was something, at least. Caroline hates hospitals, and I didn’t want to have to drag her to the ER to get her treated for an infected rodent bite.

  “They want all the musicians backstage,” Caroline told Luke.

  “Okay. I’ll see you guys after,” he said.

  I didn’t watch him walk away. Instead, I watched Caroline put the stray guinea pig back in his cage and close the latch. Houdini chattered at her angrily and then waddled into a wooden house.

  When the program started and Caroline and I slipped into the back row of the auditorium, I avoided looking at Luke. But when it was time for “Edelweiss”, he walked out to the front of the stage with his guitar in his hand, and I couldn’t stop looking at him. Only Luke Harrison could make an I ♥ Guinea Pigs t-shirt look that good. I watched him slip his guitar strap over his head and take a second to tune the instrument before he began to play. I was half dreading the moment when Luke started to sing. But my dread has never kept things from happening. And tonight, was no exception. His warm, steady voice still filled up the hall, and I could do nothing to keep that warmth from sinking into me.

  Luke has always been upfront with me, about everything. We’re friends, nothing more. And that should be enough. But there was an ache in my chest anyway. Because I want there to be more.

  I want exactly what I can’t have. Because I’m the girl with HIV.

  Dear Olivia,

  Have they told you about HIV yet?

  They know that Rick is HIV-positive. So I’m sure they’ve run the test. But they may not have told you if your test came back positive. They didn’t tell me right away. They thought I had too many other things to cope with. So that news came later, an undetonated grenade left over from a war that was supposed to have ended.

  Every two months I have to go to the hospital and have labs drawn to see how well the HIV meds are working. When they pull up my file in the lab, there’s a flashing warning that reads HIV-Positive. It’s the human equivalent of having a Biting Risk sticker on a dog’s file at the vet. At least in my case it just means that the phlebotomist should wear double gloves, not fit me with a muzzle.

  The day after the blood draw, I go to see my doctor and hear the results.

  The pediatric waiting room is segregated into two sections: sick and well. Apparently, I don’t fit neatly into either category. Because they always take me straight back to an exam room. The nurse takes my vitals, asks Mrs. Miller if she has any questions, and then leaves me with a pamphlet about living with HIV.

  I am the clinic’s only pediatric HIV patient, so for the first four years that we lived here, I got to have the same pamphlet every time I came in. On the front of the pamphlet was a cartoon of a thuggish-looking blob labeled HIV beating up a poor defenseless white blood cell until a pill came to save the day. The pill even had a cape.

  When I turned thirteen, I got to move up to the teen version. This pamphlet doesn’t have a cartoon. Instead it has a slogan on the front: You Can Still Be Cool with HIV. Because apparently my coolness was in question. I have read this pamphlet so many times I have it memorized. So, I use the paper to make origami flowers. So far, I can make tulips, and roses, and I’m working on daffodils.

  The bi-monthly blood tests look at two things. My viral load, and my CD4 count—which indicates how healthy my immune system is. The last time I was in, my CD4 count was normal. But my viral load had doubled.

  “This happens,” Dr. Jordan told me. “I’ll talk to the team at Dartmouth about adjusting your medications.”

  If you do have HIV, they’ll tell you that with the right medications, you can potentially live for decades and have an almost normal life. The medical community is proud of their miracle drugs, and they should be.

  What they don’t understand is that those miracle pills come at a cost. Because every time you take one, you’re reminded of Rick.

  The same pills that give you a future, mean you can’t get away from the past. Rick stays right there with you, reminding you every day, that you’re dirty and broken. That he ruined you.

  If he gave you HIV there is nothing I can do to undo that. I can’t make it so that this didn’t happen. I can’t give you back the life you had before Rick. I can’t make you whole again.

  Mr. Raleigh says that my testimony will help you. But the truth is I can’t do anything about the things that really matter. And I hate that. I hate it so much.

  -Aly

  Monday, May 30

  Today was Memorial Day. My friends went to a cookout at Luke’s. But I had to go to Boston and walk through an almost deserted building to the conference room I’ve started to hate.

  This time, I had barely sat down when Mr. Raleigh asked his first question.

  “How long had your mother and Mr. Wallace been dating when he invited you to move into his house?”

  “A few weeks,” I said. “Maybe a month. It wasn’t long.”

  I could hear Mama’s voice in my head. “I know it’s fast. But Rick loves us so much. He wants to be a family.”

  I had never been part of a family. My birth father left before I was born. It had always been just Mama and me. But the way she said the word family I knew it was something good.

  “How did you feel about moving in with Mr. Wallace?” Mr. Raleigh said.

  I wanted to tell him that I knew it was a terrible idea, that my mother had dragged me along. But I told him the truth. “I was excited.”

  I liked Rick and his house. It was so much nicer than our apartment. Bigger. Cleaner. Quieter. Rick’s was the kind of place where you would never wake up to screaming voices in the middle of the night or come home to police cars parked out front. Rick’s house felt safe.

  The day we moved in, Mama couldn’t stop talking. She loved everything, the good neighborhood, the granite countertops in the kitchen. Even the furniture was perfect.

  I liked the house too, but most of all I loved my room. It was painted a pale yellow and had a big canopy bed, like something a princess would sleep in. There was a dollhouse and a bookshelf full of books. I thought Rick must have bought the things for my room from Goodwill. Because every book in my bookshelf had a name written in it: Jenny, or Becca, or Katie.

  Mama was a little nervous about the swimming pool in the backyard, because I didn’t know how to swim. But Rick promised to teach me. Mama’s boyfriends had promised things before. But Rick actually kept his promise. He took me to the store that first day and bought me a bathing suit, a bikini with ruffles. Mama said it was adorable. And that afternoon, while Mama unpacked, Rick gave me my first swimming lesson.

  Rick taught me to float on my back. At first, he supported me in the water, his left hand on my back, his right hand under the backs of my thighs. When I could float without help, Rick cheered and blew a raspberry on my stomach. The funny sensation made me laugh and wiggle. Rick scooped me out of the water to blow a line of raspberries down my bare stomach that made me laugh even harder.

  I was so happy. But when I went back to my room to get dry clothes, I found Mama there unpacking. And her face was worried.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked her.

  “They’ve already rented our apartment. If this doesn’t work out, we don’t have anywhere else to go.”

  I hadn’t known I was supposed to worry a
bout it not working out.

  Mama looked at my face and adjusted hers. “I’m being silly,” she said. “As long as Rick loves us, everything will be fine.”

  So I didn’t worry. Because Rick told us every day that he loved us. And more than that, he showed us.

  One night during our first week at Rick’s house, I woke up crying from a bad dream. I went looking for Mama, but I couldn’t find her in that big house. I was panicking by the time Rick found me.

  He picked me up and squeezed me. “It’s okay,” he said. “Nothing is going to hurt you here.”

  I buried my face in his shoulder and held on as he carried me back to my room. Rick tucked me in and then sat beside my bed until I fell back to sleep, just like a real daddy.

  I wanted a daddy so much. To be like other kids. To have someone to push me on the swings and to protect me from monsters and big dogs. One time, I saw a man run right in front of a car to save his little boy. I wanted someone to love me that much. And finally, I had found him.

  Mama was happy too. She didn’t have to work at the Shop and Save anymore. Rick said that taking care of me was the most important job in the world. He didn’t even expect her to clean the house. He had a cleaning lady, named Catalina, who did that. All he asked was that Mama made dinner and cleaned up afterwards. So while Mama made dinner, Rick gave me my bath.

  I loved Rick and I wanted him to love me. But sometimes, it felt strange having a daddy. Where Mama had rushed through drying me off after my bath, Rick took his time. He dried me slowly with one big towel, and then went back with a second towel and did it again. I wasn’t allowed to wear pajamas or underwear at night anymore, only nightgowns. Rick said that my skin needed time to breathe. At first it felt strange having the air slide up my bare legs. But Rick and Mama said I looked so beautiful. And after a few days I got used to it. It was just one more thing that made this new life different from our old one.

  After dinner, Mama would do the dishes while Rick took me into the living room to watch a movie. He always sat me in his lap. And the house was always so cold that he put a blanket over us.

  At first it was nice. I liked being cuddled up close with his arms around me. It made me feel special. Like I really was his little girl. I didn’t even notice that his right hand was on my leg, first over the blanket, then under the blanket.

  I didn’t like it when he nudged my knees apart. But Mama had told me to be good. And good girls did what they’re told. So, I watched the TV and pretended not to notice that his hand was inching its way up the inside of my leg.

  One night, his hand made it all the way up to the top of my thigh. I froze. I didn’t know what he was doing. I just knew that it felt wrong. And I wanted him to stop.

  But I didn’t know how to say that without making him mad.

  Rick was everything Mama had ever wanted. He was generous and kind. He loved us. And I loved him. But if I made Rick mad, it could all go away.

  “Did you tell Mr. Wallace to stop?” Mr. Raleigh said.

  And I had to work to swallow the rock in my throat.

  “No,” I whispered.

  “Did you tell anyone that he was touching you?” Mr. Raleigh said. “Your mother, a teacher?”

  “We can’t ruin this,” Mama had told me. “We won’t ever have another chance like this.”

  To be loved. To be a family.

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  If I had handled it differently, maybe it would have ended there. If I had known what to say— but I didn’t. I just learned to watch TV and pretend not to notice what was happening under the blanket.

  Dear Olivia,

  I keep picturing you sitting on Rick’s lap in the living room.

  Is that how it started with you?

  Did he ease you into it?

  Moving so slowly that you couldn’t even tell when it went from good to bad?

  Was it like he was drawing you a bath?

  At first the water felt nice, relaxing.

  Then the temperature rose a little.

  Then a little more.

  Until it was hotter than you liked.

  But you adjusted.

  It became your new normal.

  And the temperature kept creeping upwards.

  Degree by degree.

  Until he was boiling you alive.

  -Aly

  Wednesday, June 1

  I’ve been painting, a lot. Because when I paint, I can push everything else away. The problem is, I’m spending so much time working on the mural, I’m going to finish it before we ever get to the trial. I have to find more to do. I’ve considered painting over a whole section and starting again. But before I did anything that drastic, I decided to look for anywhere I could expand. Which brought me to the blackened wall that holds the original mural. Mrs. Reese is planning on having it torn out and the wall rebuilt. But I wondered if any of the old painting could be saved.

  There was no way to know without cleaning it off. So I got a bucket and a sponge and began the delicate work of trying to remove the soot without damaging the painting underneath. Parts of the wall are damaged beyond saving. But there’s a section, right in the middle, that looked like it might be intact. So I started the slow and careful process of trying to clean away the ash and the grime. What I found underneath was the image of a little girl in a white dress.

  She was alone. Whoever had surrounded her in the original mural was gone. But her face was happy. The artist had created something beautiful. Something pure and innocent. Something the fire had ravaged.

  Whole sections of the girl’s face are smeared with greasy ash. Her dress is blackened. Pieces of her portrait crumbled when I touched them. She’s ruined.

  I left the blackened wall the way it was. I hope Mrs. Reese does tear it out and start again. Because I don’t want to look at that girl. I don’t want to think about what happened to her. I don’t want to remember everything she lost. I don’t want to touch her and watch her fall apart.

  I went back to the side of the room where I was supposed to be and grabbed an oversized brush. In seconds I ruined a section of mural that had taken me days to paint. I was still holding the brush, looking at what I had done, when Luke walked into the room.

  I was so distracted trying to figure out how I was going to explain this, that I didn’t really see his face. But then he said my name. And with the tone of that one word, I knew that something was wrong. Something much bigger than the awkwardness we’ve been living with since prom.

  His head.

  Or Caroline had relapsed.

  Or the lie.

  He found out that I’ve been lying to him since the beginning, that I lied to him about my visits to Boston. He found out about Rick—

  Luke’s voice was hollow. “Josh Collins is dead.”

  I stared at Luke, trying to make sense of his words.

  Josh Collins isn’t terminal. He’s just a regular kid who goes to our high school. He used to sit two rows ahead of me in English.

  “Car accident,” Luke said.

  I could barely process the words. Josh Collins. Dead.

  I must have looked as stunned as I felt, because Luke walked over and opened his arms. I pressed myself into his chest, feeling his shirt against my cheek, his arms wrapping around me, and wished that he never had to let go.

  Friday, June 3

  My mother never took me to church. She said that churches didn’t want people like us. She had grown up going to church. And she went every week until she was sixteen and her stomach swelled so much that people started whispering. After that, she never went back.

  The first time I went to church with the Millers, I saw the people looking at me and I was sure that they could see past my clothes, see every terrible thing I had ever done that wouldn’t wash away. I wanted to run and never come back. But the Millers made me go every Sunday. And in our cluster of small towns, funerals are always held in churches. So today, I had to go to church for the second time this week. Because
today was Josh Collins’ funeral.

  My friends and I go to a lot of funerals. It’s one of the downsides of Group. But today’s service was different. Josh Collins hadn’t even been sick. And the congregation was more stunned than resigned. They hadn’t expected this one.

  The six of us go to so many funerals that we have an ongoing bet about the music. Two years ago, we each chose a hymn. Every time our hymn is played at a funeral, we get a point. So far, I’m winning, by a lot. And today another point was added to my tally when the organ started into a strangled rendition of “Amazing Grace.” Kyle says that he was going to pick “Amazing Grace,” but I beat him to it. Life isn’t fair.

  I don’t like “Amazing Grace.” I’ve heard it played at too many funerals. And watched too many caskets rolled down the aisle to its tune.

  We don’t carry caskets in the valley anymore. Not since the members of the VFW dropped a coffin in the middle of the Trinity Baptist Church. The box opened and eighty-six-year old Roger Nelson rolled out onto the church floor, landing at the feet of Kelly Durgan. As the pall bearers tried to get him back into his box, the nearby mourners all saw that the corpse had a huge grin on his face. The family told anyone who would listen that Roger was always smiling, and it had nothing to do with getting a look up Kelly Durgan’s skirt. But after that, caskets were rolled, not carried.

  There is no talk of long lives well lived at the funerals I attend. The discussion centers on a young life cut too short and what a wonder the deceased was. According to the speeches made at funerals, all terminal kids are selfless angels, who never feel sorry for themselves and face death without fear. Which is ridiculous. Some terminal kids are nice, some aren’t. All of us feel sorry for ourselves at some point. And we’re terrified of dying. We just get over it. Because we don’t have another choice. There are too many things in our lives that we can’t control.

  What Josh couldn’t control was the truck that hit his car at 60 miles an hour. The police decided that the accident was Josh’s fault. At this point, I don’t think it matters. Either way, he’s dead.