Part 30 (1/2)
Her mom makes fleeting eye contact with her. ”Let's not talk about it right now. Just eat and put everything out of your mind.”
”But-how do you feel about it? Is it okay?”
Her mom carries the soup pot to the sink and flushes water over it. She scrubs hard at it with a soap sponge, her arm working fast as if she's trying to shove the pot down the garbage disposal.
”Mom?”
”Give me some time, Hannah.”
Hannah's tears drop into the tomato soup. She bites her lip to stop herself from crying again, but her whole body shakes and her breaths come out sharp and edgy, as if someone has taken a knife to her voice.
”Oh, Hannah...” her mom says, turning around.
Her mom gathers her against her body and holds her. Hannah sobs into her mother's satin s.h.i.+rt but keeps her hands balled at her sides, afraid to give herself over completely.
”Honey,” her mom coos. ”It's okay. I love you. Dad and I love you. Nothing could ever change that.”
Hannah cries until she hears the back door turn. Then she darts out of her seat, leaving her soup bowl and her mom in the kitchen.
She stays in her room on Sat.u.r.day. She spends hours clicking around the Emory website, researching cla.s.ses, memorizing the calendar, reading up on campus traditions. She hears her family walking around downstairs, hears them talking in the kitchen, hears the jarring music of TV commercials. She waits for her mom or dad to come check on her. They send Joanie instead.
”Will you get me some hash browns from Zeeland?” Hannah asks her. ”I'm craving them.”
”Go get them yourself, lazy.”
Hannah turns back to her computer. ”Never mind.”
”Ugh, fine, I'll go with you.”
”That's okay.”
”No, seriously, let's go. I'll drive.”
”No, I'm good.”
”You could use some fresh air. Come on.”
”Joanie. I don't want to go.”
”You just said you were craving the hash browns.”
”I-never mind.”
”What?” Joanie shuts Hannah's laptop screen. ”Let's go.”
”I don't want to go.”
”Stop being such a brat.”
”I don't want to go, okay?!”
Joanie pulls away from her. ”Jeeze. I was just trying to be nice.”
Hannah pulls her lips into her mouth. ”I don't want to walk into Zeeland and see one of our cla.s.smates. Or one of their parents. Okay?”
Joanie drops her head and taps her fingers against her thigh. ”Sorry,” she says quietly.
”It's fine.”
”You want to watch a movie or something?”
”No, I'm okay. I'm just gonna take a nap.”
Joanie leaves, and Hannah falls into a restless sleep. When she wakes, she finds a Styrofoam box on her nightstand. She opens it. It's full of Zeeland Street hash browns.
Her parents call her downstairs for dinner around seven o'clock. Joanie looks up when Hannah walks into the kitchen. Her eyes ask a question. Hannah smiles in answer.
The four of them sit subdued around the table, each of them paying too much attention to their chicken. Joanie makes a valiant effort to stir the conversation, asking about everything from their dad's friends at Albemarle to their mom's recent tennis match. Neither one of their parents says much in response.
”Okay, this is just awkward,” Joanie says, dropping her fork. ”Can we please address the rainbow-colored elephant in the room? So Hannah might not have a fairytale plantation wedding. So what?”
”Don't start, Joanie,” their mom says.
”I think it's brave what Hannah did.”
Their mom pauses with her fork in midair. ”In what way?”
Hannah shoots Joanie a warning look. Joanie drops her eyes and says, clumsily, ”In-telling the truth about how she feels.”
Their parents push pieces of chicken around their plates. Hannah drinks from her water gla.s.s for something to do, but the cold water makes the pit in her stomach feel even more hollowed.
Hannah wakes up late on Sunday morning and startles when she realizes her family is supposed to leave for Ma.s.s in three minutes.
”Don't bother,” Joanie says when Hannah rushes into the bathroom and reaches for the toothpaste. ”They already left.”
”What? They never let us miss church.”
Joanie shrugs. ”I heard the backdoor slam, and then I looked out the window and saw them driving away.”
Hannah's heart sinks. ”They don't want me there with them.”
”Don't be dumb. Of course they do. They probably just-they probably don't want you to feel uncomfortable, you know?”
The worst part of Sunday is when Aunt Ellie calls after lunch. Hannah stands outside the locked door of the study, listening to her mom whisper into the phone, listening to the breaths of silence that pour forth from her mom's mouth.
”No,” her mom says after a few minutes, ”never made it there. Couldn't bring ourselves to face all those stares. We went to lunch on the other side of town instead.”
Hannah crawls back into her bed and stays there for the rest of the day.
Her stomach knots in on itself when she wakes on Monday morning. Joanie makes her toast, which Hannah takes only one bite of before she feels sick, and then they get into the car, neither one of them speaking. By the time they arrive at St. Mary's, Hannah's underarms are soaked through with sweat.