CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

My grandmother was standing on the front porch, one hand holding the top of her head as if she were afraid her hair was going to fly off. Her face was deeply lined with worry as she glanced at the sky and then moved her eyes up and down the street. She called my name twice before she saw me, half-jogging, half-staggering along the sidewalk, hands over ears, ragged breath tearing dry tears out of me.

I didn’t want her to be a beacon of safety for me. I didn’t want to feel like I was running home while running to her. But my heart leapt around in my chest when I saw her.

“Jersey! There you are, ” she said, and I could barely hear her over the siren. “I was worried.”

The rain began to splatter around me as I cut through the front yard, my legs feeling exhausted and jelly-like as I pounded one foot in front of the other. For a terrifying, almost dizzying moment I was afraid I’d be unable to make it those last few steps. I was sure my legs would give out and crumple beneath me, that I would sprawl facedown in the grass, my grandmother unable to pull me up. I imagined the sky splitting open and an angry tornado reaching down to scoop me up and toss me into its eye with flying debris and swirling dead people; people like my mom and sister.

But somehow I made it, and even though my grandmother was reaching out to me, I lunged right past her and into the house. I raced through the hall and down the basement steps without even pausing to search for the light switch, my brain briefly flashing back to the day Meg and Lexi had shut off the basement light and I’d gotten so spooked. The memory only served to agitate me further, and I could feel fury rushing through me.

Down in the basement, it was quieter. The sirens were muted and the wind was no longer beating in my ears and the rain sounded far away up on the roof. Still, I was buzzing. My head was making a siren noise of its own. My ears were ringing and my breath panted out of me as I paced, moaning and crying and growling. I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I’d never felt or acted this way in a storm before. But I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t stop the fiery, tossed feeling in my chest, and I couldn’t stop my body from acting on it.

“Jersey? ” my grandmother called, and seconds later the basement was bathed in light. I saw her feet pad down the carpeted stairs. “Jersey? Can you hear me? ”

And maybe it was the way she kept saying my name—always, constantly, saying my name—or maybe it was the fear or the siren, which had gotten into my head. Or maybe it was those words—“Can you hear me? ” Those words that I had said to my mother a few weeks before. Those words, which had gone unanswered.

Maybe it was all of the above, but I panicked. My chest squeezed tight and I dropped to my knees on the floor, surprised by the sensation. My hands, which were shaking, clutched at my chest and I gasped and gasped. I could feel my eyes bugging out, but I couldn’t see my grandmother or the carpeted basement steps anymore.

All I could see was the bottom of Ronnie’s pool table, the papers as they blew around me, a rolling ashtray. All I could hear was the collapse of my kitchen down into the basement, the roar of a wind mightier than anyone had seen in forty years, death and destruction balled up inside its nasty, painful grip. I could hear the sound of glass breaking, of bricks thudding to concrete, the squeak of wood splintering. Myself screaming.

Screaming and screaming and screaming, my eyes squeezed shut so tightly I was no longer sure where I was. Only that I felt paralyzed by fear—the fear that began on the day my mom took Marin to dance and never came home again. The fear I’d been holding at bay, had been pushing down inside myself, all through the days after the tornado, through the time at the motel with Ronnie, through those frightening nights of wondering what Lexi and Meg would do to me. The fear washed over me, held me down, made me feel like I was going to die—just lie down and join my mother and sister.

I don’t know how long I remained that way. But eventually, as if coming up from the deep end of a pool and taking my first breath, I began to sense things. My grandmother’s voice, saying my name over and over again, her hands gripping my shoulders, and a movement that sharpened into shaking.

“Jersey! ” she was barking. “Jersey, dammit! Stop screaming. It’s going to be okay. Jersey! ”

She shook harder and harder and I felt my head moving back and forth on my shoulders, and finally the shrieking just… died out. I blinked through the tears and the swollen eyelids and saw my grandmother kneeling before me, looking stern.

“Stop it, ” she said. “Stop screaming. They’ve turned off the sirens.”

My mouth clopped shut, my lips slippery with snot, and I tried to catch my breath.

“It’s all clear, ” she said, her voice still barking, but softer now. She’d given me a soft shake on the words “all” and “clear” but then must have seen some recognition that I was back to reality, because she nodded curtly and let go, then stood up. My grandmother crossed her arms and gazed down at me unyieldingly.

“You can’t go disappearing like that, ” she said, and I wondered if this sharp-featured woman was the Patty my mom had hated so much. “We were worried sick with the storm coming in. You could have been anywhere. Grandpa Barry is out there right now, driving around looking for you.”

“I didn’t tell him to come find me, ” I said, my numb lips barely opening to let the words out.

“You could have gotten hurt. Or worse.”

“Worse, ” I repeated, then coughed a dull, mirthless laugh. I felt like I was dying. Or maybe like I would never finish dying. Like I would be stuck in this pain forever. I turned my eyes up to look at her, furious and scared and swinging wildly with my words. “You mean I could have lost everything I ever cared about? Bad news, that’s already happened. Or do you mean worse like I could have died? Because that would actually have been better. I should have died with them. I wish I had died with them.” Somehow, despite my fatigue, I managed to pull myself to standing. “Death would be a blessing, ” I said, though I knew I didn’t mean it, and I knew that the words hurt her and scared her. I didn’t care. I was beyond caring. I was so confused and so overwrought and so tired of all of this. What did it matter if someone else got hurt? She could join us—the walking-wounded club.

She softened, tried to reach out to me, but I shrugged away. “Oh, Jersey, you don’t mean that. I know you were close to your mom, but—”

“Don’t talk about my mom, ” I snarled, my voice ratcheting up again. “She hated you. She ran away from you before I was born, and she never wanted anything to do with you again. It’s actually a good thing she’s dead, because she would rather die than see me be raised by you.”

My grandmother stiffened, and I was almost certain I saw her eyes go soft and watery, but she kept herself together. “Unfortunately, we’re your only choice, ” she said.

“You can’t call it a choice when there’s only one option, ” I said. “I didn’t choose. I don’t know anything about you. Because my mom didn’t tell us anything. Marin lived and died with no grandparents, don’t you understand that? Marin never even asked about you, because you didn’t exist to her. So thanks for the ‘choice, ’ but no, thanks.”

This time I did see a tear roll down my grandmother’s softly wrinkled cheek, and I was sick enough to feel satisfaction. I even smiled, though inside I knew it was wrong to hurt another person this way. I wasn’t the only one hurting, and my pain wasn’t her fault, wasn’t anyone’s fault. She was just the one getting the blame.

“Jersey, we want to help you, ” she said softly. She reached toward me again, and this time I skirted her and headed for the stairs. “We can get you some grief counseling, ” she called to my back. “We can get you whatever you need. We love you.”

I stomped up the stairs. Grief counseling. Like that was going to work. Like some New Age bullshit-spouting therapist with “coping techniques” was going to bring my mom and sister back.

“Well, I don’t love you, ” I said coldly over my shoulder, not bothering to break my stride. “None of us ever did.”

I slapped the light switch as I reached the top of the stairs, leaving my grandmother in darkness, the same way Meg and Lexi had left me.