Chapter 3 - A Million Rainbows

Charlie and I climbed the steps to our apartment. It was a two-story complex divided into four units. Our apartment was one of two on the top level.

I entered the house, waiting with my hand on the door as Charlie stomped her feet on the welcome mat, trying futilely to scrape off dirt that wasn’t even there. She was always so … slow …

I closed the door once she was done fiddling and grabbed her backpack. The smell of coffee brewing told us Mom was awake, and Charlie ran into the house in search of her. I glanced at the clock on the wall: five o’clock. Five o’clock wasn’t late for Mom—it was normal.

I unzipped Charlie’s backpack, checking her folder. Being the first day of school, there was no homework, thankfully, but there were about a dozen take-home forms for parents to fill out. I shoved them back into her bag and slung it over my shoulder; those forms were for me.

Our small kitchen was dark and messy. A pile of dishes filled the sink, with a clutter of more dishes and empty food containers covering the counter. A stack of unpaid bills and laundry topped the small round table in the corner. Every surface had a depressing mess of something on it. Mom hadn’t even bothered to take out the trash, and the rancid smell wasn’t mixing well with her cheap coffee.

Squeals of laughter bubbled out of Charlie as she found Mom in the back. I pointlessly opened the fridge. The light was out, but there wasn’t anything for it to illuminate, anyway.

We had some milk left. That was a relief. Charlie could have that. I closed the door, a cold puff of disappointment hitting me.

“Mrs. Patterson brought lasagna,” called Mom from down the hall, “in the freezer.”

I mouthed a silent thank you to Mrs. Patterson, a kind neighbor, who did this kind of stuff sometimes. I opened the freezer and took out the foiled lasagna, popped it into the oven, and set the timer for an hour.

“Hey, babe,” said Mom as she entered, coffee cup in hand. She stretched an arm out and pulled me in for a quick side hug before moving to the coffeepot.

I stared at Mom as she poured her coffee. She was wearing her usual light blue house robe. Her strawberry blonde hair was messy and tangled. She was getting older and would turn forty-one this year. She didn’t have many wrinkles, but her skin was looking softer, pulled down a little near her jaw.

She was still beautiful, though. I always thought she was. Charlie was going to look just like Mom. They both had those large eyes that begged to be looked at and soft ringlet hair that wanted to be touched.

Charlie thought Mom was an angel. She forgave every little thing Mom did or didn’t do.

She wasn’t an angel. She was a broken human.

Charlie always said our version of Mom was wrong, that out there in the other dimensions, she was how she was supposed to be.

I stared at Mom, trying to see her under that light. It was impossible in our dimly lit kitchen.

“How was school?” she asked.

Charlie was only seven, I reminded myself. Kids can dream.

“Fine,” I said.

“A senior.” Mom shook her head. “I can’t believe it.”

“Yep.”

Mom leaned against the counter. There was a pile of dishes in the sink just behind her, and I wondered how she could stand being so close to all that grossness without gagging.

“Sunrise Hill should think about hiring you,” she said with a sip of her coffee. “They need to snatch you up before someone else does.” Mom’s words were slurred; she’d been adding a little more than just cream to her cup.

“Yep,” I said. Sunrise Hill was the nursing home I volunteered at on the weekends. I needed extracurricular activities to beef up my transcript. But, since I always had Charlie to take care of, after-school stuff wasn’t an option. Sunrise Hill let me take her with me. They loved her there. When I needed cash, I’d do the odd babysitting job around town since I could bring Charlie and my homework with me. So I didn’t plan on working at Sunrise Hill, not now or after graduation.

But Mom didn’t know about my plans to leave. She didn’t know because she didn’t ask.

“Have they mentioned it?” asked Mom.

“Yeah, Mrs. Lavigne mentioned something about it.” I wasn’t lying because she had. Mrs. Lavigne had offered me a job on multiple occasions. “I told her I’d think about it.”

“Good, good,” said Mom. “I could use some help around here.”

Wow. That comment hit me like a two-ton snowball, and Mom knew just where to aim it.

“Right,” I said, the sucker punch to my gut causing my breath to catch. I stared at Mom, a slew of my own weighty responses stuck in my throat, ready to toss at her. But an avalanche was descending, waiting to crush me, and I knew it wasn’t worth it.

I swallowed my irritation and turned down the hall to the bathroom.

“Brianna,” Mom called after me, “we were talking.”

She wasn’t yelling. Mom wasn’t a yeller. Her voice was barely above normal speaking level. But the self-pity was thick, perfect at laying the guilt.

Mom had this slow, drawn-out way of attacking me. Poisoning me with silent, unsaid things.

On bad days, it was unbearable.

I usually wasn’t sure if I was having a bad day until I was talking to her.

I stopped, peeking back into the kitchen because it really wasn’t worth it. “Sorry, Mom. I just got to pee.”

“Yeah, okay,” she said. Again, not yelling. Again, not saying much.

She followed me out, passing me in the hall to the living room as I entered the bathroom.

I dropped the backpacks on the ground and leaned against the door.

I sat in the quiet for a second, taking slow, controlled breaths, trying to breathe away the frustration. Putting a stop to the pointless tears that were building in my eyes.

Help around here—Mom’s voice echoed in my head.

I closed my eyes and waited for this wave of resentment to pass.

“Brianna!” Charlie was pounding on the door. “I gotta go to the bathroom.”

“God,” I muttered under my breath. “Can’t get a second.” I took one more breath and swung open the door, letting Charlie in to pee.

Just down the hall was the living room, then another small hall led to the two bedrooms in the back.

“Charlie says you saw one of my books at the library,” said Mom, drawing me to her open door.

I stood there, staring at her. She was sitting on the edge of her unmade bed. Her nightstand beside her, cluttered with bottles, a dangerous combination of pills and alcohol. But those were always there, so I assumed she knew how not to kill herself.

“Yeah, we did,” I said. “Misty’s Calling.”

Mom was a writer. Well, she used to be a writer. She wrote sexy mysteries, and Misty’s Calling was one of her first books, written back when I was a baby.

It was about a murder in Cape Cod, with a hot steamy romance to spice things up. She had some success, nothing major, but her books were still in print, and the royalty checks we received from her publisher were how we managed rent.

A dreamy smile pulled on her lips. “That’s one of my favorites.”

“Mine too.”

I had read all nine of Mom’s novels. They were fun, easy reads, and Misty’s Calling actually was my favorite. It had been many years since she’d written anything new, though. It’d been many years since Mom did anything new.

Help around here—I felt sick.

“Well … I’ve got homework,” I said, tapping myself out on the door frame and leaving Mom alone; she didn’t call after me.

I flipped through Charlie’s stack of library books. “Which one do you want me to read?”

She pulled out the bunny book.

“Okay, scoot over.” I pushed on her bottom and plopped onto the bed beside her.

Charlie and I shared the second bedroom. It was my favorite place in the apartment. Not that it was great or anything. The floor was covered in an ugly, brown, floral-printed linoleum that would have been better suited for a kitchen. The walls were a boring white.

But it was clean.

We didn’t have money for a lot of extra stuff, so there wasn’t much in here. Just our beds, a dresser, and a nightstand. But that was how I liked it.

I kept this room clean: dusted and swept, the bedding, washed weekly at the laundromat across the street. In here, I could breathe. Focus on homework and studying. Focus on not falling apart.

I flipped to the first page of Charlie’s book. “Do you want to practice?”

Her head shook vigorously.

“Okay, okay. You don’t have to. Maybe just look at the words when I read them. I’ll point.”

“But then I won’t see the pictures.”

I sighed. “Yeah, never mind.”

I opened my mouth to read but paused with a thought. I looked at Charlie, unsure if I should ask. “Hey, Charlie,” I said, my curiosity getting the better of me.

“Yeah?”

“What did you mean today, when you said you weren’t going to die?”

Charlie shrugged.

“So you were just making that up, right? You don’t actually know when you’re going to die, right?”

“Yeah huh,” said Charlie with a sharp, indignant nod.

“So you do?”

“Uh huh. I die when I’m old. Like you.”

“Me and you are both old when we die?” I smiled at that, a small laugh escaping.

“Uh huh.”

“Charlie?”

“Yeah?”

“So how much do you know? About the future and stuff?”

She shrugged.

I smiled, thinking how very helpful my psychic sister was. “So if you don’t know how much you know …” I was starting to confuse myself. “How come you were so sure you weren’t going to die today? How do you know for sure it’ll be when we’re old?”

“Because it’s the same in all of them.”

“All of what?”

“All the lives I see.”

“And how many is that?”

Charlie offered the same unhelpful shrug. “I don’t know. They mix together. But it’s in all the close ones.”

“The close ones?”

She nodded. “Uh huh. The ones that are next to us. The ones that are easier to get to.”

“And the other Mom, the one from the park, she’s in one of the close ones?”

Charlie turned a big cheery smile to me, looking too cute.

“So easier to get to? More likely to happen?” I asked.

She nodded.

I put an arm around Charlie, kissing her pumpkin-patch hair, wistfully staring across the room. “I hope you’re right about that, kiddo.”