already over.
Was I ever wrong.
The scene inside the chapel hovered on the knife edge of bedlam. Girls and their parents and their siblings all crammed together, everyone wanting to find seats together and nobody able to do it. We located Emma and her mom right away. We hardly ever saw Mrs. Blackburn. She was like Emma, pale and blond, but she’d grown almost transparent with age, like one of the faded nun photographs hanging forgotten in the darkest wing of the upper school. She didn’t go to school events, on account of her migraines, or even leave the house all that much. Emma waved at me but didn’t make a move to bring her mom over to say hello.
We spotted Anjali, who had Dr. Gupta with her, but not her dad—he was on a business trip to Jakarta, which is exactly the kind of glamorous thing that he was always doing. Deena was there with her dad, who shook hands with mine and said, “Hey, Mike, long time.” Jennifer Crawford scowled from a corner while her mother, an aging debutante type in pearls and a twinset, wrapped a loving arm around her pink-haired daughter’s shoulders and whispered in her ear. Fabiana stood off to one side with an intense look on her face, speaking a language I didn’t understand with a woman I initially took to be her sister. They moved their hands the same way, and they were exactly the same height. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have thought Fabiana’s mom was barely twenty years old. Leigh Carruthers hung on her mother in the center of the room while Kathy Carruthers recounted her television appearance to a knot of other listening mothers. Leigh gazed with worshipful eyes into her mother’s face, ignored.
“. . . better give us some answers,” Kathy Carruthers was saying. “I swear, they will if they know what’s good for them. If they don’t, we’re going to take it to the next level, you see if we won’t. I’ve been getting a lot of calls.”
When she said that last part, she raised her eyebrows, or at least, I thought that’s what she was trying to do. The Botox made it so all she could do was widen her eyes until they bulged.
“A lot. Of calls,” she said again.
The women bunched around Mrs. Carruthers all chattered and nodded, a buzzing hive of plotting and scheming and planning to take it to the next level, whatever that meant.
What really surprised me most, though, was the presence of Clara Rutherford.
Yep. Clara.
She floated near the front of the chapel, not far from the lectern, sweetly dressed in a soft pink cardigan and skirt. She was flanked by her parents, each of them holding on to one of her elbows. A void yawned around the three of them. No one crowded in. No one buzzed too close. If it was possible, Clara looked more noble than ever, even though every couple of minutes her head flung itself backward and she let out a sharp cry that sounded like “Tzt tzt tzt HA!”
The Other Jennifer was also there with her parents, and so was Elizabeth. Elizabeth’s mom surprised me—I didn’t remember ever seeing her before. Elizabeth was pretty athletic, doing field hockey and stuff, and I thought she also rode horses. But her mom was this tiny wisp of a woman, wraithlike, her face drawn with worry. We all feasted on the reason why: Elizabeth was in a wheelchair, her wrists drawn up under her chin, contorted with tension, her mouth flapping open and shut, and her eyes kept drifting up to the chapel ceiling. Elizabeth’s mom’s hands gripped the wheelchair handles as if she needed them to hold herself up, too.
“Thank you!” the upper school dean blared into the microphone. “Parents! Students! If I might have your attention, please.”
Our voices lowered without stopping while family clusters started moving into pews.
“Thank you!” the dean said again. “If you all could find your seats, we promise not to take up too much of your time.”
“God, I hope not,” my mother muttered. “Michael? Come over here, please.”
My brother
Was I ever wrong.
The scene inside the chapel hovered on the knife edge of bedlam. Girls and their parents and their siblings all crammed together, everyone wanting to find seats together and nobody able to do it. We located Emma and her mom right away. We hardly ever saw Mrs. Blackburn. She was like Emma, pale and blond, but she’d grown almost transparent with age, like one of the faded nun photographs hanging forgotten in the darkest wing of the upper school. She didn’t go to school events, on account of her migraines, or even leave the house all that much. Emma waved at me but didn’t make a move to bring her mom over to say hello.
We spotted Anjali, who had Dr. Gupta with her, but not her dad—he was on a business trip to Jakarta, which is exactly the kind of glamorous thing that he was always doing. Deena was there with her dad, who shook hands with mine and said, “Hey, Mike, long time.” Jennifer Crawford scowled from a corner while her mother, an aging debutante type in pearls and a twinset, wrapped a loving arm around her pink-haired daughter’s shoulders and whispered in her ear. Fabiana stood off to one side with an intense look on her face, speaking a language I didn’t understand with a woman I initially took to be her sister. They moved their hands the same way, and they were exactly the same height. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have thought Fabiana’s mom was barely twenty years old. Leigh Carruthers hung on her mother in the center of the room while Kathy Carruthers recounted her television appearance to a knot of other listening mothers. Leigh gazed with worshipful eyes into her mother’s face, ignored.
“. . . better give us some answers,” Kathy Carruthers was saying. “I swear, they will if they know what’s good for them. If they don’t, we’re going to take it to the next level, you see if we won’t. I’ve been getting a lot of calls.”
When she said that last part, she raised her eyebrows, or at least, I thought that’s what she was trying to do. The Botox made it so all she could do was widen her eyes until they bulged.
“A lot. Of calls,” she said again.
The women bunched around Mrs. Carruthers all chattered and nodded, a buzzing hive of plotting and scheming and planning to take it to the next level, whatever that meant.
What really surprised me most, though, was the presence of Clara Rutherford.
Yep. Clara.
She floated near the front of the chapel, not far from the lectern, sweetly dressed in a soft pink cardigan and skirt. She was flanked by her parents, each of them holding on to one of her elbows. A void yawned around the three of them. No one crowded in. No one buzzed too close. If it was possible, Clara looked more noble than ever, even though every couple of minutes her head flung itself backward and she let out a sharp cry that sounded like “Tzt tzt tzt HA!”
The Other Jennifer was also there with her parents, and so was Elizabeth. Elizabeth’s mom surprised me—I didn’t remember ever seeing her before. Elizabeth was pretty athletic, doing field hockey and stuff, and I thought she also rode horses. But her mom was this tiny wisp of a woman, wraithlike, her face drawn with worry. We all feasted on the reason why: Elizabeth was in a wheelchair, her wrists drawn up under her chin, contorted with tension, her mouth flapping open and shut, and her eyes kept drifting up to the chapel ceiling. Elizabeth’s mom’s hands gripped the wheelchair handles as if she needed them to hold herself up, too.
“Thank you!” the upper school dean blared into the microphone. “Parents! Students! If I might have your attention, please.”
Our voices lowered without stopping while family clusters started moving into pews.
“Thank you!” the dean said again. “If you all could find your seats, we promise not to take up too much of your time.”
“God, I hope not,” my mother muttered. “Michael? Come over here, please.”
My brother
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