That night I was a speck in God’s eye, one little speck, like one of those million blades of grass I’d just ripped out by the roots. He couldn’t think of anything to do about the speck except rub it out. Goddamn Him. When it started to rain, I thought, He’s crying. He’s rubbed and rubbed and the speck that’s Daniel Solstice Landon is still bugging Him. So He’s going to cry me out.
My parents had each other. Joe was off living his own dream and Nick had his whole life ahead of him. God was trying to get rid of me and doing a damn fine job of it. It was the worst fucking night of my life.
Now, even with the stupid sprained ankle, Meredith’s around and I have Holden to help me figure out how to deal with the world. I might have stretched the truth a bit on the bridge when I said life is glorious, but I’ve decided one thing. I’m not going to just let Him rub me out or cry me out like a worthless speck. I’m going out kicking and screaming.
Still feeling a little sorry for myself, I decide to take Meredith’s advice and insist my parents let me go to school. What the hell? They grant dying wishes to prisoners, even serial murderers. Why not people whose cells are all screwed up? I can feel the stupid tears behind my eyes, the dam’s about to overflow, when in walks Nick, home from soccer practice after the first day of school with an armload of books. He dumps them on the built-in bench in the front cabin. “Welcome to tenth grade,” he says with this idiot grin like he’s the Easter Bunny.
“Who asked you to bring those?”
He rips open the bag of carrots—carrots for God’s sake—and shoves a few into his mouth. Then he talks with his mouth full of pulp. Disgusting.
“Mom, that’s who. How else are you going to keep up?”
“What’s the point?”
“Don’t give me that. You love school. Science Fair projects, essay contests. Look at all the books you have junking up our cabin. And don’t forget you started the Plato Club last year. You’re a geek.”
What can you say to that? Hard to believe we share the same genes.
“You’re adopted,” I say.
But he’s not done. “Jumping off one bridge doesn’t make you a super jock.”
“I don’t want to be a super jock. I’d just like to know I could jump off another bridge if I wanted to. Or use my library card next year.”
He takes a double swallow from his water bottle. “Fine, jump off any bridge you want. No one’s stopping you. I was only trying to help.”
Holden would have told Nick to shut up and leave, like he did to Ackley, the dorm mate from hell. Give me my goddamn comb back. Or he would have stomped off himself and left Nick to stew. I don’t get the chance to do either one because Mom honks from the shore and Nick has to take the skiff and go get her. My ankle throbs like hell and you can’t stalk off anywhere on a houseboat.
By scrunching over, I can just reach the new pile of books without getting up. Biology’s on top. Heavier than any textbook I’ve had in school so far, it’s full of diagrams and photos. I look for Dad’s name in the credits, but he’s not there. In the middle is a section of plastic overlays for each system of the human body. Muscles are the first illustration I turn to, and there they are, strapped over anklebone clusters, those pesky little bloodred ribbons that have laid me up before I’m ready to give up the ghost. I forgive Nick. He’s only the messenger.
The table of contents lists twenty-five chapters, including one called “The Immune System.” I’m hooked.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The third week of school my parents get a letter from the Essex County School Board. I had to pick up the mail from the post office box because Mom wouldn’t go in at the last minute. She’s avoiding this witchy woman from the pharmacy who told her Miss T. Undertaker is a quack. On one envelope in our stack I noticed the official gold seal for the county. I figured my parents must have applied for some special school dispensation for me. This letter could be the county’s decision on the attendance issue. Unlikely it’s the county telling us they’ve found money for a tutor or to send me to Timbuktu for the alternative treatment Mom has decided is the preferred way to save her ailing son.
The unopened envelope sits on the counter until Dad gets home. Not that Mom doesn’t pick it up six or seven times and put it right back down again. By the time Dad comes in from using the Internet at the library to send back the newly edited chapters of the latest textbook manuscript, Mom is agitated way beyond normal. She holds the letter up to his face like he ought to know what it is and what she’s thinking. When he doesn’t take it, she rips the envelope open and holds the letter like a medieval royal decree while she reads it. There is a moment of quiet—maybe she’s rereading—and then he moves behind her so he can read over her shoulder.
“Summons,” she says, loud enough for him to step back. “The County School Board ‘summons’ Mr. and Mrs. Stieg Landon? Who the hell do they think they are that they can order parents around? We pay taxes just like everyone else. I’m not going anywhere.”
She reads from the beginning and her voice gets louder. All that official-sounding language. “Re: Daniel Solstice Landon’s failure to report for tenth grade.” With a list of dates. “In violation of” with another string of numbers. Laws, regulations, whatever.
“Did they summon me?” I ask.
“No.” The look of horror on Mom’s face is classic. She analyzes me for the longest time, like she’s not sure who I am.
Dad takes the letter from her and sits down, smoothing the page against the table with that intent look he uses on his editing work.
The solution seems simple to me. “I’ll go with you guys.”
Mom stops pacing long enough to shoot a look of daggers at Dad. Her voice twists in disgust. “The almighty school board suggests it would be preferable if we came without the named student ‘to allow for open discussion.’”
Like I have attention deficit disorder and am incapable of sitting still for a meeting longer than five minutes.
“They can’t force him to go to school if it makes him sicker,” she continues, her words directed at Dad. Is he even paying attention? She’s apparently already decided they should ignore the letter and skip the meeting. “That has to be…unconstitutional.”
“Sylvie. Listen to yourself. What does the Constitution have to do with voluntary medical treatment? You’re making too big a deal out of this. It’s a routine matter. They just figured out some kid on the rolls is missing. They’re only following protocol. Forty, fifty families get this same letter. The school board probably doesn’t even know about Daniel’s leukemia.”
“They’re sticking their noses in our business. Everyone thinks they know what to do and none of them actually have to deal with the reality of it. Nowadays everyone’s a damn expert.”
Earlier that day Dad admitted to Mom that his trips to Chicago, two in three weeks, were conferences with pediatric specialists in AML. This is more of that same argument. She’s apoplectic he went behind her back to consult doctors. She doesn’t trust anyone in the medical establishment since the second the tests came back and proved leukemia was poisoning her offspring. Although it’s hard to fathom how a pediatrician could help. How precise can medicine be if the experts lump a six-foot-tall teenager in with little kids?