Page 52 of Just Dare Me
She rolls her eyes. “I see. Now we’re being dramatic.”
“Because you’re doing it, what you always do. You’re pointing to somebody up on a pedestal and saying, ‘Look who you’llneverbe like.’”
She rears back in shock. “I didn’t say that. You did!”
Ignoring her, I turn my palms up to the nightgown on the bed of tree branches. “Either way, it’s true. I’m sorry, Bunica, but everything you spent your whole life building up, I’m going to single-handedly destroy, probably by the end of the week.”
Mom gasps. “Don’t be disrespectful. What’s the matter with you?”
“Honesty is never disrespectful. You think I’m joking? It’s very possible that Detroit will be literally nothing but rubble a week from now, and a lot of people will be saying it’s my fault. So yeah, maybe I feel a littledramaticafter hearing how this city was practically built by my own great-grandma, who—oh, by the way—I also happened to kill.” Sinking to the floor, I lean back against a pantry cupboard door and hang my head, letting my hair drape over my eyes.
There’s a long pause in which I can hear Mom breathing, sniffing. After ripping a paper towel from a roll on the counter, she slides down the pantry cupboard door to sit next to me. “I was upset at Bunica for shifting when she did. It wasn’t nature’s time yet. Not really. She could’ve had a few more years. Maybeupsetisn’t the right word. I was angry. Very angry. Although…maybeangryisn’t the right word, either. I don’t know.” She runs the paper towel under her eyes. “But there was no talking her out of it. She wanted to shift, because that would start the process of her dominance transferring to you. She said that right now you needed it more than she ever did.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I watch Mom fold the paper towel into a neat square.
“As for what happened today with Ben,” she continues, “Bunica found the only solution that would leave both of you alive. Just imagine how long she’ll be patting herself on the back for that one.” Her shoulders shake with a silent laugh. “The point is, nobody killed her. You honestly think she would let anybody take that kind of credit? Even you? The truth is that, like always, Bunica got exactly what she wanted.”
Her words are comforting. In fact, more comforting than my pride will allow. In my own twisted way of saying thanks while still saving face, I give Mom a backhanded compliment. “Ugh. Just stick to the guilt thing, Mom. I’ll tell you a little secret: it works. I’ve never admitted it before, but I am now. It makes me feel like shit when I know I’ve disappointed you. I wish it didn’t, but it does.”
“Oh,guilt. Right. Let me tell you about guilt. Guilt is knowing that Bunica—the mother I never deserved—was about to shift for the last time, after which I’d never be able to talk to her again—never laugh with her again, never brush her hair again, or help her to the bathroom in the middle of the night, or rub the numbness out of her legs in the morning. One last chance to tell her how much I still need her, as if I’m still just a lost and lonely teenager. But…I didn’t.” She draws a rattling breath, fighting for composure. “I didn’t say any of those things. Didn’t acknowledge her. Not even a look.”
The image is still fresh in my mind: Bunica walking away from the group, having said her last good-byes to everybody except Mom, who kept her back turned. I remember willing her to turn around, to say something. Because I knew exactly how she would feel later if she didn’t. I remember relating to her in that moment. I completely understood. “Yeah, but that’s not because you were upset. You weren’t angry, you wereafraid. It was too difficult to face.”
“I couldn’t. Iphysicallycouldn’t do it.”
“I know. Trust me.”
She presses the paper towel to her nose. Her voice changes, sounding hopeful. Desperate, even. “You do?”
“Mom. I’ve only had that same reaction, like, five times a day since I was twelve. And do you know who always let me get away with it? Little Bunica. You think she doesn’t speakus?You think she didn’t know that all those things you wished you’d said actuallyweresaid by the fact that you couldn’t even look at her?”
Overwhelmed by emotion, Mom breaks into frenzied sobs, while somehow managing to babble through them. “God, Shayne, I was so worried that without Bunica, there’d be nobody left in the world who understood me, but now you’re here, and that’s a miracle in itself.”
My vision blurs with tears as an incredible pressure is released from my heart. Years and years of crusty, stubborn hard feelings are finally knocked loose and swept away in a powerful, unexpected deluge. I lay my head on her shoulder and croak, “I know, Mom.”
Throwing her arms around me, she kisses my forehead and weeps into my hair. Sitting there, letting my mommy hold me, I suddenly connect another parallel between us. Mom had always fought with Bunica—they were oil and water—until my sister Blanche was born, after which they became inseparable, seemingly in an instant. I know that same instant has just occurred for me and Mom.
She says, “It was the same with us, you know. You and me. After you left, it’s not that I was angry at you.”
“Your feelings were hurt.”
She squeezes me tighter. “That’s right.”
“I know. I didn’t before. But I do now. It wasn’t you. It’sme. I’ve just been such a…brat. Selfish and self-centered and who knows what else. And I’m thinking now that you were right all those times you said I deserve to have a kid just like me someday.”
She laughs. “Do you know how Bunica always answered when I would say that to her after you stormed off to your room? She would just smile and say, ‘If only she could be so lucky.’ And that would always make me smile, because she’s right.”
“I miss her already.”
“Me too.”
With every passing second I seem to sink deeper and deeper into Mom’s side, like wrapping myself in a favorite quilt. “I just want to stay home in a warm bed and never face the world again.”
“I know. I think everybody wants that now and then.”
“This is all I want. Just to be with Jay, but also you guys—my family—and just do my little job at the Agency. That’s all. I don’t want any of the other stuff—the scrutiny and the blame and—”
“The responsibility.”
