Fangirl

But now it wasn’t. Now, just sitting this close to Laura unlocked some secret, half-sized door in Cath’s brain. And she could see her mom, in perfect focus, sitting on the other side of their dining room table. She was laughing at something that Wren had said—so Wren kept saying it, and their mom kept laughing. She laughed through her nose. Her hair was dark, and she tucked Sharpies into her ponytail, and she could draw anything. A flower. A seahorse. A unicorn. And when she was irritated, she snapped at them. Snapped her fingers. Snap, snap, snap, while she was talking on the phone. Stern eyebrows, bared teeth. “Shhh.” She was in the bedroom with their dad, shouting. She was at the zoo, helping Wren chase a peacock. She was rolling out dough for gingerbread cookies. She was on the phone, snapping. She was in the bedroom, yelling. She was standing on the porch, pushing Cath’s hair behind her ears again and again, stroking her cheek with a long, flat thumb, and making promises she wasn’t going to keep.

“We’re twins,” Cath said. Because it was the stupidest thing she could think to say. Because that’s what “you still look so much alike” deserved when your mom was the one saying it.

Cath took out her phone and texted Levi. “at the hospital now, still haven’t seen wren. alcohol poisoning. my mom’s here. i’ll call you tomorrow.” And then she texted, “i’m glad that you’re out there somewhere reading this, eventually reading this, it makes me feel better.” Her battery indicator turned red.

Laura got out her phone, too. (Why was Cath calling her that? When she was a kid, Cath hadn’t even known their mom’s name. Their dad called her “honey”—strained and tense and careful—“honey”—and their mom called him “Art.”) Laura was texting someone, probably her husband, and for some reason it pissed Cath off. That she was texting someone right now. That she was flaunting her new life.

Cath folded her arms and watched the nurses’ station. When she felt the tears coming on, she told herself that they were for Wren, and surely some of them were.

They waited.

And waited.

But not together.

Laura got up to use the bathroom once. She walked like Wren, hips swaying, flicking her hair away from her face. “Would you like some coffee?” she asked.

“No, thank you,” Cath said.

While Laura was gone, Cath tried to call her dad again. If he answered the phone, she was pretty sure she’d cry some more, she might even call him “Daddy.” He didn’t answer.

Laura brought back a bottle of water and set it on the table next to Cath. Cath didn’t open it.

The nurses ignored them. Laura flipped through a magazine. When a doctor walked out to the waiting room, they both stood up.

“Mrs. Avery?” he said, looking at Cath’s mother.

“How is she?” Laura said, which Cath thought was a deft response.

“I think she’s going to be fine,” the doctor said. “Her breathing is good. Her oxygen is good. She’s sucking up those fluids—and she roused a bit to talk to me a few minutes ago. I think this is just going to be a scare.… Sometimes a scare can be valuable.”

“Can I see her?” Cath asked.

The doctor looked over at Cath. She could almost hear him think twins. “Yeah,” he said. “That should be fine. We’re just ru

Cath nodded and folded her arms again around her stomach.

“Thank you,” Laura said.

Cath went back to her chair to wait. But Laura stood there by the nurses’ station. After a minute, she walked back to her chair and picked up her Coach bag, tucking a used Kleenex into a pocket and nervously smoothing out the leather straps.

“Well,” she said. “I think I’m going to head home.”

“What?” Cath’s head snapped up.

“I should go,” Laura said. “Your dad will be here soon.”

“But—you can’t.”

Laura slid her handbag up over her arm.

“You heard the doctor,” Cath said. “We’re going to be able to see her in a few minutes.”

“You go see her,” Laura said. “You should go.”

“You should come, too.”

“Is that what you really want?” Laura’s voice was sharp, and part of Cath shrank back.

“It’s what Wren would want.”

“Don’t be so sure,” Laura said, sounding tired again, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Look … I shouldn’t be here. It was a fluke that they called me. You’re here now, your dad’s on his way—”

“You don’t just leave somebody alone in the hospital,” Cath said. It came out aflame.

“Wren’s not alone,” Laura said sternly. “She has you.”

Cath jerked to her feet and swayed there. Not Wren, she thought. I didn’t mean Wren.

Laura wrenched her handbag straps higher. “Cather—”

“You can’t leave like this—”

“It’s the right thing to do,” Laura said, lowering her voice.

“In what alternate universe?” Cath felt the rage burst up her throat like a cork popping. “What sort of a mother leaves the hospital without seeing her kid? What sort of a mother leaves? Wren is unconscious—and if you think that has nothing to do with you, you are skimming the surface of reality—and I’m right here, and you haven’t even seen me for ten years, and now you’re leaving? Now?”

“Don’t make this about me,” Laura hissed. “You obviously don’t want me here.”

“I’m making it about me,” Cath said. “It’s not my job to want you or not want you. It’s not my job to earn you.”

“Cather”—Laura’s mouth and fists were tight—“I’ve reached out to you. I’ve tried.”

“You’re my mother,” Cath said. Her fists were even tighter. “Try harder.”

“This isn’t the time or the place for this,” Laura said softly, steadily, tugging on her handbag. “I’ll talk to Wren later. I’d love to talk to you later, too. I’d love to talk to you, Cather—but I don’t belong here right now.”

Cath shook her head. “Now is all you get,” she spat out, wishing she could make more sense. Wishing for more words, or better ones. “Now is all you ever get.”

Laura lifted her chin and flicked her hair away from her face. She wasn’t listening anymore. She was the Cool One. “I don’t belong here,” she said again. “I won’t intrude like this.”

And then she walked away. Shoulders back, hips swaying.

He’d have to tell the Mage what he saw.

I’ve finally seen the Humdrum, sir. I know what we’re fighting—me.

“What’s left of you,” the monster had said.

What is left of me? Simon wondered. A ghost? A hole? An echo?

An angry little boy with nervous hands?

—from chapter 24, Simon Snow and the Seventh Oak, copyright © 2010 by Gemma T. Leslie

TWENTY-NINE

It was another hour before the nurse came back. Cath drank her bottled water. She wiped her face in her shirt. She thought about how much nicer this waiting room was than the one at St. Richard’s. She tried to mess with her phone, but it was dead.

When the nurse came out, Cath stood up. “Are you here for Wren Avery?”

Cath nodded.

“You can come back now. Do you want to wait for your mom?”

Cath shook her head.

*   *   *

Wren was in a room by herself. It was dark, and her eyes were closed. Cath couldn’t tell if she was sleeping.

“Do I need to watch for anything?” Cath asked the nurse.

“No, she’s just resting now.”

“Our dad will be here soon,” Cath said.

“Okay. We’ll send him back.”

Cath sat down slowly, quietly, in the chair by Wren’s bed. Wren looked pale. She had a dark spot, maybe a bruise, on her cheek. Her hair was longer than it had been at Christmas, hanging over her eyes and curling at her neck. Cath pushed it back.

“I’m awake, you know,” Wren whispered.

“Are you still drunk?”

“A little. Muzzy.”