Splinters of Light Read online

  “Seven . . .”

  No. There wasn’t anything to tell.

  Three pairs of eyes were trained on Ellie’s phone, which she’d propped up against one of those candles Mom had said she wanted to carve but then hadn’t done anything with except light. She should have cleaned her screen. The black background of the clock was showing all the smudges, especially at the bottom where the keyboard normally was.

  “Six . . .”

  What would happen in the next year? A year and a half of high school felt like forever, but then she’d be somewhere else. Smith, if she was lucky, far away. Smith was her first choice, the college she’d spent the most time imagining herself at. It was the largest of the Seven Sisters colleges. Any school that had turned out both Julia Child and Madeleine L’Engle was a good place to be, Ellie figured. UCLA was on the short list, too, and she was considering Portland, even though she had no clue what she wanted to do. To be. It was only the rest of her life at stake.

  “We know you’ll pick the school that’s best for you,” her mother would say. “We stayed close to home, and we both regret it sometimes. You’ll make the right decision.”

  No pressure, though.

  It usually didn’t bother Ellie to hear her mother or her aunt talk about herself in the plural form—both of them did it, practically unconsciously. Every once in a while, though, it made Ellie feel lonely. Like she was the only one who didn’t get someone. She’d never have a person, not like they did. Mom and Mariana had been born together—Ellie couldn’t compete with that. Her half sister, TeeTee, was eleven and a total brat. She competed in beauty pageants, for god’s sake. Her stepmom totally did the whole makeup and puffy hair Toddlers and Tiaras thing. It was creepy.

  Sometimes Ellie thought she could almost remember when her dad was actively still being her dad instead of just some guy who sent money to her mom and called her once a month to apologize—again—about how busy his life was and how he couldn’t come pick her up to have lunch even though he lived only an hour away. Other days she wondered if she was just making up the memories, crafting them from photographs, stitching them together with wishes like her mom stuck rickrack to kitschy potholders.

  Sometimes she just wanted to be the most important person to someone. That was all. If she’d said it out loud, Mom would have denied it—would have said that she loved Ellie best of all. But she knew the truth. She was okay with it, mostly.

  Now that Mom and Harrison had done the deed, they’d probably shack up, too. They were probably already talking about her going away to college so they could have sex in every room. Loud, middle-aged, horrifying sex. You would think once anyone hit forty, they would give up on the idea. What was the point? Also, gross. Ellie had suspected it, sure, from the way her mom suddenly stopped going to Harrison’s house for her glass of wine at night. Yeah, Ellie was out of the house one night and suddenly they couldn’t look at each other? It had been pretty clear.

  Ellie would have preferred it, though, if it had just remained a suspicion. Hearing it confirmed while she was coming down the stairs—that was just disgusting. It changed immediately from kind of amusing to just plain awful.

  No whoring around. That’s what she and Samantha said laughingly to Vani at school, who basically slept with anything that moved, up to and including the janitor, Simmons. The janitor. But that was hilarious. That was just Vani. She’d always been advanced, and she didn’t mind that Samantha and Ellie weren’t ready yet.

  Ellie stared at the numbers on her phone, which were changing so slowly she could almost hear the electrons inside gathering, rallying to change shape and charge. She knew she’d never say the words to her mother in jest. No whoring around, Mom. Even thinking the words made her kind of want to cry.

  What if they wanted to get married or something? What would happen to the house? What if Mom sold it when she went to college? College students went home for the holidays, and if there was no home to go to, didn’t that just mean there was no point to having holidays? She’d be the one student eating in the freezing cafeteria, the women dishing out plates of turkey and mashed potatoes with a side of pity. One of the cafeteria workers would probably take her home with her that night, saying that any girl needed to be in a warm family home on Christmas Eve. For some reason, Ellie pictured this happening in New York City, even though she wasn’t planning to apply to any school there. But the cafeteria worker who ushered her into an old station wagon driven by her red-cheeked husband lived just a bit upstate, and in her imagination, they sped through New York, the husband surprisingly good at jostling for road space among the bossy taxicabs. He drove hard and fast until they reached a country road lined by trees covered with snow, and then, inside the cozy suburban home, they sat Ellie next to their four children and fed her Jell-O and slices of salami the dad had cured in the workshop out back. It was practically a story. Ellie imagined herself writing it out. Maybe she would try later. She kept trying to finish short stories, but the most she ever got was a few pages in before they seemed as lame and stupid as the pink baby-duck pajamas her mom had bought her. It was weird how good a writer she always thought she was until she actually tried to write anything.

  “Five . . .”

  Not knowing about Mom and Harrison hurt her feelings, that was all. She’d even asked her mom if anything had happened with him. Okay, Ellie hadn’t been that blunt—she didn’t say, “Did you fuck the neighbor?” which was what Vani probably would have said even to her own mother—but she’d very clearly said, “I don’t understand why you’re not going to hang out over there. Like you always do. Did something happen between you two?” The most important thing was to get her mom to start going over there again—as his friend—because sometimes Ellie felt like that hour or so her mother was out of the house was the only time she had to herself, ever. Every other minute of the day was consumed: by water polo practice in the morning, by the following seven periods of classes, then by homework at the study center her mom insisted was to help her learn study skills but Ellie knew was actually an expensive form of babysitting. Then her mother picked her up and took her home, where she had eyes in the back of her head. If Ellie was just lying on her back on the bed, her head hanging off, dangling toward the ground, Mom knew she wasn’t doing anything productive and would be standing in the doorway before she knew it, suggesting she clean her room or do more homework. When Mom was at Harrison’s, though, Ellie could sit and space out. Watch TV. Lie in the bathtub and consider the shape of her big toes—something was wrong with them, but she hadn’t been able to figure out what it was. It wasn’t for lack of trying. Were they just a bit too long, or fat in the base, or . . .

  Her mother nudged her shoulder. “Four . . .”

  It was something to think about. She didn’t want her mom selling the house, no. But there might be pluses to this, if it happened. If Mom and Harrison lived together, they’d be too busy cooing at each other to notice what she did, right? And he had that whole third floor that he kept saying he was going to make into a separate apartment—maybe he would do that for her. That would be something. Sam and Vani would like that. She’d be the cool one, for once. They’d come spend the night, and she would lift a bottle of wine from Harrison’s stash, and they’d watch the R-rated movies Vani’s parents didn’t let her watch and text the boys that Vani had slept with, teasing them with boob Snapchats or worse.

  “Three . . .”

  Ellie had done that only once, and honestly, it had felt less weird pushing the send button than it had lifting her bra so Samantha could snap the picture of her breasts. Not like Eric or Jake would even know which girl was which (except for Vani—her bra size went along with her experience), but it was still weird. Sure, the photo was supposed to last only ten seconds before self-destructing, but what if it didn’t? What if Eric, who had built a working Tesla coil in his garage, had figured out how to get around the thing that disallowed screenshots, and a pic
ture of her naked chest was out there? What if it was recognizable? What if it got into his parents’ hands and was then eventually identified and sent back to her mother with a note, “Please teach Ellie to keep her shirt on at all times.”

  She would just have to kill herself.

  “Two!”

  On one side, her mother clutched her hand. It kind of hurt. On her left, Aunt Mariana took her other hand, her skin cool and soft, reassuring as always. Together, they said, “One!”

  “Happy New Year!”

  There was a flurry of hugs, and then her mother said, “Go on, Ellie.”

  It was her job to open the door and let in the New Year.

  “Nah.”

  Her mother looked instantly hurt, as if Ellie was doing it specifically to pain her.

  “Why not?”

  Ellie shrugged. “I don’t want to.”

  “But . . .”

  “If it’s that big a deal to you, why don’t you just do it?” Ellie didn’t mean to sound like a kid in the playground—No, you play with Joel—but it was too late to take it back. “I mean, I always do it. Time for someone else to have a turn.”

  “But . . .” Her mother just kept sitting there, looking like she was going to cry or something.

  “I can do it—,” started Mariana.

  “Fine.” Ellie stood and then stomped to the door. She flung it open. “There. Are you happy?” She looked at her mother, who looked horrified.

  Ellie’s cheeks were on fire and she knew she shouldn’t say another word, but she couldn’t stop herself. “Come on in, New Year!” she yelled into the darkened street. She heard fireworks and the faint pops of gunfire. “Do your worst!”

  Then Ellie flounced—she could feel herself doing it even though she hated herself for it—upstairs, tossing over her shoulder, “I’m tired. You two just keep drinking. You can have my lemon and honey. Happy fucking New Year.”

  Two gasps. She got two gasps out of it. This year was going to suck, and she would never figure out where she was supposed to apply to college and for what, and it would be her fault for not opening the goddamned door when her mother told her to. But she’d gotten a rise out of them both. She mentally patted herself on the back so hard that if she’d done it for real, she would have knocked herself all the way to the ground. It almost made up for feeling so terrible.

  Chapter Seven

  EXCERPT, WHEN ELLIE WAS LITTLE: OUR LIFE IN HOLIDAYS, PUBLISHED 2011 BY NORA GLASS

  Valentine’s Day

  When she entered kindergarten, Ellie got her first taste of the way popularity works, thanks to Valentine’s Day.

  Ellie was well liked by the children in her class. Her teacher said she was a pleasure to teach. She got along well with most. I predicted no trouble for her.

  But do mothers ever get that right?

  That first year, one girl named Sissy got all the good cards. There were rules, of course, that every child had to give one card to every other child. (I wondered about the single mothers of five, the women who could barely get protein on the table at night, let alone afford two boxes of Valentine’s Day cards for each kid.)

  There were no rules, however, about what kind of card had to be given.

  Sissy got five cards with chocolate attached. She got three oversized foil cards and two filled with glitter. One of her cards sang. Sissy was a pretty child, with long blond perfect hair. She wore black shoes that shone every day, never scuffed. She had a light singsong lisp and a way of dispensing random hugs that made even the playground moms smile at her harder, hoping to be graced with one. Everyone wanted to be her best friend, including Ellie.

  Ellie asked if she could make Sissy a card, instead of giving her one of the Peanuts cards we’d bought. I didn’t understand playground politics yet. I thought it would be sweet. I even thought perhaps Sissy would choose my daughter to be her best friend. I wanted that. I pictured kindergarten to be something like my yoga group. After you went a few times, you were accepted, greeted happily, and embraced upon leaving. In my mind, Sissy was the equivalent of my friend Lily, a woman who looked right into your eyes when she asked how you were, a woman I’d been so pleased to have been chosen as a friend by. So I understood.

  I helped Ellie glue the handmade hearts onto the construction paper card. Ellie knew her letters by then and composed the words she often put in cards she made for me, “I love you.” She added, “Your friend, Ellie.”

  Ellie told me later that when Sissy had opened the card from Yolanda that sang Christina Aguilera’s “Beautiful,” the construction card Ellie had made had slipped off Sissy’s desk to the floor, where Rodney Byron had stepped on it, mashing it into three mangled pieces before he moved away.

  Sissy never noticed.

  What Ellie didn’t know then—what I didn’t know—was that she’d be hurt like this a hundred times before it would hurt less. She’s only eleven as I write this essay, she’ll be fourteen when this book falls into your hands, and her true romantic heartbreaks are still to come, all lined up in her future. How I wish I could see into each one of them. How I wish I could meet each man (or woman—I don’t care one way or the other) she’ll love, how I wish I could prep him—this is the woman you treat well. I don’t care about any of the others you’ve loved. This is the one who matters. Don’t make this girl of mine ache for even the smallest fraction of a moment or I will tear your head off your body like a paper doll and then light it on fire.

  Sissy was just a girlfriend crush, but I wanted to step on that little girl’s fingers. (Don’t look at me like that. You’ve felt that way, too.) By the next day, Ellie had shrugged it off and sworn undying love to Yolanda of the singing card. I still steamed, staring holes in the back of Sissy’s blond head as she swung delicately upside down from the monkey bars.

  How do parents balance this love? On one side, it’s crushing, completely and totally. The power of your love could flatten a star, could create a black hole—the vast, dense weight of your love sucking everything inward, even the radiance of light itself. On the other side, it’s weightless. A breath against your cheek, a moment in time that slips through your fingers, as ephemeral as the quiet bubbles she blew as a baby.

  That crushing, lightweight love fills and empties you within the space of a single blink.

  Wish your babies Happy Valentine’s Day. Look forward to watching them fall in love over and over again. And relax, resting in the sunlight, consoled by the knowledge you will never again love as desperately as you do now.

  Chapter Eight

  The funny thing was that Nora wasn’t nervous when she went in to meet with Dr. Niles. She could admit she might have been a little obsessed with WebMD when it first hit the Internet, but she liked to think she channeled her hypochondria for good now. Using a combination of the Mayo Clinic Symptom Checker, the NIH, and the CDC, she’d successfully diagnosed her friend Lily’s onset of Bell’s palsy and Ellie’s whooping cough. She was good at diagnosing the difference between a cold and the flu (it was usually a cold). She had all the markers of perimenopause: breast tenderness, urinary urgency, fatigue. Her period had been five days late last month, and the PMS had been horrible. Always driven to clean while premenstrual, Nora had taken down the ceiling fans—actually uninstalling each one—to swab each blade with her homemade vinegar–tea tree oil cleaner. (Her column “Does Green Really Clean?” had gone viral the year before, getting more than four million reads and pushing When Ellie Was Little back onto the bestseller list, and now, even if she’d wanted the industrial strength of 409, she wouldn’t have been able to justify buying a bottle of it.) She predicted the doctor would tell her to start thinking about HRT (she wasn’t interested), and then she’d get back to work on the column that was giving her fits, the one on how working from home could be just as productive as working from an office. In annoying irony, she kept wandering away from the computer, forgetting to fin
ish it.

  Dr. Niles’s office could have doubled as a hotel lobby, full of healthy potted plants and watercolor paintings of boats and bays. When Nora was done filling out paperwork, the tan receptionist handed her a box of Valentine hearts with a conspiratorial smile. The pink Be Mine tasted like a preschool chalkboard might, granular and sweet. While she chewed her way through the small box, she played with the piece of beach glass she’d chosen that morning—pure, clear blue, and perfectly round. It was a good worry stone, made for a doctor’s office. She put it back in her pocket when she started to put it in her mouth, almost confusing it with the candy heart in her left hand.

  The doctor herself was as pretty as the office, with a blond bob and a manner so warm Nora thought she might have missed her calling as a preschool teacher. She could picture Dr. Niles bending down to stick a SpongeBob Band-Aid on a six-year-old, receiving kisses that smelled of peanut butter. She would be careful with germs and keep one of those tiny plastic bottles of Purell in the front pocket of her adorable smock, which she’d wear un-ironically. Ellie’s preschool teacher, when Nora thought about it, had been someone who should have been a doctor. Mrs. Finchly’s posture had been so rigid Nora had sometimes wondered if she wore a brace under her plain dresses. She’d smiled at the kids, but Nora had never seen her squat on the playground, arms wide open, like all the mother-helpers did. Mrs. Finchly took her job seriously. Much more seriously than the teacher in the other preschool class did, the one who was always wandering around with Play-Doh on her dress and her arms filled with finger-painted maracas and flutes made of bamboo. Yes, Mrs. Finchly would have inspired more trust as a doctor than as a teacher.

  In Dr. Niles’s office, Nora asked her, “Did you ever teach?”

  The doctor shuffled a paper, pushing it underneath a brown manila folder. Was that where the answers were? The nerves Nora hadn’t been feeling rushed in to fill their familiar place. She wanted to reach forward, grab the folder, and run. In her car, she would read the words that would tell her why they’d taken so much blood, why the phlebotomist with two-almost-three children looked at her so strangely the last time she’d sat in his ergonomically correct chair with the armrests made for tired elbows. If she didn’t understand the words, she’d google them on her phone. She was a trained reporter, after all. She knew how to do research.