Out of the Box(23)

“You don’t always have to fix everything, you know,” she says. “Sometimes it would help if you just listened.”

I don’t tell her that I’ve been trying to do that. What’s the point when it’s obviously not enough?





FIFTEEN


Frank, dressed in an orange Hawaiian shirt and jeans, is sitting on his patio reading a book when I arrive. “Welcome, welcome!” he calls.

I grin and wave. The first time I came here, I never would have imagined feeling so at home in this strange, crowded space, but right now this is the only place I feel relaxed and happy. Frank is always thrilled with my progress, and he talks to me like I’m an equal, the way Jeanette talks to me when she’s not trying to save me from my parents.

I have to say, though, that Jeanette didn’t stay condescending for long. She’s stopped asking for the phone when I’m talking to my mom, and we don’t discuss my home life anymore. As for Mom, I’ve tried to smooth things out between us, but I think she still wonders if I secretly hate her.

“I think I’ve almost got the song nailed,” I tell Frank. “I mean, I know it’s probably not very tough, but when you first showed it to me, I thought I could never do it.”

“Of course you can!” he says, getting up from his wooden lawn chair. “Come on. Let’s get this show on the road.”

We settle around the canoe, and I’m about to open my case when he says, “Hey, before I forget, I went to the address you found in the envelope.”

“You did?”

“No news, I’m afraid,” he says. “The people there just moved in a few years ago, and the family before that was only there for a few years too. No one in the neighborhood seems to have been there for more than a few years.”

“You asked other people in the neighborhood too?”

“Of course,” Frank says. “That’s what a good sleuth has got to do, right?”

I nod. “I’ve done a bit of sleuthing too.” I tell him what I’ve learned about Andrés and Caterina’s son, Facundo García.

Frank goes very still. “So now what?”

I shrug. “I wanted to look up the son on the Internet, but I ran out of time at the library on Saturday, and I haven’t been back since.” I don’t add that Jeanette seems to be keeping me away from the library—and email—whenever she can. She stops short of forbidding me to go on my own or with Sarah, at least. After our conversation about Mom’s message, Jeanette and I were silent for a long time, but it’s impossible to stay mad at Jeanette for long. By suppertime, we were teasing each other and laughing again, and before going to bed, she came to my room to apologize for meddling. We’ve been spending all our time together ever since, hiking, cherry-picking or going to the lake for a swim. This morning I had thoughts of going to the library, but she invented some desperate need to find a set of electric massaging slippers that she knew were in the basement somewhere, and she made lunch so late that I had to rush to my lesson.

What she doesn’t know is that I’m not interested in emailing Mom anyway. Our last few conversations have left me completely exhausted, and afterward I go to bed only to stare at the ceiling. At about midnight the night after my fight with Jeanette, I pulled out the book on mental health and started reading. The common warning signs of mental illness looked uncomfortably familiar: sleeplessness, changes in appetite, extreme highs and lows, irritability, negative thoughts, excessive worries and anxieties.

And then I found this:

Researchers believe that, in most cases, genetics and environmental factors, such as stress, play a role in mental illness. The sooner one recognizes the warning signs, the better. It’s never too early or too late to seek professional help.

I slammed the book shut, shoved it under my bed, snapped off the light and smacked my head down on my pillow. No matter how hard I squeezed my eyes shut, though, sleep wouldn’t come.

And my thoughts wouldn’t go away.

Nothing I’ve done has been enough. Listening to my parents’ problems. Thinking up ways to make their lives easier. Getting good grades. Trying to be the perfect daughter. What difference has it made? They’re still miserable.

Part of me knows Jeanette’s right about Mom’s mental health, and I’m starting to feel like an idiot for not seeing it before. All my talk of supporting my family, and I didn’t even know my own mother was sick. The next day we had another shift at the soup kitchen, and that freaked me out even more. If Mom can develop mental-health issues without me even noticing or being able to help, how far is she from turning into Diane, who hears God’s voice, or George, who is convinced that we spit in his sandwich before handing it to him? How will I know when she’s at the breaking point?