The Story Until Now: A Great Big Book of Stories

Family Bed

8 8 8 8 8 —We have to go! Like a mouse with the cat crouched outside waiting, my sister burrows deeper. There is cocoa on her breath. —Why, when it’s so nice? —I mean it, Beth. I jab her fat flank. We are too old to be in here. Frankly, there are crumbs. —Niiice. Bethany, who Mother named after something I don’t know about, drops into sleep like a stone into a pond. Oh sure it’s nice in here. Too nice. Soft and warm and seductive. —Mom, other kids don’t have to go to bed at . . . —Shh, Sarah. Can a person thunder in a whisper? Mother can. —We’re the Dermotts. This is who we are. The six of us are, like, trapped inside an idea she had. We used to be seven, but Darryl went out one night and that’s all I know. Father says Darryl is fighting for our country in Lebanon. —Sarah? My one remaining brother mutters, —Cover for me, dude. My heart lurches. —Bill, you’re not . . . He claps his hand over my mouth. The word comes out in a little puff anyway, —leaving. But he is. Bill bundles pillows into a guy-shaped heap as Mother shuts the book and turns off the light with that hateful snap, like she is shutting the lid on us. During the ritual night-nights, he slithers out like a ferret; outside a car waits—five cute guys giggling and whispering; they are heading for the mall. I grab his hand. —Don’t go. —Children! Mom’s hiss breaks the connection between us. Am I the only one who hears him snaking across the rug? Outside the car starts up and my heart goes after it. There are kids at the mall, cute guys, skateboards and loud music. I poke Bethany. —We can’t go on like this. But we do. You see us on tv, you see us in the magazines, the happy Dermotts , smiling, smiling, smiling and you think, how wonderful: sweet family, together here in the dark, what closer bond? Well, listen. Here in the dark. Family Bed Family Bed 175 Get it? Lights out after bedtime cocoa, that means, whether or not you are sleepy. No music at bedtime, no iPod, no whispering; no squirming and no humming please, you know it gets on my nerves. No Game Boy, children, and no tv, especially not now, and definitely no talking after the half hour officially designated for sharing in which we each have to say something embarrassing to make it stop, and as for cell calls or instant messaging, forget it. You get grounded, or worse. —Mom, it’s only nine p.m.! —Finish your cocoa. It’s nine o’clock, she says in Channel Five news tones. Grimly, she adds what I know by heart. —and I know where my children are. Night night, children. Kisses, everybody. Mmm, now you. Mmmmm. And you. And you. Is she counting? —Sleep tight. Mother, I’m sixteen years old! Nice, you think, but only because our mother has you brainwashed. We have the perfect mother. Everybody says so on tv. We are a media phenom: magazines, supermarket rags. How perfect, you think when she gets all gooshy about family stuff, which she does on every talk show between here and East Wherever, I wish we were close like that. Snug as bunnies in the nest. Do you hear yourselves? —Family bonding, Mother says with that smug, perfect smile, while Daddy nods gravely into whichever camera, yaaas, yaaas. —This is our private, special time. Mom, everybody I care about is down at the mall! But I am jabbed by knees and elbows and sandpaper heels on the special big bed Daddy built for us when we outgrew the super King, six Dermotts locked down for the night. Together. Again. Well, all but one, and this is what they are all ignoring, like: under cover of darkness, my one remaining big brother has fled. I still miss Darryl. I love Billy and I’m scared for him, well, a little bit. But I am also pissed. Why should he have all the fun? He’s malling with slutty Jacie Peterson, for all I know they are going to have sex, and me? I love Tommy, why can’t I . . . It’s for his own good, I think, but I am lying to myself. —Mom. —Shhhshh, Sarah, night-night. —Mo-om! She probably already...