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“You can’t blame yourself for this, Donna,” my mother said.
Despite how cluttered my mind was with facts and information, she was able to read it. There was nothing to study about it, no tests to measure it, no psychiatric report to research. It was clearly and simply part of what a mother was: connected to her child.
• • •
My father came to my room a little after nine P.M. I had refused to eat any dinner. My mother brought some toast and jelly with a glass of milk and left it for me, but I never touched it. All I did was shower and change and lie on my bed, drifting into short sleeps on and off. I sat up when I saw my father in the doorway.
“What?” I said. I didn’t want to go through any preliminary preparation for what he was going to say.
“I’m afraid he’s lost the eye, Donna. The piece that pierced it was too large and damaging. But he’ll be fine otherwise.”
“There is no otherwise after that,” I said.
“They’ve arrested that boy.”
“He’ll have an easier time living with what he’s done than Greg will have living with what has happened to him.”
I could see how much my cold facts and the way I could state them so clearly, firmly, and almost without emotion bothered him.
But that’s who I was and probably why I hated myself.
“I’m sorry,” my father said. What else could he say? He left, retreating from the cold, hard, and bitter look in my eyes.
Of all the others at the beach with us, Renata was the only one who called me. I had the sense that she had seen worse things in her life in Honduras. There was something hard and terribly mature in her voice when she spoke, reliving the details before and after the fight.
“You shouldn’t blame yourself for any of it,” she said. “Mateo is a hothead. I wouldn’t bet on his future.”
“I’m sure you’re right.”
She was silent a moment and then added something that I didn’t know yet would affect a major choice in my life.
“I want to warn you. Not everyone agrees with me. You’ll probably hear others say ‘Señorita Genius,’ and not in a nice way.”
“I don’t care what they say. But thank you.”
“Buena suerte, Donna,” Renata said before hanging up.
It almost brought me my first laugh since the fight. Who would believe it? Me, Señorita Genius, needed one of those “normal” girls to wish me good luck? Me? I could be the next Albert Einstein.
On Sunday night, I told my parents that I didn’t want to go to school on Monday. I could do what I did there in my own room, even in my closet. They both looked troubled, but neither offered any arguments.
I didn’t go on Tuesday, either. I had no intention to go on Wednesday.
I didn’t know it then, but my parents had been called to meet with Mrs. Pelham on Wednesday. My father had to take the morning off. Neither revealed anything until after dinner. They wanted me to speak with them in the living room. Mickey was sent to his room to do his homework. I imagined it was going to be a lecture about my not returning to school. I had decided I would go back the next morning. Maybe that would make the lecture shorter.
The coffee table had been cleared, and there was some sort of pamphlet opened and spread out on it. I glanced at it and sat on the sofa. My parents sat in the two matching chairs across from me, neither of them smiling.
“I’ll go to school tomorrow,” I said as soon as I sat.
“Maybe you won’t,” my father replied. “Or if you do, it will be to get more answers about this from Mrs. Pelham.”
“Mrs. Pelham? Answers about what?”
“We met with her this morning,” my father said. “She called me at the drugstore yesterday when you weren’t in school. Of course, everyone knows what happened at the beach. We talked for a while, and then she suggested that your mother and I visit her this morning. She said she had a solution for you and that she was very excited about you. She’s very fond of you,” he added.
Suspicious, I leaned forward and picked up the brochure.
“Spindrift? It looks like some old mansion.”
