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Before

BEFORE

It is a cold winter day in Wisconsin. The kind of mean-girl cold where my eyes water from the winds gusting off the lake, not from the fact that I’m terrified that Mom is once again, full blown manic.

I stamp my galoshes on the snow-embedded gravel trying to center myself as she pitches trash bags bloated with papers, clothes, and food, into the back of our salt-stained beater SUV. Mom’s bad episodes happen twice a year. On occasion, a psychotic split lands her in a place with a 72-hour hold, and they keep her locked up for a few weeks or months.

When Mom’s able to function, when she’s able to swing through normal highs and lows and not crash like a meteor to earth, they release her, and she comes home to me and my sister. She comes home to people who love her. “Hey, Mom,” I say. “Ms. Portman my ballet teacher decides who goes to recital today.”

“Ballet’s on hold,” Mom says squeezing over-stuffed grocery bags into the car.

I peer down at my winter boots – mid-calf length galoshes, and focus on the dangling laces. If they can stay attached, I can too. I silently recite the words the social worker, Miss Williams told me over and over until they ear-wormed into my brain. ‘You are strong, Evie. You are sturdy. Not a rickety shed shaking in a twister’s path. You survive when the storm blows through.’

“In the car. Now.” Mom says slamming the back door over and over until it latches.

I climb in the back next to Ruby who is already strapped into the seat next to me, absorbed in her tablet.

Mom slides in behind the wheel yanking the door shut. “Check your sister’s safety belt.”

I know it’s fine yet I tug on it to make Mom happy. “Good.”

“Again,” Mom says, turning the key over and over, the engine grinding until it fires.

“Good,” I say, passing a hand over it, unzipping my backpack, staring at the ballet slippers that I packed in the hopes that today might be uneventful: that our spur of the moment trip is simply a run to the store for milk, or eggs, or something special Mom’s cooking for her boyfriend, Kyle, when he gets home from work at the hardware store.

Mom revs the engine. “I am done with Kyle and his shit for good.”

My heart wobbles. “This time.”

“Forever time,” she says. “Buckle up. We’re out of here.”

I cinch the belt across my lap.

‘When the storm blows through, Evie,’ Miss Williams told me, hold onto something. A person. A feeling. A thought. Something solid with heft and grit that keeps you grounded no matter the twister spinning around you.’

I think. I reach. I find it. Ballet. I’m still hoping Ms. Portman picks me for the recital. “Mom, about ballet…”

“Ballet’s not happening today.” Mom throws the car in reverse, squints out the rear window and backs like a bullet out of the long, skinny driveway, snow piled high on either side.

“Uh-oh.” Ruby clutches her stomach, a frown on her face.

This isn’t the first time we’ve left home in a hurry. Most likely we will be gone for a few days, maybe a week. Nine out of ten times we return. Quietly. Shamefully. Apologetically. ‘Please. I didn’t know what I was thinking,’ Mom would say to the live-in boyfriend. ‘I’m sorry. It will never happen again. I don’t know what got into me.’

She screeches out of the driveway onto the rural road, a skinny patch of gray asphalt, lonely against the white winter day, and I hope that I don’t puke, ‘cause I’m feeling sicker by the second. She throws the car in drive, and we pitch forward. Thick clouds bump across the open skies. It’s as if the heavens unzipped them, and a big sloppy mess of snowflakes hit the windshield.

Ruby burps, her cheeks popping apple red.

“If I miss ballet today Miss Portman won’t let me be in the recital,” I say. The nerves in my stomach sizzle like drops of grease dancing in a frying pan.

“Miss Portman can be a bit of a bitch,” Mom says. “There’ll be other recitals.” We shoot down the stark, narrow road, blow past telephone poles, skeletal trees, heaps of snow plowed in odd shapes like puzzle pieces that don’t fit. Crows circle high in the cloudy gray skies over the fields.

A knot grows thick and hard, curling and tightening in my stomach. Queasy and Hope, my usual team of advisors, give me a heads up when something’s not the norm. When something’s playing out a little different.

‘Pay attention, Evie, take a ticket, and hop aboard. Your ride’s leaving the station.’ Queasy says, always the worrier.

‘Maybe everything will turn out just great!’ Hope’s the eternal optimist.

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