Chapter 38: Sunday Night

I knew things had changed even before I opened my eyes. I wasn’t lying on a carpet anymore. My head was on a pillow instead of Tara’s lap. I had blankets over me and a warm body lying on each side of me. The sound of steady breathing told me that the bodies were alive, so I guess that was a plus. Also I could feel something wrapped tightly around each of my wrists – that was a bit weird.

I opened my eyes and looked around. I was lying on the floor of my room. From the feel of it, we were lying on the thin foam mats we used for camping. The door was open and a light was on in the hallway so enough light spilled into the room that I could make out some details of what was around me. With just a tiny bit of wriggling and moving my head around, I figured out that it was Tara and Liz that were lying next to me. They were both way off in dreamland. We were lined up on the floor with our heads pointing at my closet doors and our feet pointing at my bookcase. It’s good that none of us is super tall or our feet would’ve been filed away on the bottom shelf in between Harry Potter and Enid Blyton.

The wrapping around my wrists was puzzling me. I pulled my arms up and out from under the blankets so that I could see – or at least I tried to. Both arms moved about six inches and then they stopped. They were tied to something. I pulled a bit more firmly and my arms moved again but I was dragging something – or possibly two somethings, one on each wrist.

I used my hands to pull the blankets down so that I could see what was going on. Wide strips of material – offcuts from curtains Mum had made for Angie’s room – were tied around my wrists. One of my wrists was tied to Tara’s wrist and the other was tied to Liz’s wrist. I had about six inches of slack material on each side so I could lift my arms up and have two other arms dangling underneath like string puppets.

What was most fascinating was that I could move their arms around quite a bit and not wake up either Tara or Liz. I played puppets for a short while before I relaxed my arms and tried to think about the bigger picture. Straight away I came up with several interesting questions.

Why was Liz still here? As far as I knew, Liz was going home straight after the party and it was clearly after the party.

Why was Tara in my room with me?

Why were we all lying on my bedroom floor?

But the most puzzling question of all was also the most obvious one.

Why was I tied up?

I stared up at the ceiling but there didn’t seem to be any answers up there. I looked inside my skull for an explanation. That’s when I found my memories of the afternoon. Apparently little bits of my brain had been busy while I wasn’t paying attention. All those memories had been picked up and glued together. There were bits missing and they weren’t really in any proper order so it took me a while to follow through and figure out what I could about what was going on. My memories ended at the point where I collapsed in the living room – oh, plus the bit where I vomited.

They didn’t explain why I was lying on the floor of my bedroom, securely tied between my sister and my best and only friend. But they did explain why I collapsed in the first place. It was all there; my father’s betrayal, my mother’s indifference, my brother’s isolation. The tears came gushing back.

I didn’t realize it immediately but apparently my sobbing achieved something my puppet playing had failed to do. I woke up my sister and my friend.

I slowly became aware of them holding me and stroking me and whispering soothing but ridiculous comments into my ears. I use the word ridiculous because they were saying things like “everything’s going to be okay” when that was so obviously the opposite of what everything was going to be.

At the same time, I was kind of aware that they were having a whispered argument with each other. I couldn’t actually tell who was saying what, but in a sense it didn’t matter.

“Don’t cry sweetie. How long has she been awake?“

“I don’t know. I just woke up.“

“Everything’s going to be okay. Why were you asleep? It was your turn to watch her.“

“No it wasn’t, it was your turn. Don’t cry.”

“How could it be my turn? We’re here, Bec. You were supposed to wake me when it was my turn.“

“I did wake you. We’re both here.”

“We both love you. Well obviously you didn’t.“

“Yes I did. You spoke and everything. Come on sweetie, stop crying.”

“Shhh!!! Were my eyes open?“

“I don’t know. There, there! I didn’t know I had to make you open your eyes. Hush now, Becky.”

I couldn’t help myself. In between the sobs, I started laughing.

“You guys are such idiots. What are you arguing about?”

Well that stopped the argument. They were both immediately hugging me and giving me little kisses and assuring me that I was okay.

“I’m not okay. But I do want to know one thing. What’s going on? Why are we all tied together?”

The little kisses stopped and there was silence for a second. Then Tara and Liz both said, “That’s two things,” at exactly the same time. That made all of us laugh, even me. Have you ever laughed when you were crying? Tears and stuff spray everywhere. It gets really messy.

“We have things to tell you – good things.” That was Tara speaking. “But can we do it out in the kitchen?”

“This needs to be more like a sitting around the table type of conversation, than a whispering in the dark in your bedroom type of conversation,” added Liz.

“Okay,” I said – the tears had more or less stopped. “But can you untie me and let me clean my face? I feel all gross.”

We got up and then went over and sat on the edge of the bed. Tara managed to undo the tie around her wrist but the one linking me to Liz was knotted too tightly and we couldn’t get it undone. We decided to wait until we got to the kitchen where the better light might help us and if all else failed – there was always the scissors.

Tara had been wearing one of her t-shirt nighties, and once she untied herself from me she slipped a robe over the top. Liz and I were both wearing pairs of my flannel pyjamas. We couldn’t exactly wear robes properly while our wrists were tied together, but Tara retrieved robes from my closet and slung them over our shoulders while Liz and I used one hand each to dab at my eyes and cheeks with tissues.

The living room light was on so we looked into the room. Dad was sleeping in his armchair with the back tilted down and the footrest out and a blanket draped over him. His head was tilted back and that probably explained why he was snoring more than usual. Mum was standing on a chair and dusting the frame around her painting of us girls. She was still wearing her good clothes but had an apron tied around her.

“Mum, what are you doing? It’s the middle of the night,” I whispered, trying not to wake Dad.

Mum ignored me and kept dusting.

Tara, Liz and I were standing right next to Mum by this stage.

“Mum!” Tara and I both called out in unison, still quietly but probably louder than either of us intended.

Mum still ignored us and I felt things click into place in my head as suddenly several things I’d noticed over the last day or so made more sense. I turned to Tara just as she turned to me. “Aaah!” we both said as we both seemed to understand at the same time.

“What?” asked Liz. We turned to her, just as her eyes widened and she went, “Ohhh!”

Tara went over to Dad. I stayed with Mum. Liz stayed with me of course, she didn’t have much choice. Steering around the house while tied together was a bit weird and a bit challenging.

Tara grabbed Dad’s shoulder and shook him gently several times. He came awake suddenly with a startled yelp. Once she was sure he was alert, Tara started talking.

“Dad, it’s the middle of the night and Mum’s still cleaning. We think she’s having another episode. Maybe you can get her to go to bed. You should go to bed too. You’ll end up with a sore back if you sleep like that all night.”

Dad stood up out of the armchair and came over to me. I flinched back from him and looked down at the floor. Dad used a finger to tilt my head up until I was looking him in the eyes. “How are you, honey? Are you okay? Have the girls explained things to you yet?”

I looked at him suspiciously. “No Dad. We’re going into the kitchen to talk.”

It was obvious from the way Dad and the girls were behaving that they were confident that once something was explained to me that I wouldn’t be so upset. My brain started sorting through some possible explanations of what was going on. The first option I considered was that I was wrong and Sam wasn’t Dad’s son. I didn’t think that was very likely. I started thinking of other possibilities. Inside my head, I flipped open a notepad and started making a list.

“Go on then, I’ll look after your mother. Then I might join you in the kitchen.”

Dad’s eyes went to the cloth joining my wrist to Liz’s. He looked back into my face with an eyebrow raised. I shrugged at him and headed for the kitchen, towing Liz behind me like she was a faithful puppy on a lead.

We sat around one corner of the kitchen table with Tara between Liz and me so that our wrists were sitting on the table in front of her. She went to work on the knot, trying to loosen it.

My mind flashed to Mum having her episode. “Well that explains why Mum has been all different for the last couple of days.”

Tara looked at me with a curious expression on her face. “What do you mean?”

“She was heading towards an episode. That explains why she’s been acting all weird.”

Tara looked puzzled. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Mum’s been normal.”

“Oh! Maybe it was just me then. I thought Mum was being strange since maybe late Saturday night, definitely Sunday at breakfast.”

Both Liz and Tara were shaking their heads at me, so I decided to change the subject.

“So, first things first! What’s with the whole tie Bec up game? Why were you taking turns guarding me?”

Tara and Liz looked at each other. Then Liz jumped into the silence.

“That’s really starting with the last thing first, but we can do that. You were hysterical. Your dad was worried about you. He told us to watch you. He told us not to leave you alone for a second until someone had explained things to you. So we decided to take turns sitting up with you. One of us was supposed to be awake when you woke up.” She glared at Tara when she said that. It was that friendly kind of arguing they were doing so I wasn’t too worried.

“Tying you like this was my idea,” broke in Tara. “Liz told me about how when she was here this week, you were getting up and wandering around the house in the middle of the night. She’d like, go to sleep holding you and wake up and you were missing. So I figured if we accidentally both went to sleep at the same time...” At this point they both glared at each other, “ ... then you wouldn’t be able to sneak away without us noticing.”

During all this, Tara had been trying to undo the knot linking me to Liz. “I don’t think I’m going to get this. I’ll grab the scissors and cut you free.”

“Why don’t you leave it?” I said. “It can be a kind of symbolic link between Liz and me. Our friendship binds us together or something. We can cut ourselves loose in the morning. Or maybe we could go to school like this. That would be awesome.” That idea produced a few giggles. Then we shifted around a bit so that Liz was next to me and Tara was on my other side.

I was still curious about their desire to watch over me. “Okay, so tying me up makes sense in a twisted sort of way, but why was Dad so uptight about getting you guys to watch over me?”

“Well,” answered Liz, “Dan told us all about how you met up with that Danielle girl on Thursday night and how you found out that she’d tried to kill herself. He said you completely freaked out about it. Dan said it was obvious that somewhere along the lines, you’d thought about ... you know.”

It was like standing in a cold shower – or maybe it was like having a chest of ice-water thrown over me at a football game. I happen to know exactly what that feels like. My entire body just froze up and my skin tried to curl inside out.

“Oh!”

Suddenly Tara was crying big tears and hugging me hard. “I was a mess. I was hugging you and sobbing. I don’t want to lose you Becky. You can’t die, sis, you just can’t.”

“But...”

Liz was crying too. I quickly became the meat in a Bec sandwich, well-seasoned with a salt-water dressing.

“But I promised. Dan should have finished the story. I promised I wouldn’t.”

Liz popped her head up and was suddenly not crying but her left cheek still glistened with tears. I think her right cheek was dry because she’d had it pressed up against me and my robe had absorbed all the wetness.

“Oh, your dad said that. I think he must’ve heard the story before `cause otherwise I figure he would’ve been all hysterical too. I mean Tara was fully curled up over the top of you and hanging on to you like she thought you were already ... well, you know. I was like, upset too, but I was all, ‘that can’t be right.’ I mean, you were all happy and stuff all weekend, so I didn’t think you would ... you know, but still I was crying my eyes out. So anyway, your dad was like, ‘but Bec promised she wouldn’t do that,’ and then he was like, making Dan tell us the rest of the story.”

Liz was doing quite a good imitation of Tara being hysterical and of Dad talking and of herself thinking. It was really funny, but I don’t think she meant it to be. She continued the story without seeming to take a breath, launching into even better imitations of Dan and Tara talking.

“ ... and Dan picks Tara right up off the ground and sits her on the coffee table and then he picks me up too – Oh My God he’s sooo strong – and he sits me next to Tara and then he’s like ‘Danielle made Bec promise she wouldn’t do that and Bec promised twice, and then I made her promise again,’ and Tara was like, ‘so what? Bec’s all collapsed and hysterical and stuff,’ and Dan was like, ‘Tara, you’re not thinking. This is Bec we’re talking about. She promised three times that she wouldn’t hurt herself,’ and Tara was like...”

Tara took over at this point and either deliberately or unconsciously, she copied Liz’s breathless storytelling style, including an exaggerated imitation of herself talking – with extra hand waving – I was finding the whole thing hysterically funny.

“I was like, ‘Doh! Of course! I’m so stupid. Bec made a promise! A serious promise! She made it three times!’ and I’m all relieved and stuff and I’m all about how I can’t imagine you ever going back on something like that. So I’m all crying again and stuff but this time it was like, happy crying and I was hugging Dan like I could squeeze the stuffing out of him.”

By this time, I really was laughing. The crying had pretty much stopped, but there was still a huge knot inside me where my stomach should be.

“ ... and then I was hugging Dan too and that was pretty much that,” concluded Liz. Now that telling the emotional part was over, she more or less returned to talking normally – well normally for Liz anyway. “You know, I think I’m totally in love with your brother. I think I want to marry him.”

I was still laughing. “Oh yes! That would be so awesome. If you marry him then you get to be my sister for real. And also I get to be bridesmaid at your wedding.”

“Can I be a bridesmaid too?” pleaded Tara. “Please, please, please? `Cause otherwise I’m going to have to fight Angie for the flower girl job and she pulls hair like you wouldn’t believe.”

We all laughed at that. It occurred to me that we had gotten seriously off track. The girls were supposed to be telling me something that would make me feel better. Hey wait! I was feeling better. Hmm!

“We seem to have gotten sidetracked. You were supposed to be telling me some stuff,” I said.

“Oh, yeah!” said Tara. “Apparently we have a little brother we didn’t know about – until you figured it out, that is.”

“I thought so. They admitted it then?” In my head, I pulled out that notepad I’d been writing on and I ruled a line through that first option on my list. I wasn’t sure if I should be pleased because I hadn’t been wrong – I hate being wrong – or upset because I was right. I decided to try putting off being upset a bit longer until I’d heard what they had to say.

“I’d like to handle this one, if you don’t mind girls.” It was Dad. He was standing in the doorway, wearing the long fancy dressing-gown that we’d teamed up and bought for him last Christmas.

Dad sat down across the table from us. Then he reached across the table and clasped my hands in both of his. I had Tara hugging me from one side and Liz leaning against me from the other side and Dad holding my hands. I was feeling very closed in.

“Yes, honey, Sam is your brother. And the new baby will be mine as well.”

I felt this sinking feeling in my stomach, but it couldn’t sink too far because I was being firmly held up by my family. My brain was also telling me I didn’t need to panic.

“I have to say, Bec, I was a little bit hurt that you seem to have assumed that I would have done something like that without your mother knowing about it first. I’m also a bit surprised that you somehow imagined that anyone would be able to hide such a thing from your mother for nine, nearly ten, years.”

I ducked my head. I guess that was true. I felt embarrassed – and ashamed.

“I’m sorry!” I whispered. “I guess I wasn’t thinking clearly.”

“The truth is that it was partly your mother’s idea in the first place.”

“Huh?” Tara and I said it at the same time. It was like a duet of surprise.