The Mo(u)rning Letters Chapter 6: Developments

BOOK CLUB, January 2011, by Jenny McWha

Last time… In Mo(u)rning Letters, Eleanor writes to Benjamin, Susannah, and Cornelia about her time in therapy. Eleanor kept a lot from her correspondents, Susannah worried about failing high school without her best friend there, and Benjamin told Eleanor about his dream, which she saw right through!

The Mo(u)rning Letters

Chapter Six: Developments

BENJAMIN ALWAYS leaves school twenty minutes early these days. He doesn’t know why, but something about the strange mix of uninspiring teachers and that kid from last period English who always drools on his desk when he falls asleep makes him antsy to escape this hell they call high school. And the fact that Delilah Hart keeps “accidentally” meeting him at his locker every day at 3:05 ever since he “accidentally” made out with her at a party and realized what a ditz she was and what a jerk he is. But even more it’s because Susannah leaves school at exactly the same time as him. It’s like she plans it, but in a more subtle way than Delilah. He wonders why Susannah can’t play volleyball or be a drama geek or even have a group of giggling girls that she puts on layers of make-up with in the third floor washroom every day after that final bell rings. Because he can’t stand to see her right now. Because he kissed her and it was wonderful and Beth is dead and he can’t possibly have feelings for both of his sister’s best friends. He just can’t.

And so, he leaves school early every day, slipping from the back of the classroom and ignoring Ms. Ekson every time her whiny little voice asks “And where are we going, Benjamin?” He’s sure that he has a pile of ‘leaving without a note’ notes stacked in the office, but he’s eighteen now and the school isn’t allowed to call his parents. Not that his parents would care or would even be home. Since Eleanor went away they seem to have been given double the amount of work, although he is fairly sure that doctors and lawyers shouldn’t be working twenty-four hours a day. He’s knows they’re going to get divorced soon, as they haven’t seen each other’s faces in at least a week. He wouldn’t be surprised if they were both having affairs to deal with the fact that their oldest child is an abandoned mess with two newborns, their youngest is bordering on insane, and he, Benjamin, is just your average screw-up. He always thinks that they never wanted children in the first place, but somehow he believes it is impossible to have three accidental children in one family. If he had to deal with their three children, he would turn to work, too.

He walks toward the car, checking to make sure that there are no members of the administration watching him leave. He does have some discretion left. He doesn’t know where he’s going. He knows that he's not going home though. The only thing worse than an empty house is a house with a harried older sister with two new babies who refuse to sleep when they are supposed to. He feels like he should help her but has the sneaking suspicion that he has no paternal instincts to speak of and is worried he will drop the poor things on their heads if they so much as look at him the wrong way. He knows that Cornelia is going insane and she is crying all the time and keeps smashing pickle jars at the wall when she can’t open them, screaming about how much she hates Billy. But he just can’t face his sister whose life is in ruins, not when he feels his own is going to blow up at any second if he can’t keep his precarious hold on it.

His car is in his sight, within his reach. All he has to think about now is getting to that car. But something isn’t right. As he gets closer, he sees that someone is in front of the car. And that someone is Eleanor.

Eleanor is in front of the car, in the flesh.

He stops.

“Oh, Benjamin,” She says. “You fell in love with her.”

For a second he thinks she knows about Susannah. But then Susannah leaves his head as the image of Beth, brain dead, fills every traitorous corner of his mind. He can’t move, so Eleanor walks up to him and enfolds him in her arms. He forgot how short she was, and he can feel that she’s lost weight in the months that she’s been away. But she is here, with her arms around him. She’s home.

“You’re home.” he says.

“I’m home,” she says.

“For good?”

“I think so. But I don’t want to promise anything.”

And then, “I kissed Susannah.”

She doesn’t say anything. He wants to take those words and stuff them back in his mouth but they are out there between him and his sister and he cannot ever take them back and she is not saying anything.

“Oh, Benjamin.”

She opens the driver’s side door and slides in. He shakes his head and looks through the open window.

“I see you’re driving.”

“I miss it,” she says, turning the key that she has apparently slipped out of his jacket pocket in the ignition. “I haven’t been able to do it for so long.”

He surrenders, walking over to the passenger side. “I guess you want to go see Cornelia and the babies,” he says.

Her hands grip the steering wheel a little tighter as she turns out of the school parking lot. “Not really. I don’t think I’m ready to go home right yet.” She looks over at him, a smile, gone for so long, back on her face. “Is there anywhere you were planning to go when you decided to skip school?”

“No. Figured I’d just drive around until it came to me.”

“Sounds good.”

They’re silent for a long time. Probably minutes, although it feels like hours that they are sitting there, looking at the stretch of back road that Eleanor has decided is a good place for them to drive. Her knuckles are white and her lips are pressed together, which Benjamin knows means that she’s thinking really hard about something. Outside the window is a field he played in when he was a kid. It used to belong to Sean Frederickson, his childhood best friend, before the family sold the farm and moved to Alberta for the oil boom. They used to hide in the corn fields, playing an intricate game of hide-and-seek, hiding at the same time from each other and from Sean’s parents. For some reason, the fact that they were not allowed to be there made the game more dangerous, more real, more thrilling. Benjamin would always find himself pretending that he was hiding from the cops, a giant diamond in his pocket and a smirk on his face. Even though the Frederickson’s were gone, the cornfields lived on, although they were bare now. But he remembered those late summer days when the stalks swayed gently in the wind, friendly hiding places during the day and towering strangers at night. He remembered Mrs. Frederickson calling his name and presenting his mother with big bags of corn on the cob—back when his mother picked him up from friend’s houses and made dinner. She had been younger back then, her face smiling and her hair free of the grey strands becoming greater in number every day. She would laugh, and pretend that she couldn’t possibly take such a large gift of vegetables. She would try to push the bag back to Mrs. F, giggling and trying to argue, but too much. He remembers looking at her, how much love he felt for her.

Or maybe that had been Cornelia.

ELEANOR KEEPS her eyes in front of her, too scared to look at Benjamin, her big brother, the biggest pain in her butt, her biggest protector. He’s looking out his window, his brows knotted together and his hands laying useless and too big in his lap. She’s known him her whole life, but feels awkward now, with all these months apart in between them. She feels like—no, she knows—that she’s changed in those months, and he certainly has, too. Will they like each other now? Will they even be able to break this stupid silence that refuses to go away?

“They’re selling it,” he says.

She finally turns to him, confused.

“The farm, the one that Sean Frederickson’s family used to own. Look, the sign says that some developer has bought it.”

Eleanor tries to imagine the beautiful fields covered in houses. The houses she imagines are big and ugly, their shadows casting darkness over a few lone corn stalks that have attempted to remain alive through all the construction. But that’s silly, the developers would make sure that all life was thoroughly stamped out before they actually let humans inhabit it. Then she sees Beth, bald and small, shivering the shadows of the houses, trying to stand up—no. She’s gone. Gone gone gone. She mentally takes the image and scrubs it from her brain, pours mental bleach over it to make sure it’s gone.

They fall back into silence. Suddenly, Eleanor can’t stand it. She has to say something.

“You kissed Susannah.” She did not mean to say that.

Benjamin puts his head in his hands, groaning. “I kissed Susannah.”

“You were in love with Beth and you kissed Susannah.”

“They were a few years apart, Eleanor.”

“I’m just trying to keep everything straight.” She sighs. “Do you want to date her?”

“I have no idea, Eleanor. It was just once, practically an accident.”

“Well, you must have wanted to if you guys did it in the first place. You’re not going to dump her in a week, are you?”

“Come on, Eleanor, I couldn’t do that to Susannah. I don’t even know what’s going to happen.”

“You don’t have a problem dumping all those other girls.” She’s getting madder and madder, he can tell. “You didn’t care about them, they didn’t have feelings, they didn’t feel that they had lost the best thing that had ever happened to them.”

She’s taken her eyes of the road and they’re filling with tears. Just as angry, Benjamin grabs the wheel and jerks the car to the side of the road, pulling the emergency break and turning the ignition off in one swift movement.

“What they hell are you doing!?” Eleanor yells, making a half-hearted attempt to punch his arm.

“Just calm down Eleanor.” He needs to calm down, too. “I just kissed her once. Once. And it was a mistake and nothing will probably happen. Now this isn’t about me, is it?”

Eleanor sniffs. “I just spent the last months learning how to master and deal with my emotions, and get better. And you just spring this thing on me and it makes me angry! I love you Benjamin. I love you, but you are a total jerk to the rest of the world. You hurt people. You hurt all those girls that you date for a week, those girls who you make laugh and buy flowers for and hug and support and show them what a really good boyfriend is. And then you go and break their hearts and then they think they don’t deserve a good boyfriend. I know this, because they all come to me, Benjamin. They come and pour out their souls and tell me how their lives suck now because they had you and they lost you. Do you know who Stacey-Mae is dating now? Brock Cooper. Brock friggin Cooper, the most idiotic jock you can find at school. Why? Because you freaking broke up with her and she feels that guys like you won’t like her. I don’t want Susannah to end up like her, Benjamin. I don’t want to go over to her house and find her on the bathroom floor wondering what the hell she did wrong when my stupid brother broke up with her. She’s the most stable thing in my life right now, and I will not let you take that away from me.”

She stares ahead for a few seconds, and then opens the door and slams it as hard as she can. She can see Benjamin watching her in the mirror as she stomps behind the car and goes to kick an abandoned tire at the side of the road. She pretends that the tire is Benjamin’s head. It feels good. She’s already had one best friend taken from her, and she won’t let him take the next one.

Not that she would mind if they dated. She’s often looked at Benjamin and Susannah and seen something there that she can’t explain. It’s just a way that they interact, that makes her think that they would be perfectly comfortable putting their arms around each other, or holding hands. She knows if they dated it may take the two most important people in her life away from her, but they need to be happy.

It’s when Benjamin freaks that she’s worried about. She thinks at one point, with his first few girlfriends, Benjamin actually had feelings for them. But she can remember the days when he would start to freak. They would kiss him and he would keep his eyes open. They would come towards him in the hall and he would look like a startled animal wishing only for somewhere to hide. They would start talking about their future with him and he would go all glassy eyed. That night he would always look very thoughtful at dinner, and then lock himself in his room all evening. He would leave sometime at night and come back with a hard expression on his face. The next day the girlfriend would be in tears outside their lockers, asking him to take her back. Benjamin would just leave and Eleanor was left to comfort them. After those first few, he had a formula. Eleanor didn’t exactly know what it was, but she could see a pattern now of how long he dated girls before he broke up with them. And Susannah was just the same, some target that her brother had picked out cruelly. Even if he did have real feelings for her, it was guaranteed that he would still freak one day. And who was to say that Susannah would want to stay friends with Eleanor? She just couldn’t have that.

She’s had a good few minutes to steam properly when Benjamin opens his door and comes to stand beside her. He doesn’t say anything, just stands there like the annoying older brother he is. Eleanor sighs, and turns to him, punching him in the arm to show that she isn’t as mad anymore. He opens his arms and lets her walk into them. It feels so good to be able to hug her brother again. It’s been so long since she felt those strong arms comforting her.

“Nothing’s going to happen between Suse and me, Eleanor.”

Eleanor wants to believe him. Yet there’s something in his voice that makes her think that he regrets it.

ELEANOR IS quiet on the drive home. She likes silence, after so many months of talking, and she knows that Benjamin doesn’t mind the quiet. He’s driving now, getting them to their house (she somehow can’t think of it as a home anymore), before the sun dips below the horizon. As they pass Benjamin’s old friend’s farm, Eleanor notices the sign again. She knows that everything is changing, but with all her might she just wants things to stay the same. Everyone would be happier if the corn fields stayed put. But the inevitable always happens, the developers buy the farmland that the farmers can’t afford anymore and put up big ugly houses that stupid people who hate nature will buy and live in with their SUVs and their two perfect children and their snichzedoodles.

Eleanor feels like she must be thinking important thoughts, but she is so tired that she begins to nod off. She could have slept while her father was driving her home, but the tension that could be cut with a knife kept her upright in her seat, fiddling with the radio and trying to make small talk about the weather. And that’s all she thinks before her eyes close.

BENJAMIN WAKES her up when they pull in the driveway by gently shaking her shoulder. She groans and tries to roll over, before she realizes that she’s in a car.

“Can you walk?” Benjamin asks, “Or should I carry you?”

“No… no, I’ll walk.”

Her eyes stay half closed, and he watches her, more love in his heart than he has ever felt for her. Somehow, the sight of her getting better, really better, was more than he had ever expected. The shadow of Beth had always followed Eleanor around, and he hadn’t even realized until now, when it had finally disappeared. Maybe it was just the fact that she now had a bigger tragedy to worry about (in other words, Benjamin making out with her best friend). Whatever it was, he is happy, just watching her stumble up the concrete stairs to their house, and then as far as the family room couch (the one in the living room isn’t comfy enough) before falling into an instant sleep. Benjamin pulls the throw off a nearby chair and drapes it over her before going up to his room to amuse himself some way while avoiding the weekend’s homework.

Eleanor sleeps through dinner. Nobody cares, though. Their parents are both working late tonight. Cornelia has bundled the kids up in a huff to go spend dinner with Billy and his new girlfriend after he threatened to phone children’s aid if he couldn’t see “his own damn kids.” Benjamin shuffles past the family room to see if Eleanor has woken up, but she looks pretty much asleep. He ruffles through the kitchen cupboards, trying to find something to make. Evidently his mother has not been grocery shopping in the last month, as all he finds in the fridge is some wilted lettuce and an entire pack of mineral water. Well, at least she has time to buy that. The cupboards don’t yield much else, but he finally locates a can of beans behind a packet of no-salt super whole wheat crackers that no one in his family has touched. He almost starts an explosion when he realizes that he has put the can in the microwave a second after he starts it. After he has dumped the beans into a microwave safe dish, he casually walks by the family room again, but no, she’s still asleep, legs curled up around her chest and jaw clenched. She must be grinding her teeth again.

He can’t be alone with Eleanor right now. It scares him—this girl who is supposed to be strong and not rely on him when she is in trouble. He can’t remember why is it that he is so protective of his sister. He knows that most brothers are in the same position, but Eleanor holds a special sway over him. She has always had him wrapped around her little finger. Sure, he tries to be annoying, and does the regular big brother act, but every time Eleanor has cried out, even if that cry was silent, he has been there. Perhaps it started when she was one. It was one of his first memories, asking his father if they could please throw the baby in the garbage now—he was tired of playing with her. His father had laughed and tickled him, told Benjamin that the baby was here to stay for good. Benjamin had been confused. He had a sister, but she had always been there. Besides, she fed him, and gave him candy more often than his parents did. He supposed that she should be allowed to stay. But this new sister! She just cried and sucked bottles all day and smelled like poop. And his mother—she just cared about this new being, not like before, when all her attention was focused on Benjamin. Now she admonished him and had even smacked his bottom once when he had tried to sit on the new baby (his father had taken a picture of this as it happened—Eleanor and Benjamin liked to laugh at it now).

Well, one day, when his mother was busy on the phone, Benjamin had encountered Eleanor playing on the kitchen floor. Seized with a sudden burst of inspiration, he had carefully opened the lid of the garbage can (baby proofing wasn’t as prevalent back then). Then, he had carefully picked up the offending infant and placed her in the can, among some crumpled papers and a couple of paper plates. Feeling proud of himself, he snapped closed the lid and made to go and play in his room.

Then he heard it. A high pitched noise between a scream and a wail, the definite sound of tears following. Responding, Benjamin immediately ran back into the kitchen and pulled the baby out, giving her his best hug in order to calm her down. That’s when his mother ran in, late as always. Seeing Benjamin comforting his little sister, and the two finally bonding, she patted her son on the head and told him what a good big brother he was. That night she told Benjamin’s father and Cornelia, and they both smiled at him. However, he felt a tremendous amount of guilt. After that, every time he heard Eleanor cry it had taken him back to that garbage can, and he had never shaken that guilt.

Perhaps that’s why he wants to protect her. Either way, he doesn’t want to spend the evening alone with her, not to stage a repeat of this afternoon’s conversations.

Walking into the hallway so as not to disturb her, he picks up the phone and confidently dials a number...

Stay tuned for chapter 7 next month.

Girls Can Do Anything Magazine

The Mo(u)rning Letters, by Jenny McWha

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The Mo(u)rning Letters Chapter 6: Developments

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