Free Hold Still by Nina Lacour Page A

him and to casually walk by his house after school sometimes, hoping he’d see us. Just because I wanted to talk about something different for a few minutes a day doesn’t mean that she had to write that about me. And that whole hurting thing? Ingrid and I felt the same about almost everything, so I don’t really understand. Maybe I misunderstood it. Whatever, it doesn’t matter. I don’t want to think about it anymore.
    I go outside. I walk past my parents’ garden, where their parsnips are beginning to sprout, to the heap of wood. I pull a long plank off the pile and start to drag it away, down the slope of our backyard. It’s heavier than I thought it would be. I pull the plank past the brick patio, past the flowers, up and over this little hill, to the part where the land stops looking like a backyard and more just like a grassy area with a bunch of trees, almost dense enough to be a forest. I drop the wood at the base of the tree I like best. It’s a big oak. I used to climb it when I was a kid. After I catch my breath, I start back toward the house to get more. If I ever figure out something to build, I’m not going to do it with everyone watching.
     
     
    Later, my parents call me down to the kitchen. I find Mom washing lettuce and Dad heating olive oil and garlic in a pan.
    “What?” I ask them.
    Dad turns to me. “Well, hello to you, too,” he says.
    He’s taken his tie off and unbuttoned the first two buttons of his dress shirt. He holds his arm out to hug me, but I pretend I don’t notice and open the freezer instead. The cold feels good.
    “How was your day, sweetheart?” my mom asks.
    “Okay. Do you want help?”
    “You could chop that onion,” she says.
    I grab a knife from the drawer.
    My dad continues some story he must have started to tell my mom before I came down. At first I try to listen, but I have no idea who he’s talking about. I cut the onion in half and my eyes burn.
    A minute later, the phone rings and my dad hits the speaker button.
    “Hello?”
    We wait. A recorded voice comes on.
    “This is the Vista High School office of attendance calling to report that your child missed one or more periods today. The absence will be marked as unexcused unless we receive a doctor’s note or notification from a parent or guardian explaining that the absence was due to a family emergency.”
    My dad stops stirring. My mom turns the water off. I stand with my back to the phone, chopping.
    Shit. I forgot about the phone calls.
    “Caitlin, did you cut school?” Mom’s voice is straining to be patient.
    I stop chopping and turn around, thinking maybe they’ll feel bad when they see what their onion is doing to my eyes. But they just stare at me.
    I can’t think of a good excuse, so I just tell them, “I hate my photo teacher.”
    “Ms. Delani?” Mom’s eyebrows lift in surprise.
    “You liked her last year,” Dad says. My parents glance at each other, but they don’t say anything. I can see my mom get frustrated. Her lips are tight and she starts taking all these short breaths. Dad sighs.
    Finally, he says, “Caitlin, you can’t ditch school. There are going to be a lot of people in your life who you won’t like and you’re going to have to learn to deal with them.”
    “Ms. Delani is a very, very nice woman,” my mom says. “She taught you and Ingrid so much last year.”
    “She didn’t teach me anything,” I say. “I wish I’d never met her.”
    I turn to look out the window but it’s dark, so all I see is us, reflected. The most unlikely of family portraits. My mother, an apron tied over her suit, her hair falling out of a barrette; my father, leaning against the oven, one hand rubbing his forehead in exasperation; and me, staring straight at the lens, onion tears drying on my face. I try to think of some way to explain this situation to them, but my mom is going on and on about the dangers and consequences of skipping school until it seems so absurd that she’s