Free Thin Space by Jody Casella Page B

through the kitchen. I grab the doorknob at the same time the front door opens. I hear Maddie saying something about the snow, and then I’m stumbling down the back steps.
    I skate through the backyards, glad again for these blue clogs. The snow’s several inches deep now and still flaking out of the white sky. I’m out of breath, soaked, when I clomp into my house.
    “Marsh,” my mother says in a broken voice, and I fight the urge to tear back out into the snow. She’s hunched over the sink, sponging a glass. “I talked to Mrs. Golden today.”
    The day flickers back at me. Morning: soaking my feet in the dishpan. Afternoon: punching Brad in the mouth.
    I fall into a kitchen chair and tug off my coat. Unlike Maddie’s house, our house is a steam bath. Or maybe I’m just overheated from my sprint through the backyards.
    “Marsh.”
    I never know what I’m supposed to say.
    “A fight? You got into a fight?”
    My mother looks very tired. Or maybe she’s always had purple smudges under her eyes and lines dragging down the corners of her mouth. Maybe I’ve never looked at my mother’s face.
    “Mrs. Golden said something about trying counseling again.” She lowers her eyes, and now I notice the lines etching her forehead.
    When you come right down to it, does anyone ever really look at another person’s face?
    “She thinks that maybe it’s time for you—for the three of us—to talk to someone again.” Her voice shakes. “It’s been three months.”
    I study the knuckles on my right hand. Now the skin’s swollen up around Brad’s teeth marks.
    “I miss him. I can’t believe he’s gone. I see you, and I see—” She’s turned her back to me, sobbing, still dragging a sponge over the same glass.
    I’m supposed to comfort her. You don’t just sit there in front of someone—your mother—when she’s breaking down. But I can’t make my feet move in my plastic shoes.
    “Austin,” she says, and the word comes out like a wail.
    In the hospital, she sounded like that too. When I opened my eyes and the light was so bright and my parents swayed over me.
    I don’t like to think of this. But like other memories, it sneaks through when it wants to. The cloying medicinal smell of the room. The nurse scratching something on a clipboard. The welcomed beep of pain medicine surging through my IV. The chair in the corner, a different person hunched over in it each time I opened my eyes. My father. My mother. One of the girls. Chuck or another guy from football.
    No one had to tell me. No one had to say it. The wreck came back in pieces. Later. But only a few minutes after Iwoke up in that room, I knew my brother was dead.
    “I know,” my mother says. The glass shakes in her hand. “I know you don’t want to talk about him.”
    I kick off the plastic clogs, peel off my wet socks. My sweatshirt too—I’ve got to get that off. It’s damp with snow and sweat.
    “I don’t think it’s right what we’ve been doing. Going on like nothing’s happened. Pretending we’re not thinking about him, missing him. I thought it was easier not to talk about it. But, Marsh—”
    This room is so hot I can’t stand it anymore. I yank off my T-shirt, ball it up in my fist.
    “I think we have to. We have to get it out. Tell each other how we feel.” She sets the glass down. She bows her head in front of the sink. “Just let it out.”
    I can’t breathe in this heat. I may have to take off my jeans. A thought slides through my head: What if.
    What if I did just let it out. If I told my mother what I’ve really been up to lately. And why.
    But I know I can never do it. Just like I know I’d never strip down to my underwear in the sweltering kitchen. I stand up. “Mom,” I say, and I’m happy to hear my voice comes out halfway normal. “I miss him too.”
    Hug her, I tell myself, just hug her and get it over with.
    So I do that. My mother and I rock together, and when it seems the appropriate number of seconds have