Elizabeth Scott - Between Here and Forever

“How about Tess was in love with Claire, and I’m pretty sure Claire loved her, but it looks like Tess got hurt. And then she met Beth but couldn’t bring herself to admit they were a couple, so—”

“We’d better go downstairs and talk,” Mom says. “There’s … there’s some things your father and I need to tel you.”

“You mean there’s more?” I say, stunned, and Mom nods before turning away. I hear her walking downstairs.

After a moment, I fol ow.

strangers, and that Mom and Dad wil be nervous, look at each other as they tel me about Tess, using each other’s expressions to figure out what to say and how to say it.

Instead, we sit in the kitchen and eat dinner like we used to. Like we did when Tess was home. Like we did before her accident, back when Mom and Dad wondered out loud about how Tess was doing, gesturing at her empty chair like she was stil there as they talked about their days and asked me about mine.

I’m not prepared for this, for how easily my parents start talking about Tess, Dad glancing at Mom as I sit down and nodding once before saying,

“I don’t know if Tess would have ever told us anything if I hadn’t walked in on her and Claire when I went to tel them good night back when they were fifteen.”

“You might not remember,” Mom says, passing me a bowl of corn. “You were twelve, and—”

“The night Claire went home because she was sick from eating too much ice cream, only I never saw her eat any, right?” I say, and Mom nods.

I always knew something had happened then. I just didn’t know what.

“Anyway, we sent Claire home because—wel .” She clears her throat.

“You were surprised,” I say, stil feeling pretty surprised myself, especial y as I watch Dad take the smal est amount of corn he can, just like he always does. Shouldn’t there be drama? Shouldn’t we at least be speaking in hushed voices or something? Shouldn’t it not be so … normal?

“Wel , yes,” Dad says. “We were surprised. But Tess—wel , she was the one who asked Claire to go.”

“Dave,” Mom says, fondness and exasperation lacing her voice, and gives him another scoop of corn before looking at me. “So then your father and I talked to Tess. And yes, before you ask, that’s why we let you stay up late and watch television downstairs.”

“Right,” I say, watching as Dad sneaks the extra corn back into the bowl just like he always … just like he always did back when us eating dinner like this was normal.

But this isn’t normal.

We haven’t eaten dinner together in ages, not like this, so why now? Why tonight? They didn’t know I knew about Tess, there’s no way they could have, so this dinner—

They planned it. Before Mom found me in Tess’s room, this was going to happen. They set this up to tel me something, I’m sure of it.

But what?

“What’s going on?” I ask, my voice sharp, and Mom glances at Dad, and Dad glances back at her like I thought they would at first, like how I’d pictured. Like they’re trying to figure out what to say. How to say it.

“Just tel me,” I snap when neither of them speaks, and Mom looks at me as if she’s never seen me before.

As she does, I realize there is a lot she doesn’t know about me. I’ve kept myself hidden from her and Dad just like Tess kept herself hidden from me.

“First of al , don’t talk to your mother like that,” Dad says. “And second—” He picks up a piece of chicken like he’s going to take a bite, like this is stil a real dinner, like Tess is going to walk through the door. Like she’s stil real y here.

“Stop it,” I hiss. “Stop pretending, stop—just stop al of this and tel . me. what’s. going. on.”

Dad frowns, clearly unhappy with my tone, but Mom leans over and squeezes his hand. “We spoke to the hospital today,” she says. “We’ve made arrangements for Tess. The day after tomorrow, we’re having her moved and we—we’d like you to be there, Abby.”

I crack into a mil ion pieces then. How can I not, with Eli and Claire and Tess—who she was, who she is—how can I not crack when I have al these unknowns? How can I not crack when Tess’s being taken out of the hospital? When she’s being written off?

How can I stay whole when everything has changed so much, so fast?

“I—you’re real y doing it? You’re wil ing to say this is it, this is the rest of her life, forever lying in a bed somewhere not seeing the world, not seeing anything?”

“Abby, honey, we’re only moving her,” Mom says at the same time Dad says, “Abby, it’s not like—you know it’s not like that. Tess could wake up, she could. But we—”

He breaks off then, and looks at Mom.

“We’re moving her,” he final y says, his voice very soft. “We have to. She’s just—” He clears his throat. “She’s just not ready to come back. At least not now.”

I can’t believe this is happening. Why now, when I see that I’ve been so wrong about Tess, that I don’t even know her at al ? I mean, her whole life; al the plans and excitement about seeing guys, about talking to them, al of that—al of them—meant nothing to her, but Claire—Claire meant everything. Tess and Claire were together, and Dad found out and Tess asked Claire to …

Wait.

“Hold on. You said Tess told Claire to leave when you—when you found them?” I ask Dad, and just like that dinner col apses. Oh, we’re stil here and the food is stil here, but nobody’s eating now, and the tension I was sure would be here before is out now, smothering the room in silence.

It stays like that, so quiet—too quiet—for a long time, and then Mom puts her fork down, pretense done.

“Tess didn’t—she said she wasn’t …” And my mother—my always together, always polished mother—gestures at the air helplessly, like the words she’s looking for are just out of reach.

“She said she wasn’t a lesbian,” Dad says, and when Mom looks at him, he says, “We have to tel her everything, Katie.”

“Tel me everything?” What else could there be?

Dad pushes his plate away. “Your sister wasn’t—she wasn’t comfortable talking about her sexuality.”

Wel , there’s a word I don’t ever want to hear Dad say again. He must somehow know I’m thinking it too, because he gives me a smal , sad half smile and says, “Tess looked at me like you just did whenever I tried to talk to her. Said she and Claire were friends, and the way I understood the world had changed.”

“But—”

“But they were more than friends,” Mom said. “We could see that. Tess and Claire spent so much time together, and neither of them ever dated anyone else, not seriously, but Tess would never talk to us, never—”

“Never admit it?” I say, and Mom shakes her head.

“It’s not that simple, Abby. She eventual y told me she did have feelings for Claire but that she—she was afraid.”

“Afraid?” I say, and then think about Claire. About Cole. “Oh. She was afraid Claire didn’t—?”

“I don’t know—no, that’s not true,” Mom says, and folds her hands together. “I don’t think she was afraid that Claire didn’t care about her too. She knew that she did. I think Tess was afraid that if she—”

“Came out?”

“No,” Dad says, touching Mom’s hands briefly. “She was afraid that if she admitted she loved Claire, she would lose her. Your sister was—she had some problems.”

“Like being afraid to come out?”

Dad shakes his head, and Mom knots her hands together so tightly her knuckles go stark white, bloodless. When she speaks, she sounds like she’s trying not to cry. “She … Tess was a lot like my mother. Even as a child she could be so happy one minute, and then the next she’d pul away from the world.”