Not because I don’t know who I am, but because the girl in the mirror is such a complete contrast to the girl in my mind’s eye.
I return to bed and stare up at the dark ceiling—and try to remember what happened. Nothing comes to mind. Maybe it’s best if I start from the beginning, when I first met Willow Briggs. I close my eyes and think back to that day.
It happened during my junior year, on my first day back from Christmas vacation. I can remember it so vividly that it feels like it happened yesterday. The morning started out chaotic. My mother busied herself downstairs, cooking bacon and eggs and arguing with my father about his whereabouts the previous two days. My father, who advertised himself as a jack-of-all-trades, claimed to have been working a job way up in Jonesport, although he didn’t say what kind of job he’d been doing. It seemed that every few weeks he had a new business venture.
I remember walking downstairs and feeling the frigid air, as the wood stove had yet to completely warm the first floor. Outside, a blanket of fresh snow covered the landscape, except for the driveway, which my father had plowed and cleaned upon arriving home.
I set my book bag down on the floor and glanced up at the clock. Twenty minutes until the school bus arrived at the end of our driveway. After two weeks of vacation, I couldn’t wait to get out of this crazy household.
My parents stopped bickering at the sight of me, but I could sense my mom’s anger. My father, on the other hand, always seemed unflappable and happy. Nothing seemed to faze him. He smiled and greeted me with a singsong good morning. It pissed me off that I could never get mad at him. It pissed me off because I knew that he treated my mom like crap.
“Morning, sweetheart.”
“Hi, Dad.”
“Excited to be returning to school today?”
“Not really. School’s pretty boring.” I sat down at the kitchen table.
“I know what you mean. I hated school when I was your age.”
“Way to encourage her, Ray,” my mother said.
“Hey, I’m just telling her like it is. School’s not for everyone, you know.” He snatched a strip of bacon off the paper towel and bit off the crispy end. Bacon, the official food of the Eaves family.
“Katie’s different than you, Ray. She’s going off to college to make something of herself.”
“No, she’s going to Harvard. That’s a university, Isla, not a college.”
“How would you know?”
“Just because I didn’t go to college doesn’t mean I don’t know things.”
My mother placed a plate of scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast in front of me. I could tell she was annoyed at me, as if talking to my father had made me a traitor to her cause. Betraying her was the furthest thing from my mind. I loved my mother and felt sorry for the burden placed on her shoulders. But their marital troubles had nothing to do with me. I needed him in my life, no matter how much he let us down.
My father sat down, sipped his coffee, and read the paper. I gobbled down half my breakfast and grabbed my coat, eager to get off to school. It seemed like a welcome relief after the drama of this morning.
As I grabbed my book bag, I heard that familiar sound of bells going off. My mother turned, and I saw fear come over her face. I looked to my father, but he’d already sprinted upstairs to attend to Raisin. Thank God for Scout. Although Scout was not the dog I had envisioned when my parents said we were getting a dog, he was gentle and loyal, and his presence in our household had proved crucial to our well-being.
Raisin.
Undoubtably, the cutest boy ever. He was nearly six years younger than me. I remember how hard my parents tried to get him to say his birth name, Raymond. But it always came out Raisin. Week after week, month after month, until we all just gave up and started calling him Raisin. The name fit, and after that last attempt, no one could ever consider calling him anything else. Even when he started school, the teachers called him Raisin. Shepherd’s Bay was a tight-knit community, and his kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Gagne, attended the same church as us and had known him from the day he was born.
I couldn’t leave for school knowing Raisin was in crisis. He came down with