Things We Didn't Say - By Kristina Riggle Page 0,24

school secretary. I do remember she wasn’t wearing a coat for some reason, even though it was winter. And she forgot to wait for me to buckle my seat belt, because I was still fiddling around with it when the car went spinning all crazy.

The memory of it still makes me dizzy.

I hear the front door downstairs open and close and I sit up in my bed, listening for Dylan. Must be Casey, though, because everyone would be real happy if Dylan was down there. I can only hear some quiet talking.

I turn over to face the other wall, where my “vision board” is, which I read about in a book that the librarian said had too many big words for me, but she’s new and doesn’t know that I’m a very good reader. Everyone says so. I have a certificate and everything.

When the car stopped spinning that day I ended up on the floor of the backseat, and I think something bopped my head because I touched my head and I was bleeding. This scared me, but what scared me worse was that Mom was leaning back on the seat like dead people do on the TV shows she likes to watch. The air bag was all empty in front of her like a pillowcase. People were already running up, though, and pretty soon there were sirens and Mom was sitting up in the front seat and talking and holding me in her lap. She called my grandpa because my dad didn’t answer his phone.

Then the police officer and my mom had an argument. Then she blew into a little machine and by then Grandpa Turner was there and he’s a doctor so he looked at my head and told me it wasn’t deep and I’d be fine, but I didn’t care about that.

On my bed, I wrap my arms around my stomach and curl up tighter. I kinda wish I’d been hurt bad in the crash so that I’d been at the hospital and not there to see the next part. It’s the part I keep thinking of when I can’t sleep.

I saw the policeman put handcuffs on my mom, and put her in the back of the police car. She was cussing him. She didn’t even look back at me. My grandpa said the police just had to talk to my mom, but I’ve watched enough shows to know that she got arrested. I shouted “Mommy!” but she didn’t hear me, and my grandpa told me it would be okay and not to worry.

But every time grown-ups say that, there’s always reason to worry. Always.

My grandpa took me back to his house, where Grandma made me cookies and let me watch all the SpongeBob I wanted until Daddy got there, and he looked like a zombie, he was so greeny-white.

And there were lots of grown-ups whispering. And I learned what “drunk” meant.

And then Mommy moved out, and we don’t see her very much.

I used to wish really hard to rewind time back to that kindergarten day. And in the movie that plays in my head, this time I just write my numbers backward, and maybe the teacher frowns at me but my mom is still home and everyone’s together.

But I know that can’t really happen. So instead I put our family picture on the vision board and maybe if I hope really hard, “put it out to the universe” like the book says, then my mom will come home.

She didn’t smell like drunk today, so that’s good. That’s really good.

But if Dylan doesn’t come home, it doesn’t count.

I stretch out my hand and touch his face in the picture, and think of him giving me a horsey ride, so I go ahead and cry on my pillow.

Someone’s shaking my arm.

I open my eyes, and it’s dark in my room and it feels like night. But it can’t be. I’m not in pajamas. My dad is there, and the hallway light is on. He’s still wearing his work clothes. I must have been napping.

“Hey, babe. Come down and get something to eat.”

“Where’s Dylan?” I stretch. My neck is all kinked up because I slept weird. “And what time is it?”

“It’s six o’clock. He’s not home yet.”

“Why isn’t he home?”

“I don’t know, baby. Did he . . . Did he say anything to you? About school, or anything?”

I shake my head. I know Dylan loves me and stuff because he’s my brother, but it’s not like he tells me