Broken: Macy's Story Read online

  Dad didn’t say anything, only kept driving.

  “I’m assuming Mom couldn’t miss her Thursday ladies’ group?”

  Dad sighed, “I thought it would be better for her to stay back.” He made a right turn onto I-75.

  “Why are we heading north? Visiting someone?”

  “We’re going to Gram and Gramps.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Cool. Just us? Are they okay?”

  “Of course. Everything’s great.” He paused, then continued, “We contacted the courts, and as long as you don’t miss your court dates, you can hang out with them for a while. We’re thinking that you can complete your community service up with them.”

  “With Gram and Gramps? In Manistee?”

  “They are happy to have you and could really use your help at the motel.”

  My mouth fell open. “I’m staying with them?” For whatever reason, I was having a hard time connecting the dots. “In Manistee? Three hours from Royal Oak?”

  “It’s only for three to six months. We’ll see what the court says. But at least until your sister’s wedding. This is a great opportunity for you to spread your wings while helping out your grandparents.”

  Shock rendered me absolutely frozen. Other than my brain. That worked in a frenzy. So, I got caught stealing, now I had to do community service. Okay, I was good with that. But Manistee? Gram and Gramps owned a small motel in the middle of nowhere while pastoring a small church that sat right next door to the motel.

  But until Hannah’s wedding? That wasn’t until Labor Day weekend. It was only the first of April!

  “It’s not that I don’t love Gram and Gramps, but Manistee? Dad, that’s in the middle of nowhere. There’s nothing to do. Nowhere to go. And don’t I get a say?”

  “I’m sure the community service hours will keep you busy,” Dad said.

  I stared out the window, trying to come to terms with the decision. Sure, I loved my grandparents. They were the sweetest people on the planet. But that wasn’t exactly what I had in mind when I thought of living on my own. “Can’t I just save for a few months? I can get a job and earn some cash then get a place. Maybe find a roommate.”

  “A down payment on an apartment is at least $1500 dollars. And I know you think you’re all grown and stuff, but come on. You’re eighteen.”

  “You know, if you and Mom would have let me go off to college, then I could be on my own and out of your hair.”

  “We don’t have that kind of money. Our finances are tight right now, especially with Hannah’s wedding. I don’t think us asking you to go to a community college is unreasonable.”

  I nearly asked how much the payment was on the Navigator. “Speaking of college, I’ve got two exams to finish up.”

  “Your community college classes are online. Gram and Gramps have WIFI at the church. Besides, I thought you said you already finished up the winter semester.”

  “Yes, but I have my final exit essays to do. And all my stuff is at home. My books. My laptop. My clothes…my pillow!”

  “Your mother got it all packed for you. It’s right in the back. Even your comforter and pillows. Everything you’d need to feel at home. Think of it as an opportunity.”

  I turned around and noticed the back of the Navigator packed to the ceiling. “She literally packed everything.”

  “Mom didn’t want you to miss the comforts of home.”

  “Can we just cut the spin?” I turned off the radio, which had been playing on low the entire drive. “For once, be real with me! You and Mom don’t want me around. There. See? Not hard to say the words!”

  “Can you blame us?” Dad snapped, not looking at me, but staring straight at the road. “We love you, Macy, but cut us some slack. We’ve got Hannah and preparations for the wedding. Then there’s Luke and Adrianne, and their schooling. Plus we have a 300 plus congregation and are right in the middle of the building project! It was either Manistee or some treatment home. You said you wanted to move out. This is moving out.”

  “I do want to move out, but on my terms. This feels like you guys are using the opportunity to get rid of me. There’s a difference.”

  “Do you understand our decision? I thought this would give you space too. Maybe a chance to make friends.”

  “At Gram and Gramp’s church? You’re joking, right? Is there anyone in their congregation younger than fifty?”

  “I don’t know. But there’s a chance. Besides, you attend a church of 300 and haven’t made any real connections there. You sit on a pew in the corner and doodle in your sketchbook. Don’t think I don’t notice.”

  “Maybe because everyone is Hannah’s friend,” I said. “And Hannah has made it clear since day one of any of my memories that there is no sharing between us.” Hannah made everything a competition. We both took vocal lessons. She’d outperform me. We both took piano lessons. She started playing for the church while I was still learning chords. She had Mom’s slim figure and blonde hair and the ability to look absolutely perfect. Add charisma, charm, and a mega-watt smile that could make an entire room swoon, and you have my sister.

  “Don’t put this on Hannah. She’s four years older than you. That’s a big enough age difference for you to be your own separate person.”

  “Newsflash, Dad, I stopped trying to be like Hannah since my butt got too big to squeeze into any of her clothes.”

  “That right there is your problem,” he said.

  “What? My big butt? It’s the least of my concerns.”

  Dad groaned. “I can’t even have a serious conversation with you. I’m trying to tell you to stop comparing yourself to her and then putting yourself down. Maybe if you saw the value in yourself, then you’d think twice before shoplifting liquor.”

  “I didn’t steal the schnapps because I don’t see value in myself,” I said. “I stole it because alcohol lets me forget.” I thought of how unhappy I was at home. Going away and separating myself from Mom’s micromanaging would be a good thing. My heart still felt hurt at the thought of my family not wanting me, but if I was honest with myself, getting away from Hannah and Jake would be the best thing for me. “You know what? Manistee is fine. I don’t know why I’m arguing.” I positioned myself to stare out the window. I didn’t need to hear any more. My parents wanted me gone, and I wasn’t going to beg to stay. Whatever.

  My cell phone rang. I saw Adrianne’s face peering at me, requesting facetime. I accepted the call and began to video chat. “Hey there, lima bean,” I said, smiling at my eight year old sister with her big hazel eyes and frizzy straw-colored hair tamed with a headband. My little lima bean was the only one of the four children who could eat those dreadful beans. She’d eat them right out the can. Disgusting. Yet, impressive.

  “Mom said you’re going on vacation,” she said with a deep frown. “That’s not fair.”

  “A vacation?” I glared at Dad. “Is that what she said?”

  Dad gave me a look that pleaded with me to play the game.

  “Why do you get to go on vacation and not me?”

  “I know. I wanted you to come with me, but I didn’t have enough money,” I said. Looking at my little sister’s sad face had my heart breaking. “I’m going to miss you the most, lima bean.”

  “How long are you gone for?” she asked. “Hannah was yelling yesterday at Mom and Dad telling them that you better not step foot at her wedding. Why? Is she mad she can’t go on vacation, too?”

  I swallowed down the hurt. What did I care? I didn’t even want to be in her stupid wedding. “Yeah, probably,” I choked out.

  “You didn’t say good-bye or give me a bear hug.” Adrianne pouted, “Are you going to Florida? Did you have to hurry to catch the plane?”

  “No,” I said, deciding on the truth. “I’m going to Gram and Gramps for a while. They need help with the motel, so I’m going to go do that. Not much fun, I’m afraid. It’s better that you’re home.”

  “I want to see Gram and Gramps!” Adrianne whined, sticking out her bottom lip out. “And with you gone, who am I going to cuddle with?”

  “Cuddle with Rex,” I said, speaking of our pug mix.

  “He snores.”

  “Yes, but he’s a great cuddler. Not to mention, you can sleep in my bed while I’m gone.”

  “No, I can’t. Mom and Dad are letting Jake stay in there.”

  “What?” I asked, as the words sank in. The phone slipped from my fingers and smacked the floor. My eyesight narrowed, and my pulse quickened.

  Jake. Hannah’s fiancé. In my room.

  I vaguely heard Adrianne trying to get my attention, but it was like through a tunnel. Dad was saying something.

  “Macy!” he yelled.

  “Just pack me up, so he can move in?” I asked, spinning in the seat to face him.

  Dad gripped the wheel and pursed his lips together. “Tell Adrianne you’ll call her back. She’s not supposed to be on Mom’s phone anyways.”

  “You mean you don’t want her telling me any more information,” I said. Bending down, I retrieved the phone. Mom’s face now showed up next to Adrianne’s.

  “That’s enough,” Mom said, turning off Facetime.

  Anger moved through me like waves in the ocean. “You know what I find ironic?” I said, unable to even look at my father. “Is that you and Mom and everyone label me a liar, yet when you both tell lies, it’s perfectly acceptable.”

  “I never told you to lie to your sister.”

  “She thinks I’m going on vacation, Dad. What’s that? Is there a new term for deception?!?”

  “Don’t be sarcastic,” he ordered.

  “What do you expect? I’m getting kicked out of the house, and I don’t even get to say good-bye! To Adrianne! To Luke! To Rex! Just snatch me from the hospital, and tell everyone that I’m going on vacation.” Tears blinded my vision, so I wiped at them furiously. “Lima bean’s going to miss me. You might not, but she is.” I turned to face the window. “And now you’ve let Satan himself move in three doors from her room.”

  “Your room sits above the garage with its own entrance. It made sense for him to be there. He and Hannah are trying to save money for a down payment on a house. Your mother thought since we had the space available that it only made sense. We’re not doing this to hurt you. But since you’re not going to be there anyway… why let it go to waste?”

  I dug my fingernails into the palms of my hands to keep myself calm. I couldn’t think about Jake Steward sleeping in my room. On my bed.

  He hadn’t even bothered to check up on me these last couple days, but that wasn’t the only reason I hated him. I hated him because he used me and lied to me, and in the end, he still chose Hannah.

  “My sister got caught up in the drinking,” Dad said. “Then it turned worse. I’m trying to prevent that from happening.”

  Dad rarely talked about his younger sister. The wound was still deep. Supposedly I had met her, but I couldn’t recall it. She died from taking too many pain meds, but I was pretty sure there was more to the story. “I’m not anything like your sister.”

  “You’re a lot more like her than you think. In a good way. She was amazingly talented, just like you. Her artwork was incredible. And she could sing. She’d light up the room just by walking in. She had so much potential.”

  “Yeah, well, something must have happened to send her to California.”

  “Yep,” Dad agreed. “She met a boy. A young man with a penchant for trouble. She hopped on his motorcycle and was gone.”

  “I’ll try to avoid men on motorcycles,” I said sarcastically before staring out the window again.

  The rest of the way up north was cringe-worthy awkward. Dad would try to engage me in conversation, but I wasn’t in the mood to talk. For two-and-a-half hours, I stayed silent. Decisions were made, and I was not consulted. Not when it came to Jake, and not when it came to my own life. So, as far as I was concerned, I had nothing more to say.

  Chapter 3~

  Snow in April

  I sat on the front porch steps of Gram and Gramps place and stared at the small mounds of snow still littered across the landscape.

  Snow. In April.

  One thought kept repeating in my head: This wasn’t what I had in mind.

  I would melt into a heaping pile of tears and shattered dreams, but Dad was still here. My performance in not caring still must go on. I reasoned with myself that I was technically an adult. Might as well start acting like one.

  I heard his hushed voice. Talking with my grandparents. Probably warning them of my horrible delinquency. Possibly encouraging them to stick a clove of garlic under their pillow and extra-large wooden crosses around each neck. You know. In case my taste for alcohol turned into a thirst for blood.

  Too annoyed to stick around, I pushed myself off the steps and started to investigate. Most of the ground was at least snowless, but it was extremely squishy and wet. Gram and Gramps had a dirt driveway, which was nothing more than a glorified mud puddle at the moment, so I stayed on the squishy grass until I got to the road. Directly across the street stood their small clapboard church, First Congregational, with a bell tower and everything.

  When we were little, and Hannah had no one else to play with, we would swing from the bell’s rope. The memory gave me a knot in my stomach, so I turned my attention to the Manistee Forest Motel that sat right next the church. I wasn’t sure what came first: owning the motel or pastoring the church, but Gram and Gramps had managed both for as long as I’d known them.

  There were three weekends when the motel reached no-vacancy: Memorial weekend, July 4th weekend, and Labor Day weekend. The holy trinity of Michigan vacationers. I remembered Gramps saying one time that the rest of the summer stayed moderately busy. At the moment I counted two cars in the motel parking lot. Then again, who’d want to visit a place that still had snow on the ground in April?

  “Macy!” Gram called. “Come inside and have some cookies and milk.”

  Oh dear Lord. Comfort food. If I wasn’t careful, I’d get bigger than I already was.

  Remember, a minute on the lips is a pound on the hips. I could hear Mom saying the words. I would catch her checking her wrists to make sure her fingers easily touched, so I started doing that. It didn’t take long for her to use that as ammunition against me. If she caught me going for a second helping, she’d scold, “Be careful, or your fingers won’t touch.”

  “I’ll be there in a few minutes,” I called up to Gram before crossing the street.

  Supposedly, I would be helping clean the motel rooms. I wanted to check and see how awful they might be. As I walked across the small parking lot, I was impressed with how immaculate the grounds were. This might have been an older motel, but everything looked well kept up.

  I checked the gate to the pool. Still locked. Then again, the pool had been drained and was covered by blue plastic. That’ll be kind of cool, I thought to myself as I headed to a corner motel room. I don’t have a pool back home.

  The motel room’s door was locked.

  Duh. Of course it would be. What’d I think? That Gram and Gramps kept everything unlocked?

  “Excuse me?” a man said from behind me.

  I turned around and kept my hand on the doorknob as if it was supposed to be there. I probably looked guilty. “I’m supposed to be here,” I said. “My grandparents wanted me to check everything out.”

  “Good,” he said in relief. “My daughter and I are in need of more washcloths and towels. Ms. Elmsworth said they were in the dryer, but it’s been a couple hours. Do you think they’re done by now?”

  “Uh,” I said. “Let me go and see.”

  I walked past him and studied each door. Which one was laundry? I couldn’t remember!

  Everything was on one floor, so I headed to the office, but it was locked too. I noticed the man had followed me. “I’ll have to ask my grandmother. She’s right across the street.”

  “Thank you,” he said smiling.

  He made me nervous. From his head to his shoes, he was filthy. Not in an unclean sort of way, but in a mechanic kind of way. He had smudges of grease on his face, and his hands were covered in it too. He had on a blue-striped uniform that said Jay’s Auto Palace. None of that made me nervous though. It was that underneath all that car residue, he was handsome with big brown eyes and full lips. “I’m eighteen,” I blurted, before wanting to face palm. “I mean, you know…”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Okay. About those towels…”

  I nodded and ran to the road, completely mortified. As I ran across the street and up my grandparents’ driveway, I repeated, “I’m eighteen? That’s what you come up with?” I cringed again. “You’re a hundred different kinds of special, aren’t you?”

  “Who are you talking to, Macy May?” Gram sat on the porch, smiling at me like I was a ray of sunshine. I would have smiled back but I was still recovering from mortification.

  “Towels,” I blurted out again. “The guy over there, who is a mechanic or something, not that he told me, but I was able to tell because of his clothes and he was dirty. Not that mechanics have to be dirty, but he just looked like a mechanic, you know?”

  Gram blinked at me and kept smiling. “Derek needs towels? They should be dry now. Why don’t you be a good girl and get them out of the dryer? Make sure to fold them neat.”

  “Where’s the dryer?” I sighed. I wanted to refuse, but Dad always taught us to treat elders with dignity and respect. I might have had issues with my parents, but I wasn’t about to talk back to Gram. Especially since she had cookies and milk waiting for me.

  “On the other side of the office is the laundry door. It’s locked, but all you have to do is put in the code.”

  “A code? As in there are no keys?”

  “The laundry room and office are keyless entries. It was your grandfather’s idea. We kept losing keys!”

  “Okay, so what’s the code?”

  She leaned forward and motioned for me to come closer. “1, 2, 3, 4, 6.” Then she sat back and laughed. “That was your grandfather’s idea too. Just jump one of the numbers! No one will ever guess it! But our old brains remember!”