The Tear Collector Read Online Free Page A

When do you do anything for me?”
    “You mean other than this roof over your head?” Maggie replies.
    “Why can’t it be one roof? Why do we keep moving? Why do I need to go out and make new friends all the time? Why do I always make the sacrifices? Why do—,” I say, then stop dead. And Grandma Maggie looks as if she’s about to stop breathing. I start to walk away.
    “Turn around!” she yells, but I ignore her, and I hope we both can ignore what occurred: I almost weep, like any other teenage girl. But I consume tears; I don’t release them.
    I knock on Veronica’s door, then enter once she grants permission. The lights are off, but a ray of moonlight shines through the window. The long white veil she often wears lies across the end of the bed. It must be a trick of the light, but her dry, scaly skin looks as yellow as the moon. Like everyone in this house, she’s thin with little body fat. None of us can stand the cold Michigan climate, but Veronica moved us here from New Orleans, just as she moved us from NYC to New Orleans. She’s always looking for opportunity, but I’m not sure what she sees in Lapeer. It’s east of Flint—once the most dangerous city in the United States—and people here seem like everybody else. Whatever the reason, Veronica hasn’t shared it with anyone.
    Veronica’s lying in bed, where she spends most of her days and nights anymore. It is rare that she leaves the house. On the nightstand are various bottles and vials filled with liquids to prevent her from dehydrating. Her voice is weak. I lean in close and still must strain to hear her.
    “How was the hospital?” she whispers, but her soft voice stillspeaks volumes. The question is meant to challenge me, and there’s no right answer. Unlike me, everything out of Veronica’s mouth is judgmental. She builds me up only to knock me down and put me in my place. That place is medical school. Veronica worked as a hospice nurse, guiding people along the final steps of life, but she wants me to become a life-saving doctor. Everything that weighs me down—the Honors Biology class, the hospital job, and the peer counseling service at school—is because of her expectations. Now homebound and weak, she demands even more from me.
    “Okay,” I mumble. After this past weekend with Robyn, Kelsey, and moving closer to breaking Cody’s heart, I feel as tired and worn down as she looks.
    She takes a couple of deep breaths. Talking with Veronica is like conversing on a cell phone with a bad connection; it is full of long moments of silence. And plenty of interrupting: always her, never me. “You’re late,” she says, sounding exactly like my mother. They’re twins separated by a generation, much like Grandma Maggie and me. “I want to hear about that girl Robyn.”
    I briefly recap Robyn’s rumor-inspired heart-wrecking breakup. Veronica sits up a little more in bed, puts her old dry hand on my shoulder, then says, “You know what you must do.”
    “I know.” The only four-letter word that matters is must . Not want, not love. But must.
    “We depend on you, Cassandra,” she reminds me for themillionth time. Veronica’s admonishments consistently remind me of my obligations and her infinite expectations.
    “I saw that woman with the dying mother again before I left the hospital,” I say to change the subject. Robyn isn’t something I want to think about; I want to talk about her even less.
    “You did good,” she says softly. In the space between those words, however, I think what she’s really saying is “You did good, but not good enough .”
    “You feeling any better today?” I ask. Awaiting her answer, I’m overcome by my ambivalence toward Veronica. I fear her pronouncements, yet I envy her special gifts. But mostly I’m angry at how her weakness sucks the life out of the rest of us. I sense this in many people who visit their loved ones in the hospital. They love them and want them well, but the strain in the eyes