After (14 page)

chapter 20

T
he next two weeks passed quickly. Sam was absent from school pretty often, and when he was there, I avoided him. Soon he stopped trying so hard to talk to me or to get me to forgive him. I think he knew it wasn’t going to happen.

In English class, where he and I usually partnered up, he began working on projects with Matt Alexander, and I started working with Gillian Zucker. We had two Tuesday meetings of our group—one at McDonald’s (where we all got Happy Meals and giggled our way through playing with the toys like little kids) and one at the ice rink again—and I don’t think I was the only one who felt Sam’s absence.

Sunday, November fifteenth dawned gray and bleak, which seemed fitting. It was officially the anniversary. It had been an entire year. Today we’d begin a whole new year of days my father would never get to live, things he’d never get to see. But saying it, admitting it had been nearly a year already, was more difficult than it should have been.

It had been fifty-two Saturdays since I’d taken my sweet time in the bathroom and cheerfully headed out the door for the five-minute car ride that would change our lives. I felt tears prickle at the backs of my eyes as I lay in bed.

Despite myself, I went to the window to look for a rainbow, and I almost wanted to kick myself for believing there was even a chance one would be there. Not only did I not believe in stuff like that, but it would have been scientifically impossible, given the overcast skies. You needed sunshine for a rainbow, and I had the feeling there wouldn’t be any today.

I looked at the sky anyhow, hoping that there would be some kind of sign that my dad was up there, watching. But still, nothing.

Then, something made me look down. My window overlooked the front yard and the street, and as I glanced at the grass, I noticed the strangest thing.

The lawn, which had been covered for the past few weeks in a growing blanket of orange, red, and yellow leaves, had been raked, and there was a big pile of leaves in the corner, almost exactly where my dad used to put the leaf pile.

For a fleeting instant, I was sure my dad had done it, that it was the sort of sign Sam had talked about, except that instead of painting a rainbow in the sky, my dad had done something much more personal.

Then I remembered. I had told Sam about the leaves, hadn’t I? But he couldn’t have done this. With as coldly as I’d been treating him, it was hard to believe that he would show up with a rake in the wee, cold hours of the morning and do something so incredibly touching.

I stared down from the window for a long time at the leaf pile. And while I looked, a little bit of the ice melted from around the outside of my heart.

•  •  •

Mom surprised us all by making light, fluffy blueberry pancakes for breakfast.

“I thought it would be a start to a tough day that your dad would appreciate,” she said as she brought the platter to the table. Logan shuffled over to the fridge to grab the maple and blueberry syrups, and Tanner poured juice for all of us, sloshing a little over the side of Mom’s glass.

“Sorry,” he said.

She smiled at him. “No problem.”

It was like we were in a time warp and had gone back to normal. Well, almost. Logan didn’t look at all like himself; his eyes were bloodshot, his hair was a mess, and I could swear I could smell alcohol on him, although Mom seemed oblivious. Mom still looked vacant, but I knew she was trying. And Tanner, of course, was being his usual quiet self.

Or so I thought. After we’d downed our pancakes and Mom had stood up to start clearing the table, he suddenly said, “Knock, knock.”

We all looked at him. Logan and I exchanged glances. Mom stopped in her tracks.

“What?” I asked, sure that I must have heard him wrong.

“Knock, knock,” Tanner repeated. We hadn’t heard a joke come out of Tanner’s mouth in a year. “Um, who’s there?” I asked. “Little old lady,” he said.

“Little old lady who?” my mom asked, coming back to the table.

Tanner smiled at her and then at Logan and me. “I didn’t know you could yodel, Mom.”

It was a stupid joke, really, the kind that we only would have laughed at a year ago to be polite. But hearing Tanner tell it today, after a year of barely hearing his voice, never mind his humor, unleashed something in all of us.

Mom started laughing first, in high, tinkling tones that I hadn’t heard in so long I had almost forgotten what they sounded like. Logan joined in next with an amused chuckle. Before I knew it, I was laughing too.

“I’ve been saving that one for today,” Tanner said. “I think Dad would have liked it.”

The words brought the laughter to a halt. Finally, Mom broke the silence. “Yes, Tanner,” she said. “I know he would have.”

And in that moment, sitting around the kitchen table with my mom and two brothers I felt like maybe, just maybe, our dad was with us after all.

•  •  •

Logan disappeared after breakfast with promises that he’d meet us back at the house by two to go to the cemetery, a trip I was dreading. I’d managed to avoid it for an entire year, but I knew I had to go. I had to do it. For my mom, for Tanner, and, I guess, for myself. After I took a shower and got dressed, I knocked on Tanner’s door.

“Want to go out and jump in the leaf pile in the yard?” I asked.

He followed me outside. We spent the next hour jumping around together, like we used to when we were younger. We threw handfuls of leaves at each other, made leaf angels in the yard by lying on our backs and spreading our arms, and dove into the pile again and again, breathing in the familiar, slightly musty smell of autumn all around us.

We laughed like we used to when our dad would dive in with us, and as I grabbed my little brother for a tickle attack, like Dad used to do to me, I looked up at the gray sky once again, foolishly half expecting a rainbow. Instead there were just low, dense clouds and the promise of rain. The leaves, I knew, would get wet and soggy and would disperse around the yard again when the sky opened up. But for now, they were perfect, and when I closed my eyes, I could almost believe that it was like before, a crisp fall day when everything in the world was right.

•  •  •

Logan didn’t come home.

As we waited for him at the kitchen table, my mom got more and more mad.

“Maybe he’s just running late,” she said at 2:10.

“He must be on his way,” she said at 2:20 when she called his cell phone and it went straight to voice mail.

“What could they be doing?” she demanded at 2:30 when she called Sydney’s phone and got her voice mail too.

“Fine, he can meet us there,” she huffed at 2:45 when Logan still hadn’t appeared.

So Mom, Tanner, and I climbed into the car and headed to the cemetery.

After we parked, Mom led us up the little hill to Dad’s grave, as easily as if she had a map of the place imprinted on her mind. I supposed maybe she did.

Dad’s gravestone was a thick slab of dark gray marble, and as we walked up to it, the words imprinted on it burned into me.

P
ETER
M
ANN
B
ELOVED
F
ATHER
, H
USBAND, AND
S
ON

A single ray of sunshine poked through the gloomy mass of clouds as we stood in silence, looking at Dad’s grave. I had no idea how to act. Was I supposed to kneel and say a prayer? Or look up at the sky and try to talk to him? Was I supposed to touch the gravestone or the flowers that seemed to have no right to be alive while my father lay dead?

My mom started crying. Tanner stood beside her, holding her hand, his head leaning against her arm.

“Lacey,” she said, turning toward me.

I swallowed hard and wondered what was wrong with me that I wasn’t crying too. I joined them, putting my arm around Mom. She pulled me into a hug, and the three of us stood there for what felt like a small eternity, blanketed in a silence that was only punctuated by the occasional sounds of Mom’s sniffles.

After a few minutes, Tanner pulled away and announced that he was going to go look for a squirrel he’d just seen run by.

“I have some peanuts in my pocket,” he said solemnly. “And maybe he’s hungry.”

Mom nodded, and we watched Tanner head off. After a few paces, he broke into a run.

After a moment, Mom began crying again. I didn’t know what to do. It felt awkward to be around a grieving person, especially my mother.

“It’ll be all right, Mom,” I mumbled.

“I’ve been a terrible mother,” she whispered.

“No, Mom,” I said, shaking my head. “It’s okay.”

“I’m the mom,” she said, pulling a tissue from her pocket and blowing her nose. “I’m supposed to be the one who holds it all together. For all of you. And I haven’t been able to do even that.”

“You’ve done your best. I’ve done my best. We’ve all done our best. And it’s going to get better.”

“But your dad would have—”

“Dad would have understood,” I said, “that you can’t be perfect.”

The words settled around us, and as they did, I realized that maybe I needed to take them into account too.

“I’m going to go sit in the car,” Mom said with a sigh, turning away from Dad’s grave.

Ten minutes later, I found Tanner sitting under a tree, gazing at a pair of squirrels, and together, we returned to the car. Mom already had the engine running and the heater going.

“Ready?” she asked.

We both nodded.

It wasn’t until we’d pulled out of the parking lot that I realized I’d been so busy comforting my mom, I hadn’t had a chance to say anything to my dad. I still wasn’t sure that he could even hear me. I wasn’t sure what I believed. But once again, I’d failed him.

chapter 21

T
here was a message on the machine from Logan when we got home.

“Sorry I missed the cemetery,” he said, his voice sounding slurred. “I’m still out with Sydney. See ya later.”

Mom hung up her coat and began sorting through a stack of mail.

“Mom?” I said, biting my lip. I’d always kept up the unspoken sibling rule of honor by not telling my mother if I saw Logan drinking or smoking at a party, but the fact that he sounded drunk at four on a Sunday afternoon worried me. “Doesn’t Logan sound kind of … funny?”

“It’s been an emotional day for all of us, Lacey,” she said, sighing. “I’m sure he’s shed a few tears of his own.”

That wasn’t what I meant, but there was no point arguing with her.

Later, after dinner, I decided to go for a run. I needed to get out. Logan still wasn’t home, and Tanner and Mom were watching some show about pandas on Animal Planet.

The night had turned cold. The rain that had started just after we got home from the cemetery—and had dried up another hour after that—had brought with it a chill in the air that hadn’t been there before.

As I set out at a slow jog, I wasn’t quite sure where I was going at first. I just knew that I needed to be alone.

As I ran, my feet carrying me farther from home, I thought about my dad, I mean
really
thought about him, for the first time in a very long while. It was easier not to think about him most of the time. I’d stopped letting the memories in. I’d stopped talking to him in my head, pretending he could hear me. I’d stopped looking obsessively at his pictures. A little part of me
wanted
to forget his face, his warmth, his deep voice, his lopsided smile, because it would be easier that way, wouldn’t it?

And now he was back. Seeing his gravestone for the first time since the funeral had brought it all home. No matter how fast I ran, I couldn’t escape the reality that he was gone.

My feet carried me the two miles to the cemetery. I didn’t even stop to consider that I shouldn’t be coming this far by myself after dark. It was like I was numb to everything: good judgment, logic, even the bitter cold that was seeping in through my double-layered sweatshirts. I patted the pocket of my sweatpants and felt the familiar shape of my cell phone.

Slowly, I made my way up the shallow hill until I could see my father’s headstone emerge from the darkness. A moment later, I stood in front of it, gazing down for the second time today at his name, the year of his birth, the year of his death. My knees suddenly felt weak, and I reached for the headstone to steady myself.

“Hi,” I said softly. “I’m sorry.” My voice didn’t sound like my own. In fact, it took me several seconds to register that the voice was mine, that I had spoken the words aloud instead of just thinking them. I took a deep breath and repeated the words a little louder. “I’m sorry,” I began again, “for not always being a very good daughter. I’m sorry for all the fights we had. I’m sorry for the times you told me I was being a brat and you were right. I’m sorry for the times I yelled at you that I hated you. I never meant it. Not once. I wish I could take them all back.”

My knees were growing weaker; my legs felt like jelly. My hand still on the headstone, I eased myself down on the dead grass. The rain had left the ground damp, and I could feel it seep through my sweatpants almost immediately. But I didn’t care.

“I’m sorry for that morning,” I went on. “I’m sorry I took so long getting ready, just to bug Logan. I’m sorry I took my time coming downstairs. I’m sorry I thought that was funny. I’m sorry I thought it wouldn’t matter.”

My heart was pounding quickly now, and that familiar icy feeling was back. But still no tears. “I’m sorry that I didn’t look up sooner. I’m sorry that I saw the SUV but didn’t say anything. I didn’t have time, but I should have. I should have thought more quickly. I’m sorry I blacked out. I’m sorry I couldn’t hold your hand. I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.”

I felt short of breath. The words were coming faster, piling out on top of each other. “I’m sorry it was you and not me.” I heard myself say the words, and they surprised me even as they came out of my mouth. I hadn’t known I’d felt that way until that very moment. I hadn’t let myself think about it. But if I’d been just a second faster, if I’d snapped my seat belt right away instead of giving Logan a hard time, if I’d spent one less stupid second in the bathroom making sure my lipstick was just right, then we would have been several inches farther along the road, and the car would have missed Dad and plowed into me in the backseat instead.

Maybe that was the way it was supposed to happen. Maybe I had cheated fate.

“I’m sorry I haven’t done better,” I went on. The more things I apologized for, the more miserable I felt. “I’m sorry I haven’t done a better job of taking care of everyone. I don’t know how, sometimes, Daddy. It’s really hard. But I know it’s what I have to do. I know I have to do that for you. And I’m sorry I haven’t done better. I promise to try harder.”

I sat there, staring at his headstone. I wasn’t sure what I was waiting for. But there was only silence.

“I’m sorry,” I said again. I leaned forward and felt the cold marble of the headstone on my forehead. The cold was cutting into me now, but I didn’t care. I fervently hoped that somewhere, my dad could hear me. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

I repeated the words, again and again, until the pain in my chest was so great that I couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t feel my dad’s presence. Not at all. I realized I was talking to myself.

I stood up, cleared my throat, and touched the gravestone once more. I dusted what dirt I could off my sweats and, with one last, long glance, turned away.

•  •  •

I walked toward the parking lot and saw a vehicle parked in the far corner of the lot, in the shadows. Who would be here this late? My heart hammered and I reached for the phone in my pocket. I shouldn’t have come here. What if I had gotten myself into a dangerous situation?

And then, as I tentatively walked closer, I suddenly recognized it. And the person leaning against it, watching me approach.

Sam straightened up and began walking toward me at the exact instant I realized it was him.

“Hi,” he said as we approached each other.

“Hi,” I said, staring up at him as the distance between us closed. We were standing face to face, under a dim puddle of light from a flickering streetlight. “What are you doing here?”

“I went to your house, and your mom said you’d gone for a run,” he said.

“But how did you know I’d come here?”

“I couldn’t think of anywhere else you’d go. Not today, anyhow.”

“Oh” was all I could manage. There was something about realizing how well he knew me that made my stomach flip. We stared at each other for a moment. Then I asked, “Did you rake the leaves in my yard this morning?”

“Yeah,” he said.

“Why?”

He looked a little embarrassed. “It was important to you. It was a memory you had with your dad.”

“You can’t bring him back, you know.” My voice sounded angry, and I wasn’t sure why I was directing any of that toward Sam. But my stomach was all tied up in knots. “Just by raking leaves. He’s gone.”

“I know.”

I looked away. “It’s not fair.”

“What’s not fair?”

I swallowed hard. “Your dad loved you enough to stay. My dad … didn’t. And sometimes I hate him for it.”

There. I had finally shown Sam the last of the cards I had kept so close to my chest, the cards I hadn’t even known were there. How could I hate my father, even a little bit? Surely it made me the worst person in the world. And now I’d shown Sam just what a despicable human being I really was.

He stepped forward and pulled me into his arms.

I was startled, but I finally let myself relax into the embrace. I tentatively wrapped my arms around him and returned the hug. He responded by holding me tighter, like he would never let go.

“It’s going to be all right, you know,” he whispered, ruffling my hair with his breath.

I opened my mouth to tell him he was wrong, but before I could even get a syllable out, he had put his hand gently over my mouth.

“Stop, Lacey,” he said. “Stop always having to be so tough. Just have some faith.”

“Sam,” I said after a minute, “I still haven’t seen a rainbow.” I paused and added, “I’ve looked.”

Sam stroked my hair. “Maybe you haven’t really needed your dad yet,” he said. “You know, it’s okay to hate him a little. He
did
leave you, even if he never would have wanted to, Lacey. But it made life hard for you. Life is
still
hard for you. He’d understand.”

“How can I feel like that and still love him so much?” I asked in a small voice.

Sam was silent. “I think,” he said, “that’s exactly what love is.”

Sam’s words, and the fact that he was finally absolving me of everything while he held me tight, made something inside me snap. I didn’t even know it had happened until I felt the first tear roll down my right cheek, followed soon after by a single tear from the other eye. And then, they were coming like a deluge, one after another, tears falling from eyes that had been dry for a year.

“You’re crying,” Sam said, leaning back. He looked concerned. He reached in to gently wipe a tear away.

“I know,” I said. I reached up and touched my cheek. “I know.” And for the first time that day, I smiled.

We stood in the middle of the cemetery parking lot for a long time, under the glow of the flickering light, enveloped in a dark silence. But I’d never felt so safe in all my life. I didn’t want to move, didn’t want to go back to reality.

And then, my cell phone rang, a sharp jangle that invited reality back in.

The spell was broken. I looked at Sam as I pulled away. I looked at the caller ID.
Mom’s Cell
. I didn’t know why she’d be calling from her cell instead of the home phone, but I knew she was probably wondering where I was.

I snapped my phone open. “Hello?”

“Lacey?” Her voice sounded frantic. I felt immediately bad.

“Mom, don’t worry; I’m fine,” I said quickly. “Sam’s here with me, and—”

She cut me off. “It’s Logan. There’s been an accident. He’s at the hospital. I need you to come right away.”