Before You Go (14 page)

The ocean will make you sick, drive you crazy. You can’t drink that water.

A hand fell on Jude’s shoulder; his father offered a handkerchief. Tight-lipped, Jude shrugged it away. A weight pressed against his chest, his cracked ribs. The cage that protected his inner organs—kidney, liver, heart—had failed him. The music stirred something in his plum heart, some desolate place the words could not reach, and the bird had flown. He thought how one day he might write a song and use that same organ sound, figured on the spot how to transcribe the notes to guitar. The heart too was an organ. A pumping mass of muscle. It would be a song without words, emotion in each note’s fuzz and intonation, the struck chord glimmering like a sun-blazoned ocean, like explosions in the sky, and he’d call the tune “My Sweet Zombie Boy.”

At last it ended. They shuffled out from the pews, moved in small steps, feet barely lifted off the floor, toward the back and the reprieve of wide, open doors.

He saw Lee, square-shouldered and stupified. Vinnie stood beside him, a blurry mess. They looked at each other, like department-store mannequins across the aisle, in mute helplessness. Vinnie’s lips quivered, his Adam’s apple bobbed, eyes as lifeless as brown buttons.

“Jude,” a voice said. Becka reached out a hand. She looked into his eyes, searched for something there. Jude pulled away, gave his head a quick shake—
not now.
He continued walking. There was still the burial to get past, the
interment
, as they called it. A hole to dig. More walls to build, dirt thrown over everything.

“I want to go home,” he told his father. “The pills. My ribs. I’m so tired.”

“But Jude,” his mother started. “We still have the cemetery. Corey’s parents.”

Maybe there was something in his eyes after all, or perhaps it was the way he said it. His father intervened, “He’s been through enough, Joan.” And to his son: “Okay, Jude. Let’s take you home.”

TWENTY-THREE

“So where we going?” Jude asked.

Becka, behind the wheel, made a right on Merrick Road. “Nowhere really, just a place I like.”

They hadn’t seen each other since the funeral, Jude not even bothering to answer most of her text messages. If Becka was pissed about the blow off—and Jude guessed she was—she worked hard not to show it. Becka talked constantly, chittering like a squirrel about this, that, and the other thing. Nervous, keeping things light, avoiding the big topic. Jude looked out the side window at gas stations, delis, littered sidewalks, and faded pizza joints. She talked about things that happened at work, asked Jude when he thought he’d come back.

“I’m not,” he said.

Becka frowned, braked at a red light. “Not at all? Not for the rest of the summer?”

“I might paint the house,” Jude said. “My dad’s been talking about it.”

“You know how to do that?”

“Not a clue.”

She stopped in the right lane, put on the turn signal and navigated a clean parallel park on the street. “Nicely done, don’t you think?” she asked brightly.

“Mill Pond,” Jude observed.

“Have you been here?” she asked.

“Sure.”

“There’s a loop trail we can take.” Becka reached into the backseat, hoisted up a wicker basket. “I brought some yummy food.”

Jude climbed out of the car. He didn’t know the difference between a pond and a lake and figured that the guy who named this one didn’t know, either. It looked like a small lake to him. Or maybe a big pond. Whatever. He seemed to remember that it had something to do with depth, not the size of the water but how deep it went. There were benches scattered around, a couple of rundown, splintery gazebos, and an aggressive gaggle of geese honking for food.

Becka led the way around to the right and into the woods. Jude followed a half step behind. Becka grew silent, pensive. And Jude waited for it to come.

“So how are you doing?” she asked. “I’ve missed you.”

Jude shrugged. “About what you’d expect, I guess.” He didn’t give her much, didn’t have much to give.

They walked for a while, about halfway around the lake, then found a small clearing across a wooden footbridge, a patch of grass where one pond flowed into the other. Becka set down the basket. The afternoon light on the fade, not a soul around.

They ate quietly, Becka uncertain, offering him food and apologizing for every little thing.

“It’s good,” he said. “I’m just not hungry.”

Finally, it came. The talk about the accident and Corey and how sorry she was, how messed up everything felt between them.

“Maybe it was meant to be,” Becka offered.

“No, don’t say that,” Jude said. “Don’t say that.”

Becka looked away. She saw a feral rabbit across the field moving cautiously in the late-afternoon light.
This is the time they come out
, she thought.
Safer in the dusk
. She wondered why that was. Fewer hawks this time of night? Or just less people out, clomping around, talking in loud voices, laughing stupidly, walking dogs?

Jude rose, paced around the fringes of their conversation. This was Becka’s show, this little get-together in the park. She wouldn’t let him be when that was all he had wanted, to be left alone. “You know I hate it when people say that,” Jude continued, waving a hand dismissively. “
Meant to be.
What’s that even mean, anyway? You really think this was some kind of master plan, Becka, a car wrapped around a tree?”

Becka stayed silent, regretting her mistake. He had changed before her eyes, now all jittery and jangled. She had said too much already.

“People die,” Jude said, agitated. “Terrible things happen every day. Accidents. Good, kind, beautiful people die all the time. Babies in cribs. Kids with cancer. Mothers in supermarkets drop dead in the frozen food section, clutching boxes of fish sticks. And the best anyone can do is hand me that bullshit line, ‘meant to be.’”

“It’s not a line,” Becka protested. She spoke in a soft, conciliatory voice. “I was in that car too, Jude. So was Daphne, remember? We’re all trying to understand it just like you. Please,” she said, gesturing to the blanket, “sit down.”

Jude latched on to the word. “‘Remember’?
Remember
? Like you think it slipped my mind?”

“Jude, I didn’t—”

“And as for Daphne,” Jude interrupted. “Do you really, really think I care? She killed my best friend.”

“It was an accident, Jude. Don’t you dare blame her,” Becka said. “She really liked Corey. You saw them together. How do you think Daphne feels?”

Jude paused, momentarily caught off guard. He grinned with malice. “An accident? Or was it meant to be? Huh, Beck? Which is it? Because you can’t have it both ways,” Jude bullied. He waved a hand dismissively. “These easy explanations. Does it make you feel good, Beck? Does it help you sleep at night?”

“Jude, please.”

“‘Jude, please,’” he mocked.

Hurt flooded her eyes. Becka busied her hands, packed away the failed picnic. Wrapped tinfoil around the chicken. Sealed the grapes in Tupperware; they went bad so easily.

“You believe in God, is that it?” he asked, probing for a weakness, talons out. “How nice.”

Becka cast her eyes downward, sat in stillness, waited for the shadow to pass. She looked into the cruel mask of his face. There was no light in his eyes. The kindness drained out. “I do,” she said scarcely above a whisper. “I believe in … something. I don’t know, Jude. It can’t all be for nothing.”

“But that’s the whole point!” Jude exclaimed. “Nothing makes sense. We could all be wiped out tomorrow, and the sun would still come up. Because nothing matters.”

“I want to leave now,” Becka announced. She rose to fold the blanket.

Jude did not offer to help. “I can’t do this anymore,” he said. “We should take a break. Picnics in the park. Jesus Christ.”

Becka felt punctured, stabbed in the chest. “You don’t mean that. Do you, Jude? Tell me you don’t mean it.”

Jude dared not look in her eyes. He clenched his fists, full of fury.

“Tell me you don’t mean it,” she repeated. Becka tried a different tact. “You’re upset, Jude. You’ve been through so much.”

“I’m not ‘upset,’” Jude replied, more mockery in his voice. “
Upset
? You’re kidding me, right? You think I’m upset? What am I? Some kid who dropped his ice-cream cone, is that what you think?”

“We have to stick together, now more than ever. I can’t do this alone.”

“It’s done,” he said. “I’m sorry, but…” He turned his back to her. “I can’t do this, Beck. I just can’t.”

She let him leave, watched him go across the grass back toward the path that led to the car. Jude needed time. He’d be all right. They’d be fine. He just needed time, that was all. An inner voice advised:
Stay strong, hang back. Don’t let him see you cry.

The gray rabbit lifted its head, paused, and watched the approach of the figure’s dark threat, then darted beneath a bush.

Safe.

TWENTY-FOUR

The next morning, Becka left a note in Jude’s mailbox. His mother found it, set it on the kitchen counter. A sealed white envelope with
JUDE
written across it.

“Girl can’t take a hint,” Jude grumbled to himself. She kept trying to drag him back. He carried the envelope up to his room, flopped on his bed, and tore it open.

Jude,

I remember when I was three or four years old, my parents took us camping. It was a good time. I played with my brothers in a rocky stream, climbing on the slippery rocks. We ate s’mores by the fire at night. Matt hit a Wiffle ball into the thick underbrush, and because I was the smallest, they made me crawl in to get it. That’s when I found my plastic cowboy, half covered in dirt. I thought it was the greatest discovery ever, and I loved it. Stupid, I know, but I still have it up in my room. Just a plastic cowboy. But to me, finding it was like a miracle. A gift. Now why am I telling you this, now that it seems like we’ve come to the end? Because that’s how I feel about you.

Love,
B

Jude felt his chest pound. He knew that it must have been a difficult thing for her to write. He wondered about that last part, “Love, B.” They hadn’t said that word before, and he wasn’t sure what it meant exactly. But just the same, he felt it too, knew it was the right word.

Just the wrong time.

TWENTY-FIVE

On Jude’s desk in his room sat a new laptop computer. It was a gift. For school, senior year, then college. All those big things ahead he didn’t care about anymore. The laptop was beautifully designed, fully loaded, the best Mac on the market. There was a time, not long ago but a world away, when such an unexpected gift would have brought a smile to his face. He’d feel grateful, maybe even offer up some big show of affection for such a hug-worthy present, create a Hallmark moment with the folks—Mom and Dad and Jude in a warm embrace.
Love, love, love all around.
They had somehow seen into his secret heart and, unannounced, provided its desired thing: a damn laptop. And so Jude was supposed to look at his parents and ask with glee, “How did you know? How did you know what I always wanted?”

Hey, they were trying. He realized that. But he couldn’t, or wouldn’t. No, that’s not right, not exactly. Jude was trying too, clawing for air, but it wasn’t working, no uplift in ordinary things, his lungs waterlogged, sinking under a sunken feeling.

Jude sat on his bed, staring at the computer where it had sat, untouched, for the past three days. His father had unpacked it while Jude sat there, watching. He was still their little boy, and this was his parents’ attempt to throw him a life preserver. They were firm believers in stiffening the old upper lip, burying the past, and moving on.

And Jude thought,
This is what you get two weeks after your friend dies. Bad things happen to you? Don’t worry, gifts to follow.

Karma with a two-week lag time.

He rose to his feet, walked to the laptop, lifted it up, carried it back across the room. Jude slid open the bedroom window with his one free hand, gave the computer a toss into the afternoon air, just to see if it could fly. Poor thing, no wings. Maybe someday they’ll make an app for that.

Motherboard smashed, keyboard crunched, LCD screen shattered. He thought of other things he’d thrown away, and people too. It felt good to be free.

Jude didn’t care if he ever saw Becka again.

His father soon came storming up the stairs and burst into the room apoplectic, arms waving. “What the hell, Jude?” he shouted. Jude’s mother pushed in behind her husband, so that now the three of them stood staring at each other, agape. Jude couldn’t remember the last time they’d all been in his room at once. It made his space feel small, cluttered, a place he’d outgrown, like the hallway of an old elementary school.

“You’re paying for that!” Mr. Fox demanded, pointing out the window. His voice cracked with emotion. And just as quickly, he seemed to sag, a huge exhale, the juice drained out of him. He sat on the corner of Jude’s bed, head down. “I know it’s been hard,” he said to the floor in a soft voice. He looked up, blinked, searched Jude’s face for some sign. Jude looked away, guarded. “You can’t shut down on us, Jude. I won’t allow it.” Mr. Fox turned to his wife, as if startled to see her standing there. He reached for her hand. “We won’t allow it.”

Jude imagined that his father’s words were little silver fish swimming about the room.
Glub, glub, glub.
He closed his eyes and saw one swim into his ear and out the other. He felt its silver fins shiver against his consciousness. And so came three thoughts in close succession.

There was a crash.

His parents heard it.

And now it was time to get those two the hell out of his room.

TWENTY-SIX