See You at Harry's (15 page)

After brushing my teeth, I step into the dark hallway. No one has turned on the night-light that we keep on outside Charlie’s room. I can see well enough to find it and turn it on. It’s in the shape of Snoopy’s doghouse. It was Sara’s when she was little, then Holden’s, then mine, and finally Charlie’s. A faded Snoopy lies asleep on top. Charlie used to sit on the floor in the hall and pet Snoopy’s belly as he told him to have sweet dreams.

I sit on the floor and touch the plastic. I feel it get warm from the heat of the lightbulb inside.

“Fern?” Sara whispers. I turn. She makes her way to the bathroom. “What are you doing?”

I don’t know.

“Get some sleep,” she says before she disappears inside.

I stand up and look down the hallway. Charlie’s room is on the left; mine is on the right, just beyond. The hallway is so quiet, it echoes in my ears. I’m used to Charlie’s quiet snores or the steady scritch-scratch of his fingers on the wall as he talks himself to sleep, telling Doll stories.

I strain to listen. It’s so quiet, it hurts. I cover my ears and hurry to my dark room. I shut my door, grab my backpack, and pull out the answering machine. I plug it in and crawl into bed, pulling the covers over me and the machine. I turn the volume down as low as it can go, then press play and slowly turn the volume up so I can just barely hear. Hear Charlie. I hold my hand on the speaker and feel his voice gently vibrate against my palm.

“See you at Hawee’s,” he lies happily. I rewind the tape and play the broken promise again. And again. I will never see him again. I will never see his tiny hand waving to me through the glass. Or Doll’s face, bobbing up and down excitedly, as if she’s been waiting for me all day. I let the words fill the empty space inside me that aches and aches. But every time the machine goes quiet, I feel the emptiness open up again. I breathe in and out through my mouth to fill the quiet. In. Out. Over and over. Until I fall asleep.

T
HE NEXT MORNING
, when I step into the hallway, the light in Charlie’s room is on and I can hear a sobbing sound coming from inside. I step back into the shadow of my room. After a few minutes, I see my dad come out of Charlie’s room with Doll in his hands. He pauses outside the door and wipes his eyes with the cuffs of his shirt. I listen to him go down the stairs before I crawl back into bed.

When my dad comes back home, he tells us all to eat breakfast and then get some warm clothes on. “We’re getting out of here for a bit,” he says.

When we’re heading down the driveway, Sara asks where we’re going. No one mentions that my mom still hasn’t left her bedroom.

“Away from the house. Just for a little while,” my dad says.

We drive through town and back out the other side, along the lake. It’s a cold late-September day, so no one is at the beach. My dad parks in the empty lot, and we all get out. He gets the thick wool picnic blanket from the back and leads us to the far end of the beach, out of sight of the parking lot. We sit along the edge of the blanket, facing the water. The wind is blowing, causing small whitecaps on the waves. We sit there listening to the steady lap of the water on the shore. We’ve been here as a family so many times. My dad used to throw us up out of the water so we could cannonball one another. He taught us how to float on our backs and look up at the clouds. And Holden and I used to dig holes in the sand to make a swimming pool for Doll.

A group of seagulls nears. In their screechy chatter, I can almost hear the echo of Charlie’s giggles.

The ache in my chest rises up in my throat again. I want to scream at the birds, at the water, at the sky.
It isn’t fair!

It isn’t fair.

My dad gets up and walks to the edge of the water. He picks up a stone and skips it out across the surface. It hops three times before it disappears. We watch him silently from the blanket. The cold air blows between us. Even though I am sitting between my brother and sister, I feel more alone than I’ve ever felt in my whole life. I close my eyes and will Charlie to come running up behind me, put his sticky hands over my eyes, and scream, “Guess who?” in my ear. I wait and wait.

My dad comes back over to us and kneels in the sand, facing us. His hair is all windblown, and I think it looks grayer. He looks down at his giant thighs and rubs his hands on them.

“I made arrangements for the memorial service to be on Sunday afternoon.” He turns away and looks at the lake. “And on Monday, Fern and Holden, you’ll go back to school. Sara, Mom, and I will go back to work at the restaurant. I think . . . I think we need to get back into a routine. The sooner, the better.”

“Mom can’t even get out of bed,” Holden says.

My dad sighs. “She will.”

But how does he know? How does he know she’ll come down? How does he know she won’t stay up there forever? How does he know she won’t just fade away?

We’re all quiet again. So quiet I can’t stand it. A seagull comes over and dips its head toward my dad’s leg. He shoos it off. If Charlie were here, he’d chase it away with Doll, giggling as he ran.

I want him back.

I want him to come running up the beach and scream, “Surprise! I’m OK! It was all a big mistake!”

But the beach stays deserted, except for us.

“It’s my fault,” I whisper. “If I’d caught up to him fast enough, I could’ve pushed him out of the way.” I imagine myself shoving Charlie aside just in time. I imagine me being the one to fall on the pavement.
Got you, Big Bad Wolf!
Charlie would say, laughing. And I would be the hero. Fern. The one who saves.

“It should have been me.”

“Don’t, Fern,” Holden says.

But I imagine how different everything would be. If it had been me, everyone would have Charlie to make them feel better. And me being gone wouldn’t really feel all that different, since no one really notices me anyway. It would have been so much
better
if it had been me instead.

“It’s true. I was the Big Bad Wolf. He ran away from me because I wasn’t paying attention to him. I was ignoring him!”

“Don’t do this, honey,” my dad says. He puts his warm hand on my shoulder, but I shrug it off.

“You know it’s true! ” I yell. “All he wanted was a little attention. But I just ignored him! It’s all my fault!”

“Stop it!” Sara screams. And we all turn to look at her. “Stop saying that! Stop thinking it!” She’s scratched her face. “I can’t stand it!” she yells. “Just stop!”

But I can’t. Because I know it’s true.

I get up and run to the water. I don’t know what I’m thinking, but I just start walking in. The truth feels like it’s crushing me. Drowning me before I even get up to my knees.

The water seeps through my sneakers and up my jeans. It’s icy cold, and it’s such a relief to feel an outside hurt take over the hurt inside. The pain stings my ankles and crawls up my legs as I walk in deeper.

“Fern!” they all call behind me, but I don’t turn. I walk in deeper. I slam my fists at the water. At the seagulls. At the sky.

“Why did you do it! He was just a little boy!” I scream and splash and shake from the cold. All the while I can see Charlie in my mind. Hear him laughing. See him looking back at me as he ran away. Me. The Big Bad Wolf coming to get him.

I slam my fists into the water again, stepping in deeper.

“I need him back!” I scream. “Give him back!” I push myself forward into more cold. It takes my breath away and I am choking. “Please give him back!”

Strong hands grab my shoulders and pull me toward the shore.

“No! No!” I scream, trying to break free. “Let me go!” I swing my fists.

The arms fold around me.

“I can’t! I can’t!” I scream. “I can’t!”

I can’t live. I can’t act like life can keep going on without him. That all will be well. It won’t! Nothing will ever be right again. Nothing.

“It’s OK. It’s OK now. Let it out.” My dad’s voice is quiet and calm in my ear.

But there is nothing to let out.

Nothing.

I am empty.

He wraps me in the blanket and buckles me in the backseat, and we all drive back home. Sara guides me to the upstairs bathroom and runs a hot bath for me, then leaves me alone. I undress and pull back the shower curtain. I already put Charlie’s bath toys under the sink, but there are still traces of him here. Fingerprints of bathtub paint that haven’t dissolved with the water yet. I touch them, careful not to smudge them in any way. I can feel the panic rising in my chest again, but I swallow it back down. I pour the bubble bath Charlie loved in the water and swish it around. It smells like Charlie when he first comes out of the bath and runs around naked from room to room, a devilish grin on his face as he shakes his bare bottom at us and runs off again with naked Doll dangling from one hand.

I put my soap-covered hands to my face and cry again. Cry and cry until I get so used to the smell I can’t smell it anymore, and I have to open the bottle and breathe it in. Breath after breath after breath.

T
HE DAY BEFORE THE FUNERAL
, my mom finally comes downstairs. She’s wearing my dad’s sweats, and her hair is stringy and gross. She stands at the kitchen counter and holds herself up by leaning on her elbow against the counter. My dad gives her a cup of coffee, and she sips it quietly. Her face is grayish, and her eyes seem sunken in.

She doesn’t look like our mom. She looks like a ghost of her.

I had hoped when she came down, she would wrap us up in her arms like she used to do with Charlie. And she would tell us she was here, just like when she’d come into my room at night when I woke up from a nightmare. “I’m here,” she’d whisper. “I’m here.” Until I fell back to sleep. But now I think those arms would pass right through me. It makes me feel as empty as she looks.

When she finishes her coffee, we follow her out to the living room to wait for the minister, who is stopping by to talk to us about Charlie and what will happen at the memorial service. We don’t belong to a church, so Mona recommended him.

My dad greets him at the door and they talk quietly for a minute, then they come to talk with us. The minister is huge like my dad but quieter. Calmer. I wonder how many times he’s had to come to a house like ours. To say words no one wants to hear.

The whole time, my parents sit on the couch and stare at the coffee table. Sara and I are squeezed into my mom’s chair, and Holden stands behind us. The minister’s eyes dart from one of us to another as he talks. It seems like he’s been trained to do this. To make eye contact with everyone in the room. Each time our eyes meet, I feel like he can see inside me. Like he can see my guilt. I’m glad when he leaves.

All day, people stop by with casserole dishes for the service tomorrow. My dad stands in the doorway to accept them.

I’m so sorry. We’re so sorry.

We hear the words over and over through the open door. They are supposed to comfort. I know that. But I want to scream at everyone to shut up. What are
they
sorry for?

In the afternoon, my dad and Holden make several trips back and forth to the restaurant to bring the food over there. None of us want it. Instead, my mom and Sara make plain pasta, and we all try to force it down. My dad tells us what the plans are for tomorrow, but no one responds. I keep waiting for my mom to look up. To look at us. Look at me. But she doesn’t. Maybe it’s because she can’t. Maybe it’s because she knows it’s my fault.

The next morning, Sara wakes us all up, and we take turns in the shower. I don’t own any skirts, so Sara lends me one of her Indian print ones. It’s too long, so I have to roll it up at the waist. I wear a dark blue blouse with it. Standing in front of the mirror, I don’t recognize myself. My hair hangs limply to my shoulders. I look frumpy. Sara comes into my room with a brush and offers to pull my hair back for me. When she’s done, she leads me to the mirror again. Somehow, with my hair up, I look taller. Older.

“You should pull your hair back more often, Fern. You look pretty.”

I don’t want to look pretty.

Sara looks older, too. She has on a long, deep purple skirt with a black ballet-style top. She wears a pretty shawl over her shoulders that Mona knitted for her for Christmas last year. When our eyes meet, she looks down, and for a second, she looks just like my mom last night. And I realize why they can’t look at me. Because they think it’s my fault. Because they know it is.