See You at Harry's (18 page)

My dad reaches over and touches my knee. “This is impossibly hard on everyone,” he says. “We’re all trying to cope in our own way.”

“But I need her! I need her to be my mom! Why can she hold Sara but not me?”

“I’ll hold you,” he says, and he leans forward and pulls me to him. He rubs my back the way my mom used to, but it doesn’t feel the same.

“We’re being punished,” I say into his dress shirt. “We didn’t pay enough attention to him, so he got taken away from us. We didn’t deserve him.”

“No.”

“Yes!”

“No. You know that’s not true. Life doesn’t work that way.”

“There has to be a reason!”

“Stop it, Fern. Just . . . stop. Could we have paid more attention to Charlie? Sure. Heck, I know there were times when it was my turn to watch him and I’d get distracted by other things. But, honey, God doesn’t punish little kids for other people’s mistakes. It doesn’t work that way.”

I want to believe him. But I know he’s wrong. Kids suffer because of other people all the time.

“We have to stop blaming,” he says. “All of us.”

I wonder if that means him, too.

“You really don’t think it’s my fault?”

“No. I really don’t.”

“But —”

“It’s hard enough that he’s gone. Trying to blame someone, trying to find a reason why — it won’t change anything.” He gently takes hold of my arm. His hand feels warm and strong. “Look at me,” he says.

I lift my eyes to his.

“I love you. I love our family. If we’re going to survive, we’ve got to stick together. We have to love and support one another.”

But what if they don’t love me back? What if they can’t?

“Do you understand? Do you see how important that is?” His eyes are pleading. And sad.

I nod.

“Thank you.” He looks out across the parking lot toward the restaurant. The delivery truck is parked out back, but you can still see it: Charlie’s giant face smiling at us.

“I suppose we’ll have to paint over that,” he says. “Can’t imagine covering up his face, though.” A tear slips along his jaw.

I move closer to him and lean against him again. He puts his arms around me and holds tight. Thoughts of Charlie swirl between us. Images of Charlie under this table, trying to tie my shoelaces together as I do my homework. As I ignore him.

When my dad finally lets go, he looks around again at the table that was Charlie’s hideout. “I don’t know what Charlie loved so much about playing under here,” he says. “It’s really pretty gross.”

“Charlie didn’t notice that kind of stuff,” I say. I picture his dirty face, his crazy hair. His sticky hands. I smile, and a tiny hint of warmth enters my chest. “He was kind of gross, too.”

My dad looks up at the tabletop roof. “Now I know why his hair was sticky all the time.”

I almost laugh but stop myself.

“It’s OK, Fern. Charlie wouldn’t want you to be so sad.”

But I’ve already swallowed it down.

“Should we go back inside? It’s pretty cold out here.”

I shake my head. “It hurts too much. Hearing those stories.”

“I know.”

“I mean it hurts so much, I can hardly breathe.”

He nods. “I know.”

“I feel like . . . like . . .”

“I know,” he says. “It’s OK. We can stay right here.”

I picture my mom and Sara upstairs in the office, surrounded by their own guilt. And Holden and Gray, sitting at the table listening to all those Charlie stories, looking miserable. But they all have each other. And I guess I have my dad. But what I really want is Charlie.

My dad shifts again and rubs his lower back.

“You can go back in, Dad. I’ll be OK.”

He smiles at me but looks uncertain.

“I promise,” I say. But I think we both know it’s a lie.

“All right,” he says. “I’ll just go back in for a bit, and then we’ll all go home.” He squeezes himself out from under the table, and I listen to his feet slowly crunch through the leaves as he walks away.

W
HEN
H
OLDEN COMES TO GET ME
and takes me to the car, everyone is already waiting. I climb in the back and stare out the window. Sara sits in the middle between Holden and me. No one says a word as we drive home. No one asks me to sing to him. No one asks me to make Doll dance. No one reaches for my hand to hold and squeeze. No one whispers,
I love you, Ferny
.

At home, I go straight to my room and shut the door. I crawl into bed with the answering machine and hold it to my chest. I don’t play it, just hold it. Hold all that I have left.

Eventually I hear everyone come upstairs to get ready for bed. My dad knocks on my door and comes in to say good night. He holds me close and pats my hair as if I’m a little kid. As if I’m . . . I close my eyes and concentrate on his big hand, gently patting me. Soothing me.

“Get some sleep,” he says. “We’ll talk more in the morning.” No one else comes to say good night.

I wait for the house to get quiet before I use the bathroom and brush my teeth. On my way back to my room, I stop in Charlie’s doorway. It’s dark, but I can see that his bed still isn’t made.

I step inside and take a slow, deep breath. The air smells stale but still like Charlie’s room. Like unwashed hair and baby powder, which he loved to coat himself with after his bath.

I feel along the wall and turn on the light. I look at each wall, plastered with crayon drawings. Each piece of furniture. Each toy still on the floor. I pick up one of his books and put it back on his bookcase. When I do, I see a small brass vase on the top shelf. I step closer. I’ve never seen it before. I reach out for it but then pull my hand away.

It’s not a vase. It’s an urn.

It’s Charlie. In that small metal . . . thing.

I think about the answering machine and how it feels like he’s alive in there. Not like this cold metal object on the top of a bookshelf.

I sit on the floor and stare up at it.

“I miss you,” I whisper.

The room is quiet.

I wait and wait for him to answer somehow. To feel something. But the room is still.

Under Charlie’s bed, I see a bunch of stuffed animals, some stray plastic dinosaurs, and a few board books he outgrew. Most of them have chew marks at the corners. I used to hate reading those to him because they were usually either wet or sticky. I reach for one and pull it out. It’s
Big Red Barn,
one of his favorites. I open it and look up at the urn again. Waiting to feel something.

I begin to whisper the familiar first sentence.

As I read, I remember Charlie next to me, finishing each line.

Cat,
he’d whisper, pointing.

I pause as I read, waiting for his voice to fill the silence.

I imagine him leaning against my arm, reaching for my ear.

And when I finish, I wait for what always comes next.

Again.

I hold the book to my chest and breathe and breathe what I can of his room and its memories. Then I get up and make Charlie’s bed. I set some of the stuffed animals on it. Just his favorites. I put the book on his pillow. When I turn to leave, I see my mom standing in the doorway.

I jump back and almost fall on the bed.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” she says. “I — I saw the light on.”

She stays in the doorway. She has her shawl on over her nightgown. She looks even less like my mom standing there in the shadows, all sunken in on herself. As if she really is slowly disappearing.

“I was just . . .” But I don’t know what to say.

Her hands shake as she fiddles with a loose piece of yarn on her shawl. “I heard,” she says. “He loved that book.”

She puts one foot into the room, moving into the light, as if she is finally going to come over and comfort me. But she pauses, as if she isn’t sure she can.

Because she blames me. I know she does.

“He just ran away from me,” I say. “I tried to catch up, but he was too fast.”

“I know,” she says.

“But you can’t even look at me. You blame me. I know you do.”

“No, Fern.”

“Yes, you do! You haven’t even touched me since it happened. You can’t!”

“No.”

“You know it’s true!”

“No. Oh, honey, No. Come here.” She steps back into the dark hall, as if she doesn’t want me to see her up close in the light. See just how much the pain has changed her. But I already have.

Slowly, I go to her, even though I’m afraid.

In the hallway, it’s shadow-dark except for the Snoopy night-light.

“I want you to be my mom,” I tell her quietly. “I just want you to love me again.”

“Oh, Fern.” She takes my hand and pulls me close. “I do love you. Always.” She holds me against her chest and rocks me back and forth. It feels so strange at first. She doesn’t smell like I remember. And my face doesn’t reach the part of her body it used to when she would hold me like this. I know it’s because I’m bigger now, but to me it feels like she is smaller.

“I’m so sorry, honey. I’m sorry.”

There are so many words I want to say back. I want to let it all out, the way I used to when I was little and she would hug me tight and I would tell her whatever was wrong, and she would rub and rub and rub my back in slow, strong circles and say it would all be OK.

All will be well.

“I need you,” I cry into her scratchy wool shawl. “I need you.” I squeeze my arms around her more tightly, waiting.

“I know, honey,” she says against the top of my head. “I know . . . I know,” while her own tears wet my hair. And finally her arms squeeze me back. “I’m here. I’m here now. Hush, now. I’m here.”

I
N THE MORNING
, my dad makes us chocolate-chip pancakes. They don’t taste right, but I force them down. Then he reminds Holden and me that we have to go back to school. I think he’s convinced that the sooner we all go back to our normal routine, the sooner we’ll get back to normal ourselves. But he must know deep down this will never happen. We will never be normal again.

On the way to school, I sit in my usual place alone in the backseat and stare out the window. Holden sits up front with my dad. When we get to school, I feel like I’m going to throw up.

“OK, you two. I know you don’t want to be here, but you can’t stay out forever. Call me if it’s too much and I’ll come get you right away.”

“It’s too much,” Holden says.

“It is,” I agree.

My dad nods. But he doesn’t offer to take us back home.

Holden sighs and gets out of the car. For the first time, he actually waits for me. Together, we walk toward the large entrance and step inside.

The first bell rings as we make our way down the busy hall. People look at us in the predictably
I feel so sorry for you
way, but no one says it out loud. When we get to my locker section, Holden stops. “You going to be OK?”

I shake my head. “You?”

“Probably not. I’ll meet you after school at the usual place.”

“OK.”

He joins the sea of people moving down the hall.

Ran and Cassie are waiting for me at my locker. They don’t ask if I’m OK. They don’t try to hug me. They just quietly wait for me to get my things and lead me to homeroom.

I spend the day feeling like I’m a new kid at a new school. Like suddenly even the people I’ve known since kindergarten are strangers, and they are all looking at me with curious eyes. Like I am an outsider because of what’s happened. At the start of each class, I tell myself as soon as it’s over I’ll call my dad to come get me, but then I survive that class and go on to the next one. And then the day is over.

After school, my dad is waiting for us at the curb. I get in the car and we wait for Holden, who comes out about a minute later, holding his phone to his ear.

He opens the front door but doesn’t get in. “Hey, um, change of plans. I’m way behind, so Gray and I are going to the library.”

“Well, I’ll give you both a ride,” my dad says.

“Gray’s picking me up. He goes to the Academy, remember?”

“Oh,” my dad says. “Right.”

“I’ll be home for dinner,” Holden says. He walks away before my dad even replies.

“Come on up front,” my dad says to me.

I do, and we slowly pull out of the crowded pickup zone.