Strange but True (34 page)

“We were going to bury him at St. John's,” Ronnie's father says, as though he knows what she is thinking. “But this cemetery is so much closer to our house. It makes it easier to come by every day on my way home from the hospital.”

Melissa looks up at him again and their eyes meet. He does not look away. “I like this place because it doesn't feel like a cemetery,” she tells him. And then, once more, she speaks without planning to. “I lied before.”

“What do you mean? About what?”

“When you asked how I am, and I told you that I'm okay. The truth is, I'm not. Actually, I'm terrible.”

Dr. Chase puts his hands deep into the pockets of his khaki shorts. He runs the tip of his brown leather shoe along the edge of the grass where it meets the flowers. “Me too. We're all pretty terrible right now.” He takes a breath and tells her, “But this must be particularly hard for you. You're so young, and it is all so unexpected. This is supposed to be a happy time in your life.”

For weeks, Melissa has been waiting for her parents to acknowledge that what's happened is difficult for her—that it's more than a matter of fixing her face and teeth so she can go off to college and put “this incident” behind her. But they have yet to acknowledge anything of the sort. Hearing Ronnie's father, of all people, speak those words is enough to make Melissa want to weep. She holds back her tears and opens her mouth to thank him for saying what he just did. When she realizes how incredibly ugly her missing teeth must look, she presses her lips together and stays quiet.

Who will ever want me now?
The question comes and goes along with the same answer,
No one, that's who. Not like this anyway
.

Somewhere in the distance, Melissa hears the banging sound she's been hearing all day. She holds the CVS bag close to her body and finds a way to speak without moving her mouth very much at all. “I'm sorry I missed the funeral. I was stuck in the hospital so I couldn't go.”

“I know,” he tells her, absently tugging on the ID that hangs from his neck. His picture on the front is only slightly bigger than a postage stamp, but Melissa can see that in it, he is wearing one of those green hospital shirts doctors always wear. There is a grim, mug-shot expression on his face. “I meant to come by after that first night. But I just—I just couldn't.”

“That's okay,” Melissa says. “What was it like? The funeral, I mean.”

He lets out a sigh and pushes his hands back inside the pockets of his shorts. “To tell you the truth, Melissa, it was all a big blur. My son read a poem. Apparently he likes to write poetry. Go figure.” He shrugs. “I never knew that before. Anyway, other than that, it was just an endless stream of cards and flowers, relatives and friends.”

“I bought you a card too.” As though she needs to prove it, Melissa finds the card inside the bag and hands it to him. “I haven't filled it out yet, so I don't know why I am even showing you now. I guess—I guess I just want you and your family to know that I have been thinking of all of you too. Even though I couldn't be there.”

Dr. Chase looks at the burning sunset on the front. He opens it and stares at the blank white space inside. He doesn't seem to know what to do next, so Melissa takes the card back from him and returns it to the bag. “I'll still write something in it and mail it to you. I got one for Philip and your wife as well.”

He tells her that's very kind of her, then asks, “Was Ronnie happy that night? He seemed it when you all stopped by the house. But you would know better than me. Was he
really
happy?”

So many moments from that evening flash through Melissa's mind. She thinks of Stacy dragging her down the hall to the storage closet. She thinks of Ronnie coming to find her. She thinks of him pulling out the handkerchief with the initials
RC
on it—his father's handkerchief. She thinks of them popping their heads out of the sunroof and laughing, howling into the night. She thinks of Ronnie kissing her and saying that he loved her no matter what. That is the last thing she remembers. “Yes,” she answers. “He was happy. We both were.”

“Well, it makes me feel a little better knowing that. For whatever it's worth.”

“Dr. Chase—”

“Richard. You can call me Richard.”

Melissa begins again. Even though it feels awkward calling him by his first name, she says, “Richard. Can I tell you something?”

“Of course.”

She doesn't know why she is about to confess what she's been going through. Maybe it's because she has no one else to talk to. Maybe it's because Dr. Chase, or Richard as he asked to be called, is the only person who has shown any sign of understanding or caring about the way she feels. “You're a doctor,” she says in a hesitant voice. “I know it's strange for me to be talking to you about this, since you're Ronnie's father. But, well, I guess there is no other way to say this than to just say it. My period has not come. I am two weeks late today. I've been late before but hardly ever. I thought that maybe I was pregnant so I took an e.p.t. test.” Here she pauses to reach in the bag and pull out that plastic wand with the single pink stripe in the tiny windows. “It says that I am not. But—”

Before Melissa can say anything more, Richard begins to stutter. “I—” He stops and looks at the test in her hands. “Did you—” Again, he stops. This time he takes one hand from his pocket and strokes his chin. “Were you and Ronnie having unprotected sex?”

Melissa nods. “Just once. On the night he died.”

He lifts his gaze from the test to look at her face. Behind his glasses, she notices, his eyes are almost the same blue as Ronnie's, only slightly faded. “You poor girl,” he says.

“Could it be wrong?”

“It's doubtful, Melissa. Those tests are highly accurate, as long as you followed the instructions properly.”

“I did,” Melissa says, relinquishing any last bit of hope.

“I know you say you're rarely late. But you've just gone through quite an ordeal. I'm sure that when your body regulates itself again, you'll get your period. Who is your doctor?”

“Dr. Patel.”

“Have you mentioned this to him?”

“No.”

“How about your parents?”

Melissa lets out a sarcastic laugh, thinking of the way they might handle an announcement of that sort. Just then, the mix of disappointment, sadness, frustration, anger, and so many other emotions rises up in her, catching her off guard and turning the laughter into tears. From the other side of those wilted flowers, Ronnie's father says the same words her own father said to her so many years ago in this very field, “It's okay. Everything will be okay.”

The message does nothing to comfort her the way it did when she was a child. In fact, the words sound so hollow and hopeless that she finds herself crying harder. Richard steps around the pile of flowers and takes her in his arms. She buries her ruined face in his shoulder—a shoulder that feels different from Ronnie's but similar, a similarity that only brings more tears.

“It's okay to cry,” he whispers, stroking her hair. “I know how much you cared for him. I know how hard this must be. In time, things will get better. You'll see.”

That's when the first of those questions come pouring out of her. “Even if I wanted to love someone else, which I don't, who is ever going to want me now?”

“Don't talk that way.”

“But it's true,” she says, her voice muffled against his T-shirt. “No one is ever going to hold me or look at me again.”

Richard does not say anything for a long while after that, because he must realize there is no arguing against her on this matter. Instead, he keeps hugging her and stroking her hair. It's then, as they stand so close together beside Ronnie's grave, that something shifts inside Melissa. She has the image of her heartbeat, the way it appeared for so many days on that monitor at the hospital as a steady succession of peaks and dips. Now she imagines that neon green line going flat on the screen for a long, long moment. And then there is a sudden blip again. Then another. And another. Melissa allows herself to take comfort in the arms of Ronnie's father. No, it is not the kind of heated, sexual feeling she had with Ronnie. It is not like that at all. What Melissa feels is warmth and safety, a solace no one else has offered her in the days since the accident. The feeling is enough to bring her crying to an end. Finally, Richard lets go and takes a step backward. He looks down at his watch and says that it's almost dinnertime and he really should get going. “How did you get here?” he asks.

“I walked.”

“Well, let me give you a ride home. Where do you live?”

Since Melissa feels too tired to go all that way on foot again, and since she wants to be near him just a little longer, she accepts the offer and tells him that she lives over on Church Street, not far from the library. They both say their silent good-byes to Ronnie then climb into the Range Rover. With its black leather seats and complicated dashboard, Melissa feels out of place inside. The warmth she experienced in his arms is fading fast, and she wants him to hold her again, if only for a few minutes more, before leaving this place. Of course, she cannot bring herself to ask for that, so Melissa slouches in her seat and stares out the window the way she did when her mother was driving earlier today. As they roll out of the long dirt driveway, raising another cloud of dust, she hears that banging sound in the distance and finally asks what it is.

“Fireworks,” Richard tells her. “Even though the fire department is having their usual show tonight at the park, people insist on messing around with their own at home. Someone always gets hurt. It happens every Fourth of July.”

As Richard goes on about the dangers of roman candles and M-80s, Melissa asks herself how she could have lost track of the holiday in the midst of counting the days since her period was due. The realization leaves her with an odd sort of feeling, as though the world has left her behind, as though everyone and everything has gone on without her.

She is not sure she wants to catch up.

After the fireworks discussion, Richard stays quiet as they make their way across town. Melissa wonders if he feels the least bit awkward about their long hug beside Ronnie's grave. She wonders too if he felt the same sort of solace and comfort that she did. Since she cannot think of the right way to ask him she stays quiet. The closer they get to her house, the more she dreads going home. The last thing she wants right now is to get back in her bed, to turn on the Discovery Channel, to be served another bland meal on a tray, to listen to Stacy whine on the telephone down the hall, to recite those same prayers with her mother and father, day in and day out. That's when Melissa recalls that ad in the newspaper for the cottage. She tries to come up with some sort of plan as to how she can get that kind of money and move away. By the time they reach Church Street, she has yet to work out a solution—she has yet to consider asking Richard.

“You can let me off at the corner,” Melissa tells him. “Otherwise, my parents will want to know why we're together. And I can't deal with their questions right now.”

Richard signals and pulls over, coming to a stop directly in front of the church. “I don't understand,” he says. “Why would your parents mind if you were with me?”

Melissa shrugs and glances at that grim photo of him hanging from his neck, then she looks up at his face, which appears so much kinder in real life. He is staring into her eyes again. “I don't know. But trust me, they would.”

He mulls that over, then lets it go. From a compartment between the seats, he pulls out a business card and gives it to her. “Well, if you ever need anything, don't hesitate to call. You have our home number. But the number of my service and my cell are on there as well.”

Melissa takes the card from him and glances down at the Bryn Mawr Hospital logo with its ivy-covered torch and the clutter of phone numbers beneath. “Thank you,” she says, then asks, “so you go to the cemetery every day on your way home?”

“Every day,” Richard tells her.

“Maybe I'll see you there again.”

“Maybe,” he says. “That would be nice.”

Before opening the door, Melissa pauses in case he is going to hug her again. She craves that last bit of warmth, a small something she can carry with her back inside her house. It does not happen, though, so she pulls on the handle and steps outside.

“Good-bye, Richard,” she says, practicing the way it feels to call him by his first name.

“Good-bye, Melissa.”

She stands there in front of the church as his Range Rover disappears around the corner onto Hashen Street. After he is gone, Missy turns toward home, holding his card tight in her hand, being extra careful not to bend it. When she reaches the giant evergreen at the edge of the front yard, which smells incongruously like Christmas, Melissa stops and looks toward the garage. She remembers what her mother said about her belongings being inside, then decides to take a detour. As quietly as she can, Melissa lifts the door, figuring she should retrieve her things before her parents throw them away. It is dark enough inside that she has to turn on the light in order to see. Just as she suspected, everything is in a heap next to the garbage cans, all of it in clear plastic bags of varying sizes. Behind the plastic, Melissa sees her blood-splattered dress, sliced unevenly up the back, since the doctors had to cut her out of it. She sees her shoes in another bag, her purse in another, even her corsage.

Melissa gathers up those bags, the dress draped across her arms, the rest balanced on top, then carries them out of the garage and inside the house. At the bottom of the stairs, she pauses to eavesdrop on her family eating dinner in the kitchen. It is well after five now, and the din of her sister and mother conversing as their forks clank against their plates gives Melissa the same odd feeling that the world has gone on without her. She thinks of Venus spinning backward while all the other planets in the solar system move forward. Melissa doesn't hear her father's voice, so she figures that he must not be with them. As a result, the conversation is more relaxed, the way it always is when he is not around, since their mother never stands up to him. Melissa listens as Stacy talks about how much she misses Chaz. Then she hears her usual list of complaints about how itchy her arm is beneath her cast. Then they talk about Stacy's plans to call Rutgers in the morning and deal with her fall class schedule. Finally, their mother interrupts to say something that pertains to Melissa.