The Beginning of After (12 page)

My question had taken him by surprise, and he put down the hamburger he was about to bite into.

“Well, I miss the work itself. It wasn’t easy, but it was challenging and fun. I don’t miss the instability of it. Not knowing when I’d get an assignment, or if an editor would go for my pitch.”

“Maybe you could go back to it someday,” I offered. I loved looking at our old newspapers and magazines with his articles, running my finger over his byline on the page.

He snorted a bit. “With college tuition just around the corner? No, I don’t think so. I made a choice to do something that better supported our family and where I wouldn’t be traveling so much, and I’m good with that.”

But he'd looked out the window wistfully, and I’d made a vow to myself not to stay in any job I hated.

“We’ll need to get you some scrubs,” said Eve now, scanning my khaki pants and V-neck top, the most office-worthy thing I could find. “Dr. B is pretty strict about that; he wants us to look professional even if we’re not officially vet techs. There are a couple of hand-me-downs in the back; see what you can find for now. I’ll give you the names of some websites that have cute ones.”

Eve tugged on her shirt to indicate the inherent cuteness of the dog and cat fairies she was covered with, then the phone rang and she spun away from me to answer it.

Despite her age, Eve clearly ruled the front desk realm. Tamara, Dr. B’s sister, was the office manager and technically our boss, but she holed up in a small room off the front desk and concentrated on billing. I peeked into her office, and she looked up from something to wave at me, and I waved back.

I set to work on filing the charts into the wall of cabinets behind the front desk, and listened as Eve handled the phones, taking mental notes because that was going to be part of my job too. I’d arranged to show up at three p.m. every day—after school, as far as they were concerned, because nobody knew that I wasn’t actually going to school—and help out in the front until seven p.m., when the hospital closed. Then I’d be expected to walk the dogs, some of which were boarding, some recovering from surgery or treatment like Masher had been.

I filed for twenty minutes before Eve came over to check my progress. She didn’t look happy with how big the pile still was, and watched me slide a chart into the stacks.

“No, uh-uh,” she said. “After you put one back, you have to use your right hand to flip through the next few tabs to make sure it’s in the right place, alphabetically. In the past, charts got filed a little wrong and nobody bothered to fix it. So now we always check.”

A quick flash of Toby and me working on shelving his DVD collection, him lighting up with pride when he figured out that “McQueen” came before “Master.” It was a trick I’d thought of to help him with reading.

I got the sense that Eve’s manner, all businesslike and bossy, wasn’t something to take personally. She acted that way with everyone in the office, except the clients, for whom she adopted a more supportive persona, and the pets, for whom she became a sweet, silly, cooing thing. Besides, Eve didn’t know she was supposed to treat me any differently. Being with her, always sensing her critical eye on me, actually felt good.

I’m just like anyone else.

I finished the charts and she asked Robert, one of the techs, to cover the phones while she walked me back to the kennels.

“We have just three dogs at the moment,” she said as we stepped into the room. It had a high ceiling and open skylights, and reminded me of a public restroom where instead of toilet stalls, there were cages. The barking started the instant we opened the door, as if we’d tripped a wire.

“These two guys are boarding for the week,” said Eve, crouching down to eye level with a pair of cocker spaniels sharing one kennel. “They’re a little hyper. When you walk them, they’re capable of pulling you over. I’ll show you how to keep them in line.”

Eve let the dogs lick her face as she murmured, “Hi, babies . . . yes . . . yes . . . you’re beautiful . . . I love your kisses . . .” and I actually had to look away.

I turned to the third dog, alone in a kennel across the aisle. It wasn’t any recognizable breed, just a medium-sized mutt with short, silky brown fur.

“That’s Ophelia,” said Eve.

Ophelia stared sadly at the two cockers, and it seemed a little cruel that she had this view, like the lonely girl forced to share a lunch table with a pair of BFFs. Then she noticed me watching her and thumped her tail.

Eve came over and crouched down again to gently grab Ophelia’s muzzle through the chain-link door. “We’re hoping to find a home for her, if you know anyone.”

“What do you mean?”

“About a month ago, one of our clients found her lying by the side of the road. She’d been hit by a car. No collar, no tags. Totally skinny and practically starving. She had a broken leg. Look at her, she’s the biggest sweetheart.”

“Dr. B just fixed her up for free?”

“Yes. He does that occasionally. There are too many animals like Ophelia out there. People just suck sometimes.” She spat that last part out, as if wanting to erase the bad taste of it, then added, “Dr. B is amazing that way. He knows I do everything I can to adopt them out. We’ve had pretty good luck.”

A wistfulness came over Eve, who was clearly crushing pretty hard on our employer. After a moment she said, “Wanna see the kitties? I have two angels I’m trying to place.”

On the bottom row of the “cat room,” as it was called, was a large cage occupied by tabby twins. They weren’t kittens, but they weren’t quite full-grown cats. As soon as they saw our legs step into view, one reached out its paw through the bars and the other pressed itself against the metal so its fur pushed through in little squares.

“Dumped on our doorstep in a sealed box. With duct tape.”

“That is horrible,” I said sincerely.

“Like I said, people can suck.”

“Why didn’t they just take them to the shelter?” I asked as Eve opened the cage and handed a cat to me. It started purring the second we made contact.

“I’m glad they didn’t. The county shelter’s a hellhole,” she said. “They’re overcrowded this time of year and putting down animals after just a few days.” Eve looked at the cat, ecstatic in my arms. “That’s Denali,” she said. “You sure you don’t want one?”

I thought of Elliot and Selina. We’d gotten them by pure chance. Elliot was part of a litter born to one of Toby’s friend’s pets, and Selina came crying on our doorstep one rainy night with an open wound in the scruff of her neck. It was like how people find other people to be in love with, all random and accidental and lucky.

“I have two already who would kill me,” I said. “But I’ll spread the word.”

“That would be great. Dr. B is very patient but he gives me limits; only one cage at a time in each room for the rescues.”

She sighed, like this was something she had to work on.

“Come on, let me show you the phones.”

Chapter Fourteen

I
had arranged to work at Ashland in the afternoons until the end of June. When Eve asked me “How was school?” I’d just smile and say, “Good, thanks.”

I’d never said I was in school. They’d just assumed. It didn’t feel like lying.

The end of the year was happening without me. Finals and yearbooks and the exhibition baseball game with our rival high school. Meg would call daily with updates, thinking that I’d want to be kept in the loop. I wasn’t sure what I wanted. I didn’t like being absent from all that stuff, but working at the animal hospital made me feel like I’d gone away, and I wanted to be away more.

Suzie Sirico had said during one of our morning sessions, “The hardest part about grieving is that people often have to do it in the spotlight. Everyone’s watching them to see what they’re going to do next, how they react to things. So I’m glad that you got out of the spotlight.”

Out of the spotlight, I answered phones and filed paperwork while Eve checked clients in and out. Every minute at work was full of something and kept my mind busy. At night I was so tired that I slept, albeit with dreams so tense and vivid I woke up each morning drenched in sweat.

Walking the dogs only made me miss Masher. Which then made me wonder how David was doing, what David was doing. If having Masher was helping him.

Then I thought of David’s shapeless eyes, his bony elbows poking out of a brightly colored but stained polo shirt, and the almost friendly sound of his voice the last time we spoke.

“You saw that a-hole?” asked Meg bitterly during one of our phone calls, when I finally got up the nerve to tell her that David had been here. “What did you say?”

I wasn’t sure what to share. It was as if by making some peace with him, I’d handed all my anger to my best friend for safekeeping. Meg knew every thought I’d ever had about every boy we knew, but how could she understand my concern for David when it perplexed me too?

“It was very businesslike,” I said. “Believe me, I was in no mood to see him.”

The receipt with David’s email address was still sitting in front of the computer. After a few days, I found myself drafting a message to him in my head.

No matter how many versions I wrote, I couldn’t find the right balance between “casual/friendly/concerned” and just plain lame. But eventually, I had to get it out of my brain, so I sat down to type:

The next day, I got this response:

I couldn’t bring myself to put the date on my calendar, as if writing it down would make it seem more important than it was.

WHAT REMINDS ME MOST OF THE PERSON I LOST IS
 . . .

“Their stuff is everywhere.”

Suzie and I usually started off each session by her showing me a Feeling Flash Card and spinning a conversation out of whatever answer I came up with. I was honest and serious with my replies now.

“Do you mean their belongings?” Suzie asked.

“Nana cleaned up most of the clutter, but some things she just left. Neither of us can touch them.”

I thought of the crossword puzzle my dad had been working on the morning of the accident. It often took him all week to do them, scratching in a few words every day. Nana had left this one, two-thirds finished, tucked between the salt and pepper on the kitchen table.

“Laurel, have you been able to go into their bedrooms?”

“No,” I said simply.

“I understand about not touching things. It’s too soon. Eventually, you and your grandmother might consider packing up the ‘stuff’ and giving some of it away. It’s very cathartic. But for now, one thing you might want to do is go into your parents’ room and stay aware of what reactions you have.”

For two days after that session, every time I walked down the upstairs hallway I eyed my parents’ door. All I could feel was dread and a little fear, which was ironic considering how it used to represent a special kind of haven for me.

On the third night I finally got up the courage to go in.

It was cleaner than usual, with the bed made, the dresser drawers shut tight. My mother was a chronic drawer-leaver-opener, which drove my dad crazy. The books on both nightstands were stacked neatly and the hamper was empty. At some point, Nana must have done the laundry and put away the clean clothes.

I sat on the big king-size bed with the wooden antique headboard my mom had taken from the house she’d grown up in, and I actually had to remind myself that my parents were not alive anymore. They were so
here
in this room.

Suddenly, I remembered one night when I was probably seven or eight years old. I’d had a nightmare and wandered into the room, then scrambled onto the bed, to find that spot between my parents that was always warm and safe and waiting for me if I got scared.

Not saying a word, my mother held back the covers for me to snuggle in.

“I had a scary dream about hot lava,” I’d said.

“I’m sorry, baby. I hate bad dreams.”

“Do you get afraid too?”

“All the time.”

“What do you get afraid of?”

I’d hoped she would say monsters, or falling off a bike, or her friends not inviting her to their birthday parties. But she was quiet for a few moments and then said, “I’m most afraid of losing you or Toby.”

Arrrgh
, I’d thought. “That doesn’t count. What else are you afraid of?”

Mom was quiet again, a deeper, more intense quiet, then said, “You losing
me
.”

I was little, but I’d known where that came from. One of her friends from college had just died of breast cancer a month or so before, leaving behind two kids.

Now I lay facedown on the bed, sobbing for the woman who once slept here not knowing that someday one of her worst fears would come true.

At the end of June, another day came on my calendar that I knew was the last day of school. It would be a short day, with each class lasting only twenty minutes instead of forty-two. Teachers would have parties or show funny movies or, if they were clueless, actually go over what the class had covered. That live current of excitement and celebration, of ending and starting.

I tried to distract myself by opening up the journal Suzie had urged me to start. She’d suggested I buy a simple unlined notebook with something silly on it, so I would feel free to write stupid and seemingly meaningless things in it. I’d found one adorned with a kids’ cartoon character I’d never heard of, its thin pages a bright, hopeful white, and cracked open the old set of colored pencils I hadn’t used since my sketches for the last Drama Club show.

“Draw what you remember,” Suzie had said. “Draw what you feel. Write a word on the page, like
angry
, and then give it form.”

So I tried to do that, but my drawing slowly morphed into the faces of dogs and cats I’d met at the hospital.

Finally, Meg called me at noon sharp.

“It’s done! I’m free!” I heard laughter in the background. “Wanna play today?”

“I have to work, remember?” I said, then tried to make my voice a shade lighter. “Come up tonight and we’ll make ice cream sundaes.”

So later, Meg and I sat outside on our back patio, eating Rocky Road topped with frosted cornflakes and whipped cream. I knew the rest of the junior class was at a bowling alley for the traditional “Now We’re Seniors!” party.

“There’s still time to go over to Pin World,” I offered after we’d slurped together for a few minutes. “I won’t mind.”

Meg licked her spoon and tried not to seem like she was thinking about it. “Maybe. But the person I really want to celebrate with is you, so what’s the point?” She paused. “It was really weird not having you at school.”

“It was weird not being there. But you know . . .”

“I know.” She plunged her spoon back into the sundae for another load. “But you’re going back in September, right?”

September felt so far away. Far enough that I could say, “Of course,” and not think about it anymore.

“What are you going to do about the stuff you missed? Will they let you finish over the summer?”

“I think so. Mr. Churchwell talked to Nana and said I should contact him as soon as I’m ready.”

Meg nodded and examined my face. “Let me know if you need help, okay?”

I always got better grades than Meg, but I saw she needed to offer something.

“I would love that,” I said, and we smiled at each other.

As soon as I’m ready.

Well, what the heck. I didn’t know what ready was supposed to feel like, so now seemed as good a time as any. The next day, I sent an email to Mr. Churchwell through the school website.

He wrote back almost immediately, while I was still online, which made me sad to think he was sitting in his office alone, the school emptied of students.

Ugh, the Regents. I’d forgotten about those, which I would have taken in June with everyone else if the accident hadn’t happened. Dad would have quizzed me on the practice tests, and Mom would have bought me a bouquet made of one flower for every point I scored above ninety.

Mr. Churchwell had said,
Stay on track
.

I had a job and was going to therapy and generally functioning as a human being. Was that staying on track? If it was, I wanted to stay some more.

I wrote back to him to say yes, and please, and thank you.

On the day David was scheduled to come in with Masher, I found myself reluctant to put on either of the two scrub shirts we’d bought. One was black and white printed with dogs chasing one another’s tails, and the other was a simple blue with a cat embroidered on the pocket. Both made me look like I was wearing a costume, which I’d liked before today. Now it seemed too obvious.

To feel more like me, I found one of my favorite necklaces: a silver chain with a small silver disk stamped with my name. Toby had given it to me for my last birthday, and I hadn’t been able to admit to him how much I loved it.

I also blow-dried my hair for the first time in weeks.

Was I looking forward to this or dreading it?

You’re going to show him you’re doing just fine
, I thought, knowing that it probably didn’t even matter to him whether I was fine or not.

The appointment was for two o’clock, and the morning went slowly. I tried not to keep checking the time. Now that school was out, I was working full days, and it was taking some getting used to. Fortunately, Eve asked me to join her for lunch. It wasn’t an invitation, it was more like, “Tamara said she’ll watch the front desk while we go eat.”

We’d been friendly, but the busy and sometimes tense hospital atmosphere didn’t allow for much chitchat. Which was one of many things I loved about being there, and now I was nervous about having a real conversation with Eve.

She was nineteen, going to the community college and living at home while she “worked on the animal thing,” as she called it. “There are a lot of paths I could take. I’m trying to figure out which one,” she told me over burritos at Taco Bell, with a straight, serious face, and offered no additional explanation. She didn’t ask me any questions about myself, and I didn’t offer. I was just supposed to be some girl in high school, and not have any stories yet.

When we got back, it was one thirty, and although I settled in to do some photocopying, I glanced up every time the front door opened.

David could be early. He could show up late. I didn’t know him well enough to make a call on that.

Eve noticed my anticipation. “Expecting someone?”

“Masher’s coming in today. His owner . . . my friend . . . is bringing him.”

My friend.
That felt like another little lie.

At two exactly, the door opened and I looked up, and there they were. I pictured David sitting in his father’s Jaguar in the parking lot, watching the minutes change so he could pinpoint the exact punctual moment to get out of the car.

The waiting room was empty, but Masher seemed to remember getting bullied before and sniffed the air nervously. David saw me and sort-of waved with one hand, pulled off his sunglasses with the other.

“Hi, Laurel,” he said, sounding formal, his eyes sweeping the space. He was dressed in a long-sleeved thermal shirt and black corduroys, even though it was easily eighty-five degrees outside.

“Welcome,” I said, giving formal back to him.

I came through the half door that separated the front desk area from the waiting room, and as soon as Masher saw me he ran over and jumped up. I caught his front paws in my hands and let him lick my face. David seemed puzzled.