I remember Aggi’s dad shouting that my father could not possibly grasp the loss he felt. Kate, dying the way she did. Cal’s death, instantaneous. According to Mr. Frank, somehow, Cal’s death should be easier on us.
I’ve considered his words. In bed, they play on a loop until I drown them out with music. Mr. Frank’s reasoning is tainted with his own pain and heartbreak, but when you grow up respecting a person like he’s your own father, the words twist around in your brain until you’re confused.
Even now I think about Mr. Frank’s words. When my parents ask me to join them on the couch for popcorn and comedy—Mom and Dad watch a lot of TV and eat a hell of a lot of popcorn—I remember what Aggi’s dad said and wonder how my parents can laugh at the comedians and sprinkle sweet toppings on their corn. Shouldn’t they be crying? Tonight they sit on the couch, staring blankly at the television, while Aggi’s parents argue. My parents never fight, and the only time they cried was during my brother’s funeral. They haven’t shed a tear since. I wish I knew why they watch so much TV.
Aggi’s parents fight for thirty minutes. Pawtrick tumbles down the steps to pee in the snow but returns to huddle next to me with ears perked. He’s listening for Aggi’s voice, too, but I don’t hear it. My stomach churns but not from hunger.
“Hey, Son.” I jump and whip around. Dad’s leaning against the doorframe. “Want to catch the basketball game? Your mother went to bed early.” He yawns, his eyes forcibly wide.
I shrug. “Homework.” A lie.
He flicks on the porch light. “Well, you should probably come in.”
Silence.
“And if you change your mind, you know where I’ll be.” On the couch, stuffing your cheeks with popcorn, trotting along the hamster wheel of life.
“Sure, Dad.” I lift my finger, turn back around to face the drive. “I know where to find you.”
Dad hesitates on the porch. I glance over my shoulder. He’s staring at Aggi’s house, and I follow his gaze bouncing from window to window as lights pops off, the house shutting its eyes.
After a few seconds, Dad sighs. “Grace is with Dr. Nelson. Saw her leave last Sunday night.”
I mumble, “Yeah, well, Aggi’s still in there.”
His nostrils flare as he closes his eyes and nods. “There’s nothing we can do, Max.” He backs inside the open door. “Not our business anymore.” Dad squeezes the door shut.
My eyes fixate on Aggi’s house as I mull Dad’s words over in my brain, my mouth. Not our business anymore. The kitchen light pops on for ten seconds. I count. Then the room blackens. I disagree with everything my dad says.
5
Aggi
BY EIGHT THIRTY MY MOTHER folds on the couch, clutching her phone and swiping through pictures of Kate. Between sobs, she calls out memories so painful to hear that I reach into my pocket in search of my earbuds. I pop them in but leave the music on mute to monitor their argument from the stairs.
Mom needs comfort. Hugs and hands held. I want to snuggle beside her, drape my arm over her shoulders, and drop my chin into the curve of her neck, where it’s warm and smells like flowers and mint. But she pushed Grace away and refuses eye contact with me. Dad sits nearby, nursing his fourth bottle of beer, which means he’s loud and unpredictable and won’t leave Mom alone. As soon as she leans toward the coffee table to pour a glass of wine, he harps about her drinking. By Mom’s second glass, he’s skinning her cooking and cleaning, too. Dad never used to care that Mom didn’t have time for mundane tasks. They shared household duties while Mom took classes tuition-free. She was earning a business degree that would help her move from administrative support to office manager. “Killing two birds with one stone,” she said with a wink. When she applied for the job opening as administrative assistant in the biology department at the university twenty-some miles south of town, Mom’s mission was to help her family. The new job would allow Kate to go to college tuition-free, once Mom had been employed for two years. If I chose the same school, and of course I would because there was no way I could afford college otherwise, I’d also attend tuition-free.
Mom, always learning, willing to improve life for her family. She didn’t need a college education to prove herself to us. She was as bright as the stars. Ask her anything, and if she didn’t have the answer, which was rare, she’d find the answer, and guide you along on the journey to discover it for yourself. But you can’t ask Mom questions now. Answers are buried below layers of hurt. After Kate died, Mom withdrew from her classes with no plans to return to school, in spite of Dr. Nelson’s persistent begging.
She still works, unlike Dad, but only enough hours to keep the power company from shutting off our lights. I haven’t asked for anything new in months. Shampoo, razors, mouthwash. I don’t make much money working in Dr. Nelson’s lab, but it’s enough for incidentals. Half my paycheck I spend on gas so I can travel back and forth to the college, but it’s worth every penny if it keeps me out of the house.
“She was seven,” Mom moans, “when she turned the backyard into a nature preserve. Remember that, James? Are you listening?” Mom shouts now, even though Dad has moved beside her on the couch. “Seven! Kate did things differently from the other kids. Remember?” Mom’s words slur, and she sips more wine.
“I remember everything!”
“I don’t think you do!” Mom snaps. “That’s what happens when time passes. We forget details.”
A year ago, my mother, Queen of Details, balanced work with school, made sure the Crock-Pot dinged at six o’clock with something delicious, and left Dad love notes, which he matched with chicken-scratch letters and bubble hearts. Our house ticked along like a fine-tuned clock. The gentle rap of a hammer or the circular saw cutting along penciled lines on wood as Dad rushed to finish a project on the house before Mom got home from work or class. Mom and Dad balanced each other. Both carried their own weight. Everything’s tilted now.
Sitting on the wooden stairs, my gray jeans collecting year-old sawdust, I draw my knees to my chest and wonder when life will improve. I know it will never return to how it was, but I consider the length of time it will take Mom to stop withholding hugs and kisses from her living daughters. When Dad will quit blaming everyone for his problems. Like if Mom doesn’t do a goddamn load of laundry, the sun won’t shine.
“Enough wine.” Dad fumbles the stem of Mom’s wineglass and it tips, rolls, crashes onto the plywood where new hardwood should be. “Goddammit! See what you made me do?”
Feet shuffle. A thud. “Ouch!”
“You’ve had enough to drink.”
Sure, Dad. Tell Mom she’s had enough; tell her she’s falling apart. Tell her she should handle her grief by following your lead.
“A mother shouldn’t have to bury her child!” my mother groans.
I rock back and forth on the step.
“A father shouldn’t have to bury his little girl!” Dad shouts, as if Mom’s to blame.
The tug-of-war never stops. Back and forth, back and forth. My parents refused to pause long enough to plan Kate’s funeral. Arrangements belonged to me, and I sorted through them with Dr. Nelson’s help. I didn’t think twice about responsibility or who should handle what. It was the least I could do for my sister. Kate would have done the same for me. After reading the literature the hospital gave us, I made phone calls, chose the clothes my sister loved and would be buried in, and wrote her obituary. I stayed up all night writing, reading aloud, crossing out lines, and starting again. One typo, as though a bird shit on top of your newly washed car.
Dad’s voice booms. “Look at this place!” More thuds, and an empty box launches across the room. “When do you plan to clean up this mess?”
Thin walls surround me in our dilapidated lakefront farmhouse, especially since renovations braked and layers of pink insulation fell onto the floor. Our forever home now temporary, according to the mortgage company. Mom’s paycheck doesn’t cover the house payment, but at least she still has a job and didn’t quit
after striking a colleague (Max’s dad) and threatening his son (Max). Have I mentioned my father has turned into the world’s biggest asshole?
According to the grief counselor at the hospital, we are a normal family facing abnormal circumstances. A punch line I remember from therapy—day one. My father quit when Max’s parents sued us. He filed a counterclaim the next day and now occupies his hours with a costly lawsuit destined to put us on the streets. Who has time for a job when you’re busy fighting with your best friend, staking flags in your piece of land, and standing your ground? It turns out blame consumes a hell of a lot of time.
I scoot to the landing and quietly push myself to my feet. As I tiptoe toward my room, Cirrus cuts me off in the hall, darting into the bathroom tub. Her senses acute, head tilted, ears perked. I step past the door and flip on the light switch so she won’t have to sit in the dark. When I round the corner, I trip over a two-by-four leaning against the wall, and it slaps the bare floor, sending particles of dust into orbit.
“Aggi? Get down here!”
I leap across the hallway and squeeze my door shut before darting into bed, sliding into the middle, and wrapping the covers over my head. Within seconds my dad’s boots stomp the wood, shake the walls. I close my eyes so tight my face scrunches, then begin to count. At eight, Dad swings open my bedroom door and it slams against the wall. Three books domino on the shelf; one hits the floor with a thud.
Dad grunts and flips on the light.
“Didn’t you hear me call you?” His voice is heavy and loud. The only tool left in my tactical bag of home survival gear is pretend sleeping, so I don’t move, but he does.
“Aggi!” He bumps the mattress. The covers fan me as they’re peeled from the bed. “What are you doing?”
Fear tightens its grip around my throat. “Sleeping.” My voice squeaks.
Dad tosses the comforter over me and stomps to my desk. He rakes his fingers through the blinds, grabs the window, slams it to the sill, and flips the latch. I curl into a tight ball.
“Bastard,” he mumbles.
Maybe now I should run. Race out the back door and haul ass for the lake. I could be on the dock in minutes. Staring at the stars, making wishes I once believed could come true. Kate and I used to race to the dock. She’d pop her head into my room and say, “Cal and Max are heading to the lake. Let’s go! Last one there has to row the canoe!” It’d take me ten seconds to meet her on the porch, with or without shoes. “Race you!” she’d shout, bounding the steps and sprinting across the driveway. “No fair!” I’d shout, but she was already on the path to the lake, her long legs impossible to outpace.
“James?” Mom calls from the hall in her high-pitched pinot-noir voice. I really miss her mom voice. Sweet and less bitter. “I’m going to bed.”
“They should move!” Dad shouts, and paws the blinds. He whips around and knocks his hip against my chair. “Them! Not us!”
Dad aims his bloodshot eyes at me. I stare at his face, then his feet, and fish for earbuds stuffed beneath my pillow as Dad steps closer to my bed. His words, when they wind up and shoot, kick me in the gut and leave me breathless. I understand Dad is angry—we all are—but his anger is misdirected, and it’s turned into something dark and meaningless, something set on destruction.
“They need to pay for what they did. Don’t you agree?” Dad drops onto my bed and stares at his boots.
I want to speak softly and tell Dad that everyone is paying, but he insists the Grangers are to blame for my sister’s death. Complications arose when Dad pushed Max’s father’s face into their work truck. According to Dad, he did what he had to do. But the timeline is fuzzy. I know Max’s dad was the first to file a lawsuit against my family, but I’m unclear if it was before or after their fight. As terrible as my father has become, it’s hard to blame him after the hell he’s been through. He was the one to find his daughter dead.
Mom stumbles into my room, her hips wrapped in a decade-old Chanel skirt my grandmother sent from Connecticut a couple of weeks before she passed. The silver clip in Mom’s hair slides when she rolls her neck. Wrinkles dip at the sides of her lipstick-smudged mouth and the starfish at the corners of her eyes etch into her skin deeper now than last week.
“That lawsuit will break us until we have nothing left.” Mom leans against the door, and I straighten my spine.
“Dignity,” Dad says. “That’s what we’ll have. And it’s what Kate deserves.”
Max’s parents set the wrongful death suit in motion. They say my sister was to blame for Cal’s death, and my dad is suing them for the pain he says drove my sister to harm herself. The paperwork doesn’t mention Max or me, but it really should. Had I not been tearing Max’s clothes from his body, had we caged our hormones for even a minute the night his brother died, none of this would have happened. I am to blame for my sister’s death.
Mom’s shoulders dip. Her knees bend. I feel my muscles tighten as I wait for her rebuttal.
“We moved here first,” Dad says. “This property belonged to us before it belonged to them.”
“Sure,” Mom says with a sigh, her head falling against the door. “Why don’t you march over there and tell them to move. That’s what you want. Right?”
Mom glances in my direction, and my eyes widen. Is she seeing me?
“It won’t do any good,” she says, her gaze falling to the floor. “Won’t bring our Kate back.”
For a moment, the room quiets and the only sound wafts in from the hallway as Cirrus braves a swift exit from the bathroom. Dad and I sit on my bed. Mom tilts against the door. I live for these seconds of silence when we inhale and exhale in rhythm. The pause allows us to visit familiar places. The rug in the center of my room where Grace curled her body around Cirrus. The chair at my desk where Kate strummed her guitar and sang lyrics she and Cal had written earlier in the day. When we stop and listen, we hear hope.
But Dad stands and ruins the silence. “You better not be speaking to that boy, Aggi!” He points. “You hear me?”
The whole woods hears you, Dad.
“Because if I catch you talking to him . . .” Pop in earbuds. Amp volume. Dad’s lips flap, but I no longer hear him. I can’t. I won’t. I refuse.
THE HARDEST DAYS
Lyrics by Kate Frank and Cal Granger
When the sun won’t shine like you thought it would
When the rain won’t spill like you think it should
When he smiles and you don’t see
When she walks away from where you thought she’d be
The hardest days are when you lose your way
When parts of your heart tear
And you hang on to what scared
You yesterday more than today
And tomorrow
When fear pushes you away
And the distance grows
Between you and hope
These are the ways
These are the days
When nothing’s left but memories
Pain and hurt and other things
These are the hardest days
These are the hardest days
6
Max
ON SATURDAY MORNINGS I DRIVE twenty-five miles to the nearest college and run laps at a track reserved for collegiate athletes, which I am wholeheartedly not, but nobody questions me, so I’m beginning to believe I look the part. For the record, running sucks, or maybe I suck at running, especially after gorging myself at midnight with pizza soaked in bacon grease.
But exercise is not what lures me onto campus.
Aggi’s here.
Washing test tubes, sweeping the lab, sneaking up to the roof of the science building to tinker with the weather station. Before the accident, Aggi obsessed over weather. She lived for Doppler radar graphs, thrived on atmospheric readings, always challenging herself to predict storm patterns before the news reported them. But weather in North Carolina is unpredictable. Ice storms happen when snow’s predicted. Lightning strikes when sprinkl
es are expected. And when it’s snowing in Walabash Woods, ice might pummel the ground in a nearby city. Aggi and I learned how unstable the weather is the hard way, and since the accident, I haven’t seen Aggi on the roof of the science building. But today I’m hopeful.
A breeze stirs the top layer of snow into the air, and I puff the ice crystals from my bangs and lift my left arm to open up my lungs. By lap two, I’m gasping for air. My nonrunner friend Henry told me running gets easier the more you do it, but I find this statement to be a bald-faced lie. My cleats dig and punch holes into patches of snow spotting the track.
When I skid around a curve, the eaves of the science building poke through the leafless trees, and for a second, my breath catches, my heart drums. I squint at the windows to search for movement. Just a glimpse is all I need. Aggi’s blue knit hat, her sand-colored hair sweeping her forehead.
Aggi used to work only one day a month, but now she arrives every Saturday morning and some weekday afternoons. Filling up my Jeep costs a small fortune and drains my meager savings account. Dad would lend me money if I asked, but it feels wrong, as if I am breaking our father-son trust. The restraining order prevents my family from speaking to Aggi’s family, yet here I am following her around like Edward stalked Bella. Aggi loves Twilight, and quite frankly, so do I, but at least I’m not sleep stalking . . . yet? A million court documents try to keep me from Aggi, but life is not worth living without her.
Since We Last Spoke Page 3