Tanner had Cody’s sister, Sarah, over on Sunday. They watched TV and played video games, and I could hear them laughing. I felt a strange blend of relief, pride, and jealousy. Relief, because it meant there was hope for Tanner. Pride, because if I hadn’t started the group that included Cody, Tanner wouldn’t have met Sarah. And, embarrassingly, jealousy, because Tanner was learning how to cope while I seemed to be getting more and more lost by the day.
On Monday morning, I walked into trig class to find Sam waiting by my seat.
“Hey, Lacey,” he said, like we were the only two people in the room.
“Hey,” I mumbled, both wanting and not wanting to see him.
“Lacey,” Sam said, putting his hand on mine. I bit my lower lip and moved my hand away. “I don’t want to talk to you.”
“Look, I’m sorry,” he said. “I really am. Did you get my e-mail?”
“Yeah,” I said. I paused. “And I’m glad your dad woke up.” I really was, and I wanted him to know that.
“Thanks,” he said. “And Lacey, for what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”
“You lied to us,” I whispered. “You lied to me.”
“I never lied,” he said, shaking his head. “I just—I just didn’t correct the misunderstanding.”
• • •
After school I walked home by myself. I didn’t know where Logan was, and Jennica had to stay after school to work on a history group project.
The sun was low in the sky. The days were getting shorter and the nights longer, but that was okay; I liked the darkness. It was only four in the afternoon, but the first colors of sunset were starting to gather on the horizon.
I was so lost in thought five minutes later that it barely registered when a vehicle slowed beside me.
“Lacey?”
It was Sam in his Cherokee, his window rolled down. “Lacey, get in,” he said. “It’s cold out.”
I shook my head, not stopping. “I’m fine.” But Sam kept inching his Jeep along.
“I’ll follow you the whole way home if you want,” Sam said. “But wouldn’t it be easier to just get in? It’s not getting any warmer.”
I snorted and quickened my pace. “I like to walk.”
But Sam was right. I only had a denim jacket on, and the cold was starting to seep into my bones. It was another fifteen minutes home. I’d be fine, but the heated interior of a car was admittedly tempting.
“Please, Lacey? Just give me a chance to talk to you for five minutes.”
I hesitated, watching my warm breath crystallize into little white clouds. Finally, I got in.
“Thanks,” Sam said. He glanced in the rearview mirror as I buckled my seat belt. Then he pulled slowly away from the curb.
We didn’t say anything for a little while. Then Sam said, “Look, Lacey. I’m sorry.”
I shrugged and looked out the window. The oranges and pinks to the west were inching farther up the sky as the horizon began to tug the curtain down on the day.
“I’m glad for you,” I said. “I’m glad your dad is fine.”
“No you’re not,” Sam said. His words sliced into me, and I turned to look at him.
“I am,” I said. “Really. I would give anything in the world to have my dad back. And I’m glad that’s happening to you. But the thing is, you tricked me. You made me feel like you understood me.”
“I do understand.”
My breath felt heavy, and the air around me seemed suddenly in short supply. I gazed at the sky again and thought about what Sam had said about rainbows. It had all been just words. “You can’t understand!” I said. My eyes felt dry, and I blinked a few times, trying to get the burning sensation to go away. “Your dad is alive, Sam! You have another chance with him. You can talk to him and tell him about your day and tell him you love him. Even when he was in a coma, you could say all those things to him, and there was a chance he could hear you.”
“Lacey, don’t you think your dad can hear you too?” he asked.
I rolled my eyes. His words that night about rainbows and my dad looking over us just sounded ridiculous now. “No,” I said. “And I think you’re pretty much the last person who should be saying something like that to me.”
We had pulled into my neighborhood. I was silent as Sam parked his Jeep alongside the curb in front of my house. I glanced at him and was surprised to see how wounded he looked. I suddenly felt a little bad.
“Is he doing okay?” I asked. “Your dad, I mean?”
Sam nodded. “It’s hard to watch him,” he said. “He can’t move the right side of his face. He talks funny, and he can’t remember a lot of words.”
“But he’s alive,” I couldn’t help but add.
“Yeah.”
Then, before he had a chance to say anything else, I climbed out of the Jeep and slammed the door behind me. I could feel Sam watching me the whole way to the house. I had to stop myself from looking back at the street when I let myself in the front door.
• • •
That night, Sam sent an e-mail to everyone in the group.
When I came to the first meeting, I didn’t realize right away that it was supposed to only be for people whose parents had died. By the time I realized, I didn’t know how to tell you guys. I felt really good around you; it feels weird to have a parent in a coma too, and we didn’t think he was going to wake up, so I felt like I’d lost my dad too. I didn’t mean to trick anyone, and I’m really sorry if anyone feels that way. You guys really helped me, and I would love to keep spending time with you if you’ll have me. Cody wrote back an e-mail, copied to the rest of us:
Glad your dad’s okay. You don’t have to apologize to us.
No one else responded—or if they did, they didn’t CC everyone. I wondered how Cody could act so forgiving. Did Mindy and Kelsi feel the same way I did? Or was I the only one who was upset?
But the thing was, I was the one who had opened myself up.
I was the one who got hurt.
chapter 20
The next two weeks passed quickly. Sam was absent from school pretty often, and when he was there, I avoided him. Soon he stopped trying so hard to talk to me or to get me to forgive him. I think he knew it wasn’t going to happen.
In English class, where he and I usually partnered up, he began working on projects with Matt Alexander, and I started working with Gillian Zucker. We had two Tuesday meetings of our group—one at McDonald’s (where we all got Happy Meals and giggled our way through playing with the toys like little kids) and one at the ice rink again—and I don’t think I was the only one who felt Sam’s absence.
Sunday, November fifteenth dawned gray and bleak, which seemed fitting. It was officially the anniversary. It had been an entire year. Today we’d begin a whole new year of days my father would never get to live, things he’d never get to see. But saying it, admitting it had been nearly a year already, was more difficult than it should have been.
It had been fifty-two Saturdays since I’d taken my sweet time in the bathroom and cheerfully headed out the door for the five-minute car ride that would change our lives. I felt tears prickle at the backs of my eyes as I lay in bed.
Despite myself, I went to the window to look for a rainbow, and I almost wanted to kick myself for believing there was even a chance one would be there. Not only did I not believe in stuff like that, but it would have been scientifically impossible, given the overcast skies. You needed sunshine for a rainbow, and I had the feeling there wouldn’t be any today.
I looked at the sky anyhow, hoping that there would be some kind of sign that my dad was up there, watching. But still, nothing.
Then, something made me look down. My window overlooked the front yard and the street, and as I glanced at the grass, I noticed the strangest thing.
The lawn, which had been covered for the past few weeks in a growing blanket of orange, red, and yellow leaves, had been raked, and there was a big pile of leaves in the corner, almost exactly where my dad used to put the l
eaf pile.
For a fleeting instant, I was sure my dad had done it, that it was the sort of sign Sam had talked about, except that instead of painting a rainbow in the sky, my dad had done something much more personal.
Then I remembered. I had told Sam about the leaves, hadn’t I? But he couldn’t have done this. With as coldly as I’d been treating him, it was hard to believe that he would show up with a rake in the wee, cold hours of the morning and do something so incredibly touching.
I stared down from the window for a long time at the leaf pile. And while I looked, a little bit of the ice melted from around the outside of my heart.
• • •
Mom surprised us all by making light, fluffy blueberry pancakes for breakfast.
“I thought it would be a start to a tough day that your dad would appreciate,” she said as she brought the platter to the table. Logan shuffled over to the fridge to grab the maple and blueberry syrups, and Tanner poured juice for all of us, sloshing a little over the side of Mom’s glass.
“Sorry,” he said.
She smiled at him. “No problem.”
It was like we were in a time warp and had gone back to normal. Well, almost. Logan didn’t look at all like himself; his eyes were bloodshot, his hair was a mess, and I could swear I could smell alcohol on him, although Mom seemed oblivious. Mom still looked vacant, but I knew she was trying. And Tanner, of course, was being his usual quiet self.
Or so I thought. After we’d downed our pancakes and Mom had stood up to start clearing the table, he suddenly said, “Knock, knock.”
We all looked at him. Logan and I exchanged glances. Mom stopped in her tracks.
“What?” I asked, sure that I must have heard him wrong.
“Knock, knock,” Tanner repeated. We hadn’t heard a joke come out of Tanner’s mouth in a year. “Um, who’s there?” I asked. “Little old lady,” he said.
“Little old lady who?” my mom asked, coming back to the table.
Tanner smiled at her and then at Logan and me. “I didn’t know you could yodel, Mom.”
It was a stupid joke, really, the kind that we only would have laughed at a year ago to be polite. But hearing Tanner tell it today, after a year of barely hearing his voice, never mind his humor, unleashed something in all of us.
Mom started laughing first, in high, tinkling tones that I hadn’t heard in so long I had almost forgotten what they sounded like. Logan joined in next with an amused chuckle. Before I knew it, I was laughing too.
“I’ve been saving that one for today,” Tanner said. “I think Dad would have liked it.”
The words brought the laughter to a halt. Finally, Mom broke the silence. “Yes, Tanner,” she said. “I know he would have.”
And in that moment, sitting around the kitchen table with my mom and two brothers I felt like maybe, just maybe, our dad was with us after all.
• • •
Logan disappeared after breakfast with promises that he’d meet us back at the house by two to go to the cemetery, a trip I was dreading. I’d managed to avoid it for an entire year, but I knew I had to go. I had to do it. For my mom, for Tanner, and, I guess, for myself. After I took a shower and got dressed, I knocked on Tanner’s door.
“Want to go out and jump in the leaf pile in the yard?” I asked.
He followed me outside. We spent the next hour jumping around together, like we used to when we were younger. We threw handfuls of leaves at each other, made leaf angels in the yard by lying on our backs and spreading our arms, and dove into the pile again and again, breathing in the familiar, slightly musty smell of autumn all around us.
We laughed like we used to when our dad would dive in with us, and as I grabbed my little brother for a tickle attack, like Dad used to do to me, I looked up at the gray sky once again, foolishly half expecting a rainbow. Instead there were just low, dense clouds and the promise of rain. The leaves, I knew, would get wet and soggy and would disperse around the yard again when the sky opened up. But for now, they were perfect, and when I closed my eyes, I could almost believe that it was like before, a crisp fall day when everything in the world was right.
• • •
Logan didn’t come home.
As we waited for him at the kitchen table, my mom got more and more mad.
“Maybe he’s just running late,” she said at 2:10.
“He must be on his way,” she said at 2:20 when she called his cell phone and it went straight to voice mail.
“What could they be doing?” she demanded at 2:30 when she called Sydney’s phone and got her voice mail too.
“Fine, he can meet us there,” she huffed at 2:45 when Logan still hadn’t appeared.
So Mom, Tanner, and I climbed into the car and headed to the cemetery.
After we parked, Mom led us up the little hill to Dad’s grave, as easily as if she had a map of the place imprinted on her mind. I supposed maybe she did.
Dad’s gravestone was a thick slab of dark gray marble, and as we walked up to it, the words imprinted on it burned into me.
PETER MANN
BELOVED FATHER, HUSBAND, AND SON
A single ray of sunshine poked through the gloomy mass of clouds as we stood in silence, looking at Dad’s grave. I had no idea how to act. Was I supposed to kneel and say a prayer? Or look up at the sky and try to talk to him? Was I supposed to touch the gravestone or the flowers that seemed to have no right to be alive while my father lay dead?
My mom started crying. Tanner stood beside her, holding her hand, his head leaning against her arm.
“Lacey,” she said, turning toward me.
I swallowed hard and wondered what was wrong with me that I wasn’t crying too. I joined them, putting my arm around Mom. She pulled me into a hug, and the three of us stood there for what felt like a small eternity, blanketed in a silence that was only punctuated by the occasional sounds of Mom’s sniffles.
After a few minutes, Tanner pulled away and announced that he was going to go look for a squirrel he’d just seen run by.
“I have some peanuts in my pocket,” he said solemnly. “And maybe he’s hungry.”
Mom nodded, and we watched Tanner head off. After a few paces, he broke into a run.
After a moment, Mom began crying again. I didn’t know what to do. It felt awkward to be around a grieving person, especially my mother.
“It’ll be all right, Mom,” I mumbled.
“I’ve been a terrible mother,” she whispered.
“No, Mom,” I said, shaking my head. “It’s okay.”
“I’m the mom,” she said, pulling a tissue from her pocket and blowing her nose. “I’m supposed to be the one who holds it all together. For all of you. And I haven’t been able to do even that.”
“You’ve done your best. I’ve done my best. We’ve all done our best. And it’s going to get better.”
“But your dad would have—”
“Dad would have understood,” I said, “that you can’t be perfect.”
The words settled around us, and as they did, I realized that maybe I needed to take them into account too.
“I’m going to go sit in the car,” Mom said with a sigh, turning away from Dad’s grave.
Ten minutes later, I found Tanner sitting under a tree, gazing at a pair of squirrels, and together, we returned to the car. Mom already had the engine running and the heater going.
“Ready?” she asked.
We both nodded.
It wasn’t until we’d pulled out of the parking lot that I realized I’d been so busy comforting my mom, I hadn’t had a chance to say anything to my dad. I still wasn’t sure that he could even hear me. I wasn’t sure what I believed. But once again, I’d failed him.
chapter 21
There was a message on the machine from Logan when we got home.
“Sorry I missed the cemetery,” he said, his voice sounding slurred. “I’m still out with Sydney. See ya later.”
Mom hung up her coat and began
sorting through a stack of mail.
“Mom?” I said, biting my lip. I’d always kept up the unspoken sibling rule of honor by not telling my mother if I saw Logan drinking or smoking at a party, but the fact that he sounded drunk at four on a Sunday afternoon worried me. “Doesn’t Logan sound kind of … funny?”
“It’s been an emotional day for all of us, Lacey,” she said, sighing. “I’m sure he’s shed a few tears of his own.”
That wasn’t what I meant, but there was no point arguing with her.
Later, after dinner, I decided to go for a run. I needed to get out. Logan still wasn’t home, and Tanner and Mom were watching some show about pandas on Animal Planet.
The night had turned cold. The rain that had started just after we got home from the cemetery—and had dried up another hour after that—had brought with it a chill in the air that hadn’t been there before.
As I set out at a slow jog, I wasn’t quite sure where I was going at first. I just knew that I needed to be alone.
As I ran, my feet carrying me farther from home, I thought about my dad, I mean really thought about him, for the first time in a very long while. It was easier not to think about him most of the time. I’d stopped letting the memories in. I’d stopped talking to him in my head, pretending he could hear me. I’d stopped looking obsessively at his pictures. A little part of me wanted to forget his face, his warmth, his deep voice, his lopsided smile, because it would be easier that way, wouldn’t it?
And now he was back. Seeing his gravestone for the first time since the funeral had brought it all home. No matter how fast I ran, I couldn’t escape the reality that he was gone.
My feet carried me the two miles to the cemetery. I didn’t even stop to consider that I shouldn’t be coming this far by myself after dark. It was like I was numb to everything: good judgment, logic, even the bitter cold that was seeping in through my double-layered sweatshirts. I patted the pocket of my sweatpants and felt the familiar shape of my cell phone.
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