Afterward

by Jennifer Mathieu

  Long pause. Then another text pops up.

  I’m still sorry about what happened

  It’s ok

  Seriously?

  Yeah

  Long pause again. I can tell from the word bubble popping up and going away that she’s trying to figure out what to say next. Finally, her next text appears.

  I miss hanging out

  I stare at the words she’s sent me. I read them over and over again.

  Playing with Caroline was never hard. Even the very first time we played. I mean, I was nervous about proving I was a good enough drummer to keep up with her. Then there was always the strange, dark cloud of how we knew each other hovering over us, never totally gone. But once we started playing, it was the easiest thing in my life. Easier than catching up in my schoolwork, easier than being with my parents, easier than anything. And I know the shit at the creek was messed up. I know I don’t want it to get weird like that again.

  But if we can stick to playing in the garage. If we can stick to closing our eyes and filling the air around us with power chords and progressions and music. If we can stick to talking about the future and never the past.

  If we could do that. I take a deep breath and text Caroline again.

  You want to come over Saturday night and play?

  Yeah?

  Yeah

  I would totally love to

  Cool

  Like after dinner or whatever?

  I grin to myself and write her back.

  Yeah after dinner is good

  K sounds good … I have to go. To help my mom with Dylan

  That last text—that mention of Dylan—makes me freeze up a bit. The words slice through my little moment of happiness. I text her back, but I don’t say anything about her brother. I just respond See you Saturday.

  After I take my medication and say goodnight to my parents, I climb into bed with the lights on and the door halfway open just like I need it. I check my phone one more time but the only message I see from Caroline is her last one. I squeeze my eyes shut. I wish I hadn’t reread it.

  As I wait to fall asleep, I try to fill my head with the songs I want to play with Caroline. Tonight I want to try and have good dreams.

  CAROLINE—262 DAYS AFTERWARD

  I head over to Ethan’s right after work on Saturday, and my heart is pounding the whole bike ride over. I’d left my practice amp at his house the last time we’d played all those weeks ago, but my guitar is balanced on my handlebars in its soft case, and I’m trying so hard not to tip over. Maybe I should have walked.

  Maybe I shouldn’t even be doing this.

  Instead of dumping my bike on the front lawn like I normally do, I wheel it up toward the garage. I’m trying to be a good guest, I guess.

  Ethan’s sitting at his drums, twirling his drumsticks like he sometimes does when he’s nervous or quiet or doesn’t want to talk much or just because. He hears me approaching and glances up.

  “Hey,” he says.

  “Hey,” I say back.

  We don’t talk. I just plug in and start fiddling with my guitar, and Ethan nods his head a little, listens to me as I pluck a few strings and get comfortable. It’s a White Stripes song we’ve played before, and when he realizes where I’m going he shoots me this look and rolls his eyes a little. I roll mine back.

  We play the whole song, but after that first glance we don’t look at each other while we play. I stare down at my fingers moving across the frets. I’m a good enough player that I don’t have to watch my fingers, usually. But tonight I do. It’s easier than looking anyplace else. It’s definitely easier than looking at Ethan.

  We finish playing, and he crosses his drumsticks in his lap.

  “Really? That’s what you want to play?” He’s trying to make it jokey.

  “Ethan,” I say, and the guitar feels like a shield. Like I can say anything I want as long as I’m holding it. “I messed everything up.”

  He tries to force a grin. To make me see it’s okay. But he can tell I’m not going to let it go. I’m not going to just pretend nothing happened.

  “Okay, so yeah, it got weird. It did.”

  “It won’t happen again,” I tell him.

  “What won’t? You getting drunk or you forcing me to go on some random walk to the creek or us kissing?”

  I flush. It all sounds even stupider when he puts it like that.

  “All of the above.”

  Ethan twirls his sticks.

  “Kissing me must have been really awful,” he says, and I can barely hear him his voice is so small. And it’s meant to be a joke. But, like, not a joke at the same time. I swallow and stare at my guitar.

  “No, Ethan, it wasn’t,” I say, and I see his eyes dart up in surprise and then dart down again, embarrassed. “But…,” I keep going, “I think us playing music … it’s better than kissing. It’s more than that, even. And maybe we shouldn’t mess with that. And kissing sometimes messes things up.”

  Ethan stares at his knees and nods, and it gets quiet for a good long while. So quiet that even though Ethan and me are usually pretty good at being quiet together, I can’t stand it anymore. “So,” I say, “I’m trying this new thing. Where I try not to be stupid and kiss boys without really thinking about why I’m doing it. Without really knowing exactly what it means.”

  Ethan nods. “That sounds like a good plan.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah,” he says back, and I can tell he wants to change the subject. He nods to a cooler off to the side. “You want a Coke?”

  “When did you get a cooler out here?” I ask, eager to talk about something so basic.

  “A few days ago,” he says. “I convinced my mom it was easier than her walking out here every ten minutes to offer me something to drink. Not that that’s why she’s coming out here, really.”

  I don’t know what to say to that, but Ethan hands me a can, its sides still slippery from sitting in ice water, and I unstrap my guitar and sit down on the cement to drink.

  “I feel bad sitting up here, and you’re on the ground,” he says.

  “No, I like it,” I say, taking a slurp of my drink. I stretch out on my back, the coolness of the pavement making its way through my dark blue hoodie. I really do like being on the ground. I like watching the tops of the crepe myrtle trees hanging over the roof of Ethan’s garage. I like how their naked, skinny wintertime branches stretch out like witches’ fingers.

  “I could always get you a chair,” says Ethan, and I can hear him take a swallow from his drink.

  “Your neighbors don’t mind us playing so late?” I ask. Dusk is starting to settle.

  “No,” he says. “They’re ancient and deaf. They have a Chihuahua that barks all the time, and I swear they never hear her.”

  “We used to have a dog,” I say to Ethan and to the tree branches hanging overhead.

  “What kind?”

  “A mutt,” I answer. “Only she got cancer, and we had to put her down.”

  “Can’t they treat cancer in dogs?” Ethan asks.

  “If you have, like, thousands of dollars,” I say, and I immediately feel bad for saying it. Ethan’s family does have thousands of dollars. At least I’m pretty sure they do.

  Talking about our old dog makes me think about Dylan. He and the dog—Trixie was her name—loved to watch Jeopardy! together, and Dylan used to be calmer when Trixie was around. At least he didn’t have more meltdowns and scream out, “Damn, damn, piece of cake, damn,” all the time. No matter what my mom thinks, in my gut I know those words have something to do with the kidnapping, and I wish Ethan could explain them to me. I wish I could understand what they mean. I’ll probably never find out. I’ll probably never know what happened to my little brother.

  I sit up, antsy all of a sudden. I can feel my fingers itching to play. But I’m not sure what.

  “If we formed a band someday,” I find myself saying, “we could play for money. Like, there’s a school dance tonight. We cou
ld find a bass player and play something like that.” It’s nonsense talk, I know. Ethan will probably never come back to school, and I would rather have nothing to do with anything involving the school gym, even if it is decorated in paper streamers and the lights are dimmed. But talking about it is fun, somehow. Picturing myself in front of a big crowd, my hair done up some really cool way I could never actually manage to do. My makeup all gorgeous so I look like someone else.

  “What’s the dance for?” Ethan asks, and I think for a moment of all the things he hasn’t done in years. Slam lockers. Take notes. Text in class. Skip gym. And my heart breaks for him for the ten thousandth time.

  “It’s for Valentine’s Day.”

  “Oh,” he says, and as soon as he says it I realize how totally awkward it could be to mention Valentine’s Day after everything that’s happened between us.

  “They probably have a terrible deejay,” I say, anxious to fill up the space. “He’s playing, like, terrible music with some thumping bass and the teachers are wandering around making sure no one is doing anything inappropriate.”

  “My parents met at a dance,” Ethan says. The sky is getting all purple and gray, and it’s getting chilly, too. I’m glad I have my jacket.

  “Like a dance in high school?” I ask.

  “No, college,” Ethan says. “It was a party at my dad’s fraternity, and my mom says they danced to this song by Air Supply.”

  “Air Supply?”

  “Oh, shit, you have to hear it,” Ethan says. “I mean, it’s terrible. I’m warning you right now. Your ears could possibly bleed.”

  He finds the song on his phone and soon the two of us are sitting there, listening to a tinny male voice singing about being all out of love and so lost without you.

  “They fell in love to this?” I ask, horrified. The song is so awful that I sit up, stunned.

  “Yeah,” Ethan says, shrugging. “My mom still loves to sing it.”

  We sit there and listen to the entire song, and when it’s done, I find myself humming it, then trying to mimic the words. It’s terrible and overproduced and cheesy, but the truth is it’s catchy as hell. “I’m all out of love, I’m so lost without yooooouuuuu,” I start. I stretch the “you” out as far as it will go.

  “No, don’t do it,” Ethan starts, holding up his hands in mock surrender, but I can tell what he really means is sing my guts out, and he starts up a slow and steady beat on the bass drum.

  “How does the chorus go again?” I say, standing up and strapping my guitar on again.

  “Something about it can’t be too late to say that I was wrong,” Ethan says, nodding his head to the beat he’s creating.

  “Something something something … and blah blah blah!” I sing, managing to mimic the tune.

  “Just make it up!” Ethan insists.

  “This song is so bad … I have to keep singing!” I belt out. “I cannot ignore … the pain it is bringing!”

  Ethan cracks up and keeps drumming.

  “The words to this song … are so totally lame!” I try. “After hearing it now … I won’t be the same!”

  I’m laughing so hard that Ethan takes over until he’s out of ideas and I make up another stupid verse for this very stupid love song, playing the chorus over and over again with new and ridiculous words until Ethan’s mom comes out to see what the hell we are doing. It’s almost dark now, and she stands in the circle of floodlight shining down from the back of the house. It’s late, but she still has her hair in a neat ponytail and her lipstick is still perfect.

  “What is going on?” she says, her hands on her hips. But I think she might be smiling a little, too.

  “We’re recreating your first date with dad in honor of Valentine’s Day,” Ethan says. “You mean you couldn’t tell?”

  “Air Supply sounded very different that night,” Ethan’s mom says, shaking her head, but I can see her eyes light up a little when she says it. It’s almost like maybe she is liking me for the first time. “Not too much longer,” she says, “or even the Fletchers will hear.”

  But after she turns to head back inside, Ethan insists on another made up verse and then another one after that. And the both of us keep playing. By the time we finally finish our epic Air Supply cover, we are drenched in sweat and we are making stupid faces at each other and we are laughing so hard we can’t breathe.

  ETHAN—264 DAYS AFTERWARD

  After my Monday morning lessons with Mrs. Leander, my mom and I sit down to eat lunch at our kitchen table. She makes us roast beef sandwiches with tomatoes and lettuce and mayonnaise on thick baguettes. My mom cuts her sandwich in half and wraps the first half in aluminum foil, saving it for later. I plow into mine, knowing I’ll finish all of it.

  “Famished, huh?” she asks.

  I nod, wiping a drop of mayonnaise off the side of my mouth with my thumb. Four hours with Mrs. Leander and I’m starving. She’s tough in a good way, and I know from the quizzes and tests I’m acing that I’m catching up fast, but when you’re the only student in the room, you don’t get the chance to slack off.

  “You’re planning on playing with Caroline later?” she says, taking a tiny bite and chewing carefully.

  “Yeah,” I say. “Don’t worry. No Air Supply this time.”

  “It was funny,” she says, smiling. “I can tell you like playing with her.”

  “Yeah, I do,” I say, and I know from the way that she pauses to speak and then takes a sip from her can of Diet Coke instead that she wants to say something. Maybe about Caroline. But she’s second guessing herself. I wonder if it will always be like this between my mom and me. And my dad and me. Always hesitations. Always things under the surface. Things said but not said.

  We keep eating and we don’t talk. My mother takes these small little bites. She’s put together as usual. Her hair is always perfect, her nails are always done, she always has her lipstick on. When I was little, she would get dressed nice just to take me to the park even though the other moms were in T-shirts and sweatpants. Before I was born she did something in banking. Investing or something, and after I was born, it was like she still dressed as if she were going to some fancy office even though she was just staying at home with me. Maybe it’s because she’d dressed for work for so long she didn’t know how to stop. My mom didn’t have me until she was thirty-eight, and my middle name is Joseph after the doctor she and my dad went to back in Austin when they couldn’t get pregnant right away. It’s a weird fact about myself, I realize. Sometimes I wonder if Dr. Joseph saw all the headlines about me. And if he did, I wonder if he remembered my parents were his patients and if he realized who I was.

  I stand up to take the lunch dishes to the sink. One of my chores before I was gone was to clear the table after meals, and I fell right back into it when I came home. At first my mom didn’t want me to do it. Didn’t want me to do anything, really. But I like making things clean and putting things away. I like how after the table is cleared off and the dishes are in the dishwasher, I take a dishtowel and the all-purpose cleanser and wipe down the counters and the white kitchen table where we eat. And everything looks just like it should.

  I’m admiring my work when I turn and find my mom is sitting there staring at me. She does this a lot—the staring—but now I think her eyes are a little glassy with the start of tears.

  “Mom?” I manage. “Are you okay?”

  She smiles a little. “Your shoulders, Ethan,” she tells me. “I was looking at you as you did the dishes and your shoulders … your shoulders are like a man’s shoulders. You’re so grown up.”

  I’m standing there, blue and white checkered dishtowel in my hand. My mom’s cheeks are red and splotchy and her eye makeup is starting to soften. She takes a deep breath.

  “I’ve been thinking … that you need to have more freedom,” she says. She folds her napkin and then unfolds it and folds it again. “I know I drive you crazy. I know I follow you from room to room in this house and I check on you thirty times
a night. I know I can’t do these things anymore. But I don’t know how to stop.”

  I put the cleanser and the dishtowel down on the kitchen counter. I walk toward her and sit down with her at the kitchen table. She blinks a few times until her eyes aren’t glassy anymore.

  “Mom,” I say, and then I don’t know what to say next.

  “I annoy you sometimes, don’t I?” she asks.

  I look down. I’m giving myself away.

  “It’s okay, Ethan,” she says. She reaches over and she squeezes my hand, and it’s nice. I remember when I was a little kid and she would squeeze my hand at the doctor’s office whenever it was time for me to get a shot. One tight, sure squeeze.

  “Sometimes,” I say. “Yeah, sometimes you do, Mom.”

  She exhales.

  I think about Dr. Greenberg. How he always seems to know the right words at the right time. How he has all these little tricks like brushing Groovy or going on walks so that somehow when our session is up I feel better. I wish I could be like Dr. Greenberg right now, but I just sit there, my throat clenching in sadness.

  “Mom,” I whisper, “I’m sorry that I didn’t leave.”

  My mom blinks hard and stares at me, her eyes widening.

  “No, Ethan,” she says. “No. No! That’s not what this is about. I know you couldn’t leave. I wish you could have, yes, but I know you couldn’t. I do understand that. I really do.”

  “I don’t know how you could when I don’t always,” I say. We’re still holding hands. But it’s not bugging me.

  “Ethan, the doctors have explained it to us,” she says. “Your reaction was so common. It happens to victims of trauma—”

  “It happened to me,” I interrupt. I’m not used to interrupting. But I do it now. “And I know what the doctors say, and sometimes I get it and sometimes I still don’t understand. I don’t know why this happened to us either. I went on that website for missing kids the other day—do you know something like a hundred kids a year in the United States are taken like I was? By a total stranger? And I was one of them? It’s like being struck by lightning.”

  My mom looks into my eyes and studies my face carefully, like she’ll never get sick of looking at it. Because she never will.