Afterward

by Jennifer Mathieu

  Dr. Greenberg grins. “You’re right. The prom, senior prank day, things like that.”

  I smile. “Wait, senior prank day?”

  “I’m old, but I’m not from the Dark Ages,” Dr. Greenberg says. “My classmates and I filled the entire main hallway with balloons. We spent hours blowing them up. We were so light-headed. Then the next day no one could get to class. It was marvelous.”

  I try to picture a teenage Dr. Greenberg, and all I can imagine is a skinnier, younger body with an old Dr. Greenberg head.

  “Did you get in trouble?” I ask.

  “No,” he says. “The principal was very forgiving, fortunately. The class the year before had let chickens run through the building, so really, he was grateful.”

  “Chickens?”

  “Yes!” he says. “Live chickens, can you believe it?” Then he chuckles and says with a sigh, “Teenagers.”

  I scratch Groovy’s silky head. “It seems so weird that teenagers back then would do stuff that was so stupid,” I say.

  “Really?” Dr. Greenberg says. “What makes you say so?”

  I shrug. “I don’t know. Old movies and stuff. They always make the olden days seem, like, more polite or something.”

  Dr. Greenberg shakes his head. “Teenagers have always been teenagers. Every generation thinks it invented adolescence,” he tells me. “But the truth is, it’s been around for a very long time.”

  We’re quiet for a while, and then I bring up Caroline. Or rather, I bring up the fact that nothing much has changed since our last session.

  “We still haven’t talked,” I admit.

  “Let me ask the classic therapist question,” he says. “How do you feel about that?”

  “It kind of sucks,” I say. “I mean, it sucks a lot.”

  “How come?”

  “Because…,” I struggle to find the right words, “even if Caroline and I had this strange thing that bonded us, even if things got weird between us for a while, the truth is, I just liked being around her. She made me feel … calm somehow. And she was pretty funny, too. And really good at guitar. I don’t know. I just liked being with her. I liked being friends with her.”

  Dr. Greenberg listens and nods.

  “Before you told her what happened with her brother, we discussed the possibility that telling her about what happened would mean you wouldn’t be friends with her anymore, right?”

  I nod.

  “Right now, you and Caroline aren’t talking. Aren’t friends. How are you handling that?”

  I think about it, and there’s an ache at the back of my throat.

  “It’s shitty,” I tell him. “But I’m getting through it. I’m playing my music. I’m thinking about what might come next for me. School. Learning how to drive.”

  Dr. Greenberg nods, his expression firm and certain. “You are getting through it,” he says.

  “Do you think that people are really fated to know each other?” I ask. “To be in the same … what did you call it?”

  “Karass?” Dr. Greenberg says. “I don’t know. The issue of fate versus free will is something that the human race has puzzled over since we had words for these things. I suppose what some people call fate others call God.”

  “I still don’t know what I believe,” I say. “Like, if I was fated to get to be friends with Caroline, to be in the same karass with her, that means I was fated to be taken. And if I was fated to be taken, what was the point of it if my friendship with Caroline only lasted a few months anyway?”

  Dr. Greenberg crosses his legs one way and sighs and then crosses them the other way and sighs again.

  “You ask really hard questions,” he tells me.

  “Well, you went to Harvard,” I shoot back with a smirk, and he laughs with his whole body for a minute. When he calms down he says, “Thank you for making me laugh. It freed me up to remember this quote. Do you know who Voltaire was?”

  “No,” I say.

  “He was a French writer and philosopher during the Enlightenment.”

  “Oh,” I say. “So I guess a bigger deal than Harvard.”

  “Maybe a little,” Dr. Greenberg agrees. “Anyway, there’s this quote that’s attributed to him that I’ve always liked. ‘Each player must accept the cards life deals him, but once they are in hand, he alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game.’”

  I ask Dr. Greenberg to repeat himself, and he does, and then he asks me what I think Voltaire meant.

  “Well,” I say, “I think he’s saying that bad stuff is going to happen to us and good stuff is going to happen to us, but how we handle it is what matters in the end.”

  “Exactly,” Dr. Greenberg says.

  “But Dr. Greenberg, that’s so obvious,” I say, throwing up my hands. “I mean, I don’t mean to be a dick about it, but come on. I mean, yeah, in the end all that matters is how you deal with it. But that idea doesn’t make anything better when bad things happen.”

  “No,” Dr. Greenberg says, shaking his head. “It doesn’t.”

  I slump down on the couch.

  “But that sucks.”

  “Yes,” says Dr. Greenberg, “it does.”

  “Sorry I picked on Voltaire,” I say.

  “It’s okay.”

  “The card metaphor was interesting.”

  Dr. Greenberg’s eyes crinkle up and he laughs. “You don’t have to humor me, Ethan.”

  Groovy sighs and rolls on his back, stretching all four paws into the air. I chew on my thumbnail for a minute. “Dr. Greenberg?” I ask. “Do you think I’m getting better?” I think about all the reasons I’m not. I still sleep with the lights on. I still have nightmares that make me wake up sweating. I still don’t feel normal or like other kids, and I’m really nervous about what going back to school will be like.

  His eyes go soft. “Oh, Ethan, when you first started coming here you were as quiet as a mouse,” he says. “You stared out the window more than you looked at me. And now you’re wrestling with difficult questions, and you’re doing a really good job at it. You’re talking about how you feel, you’re thinking about the future in a healthy way, you’re working on relationships with the people around you, and you’re honest as hell. Yes, Ethan, I think you’re getting better. As much as any of this can be measured that way.”

  “Yeah?” I ask.

  “Is my approval important to you?”

  “Yeah, I think,” I say. “I don’t know why, but it is.”

  “I hope you believe that I’m telling you the truth, because yes, I think you’re getting better, and I mean it.”

  I nod. I let myself smile a little, and I tell Dr. Greenberg thank you.

  We spend the last few minutes of my session talking about nothing all that interesting, like how hot it’s already starting to get and what I’m reading with Mrs. Leander. But what I really want to tell Dr. Greenberg in that moment is that I’m so glad he’s my therapist. That I’m so glad he’s a part of my life. I don’t say it because there is a small part of me that thinks it could be weird to say it even if there’s a bigger part of me that knows he wouldn’t mind. But maybe I don’t say it because I don’t have to. Maybe, probably, he already knows.

  * * *

  When my mom pulls into the driveway of our house, I’m not surprised to see Caroline pulling up on her bike, her dark ponytail flying out behind her. It’s the weirdest timing. If she’d come a moment sooner, I wouldn’t have been home. Maybe she would have left. But the timing is perfect.

  “Caroline’s here,” I say, like I want to prove it to myself.

  “She hasn’t been here in a while,” my mother says. “Do you want to ask her to stay for dinner?” I glance at my mom all surprised because this is the first time she’s ever offered.

  “I don’t know if she’ll want to,” I say. “But I can ask.” We get out of the car.

  “Hey,” I say to Caroline.

  “Hey,” she says back. I read her face, trying to find a smile in her eyes or
anywhere, but her expression is neutral.

  “I’m going in the house, but let me know if you need anything,” my mom says, and I notice as she walks away she doesn’t look over her shoulder ten times to see if I’m still standing where she left me.

  “So what’s up?” says Caroline.

  “I just got back from therapy,” I say.

  “Was it a good meeting? I mean … session.”

  “Yeah,” I say.

  The April sun is beating down on us. I ask Caroline if she wants to go to the garage where at least there’s some shade. She says sure. I notice she doesn’t have her guitar with her, and I realize maybe she’s just here to pick up her amp. Disappointment tugs at me.

  I sit down at my drums, and she flops down on the cement like always, which makes me think at least she’s not just going to grab her amp and take off.

  “So my life is basically pretty shitty,” she announces all of a sudden. “My dad finally left, which is good, but which is also shitty. My mom got a job, which is good, but it also means I have more responsibility around the house, which is also shitty. My brother has good days which are good and shitty days which are shitty. So … there you go.”

  “That’s a lot of shitty,” I say.

  “No shit,” says Caroline, and I know for the first time that things are going to be okay.

  “Caroline,” I start, “about the last time we hung out … and what I told you…”

  Caroline looks up at me, her face open. Her expression hopeful.

  “I wish I hadn’t told you sometimes because I feel like you aren’t ever going to forgive me. But at the same time, I know I wouldn’t have ever been able to keep being friends with you otherwise. It would have felt like I was lying.”

  Caroline tips her head forward, drops her chin on her bent knees. Her long ponytail slides over one shoulder in an S. It’s quiet. Not even the dog next door is barking. All I hear is the air conditioner at the side of the house cycling on, rattling around like it’s working up the strength to survive a long Texas summer.

  “I forgive you,” she says. “But I don’t think there’s anything to forgive you for, really. You were in a horrible situation. You were scared for your own life.”

  I reach down for my drumsticks to have something to do with my hands. I run my thumbs on the wood, and I flip the sticks through my fingers.

  “I still wish I hadn’t done it,” I say, my voice quiet.

  “Well, I still wish I hadn’t taken my eyes off my brother that afternoon,” says Caroline.

  “I still wish I hadn’t taken that bike ride all those years ago,” I respond.

  “I still wish my brother didn’t have so many problems,” she answers.

  It’s quiet again, and Caroline looks up at me, her eyes glassy.

  “I was talking about this stuff with my therapist today,” I tell her. “Like what’s free will and what’s fate and how do we cope with the cards we’re given in life.”

  Caroline sighs. “Sounds heavy duty.”

  “Yeah, but in a good way,” I tell her.

  “If you hadn’t taken that bike ride and if my brother hadn’t had problems and run off like he did, maybe we would never have gotten to really know each other,” she says. “Which is weird to think about. Sometimes I wish we’d just met at the pool.”

  I grin for the first time since we started talking. “Yeah. Maybe in some parallel universe, we do.”

  I twirl my drumsticks but one of them slips from my hands and lands with a clatter near Caroline’s feet. She reaches for it and hands it toward me.

  “We could try to make this a good summer, Ethan,” says Caroline. “We could try to make it great.”

  “Yeah,” I say, “I’d like that.” And I smile at Caroline and she smiles at me.

  We sit there for a bit, and then I ask her, “How come you didn’t bring your guitar?”

  “I was picking up an extra shift at work,” she says. “I felt this urge to come by after.”

  “Why?” I ask.

  She shrugs her shoulders. “It was like a little voice told me it was time,” she says. “And I had to listen to it.”

  “I’m glad you did,” I tell her.

  “Me, too,” she says.

  I tell her my mom wants her to stay for dinner and she shoots me a mock shocked expression, and I laugh. And then before I know it we are talking about my parents and school and music and it’s so easy, just the two of us in my driveway on a late spring afternoon.

  CAROLINE—329 DAYS AFTERWARD

  When I get home from school, my mom is throwing a few last ingredients into the slow cooker. Dylan is lining up his blocks by the television. He looks up when I come in, and I give him a little wave. He goes back to his blocks.

  “Hey,” my mom says.

  “Hey,” I answer.

  “Mom,” I tell her, motioning to her collar, “you still have your work badge on.”

  “Oh, jeez, I forgot,” she says, unclipping it and placing the laminated card carefully on the counter, like it’s something valuable. And maybe it is. I know she likes her job. Likes getting up and going somewhere every morning. Likes earning her own money. I think my dad is sending checks once in a while, but I’m not sure. The other night after I put Dylan to bed, I caught her at the kitchen table, adding and subtracting numbers on a sheet of lined paper. When I asked if everything was okay, she nodded but her smile was forced.

  But still, life in our house has been so much quieter since my dad moved out. I’m not constantly counting the minutes until the next big scene. Even Dylan has seemed a little better. But he still melts down more than he used to. He still screams and shrieks at the most unexpected moments.

  “Job’s going okay?” I ask, taking out plates to set the table.

  “Yeah, real good,” she says, stirring what’s inside the pot with a large spoon. I smell tomato sauce and chicken. I don’t miss frozen pizza.

  “I think it’s really good that you’re working,” I tell her. I know it’s cheesy, but I add, “I’m proud of you.”

  She glances up at me suddenly, like she’s really looking at me for the first time since I walked in. “Hey,” she says, and her cheeks dimple. “That’s real nice. Thanks, Caroline.”

  “Sure,” I say.

  “You have work tomorrow?” she asks.

  “Yes,” I tell her. “And then maybe hang out at Ethan’s.”

  Before my dad moved out, I didn’t even tell my mom I’d been biking over there. It was like she couldn’t handle knowing more than the day-to-day basics of our lives, and sometimes not even that. But ever since it’s been just the three of us, it’s all “Where are you going?” and “When will you get back?” Which is annoying and comforting at the same time.

  “You’re playing music with him, hmm?” she asks.

  “Yeah. He’s good at the drums.”

  My mom thinks it’s weird I go there. I know she does. I haven’t told her anything he’s said about Dylan, and I don’t know that I can. At least not yet. I told her I just drove by one day because I was curious, and we started talking. And anyway, his dad is our dentist, and it’s Dove Lake. So it’s not like any of us are actual strangers.

  But still. I’m pretty sure she thinks the whole thing is weird.

  “You know, Ethan sees a therapist,” I say, folding paper towels into neat rectangles and setting them next to my plate, my mom’s plate, and one of Dylan’s plastic blue plates. “His whole family does.”

  “Well, that makes sense after everything they went through,” my mom says.

  “He says it really helps.”

  “I’m sure it does.” Her voice is tight. She’s staring at the slow cooker and moving the ladle in little circles. Her mouth is in a firm line.

  “Mom, we went through something, too,” I say, my voice even. “We did.”

  My mom takes the ladle out of the cooker and sets it down on the counter. I swallow, my throat dry. She holds her hands up to her face and presses her finger
s against her eyes.

  “I just wish…,” she starts. She takes a breath. Then another. Then her shoulders start to shake a little.

  “Mom?” I ask. My eyes glance at Dylan, but he doesn’t seem to notice what’s happening. “Mom?” I leave the table where I’ve been putting down the napkins and move toward her. My mom and I aren’t huggers. We’ve never been, like, BFF mom and daughter. I’ve always thought that kind of duo is gross, anyway.

  But she’s my mom. And she’s made mistakes, but she’s never left us. She never would.

  She’s doing the best she can.

  Like Dylan.

  Like Ethan.

  Like Ethan’s parents.

  Like me, too.

  I put my hand on my mom’s shoulder and give it a little squeeze.

  “I just want … things to be okay,” she says to me in a whisper, her hands still covering her face. For the first time, I notice a white line where her wedding ring used to be.

  “I want things to be okay, too,” I say. “But maybe things could be okay faster if we got some help. Someone to talk to. I think it could be good.”

  “I don’t know,” my mom answers, and finally she lowers her hands and looks across the room at Dylan. Her eyes are wet. She chews at her bottom lip a bit. “It’s a lot of money,” she says at last.

  “Yeah,” I say. “But maybe Ethan could ask his therapist? About, like, therapists who donate their time? Or something?”

  My mom bites at her lip again. “Yeah,” she says, her voice cracking. “Maybe.”

  My mom shuts her eyes tight and pushes out a few more tears, then dabs at her eyes with a dishtowel. “I’m sorry, Caroline. For these past few months. They’ve been awful.”

  “Yeah, but it’ll get better,” I tell her, hesitation in my voice. I want to trust my own words. I want my mom to trust them, too.

  “Okay,” she says, and she smiles at me with her eyes, and I think maybe she does.

  ETHAN—390 DAYS AFTERWARD

  In the middle of May, the Fletchers moved away, and they took Missy the Chihuahua with them. My mom told me they decided to move to a senior living facility in Austin so they could be near their daughter.