by James Howe
How did this happen?
When did my grandmother
become my best friend?
What If
It is not clear what some students at South Hadley High
School expected to achieve by subjecting a freshman
to the relentless taunting described by a prosecutor and
classmates. Certainly not her suicide.
—The New York Times
The air is sweet and full of spring
as I read these words, sitting
with my grandmother at either end
of the porch swing, lunch on paper plates
between us, napkins tucked under our thighs
so the wind won’t surprise them
and carry them off. They flutter delicately
like scarves.
The girl hanged herself on a bitter winter day,
tired, at fifteen, of the taunts and bullying,
frightened and feeling alone, even though
she had friends and a mother and father
and a little sister who had given her a scarf
for Christmas.
Hours earlier she had cried in the nurse’s office.
Walking home, she was hit by a can of Red Bull
thrown from a car by some of the girls who were driven
to hate her, all because she was new to the school,
from another country, had dared to date
one of the popular boys. “Irish slut,” they called her.
“Druggie,” they called her. Texted her: “You deserve
to die.”
Grandma says, “Why are you crying, sweetheart?”
I didn’t know I was. I hand her the paper, look out
across the street where some children are playing
hide-and-seek.
What if she had never left Ireland?
What if she had never dated that boy?
What if they had just left her alone?
Why couldn’t they just leave her alone?
What if her sister had never given her that scarf?
What if her sister had not been the one to find her,
the scarf tight around her neck, her sister
only twelve?
What if her dying means nothing?
What if people just keep on hating?
What if she had been stronger?
What if I were weaker?
What if it were me?
In memory of Phoebe Prince
Ready or Not
“So many bad things can happen,” I say.
Grandma gently rocks the porch swing as if we are babies
in a cradle needing to be soothed. “That’s true,” she says.
“Bad things can happen, and do.”
“I don’t want to know that,”
I tell her. “I’m only thirteen and I’ve seen too much I don’t want
to see.” Grandma puts down the paper and reaches for my hand.
“I understand,” she says. “Some days I want to put my head
in the sand. There’s too much pain out there, there’s too much
that scares me. But I wouldn’t be able to breathe with my head
in the sand, and I wouldn’t be able to see or hear or smell.
The world is a lovely place, Addie, despite the sadness it holds
for each of us, despite the terrible things we do.”
I move our plates, scooch close, lean in to her, smell the lavender
of her shampoo. “Maybe it would be better not to think,” I say.
“Sometimes thinking hurts.”
“It isn’t the thinking that hurts,”
she says, smoothing my hair. “It’s the caring.”
We sit quietly for a time, then begin to eat our sandwiches.
The bread is whole wheat, the hummus homemade, the lettuce
crisp and still wet from washing. Across the street, a girl
calls out, “Ready or not, here I come.”
And I wonder if I am ready, or ever will be,
for whatever might come.
We Are Lost
Inside the World
Hey
“Hey,” DuShawn says when he sees me Monday morning.
He’s acting kind of cool or maybe kind of shy, I can’t tell.
“Hey,” I say back and want to say something more even if
I don’t know yet what it is
when Tonni calls his name
like she’s calling a dog to come in
and DuShawn goes.
Announcement
November 22, 1963:
The day President John F. Kennedy died.
Grandma says she was in history class
when the first announcement
came over the PA:
“The president has been shot.”
She was in French
when the second announcement came:
“The president is dead.”
Her teacher did not know what to do
so she kept on teaching,
even though tears were streaming
down her cheeks.
Je pleure, vous pleurez, nous pleurons,
tout le monde pleure.
I cry, you cry, we cry,
all the world cries.
On the bus home, some boys made jokes,
but the laughter was forced,
and they cut it out when somebody said,
“Shut up! Don’t you get it?
The president is dead!”
For four days the world stopped
as everyone sat in front of their televisions
watching the news unfold in black and white:
the funeral procession,
the pale wife in the black veil,
the little boy saluting his dead father.
Tout le monde a regardé, tout le monde a pleuré.
All the world watched, all the world wept.
Today:
The day my Kennedy died.
I was in math class.
No announcement
came over the PA.
I didn’t know until I got home
from school
and my father told me:
“Kennedy was hit by a car
this afternoon. The driver
left a note. She is so sorry.
She didn’t see him run out.
She couldn’t stop.”
The world does not stop today,
there is nothing to see on television,
there is no news about a cat that died
chasing a squirrel on a street
in a little town somewhere.
There is only a little family
and an empty feeling so big
tout le monde devrait pleurer.
All the world should be crying.
bff
I was eight years old when Bobby’s mother died,
too young to know what it would be like
to lose your best friend forever.
After the funeral, people came to our house
to eat and talk in quiet voices that grew louder
as the afternoon wore on.
It was summer.
Bobby and I were up in my room
playing Sorry, the Simpsons version,
when it got dark outside the windows
and hushed in the rooms downstairs.
My mom appeared at my door and said,
“Bobby and his dad will sleep here tonight.”
Later, I woke up because I needed to pee.
The hall outside my bedroom was dark,
the only sounds a ticking of a clock
and someone crying behind a closed door.
I thought it was Bobby’s dad,
or maybe even Bobby.
But it was my mom sitting on the toilet seat
with her head resting on the edge of the sink.
It was my mom who squinted up at me standing
sleepy-eyed in the doorway and said, “S
orry.”
Was she sorry for crying
or for sitting on the toilet seat
when I needed to pee?
I didn’t ask.
I was eight years old,
too young to know what it would be like
to lose your best friend forever.
A Cat Is Not a Person
Some people say a cat
is not a person.
Those people have never
loved a cat and had one
go and die on them.
You know what those
people know?
Nothing.
Only Johnson
Johnson no longer sleeps on the pillow
he shared with Kennedy.
He has moved to a chair that is more
in shade than sun.
He wakes and looks around
and goes back to sleep
and does not play with any of the toys
in the basket by the door, but sniffs them
and walks away.
Sometimes Johnson jumps onto my lap
and settles in as if to say,
Don’t plan on getting up anytime soon.
I have always been an only child.
Johnson is learning to be an only cat.
5 Haikus : 1 Cat
Johnson eats for two—
a cat growing fat from grief,
tasting memories.
Mewing at the door
he waits for it to open,
then waits when it does.
He lifts his butt high,
stretching from toes to tail tip.
Look at me! We do.
Oh, Johnson, I know
what it is to lose someone,
I hear Grandma say.
Johnson sleeps with me,
which he never used to do.
He presses close, purrs.
Tuesday Morning
I do not go to school on Tuesday morning.
My father and mother do not go to work.
Still, the sun comes up and the paper lands
on our front porch and the birds are at
the empty feeder asking to be fed. Grandma
makes extra coffee. Mom makes extra tea.
Dad digs in the far backyard. At noon
we bury Kennedy near the lilac bush where
he liked to hide and surprise the birds.
He never caught any that we know of.
He was too slow or maybe he was just not
all that interested. We bury him
with his favorite toy, which is not really
a toy but an old sock of mine tied with
a long piece of string we called a tail.
We say some words until the words run out
and then we cover him with dirt
and go inside where Kennedy
is not.
How a Cow Pitcher Makes Me Laugh
Bobby and Joe and Skeezie come over in the evening.
I show them where Kennedy is buried and
we tell remember-when stories about him
until it gets dark. Then we all link arms
and go into the house.
Bobby’s dad is there and Joe’s parents, too.
The grown-ups, drinking coffee, pour milk from
a little pitcher shaped like a cow.
The milk comes out the cow’s mouth.
“Oh, great,” Skeezie says, “just what I want,
a cow throwing up in my coffee!”
The grown-ups burst into laughter as we—
Skeezie and Joe and Bobby and me—race up the stairs
to my room, where we collapse on the floor and can’t stop
laughing for what feels like hours and oh
it feels good
to laugh.
A Pair of Beaded Earrings
Grandma is leaving on Friday,
two days later than planned,
but she can’t wait any longer,
the real estate agent is coming
on Saturday to put her house up
for sale. She should move in
with us, I tell her, and she smiles
and says wouldn’t that be nice,
but her life is there and she’d
miss her friends.
I’m your friend, I say, and she
smiles again but says nothing,
only hands me a pair of beaded
earrings she made herself
and closes my hand
around them.
A Note
In English class on Wednesday
Becca slides a note under my binder.
“I’m sorry about your cat,” it says.
How did she know? I look up
and mouth thanks. She smiles
and points back at the note.
“P.S.,” it says, “those earrings
are awesome.”
Hurt
When DuShawn finally tells me
that he’s sorry about Kennedy,
he looks more hurt than I do.
“Why didn’t you call me?”
he asks as our hands touch.
And I don’t have an answer
as our hands move away.
DuShawn’s Way of Making Up
On Thursday DuShawn leaves a comic strip
taped to my locker. He writes, “This is funny
and so are you!” That’s his way of saying
let’s make up. And so we do.
Grandma leaves me
her coffeemaker,
a book of poetry,
a playlist of her
favorite songs,
sad,
lonely,
not sure
what
I’ll do
without
her.
Grandma
leaves.
“It Will Get Better in Time” Isn’t a Lie
But It Isn’t the Whole Truth Either
Days go by.
And nights.
And somehow,
impossibly,
weeks.
Grandma sells
her house, calls,
tells us about
her new
condominium.
I get used to
it being
just me
on one end
of the sofa,
just me,
with Johnson
no longer
perched
behind me
but curled
at my feet
or planted
in my lap,
purring.
I hang out
with the gang
or with
DuShawn,
happy,
but always
knowing
that things
can change,
things
can change.
Tonni Tells All
Tonni grabs me,
jabs me with her words.
“Addie, come with me.
Right. Now.”
Tonni pushes me
into the last stall
in the girls’ room
on the second floor.
Tonni’s eyes are
kind of wild and
full of something
like sorrow.
“Oh, Addie,” she says.
“I am so sorry.
So. So. Sorry.”
A finger to her lips,
a hand on my shoulder.
Her nails begin to dig.
“Quiet,” she whispers,
“someone’s there.”
We wait for the flush,
the rush of water,
and the footsteps
heading to the door.
Her grip loosens.
Her eyes soften.
And she tells me.
“Today after school.”
My eyes ask what.
And she goes, “Omigod,
you don’t know.
But everyone knows.
He’s breaking up
with you, Addie.
For real this time.
If you need to talk . . .
I’m here for you.
Call me, okay?
Text me. Are you
okay? Hugs.”
She leans in
and her arms skitter
around me
like birds
afraid to land.
She leaves me
there in the stall.
Tonni tells all.
Tonni tells nothing.
Just Something We Do
He always says, “Addie, you’re too stubborn.
Addie, you push too hard,” forgetting
all the times he’s too stubborn,
the times he pushes too hard.
I always say, “DuShawn, get serious.”
Then he says, “Addie, lighten up.”
And I say, “DuShawn, I mean it.”
And he says, “You’re pretty when you’re mad.”
We’ve been going out for seven months,
almost all of seventh grade,
and we’ve broken up five and a half times.
It’s just something we do.
For Christmas he gave me a necklace,
a heart-shaped box of chocolates
for Valentine’s Day, and a CD
two weeks late for my birthday.
The CD was more his kind of music
than mine, but I didn’t care. I wear
the necklace all the time, and the box
shaped like a heart sits next to my bed.
I grew used to the ups and downs of us,
the breaking up as part of the “us” of us.
So when he breaks up with me today
I don’t take it seriously. When he says,
“Addie, I mean it,” I say, “DuShawn,
lighten up.” But his dark face gets darker
and there’s a period in his eyes where
there had always been an ellipsis.