by Susan Wiggs
Sean felt himself losing it. He’d gotten up extra early today and dressed in a good shirt and tie, because he had to take Charlie and Cameron to school. Slowly, the oatmeal dripped down into the corner of his mouth. He could tell the baby was winding up for another howl.
“Oh, man,” he said, getting a taste of the cereal. “It is yuck.” He made a terrible face and clutched at his throat.
Ashley couldn’t resist that, and she giggled until she got the hiccups. Sean made a big production of cleaning the oatmeal off his face and out of his shirt collar, which made her laugh even more. Relieved, he talked her into eating a piece of banana bread, one of the dozens of things brought by concerned friends and neighbors. He was running out of space in the freezer for all the stuff people were bringing. At this rate, Sean reckoned, he wouldn’t have to learn to cook for a year. He sure as hell intended to cross oatmeal off his list.
Charlie wore a foul expression as she marched into the kitchen and dropped her backpack on the floor.
“Next crisis?” he said.
“Cameron’s taking forever in the bathroom and I didn’t even get to do my hair.”
“Do what to your hair?” Sean handed her a hunk of banana bread and poured her a glass of milk.
Charlie’s chin trembled. “Mom always did my hair, except when I was at Dad’s.”
Sean knew he had to do something fast or she’d start crying. When she cried, Ashley always joined in, and then he’d be back to square one. “Did your dad do your hair?”
She scowled at him. “No way.”
“I bet I can do it,” Sean said.
“Uh-uh.”
“Uh-huh.” He opened a utility drawer, where he’d spied a jumble of hairbrushes and shiny hair clips and ponytail holders. “Have a seat, madam.”
Shooting him a look of suspicion, Charlie sat on a counter stool. Ashley watched, rapt with fascination. Sean wondered what he’d gotten himself into. His niece had bright, silky curls that looked just fine to him, but she insisted she wanted braids and barrettes. It had a kind of softness he’d never felt before. He didn’t know how to braid hair but he figured out what a barrette was. “This is the best braid ever,” he assured her, twisting two ropes of hair together. He picked the shiniest, gaudiest barrettes and ponytail holders, and when he was finished, she didn’t look half bad.
“Done,” he said. “You look like Cher.”
“Who’s Cher?”
“One of the best-looking women ever,” he said. “Eat your banana bread.”
“I don’t want to go to school,” Charlie said, picking at her breakfast.
Cameron ambled into the kitchen, his hair still damp from the shower. “Me, neither.”
“Fine. You can stay home and clean this place up.” Sean gestured around the kitchen. Lily had left only yesterday, yet somehow the dishes in the sink had multiplied and clutter had gathered on every available surface. “Your choice,” he said.
Charlie eyed the smear of oatmeal on the wall. “School,” she said sulkily.
“Whatever,” said Cameron.
“I wish I was going to Italy,” Charlie said.
“Why Italy?”
“’Cause it’s not here. Lily’s going to Italy for the whole summer.”
Good for Lily, he thought with a spike of envy.
Lily watched Sean striding down the corridor to her classroom, with Charlie in tow. He held her hand but walked so fast she practically had to run to keep up. They both looked grim, and Lily’s bright smile of greeting failed to impress them. “Go on in, sweetie,” she said, “your friends are waiting for you.”
Lindsey Davenport, bless her, grabbed Charlie by the hand and pulled her inside.
“It’s not working,” Sean said when she was out of earshot.
“What’s not working?” she asked in an undertone. She kept her eye on Charlie, watching the little girl put up her backpack. The other kids came to welcome her back, exclaiming about her hair and treating her with the sort of fragile tenderness children instinctively showed when one of their own had been wounded.
“Everything. This whole arrangement. It’s chaos at the house, getting everyone up, dealing with the baby, getting out the door on time. It’s insane.”
“Women do it every day of their lives,” she couldn’t help saying.
“And that’s supposed to help?” He rubbed at a spot of something on his shirt. His expression changed to a smile as Charlie approached him.
“See you, Uncle Sean.”
He touched her head awkwardly but with affection. “You have a good day, sugar.”
“Okay.” Charlie was now surrounded by a few of her friends who had come to check out her uncle. In chinos and a shirt and tie, he had a sort of flustered, rumpled charm. Children seemed drawn to him, as though they recognized a kindred spirit.
“Let me know how it goes today,” he murmured to Lily.
And honestly, she decided as the day moved forward, it seemed to go well enough. She couldn’t deny her relief at being back in the classroom, her safe world, in control once again. Here, she was her best self, confident and caring with the students she loved. After the chaotic, emotional week at Crystal’s, this felt normal.
So why did she find herself missing the chaos of that house?
Lily pushed aside the thought and kept an eye on Charlie, who was subdued throughout the day, and near the end, Lily felt hopeful. Traditionally, she set aside the final twenty minutes for reading circle.
“Boys and girls,” Lily said, settling on the floor pillows and motioning everyone to gather around. “We’re going to start a new read-aloud book today. Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White.”
“I saw the cartoon on TV,” said Eden.
“The book’s always better, isn’t it, Miss Robinson?” said Sarah.
Lily nodded, then paused to wait for everyone to be quiet. She opened the book to the familiar first page. It was a risky choice under the circumstances, but she trusted her instincts. This was, bar none, a flawless novel and one of the best ever penned for children. Or for adults, for that matter. She hoped the story of a friendship so powerful that it transcends death would have special meaning for Charlie.
Lily took a deep breath and started reading. “‘“Where’s Papa going with that ax?” said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast…’”
There were probably worse things than coming back to school after your parents drove off a cliff, but at the moment, Cameron couldn’t think of any. This was it, right here. As his uncle pulled to the front of Comfort High School, he felt as if he’d been knocked into a dark hole, the way he’d felt the morning Sean had come home with the news.
Ignoring his babbling baby sister, he slammed the car door shut and stood in front of the school, which at this hour swarmed with students. The booster club members were stringing a banner up between two big sycamore trees, promoting something or other. Mr. Atherton, the vice principal, led a chain gang of morning detention students on garbage patrol.
Cameron turned away and hunched up one shoulder, hoping he wouldn’t be recognized. He didn’t think he could handle Atherton’s jovial “Gee-kid-tough-break” greeting just yet. Or ever, for that matter. But it would be wishful thinking to expect people to treat him as though nothing had happened.
It was one of those blustery April days that held out the hope of a power outage and school cancellation. Ordinarily, he’d like that, but nothing was ordinary anymore. He didn’t want to be at home, and he didn’t want to be at school. He didn’t want to be anywhere.
He shifted his backpack from one shoulder to the other and headed up the walk. The wind plucked at his jacket and hair.
“Cameron?”
He kept walking, though he knew that voice.
“Cameron, I just want to say, I’m so sorry for what happened,” said Becky Pilchuk, hurrying to fall in step with him.
Becky Pilchuk. Just his luck. He glanced around to see if anyone noticed him walking with he
r. On the chalkboard in the boys’ locker room, where he and his friends rated the girls in their class according to relative hotness, she was in the bottom ten percent. It was a game the guys played, and it would be incredibly insulting to the girls if they knew about it.
“I tried to see you after the funeral service, but I couldn’t find you,” Becky said.
“I didn’t feel like being found,” he said. He’d felt like breaking something. In fact, he’d done so. Right there at the church, he’d wandered outside to the parking lot. They were loading his parents into the hearses and it was completely gross. His father had Travis, Sean and a bunch of golfers as pallbearers. His mother had the husbands of her friends from the Special Olympics committee and the garden club and whatever the hell else his mother was into. It was too much, thinking of them sealed up inside those gleaming boxes, so Cameron had ducked away when no one was looking. He ran until his breath came in strangled sobs and wound up at the rear of the church, looking at the colored windows framed in soaring arches. At the top of the arch was a roundel. He knew it was called that because they’d studied Gothic architecture in World History. The roundel depicted a dove hovering over a flame—the Holy Spirit.
Cameron had picked up a smooth, rounded stone. He wound up and threw it as hard as he could, and the stone smashed through the window with a satisfying clatter. He wasn’t worried that the noise would alert anyone, because the recessional music blared from speakers and everyone had left to go to the stupid cemetery to bury his parents in the ground. In no hurry, he’d sauntered away to rejoin the others in the stretch limo with air freshener that smelled like overripe bananas.
He tried not to look at Becky, but couldn’t help himself. She held a sort of weird fascination for him and had ever since she’d moved here last fall. She had all the components of the uber-geek—the brains, the eyeglasses, the complete cluelessness about the way she dressed—yet he had this really strange reaction to her. His heart sped up and he felt all nervous. And when she mentioned his parents, his throat and eyes hurt, like he was going to start bawling at the drop of a hat.
“Well,” she said, her voice wavering uncertainly, “if you ever feel like talking about it, I—I’m willing to listen.”
For a wild moment, he had the urge to tell her about the church window and about the fact that ruining things had a curious way of beckoning to him. He wasn’t sure why that was. Breaking something or messing it up didn’t help a thing. It was pretty lame, because all it meant was that somebody had to fix whatever he broke. Big deal. If he told Becky, then she’d know he was wacko for sure. “I doubt I’ll want to talk about anything. It completely sucks. That’s all I have to say.”
“Okay, sorry,” she said. “Anyway, I’d better go. I have a paper I need to turn in before first bell.” A tinsel-wrapped smile flickered and disappeared. “So I’ll see you around, okay?”
He didn’t answer, but watched her go, plucking a crisp white report from her notebook as she soldiered toward the front door of the school. When she had nearly reached the building, a gust of wind snatched the paper and blew it high overhead.
She gave chase, but the paper wafted a few yards away, where a group of jocks were pushing and shoving. One of them spotted the paper and slammed his foot down on it. Becky rushed in, grabbing it. She pulled too hard and the page tore.
The jocks laughed, giving each other high fives while Becky clutched the paper, red-faced, and scurried away. As she crossed in front of Cameron, her eyes met his briefly, and in that moment, he could tell she knew he’d seen the whole thing. He instantly felt guilty for not stepping in to help, and then he got mad, because he hated feeling guilty.
And somehow, his anger turned on her. The dweeb. She ought to know the last thing he’d want to talk about was his parents, and the last person he felt like talking to was Becky Pilchuk.
He rushed to his homeroom and tried to slide invisibly into his seat in the back. No such luck. Shannon Crane spotted him and yelled, “Cameron’s back. Oh, Cam, we missed you.”
He tried to act all normal as his friends gathered around. A few of them had been at the funeral, but he hadn’t really talked to them. He’d been too busy trying to avoid cameras from ESPN and the local news station that kept getting in his face. Now he stood in the midst of his friends, and he felt more alone than ever.
They chatted away, filling him in on school gossip—Maris Brodsky broke up with Chad Gresham, the girls’ volleyball coach had been written up for foul language and the theme of the senior prom was Sailing Away, like he gave a rat’s ass about that. Cameron didn’t move, but he felt distant from these people, a visitor from another planet. He was a stranger in his own skin. He didn’t know how to act anymore. When was it okay to joke around with his friends again? When was it okay to think about something other than the giant void inside him? When was it okay to care again?
He had no answers, only questions rushing in to fill the void. Pretty soon his friends turned their attention away from him and he sat alone at the one-armed desk, staring at the glossy fake-wood surface. From the pocket of his backpack, he took out his compass. It was a precision instrument, his geometry teacher had lectured when he’d passed them out to everyone. Keep the cap on the sharp point so you don’t gouge anything by accident.
Cameron didn’t gouge the desk by accident. He did it on purpose, etching the word FUCK in the shiny surface, then EVERYT—He didn’t get a chance to finish. The bell rang and everyone surged up and out of their seats. He stabbed the compass into the surface of the desk, slung his backpack over one shoulder and left with everyone else.
Throughout the day, there were moments that made him regret coming back to school in the first place. When his English teacher, Mr. Goldman, put his hand on Cameron’s shoulder and said, “How are you doing?” Cameron almost lost it.
“Just swell,” he said. “Absolutely super.”
“Would you like to talk to someone about it?”
That was pretty much all he did these days. He talked to social workers, to counselors, to Lily and Sean. He was sick of talking.
“No,” he said.
The day was only going to get worse from here.
part four
The child endures all things.
—Maria Montessori
chapter 25
“All right,” said Greg Duncan, helping supervise the bus circle on Friday afternoon, “what’s your excuse this time?”
Lily bade goodbye to the last of her students and then turned to him. “Excuse?”
“For not going out with me tonight.”
She paused and tapped her foot. “Um, you haven’t asked me yet?”
“So I’m asking.”
“And I’m saying no thanks.” She tried to summon a smile, but felt the corners of her mouth trembling. “I’m not very good company.” She wished he was the sort of friend she could unload on, wished she could tell him how physically and emotionally drained she felt from grieving. He wasn’t, of course. Come to think of it, most of their conversations revolved around his golf game and his gripes about paying child support for kids he never saw. She felt guilty for the thought and said, “Thanks, though. I appreciate it, Greg.”
“Tell you what,” he said, rocking back on his heels. “How about you call me when you feel like doing something.”
She nodded and managed to come up with a smile that was a little more genuine. “I will. That’s a promise.”
He went to join a group of other teachers standing around while the last of the buses pulled out. The easygoing conversation and occasional burst of laughter sounded so…so normal. Lily couldn’t find that anymore, couldn’t figure out what was normal. She went back to her classroom. She studied the calendar. Seven weeks left to the school year. Then it would be summer, her time for adventure and renewal.
She thought about the trip she’d planned so carefully. She imagined herself sitting at a lido café in Positano, all by herself, sipping a limoncello and watching the f
ishing fleet in their colorful boats. She knew exactly what would be going through her mind—Crystal’s children.
She grabbed her tote bag and headed out. It didn’t matter what Derek’s will dictated and the probate court decreed. She felt an obligation to that family that wasn’t written in any document.
Instead of driving home, she drove to Crystal’s house. She’d made a promise to Charlie that she would visit often, every day if Charlie needed her to, and she meant to keep that promise.
“Lily!” Charlie whipped open the door before she even rang the bell and leaped into her arms. “Come on in. We’re just having a snack.”
Sean came to greet her. Ashley yelled something, spraying crumbs from her mouth. “You hungry?” he asked Lily, gesturing at the coffee table. It was spread with squirt cheese and crackers, cans of soda and Crystal’s good highball and martini glasses.
“We’re having happy hour,” Charlie said. “I’ll make you one.”
Sean cleared a space on the sofa and Lily sat down. “Happy hour?” she asked.
“I’m never actually happy anymore,” Charlie said, “but Uncle Sean says we have to eat.”
“That’s true.” She turned to Sean and their gazes held fast for a strange, electric moment. There was something between them, the painful bond shared by shipwreck survivors. She looked away quickly with the odd feeling that he’d seen something he shouldn’t.
“Here you go.” Charlie offered her a Ritz with a tower of cheese.
It looked like a heart attack on a cracker. “That looks…delicious.” To avoid putting it in her mouth, she indicated a box on the coffee table. “Your Brownie badges?” she asked.
“Yep. I’m supposed to sew them on a sash to wear with my uniform.” She picked one up, looking completely lost. “Mom was going to help me do that.”
Lily tried to say something, but she couldn’t find her voice. This happened so many times a day to Charlie, to the whole family. It was the unbearable cruelty of untimely death. Things were left undone, interrupted.