“You can skip some of this,” said Dallas, reddening.
“Sorry,” said Zoe. “X has been told he’s a piece of shit his whole life, but somehow he’s the kindest person. The most loyal person.” She paused. “And he loves me so much he can barely look at me.”
Val and Dallas were silent.
“I need him back,” said Zoe. “I miss his hands. I miss his coat. How weird is that? I miss his coat!”
“That’s the only thing you’ve said that actually isn’t weird,” said Val. “I’ve had sex with all of Gloria’s coats.”
Dallas was in misery. He pretended to choke himself with his tie.
Val glared at him.
“What is wrong with you, Hetero Norm?”
“First of all,” said Dallas, “why does no one want to have sex with my coat—it’s full of luxurious down. Also, I’m sorry but I don’t want to hear about this hot-ass dude. Could you guys try to be sensitive since I’m the ex-boyfriend?”
“ ‘Ex-boyfriend’?” said Val. “Zoe hooked up with you in the handicapped bathroom at Walmart—and now you’re her ‘ex-boyfriend’?”
“It was Target,” said Dallas. “And that shit was hot. Back me up, Zo.”
“It was,” she said, mostly just to be nice. “You’re sure it wasn’t Walmart?”
Val yanked the conversation back on track.
“I’m sorry Bert and Betty died,” she told Zoe. “I’m sorry your dad died. Obviously. Watching you suffer made me suffer. You know that. But I don’t … I mean, I don’t know what the hell is going on with you anymore.”
Zoe glanced at the church. Her mother, Jonah, and Rufus had just come out. They were thanking the minister. Jonah was holding their mother’s hand and swinging her arm around like it was a jump rope.
She knew that Val and Dallas were overwhelmed by everything she’d told them. She knew she shouldn’t say another word. But Val had reminded Zoe of one last secret she’d been keeping.
“My father is still alive,” she said. “My mom knows. Jonah doesn’t. When I get back, I’ll explain all that, too.”
The Wallaces had asked that their ashes be scattered on a stretch of river they loved off Tally Lake Road. Bert and Betty used to take folding chairs and read there—even in winter sometimes. It pained Zoe to remember how cute Bert and Betty looked all bundled up in their coats and scarves, how they passed a plaid thermos of coffee back and forth, how they had to keep taking off their gloves to turn the pages.
Zoe knew that Ripper, wherever she was, was waiting impatiently to find her daughter’s last resting place. As she drove, she kept thinking she saw Ripper’s gold dress between the trees. But Zoe didn’t want to rush this. For the time being, she kept Ripper in the Do Not Open box in her brain. She smiled, imagining Ripper cursing indignantly and trying to climb out.
They had taken two cars. Zoe and Jonah were in one, their mom and Rufus in the other. Jonah had insisted that Rufus come with them, even though he hadn’t known the Wallaces well. Rufus seemed to feel self-conscious about intruding on a family moment, but the Bissells had been staying with him ever since their house was destroyed, and what Jonah said, in his own strange way, was true: “You’re part of our us now.”
Jonah also insisted they bring Spock and Uhura with them to the river, because the Labs had belonged to Bert and Betty. Uhura had gotten pneumonia. Zoe was sure it was from when Stan Manggold tried to drown her in the lake during the blizzard. The dog had lost a startling amount of weight. Just picking her up was heartbreaking: it felt like holding a skeleton. The vet couldn’t promise that Uhura would recover, but no one told Jonah that. He watched the dog obsessively, like he was her secret service agent.
Zoe’s mother parked near the river. Zoe pulled up on the other side of a copse of trees, so her mom wouldn’t see what Ronny the Unhinged Hunter had done to her car. A light rain polka-dotted the windshield.
“Do we have to get out right away?” said Jonah. “Or can we sit?”
Uhura was curled on his lap in the backseat.
“We can sit if you want to,” said Zoe.
“I want to,” said Jonah. “Uhura’s sleeping. She still sounds rattly. Do you think she’ll always sound rattly?”
“I don’t know, bug,” said Zoe. “But I know she loves you—and I know you love her.”
“Duh,” said Jonah. “I totally love her.”
Zoe watched through the windshield as her mom spread a blanket by the river, and Rufus carried out flowers from the altar and the urn he’d carved with doves.
“Are you feeling sad about Bert and Betty?” said Zoe.
When Jonah didn’t answer, she looked at him in the rearview mirror. He was making his scrunched-up “thinking” face.
“I’m sad-mad,” he said. “I’ve never been here without them before. Remember their thermos? Are you sad-mad?”
“I am, yeah,” said Zoe. “I didn’t know it was called that.”
“It is called that, I didn’t make it up,” said Jonah. “You know what sucks?”
“What sucks, bug?” said Zoe.
“When you go to a place and all you see is the people who aren’t there,” he said. “Don’t tell Mom, but I’m a little glad we don’t live on the mountain anymore.”
“Why?” said Zoe.
“Because now it’s just the place where Dad isn’t,” said Jonah. “Also, it’s the place where Bert and Betty don’t come over anymore—and the place where X doesn’t play in the snow with me. You know?”
“I do,” said Zoe.
She reached back and mussed his hair. Jonah grinned. He snapped his teeth at her hand, like an alligator.
“I liked your speech thing at church,” he said. “You guys think I don’t pay attention to stuff, but mostly I do.”
“I know you do,” said Zoe.
“I liked the part about X,” said Jonah.
“What part about X?” said Zoe. “There wasn’t a part about X.”
“Yeah, there was,” said Jonah. “You said, ‘Some people change you so much that they make any amount of pain worth it.’ See? I was listening.”
“That was about Bert and Betty,” said Zoe.
“No, it wasn’t, duh,” said Jonah. “I’m not seven.”
“Okay, maybe it was about all of them,” said Zoe. “I liked when you said, ‘I tied my own tie.’ ”
“How else were they gonna know?” said Jonah.
Uhura finally stirred, and they left the car and walked down the slope to the river. Zoe was touched by how carefully Jonah carried Uhura, how he took only the tiniest, most cautious steps. Spock walked alongside him. He kept his worried eyes trained on Uhura, and made a wincing sound, like he was asking, Is she okay? Is she okay?
They all sat on the blanket, and Zoe’s mom opened the wooden urn. Bert and Betty’s remains were in his-and-her plastic bags. Zoe had known there would be bits of bone mixed in with the ashes, but seeing them was harder than she’d expected. She felt one of those elevator-drops in her stomach. Jonah seemed not to realize that it was bone, and Zoe was grateful for that.
Her mother asked if anyone wanted to say a few words before they scattered the ashes.
Jonah raised his hand, like he was in school.
“I want to say the words ‘sad’ and ‘mad,’ ” he said.
“Me, too,” said Zoe.
“Good,” said their mother. “It’s important to acknowledge both those things. They’re both a hundred percent okay.”
She looked to Rufus, who scratched his overgrown red beard thoughtfully.
“Do you want to say anything?” she said. “You can.”
“No, I’m good,” he said. “I like what the river is saying. I like what the wind is saying.” When Zoe smirked—she couldn’t help it—Rufus smiled unabashedly, and said, “You think I’m a goofball.”
“I think you’re awesome,” said Zoe. “And a gigantic goofball.”