The Beginning of After

Chapter Five



It rained hard the next day. “Pissing,” as my dad liked to say. It was pissing out, drumming a steady, angry rhythm onto the roof of the Volvo and the slate stones of our front terrace. Nana let me stay in bed, watching TV, eating my special SAT brownies. Masher lay on my left, stretched out alongside my body with one front leg across my arm. Elliot and Selina took turns at the foot of the bed.

Once, toward late afternoon, I heard Nana approach my bedroom door. I quickly dropped my head to the side, closed my eyes, and opened my mouth a bit in expert pretended zzz’s. I knew this made her happy; one more thing to check off on her mental daily list. Make sure Laurel gets enough sleep.

But then someone knocked on the front door.

I heard Nana open it, and a voice I couldn’t place. After a few minutes, curiosity got the better of me, and I wandered out of my room.

David Kaufman was sitting on the bench in our foyer, taking off his boots. He was drenched, and Nana was already in the kitchen making him coffee.

“Hi,” I said, and he looked up.

“Hi, Laurel,” he said, and it occurred to me that he probably hadn’t said my name out loud, to anybody, in years.

He looked bad. Dark circles pressed themselves against the skin under his eyes, which didn’t seem as round as they used to be, and he’d broken out. I couldn’t help staring at this one really big zit on his nose.

David took off his jacket and reached up to hang it on one of the wall hooks, then noticed that Toby’s jean jacket was already there. He paused; when I didn’t react, he carefully put his jacket on top of Toby’s.

I didn’t know what else to say to him. It seemed crazy yet perfectly sensible that he should be in my house at this moment. I could continue with “How are you?” but knew I hated the question myself.

Then I thought of Mr. Kaufman, and the anger rose in me. Keeping my voice steady, trying to make it sound more curious than vengeful, I asked, “What’s going on with your dad?”

“They’ve moved him out of ICU, but there’s still no change,” he said, rubbing one of his feet where the sock had soaked through. I had a quick flashback of David and me sitting on that bench when we were kids, pulling snow-encrusted mittens and hats away from our limbs and onto the floor.

“He could wake up any day, they say,” continued David. “They say my being there might help that happen, so that’s why I’m not coming home.” This came out all practiced and mechanical, like it was a line he’d been using a lot. He said it like there was no reason why I wouldn’t want his dad to be okay.

Nana came out of the kitchen and beckoned us over to the table.

“Is Masher here?” said David. “I came home for some clothes, and my grandfather said you’d taken him.”

“Yeah. Mr. Mita wasn’t—”

“Thank you,” David said, cutting me off. Hearing David’s voice in the house must have woken Masher up, because, on cue, he came bursting down the stairs.

David fell to his knees to hug his dog, his face in the thick ring of fur around his neck, and they stayed that way for what seemed like minutes. I put two very large spoonfuls of sugar in my coffee, slowly.

When he finally let go of Masher, he was fighting back tears. Nana handed him a box of Kleenex—she had installed one in every room—and he turned his back to us, cleaning himself up.

“He seems happy. Thank you,” said David when he swiveled back around. “Do you mind watching him for a little while longer?”

Something about David’s face right then, so fragile and temporary, felt familiar. Had I seen it before on him? Or maybe, on myself? My guard fell, and a voice inside me nudged, David is not his father. You don’t have to hate him, too.

“No, I don’t mind,” I said. “He hogs the covers, but I can deal with that.”

David burst out with a little laugh, just a snort really, and smiled a bit. He crawled back into the chair and took his first sip of coffee.

“You’ve been home all this week? Out of school?” said David.

“Yeah. I’m going back tomorrow.” Just saying it made me feel that much more like I would actually do it. “What about you?”

“Nah, I’m failing two of my classes anyway. I’m done.”

The nerd in me felt alarmed, and I couldn’t help saying, “Done? Like, dropping out?”

David just shrugged and looked at me, like he was daring me to ask more, challenging me to try to talk him out of it.

“Well, you’re lucky then,” was all I said, picking at a thumbnail. “Because you’ll miss that whole stupid senior talent show thing.”

David snorted again and nodded, and then we went silent. But the air felt a little thinner, a little warmer now. After a few more moments, he slid back down to the floor, and Masher, who’d had his head resting in David’s lap, stretched out in front of him.

“I’ve got some stuff to do, to get ready for tomorrow,” I said, getting up and taking two steps toward the stairs. He didn’t look up to say good-bye.

“Stay as long as you want, David,” said Nana from the kitchen doorway. “Do you want a sandwich?”

I didn’t wait to hear his answer, because suddenly being back in my room, without having to make conversation with David Kaufman, was all I wanted in life.

There was a picture of the two of us, David and me, in a family photo album somewhere. We’re on my front lawn. It’s my first day of third grade and his first day of fourth grade. I’m grinning wide while holding a Snoopy lunch box, and he’s standing with his hands on his hips, so over the whole thing. I remember us walking to the bus stop and then him moving away from me to talk to Lydia Franco, who was ten and unimaginably streetwise. But on some weekends we went for walks in the woods, and he’d show me the old stone homestead walls that ran through the back of our neighborhood.

We did this until the year David started middle school. Although we waited at the same stop, he took a different bus now, and he had simply stopped talking to me. I think I asked him a question once and he just looked at me, smiled, and turned away. That was it, like someone finally switching off a TV that’s been left on too long. If I felt hurt, I never admitted it. Soon, Meg moved to the neighborhood and I had someone, and that was all that mattered.

When I got to my room, Elliot and Selina were both on the bed, giving me these looks.

“Sorry, guys, the dog’s not leaving yet,” I said, and crawled under the covers.