But Harold wasn't just mowing; he was running. The Lauders' back lawn sloped down to a picturesque, rambling stone wall, and in the middle of it was an octagonal summerhouse. She and Amy used to hold their "teas" there when they were little girls, Frannie remembered with a sudden stab of nostalgia that was unexpectedly painful, back in the days when they could still cry over the ending of Charlotte's Web and moan happily over Chuckie Mayo, the cutest boy in school. The Lauders' lawn was somehow English in its greenness and peace, but now a dervish in a blue bathing suit had invaded this pastoral scene. She could hear Harold panting in a way that was alarming to listen to as he turned the northeast corner where the Lauders' back lawn was divided from the Wilsons' by a row of mulberry bushes. He roared down the slope of the lawn, bent over the mower's T-handle. The blades whirred. Grass flew in a green jet, coating Harold's lower legs. He had mowed perhaps half of the lawn; what was left was a diminishing square with the summerhouse in the middle. He turned the corner at the bottom of the hill and then roared back, for a moment obscured from view by the summerhouse, and then reappearing, bent over his machine like a Formula One race driver. About halfway up, he saw her. At exactly the same instant Frannie said timidly: "Harold?" And she saw that he was in tears.
"Huh!" Harold said - squeaked, actually. She had startled him out of some private world, and for a moment she feared that the startle on top of his exertion would give him a heart attack.
Then he ran for the house, his feet kicking through drifts of mown grass, and she was peripherally aware of the sweet smell it made on the hot summer air.
She took a step after him. "Harold, what's wrong?"
Then he was bounding up the porch steps. The back door opened, Harold ran inside, and it slammed behind him with a jarring crash. In the silence that descended afterward, a jay called stridently and some small animal made rattling noises in the bushes behind the stone wall. The mower, abandoned, stood with cut grass behind it and high grass before it a little way from the summerhouse where she and Amy had once drunk their Kool-Aid in Barbie's kitchen cups with their little fingers sticking elegantly off into the air.
Frannie stood indecisive for a while and at last walked up to the door and knocked. There was no answer, but she could hear Harold crying somewhere inside.
"Harold?"
No answer. The weeping went on.
She let herself into the Lauders' back hall, which was dark, cool, and fragrant - Mrs. Lauder's cold-pantry opened off the hall to the left, and for as long as Frannie could remember there had been the good smell of dried apples and cinnamon back here, like pies dreaming of creation.
"Harold?"
She walked up the hall to the kitchen and Harold was there, sitting at the table. His hands were clutched in his hair, and his green feet rested on the faded linoleum that Mrs. Lauder had kept so spotless.
"Harold, what's wrong?"
"Go away!" he yelled tearfully. "Go away, you don't like me!"
"Yes I do. You're okay, Harold. Maybe not great, but okay." She paused. "In fact, considering the circumstances and all, I'd have to say that right now you're one of my favorite people in the whole world."
This seemed to make Harold cry harder.
"Do you have anything to drink?"
"Kool-Aid," he said. He sniffed, wiped his nose, and still looking at the table, added: "It's warm."
"Of course it is. Did you get the water at the town pump?" Like many small towns, Ogunquit still had a common pump in back of the town hall, although for the last forty years it had been more of an antiquity than a practical source of water. Tourists sometimes took pictures of it. This is the town pump in the little seaside town where we spent our vacation. Oh, isn't that quaint.
"Yeah, that's where I got it."
She poured them each a glass and sat down. We should be having it in the summerhouse, she thought. We could drink it with our little fingers sticking off into the air. "Harold, what's wrong?"
Harold uttered a strange, hysterical laugh and fumbled his Kool-Aid to his mouth. He drained the glass and set it down. "Wrong? Now what could be wrong?"
"I mean, is it something specific?" She tasted her Kool-Aid and fought down a grimace. It wasn't that warm, Harold must have drawn the water only a short time ago, but he had forgotten the sugar.
He looked up at her finally, his face tear-streaked and still wanting to blubber. "I want my mother," he said simply.
"Oh, Harold - "
"I thought when it happened, when she died, 'Now that wasn't so bad.'" He was gripping his glass, staring at her in an intense, haggard way that was a little frightening. "I know how terrible that must sound to you. But I never knew how I would take it when they passed away. I'm a very sensitive person. That's why I was so persecuted by the cretins at that house of horrors the town fathers saw fit to call a high school. I thought it might drive me mad with grief, their passing, or at least prostrate me for a year... my interior sun, so to speak, would... would... and when it happened, my mother... Amy... my father... I said to myself, 'Now that wasn't so bad.' I... they..." He brought his fist down on the table, making her flinch. "Why can't I say what I mean?" he screamed. "I've always been able to say what I meant! It's a writer's job to carve with language, to hew close to the bone, so why can't I say what it feels like? "
"Harold, don't. I know how you feel."
He stared at her, dumbstruck. "You know... ?" He shook his head. "No. You couldn't."
"Remember when you came to the house? And I was digging the grave? I was half out of my mind. Half the time I couldn't even remember what I was doing. I tried to cook some french fries and almost burned the house down. So if it makes you feel better to mow the grass, fine. You'll get a sunburn if you do it in your bathing trunks, though. You're already getting one," she added critically, looking at his shoulders. To be polite, she sipped a little more of the dreadful Kool-Aid.
He wiped his hands across his mouth. "I never even liked them that well," he said, "but I thought grief was something you felt anyway. Like your bladder's full, you have to urinate. And if close relatives die, you have to be grief-stricken."