“He’s over by the window?” I asked. Tanner shook his head.
I struggled to figure out what he meant. “He’s outside?” That didn’t make sense. “You let him outside?” But Tanner shook his head again. And then I noticed a tear roll down his right cheek. He blinked quickly and wiped it away as he went on staring at the empty cage.
Suddenly, I got it. “Tanner?” I asked. “Did McGee die?”
Tanner nodded once, still without looking at me. “Oh, Tanner,” I breathed, blinking back tears. “I’m so sorry. Why didn’t you tell anyone?” Tanner kept staring at the cage.
“Tanner, where is he?” I glanced toward the window. “Did you bury him out back?” Tanner nodded again.
I swallowed hard. “Well, come on,” I said resolutely. “McGee needs a proper funeral.”
Tanner finally looked up at me, surprise playing across his face. “A funeral?”
An hour later, I had helped Tanner make a little cross-shaped headstone out of Popsicle sticks and glue. With a thin Sharpie he wrote “Good Bye McGee” on the horizontal sticks and drew a little picture of the hamster. While he drew, I downloaded “Amazing Grace”—the song that had played for much of our dad’s funeral—on my iPod and grabbed my portable speakers from my room. Then, I got Mom and Logan and told them we needed to do something in the backyard.
Mom was mystified at first, but her face crumpled when I told her what had happened. She excused herself, and I could hear muffled sobs coming from her bathroom. Logan, on the other hand, just rolled his eyes.
“You’re making me come outside for a hamster’s funeral?” he demanded.
I glared at him. “No, I’m making you come outside to be supportive of our brother.”
Looking annoyed, he got up and followed me downstairs, grumbling under his breath.
A few minutes later, we all stood under the old, arching oak tree in the left corner of the backyard, where Tanner had buried McGee. With a solemn look on his face, Tanner carefully stuck his Popsicle-stick cross in the ground and secured it with a pile of little pebbles. Then he stood up and pushed play on my iPod. The strains of “Amazing Grace” drifted through the yard, and as we all stood in silence, clustered around the tiny grave, the song and the solemnity of the moment reminded me uncomfortably of Dad’s funeral. I gulped.
“Do you want to say a few words in McGee’s honor?” I asked my little brother.
“Lacey,” my mom said, “you know he doesn’t like to talk. Don’t push him.”
But Tanner surprised us all by turning to face us and clearing his throat. “McGee was my friend,” he began. I turned the iPod down a little. “He always understood me. He didn’t try to make me talk. But he listened if I wanted to talk.”
We stared at him. He hadn’t spoken this much at a stretch since last November.
“He was just there for me,” Tanner went on. He looked at the ground. “He was fun to play with. And I never had to talk about Dad or about being sad with him.” He paused. “Thank you for coming to the funeral.” Then before any of us could respond, he walked quickly away, toward the house. We stood and watched him in shocked silence until he disappeared into the house, pushing the door closed behind him.
? ? ?
After Tanner disappeared into the house, Mom went back to cleaning the kitchen, as if all her meticulous scrubbing and organizing could restore order to our lives, too. Sydney came and picked up Logan, who left without a word to any of us. And as our house fell silent again, I knew I had to get out.
I changed into running shorts, a sports bra, and a long-sleeved T-shirt and laced up the running shoes I hadn’t put on in nearly a year. I used to love running, but I hadn’t gone out once since the accident. At first, it was because my leg had been broken. But then, after it healed and after the doctors told me I should try to ease back into my normal routine, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Running made my leg ache, a dull, throbbing pain in the two places where the bone had been crushed. And the last thing I needed was a physical reminder of the accident.
But today, I wanted to feel it. I wanted to hurt. I wanted to feel something. And so I pulled my hair back in a ponytail, plugged earbuds into my iPod, and left the house without saying goodbye.