“Little old lady who?” my mom asked, coming back to the table.
Tanner smiled at her and then at Logan and me. “I didn’t know you could yodel, Mom.”
It was a stupid joke, really, the kind that we only would have laughed at a year ago to be polite. But hearing Tanner tell it today, after a year of barely hearing his voice, never mind his humor, unleashed something in all of us.
Mom started laughing first, in high, tinkling tones that I hadn’t heard in so long I had almost forgotten what they sounded like. Logan joined in next with an amused chuckle. Before I knew it, I was laughing too.
“I’ve been saving that one for today,” Tanner said. “I think Dad would have liked it.”
The words brought the laughter to a halt. Finally, Mom broke the silence. “Yes, Tanner,” she said. “I know he would have.”
And in that moment, sitting around the kitchen table with my mom and two brothers I felt like maybe, just maybe, our dad was with us after all.
? ? ?
Logan disappeared after breakfast with promises that he’d meet us back at the house by two to go to the cemetery, a trip I was dreading. I’d managed to avoid it for an entire year, but I knew I had to go. I had to do it. For my mom, for Tanner, and, I guess, for myself. After I took a shower and got dressed, I knocked on Tanner’s door.
“Want to go out and jump in the leaf pile in the yard?” I asked.
He followed me outside. We spent the next hour jumping around together, like we used to when we were younger. We threw handfuls of leaves at each other, made leaf angels in the yard by lying on our backs and spreading our arms, and dove into the pile again and again, breathing in the familiar, slightly musty smell of autumn all around us.
We laughed like we used to when our dad would dive in with us, and as I grabbed my little brother for a tickle attack, like Dad used to do to me, I looked up at the gray sky once again, foolishly half expecting a rainbow. Instead there were just low, dense clouds and the promise of rain. The leaves, I knew, would get wet and soggy and would disperse around the yard again when the sky opened up. But for now, they were perfect, and when I closed my eyes, I could almost believe that it was like before, a crisp fall day when everything in the world was right.
? ? ?
Logan didn’t come home.
As we waited for him at the kitchen table, my mom got more and more mad.
“Maybe he’s just running late,” she said at 2:10.
“He must be on his way,” she said at 2:20 when she called his cell phone and it went straight to voice mail.
“What could they be doing?” she demanded at 2:30 when she called Sydney’s phone and got her voice mail too.
“Fine, he can meet us there,” she huffed at 2:45 when Logan still hadn’t appeared.
So Mom, Tanner, and I climbed into the car and headed to the cemetery.
After we parked, Mom led us up the little hill to Dad’s grave, as easily as if she had a map of the place imprinted on her mind. I supposed maybe she did.
Dad’s gravestone was a thick slab of dark gray marble, and as we walked up to it, the words imprinted on it burned into me.
PETER MANN
BELOVED FATHER, HUSBAND, AND SON
A single ray of sunshine poked through the gloomy mass of clouds as we stood in silence, looking at Dad’s grave. I had no idea how to act. Was I supposed to kneel and say a prayer? Or look up at the sky and try to talk to him? Was I supposed to touch the gravestone or the flowers that seemed to have no right to be alive while my father lay dead?
My mom started crying. Tanner stood beside her, holding her hand, his head leaning against her arm.
“Lacey,” she said, turning toward me.
I swallowed hard and wondered what was wrong with me that I wasn’t crying too. I joined them, putting my arm around Mom. She pulled me into a hug, and the three of us stood there for what felt like a small eternity, blanketed in a silence that was only punctuated by the occasional sounds of Mom’s sniffles.
After a few minutes, Tanner pulled away and announced that he was going to go look for a squirrel he’d just seen run by.
“I have some peanuts in my pocket,” he said solemnly. “And maybe he’s hungry.”
Mom nodded, and we watched Tanner head off. After a few paces, he broke into a run.
After a moment, Mom began crying again. I didn’t know what to do. It felt awkward to be around a grieving person, especially my mother.
“It’ll be all right, Mom,” I mumbled.
“I’ve been a terrible mother,” she whispered.
“No, Mom,” I said, shaking my head. “It’s okay.”
“I’m the mom,” she said, pulling a tissue from her pocket and blowing her nose. “I’m supposed to be the one who holds it all together. For all of you. And I haven’t been able to do even that.”
“You’ve done your best. I’ve done my best. We’ve all done our best. And it’s going to get better.”
“But your dad would have—”
“Dad would have understood,” I said, “that you can’t be perfect.”