‘Uh huh.’
I looked at the names on the headstones. Laila. Tristan. Penelope. Penelope was one of my father’s favorite names-it was what he wanted to name me, in fact, but my mother had staunchly refused. ‘So is your mom…better?’
‘She eats now. She didn’t eat for a while. Everything tasted like metal.’
‘Why?’
‘Chemotherapy.’
‘That must’ve been…’ I floundered for a word. ‘Sucky.’
‘I’d say it’s okay, but I’m sick of saying that, especially when it’s not true.’
I thought for a moment. ‘Maybe you could say some random word instead. Like pickle.’
‘Pickle, huh?’ He settled against the tree, curling his legs under him, gold stitching along the toe-line of his socks. I leaned up against a different tree about three feet from him. The rough bark cut up my back but I was afraid to move. Philip stared at me for a long time. It didn’t feel like an assault, though, just benign curiosity.
‘Are your parents getting divorced now?’ I blurted out.
He raised an eyebrow. ‘Why would they be divorced?’
‘Someone told me the other day that marriage doesn’t work. That when something goes wrong, people usually bail out.’
Philip scratched his head. ‘Really?’ He sounded hurt, maybe even worried. I sucked in my stomach, wondering why I’d said something so mean. He’d probably hate me now. He’d probably throw a rock at my head.
‘Brooklyn’s near the Bronx, right?’ he said after a moment.
‘Yeah. Close enough.’
‘My mom grew up in the Bronx. I bet she’d like to meet you guys. To talk to someone about it.’ He glanced at me. ‘It’s not like she and my dad come from the same background. He grew up in India. And he’s Sikh.’ His laugh was bitter, embarrassed. ‘But you probably don’t know what that is, right?’
I wiped my hair out of my face. ‘No, I do. A neighbor of ours, Mr Saluja, is that. Sikh, I mean.’ It explained, of course, the turban Philip’s father wore-it was a religious thing, a religion completely different from Christianity or, more importantly, Islam. Something else occurred to me-Steven knew what it meant to be Sikh, too. He used to shovel Mr Saluja’s front walk.
‘Why did you show me this?’ I asked, gesturing to the graves.
He blinked. ‘I thought you’d like it.’
‘I do.’ It was warm inside my jeans pockets, the denim all soft and worn out.
‘I’ve never shown it to anyone before.’
‘Why?’
He paused, considering. ‘I don’t know. Most people don’t deserve to see it.’
And I do? I thought, astounded.
The night seemed to grow darker, quieter, more serious. Philip let out a breath, sort of a sad laugh. Then he stepped forward. In one fluid motion, he touched my hand, and then kissed me. His lips were a quick bloom on mine and then gone. My veins filled with hot chocolate and, for a moment, the world went white.
I must have had a startled expression on my face because Philip broke away fast. ‘Sorry. I don’t know why I just…’ He trailed off and stared at the ground.
No, I liked it, I protested in my head. But I felt like I was underwater. If I opened my mouth, I’d drown. There were locusts or crickets or some chirping creatures back in the woods. I clenched and unclenched my hands, wondering if Philip had really kissed me just now, or if I’d dreamed it all up.
Suddenly, I took a deep breath. ‘My mother left us a year and a half ago. We don’t know where she is.’
Philip turned his head a fraction, saying nothing.
‘And then a couple months ago,’ I continued, ‘we were eating dinner, and my dad took a snow globe that was sitting on our dining-room table and threw it against the wall. And then he got up and picked up the biggest piece and drove it right into the center of his palm. Then he couldn’t get it out. It was stuck in there somehow. It just kept bleeding.’
‘Was he…okay?’ Philip’s voice was small and tentative.
‘I guess. It’s healed and everything. The doctors said it was because of stress, but I don’t know. It was…awful. I’m kind of afraid he might do something like that again.’
I was afraid to say anything else for fear I’d either start crying or tell him the rest-that we took him to the emergency room, that he was screaming and crying the whole time, that he was in the psych ward for three days, that I had to visit him there. How I was certain that it was my fault, all of it, and if only I’d done something differently, it never would have happened. How, even deeper, I felt so angry, anger I had no idea what to do with or where to put.
I shut my eyes. ‘Pickle,’ I recited. ‘Pickle, pickle, pickle.’ I opened my eyes again. ‘I think it works.’