“Hey, Jack,” Angelina says. “It’s Finn’s mom.”
I can tell she wasn’t saying that because she thought I wouldn’t recognize her voice or know who she was, but because she wanted to say his name, claim him. I swallow the lump in my throat and try to focus on the point of her call. She’s selling Finn’s car, but the garage said there were personal effects that needed to be removed. Would I help?
I’m surprised. Finn kept his car so clean that it became a joke on the soccer team. I call her back and get the address of the garage where his car was towed after the accident. They say I can come by today if that works for me, and it’s a task I want to get over with, so I head over.
The man leading me out to the lot seems to have no idea that tragedy has struck.
As he unlocks the gate, he turns to me and says, “Damage was minimal. You sure your mom wants to sell?”
I shrug.
I’m holding Finn’s key chain, one of the last things he ever touched. I squeeze it and think about time travel again. It would be so easy to save Finn’s life if it weren’t for time and space.
“So, uh, if you’re sure you don’t want us to fix her up, empty her out, and we’ll have you sign something for your mom in our office.”
I don’t bother correcting him before he walks away.
Finn’s little red car.
Like being in his house, I should have expected this flood of memories.
There’s the first time I saw this car: Finn, proud but embarrassed to be proud, driving me around the block once before dinner because my mom was only letting me go because she had a soft spot for Finn.
The late nights after a party, the early mornings before soccer practice.
Sometimes we bickered. Sometimes we laughed.
Mostly, we listened to music and didn’t realize that we had a limited time together.
Maybe if I had known that it would be this hard, I wouldn’t have come. But who would?
And then there’s the hole in the windshield.
Looking at it makes me feel like I saw Sylvie fly through it.
How did she live?
I remind myself that one life wasn’t exchanged for another. Had Sylvie died on impact, Finn would still have run to her, would still have been so anxious that he didn’t see the downed power line in the puddle next to Sylvie.
I take a deep breath and do what I came to do.
There isn’t much. I grab his stack of CDs and an umbrella from the front. From the trunk, I retrieve his jumper cables and first aid kit. There’re taco and candy wrappers in the back seat, which is a surprise bordering on shock. It’s only because of those wrappers that I look underneath the front seat.
Then I see the bag.
As I pull it out, even though I know it’s not drugs, the thought still crosses my mind, given it was concealed and wrapped so carefully.
It quickly becomes obvious why he had hidden the bag.
He’d said that he was running an errand before getting Sylvie.
He’d said he was “all the way sure” that Autumn loved him.
It also explains why there was trash in Finn Smith’s car.
Suddenly, I hate that girl so much. Autumn was the reason Finn was breaking up with Sylvie and driving in the rain. She was the reason he was distracted that night.
If he hadn’t been cheating on Sylvie the night before, Finn probably would have told her that they needed to go home, that they could talk on the phone the following day. But his guilt—his guilt over what Autumn had gotten him to do—had kept him out all night, even though it was getting late, even though it was raining hard and he hated driving in the rain.
If you took Autumn out of the equation, Finn would still be alive.
With a paper sack full of the meager items left in Finn’s little red car, I leave the garage and call Finn’s mom. She asks if I can come by, so I drive to Finn’s house.
She looks thinner and like she hasn’t been sleeping well, but Angelina’s smile is genuine. She opens the screen door for me, and I go into the foyer. I normally wouldn’t have gone so long without seeing her. I can’t remember the last time that a week went by without me being at Finn’s house. Hugging Angelina feels natural, even though it was something we never did when he was alive.
“Thank you,” she says. “I hope that wasn’t too much to ask.”
“No,” I say. “I’m glad to help. There was an umbrella in the car that had French words printed on it. I thought that was probably Sylvie’s, but I brought the rest of the stuff.” I hand her the paper sack.
She looks inside it for a moment. “Would you listen to the CDs, Jack?”
I nod. “Thank you.”
She hands me the stack of CDs and then takes out the first aid kit. She holds it tenderly in her hands. A shadow crosses her face. “If only,” she whispers. And I understand.
If only this could have somehow saved him. If only his cautious nature had somehow saved him.
“At first,” she says, still looking at it, “I thought I would be the sort of parent who turned their child’s room into a museum, leaving every object exactly as he left it, right down to the jeans on the floor, you know?”
I don’t know. It never occurred to me that there were enough parents out there with dead kids for there to be different types of them. It seems like a whole secret world of people I never considered. Before I can think on it much, Angelina continues.
“But I saw someone at a stoplight asking for change the other day, and he was wearing pants that were too short, and I thought, He needs pants like Finny’s, and I knew what he would have wanted me to do. It’s his stuff, so if that’s what Finny would have wanted, it’s what I should do.” She looks up at me, and I nod.
“I could drop off stuff or…” I trail off as Angelina frowns.
“Autumn isn’t ready to let go of a lot of things in Finny’s room yet. When I told her about wanting to donate Finn’s clothes… Well, she knows that I’m donating them by Christmas, and she’s keeping the jeans that were on his floor.” She shakes her head. “I’m sorry. The point of this was to say that I’ll keep the first aid kit in my car, but do you need a pair of jumper cables?”
“Yeah, actually.” Finn had mentioned once or twice that I should have some and a first aid kit, but he’d have settled for jumper cables at least.
“I’d like to think of you using them,” Angelina says. “Not that I wish you car trouble, but like the CDs and his clothes, I want his things out there in the world, being used.”
“Yeah, I get that,” I say. “I hope Autumn lets you do want you want with his stuff.”
Another shadow crosses her face.
“Autumn is having a hard time accepting the reality of the situation,” she says. “It’s not that she wouldn’t let me. It’s that…” Her voice trails off again, like she’s watching a scene play out in her mind. Angelina bites her lip and shakes her head. “I’m sorry, Jack. Autumn will be fine in time. I think I worry even more about her now because I can’t worry about him, you know?” For the first time since she opened the door, tears come to her eyes.
“She’s coming to Springfield, right?”
Angelina shakes her head. “Maybe next year. Autumn needs more time,” she repeats.
“Oh,” I say.
“I’m so excited for you, Jack.” Angelina’s trying to change the tone of our conversation. “College will be good for you. It’s a whole new world.”
“Yeah.” I try to match her upbeat tone.
“And next year, you’ll be able to show Autumn the ropes, hmm?” She tries to smile.
“Of course,” I say. “Um, tell her I said hi?”
“I will.” Angelina reaches out like she’s going to stroke my hair, then she rests her hand on my shoulder. “Thank you for being such a good friend to us all.”
Perhaps I’m not as good as she thinks, because I don’t tell her about the plastic bag under the seat that was meant for Autumn.
I don’t take it next door to her. I don’t throw it out either.