I’ve been trying not to think about that. “I’ll … I guess I’ll wait until I’m one hundred percent sure, and then I’ll just … tell her.” He looks disappointed. “I know she’ll be upset, but…”
He straightens up and leans the broom against the wall. “She won’t be okay if you just drop it on her.”
“Not at first, but—”
“Matthew, I’ve known the woman longer than you’ve been alive. Don’t you dare act like this is a casual decision that’s not going to destroy her.”
I don’t want to hurt my mom, but the anger I’m always trying to push down strikes at my dad instead. “She thinks I’m an asshole. She’s not going to miss me.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it.” My dad hardly ever cusses at me, and it’s startling enough that I forget my planned comeback. “Look,” he says. “Sometimes being a parent means doing what’s best for your child, even if you hate it.” He picks up the broom again, pushing the leaves all the way back across the driveway. “I want to say that this is your decision, and you should have to break the news to her. That would be best for you, from a character perspective.” The leaves are starting to disintegrate into flakes. “But your mother is dealing with enough and I’m not going to do that to her.”
It occurs to me that Dad’s dealing with just as much, which gives me a surge of unwanted respect. “So what do I do?”
He stands up and faces me. “Let me talk to her first. I’ll tell her it’s a possibility you’re considering and that I made the contact thinking you weren’t serious.”
My newfound respect is joined by huge relief.
“I should have told her that in the first place.” He glances down the road at an oncoming car. “We’ll give her some time to adjust to the idea, and you think some more on the decision.”
“And when I choose…”
He sighs. “Then you can tell us both. And we’ll go from there.”
RAYCHEL
After weeks of the silent treatment from Matt, going to school without him isn’t much different. Keri starts giving me a ride in the morning and introduces me to her lunchtime crew in the drama room. They’re all friendly and perfectly nice, and I try to remember their names and pay attention. It’s easier than being alone with my thoughts, and before long I’m comfortable eating there even when Keri has other stuff to do.
It’s amazing, really, how fast you can settle into a new reality.
Mom and I manage to coordinate schedules so she can drive me home from work. The ten-minute trip becomes a daily catch-up time, and I think we’re both surprised by how much difference it makes to touch base on the daily. After a few days, I find myself confessing the details of my exile from the Richardson house. She nods thoughtfully until I’m done. “Well,” she says, “you sure stuck your foot in it, darlin’.”
I snort. “And then I tracked it all over the house.”
“What’re you going to do?”
“I don’t know what else I can do,” I say. “I tried to apologize to Mrs. R., and Matt—I mean, I know he’s upset, but this isn’t all my fault.”
“Sometimes,” she says, her drawl stretching the word, “people just aren’t ready yet. They’ll remember that you tried, when they get there.”
“What if they never get there?”
Mom glances away from the road to half smile at me. “Then you go on without, and you prove ’em wrong.”
MATT
Dad tells Mom on Monday. I can hear them arguing through the vents, something that hasn’t happened since the days he was working emergency room hours. Andrew used to come to my room when they fought because arguments upset him more than me, and I always told him everything would be okay. I honestly thought it was true.
After she finds out, Mom pretends nothing is wrong, making an effort to be civil but little more. But she and Dad make me go see a therapist. I don’t want to cooperate, but Dr. Shin has a sneaky way of turning “I don’t want to talk about this” into me spilling my guts. “I just can’t believe Raychel hasn’t tried to apologize,” I admitted at our first session. I didn’t add that I’m also a little disgusted with myself for expecting it.
“Is it possible,” Dr. Shin asked, “that you’re just looking for reasons to be mad at her?”
“I think I have plenty of reasons,” I snapped.
“I’m not negating that,” she said. “But being angry might be easier than dealing with other emotions at the moment.”
Which of course just made me angrier. But I have to admit: my other emotions are all over the goddamn place, and without Raychel to fight with, my brother’s absence is impossible to ignore. He’s not even in my dreams, which should maybe be a relief, but I feel cheated. At least it would feel like I was spending time with him again, for just a little while. I never spot his lookalike in a crowd and try to catch up, or imagine a glimpse of him on television, or have that moment of believing I’ve been hallucinating the whole thing.
I don’t really deserve dream time with him anyway. What I deserve are the things that keep popping up to remind me in no uncertain terms that I’m now an only child. There’s a card on our fridge addressed to “the Richardson boys,” and I move a magnet to cover the s. The ugly frames in the hallway that display our school pictures from every year have my senior portrait, but will never have his. Big Johnson calls me into his office to check up on me, mumbling the entire time about “this horrible tragedy,” and all I can do is stare at the family photo on his desk. I’ve always been the big brother.
I don’t know what I am now.
RAYCHEL
Not all my life’s changes are so easy to accept.
Being in the Richardson house seemed hard, so surrounded by memories of Andrew, but now I realize what a comfort that was too. At least I rarely forgot he was missing. Everywhere else, it’s too easy to forget that he’s not a phone call away, and I have to remember over and over that he’s gone. Sometimes I pull up our old text thread and cry, but I only send messages to his ghost via email—long lists of things we didn’t get to say and questions we never got to ask or answer. I hope his parents never find out the password and read all of my pathetic-ness. Although maybe it would make them see how I really felt about their son. Both of their sons.
There’s no chance of telling Dr. R. about it at work. The job at the clinic is much different from the one I enjoyed. I’m no longer on my own schedule with my own project, and I have to take orders from everyone else in the office. I don’t think my co-workers realize I used to be part of the family.
Past tense. I’ve been disowned. There’s some stupid saying like “It’s the family you choose that matters,” but what do you do when they un-choose you?
I feel like I’ve been thrown away.
But even trash has its uses.