I knock on my parents’ bedroom door, but there’s no answer. Instead, I hear voices coming from the study. The voices sound angry, angry enough to bring my dad home early from work, I realize.
I creep toward the closed doors until I’m close enough that the sounds of angry voices arrange themselves into words I can understand.
“That’s why I’m telling you.” My mom’s tone is shrill. “She needs to know.” I stop breathing to hear better. The end of my mom’s thought is drowned out by the booming sea outside. I plant my foot another step closer to the door.
“That’s not your call to make.” My dad, unlike my mother, keeps his voice even, like this is a conversation he’s rehearsed over and over again. Have they had this conversation before? “It’s against his wishes.” I feel the hair rise on the back of my arms and then a little prickling sensation as I realize that the “she” they’re talking about is me. “This whole thing. It’s about choice. Isn’t that what we decided together? You know what we have to do. We have to stay the course.”
This isn’t the first time I’ve heard my parents argue about Matt’s resurrection. Of course they never seem to bother to include me in the discussion.
“We’re their parents, Peter.” I move closer to the door.
“We are. But Matt’s not a child.” Dad’s raising his voice now. “He knows what he’s doing.”
“You’re wrong. Everything’s different after what’s happened.” She’s pleading now. My throat feels scratchy. “He’s going to make himself a martyr and you’re going to let him.”
“He’s our son. We owe him this much.” Dad’s voice has the air of reluctant finality. He’s tired. Tired of bills. Tired of taking care of my brother. Probably even tired of me.
“We’re not going to have a son after all this!” Mom says. “Not unless we do something!”
I swallow.
“I’m finished with this discussion.” I hear his fist come down on something solid and wooden, like the desk.
“Tell her, Peter. This is on you.”
Tell me what? That I have to use my resurrection choice on Matt? That they’ll disown me if I don’t? Or that they’ll drag me into the office themselves and force me to write down Matt’s name as the resurrection candidate?
Or is there something else? Between Will, Penny, and my parents, I’m beginning to feel as though I’ve been living my life constantly in the dark, as though everyone knows things that I don’t.
Heavy footsteps come from the other side of the door. I have just enough time to take a few steps back, so that it doesn’t look like I was hovering, before my dad emerges from the study. He’s already in the process of buckling the strap of his bike helmet under his chin
“Hi, Dad.” He jumps. He hasn’t had enough time to rearrange his face. It looks exhausted and drawn, like he’s stayed up all night, and his hair is tousled.
“Lake.” His voice grates.
“I was just coming to look for you and Mom,” I say. I try to make my eyes wide and innocent looking: You’ve seen nothing. You’ve heard nothing.
My dad’s lips purse and I can tell he’s trying to gauge the situation for himself. When did I get here? Do I know he and Mom have been arguing and, if so, do I have any idea why?
I forge on, not wanting to give him enough time to sort this last bit out. “I wanted to let you know that I’m going to take Matt out for a while, if that’s okay. We’ll need to borrow the van.”
His hairline lifts like he’s questioning, but then he nods repeatedly with a faint smile on his lips. “Sure, sure. I think that’d be really nice, Lake.”
Another pang of guilt, because I’m responsible for planting that look of hope there. Me. But I’m not the only one here holding back. And it looks like nobody is going to tell me anything unless I figure it out on my own.
So it’s up to me to fix that.
“You have one hour,” Matt says the moment I raise my fist to knock on Ms. Bryan’s door. “Anything longer with Jeremy and my brain will literally melt.”
I peer down at my brother, surprised that we’re side by side, let alone speaking to each other, after what happened at St. Theresa’s. When I asked for his help, I was expecting to have to negotiate, although what I could offer him that he would want at this point, I don’t know. Instead, Matt agreed to come willingly. Almost too willingly. I try to convince myself that the reason was my comment about his not acting like my brother, and that I finally, against all odds, got to him. But with Matt, it’s not ever that simple.
But I don’t have time for games or reverse psychology. “Oh, come on, Jeremy’s not that bad,” I say. “He used to be your friend, you know.”
“That was before he turned into a huge stoner loser.”
“He’s not always a huge stoner loser. Besides, I’m sure he’s not dying to hang out with Captain Sunshine over here, either.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“Well.”
“One hour.” Matt sets his jaw and glares at the door, like he might see right through it if he tried hard enough. When was the last time he hung out with anyone his own age? I wonder. It has to have been years. Maybe even pre-accident. There’s a glisten of sweat on his cheeks and, if I didn’t know better, I’d guess that he was nervous.
“Okay, okay, fine. One hour.” I knock on the door and it swings open right away, like Jeremy had just been on the other side waiting for the formality of the knock.
“Welcome, Devereaux-ses—Deveri?” Jeremy chuckles to himself. “Sorry, I don’t know the plural.”
Matt looks up at me and lifts his eyebrows. I put my hand on his shoulder, a gesture the meaning of which I hope he registers with his eyes, even though he can’t feel it. “Thanks for having us, Jeremy.”
“Come in, come in.” He steps aside. “Jolene is at work or whatever, but she said she’s glad you’re here. Make yourselves at home, mi casa es su casa.”
“Except it’s not really ‘su casa,’ so…” Matt says. I jerk his wheelchair to warn him not to be rude and then push him after Jeremy into the kitchen. And just like that, we’re in.
I have to remember to breathe.
“Dude, it’s been forever.” Jeremy holds out his hand as if for a high five. It hangs for a second in the air until he realizes his mistake and redirects it to sweep through his uncombed hair.
“Yes, well,” Matt begins, “I suppose it’s not terribly convenient to—” I kick the wheelchair hard. Matt stops and clears his throat. “I mean—yeah—good to see you too.”
“So…” Jeremy rocks back on his heels. “This, uh, this is more awkward than I thought. A lot of bummer energy going on in this room.” He holds his fingers out in front of him as if he could feel it.
My eyes go fishbowl wide. There’s a long pause.
But then something happens. Matt tilts his head back and laughs—like, really laughs. Jeremy peers down his nose. His mouth quirks into a quarter of a grin and he says, “Really? That? Okay…Hey, well, actually I do have a collection of Tolkien action figures. You want to see?”