There’s also a paper file in the Box, too, with one news clipping I saved from the weeks after Sam vanished. The paper did a story about how the neighborhood was coping or something like that. A photographer came and took some pictures, and I was in one. It was just a view up the street toward the house where Beth and her mom and stepdad lived, but in the far right corner of the picture you could see a figure in our driveway, just standing there and looking where the camera was directed. A kid. Me.
I get down on my knees and slide the Box out and take the lid off. It smells a little musty inside, but there’s all that stuff. Poor Teddy, stuck in there.
I hear Mom yell my name for dinner.
I grab the folder and flip it open and there’s the clip, slightly yellowed, with the picture to illustrate the story. “Weeks Later, Pine Forest Residents Still Hopeful for Boy’s Return.” And there I am, on that August day. What was I doing? Staring at Sam’s house, like I expected him to come outside like he always did when I was in my yard? I remember how if I took my bike out and rode around, it was only a matter of minutes before Sam came out, too, like he was watching and waiting. He wasn’t that nice, but he seemed to want to spend time with me.
“Josh, dinner!” I hear Mom yell again.
I close the folder and shove the Box back under the bed.
===
A few nights later, when I’m studying in my room, the phone rings. It’s always weird when the house phone rings. Usually it’s just telemarketers or the school or my aunt Helen, who lives in New Mexico and refuses to get a cell.
A bit later, when I head downstairs to the kitchen, Mom and Dad are facing each other while leaning against the counters. They look upset.
“What’s up?” I say.
Mom looks at Dad, as if cuing him to speak. “Sam’s stepdad called. He—they—invited us to the Alabama game on Saturday. They were given tickets and have two extras. He said Sam wanted to see if you would come.”
“Oh,” I said.
“I didn’t give him a definite answer. I just said I’d have to see if you had anything planned. I didn’t want to—”
“We can go,” I say.
“I thought maybe you had plans with Nick or Raj or those guys.”
“No.”
“I thought you didn’t like football,” Mom says.
Big eye roll. You can’t not like football here—she should know that. “No, I like it fine. And it would be rude to say no, wouldn’t it?”
“Well, we could come up with some excuse,” Dad says. I see him look at Mom, like he’s hoping she’ll help him think of something.
“No, let’s go,” I say.
And Mom crosses her arms over her chest and gazes at me like she’s baffled.
“What?” I say.
“You don’t have to do this,” she says.
“Do what?”
“Kiddo, it’s wonderful that Sam is home,” Dad says. “But I think—well, he’s been through a lot. He’s adjusting.”
“You don’t owe him anything,” Mom says.
“Are you saying we can’t be friends?”
“No, that’s not what we’re saying,” Dad says.
“It’s just . . . Well, Sam’s not the same person he was when you were friends back in Pine Forest,” Mom says.
“I know that.” What they don’t get is that I’m not the same person, either. “I want to go. Can you call his stepdad and tell him yes?”
“Sure,” Dad says. He smiles then, like he feels bad for having put up any resistance.
I open the door to the back deck and walk outside, even though I’m barefoot and it’s turned kind of chilly. In one corner of our backyard there is a swing set that we’ve yet to get rid of, left over from the people who lived here before us. Dad says he might plant a garden there. But he hasn’t yet. We’ve lived here a few years, but it’s like we still haven’t fully settled in. Right then I think: What if we had moved here years earlier? Like, four years earlier.
Then that day would never have happened.
I start feeling pissed at Mom and Dad, for not taking me away from Pine Forest sooner. I hear someone step outside.
“You have a good heart,” Mom says, sidling up next to me.
I nod but don’t say anything.
“I just worry sometimes,” she says.
Like I don’t know that, I think to myself. It’s what parents do. But my parents especially. Maybe because of what happened with Sam. For weeks that summer they asked if I wanted to see a therapist. And even after they stopped hounding me about it, when school started, I knew they still worried about how everything was affecting me. I guess I had some bad dreams, but I stopped telling them about them because I saw it freaked them out. They got a little better after we moved, but not completely. Whenever they asked me “How’re you doing?” it wasn’t a tossed-off phrase. I could see on their faces that they thought I was fragile. And that’s how they were looking at me tonight—how they’ve been looking at me since Sam came back. “Don’t worry,” I finally say to her, even if I know it’s useless to try and convince them I’m fine.
Mom puts her arm around my shoulder. You don’t owe him anything.
But she’s wrong. I do.
===
“They’re here,” Dad announces, yanking open the front door. Through the window I can see Mr. Manderson’s big dark green truck parked at the curb. I guess we’d both been anxious, dressed and ready to go for almost half an hour. We’re taking one car, Dad’s Jeep, because he has a spot in the faculty garage.
It’s sunny out but chilly. I’m wearing a jacket over a maroon polo—trying to look like a legit Bama fan, I guess. Sam’s in jeans and a blue jacket, unzipped, a red button-down shirt visible underneath. We all meet halfway down the front walk. Dad and Mr. Manderson shake hands and make small talk while Sam and I just stand there. I haven’t seen him since that day we kicked the soccer ball around.
“This should be fun,” Dad says, smiling in an encouraging way.
“Yeah. We should whip Ole Miss,” Mr. Manderson says.
Dad and Mr. Manderson sit in the front seat, Sam and I in the back.
“We have good seats,” Sam says, taking out the tickets from his jacket pocket, displaying them like a hand of playing cards. “The athletic director sent them over to us. Just out of the blue. People keep sending me gifts and stuff. People I’ve never met in my life. From all over—not just Tuscaloosa. It’s weird. Mom turns most of it down now. She says it’s gotten out of hand. But she let us keep the football tickets.”
“Must be kind of cool to get all that stuff,” I respond, realizing that’s a stupid thing to say.
“I dunno. People just feel bad for me, I guess.”
Why would people do that, I wonder, send stuff to a complete stranger. Like gifts can make everything better.
After fighting through the game-day traffic, Dad finds his way to the garage and weaves his way up to his spot. When we get out of the garage, we’re surrounded by waves and waves of people wearing red and crimson heading to the stadium. Dad and Mr. Manderson sort of hem us in next to them so we all don’t get lost. Mr. Manderson especially—he always has one hand on Sam.
At the stadium this old man scans our tickets and we pass through the gates, climb the stairs, and find our seats. Mr. Manderson and Dad go in first, then Sam and me. Sam’s right—they’re good seats. Right on the 50-yard line, about ten rows up.
“You ever been to a game before?” I ask, trying to get some small talk going.
He looks at me and kind of smiles, squints like I’m stupid. “You don’t remember?”