“Jonah?” I say, and I have no idea why I say it. Jonah is dead. He can’t hear me. He’s in heaven. But I say it again anyway. “Jonah?” And then I feel really stupid for calling my brother’s name out loud, and I’m really glad no one else is here to hear me say it. Well, no one except Shadow, and he won’t tell on me.
My eyes start to sting, and I realize I’m crying. Again. Shadow stops looking at my bed and starts licking my cheeks, mopping up my tears. I try to make them stop. I’m so tired of crying all the time. But the thing is, I miss Jonah a lot.
When he was here, he kind of bugged me, you know, like little brothers do. He couldn’t help it. He didn’t mean to. He would try to get me to play with him, and he’d get all pouty when I wouldn’t, and he’d always want to show me things, like the totally disgusting bugs he’d find, and his drawings, which were silly stick people and stuff, but only because he was little, and how high he could jump and how fast he could run and the LEGO towers he built, which were kind of crooked and ugly-looking. And I would, like, be totally bored and sometimes I’d say mean things and his mouth would start quivering, but he didn’t give up. There was always something he wanted to show me, because I was his big sister and he wanted to impress me. And sometimes I’d say nice things, not just to get him off my back, but because he was just a little guy, so the things he did were actually kind of good. But I didn’t really do that very often.
Jonah had this way of giggling with his whole face and these really big dimples in his cheeks and he was really cute, which also kind of bugged me, ’cause everyone was always saying how cute he was and they never said that about me anymore.
When Mom and Dad brought him home from the hospital, he was just this tiny little thing wrapped in a fuzzy blue blanket and he was, like, totally bald and cried all the time. My mom told me I was a big sister now, and that a big sister was a very important job and I had to take it very seriously and she knew I would be great at it. And I felt kind of proud, you know, that she thought I’d be great at it. And Jonah, when he could talk, he would say things like, “Eden, you’re the best big sister ever.”
I feel really bad and awful, because I was not the best big sister ever. Not even the second or third best sister ever. I was a totally sucky big sister, and I know I’m not supposed to say suck or sucky or anything like that, but it’s true.
There were some times when I was nice and I meant it, too. Because he really was sweet and always trying to make me smile, and when he fell down or got sick, or the time he got stitches in his forehead, I would make up silly songs to get him to laugh. His favorite was the one about farting, and he asked me to sing it to him all the time, even when he wasn’t sick or hurt or anything. And I’d always do it, too, just because I liked the sound of Jonah’s laugh, until Mom would make me stop because she said, “Fart is not an appropriate word.” And Jonah and I would laugh even harder, sometimes till we started farting ourselves, and Mom would throw up her hands and make a kind of mad face, but she was laughing, too.
Sometimes, when there was a storm, Jonah would sneak into my room, and I thought that was funny, you know, that he didn’t sneak into Mom and Dad’s room like I used to do. I asked him why he came in my room, and I probably sounded annoyed or something, but he just kind of shrugged and said my room was closer and when he went into Mom and Dad’s room they were making a tent and there wasn’t any room for him. I didn’t know what he meant by “making a tent”—not then, anyway. I do now ’cause Janey Markowski told us about sex and what happens and then she showed us a scene from some grown-up TV show called The Affair on her iPhone.
But anyways, Jonah’s eyes were always kind of scared from the storm, and I let him come into my bed and lie beside me in the dark, and we’d watch for lightning and then count the seconds until the thunder. And his breathing would get all loud and deep and he’d fall asleep, and I’d say, “Oh, great!” But deep down inside, I didn’t mind him being there. I liked it. I liked making him feel safe, and that made me feel safe, too. I remember he always smelled like Johnson’s baby shampoo.
Shadow lifts his head suddenly and turns it toward my bed.
Maybe it’s ’cause I was just thinking about it, but I swear I can smell Johnson’s baby shampoo in my room.
TWENTY-ONE
SAMUEL
I don’t know what to do. I’ve always been completely in control, the kind of man who knew what to do in any given situation, but in this moment, with my wife lashing out at me in a way that is completely foreign to me, swinging her arms, kicking me, throwing accusations at me, I’m at a loss, stranded on a stormy sea in a rowboat with no oars.
When I raise my voice, she gets louder. When I try to pin her arms to her sides, she shoves me off her with the strength and agility of an Olympic wrestler. For the first time in weeks, I wish my sister-in-law were here. Ruth would know what to do.
She sits on the end of the bed, that fucking monkey around her neck like a noose, staring daggers at me, breathing deeply and offering a moment of quiet. I reach into my pocket and feel the outline of the bottle of her pills.
“Why did you do it?” she asks.
I don’t have an answer that will satisfy her, or me, for that matter. I know what I’ve done and what I haven’t done, and I’ve tried to focus on the latter, congratulating myself for the things I chose not to do. But my truth is different from my wife’s. “We shouldn’t talk about this right now, Rachel. You’re out of your mind with grief over Jonah.”
“Don’t you say his name to me! Don’t you dare bring him into this. He’s gone because of this, Sam. You know it and I know it.”
I shake my head no. I’ve thought the same thing over the past month, castigated myself for my role in the death of my son. The death of my son. How is it possible that those words are a reality in my life? I bear my guilt with stoic solemnity and Maker’s Mark, while Rachel bears hers with escapism and pills. I blame her as much as she blames me, but in this game, her hand trumps mine.
“Bad things happen, Rachel. It’s no one’s fault. We can’t blame ourselves.” Even though we do, I think.
She throws her head back so far I have the crazy idea that it will topple off her shoulders and roll across the bed. She lets out a strangled cry.
“He’s gone because of this,” she says again. Suddenly, she stands up and walks over to me, and I force myself not to flinch.
“I need a pill,” she tells me with icy calm. “You’re right. We shouldn’t talk about this right now. I need to rest. The doctor said so. I need to sleep. Give me my pills.”
I stare down at her, trying not to look too hard at her sunken cheeks and hollowed-out eyes and the translucence of her skin.
“I’ll give you one, Rachel,” I say.