I used to sit with Carlee Rhodes and Ava Landou, but they turn their backs to me and start being all jokey with Ryan Anderson and Matt Boyles, like they don’t even know me, like they didn’t come to my tenth birthday sleepover and eat pizza till midnight, like we didn’t do a whole singing dancing routine to “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” for the talent show last year where we all dressed up like Beyoncé. I feel my cheeks get hot and I know they’re probably all pink because they always get pink when I’m embarrassed. Even Ryan, who I thought was different, even he’s being all jokey, and that really hurts my feelings.
Aimee Joyce smiles up at me, then scooches over to give me space. I almost want to hug her for being so nice to me. But then I look down at my lunch tray and there’s a shiny red apple on it and I think of Jonah and I get this weird kind of choking feeling in my throat and I know I’m going to start crying, and I can’t let that happen in front of all my classmates, ’cause even though I have a good reason to be crying, I’ll still be the crybaby until I get to middle school, and maybe even after that.
So I turn around and throw my tray in the trash, and I hear the lunch lady behind me calling to me about wasting food, and I just run and run, out of the lunch area and into the building and down the hall to the activity room. No one’s allowed in at lunch ’cause there’s no teacher or anyone to watch you, and it was dark, but I went in anyway and I just sort of sat in the corner on the carpet and hugged my knees into my chest and just sat there for a while, crying and hiccuping and trying not to think about the very bad day and the thing I did, because when I think about it my stomach hurts.
I thought about going to the nurse and telling her I didn’t feel well and having her call home for someone to pick me up. But I didn’t think being home would be much better than being here. And I knew that after lunch there was only PE, and I figured that being outside and playing kickball would make me feel better, but then Ross Llewelyn, this total weenie, said that I couldn’t play because I was grieving and that would make me suck. And the PE teacher, Miss Wells, didn’t even tell him not to say bad words like suck. She just nodded with a sad face and said I could sit this one out.
So now school’s finally over and I’m standing out in front of the school, waiting. No one told me they’d pick me up from school today, but I guess I thought maybe Aunt Ruth would come. I watch all the cars come and go until there’s nobody left to pick up except me. Mrs. P steps out from the front office and turns and looks at me. She takes a step toward me, that creepy smile coming back to her lips, and I hustle down to the sidewalk away from her.
“Eden, are your parents picking you up?” she calls to me.
I don’t answer, don’t slow down, just head down the street toward the next block.
My friends, the ones I usually walk with, are nowhere in sight.
I can’t help myself. I keep looking behind me, expecting to see Jonah.
Worst day of my life.
I start to run.
NINE
SAMUEL
When I pull up to the house, I see Ruth’s Nissan at the curb. My relief is tempered by an irrational feeling of resentment. I’m glad Rachel is not alone, that her sister is taking care of her. But when Ruth is around, which is all the time now, I have to be on guard. I’m not allowed to be the grieving father. I’m not allowed to express what I’m going through, because it might upset Rachel further. I don’t want to upset my wife. I’ve done that enough. But a part of me rails against the injustice. Rachel gets to fall apart, but Sam has to hold it together. Sometimes I don’t want to hold it together. Sometimes I can’t.
I went to the park on my lunch hour today. Not a wise move. Greta offered to get sandwiches and come with me. I politely declined. I told her I needed to be alone. I refrained from telling her that keeping on my game face was exhausting. That accepting other people’s ministrations of sympathy was akin to being burned at the stake. I needed to be away from the solemn stares and the downturned glances and the shaking heads of regret.
Greta nodded and told me she understood, but she doesn’t. How can she? She’s young, single. Her parents and grandparents are still alive, for Christ’s sake. She doesn’t have children to love and care for and make dreams for and grieve over. I’m glad she doesn’t understand. I wouldn’t wish that kind of understanding on anyone.
The park was empty when I first arrived. I found a bench not far from the playground, and as I sat, I watched, with mounting dismay, the onrush of toddlers and tykes and their mothers or nannies, with their strollers and diaper bags and coolers full of snacks.
I thought I could handle it. I thought I could sit there and watch the children play and laugh and climb and slide. But then I saw him, a little boy, four or five, with dark ringlets framing his face and skin like porcelain and a wide grin, and I thought, Jonah.
I pictured myself rising from the bench and crossing the rubber floor tiles and grabbing that child and running, holding him under my arm like a football while I fumbled with my cell phone, calling Rachel and telling her to go to the school and get Eden, that I’d found Jonah, that he wasn’t dead, and we could all be together as a family, but we’d have to run far, far away to be that family—the four of us, Sam, Rachel, Eden, and Jonah, who was not Jonah but could be if we made him so.
And then I realized that I was thinking the thoughts of a fucking madman, and with the nannies and mothers and children looking on, I buried my head in my hands and sobbed.
I can’t sob, here in my home. I can’t bury my face or slouch or falter. I have to pretend that everything is okay. Not good, not great, but okay, moving forward, moving on. What bullshit.
As I alight from my car, I see the neighbor woman, Beatrice Martin, dump a sack of trash into her bin. She eyes me nervously then tries on a smile. It looks like a grimace.
“Sam,” she says, and I nod to her and try a smile of my own, but I can’t quite get my mouth to obey.
“Hello, Bea.”
“How’s it going?” Her words are measured and sincere. I’ve heard them countless times in the past month from countless people—Carson Gregson, my business partner; Greta; Sal at the dry cleaner’s; Phil at the diner; Hugo Escalante in his thick Ecuadorean accent—just to name a few.
“It’s going,” I tell her.
“You want I should bring over another chicken casserole?” she asks. “I’m happy to do it.”
Her casserole is good. She made it for us when we first moved in. We scraped the pan clean and raved over the cream sauce, Rachel and I, congratulating ourselves for our good fortune to live next door to a bona fide casserole goddess.
The last casserole she made, the day after the accident, went from the oven to the trash.
“That’s okay,” I tell her. “Don’t go to any trouble.”
“You know me,” she says. “I like to be of service.”
You like to tell Escalante how to trim the hedges and cut the rosebushes, I think, then chide myself for the ungenerous thought. Beatrice has been a good neighbor. She cares about my family. She has cared for my children when Rachel and I needed her. She is a busybody and a know-it-all when it comes to gardening, but she is not a bad person. Her casserole is her way of coping. I only wish I had as simplistic a way of coping.