It felt like the world was ending and nothing would ever be the same again. It was, and it wouldn’t.
chapterforty-three
When we were little and the house was full, full of people like my father and Mr. Fisher and other friends, Jeremiah and I would share a bed and so would Conrad and Steven. My mother would come and tuck us in. The boys would pretend they were too old for it, but I knew they liked it just as much as I did. It was that feeling of being snug as a bug in a rug, cuddly as a burrito. I’d lie in bed and listen to the music drifting up the steps from downstairs, and Jeremiah and I would whisper scary stories to each other till we fell asleep. He always fell asleep first. I’d try to pinch him awake, but it never worked. The last time that happened might have been the last time I ever felt really, really safe in the world. Like all was right and sound.
The night of the boys’ fight, I knocked on Jeremiah’s door. “Come in,” he said.
He was lying in bed staring at the ceiling with his hands clasped behind his head. His cheeks were wet and his eyes looked wet and red. His right eye was purpley gray, and it was already swelling up. As soon as he saw me, he rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand.
“Hey,” I said. “Can I come in?”
He sat up. “Yeah, okay.”
I walked over to him and sat on the edge of the bed with my back pushed up against the wall. “I’m sorry,” I began. I’d been practicing what I would say, how I would say it, so he would know how sorry I was. For everything. But then I started to cry and ruined it.
He reached over and kneaded my shoulder awkwardly. He could not look at me, which in a way was easier. “It’s not fair,” I said, and then I began to weep.
Jeremiah said, “I’ve been thinking about it all summer, how this is probably the last one. This is her favorite place, you know. I wanted it to be perfect for her, but Conrad went and ruined everything. He took off. My mom’s so worried, and that’s the last thing she needs, to be worrying about Conrad. He’s the most selfish person I know, besides my dad.”
He’s hurting too,I thought, but I didn’t say it out loud because it wouldn’t help anything. So I just said, “I wish I had known. If I had been paying attention, it would have been different.”
Jeremiah shook his head. “She didn’t want you to know.She didn’t want any of us to know. She wanted it to be like this, so we pretended. For her. But I wish I could have told you. It might have been easier or something.” He wiped his eyes with his T-shirt collar, and I could see him trying so hard to keep it together, to be the strong one.
I reached for him, to hug him, and he shuddered, and something seemed to break inside of him. He began to cry, really cry, but quietly. We cried together, our shoulders shaking and shuddering with the weight of all of it. We cried like that for a long time. When we stopped, he let go of me and wiped his nose.
“Scoot over,” I said.
He scooted closer to the wall, and I stretched my legs out next to him. “I’m sleeping in here, okay,” I said, but it wasn’t a question.
Jeremiah nodded and we slept like that, in our clothes on top of the comforter. Even though we were older, it felt just the same. We slept face-to-face, the way we used to.
I woke up early the next morning clinging to the side of the bed. Jeremiah was sprawled out and snoring. I covered him with my side of the comforter, so he was tucked in like with a sleeping bag. Then I left.
I headed back to my room, and I had my hand on the doorknob when I heard Conrad’s voice. “Goood morning,” he said. I knew right away he’d seen me leave Jeremiah’s room.
Slowly I turned around. And there he was. He was standing there in last night’s clothes, just like me. He looked rumpled, and he swayed just slightly. He looked like he was going to throw up.
“Are you drunk?”
He shrugged like he couldn’t care less, but his shoulders were tense and rigid. Snidely he said, “Aren’t you supposed to be nice to me now? Like the way you were for Jere last night?”
I opened my mouth to defend myself, to say that nothing had happened, that all we’d done was cry ourselves to sleep. But I didn’t want to. Conrad didn’t deserve to know anything. “You’re the most selfish person I ever met,” I said slowly and deliberately. I let each word puncture the air. I had never wanted to hurt somebody so bad in my whole life. “I can’t believe I ever thought I loved you.”
His face turned white. He opened and then closed his mouth. And then he did it again. I’d never seen him at a loss for words before.
I walked back to my room. It was the first time I’d ever gotten the last word with Conrad. I had done it. I had finally let him go. It felt like freedom, but freedom bought at some bloody, terrible price. It didn’t feel good. Did I even have a right to say those things to him, with him hurting the way he was? Did I have any rights to him at all? He was in pain, and so was I.
When I got back into bed, I got under the covers andcried some more, and here I was thinking I didn’t have any more tears left. Everything was wrong.
How could it be that I had spent this whole summer worrying about boys, swimming, and getting tan, while Susannah was sick? How could that be? The thought of life without Susannah felt impossible. It was inconceivable; I couldn’t even picture it. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like for Jeremiah and Conrad. She was their mother.
Later that morning I didn’t get out of bed. I slept until eleven, and then I just stayed there. I was afraid to go downstairs and face Susannah and have her see that I knew.
Around noon my mother bustled into my room without even knocking. “Rise and shine,” she said, surveying my mess. She picked up a pair of shorts and a T-shirt and folded them against her chest.
“I’m not ready to get out of bed yet,” I told her, turning over. I felt mad at her, like I had been tricked. She should have told me. She should have warned me. My whole life, I had never known my mother to lie. But she had. All those times when they’d supposedly been shopping, or at the museum, on day trips—they hadn’t been any of those places. They’d been at hospitals, with doctors. I saw that now. I just wished I had seen it before.
My mother walked over to me and sat on the edge of my bed. She scratched my back, and her fingernails feltgood against my skin. “You have to get out of bed, Belly,” she said softly. “You’re still alive and so is Susannah. You have to be strong for her. She needs you.”
