“It’s a job and, financially speaking, I need to take it.”
He cleared his throat.
“So as far as I can tell, I have three options. One is to leave you behind and just go... do this job. But, after this morning, I just don’t think that’s going to be... um... possible. The second is to insist that your mom cancel her trip and come get you, but that doesn’t seem to be realistic either. So then there’s the last option, which is...”
“Who died?” I asked.
“I’m sorry?”
“You said it’s a job, and your job involves the dead, right? So who died to make this golden opportunity possible?”
He chewed his bottom lip.
“Well,” he said, “Sargent Bronson died.”
“Who’s Sargent Bronson?”
My father looked for a moment like he might break into a laugh. But when he spoke it was in a flat, even tone, as if what he said next was perfectly normal. And who knows, in his warped world, it probably was.
“Sergeant Bronson,” he said, “is a racehorse.”
7
After Jonah left me that note at the party last fall, we started to send e-mails. It was kind of quaint like that. We’d send long meandering updates on life at our respective schools, filled with boatloads of questions at the end for the other to answer. Sometimes an e-mail just full of answers would come back. Other times it was a series of texts, rapid-fire, one after the next.
So, while I went through each friendless day at Forever Friends, my phone would hum with his responses to questions I barely remembered asking.
Orange Soda. No question. It has the most grams of sugar per ounce.
Or:
Are you kidding me? Invisibility! It used to be flying, but then I went through puberty.
Or:
Cinemax at my friend’s house. There was a movie on abouta sorority car wash. It only took five minutes for the first bikini to fall off. I never saw the sequel though. And I’m really concerned about the car wash. Did it stay in business?
Or, as the questions grew more personal:
Brooke, a girl I knew in fourth grade. She was diabetic and she had to carry around a little drink box of apple juice in case her blood sugar got too low. Watching her sip her drink box filled me with the most intense sensation of love I have ever felt. She kissed me under the slide, and then moved a year later. I don’t know where she is now. I’ve never even looked her up. I just want her to exist in fourth grade forever.
And eventually:
I’d like to. Scratch that. I’d LOVE to, but I don’t think I can afford the ticket right now. Don’t worry, though. It will happen soon. So soon! There is no one I would rather see right now. No one.
The more I asked when he was coming to see me, the more I got answers like the one above. They were always positive, full of hope and enthusiasm, but each time, they completely shut down the idea of a visit. At first I thought he wanted to break up, but he didn’t have the guts to tell me. Yet, if anything, his messages got more romantic.
Probably we should just get married. People in religious cults don’t have a monopoly on marrying young. Anyonecan do it. I’m not going to officially ask you yet, but just think about it. Holy Matrimony. With me. Soon.
Til death do us part.
Is that really what he said at the end?
Yes it is.
I have the saved message to prove it.
And I was looking at this message, staring at those very words on my phone, when my father leaned over across the aisle of the airplane and removed the earbud from my ear. The drone of the engines filled the music’s absence, and I was yanked back to the present. A present that included Dad and me on a chartered flight, speeding toward an unplanned horse funeral.
