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Summer rolls out with a series of afternoon thunderstorms, but the crops all look good in the fields and the sun shines most of every day. I am busy at Billups Hardware working on the files, which we try to catch up at least once a month. It seems that nobody but me ever comes to the file room, so one day a week I spend filing invoices and bills from the previous week, sorting what still needs to be paid from what has already been paid. Mr. Billups just installed a new invoicing program on his computer, and I am slowly going through and adding backdated invoices to the system. It is tedious work, and monotonous, but I’m happy to do it, because I would do almost anything for him.
The police turned my apartment back over to me last week, and I immediately moved all our stuff out of there and into Leslie’s house. I turned the keys back over to Mr. Billups without mentioning the things that happened. I heard him on the phone later that day talking to the cleaning crew, confirming that “Yes, you heard right. Everything needs to be removed.” I’m sure he will have a hell of a time renting it out now. They call it a stigma when somebody has died in a house, and it’s even worse when it was a murder, of the self or otherwise. I have a box sitting in the corner of the rose-exploded room filled with the contents of my mother’s room—all except her clothes. I threw her clothes in the trash, especially the ones that came from Bancroft charity. There is a small box of hers, one she kept closed with tape. I haven’t had the courage to open it. I can’t even imagine what secrets my mother would have hidden there. It is no longer taped shut because the police went through it after she died, but I remember it from the trailer. I’m surprised that it made it through the fire. It had always lived in her bottom dresser drawer, but her room in the trailer was the least damaged room after the fire. Her small box is sitting in the bottom of the bigger box of stuff I brought from the apartment.
There are still occasional pieces of mail that trickle in for my mother and me, bills and junk mail. Mostly Mr. Billups just handles it all. He took care of the last month’s electric and utilities without even telling me I owed anything. I would never have known, but I found the bills as I was entering them into the system, marked “paid” in his distinct scrawl.
When I am done for the day, after turning off the computer and shelving the current box of files, I make my way down the dark steps and into the store. Propped beside the register is an envelope addressed to me, or rather, addressed to the Parents of Alison Hayes. Since I no longer have such things, parents, I figure this letter is for me. The return address is the Charleston School District. My stomach sinks. I don’t want to think about school. I don’t want to think about anything except heading out to see Jay and Tommy working the slide at Summer Grove. It is only two, and they’ll be there till well past eight. I fold the envelope and stuff it in my pocket. “Mr. Billups,” I say, leaning into his office, “I’m heading out unless you have anything else for me.”
“Nope. I’m good. Did you see you have a letter?”
I nod and pat my hip pocket to show that I’ve claimed it already.
“You’ll be back on Thursday?” he asks, only glancing at me.
“Yes sir, unless you need me before then.”
“Thursday is fine.” He doesn’t ask me how I’m doing; he doesn’t look at me with pity. He just nods, and I let the door fall shut. He and I have already been through all of that. My bike is chained to the street lamp, and I unchain it, throw my leg over, and get ready to ride. I bought the bike at the pawn shop a little over a week ago, and it feels really great to be back to riding. I love the speed it provides, I love the fact that I don’t have to walk, and I never feel like anybody is watching me when I am on the bike. I feel invisible. I feel invincible. I stand on the pedals going down the hill on Monroe and turn left onto 18th Street toward Lincoln, which turns into 16 and takes me out to Summer Grove. If I biked another four miles, I would hit Ashmore, but I never bike that extra four miles. Summer Grove is as far as I ever need to go.
I am happy at the campground. I am happy because I feel like I am no different than anybody else. Jay and Tommy know my mom is gone and that I’m a ward of the state now, but they know it like they know I have green eyes and red hair. It is no big deal, and they don’t ever look at me like they feel sorry for me. Nobody ever offers charity here. They offer nachos and pizza, but that’s just because they are already eating some anyway, so why not?
When I am at Summer Grove, I feel whole. I feel like a complete person, with friends and everything. It’s a bubble, and all the rest of my life doesn’t exist here. It is the closest thing to heaven I can even imagine. My skin is tanned from my time in the sun, and the blond highlights in my hair flash like fire. I am not one of those fair-faced redheads; my complexion goes to ruddy, and my burns turn to tan without ever peeling. I am happiest watching the boys jumping from the diving board, trying to master the triple or the twists or somersaults, often ending in some variation of a belly flop. It is great fun, watching them trying to outdo one other. Each time, they come out of the water with new scorch marks where they and the water collided. I have laughed more this summer, at their antics, than at any other time in my life.
The words are on my tongue. “Life is good.” They are always hovering somewhere behind my lips. I feel guilty feeling it, because I could never have had this if Mom were still here. She didn’t much care where I was, so I could have still had this, technically, but I wouldn’t have, because Leslie would never have brought me home and the guys would never have invited me along. Mom had to die for me to feel this alive, and even though I feel guilty about it, I am so glad she did. Maybe glad isn’t quite the right word. Maybe relieved, lucky? There are no words for how mixed up I am about everything that has happened. What do I owe her? Do I owe her anything? Does it make it okay that I am a little bit happy now, after our rough run together? I don’t know the answer to that, and I can’t dwell there when Jay is just getting ready to do a double twist into a backward somersault. Heavens.
The letter from the school falls out of the pocket of my jeans when I pull them out of the locker. My eyes are hazy from the chlorine, and I am feeling warm and toasty from the afternoon in the sun. I don’t move for a long moment, just stare down at the fuzzy edges of the envelope where it lay. When I spoke with Ms. Shaw last year, she said they were going to be lenient with my absenteeism, if I could “return to my normal routine.” I hadn’t returned to my normal routine—I hadn’t been able to—and the dread of seeing what is contained in the letter flattens my stomach. I bend down and pick up the envelope like it may scald me, holding it by a corner with my fingertips. I press the envelope across the skin of my thigh. To the Parents of Alison Hayes. It seems a little shitty that they didn’t remove “To the Parents of.” It’s not like anybody in town is unaware. I run my finger over the letters, blocking out that first part and leaving only Alison Hayes visible. Just me. I start to fold the letter again, to put it back into my jeans, to do my best Scarlett O’Hara and push off thinking about it until tomorrow. But there is just me. There is nobody to hand this letter off to and say, “Here, deal with it.” Isn’t that what I had wanted when I set fire to the trailer—to be on my own? To be free to do what I needed to do without her messing everything up? Grief washes over me, followed by guilt. I was so stupid. I remind myself that I didn’t kill her. It was an accident, just a horrible, stupid accident. “What about that hot water bottle?” My mind hisses, and I shake my head. I can’t fix it, I can’t make it right, and I can’t even begin to deal with that—the water bottle—so I shake my head until the thought slides out of my ears.
I slip my finger under the flap and the paper parts as I push through the glue. I slide out the letter and remove my report card. Art, A; Civics, C; History, B; Algebra, D; English, B. There are my grades. I knew Algebra sucked, and I really thought I was going to fail it entirely, but a D means I won’t have to take it again. Relief almost springs forth, but then I read further. Days Absent, 19. Beneath the Days Absent column is a handwritten note, in red ink. “We recommend that Alison repeat the 10th grade. Her extreme number of days absent makes it impossible for us to promote her to the 11th grade next year. If you are have questions or concerns, contact us at 217-345-8976.” My jaw drops, and every ounce of happy that had ebbed through my veins during the afternoon in the sun, turns to ice, and my hand curls, crumpling the report card and note into a ball. I dump it in the trash and drag my clothes on, over my bathing suit because I can’t take the time to take it off. I have to leave. I have to go. Now. I exit the changing room, and Jay is leaning across the counter, eating a bag of potato chips, his back to me. I walk behind him, past him, and out into the evening. My backpack slaps against my hips with my jerky steps.