I had to call Simon. Suddenly it was urgent for me to hear his voice. I hadn’t even been gone a week, but too much had happened. Part of me wondered if he’d already started to forget about me. Or at least give up on me.
He hadn’t.
“Hey, hey-O!” he shouted into the phone. As naturally cool as Simon is, his goofy side is what I find most endearing. I’ve never been so relieved in my life to hear someone so happy to hear my stupid voice. I just started laughing.
“What’s so funny?” he asked me.
Finally I had to calm down and tell him that nothing was funny, in fact, things were the opposite of funny—that I was shrouded in death up here in Maine.
Simon was super sympathetic. Both his grandfathers had died, so he knew something about what I was going through.
“Maybe I should come up on the bus,” he said.
I could literally feel my heart slam against my chest, but I told him not to. I don’t know why I said that, except that my parents would be there and I didn’t think I could handle all that.
Then Simon told me that he’d been back to Thomas’s place. He liked how quiet it was over there and he’d gone to the park across from the apartment just to hang out.
“He saw me and came out with a boomerang.”
“Did his mother know?” I asked.
“I guess. She called him from the window after a while.”
“Was she mad?”
“I don’t think so, why?”
Simon couldn’t see me shrug.
“He started calling me the ‘Sime-ster.’ ”
“The what?” I squealed.
“I know, right? He’s a funny kid.”
“If you say so.”
“It was the first time I’ve ever used a boomerang where it actually worked. I chucked it and it circled around and came back to me. Not exactly right to me, but pretty close. It was very cool. Thomas is a pro at it.”
I wasn’t entirely sure if I was glad that Simon had seen Thomas again.
My mother and sister were coming up on a flight the next morning. Meantime, my father had to drive Angela over to the funeral home to make arrangements. When they came back a close friend of Angela’s named Monique was with them. Apparently Monique lived a few blocks away. Angela called her a spiritual sister. A few other people arrived at the house. Friends of my grandfather came by to see Angela and to try and understand what had happened so quickly. All day long there seemed to be some new person in the kitchen, leaning against the counter or sitting at the table—everybody shaking their heads, talking softly.
Everyone assumed my dad and I were just the relatives who had come up for the funeral. No one knew that I had been there, that I had been the closest person to my grandfather during those final few days.
At one point I slipped into the kitchen, opened the cabinet under the sink, and found a large green garbage bag. I went outside and picked up the rake that was still lying where my grandfather had tossed it down and gathered up the little piles of gutter glop we had left behind. I dumped them in the garbage bag and deposited it at the curb.
Back inside, an old man with the biggest, fullest head of white hair I had ever seen kept the coffeepot percolating—that seemed to be his job, refilling everyone’s cup. Davis hung out on the front stoop. He didn’t come in at all, but he stayed there all day. Occasionally I went out to hang with him. He was very quiet. He didn’t mention anything, but I think he was glad I came out as often as I did. My dad shook everyone’s hand who came in.
It was a strange day all around. Time behaved very weirdly. I would glance at the clock and couldn’t believe that only two minutes had gone by since the last time I had looked. I would swear it had been hours. Once, while a few people were at the kitchen table talking, I got up on a chair to check that the cow clock above the stove hadn’t stopped, even though I could hear it ticking. I thought maybe the hands were stuck. Then later, one minute it was bright daylight and the next it was pitch-black night outside. I was glad to see the day come to an end.
In the morning my dad didn’t even ask me if I wanted to drive to the small airport in Owls Head with him.
By the time he pulled back into the driveway with my mother and Julie, Monique was already at the house having coffee with Angela, and I was hanging around in the front yard, waiting, I suppose. Getting out of the car, my mother looked older than she had a week ago, but perhaps that was just the stress of everything.
We carried the bags into the house. My mom had brought me some clothes, thank God. She handed me the bag, but then didn’t let go when I grabbed it. I looked up at her. “We have a lot to talk about still, Lucy. Don’t think because of this, that your running off is all done and forgotten.”
“I know,” I mumbled.
She let go of the bag and I went inside to change. Angela had insisted we stay with her and I brought my stuff upstairs. People continued to come by the way they had the day before, hanging out, talking and not talking. The old man with the white hair took his spot at the percolator, refilling everyone’s coffee cup before they even asked. Julie spent most of her time drifting in and out of the kitchen where people were gathered, in her own world, almost as if nothing was wrong. My parents sat in the kitchen greeting everyone.
The white-haired coffee man was shaking his head as he refilled my mother’s cup. “To think that I’ll never see Harold again,” the man said to no one in particular.
“You think that’s strange,” I heard myself say. I was leaning in the doorway to the kitchen. “What about Thomas? His grandfather just died and he never even got to meet him. And now he never will.”
Everyone turned to look at me.
“Who?” Angela asked. She was standing over at the stove, warming up hot cross buns someone had brought over.
I could feel my mother’s and father’s eyes on me.
“Thomas—” I started to say.
“Lucy,” my mother cut in.
“He’s this eight-year-old boy who lives near us.”
“Please stop it, Lucy.” My mother’s voice was harsh now.
“Dad is his father and Grandpa never got to meet him.” I was looking directly at Angela, but I could feel all the eyes in the room on me.
I’d had enough of the secrets, the lying. I was tired of everyone else dictating how things were going to go. The room was silent. But you could sure hear the cow clock tick in that kitchen.
“Please come outside, Lucy,” my father said softly, and he got up. He had to turn sideways to squeeze past me in the doorway.
My mother eyed me with daggers as she stood up.
We left everyone in the kitchen and I followed after my dad through the dining room, then the living room and into the den where I had found the yearbook. Once the three of us were in there, my father closed the door softly.
“What exactly was the point of that?” he said.
“I don’t know, I just think it’s a shame that Grandpa never got—”
“Cut it out, Lucy,” my mother scolded. “You did that deliberately to be hurtful toward your father.”
“Well, ditto you to us, Dad.”
“I never meant to hurt you, Lucy. I—”
“Too late for that one,” I snapped at him. “You don’t even care. You act like nothing happened—after all that we’ve been through.”
“I care very much, Lucy, I have been trying—”
“Oh, spare me, Dad.”
“You never betray our family like that, Lucy.” My mother was furious.
But that statement really made me laugh. “Are you kidding me!” I screamed. Then I turned on my father. “You betrayed everyone.”
“Lucy—” My mother stepped toward me, but my father put his arm out to stop her.
“It’s okay,” my dad said. “Let her talk.”
“This isn’t fair. I didn’t do anything and now I’m to blame. So typical. This sucks.”
“Yes it does, Lucy, you’re absolutely right,” my father said. Then his voice was calmer. “It sucks. I am very aware of that. I hurt you, I am very aware of that, too. But we are here at your grandfather’s funeral and we need to get through it and be respectful, if not to me, then at least to his memory. You are absolutely entitled to your feelings, but we need you to gather yourself for the next few days.”
“Fine,” I said at last. Then I started to walk toward the door.
“And nothing that has happened entitled you to run off like that, Lucy,” my mother added.
“I couldn’t take it anymore,” I said, without turning around or even looking back at her.
“Take what?” she asked.
“Just . . . everything.”
“That’s ridiculous.” My mother shook her head.
“It’s not ridiculous,” I said. I turned back to her, my face hot. “It was a totally insane thing to have happened. Dad has another kid, for God’s sake! And you never even told us! How does that make any sense?”
“You’re right,” my father said. “I certainly could and should have handled it much better.”
“You’re always telling us to be honest and admit when we’re wrong and all that crap, and it turns out that you’re just one big lie! No wonder we’re so messed up.”
“Lucy.” My mother had calmed down a bit. “I truthfully don’t think we’re ‘so messed up.’ ”
“Oh, please.”
The air settled around that comment. The afternoon sun was coming in through the one window and I could see the swirling dust motes, the same as when we had the discussion about Thomas in the living room back home.
“Is that the way you really feel?” my father asked. His voice was soft.
“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “Sort of. Sometimes. Yes.”
No one said anything for a while, then my father started nodding his head to something only he could hear, just the way my grandfather had done. I never noticed that habit in my dad before, but now I realized he had always done it too.
“Okay, Lucy,” he said softly. “We hear you.”
“A lot of good that does,” I mumbled. I didn’t really need to add that; it was childish, I admit, and I could tell when I said it that I probably shouldn’t have, but my parents let it go.
“We’ll talk more about it later.” He looked around the room and nodded again. “Shall we go back out to everyone?”
“At least I got to spend Grandpa’s last days with him,” I reminded them as my father went to open the door.
“You did,” my father said. “And I’m proud of how well you’ve handled everything.”
Just as I stepped out of the den I heard the front door slam. I guess my little announcement had sent a few of the guests packing. But right there in the living room, my sister was sitting all alone in my grandfather’s chair, beside the stack of papers and magazines. She wasn’t looking at us, and she didn’t say anything, but I could tell she’d heard every word.
Later, when we were in bed, it was a different story.
The last time my sister and I had had to share a bed was when we had come up to Maine a few years earlier—it wasn’t as uncomfortable as it might seem. The night was cool, and we were under the heavy quilts. The telescope was by the window. The house was very quiet. It was one of the things I really liked about Maine—how quiet it became once everyone settled down.
We had been in bed for a while. I thought Julie was already asleep; she hadn’t moved in a long time. I was in that space between being awake and asleep when I heard a voice. I was drifting and wasn’t sure who was talking.
“I knew,” the voice said.
“Huh?” I mumbled, then snapped back awake.
“I knew,” Julie said again.
“Knew what?”
“About Thomas.”
“What? How?”
“I heard them. Talking. I heard Dad tell Mom, years ago, when I was little. They were in the kitchen. They didn’t know I heard.”
The moon was out. I couldn’t see it, but there was light coming into the room, and I could see Julie’s face now. Tears covered her cheeks. I realized in that instant that I had almost never seen my sister cry. How could I never have noticed it before? She never cried, and now here she was, tears pouring from her eyes. She turned to me, and the dam broke. She started sobbing, really sobbing. Her whole body started shaking so much that the bed shook with it. Seriously. She was convulsing—like she was having a seizure or something. She wasn’t making a lot of sound—she was holding that in—but her face was contorted and the tears were flowing. I didn’t know what to do. Finally, I reached out and grabbed hold of her and wrapped my arms around her as tight as I could. It seemed that if I didn’t do that she would just shatter apart into a thousand pieces.
Finally, she started to calm down. She was still crying, but it wasn’t so scary now. Eventually she caught her breath.
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?” I asked her finally.
“I thought it would upset you,” she said.
I laughed. “Well, you got that right.”
Julie laughed at that too. Then her laughter turned into more crying, but not like before. After a while she was quiet.
The moon had moved across the sky and was coming into view out the window. It was nearly full—it had been getting bigger after all.
“You never told anyone that you knew?” I asked.
She shook her head and looked at me. Her eyes broke my heart. I saw how scared she had been, keeping her secret for so long. No wonder she never said much. She looked so tired. Then from deep inside Julie came a massive sigh, the biggest sigh I had ever heard, as if she was getting rid of a breath she had been holding for years and years. Which, I suppose, she had been.
“You won’t tell Mom and Dad?” Her forehead was all scrunched up.
“Your secret’s safe with me.”