ON SUNDAY, Jonah is back in Hokepe Woods. I hear the whisk of the sled runners while I’m delivering my papers, and it sounds different somehow from when Mr. Jefferson pulls the sled. I finish my route as quickly as I can—smack, smack, smack—and hurry back to the curb where Jonah usually parks his truck. It’s there, rust creeping up on it, dusty windows, junk still mounded in the back. The mornings are getting warmer, so it’s not so painful to sit on the bumper until Jonah emerges from the woods, sled slicing the muddy lawn behind him. When he sees me there on his truck, his stride falters just a little bit. I wave, but he doesn’t wave back. It occurs to me that maybe he’s mad because I ran away back when he found the body, maybe he even hates me now. Thinking that almost makes me hop off the truck, go back to my car, and drive away. But then I think about Jonah knowing my name, calling it, calling me, and this keeps me waving. There’s a small something on his sled, and when he gets closer I can see that it’s a possum, rough gray pelt, sharp snout, and bare, pink tail winding out behind.
“Hey,” Jonah says when he reaches me, and it’s nice the way he says it, not angry at all. I feel it in my body like a sigh, the fact that he’s not angry.
“You were gone last week,” I say back, and right away I wish I could unsay it because it’s obvious and desperate, like something my mother would say.
“Well. Huh.” He squints for a second. “Everybody needs a break sometimes.”
Jonah looks a little different than how I remember him looking, as if over the past two weeks the hands of my memory had changed his face somehow, pressing on its angles and planes, plying its lips and earlobes so that the face in my memory only resembles Jonah’s. My memory has spread his eyes a smidge and thickened his chin; I’ve made his hair a bit shaggier and messier, or maybe he’s just started brushing it better than he used to. I correct the Jonah in my head so that he looks how this Jonah, the honest-to-God Jonah, does.
Then I think of my father and Zabet and other people I haven’t seen for a while. It occurs to me that my memories of their faces are only memories of photographs from albums and yearbooks and fireplace mantels. And when I try to call up real memories of them, it’s just the figures from these pictures that get up and walk around—same clothes, same haircuts, and same smiles—like actors dressed up for a part.
“Are you . . . how have you been?” I ask, knowing full well that this is a second stupid thing to say.
Jonah squints as if he has to think about it. “All right,” he finally says. “And you?”
There’s so much I want to tell him about Hadley and Mr. McCabe and Zabet, but his question seems too small to hold such a large answer, so I end up saying “all right,” too.
I watch Jonah slide the possum into a garbage-type bag, though it’s thicker than a garbage bag and bright blue, with a spiky contamination symbol on it. He gestures that I should get off the truck, and when I do, he swings the sled and bag into the back.
Then, without anything more than a “see you next Sunday, kiddo,” he’s heading to his truck like he’s going to leave. I stand there for a second, stunned, because I can’t believe he’s leaving—after all my phone calls, after driving around trying to find him, after Zabet’s body in the woods—like nothing has changed. But he’s already swinging the truck door open, has his boot up in the cab.
“She’s dead,” I blurt out.
He stops, and turns to look at me. He doesn’t have an expression on his face, though it seems like there’s something working behind his eyes. Me, I’m just standing there having said what I said, my mouth still open a bit, the hatch through which the words had escaped. This is the stupidest thing I’ve blurted out yet; I cover my face with my hands because I can’t look at Jonah anymore, and I can’t stand him looking back at me.
Then suddenly Jonah’s arms are around me. I’m so startled that I nearly jump right out of them; in fact, I gasp from surprise, but the arms only tighten.
Jonah is holding me. I feel the nubby fleece of his jacket sleeve against one cheek, and his actual arm is under that flannel, in that sleeve, around me. I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve this, to prompt it. My heart is a rabbit’s; my heart is on his sled, racing away through the woods. I tell myself to remember this moment—every detail of it. And one of these details is that Jonah’s patting my back. And another is that he’s murmuring, “It’s okay. It’s okay.” I wish I could look out and see the world from this viewpoint from within Jonah’s arms, but I can’t see anything because my hands are still cover ing my face.
That’s when I realize: My hands are covering my face, which must make Jonah think that I’m crying. He thinks I’m crying about Zabet. He thinks he’s comforting me. That’s why he embraced me.
And though I know it’s terrible, probably my worst crime yet, there’s nothing for me to do but shake in Jonah’s arms and press my hands tighter to my face to make it pink, like I’ve actually been crying. I send a quick apology up to Zabet. (Up? Yes, up.) Then I allow myself to appreciate Jonah’s sleeve, his arms beneath, his voice in my ear.
When he pulls back, I lower my hands from my face and draw a shaky breath. He looks at me with serious eyes, then he does an amazing thing, and tucks away a loose strand of my hair. I feel his finger tips run the length of my forehead and then brush, for an instant, the secret spot behind my ear.
“Okay?” he says.
No, I think. After you touched my hair like that, okaywill never be a word I can use to describe my state of being again.
But I know I should nod, so I nod, and he smiles.
“Okay,” he says. “We’re both okay. Yeah?”
I nod again; it’s all I can manage.
But Jonah, he’s already back to his truck, hopping up into the cab. “See you next Sunday, kiddo,” he says again.
Kiddo, my mind whispers. As soon as the truck turns, I sit down on the curb, and for some reason that I can’t even begin to explain, that’s when I start to cry.