The doctors say I can go home today. I’m not allowed to go back to school yet; they want me to rest at home for at least a week and come back in for a checkup. Then they’ll decide if I’m ready. This is fine by me.
I told Sandra she could have the balloons. She gave me a hug and told me to stay out of trouble. I said I’d try my best.
1:00 p.m.
I’m in my room now, resting.
I thought it would feel good, coming back to the apartment with both my parents. But to be honest, it’s weird.
First we had to walk past new handwritten signs in the foyer. The first one read “WE should not have to get rid of your junk mail!! Please deal with it yourself!!” The second note, stuck underneath the first one, read “GET A LIFE!!!!!”
Then, when we entered the apartment, I saw the photos. Mom had obviously been down in the storage locker, because there were at least ten framed pictures of Jesse, or Jesse and me, or Jesse, me, Mom and Dad, hanging on the living-room walls.
And Jesse was there, too.
The shoebox was sitting on the mantelpiece above the gas fireplace. My mom must’ve seen me staring at it because she said, “I can’t believe your father’s had him under his bed all this time.”
“At least I was with him,” my dad retorted, and my stomach lurched because I knew right then and there that they’d been fighting a lot.
Then my dad picked up a bubble envelope from the hall table and handed it to me. “This arrived for you when you were gone.”
I knew the handwriting immediately.
Jodie. Her name was written in the left-hand corner, with an address I didn’t recognize.
My knees suddenly didn’t want to support me. I almost fell over right there in the hall.
“Do you want us to read it first?” my mom asked. They both looked worried.
I shook my head. But I didn’t open it.
I still haven’t opened it. It’s sitting on my bedside table.
After IT happened, a lot of my friends made it clear they were no longer my friends. It happened to my parents, too. I had to shut down my hotmail account and my Facebook page, thanks to a few death threats.
Then there was the night someone started a fire in our garage.
So it’s not surprising that I’m afraid to open a letter from the sister of the boy Jesse killed, even if she was once my best friend in the whole wide world.
2:30 p.m.
I can’t stand it anymore. I’m opening it.
April 4
Dear Henry,
I’ve tried e-mailing you a couple of times, but they always bounce back. I was starting to think I would never find you again. So when I saw you at the Provincials, it was so weird. It was like I was seeing a ghost. When you vanished into thin air, I thought maybe I HAD seen a ghost. But then I talked to some of the kids on your team, and I knew you were real.
You saw me, too, didn’t you? And you didn’t want to talk to me. Maybe you haven’t even told your friends what happened. I wouldn’t blame you. I saw how people treated you and your family afterward. I rode past your house the day after your garage was lit on fire. Not because I was gawking, but because I thought I might see you.
Everything is so horrible, Henry. It’s like a nightmare, except I never wake up. And nobody gets it; nobody really understands, not even my grief counselor. And my parents are so messed up. My dad has a lot of hate. He doesn’t know I’m writing to you; he’d be furious if he did. My sister, thankfully, is too young to get it. But I know that the one person who will totally GET IT is you. ’Cause you’re living through the same nightmare, am I right? Maybe even worse.
I have so many questions I would ask you if I could. Do you have more bad days than good? Are your parents as totally messed up as mine? Do you have nightmares? Do you sometimes hate your brother? I sometimes hate Scott, and then I feel so bad, I want to hurt myself.
I wish you still lived here, Henry. Even though I know you never could.
Well, anyway … I really don’t know what else to say. Please, please write back, but not to my house, okay? You could write to Carrie’s house – she won’t tell anyone. Her address is on the envelope.
Bye for now, Henry.
Jodie
PS – I really hope you write back.
PPS – I hope you like the gift.
I read the letter three times in a row. Then I tipped the envelope and eased out a small, flat object that was carefully wrapped in layers of Bubble Wrap.
It was our sand dollar. The perfect sand dollar we’d found on the beach a couple of years ago. I am holding it in my left palm right now. It is cool and smooth.
I’d let her keep it because she’d been having a bad day.
I guess she’s returning the favor.
Mr. Atapattu came over yesterday. He was carrying a gift-wrapped box. “Henry, I am so glad to see that you are alright,” he said. He handed me the box. “For your recovery. Straight from the Home Shopping Network.”
I tore off the wrapping paper. Inside was my very own Slanket, in navy blue. “Thanks,” I said as I slipped it on. It felt like I was wrapped in a cocoon.
Mr. Atapattu picked up a framed photo from the mantelpiece. It was a picture of me, Jesse, and Mom, standing in front of the Legoland sign.
“That’s my brother,” I said.
“Yes, I know.”
“Did Dad tell you what happened?”
“No.”
“Karen?”
He shook his head. “I’ve known for a long time. I Googled you shortly after you moved in.”
I raised my eyebrows, but he just shrugged.
“After you’ve had a meth lab next door, you tend to do your research.”
“So you’ve known this whole time?”
“Yes.”
“And you still wanted to get to know us. You were still nice to us.”
“You sound surprised.”
I was. I was also near tears. I blame my head injury.
“Henry, when tragedy befalls someone, it is when he needs comforting most.”
“I just thought you were a lonely old man, desperate for company,” I blurted.
Again, I blame my head injury.
But he just laughed. “Oh, I’m definitely that, too. It wasn’t entirely unselfish, I assure you.”
He could see I was starting to get tired, so we turned on the TV. Dad had PVR’ed a bunch of GWF shows while I was in hospital. We started watching “Monday Night Meltdown,” and, at the first commercial break, an ad came on for the GWF Smash-Up Live! in Seattle! “Tickets are going fast! Get yours now to avoid disappointment!”
“I was this close to going to that show,” I told him.
“Really?”
I nodded. And even though I was tired, I wound up telling Mr. Atapattu the whole story about Recycling Managerial Services and Farley getting robbed and my fight with Troy.
“That’s terrible,” he said. “Did you know I was robbed three times when I drove my cab?”
“Seriously?”
“It was very frightening.”
“I bet.” I was starting to feel dozy in my Slanket.
“The GWF Smash-Up Live! in Seattle,” I heard him say. “That would have been quite an experience.”
Then I didn’t hear anything else because I fell asleep.
This morning Dad asked if it was okay if him and Mom went for a walk. I said sure. Once they were gone, I headed upstairs to Karen’s apartment.
“Hey,” she said when she opened the door. “You’re back.” Her hair was freshly washed, and she was wearing jeans and a sweater.
“You look different,” I told her.
“How so?”
“Better. Not so tired. Or so slutty.”
“Watch your mouth.”
“I meant it as a compliment.”
“To be honest, I feel like crap. But I’m almost a month sober.”
“Congratulations.”
She let me in and made me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. We sat together in her living room.
“Did you hate him?” I asked.
She knew exactly what I meant. “I did. For years. But now … I just have compassion. Dad would never have intentionally hurt us, you know? His depression must have been crushing him to do what he did.”
I can hardly believe I’m writing this, but it’s true: Karen is so easy to talk to. She’s been there. And she just tells it like it is.
“Do you still think about him a lot?”
“Every day. But they’re almost all nice thoughts now. They’re memories of the good times. Because we had a lot of good times before he took his life. Did you and your brother have a lot of good times?”
“Then put your energy into remembering that,” she said. “You’re the keeper of your brother’s memory. He did an awful thing, Henry. But he wasn’t an awful person.”
5:00 p.m.
I’m in my room now. Mom’s cooking a roast chicken for dinner. The apartment has never smelled so good.
I’m looking through a photo album. It’s one of a stack Mom brought up from the storage locker. There’s a picture of Jesse and me, when he was nine and I was seven, sitting outside a pup tent in our backyard. We’re wearing our pajamas, and we’re laughing hard.
I remember that morning so well. It was the first time Mom and Dad let Jesse and me sleep in the backyard in the tent. Jesse had pleaded for most of that summer, and Mom finally said okay. Dad helped us pitch the tent, and we filled it with sleeping bags and pillows and flashlights and a bunch of comic books and snacks.
We had a ton of fun, until it got dark. Then I got scared. The wind rustled through the trees, and I was sure there were black bears or monsters coming to get us. I started to cry. I wanted to go inside.
Jesse didn’t call me a sissy or a baby. He talked to me in a calm voice. He’d just finished reading a book called The BFG, and he started to tell me the story. It was about a girl named Sophie, who befriends a Big Friendly Giant. It was an amazing tale about capturing good dreams to give to children and battling a band of very unfriendly giants. Next thing I knew, it was morning: I’d slept through the night in the tent.
“You did it,” he said when we both woke up at the crack of dawn, thanks to a woodpecker that was tapping on a nearby tree.
“I did!” I replied.
Jesse high-fived me. We unzipped the tent and saw Mom, peering anxiously out of her bedroom window. We waved. She and Dad made us a huge pancake breakfast.
That’s a good memory.
It’s a start.