The bus ride to the Murphys’ house takes forty minutes. In a car, it would take half that, but I don’t drive.
At first, I couldn’t wait to get my license. I longed for the ability to just get up and go whenever I wanted. But any romantic vision I had of the road was quickly spoiled. In driver’s ed, they show you nightmarish videos of car crashes and alarming statistics about mortality rates, and then they hand you a learner’s permit and throw you behind the wheel. Sure, you’ve got an “expert” coaching you from the passenger seat, but you’re the one in charge, struggling to remember all the rules you learned, and then just as you’re getting the hang of it, you realize that even if you drive flawlessly, you have to trust that everyone else on the road will do the same.
But they don’t. It’s chaos out there. No one seems to use a blinker or come to a complete stop or yield to pedestrians. The light is still turning green and the person in the car behind you blares their horn. Then there are animals running into the road, cops waiting around bends, and drivers staring at their phones. It’s a miracle that anyone gets where they’re going without harming themselves or others, because so many of the worst things that could happen—paralysis, disfigurement, brain damage, accidental manslaughter, drowning, decapitation, pulverization, incineration, bleeding out while waiting for help—can happen in a car.
On the day of my driver’s test, I locked myself in the bathroom. Through the door, I heard my mom talking not so quietly on the phone: “What kind of kid isn’t excited to get their license?” At one point she tried to hand me the phone. “Your father wants to speak to you.” I hated her for calling him.
When I finally opened the door, my mom was in tears. “We can’t keep doing this,” she said. “You don’t have to feel this way. Don’t you want to feel better?” I must have said yes, because a week later I had my first appointment with Dr. Sherman. A few months after that, with the help of my pal Lexapro, I was able to get my license. I never actually use it, though. Lucky for me, we can’t afford a second car.
The Murphys live in the newer part of town, where the houses are bigger and the lawns are wider and the driveways are longer. As the bus passes the front entrance of Ellison Park, I see the well-lit WELCOME sign that I spent so much of my summer refurbishing. I always knew Zoe lived over here by the park, but I wasn’t sure exactly where. I must have passed by her street every day on my way to work and never knew it.
It’s a short walk from the bus stop, but still, by the time I arrive, my armpits are drenched and the paper wrapped around my flower bouquet has become a soppy mush in my hands. On the porch, I tear the paper off the flowers, roll it into a ball, and shove it into the pocket of my pants.
The Murphy house sits peacefully between two majestic beech trees at the end of a wide cul-de-sac. The front door is painted a storybook red. It’s time to ring the bell, but for some reason I can’t lift my arm. These flowers should be for Zoe, as a gesture of, well, my affection or whatever, but instead I’m giving them to her mother because she lost her son. The only reason I’m here is because Connor isn’t. How am I supposed to feel about that?
I’m so busy not ringing the doorbell that I barely notice the front door swing open to reveal Connor’s mom, a confused smile on her face.
“What are you doing out there?” she says.
“Good night. I mean, good evening, Mrs. Murphy.”
“Come on in. And please call me Cynthia.”
I present the flowers.
“Oh. That is very sweet, Evan. Thank you.”
She pulls me in for a hug, holding on a little too long. I worry that she can feel my heart slamming out of my chest. And then, over her shoulder, I see Zoe coming down the stairs. Unlike her mother, she does not look happy to see me. Her eyes seem to know who I am, a big non-truth teller, and also a fool to have ever agreed to come here tonight.
• • •
In the center of the table is a bowl of apples. They’re so shiny and perfect I assume they’re fake. But now, after staring at them for the past ten minutes, I’m convinced they’re edible.
So is the food on my plate, but I’m finding it hard to breathe, let alone swallow. I’ve been trying to trap single pieces of rice between the tines of my fork, just a little game to pass the time.
“It’s hot in here,” Mrs. Murphy says, fanning herself. “Is anyone else feeling hot?”
I’m melting, but I keep my mouth shut.
“It’s muggy for September,” Mr. Murphy says. “I can lower the AC, if you want.”
“No, it’s fine.” She dabs her head with her napkin.
Zoe hasn’t spoken since I got here. Last week we finally talked after so many years (twice!), and now it’s looking like the first two times may also be the last. I thought she’d be back at school today, it being Monday, but she was absent again. I wonder if she’s ever coming back.
Mr. Murphy lifts a platter. “Would anyone else like more chicken?”
“I think you’re the only one with an appetite, Larry,” Mrs. Murphy says.
He hesitates for a moment, then forks a piece of chicken onto his plate. “Well, I’m not going to let it go to waste. It was very considerate of the Harrises to bring it over.”
I cut off a bite of chicken, but I don’t actually bring it up to my mouth.
“Did Connor tell you about the Harrises?” Mrs. Murphy asks me.
Part of my apprentice training at the park was learning the ranger code of ethics. There’s a part in the handbook about being honest in thought and deed. Unfortunately, the park ranger handbook makes no mention of how to survive the jungle of high school, or how to not make a bad situation worse. For help with that, I’ve looked instead to Jared for advice. As terrible as that decision might prove to be, if I had just listened to him in the first place, I never would’ve gone to Connor’s wake and I never would’ve been invited to tonight’s dinner.
In response to her question, I simply nod and take a sip of water. I’m going with Jared on this—it’s not the same as lying. I’m not actually speaking words.
“They’re very old friends of ours,” she says.
I can tell she’s waiting for me to say something. I’m not supposed to—that’s the plan—but now that I’m actually face-to-face with this woman and her needy eyes, making it through the whole night without words seems unrealistic, not to mention rude.
“Mmm,” I say, which isn’t technically a word. Even if it is, it’s barely a word, and besides, it could be referring to the food that I’m pretending to eat.
“Our families used to ski together,” Mrs. Murphy says. “We had some really nice times out there on the slopes.”
I nod and nod and nod, and then, before I can stop myself, I open my mouth. “Connor loved skiing.”
“Connor hated skiing,” Zoe says.
I can feel Zoe’s eyes on me, but I don’t dare look over. Why did I think I could handle this? If I sense even a hint of pressure, I immediately buckle. Pressure is my kryptonite. Connor hates skiing like I hate pressure.
“Right, he hated it. That’s what I meant. It was, yeah, just pure hate whenever skiing was the topic. He loved talking about how much he hated skiing.”
“So you guys hung out a lot? You and Connor?” Mrs. Murphy asks.
It’s a mistake to tear my eyes away from the bowl of apples, but I do it anyway. Mrs. Murphy’s face is begging for even the tiniest bit of information. Something. Anything.
What I come up with, finally, is, “Pretty much,” and I’m actually proud of this answer, because it’s not yes and also because a lot means something different to different people. Do I speak to my father a lot? Compared with how often soldiers in Afghanistan talk to their dads, yeah, probably, I think that’s fair to say.
But Zoe wants clarification. “Where?”
“You mean, where did we hang out?”
“Yes, where?”
Jared never specified what to do about questions that required more than a simple yes or no. It turns out this is not true/false. This is an essay exam.
“Well,” I say, forcing a quick cough, “we’d do most of our hanging out at my house. I mean, sometimes we’d go to his house—I mean, here—if nobody else was here.” She’s about to call me a liar and a phony—I know it. I’ll be thrown out of this house, and then I won’t just be invisible, I’ll be a pariah, too. I’ll be homeschooled and my only connection to the outside world will be social media and email. Oh! “Email,” I say. “We would email a lot, mostly. Sometimes he didn’t want to hang out in person. Which I understood. We had that in common, I guess.”
“We looked through his emails,” Zoe says. “There aren’t any from you.”
Maybe I’m just excited that she’s talking to me again. Maybe that’s why, against my better judgment, I keep stringing more and more words together. “Well, yeah, I mean, that’s because he had a different account. A secret account. I should have said that before. That was probably very confusing. Sorry.”
“Why was it secret?” Zoe asks.
“Why was it secret?” I repeat. Now seems like a good time to start eating. I shovel some rice into my mouth and gesture to the others that I’ll be ready to answer Zoe’s perfectly reasonable question after I’ve swallowed all my food, just because it’s poor etiquette to talk with food in your mouth, as everyone knows, obviously. I swallow and wash it all down with some water.
“It was secret because it was just… he thought it would be more private that way.”
Mrs. Murphy shakes her head. “I told you, Larry. He knew you read his emails.”
“And I don’t regret it,” Mr. Murphy says, reaching for his wine. “Somebody had to be the bad guy.”
They stare at each other, continuing their conversation with silent, powerful words. I look away, allowing them privacy.
“It’s just weird,” Zoe says. “The only time I ever saw you and my brother together was when he shoved you at school last week.”
Shit. She remembers. Of course she remembers.
Mrs. Murphy leans over. “Connor shoved you?”
“I wouldn’t say it like that, Mrs. Murphy. In that way. I tripped, is what really happened.”
“Please, Evan, call me Cynthia.”
“Oh, right, I’m sorry.” Relief at the change of subject. “Cynthia.” I smile at her.
“I was there,” Zoe says. “I saw the whole thing. He pushed you. Hard.”
A drop of sweat falls from my armpit all the way down my torso to the waistband of my jeans. No mere subject change will get me out of this.
“Oh, I remember now,” I say. “About what happened. That was a misunderstanding. Because, the thing was, he didn’t want us to talk at school, and that’s exactly what I did. I tried to talk to him at school. It wasn’t really a big deal, seriously. It was my fault.”
“Why didn’t he want you to talk to him at school?” Zoe says.
It never ends. The more I answer, the more they ask. I have to stop this. But how?
“He didn’t really want anyone to know we were friends,” I tell them. “He was embarrassed, I guess.”
“Why would he be embarrassed?” Mrs. Murphy—I mean, Cynthia—says.
I wipe my forehead with my napkin, not sophisticated but so necessary. “I guess because he thought I was sort of…”
“A nerd?” Zoe says.
“Zoe!” Her father shoots her a look, but Zoe ignores him, not about to let up on me. “Isn’t that what you meant?” she says.
“Loser, I was going to say, actually. But nerd works, too.”
Cynthia places her hand on my arm. “That wasn’t very nice.”
“Well,” Zoe says, “Connor wasn’t very nice, so that makes sense.”
Cynthia sighs. “Connor was… a complicated person.”
“No, Connor was a bad person. There’s a difference.”
“Zoe, please,” Mr. Murphy says.
“Dad, don’t pretend like you don’t agree with me.”
“It’s too hot in here,” Cynthia says, which is exactly what I was thinking.
“I’ll lower the AC,” Mr. Murphy repeats, but he doesn’t leave the table.
I can now appreciate at least one plus side of having divorced parents and never actually sitting down to eat dinner with my mom at home—not having to endure this.
Cynthia wipes her brow. “You refuse to remember any of the good things. Both of you. You refuse to see anything positive.”
“Because there were no good things,” Zoe says. “What were the good things?”
“I don’t want to have this conversation in front of our guest,” Cynthia says.
I drink more water and I keep pretending to drink long after my glass is empty.
“What were the good things, Mom?”
“There were good things,” Cynthia insists.
“Okay, then say what they were. Tell me.”
“There were good things.”
“Yes, you keep saying that. What were they?”
Cynthia doesn’t answer. Mr. Murphy looks down at his plate.
The question hangs in the room, a thick, hot smog that no one can get out from under. I watch them all, struggling to breathe, struggling to be. Struggling.
“I remember a lot of good things about Connor.”
All eyes turn. That was me who just spoke. I said that. Why did I just say that? How did those words come out of my mouth?
“Like what?” Zoe wants to know.
“Never mind,” I say. “I shouldn’t have… I’m sorry.”
“Again you’re sorry,” Zoe says, dismissing my entire existence.
“Go ahead, Evan. You were saying something,” Cynthia says.
“It doesn’t matter. Really.”
“We want to hear what you have to say. Please, Evan.”
I don’t know how to do it, how to let this woman down after all she’s been through. Her heart is in my hands. That’s what it feels like. Even her husband is standing by, all alert, his fork down, just waiting. I glance at the last person at the table: Zoe. Her expression is softer now, as if her curiosity has briefly overpowered her doubt. They need something, this family. They need me to say something that will make them feel better.
“Well,” I begin, “Connor and I had a really great time together, this one day, recently. That’s something good that I remember about Connor. That’s what I keep thinking about. That day. That one day.”
I already know that what I just said won’t be enough. They’ll want more. I keep painting myself into a corner. They want specifics, details. They need them. I’m scrambling for the next tidbit, the whole time staring at that bowl in the middle of the table.
“Apples,” I say, before thinking it through. “We went to the apples… place.” I look up. “Anyway, I knew it was stupid. I don’t know why I even brought it up.” I need to leave. Right now. I squeeze my fists in my lap, my nails digging into my palms. How can I get away from here without being rude?
“He took you to the orchard?” Cynthia says.
I scan her expression. It looks like I’ve touched on something. There’s a new brightness in everyone’s eyes. Their faces encourage me. I can’t leave now. “Yes, he did.”
“When?” Cynthia asks.
“Once. It was just that once.”
“I thought that place closed,” Mr. Murphy says. “Years ago.”
“Exactly, which is why we were so bummed when we got there, because it was totally closed down, and Connor said the apples there were the best.”
Cynthia is smiling, but also tearing up. “We used to go to the orchard all the time. We’d do picnics out there. Remember that, Zoe?”
“Yeah,” Zoe says, her expression somewhere between wistful surprise and forced indifference.
Cynthia looks to her husband across the table. “You and Connor had that little toy plane you would fly. Until you flew it into the creek.”
Mr. Murphy almost smiles. “That was an emergency landing.”
“Oh, Evan, I can’t believe Connor took you there,” Cynthia says. “I bet that was fun. I bet you two had some real fun.”
“We did. The whole day was just… amazing. That was back in the spring, I think.”
“Larry, what was the name of that ice cream place out there we loved?” Cynthia asks.
“À La Mode,” he answers.
“That was it,” she says with genuine appreciation. “À La Mode.”
“That’s where we went, actually,” I say, my enthusiasm getting the better of me. “We got ice cream at that À La Mode place.”
“They had that homemade hot fudge,” Mr. Murphy recalls.
“We would sit in the meadow with all the sycamores,” Cynthia says, smiling at Zoe. “And you and your brother would look for four-leaf clovers.”
“I’d completely forgotten about that place,” Mr. Murphy says.
“Well, I guess Connor didn’t,” Cynthia says. “Isn’t that right, Evan?”
I look at her and then Mr. Murphy and then Zoe, and I release all the air from my chest, and I tell them exactly what they are aching to hear: “That’s right.”
The air releases from their chests, too. It feels that way. There’s relief, real relief, small but tangible, in the room. What I’m doing, what I’m saying, is working, it’s helping, and that’s all I want, to help.
“We would do that sort of thing all the time, actually,” I say, not knowing how to stop myself now. “Just go somewhere and talk.” Like buddies. Like friends. “We’d talk about movies and people at school. We’d talk about girls. You know… just normal stuff. Connor was easy to talk to.”
I see how much my words mean to them. It feels good to make them feel good. It’s the right thing for me to be doing, to be making their hurt go away, even for a moment.
“That one day,” I say, “at the orchard, I remember, we found this field, and collapsed on the grass, and we looked up at the sky, and we just… talked.”
About our lives. Where we were. Where we were going. What would happen after school. We didn’t know exactly. We just knew we’d figure it out. We’d have each other’s backs. Whatever it was…
“…anything seemed possible.”
I pause, thinking I’ve lost them, that I’ve lost myself, but it’s too late now. My mouth forges on without my mind, the words arriving as if they’ve been waiting a lifetime to be spoken.
“And the sun that day, I can picture it, it was so bright. And we were lying there, looking up at the sky. It looked endless, like it went on forever.”
And the tree.
“We saw this tree. This incredibly tall oak tree. Bigger than all the others. We got up and we ran over to it and we started climbing it. We didn’t even think.”
The Murphys climb with me, hanging on my every word.
“We kept climbing. Higher and higher.” Climbing and climbing, almost at the top, but then… “The branch gave way.”
I fell.
“I’m on the ground. My arm is numb. I’m waiting.”
Any second now. Any second now.
“And I look, and I see…”
I see…
“…Connor. He’s come to get me.”
I stop talking, finally. They’re all looking at me, as if waiting for me to say more. But I can hardly comprehend what I’ve already spoken. It’s like I’m waking from a dream. I was sitting here, describing that day, that nightmare day, except it wasn’t that day, not exactly. This time Connor was there. I mean, he wasn’t really there, but in my mind, it was like he was, and all of a sudden that same day wasn’t such a nightmare. It was something else.
In my periphery, I see Cynthia reaching over and then I feel her arms wrapping around me.
“Thank you, Evan,” she says. “Thank you.”
It’s the best feeling. And the worst.
• • •
Zoe follows me out of the house. “I’ll take you home,” she says.
I never thought there’d be an instance where I would deny Zoe Murphy, but all I want right now is to be alone. “You don’t have to.”
“I need to go for a drive. Hop in.”
She loops around the horseshoe driveway and zips out into the street. I thought I’d finally be able to breathe out for the first time in hours, but no. I’m now sitting shotgun in Zoe Murphy’s blue Volvo.
I have literally dreamed about this moment, having a chance to be alone with her like this, just a few inches away. But right now I’m in no condition to be on. Someone, please, turn me off.
The silence is begging me to kill it. “This is a nice car. What is it, German?”
“It’s a piece of crap,” Zoe says. “There’s always something wrong with it.”
The engine growls as Zoe picks up speed. She doesn’t say another word to me the whole ride home, even when I’m telling her which streets to take to my house. The quiet ride gives me the opportunity to review the night and arrive at the assessment that it was a complete and unequivocal failure. At one point, when the speedometer is up past sixty, I imagine unbuckling my belt, pulling the door handle, and tumbling out onto the busy road. What a tragedy.
Once we’re parked outside my unlit house, Zoe finally turns and acknowledges me. “You probably think I’m just a junior and I’m clueless, but I know what’s really going on.”
A frightening sharpness to her expression. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“You and Connor weren’t sending secret emails because you were friends.”
I should have done it, jumped out of the car when I had the chance. “What?”
“I’ve been racking my brain all night trying to figure out why you two would possibly be talking to each other,” Zoe says. “Let me guess. Was it about drugs?”
“Drugs?”
“That’s what he was mad about the other day at lunch, isn’t it? When he pushed you? Be honest with me, please. I just want to know the truth.”
“No. Are you crazy? Me? I would never. That’s not something I’m involved in. I swear.” Finally, a truthful truth.
“Oh yeah? You swear?”
Zoe’s mother keeps showering me with hugs, but Zoe only douses me with suspicion. “I swear.”
She studies me for a moment, and then turns away, making it clear I’m dismissed.
I try to open the door, but it’s locked. She hits a button, but at the same time I’m pulling the handle. I release the handle so she can now unlock the door without my stupid hand getting in the way. When I finally hear that heavenly click, I throw open my door and inhale a whole chestful of fresh air. I shut the door gently behind me and watch her accelerate into the night. How wrong I’ve been about everything from the very start. The worst that could happen. It’s still happening.