It Looks Like This (26 page)

In my head I count backward and forward, backward and forward, one two three four five four three two one two three four five. Up and down, staring at the dirt on my shoes.

The bushes are just outside a low wrought-iron fence at the edge of the cemetery.

Behind me a few steps is the sidewalk and then the road, but the bushes are big enough to hide most of me. If someone really looked from the road, they could probably spot me.

No one looks.

The funeral has been set up farther along, maybe a hundred feet from where the little parking spaces are. It’s a big crowd, bigger than my field of vision through the leaves.

But I can see the middle of it, the coffin, the folding chairs right next to it where Sean’s parents must be, the portable podium where Pastor Clark is now speaking.

His voice carries but the wind covers most of the words. I only catch a few of them:

call

dust

Heaven

Lord God

loss

young

taken

love

love

love

Something about that word gets to me, and for a second I forget myself and stand up.

When I do, I move past the leaves and can see the whole crowd, and there are Mom and Dad, sitting a couple rows back on the opposite side.

I get back down really fast, quicker than I knew I could move. But in that bit of a second, I thought I saw Dad looking in my direction.

I hold my breath. Wait. And then, very slowly. One leaf at a time. I peel just enough of them back so I can see the spot where they sit.

Dad is facing Pastor Clark, all attention on the speaker.

I breathe out slowly, a long, wheezy sigh that comes from the bottom of my lungs, and realize I’m a little disappointed.

Pastor Clark is done for now. He steps aside as a very old black woman climbs up to speak.

Her voice sounds like rustling leaves and I hear none of it.

When she finishes, Pastor Clark says something quickly, an instruction, and everyone stands.

The coffin starts sinking into the earth, and it takes everything in me to stop myself from getting up, from running over and stopping it, from keeping Sean above the ground.

Sean’s parents are the last to stand, but they alone move once they’re up. They walk slowly to the hole with the mahogany coffin. His mom holds out her hand in a fist and even from here I can see it shaking.

She opens her hand and spills dirt onto the coffin and there’s a sound like a low, rising wail. It takes me a second to be sure it’s her making it, it just sounds so awful and different from any sound I knew a person could make. Some of the tension leaves my body.

One by one, others come forward with their own clumps of dirt.

I sit back down, closing my eyes. Just for a break.

In my own dark I can still hear the rustling of movement, chairs being pushed aside, mutterings of consolation, the horrible sounds of Sean’s mother.

Then footsteps, too close to be part of the funeral.

I open my eyes and Dad is striding toward me, Mom behind, and I can feel the heat of his anger on me like a radiator.

He’s still a few feet away when he hisses,

What the hell are you doing here?

like he can’t get to me quick enough.

I say, I’m here for Sean’s funeral.

The words are out before I know I’m thinking them and I’m surprised how strong my voice sounds.

Dad is right up against the fence. He holds the top with both hands tight, really tight.

He says, You need to get out of here. Now.

I say, No.

He says, Don’t you tell me no! Turn around and walk home now, before anyone sees you.

Mom is looking back and forth at us. Her eyes are wild.

I say, I’m staying.

Dad says, Goddamnit, Mike,

and his hands shake a little,

Do you think Sean’s parents want to see you?

Dad’s voice rises unsteadily like he can’t control it, like he’s trying to shout and not shout at the same time. Over his shoulder I can see a few people looking at us.

He speaks through clenched teeth:

Now get. Your ass. Home.

A couple people are moving toward us, slowly, but I keep my eyes on Dad.

I say, I’m going home after I see his grave.

Dad breathes deeply through his nose, nostrils flaring.

He says, If you don’t turn and walk away right now, buddy, you’ll be back at that camp again. For the rest of the school year.

His voice is just above a whisper. I can’t remember when I’ve seen him this angry.

I glare at Dad, neither of us blinking.

I think for a second about staying at that camp for another four or five months. I think about all the rules, about Pastor Landis, about the other scared, sad kids. I think about repeating ninth grade and being a year behind all my friends, and how much I would hate that. And I can’t help it, it almost makes me change my mind.

But I think about what Ronald’s mom said.

I open my mouth to say no, I’m staying and I don’t care what happens, and then my eyes flick over his shoulder.

Sean’s mom is a few feet away, walking toward us cautiously, like she’s not sure what she’s seeing. Behind her is Sean’s dad, keeping his distance, watching his wife helplessly. He looks so old.

This close I can see the details of her black dress, her veil that doesn’t quite cover the puffy red eyes. Those eyes are the saddest thing I’ve ever seen, but there’s something just behind them, mostly blocked by grief but still just visible: something hard that scares me.

Dad follows my eyes and turns around right as Sean’s mom says,

What’s the matter here?

Her voice is raspy, dried out from sobbing.

Dad is quick:

I’m so sorry, Mrs. Rossini, Mike was just leaving.

She says, Leaving.

In a kind of distracted way. She glances at me, and I suddenly realize what the look in her eyes is. It’s the same thing I see in Toby sometimes.

Dad says, Yes, of course, we weren’t planning on bringing him. He walked from home.

She looks at me just a bit longer, then back at Dad.

Dad says, I’ll drive him home now. I’m so very, very sorry for the disrupt —

She cuts in, What disruption?

Dad raises his eyebrows but doesn’t know how to answer.

Sean’s mom says, Is he back from that camp now?

I blink. The question is so unexpected. Dad seems taken aback too for a second, but he recovers quickly.

He says, Just for now, yes.

She says, Then he’s going back?

Her voice changes with this, becomes lower. Out of nowhere I think of Madison, my friend Kris’s cat back in Sheboygan Falls. Madison really liked Kris’s mom, rubbing up against her legs and meowing softly whenever she came home. But she hated Kris. Kris didn’t really like her back and would pull at her tail until Madison’s meows would get lower and lower. Like a warning.

Dad senses it, too, and hesitates before he says, Yes, probably for a longer time.

Sean’s mom glances back at me just for the quickest fraction of a second, but I see it again: the something else in her eyes, the something harder taking over and covering the sadness.

She says, My son is dead.

Her voice is almost a whisper but still it’s the only sound, cold and powerful.

She says, I would . . .

She trails off and looks away. We all watch her.

Nothing happens, and I think she’s just going to leave it at that. But then she whispers:

I would trade anything in this world for him to be here.

She looks up, turns her gaze to Dad, then to Mom. Mom shrinks back from that look.

She says, And you, you still have your son. What for? You could spend as much time as you wanted with him, but you’re going to send him away instead.

She speaks every word slowly, carefully, quietly. Mom looks back, terrified.

Mrs. Rossini says, Do you know what I would do if Sean were still here?

Mom and Dad look back, frozen.

She says, I would love him.

There’s just quiet after this. Then she turns and walks back toward Sean’s dad. He reaches out an arm to put around her shoulder. She shoves the arm away and walks past him without a glance.

His face sags as he watches her go. He stands that way a long, long time.

Then, slowly, he walks after his wife.

Mom stares after him with an expression I can’t read.

Dad looks lost. He gazes at nothing for a moment, then seems to notice the people at the funeral. Almost everyone is watching us now.

Dad’s face turns red and he mutters, Jesus Christ.

Mom turns around at his voice slowly, as if coming out of a daydream.

Dad says, Okay, let’s go.

He starts to move.

Mom says, No.

Her voice is small, quiet.

Dad stops and stares at her. I look at her too. Neither of us knows what to say. Mom still has that unreadable expression, something I’ve never seen before.

She says, Mike hasn’t gone to see the grave yet.

Dad’s eyes widen and his face turns redder.

He says, Are you joking?

Mom says, No.

And her voice is a little stronger now. She looks back at Dad steadily, but there’s still fear in her eyes.

He glances back at the crowd by the gravestone.

Dad says, They’re watching —

Mom says, They’re watching us make the same mistake Sean’s parents made.

Dad winces a bit.

He says, But they all . . . they all know, Caroline, they’ll all say —

Mom takes a step forward right up to Dad, eyes still on his so she has to tilt her head back a little and says,

Ffffffuck — What they have to say.

It comes out like that, pushed out through all those
F
’s so that it pops at Dad, at all of us, the rest of the sentence not spoken but hissed with more force than I’ve ever heard from Mom even in her angriest, and her eyes are so intense and wild, and the fear is there even more.

And I realize that fear isn’t of Dad but for me.

Dad stares back, mouth barely open, breath held.

Mom says, Mike is going to see Sean’s grave.

And something in Dad gives. I can actually see his face and shoulders sag, hopeless, helpless. His breath lets out slowly in a low moan.

He tries to say Okay, but no sound comes out.

Mom turns to me.

She says, Come on, Mike,

and holds out her hand.

I realize I’m shaking.

I climb over the fence in a kind of clumsy way and jump to the ground on the other side, feet making a soft thud on the mushy grass, and I take Mom’s hand.

Mom leads me toward the grave site. Her steps are quick and regular.

Mine are halting at first, but then they fall into rhythm with Mom’s.

There are still a few people there. I don’t look at them. Sean’s grave is ahead and I look at that.

Mom pulls me along by my hand, and for just a second I remember what it felt like when she lifted me with that same hand into the breeze from Lake Michigan and the Milwaukee sunset.

Then she stops, still several feet from the grave and the black rectangular hole in the ground.

She stands behind me, hands on my shoulders.

She whispers, Okay, sweetie. Go ahead.

And I feel the gentlest nudge.

I stand there for a second.

Then I walk forward.

The hole gapes wider as I get closer. The gravestone is fresh, clean, white marble.

It says
SEAN MARCUS ROSSINI.

I trace each letter with my eyes, taking in each curve in the engravings. I think about the years of wind and rain and ice and heat that will smooth out the sharp points, fill the letters with hardened dirt, make cracks that snake across the words and eventually crumble and destroy this thing that looks so solid and unbreakable.

But right now it’s fresh, the gravestone and mahogany casket and the sweet smell of the earth and perfect angles of this rectangle hole, everything’s fresh except the only thing that matters.

I look down into the hole, at the wood that’s still visible under a few clumps of hand-dropped dirt.

And I say good-bye to Sean.

School isn’t so bad.

Everyone knows everything, I can tell as soon as I get there Monday.

But I already knew they would.

A few kids snicker when they see me. There are whispers too, trails of them that I can just hear when I walk past.

A lot of kids stare at me in the halls or in class, kids I don’t even know, and for the most part I ignore it. I ignore a lot about school, because it’s easier just to think about nothing.

But sometimes I do look, and what I see in the eyes staring back at me isn’t always bad. There’s some curiosity.

And, just once, a faint smile. Just enough for me to notice.

Ronald seems different.

It’s Tuesday. He’s walking with me down the hall to Biology.

He did the same thing yesterday, with some of my classes too. I mean we used to walk together if we were going in the same direction, but since I got back he’s been doing it even when his classes are in some other wing. Right now I know he has PE and the gym is way at the other end of the school. I don’t ask him about it, though.