See You at Harry's (12 page)

After my shower, I go back to my room and gather my stuff for school, then head downstairs. It feels so strange to be the only one up. I go to the kitchen and put an English muffin in the toaster, then pour myself some orange juice. By the time my muffin is ready, I check the clock again. It’s almost seven. I can’t believe I’m still the only one awake. There is definitely going to be a fight for the shower.

I put my dishes in the dishwasher and go back upstairs. The bathroom is still open, so I go in and brush my teeth. When I turn the water off, I hear the distinct sound of an angry Sara.

“Hey! Why didn’t anyone wake me up!”

I step into the hallway. She’s standing in the door to her bedroom.

“Charlie decided to sleep in,” I say.

“And you didn’t think to get me up? If you want a ride, you have to help out!”

“Sorry! I didn’t —”

Holden opens his own door. “Don’t even think about going in next,” he says.

They both dash for the bathroom, but Holden gets in first.

“MOM!” Sara runs down the hall and slams her fist on my parents’ door.

My mom finally opens it, hugging her bathrobe to her chest. “Where’s Charlie?” she asks.

“He’s still asleep. Fern got up but didn’t bother to wake anyone else, and now we’re all going to be late.”

My mom sighs. “I think we’ll all survive.”

Wow. She didn’t blame me for something. She pads down the hall to Charlie’s room in her bare feet and peeks in. “It’s a miracle he’s sleeping through all this,” she says, coming back out to the hall.

“I’m not going to be able to drive them to school,” Sara says.

“Why not?”

“I haven’t showered!”

“But you’ve taken us before without showering.”

“Well, not today.”

“Just relax,” my mom says. “I can manage. Though why they can’t take the bus I still don’t understand.”

Sara shoots me a look.

I follow my mom back downstairs. She gets the coffee going and starts cutting up some orange slices for Charlie’s breakfast. They look good. Soon my dad comes bounding down the stairs in a T-shirt and enormous sweatpants with a gym bag. He kisses my mom on the cheek and says he’ll shower at the gym. The gym is a new experience for my dad. He discovered it’s a great place to give his sales pitch to local businessmen. Holden joked that seeing my dad naked in the sauna was sure to be a business turnoff, but no one but me saw the humor.

“Guess we better wake Charlie if I’m going to take you to school,” my mom says, downing the rest of her coffee. I put my books in my backpack and sit in the living room to wait. I hear the water in the bathroom shut off and start again, meaning Holden is out and Sara is in.

And then I hear the strangest sound I’ve ever heard. It sounds like
no
and
help
at the same time. It sounds like an animal trying to speak human. It sounds like it is dying.

I stand up.

“Mom?”

I hear it again.

It’s her.

I run up the stairs.

“Mom?”

Holden is in the hallway, his hair still wet.

“What was that noise?” he asks.

I run past him and stop at the door to Charlie’s room.

My mom is on Charlie’s bed, rocking him.

“What’s wrong?” I ask. But already I can feel something. Something squeezing my heart into a stone. Charlie doesn’t look right. He’s gray and still. His brown curls hang dully over my mom’s arm. Her face is buried in his hair. She’s saying something, but I can’t make out the words.

“Oh, my God,” Holden says behind me. “I’m calling 911.” He runs back down the hall.

I don’t move. I just stare at my mom holding Charlie. Rocking him and making that strange, awful noise.

The water in the shower stops. Holden’s voice is back in the hallway. “Sara, get out here! Something’s wrong with Charlie!”

He pushes past me and runs to my mom and Charlie, but stops when he touches him and pulls his hand away.

“Oh, my God,” he says. “Oh, my God! Oh, my God!”

My mom is sobbing into Charlie’s head.

My heart is twisting, twisting, twisting inside my chest and up into my throat. I can’t move. I can’t move.

Sara comes up behind me wrapped in a towel.

“What’s going on?”

Holden stands up and staggers as if he’s lost his balance. I hold on to the door frame to keep myself from falling. Sara rushes to my mom and Charlie and has the same reaction as Holden. She collapses at my mom’s feet and puts her arms around Charlie and my mom, as if she is holding them together.

“He’s so cold,” she sobs.

“Oh my God, oh my God,” Holden keeps saying.

“Mom!” Sara yells.

But my mom doesn’t respond. She just cries harder into Charlie’s quiet face.

“Call 911!” Sara yells at me. “Don’t just stand there!”

“I already called,” Holden says quietly, just as we begin to hear sirens in the distance.

Sara looks back at my mom and Charlie.

She touches him again, sobbing. “No! No!’

I know what it means.

Holden moves past us and goes down the stairs. We hear his panicked voice shouting to someone outside. Then the thud of heavy feet coming through the house and up the stairs. Someone pulls me back out of the doorway. I lean against the wall in the hall, and I realize I still have my backpack on. I slip it off and slide to the floor. I can’t feel anything but my twisted-up heart, squeezing, squeezing. Everything around me is loud and pounding. My mom is sobbing. Then screaming. Then sobbing. Soothing voices from the EMTs. Questions. I hug my knees to my chest.

Charlie. Oh, Charlie. Please be OK.

But the more time goes by, the quieter the voices get. And I know. I know he’s gone. As my mother’s cries turn to whimpers, I can’t stand it anymore.

I get up.

And I run.

I
RUN WITHOUT THINKING
where I’m going. Halfway to nowhere I stop and throw up. Up and up and up, as if my heart is coming up out of my chest. Up and up until I am doubled over and hurling in pain but not crying. Not crying.

Not crying because that would mean . . .

That would mean . . .

I wipe my mouth with my sleeve and find my way to the pine cave. But instead of going under, I start to pull on the branches. I break one, then two. I kick the trunk and feel the pain sear through my leg and up to my stomach. But then a numbness takes over. And there’s a ringing in my ears.
No no no no no.

I push the palms of my hands against my ears to shut it out. The lights from the ambulance in the driveway flash on and on. I close my eyes and finally sink down onto the cold ground. Pine needles stick to the palms of my hands. I squeeze my knees to my chest and make myself a stone, but I can’t escape myself. Can’t escape the truth creeping into my chest where my heart used to be. I keep shaking my head against it, but the truth is filling me up so fast I can’t breathe.

There’s a beeping sound as the ambulance backs up. I can see Holden and Sara standing in the driveway, watching them take Charlie away.

I listen to the motor get farther away until it’s gone, and the door to the house slams shut, and the neighborhood goes from quiet to busy as the commuters leave home for another workday. I hear the school bus stop in the distance and pull away again.

And then, after a long, long time, I hear someone calling my name.

H
OLDEN’S FEET APPEAR
near a broken branch. His shoes aren’t tied.

“Fern,” he finally says. “You have to come home.”

But I don’t move.

“Fern. Now.”

His knees bend, and then his face pokes in. It’s swollen from crying.

“Come on.”

But it takes his hand reaching for mine and pulling me out to get me to move.

When we reach the front door, he lets go of my hand.

“They said they think it was something called an epidural hematoma,” he says quietly. “Some kind of blood clot in his brain or . . . I don’t know. They don’t think he felt any pain.”

And he walks into the house, leaving me on the doorstep.

I don’t know what an epidural hema-whatever is. All I can picture is Charlie. Charlie in his bed this morning, the covers pulled up so all I could see was his curly hair. And Doll, sitting on the pillow next to his head, where she always keeps watch.

Stepping inside the house feels like walking into darkness. Holden and Sara are both sitting on the couch. Holden stares at the coffee table. Sara is crying into a pillow. I slowly walk to the empty oversize armchair that only my mom sits in, usually with Charlie curled up in her lap. When I sink into the chair, I feel myself waiting for him to come tearing into the room. “That’s Mommy’s chair!” he would yell, then crawl into my lap and pretend I was Mom. I close my eyes and wait for him to come. Wait for his sharp baby voice. For the brush of his stinky hair on my face. For the smell of Doll as he makes room for her next to me. For the feel of his pudgy hands squeezing my wrist. And his voice, “Read to me, Ferny. I love you, Ferny,” as he snuggles his head into my neck and reaches for my ear.

I wait and wait. But my lap stays empty.

Everything is empty.

L
ATER, THE FRONT DOOR OPENS
, and my dad and mom walk in. My dad has his arm around my mom’s waist. Sara and Holden both stand up to go to her, but my dad waves them off and leads her through the living room and up the stairs. When he comes back down, he sits next to Holden and puts his hand on his knee. He breathes in and opens his mouth as if he’s about to speak, but nothing comes out. Sara moves closer to him and leans into his side. He puts his free arm around her and makes a choking sound.

Sara lifts her head and looks at my dad. “Why?” she asks.

My dad shakes his head. His voice is so quiet, it’s like a whisper. “They think that whatever happened is related to when he fell yesterday.”

Flashes of Charlie lying so still on the pavement flick through my mind. How he looked up at me through his tears. But then he jumped right up! He was fine!

“They think he must have hit the back of his head,” my dad says. “And it caused a blood clot that went to his brain. If . . . If we had just taken him to the hospital yesterday . . . Maybe . . . Oh God . . .”

Holden looks at me. “How hard did he fall, Fern?”

Sara and my dad are looking at me now, too.

The Big Bad Wolf.

“He . . .” I start to say. “I didn’t see . . .” My face starts to burn. I can feel them accusing me. I let him run in the parking lot. It’s all my fault.

“He was OK!” I say desperately. “He got right up! He ran! He — he wasn’t even hurt!”

“Then
why
? How could this happen?” Holden stands up and starts pacing, pressing his fingers against his temples.

“They said these kinds of injuries are some sort of fluke,” my dad explains. “The brain can hit against the skull just the wrong way and cause a concussion. Or something.”

“I didn’t know he was going to run!” I yell. “I didn’t know he was playing a game with me! He just took off!”

They all stare at me.

My body is tingling all over. I feel like I am turning inside out.

“We know, Fern,” my dad says. “It’s not your fault.”

“He just ran away from me! I didn’t know what he was doing!”