The Last Good Day of the Year (14 page)

Noah's chair scrapes against the floor again. “I need air.”

“Noah, stay here.” Darlene reaches for one of his belt loops but misses by inches.

“I need air,” he repeats. Before he leaves the room, he tosses her the car keys. “Don't worry, Mom. I'll come back.”

The moment the heavy metal doors close behind Noah, Sheila suggests a five-minute break. She spends most of it in a corner of the room with her hands on Darlene's shoulders. Even though I can't hear them, I can tell from their body language that Darlene is apologizing for Noah, and Sheila is telling her not to worry about it. I'm sure she's giving her some version of the whole “boys will be boys” line of reasoning, with a twist for the unique circumstances:
something like, “boys who lost a loved one to a senseless and violent death at a young age will be boys who have some issues.”

Sheila wants to move on with the meeting. The break is over; Noah is still outside; Darlene has managed a quick trip to the ladies' room to reapply her lipstick.

“Can I ask you something, Paul?” Mary Shaw's ex-husband killed their son before turning his gun on her and then himself. She was the only survivor. Because of her injuries, her mouth barely moves when she speaks, even though there is otherwise no physical damage to her face. Her brain didn't make a full recovery; somehow it wiped out the filter between her thoughts and her mouth. She'll mention how fat someone has gotten right in front of them, with zero awareness of how insensitive she's being. It's not her fault. At many of these meetings, she flatly states her wish to have not survived the gunshot. She talks about it with the same level of emotion as someone expressing a preference for chocolate ice cream instead of vanilla. “How
do
you think you'll feel? I'm talking about before he dies, when you get to look at him.”

It comes off sounding like pure curiosity, as if she were asking “Does this dress come in any other sizes?” instead of “How will you feel when your daughter's killer meets his maker?”

He answers right away, and it seems as though he's given the question plenty of thought before this moment. “Like my body is a cyst full of pus that's finally bursting open.”

Mary's eyes and mouth do not move. Her voice seems to come from the air. “That sounds wonderful.”

“Sam?” Sheila ventures. “Let's give your dad a break. Do you want to talk about your feelings?” She catches me with a mouthful
of lemon torte, and it occurs to me how morbid it would seem to an outsider: all these people sitting around eating cake while discussing dead children and the pros and cons of state-sanctioned murder. But that's why everyone is in this room tonight: we're the only ones who can understand how it feels. When you've lived with this kind of thing for as long as most of us have, you get used to talking about it. It never gets better or easier, but it does get different. It has to—otherwise most of the people here would be long dead. After a while, the simple act of living would get to be too much.

I don't think anybody has ever asked me how I'll feel once Steven is dead, at least not directly. I try not to think about it. Even though it has been helpful to listen, I've never felt like I wanted to talk about these things as much as most of the people in the group. “I'm okay for now, thanks.”

Mary Shaw leans across the bodies that separate us and speaks loud enough for the janitor mopping the hall outside to hear her: “Samantha, your breasts have gotten huge.” It's off to the bathroom for me.

And there's Noah on the stairs outside the bathroom, playing Tetris on his Nintendo Game Boy with unnecessary intensity, his thumbs moving as though the future of humanity depends on his score. He doesn't look up from the screen. “Making a run for it, are we?”

“And where would I go, exactly? Somewhere with you?”

He smiles, still playing the game. “That didn't go so well the last time, Sam.”

“So? Did you expect it to?”

“I didn't expect to be your chauffeur. At least, that wasn't
all
I expected to be for you.”

“You weren't my chauffeur.”

He rolls his eyes. “Whatever you say, Sam.”

“This isn't cute, Noah. Would you wipe that stupid smile off your face?”

He beams at me. “Your breasts
have
gotten awfully large. One thing about Mary, she calls 'em like she sees 'em.”

“Thanks. You're a real gentleman.”

“And they say chivalry is dead.” He sets the Game Boy aside and promptly loses. The tinny, computer-generated sound of breaking glass builds and then fades away before the screen goes blank and resets.

The fading afternoon sunlight streams through the stained glass window in front of Noah, projecting a mosaic of color onto the beige wall behind him. Each time a car goes by outside, it blocks enough light that all the colors shift and fade momentarily, as if we're inside a kaleidoscope.

“Why are you acting like this?”

“Don't play dumb, Sam.”

“I'm not playing. You're being an asshole.”

“I'm not trying to be an asshole.”

“Well, you're making it seem pretty effortless.”

“You think I'm an asshole because I don't believe we should go around killing people because we think it
might
make us
feel
better?”

“You made my parents cry. You made my dad cry, Noah.”

“I know. I'm sorry.”

“Your mom is in there crying, too, now. Are you happy?”

He smirks at me. “That doesn't strengthen your argument, Sam. I've seen my mother cry over expired yogurt. She's not, like, a pillar of emotional fortitude, in case you hadn't noticed.”

“Can you blame her?”

“No. I don't blame her. But Sam—be honest with me for a minute, okay? Don't you get a little bit sick of all this? And don't pretend you don't know what I mean, because I know you've been through the same things I have, more or less. My mother has spent my whole life holding a perpetual wake. You know that. You've seen the shrine in our house. It got to the point where even my dad couldn't take it.”

“Your father died of cancer, Noah.”

He laughs. “Right. It was some kind of cancer, I guess. They said it was his pancreas, but you know what I think? He just sort of rotted away. By the end, he couldn't wait to get the hell away from her. She's so fucking
sad
all the time, and it's not because she doesn't have a choice, Sam: it's because she doesn't want to be happy. It's easier for her to be miserable, and she doesn't care what it does to the rest of us. My dad didn't even get out of bed for a whole month before he died, but in the last few days he had all this energy; he was so excited, like a kid on Christmas Eve. He practically leaped into the grave.”

“Stop going home, then. You have a dorm room. Stay at college.”

“I'm home for the summer.” He gives me a loaded stare. “You know that.”

“You could still move out. You're nineteen. Get your own apartment.”

He shakes his head. “I can't do that. My mom doesn't have anybody else, Sam.”

“She has the group.”

“Screw the group. I hate coming to these things.”

“Then why did you bother? You drove three hours to get here today, and for what? So you could show up and put all of us in our place? So you could enlighten us about how we're grieving all wrong?”

“That's not why I'm here.”

“Then why did you come? For the lemon torte?”

“No, Samantha. I came to see you.” He reaches out to snatch my hand, and I don't have a chance to pull it away in time. “Meet me somewhere. We need to talk.”

“Now? Where are we supposed to go?”

“Not now. Soon, though.” Noah yanks me a little bit closer. He smells like rotten chicken broth. It's the smell of someone who hasn't showered or changed his clothes in days. His pupils are so dilated that, aside from a slim thread of color around their edges, I can barely make out his green irises. “My mom is going to visit my aunt Laurie in Florida at the end of the month. I'm driving her to the airport. I'll have her car for a whole week.”

“I still don't have my license. You'll have to drive all the way to Shelocta. It's a long drive.”

Squeezing my hand more tightly now, trying without success to stop his own fingers from trembling, Noah says, “I know that, Sam.”

“What's the matter with you? Did something happen?” The Noah I remember is nothing like the panicked kid staring up at me. He was polite and soft-spoken. He was an honor roll student and a varsity baseball player. His biggest screw-up in nineteen years had been … well, I guess it was me.

“I'll tell you. Promise you'll meet me, Sam, and then I'll tell you everything.”

“Noah …”

“Promise me.” Even his eyelashes are dirty, littered with tiny crusts of sleep.

“Fine. I promise.”

January 1987

I tried to hide the day we moved away. My parents were busy loading our things into the U-Haul. Along with Remy's parents, several other neighbors volunteered to help without being asked: Ed Tickle showed up with a dolly and some extra boxes; Darla cleaned out our fridge and mopped our floors, which were covered in muddy footprints by the end of the day; Mrs. Souza, in a rare gesture of humanity, brought over a pan of homemade manicotti. It was January, and the weather was bone-cold. Remy and I hid in the playhouse. We huddled beneath a blanket in our winter coats, holding on to each other's mittened hands and keeping quiet when we heard our parents calling our names. I don't know what we expected to accomplish; it wasn't as if we actually believed our plan would work.

It was Abby who found us. I don't remember where Gretchen
was that day, but she must have been around. Abby was in her yard, smoking a cigarette, when she noticed my face as I peered at her through the playhouse window. She wasn't wearing a coat when she came in and crawled underneath the blanket to sit between us on the floor. She must have been freezing.

“You have to go with them, Sam. Your mom and dad are waiting.” She could have told my parents where I was hiding instead of dealing with it herself. I don't know why she bothered trying to comfort us. It was the first time she'd ever been even remotely kind to me, and I didn't know how to react.

“Why can't I stay here and live with Remy?” He squeezed my hand more tightly beneath the blanket when I asked the question.

“Because you have to do what your parents say. I know it sucks, but that's how it goes.”

“But I want to stay.”

“I know you do, kiddo, but it's not up to you.” She reached over to wipe my tears, and I flinched as though I expected her to hit me. She didn't try to touch me again after that.

We heard my father shouting my name from the back porch, and I knew he or my mom would find us any minute; we didn't exactly have the best hiding place. When I think about it now, it's obvious they knew where to find us the whole time.

“It will be easier if you don't fight it,” Abby said. “Trust me.”

But we wouldn't listen; her words just made me cling more tightly to Remy. When she finally gave up and left, it was only another minute or two before my dad came knocking at the playhouse door.

It took both of our fathers to pry us apart as we screamed and
kicked and held on to each other as tightly as we could with fingers numb from the cold. Once they managed to separate us, my dad threw me over his shoulder and carried me to the U-Haul. Remy watched from his living room window as we drove away, crying and waving until we turned out of sight. It was no proper good-bye for two kids who'd known each other all their lives. My arms were scratched and bleeding from where Remy had tried to keep hold of me.

We weren't yet out of town when I had an idea. “What if Turtle comes back and we aren't home? How will she find us?”

Remember, I was seven. I knew Steven was in prison for my sister's murder, but she'd been alive the last time I saw her.

Beside me in the tiny backseat, Gretchen grabbed my wrist and squeezed so hard that I had a bruise the next morning. “Shut up, Samantha. Turtle's never coming back. She's dead.”

“Don't say that!”

“Why not? It's true. She's dead. She's gone forever. Right, Mom? Tell Samantha it's true. Tell her.”

Our mother didn't answer. Our dad turned up the radio to drown out the sound of our voices. Gretchen stopped talking and stared out the window, and I fell asleep shortly after we pulled onto the highway. As I dozed off, I thought I heard her speaking softly to herself, although it might have been a dream. But I could have sworn I heard her whisper, repeating the same sentence over and over again:
This can't be how it ends. This can't be how it ends. This can't be how it ends
.