Fourteen
I don’t know how long I stood there, in that nowhere place. Long enough for the dark around me to get deeper and quieter, the faint, far-off light from houses in town disappearing as people ended their day. Long enough for Mr. Reynolds’s pickup to drive by again, its big headlights catching me as it passed. I moved back but it was too late. The truck slowed down, pulling off the road and onto the gravel before stopping right in front of me.
The headlights shone into my eyes and I looked away as I heard the whir of a window rolling down.
“Meggie?”
“Joe?” I said, surprised. “You’re driving your dad’s truck.”
“Yeah. He’s working, so I figured it’d be nice not to have to bum rides everywhere. What are you doing? I swear I saw you out here when I drove by before.”
“Did you just say ‘here’ with a Southern accent?”
“What?” He got out of the truck. He was wearing jeans, dark blue and new-looking except for grass stains on the knees, and a gray T-shirt. One of his sneakers was untied. He was so good-looking it seemed like words needed to be invented to describe him. Something like gorgeosity. Or hotiful.
“Here,” I said again.
“Here?”
“Yeah.” He did have a bit of an accent, a kind of drawl over his vowels. So that’s what six months in military school got you. I smiled, imaging that on a brochure. We Change Everything—Even The Way You Talk!
“Okay,” he said. “You’ve been drinking, right?”
“No. Why would I . . . oh. Because your dad does, you think everyone—”
“Nice,” he said, and got back in the truck, slamming the door. “Real nice.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I wasn’t thinking. I was just—I was just talking.”
And I was. Joe was affecting me in a very weird way. Before the crash he was JOE and I couldn’t do anything around him except stare. I’d spent so much time having feelings I knew were stupid because he looked like he did and I looked like Bonezilla that actually talking to him was something I’d never been able to do more than think about. But now that all those feelings were gone, now that I looked at him and just saw a guy, it was like my brain didn’t know what to do with itself. And since we didn’t have any connection, since he’d never seen who I used to be, since we’d never really spoken, I was apparently able to talk. To say whatever came to mind without checking to make sure it was something I was supposed to say.
I was able to just be me—the me who I was now.
“Talking, right,” Joe said. “You and everyone else. ‘Oh, look, there goes Joe. Just got home—wonder how long it’ll take him to end up like his dad?’”
“People don’t say that.”
He looked at me.
“Okay, maybe some of them do. But not everyone does. Like Tess down at the dealership—people like her, they’re more into your face and stuff. I mean, when you first got back all Mom did at dinner was bitch about how Tess took two-hour lunch breaks to meet you until you . . . you know. Moved on.”
“My face and stuff?” He rested his head against the steering wheel. “Crap, you are drunk. Get in and I’ll drive you home.”
“I don’t want to go home.”
“Yeah, well, life sucks that way sometimes.”
There wasn’t much I could say to that, so I got in the truck. We drove in silence till we got back into town.
“I hate this fucking place,” he muttered as we began to drive by houses.
“So why did you come back?”
He glanced at me. “I was tired of getting up at four a.m. to pretend I was in the army and didn’t want to do it for real after I graduated. Plus it’s really hot in Alabama.”
“Oh.”
He tapped the steering wheel with one hand as we turned onto our street. “No one—no one ever even came to visit me when I was there. It was like when Beth died my parents just . . . they stopped, you know? Everything fell apart.”
“So you came back to—what? Make sure they saw you?”
“No. Maybe.” He blew out a breath. “We’re here.”
“I told you I didn’t want to go home.”
“Fine. Then you’ll have to sit in my driveway and hope your parents don’t see you.”
“Fine.”
“Okay,” he said, and pulled into his driveway, parked the truck. I could hear frogs and crickets chirping in the yard as he opened his door and said, “See you around.”
“Wait,” I said, and he paused, half out of the truck. “How come you haven’t asked me about the crash? You’re about the only person in town who hasn’t.”
“It’s not like everyone doesn’t know the story already,” he said, and slid back into the truck, pulling the door closed and looking over at me. “Besides, between the thing with the roof and then tonight with you standing out in the middle of nowhere . . . I don’t know. You seem a little . . . different than you were before.”
“I—I am,” I said. “But most people don’t see that. They look at me and they don’t even see me. They just see this thing, you know?” I shook my head. “Never mind.”
“They see what happened with the plane and not you.”
I looked over at him, surprised. “Yeah.”
“Before Beth . . . before she died, people looked at me and saw what happened to my dad, what he did at Reardon Logging. And then, afterwards, they just saw her, a girl who died because no one in her family could stop fucking up long enough to be there for her.”
He was silent for a moment, and so was I.
“You aren’t going to say that’s not true,” he finally said.
I shook my head, because he was right and I saw no reason to lie to him. No reason to pretend.
“It sucks,” he said. “People here look at you and see all kinds of stuff, not about you, but about your family, and all you want is for them to look at you and see true.”
“See true?”
“See you. Who you really are.”
I nodded. “I didn’t—I didn’t know you were like this.”
“Like what?” he said, his voice suddenly sharp. “That I can think?”
“Well, yeah. I mean, no, not like that. I know you think. It’s just you’re so—I mean, you’ve seen yourself in a mirror. Guys like you—”
“Guys like me graduate from their shitty military school and have their grandmother box up their stuff and put it out on the lawn when they won’t join the army. Guys like me come home and realize we’re not wanted by our own family. Guys like me are lucky to get a job, especially considering what their old man did, but pity goes a long way and everyone likes to tell them that. Guys like me end up sitting in their driveway talking to someone who runs around at night climbing up onto roofs or standing by the side of the road.”
“Does this whole pissed-off thing usually work for you with girls? Because I’m not getting it at all.”
He laughed, a startled sound, and then grinned. “I—you’re the first girl I’ve actually talked to in a long time. Usually it’s . . . you know.”
“Oh. Right. So when you stopped, were you—I mean, did I mess up plans you had or anything?”
He shook his head. “Nah. I was just visiting someone.” He tapped his fingers against the steering wheel. “Did you mean what you said about how people see you?”
I nodded.
“So tonight and the other night . . . ?”
“I—I can’t stand being Megan The Miracle. I’m not—it’s not me. Do you know what I mean?”
He nodded and I looked out the windshield. My parents’ bedroom light was on. I could see the curtains drawn back, see my father’s face looking out at the road. I could feel his worry and my mother’s calling me home, reminding me of what I was supposed to be. What I was.
I opened the truck door. “I gotta go. My parents are waiting up for me. Thanks for the ride.”
He didn’t say anything, but I thought I heard his truck door open and then close as I was walki
ng down his driveway. I looked back when I reached the end, but the porch light had been turned off, and I couldn’t see where he was.
Fifteen
I went to school even earlier than usual the next morning. I had to. Going downstairs and seeing David at the kitchen table reminded me why I’d left last night. I said I wasn’t hungry, that I needed to get going.
David wouldn’t look at me when I told him goodbye.
I went to the girls’ locker room like I usually did and sat on the floor by the door. I stared up at the ceiling, counting the dots on each tile. My head felt heavy, and I leaned against the wall. I started counting dots out loud and then somehow I was in the kitchen at home.
Something had happened to the floor, and when I looked down I saw there wasn’t a floor at all, just dirt. It was cool and dry against my feet. I wiggled my toes and wondered what had happened to my shoes.
“Megan,” a voice said, and I looked up. Carl was waiting for me at the stove.
“I know you heard me,” he said. “Why did you let go of my hand?”
I backed away, my feet sliding in the dirt and catching on hidden rocks. I could smell pine trees all around me. Carl came closer.
I didn’t want him to. I didn’t even want to see him. I tried to turn away but behind me everything was on fire, ground to sky glowing red-orange. I tried to scream, but couldn’t because my mouth was full of water. I looked up and rain washed over me, the sky moving closer, the fire reaching for me, and Carl was right there, his hand—
I woke up then, a sudden, panicked jolt into alertness that left me shaking.
It was a dream.
I’d dreamed, I’d just fallen asleep, but what I’d seen had been so real that I could still feel the dirt against my feet. See Carl waiting for me. I took a deep breath and ran a hand over my face. It was wet with tears.
I left school then. I hadn’t cried since I’d woken up in the hospital. I hadn’t cried when I first got home and stood in the bathroom wondering if I was dead. I hadn’t cried when I realized I wasn’t a miracle at all. I hadn’t cried when I realized my parents didn’t want to see that something was wrong with me.
But now I was crying, and couldn’t seem to stop. I could hear myself making noises, raw, hurt sounds, and I couldn’t seem to stop them either.
I wiped my eyes as I got in my car and wished I could go somewhere that would make me whole again. But it wasn’t going to happen because just driving was terrifying and painful; the trees made me tense, and seeing the hills off in the distance made me hunch over, holding the steering wheel so tight my hands ached.
I bit the inside of my mouth hard, using the pain to stop my tears, to quiet myself, and tried to focus. Why had I cried now? I’d seen Carl before, dreamed of him and fire and the forest. Maybe it was what he’d said about his hand, maybe I’d . . .
I couldn’t think anymore—wouldn’t—because I knew something really bad, like back in the gym or worse, was going to happen if I kept going. The church was up ahead, just around the corner, and I pulled into the office parking lot, shaking so hard my teeth were chattering.
I rested my head on the steering wheel and slid my shaking, sweaty hands under my knees, feeling them tremble hard and fast even though I was now sitting on them.
I felt like I was going to die, and I didn’t want to.
Realizing that only made everything worse. All I could think was that I could die, that I might die right here, right now, and my teeth started chattering harder, almost violently, my whole body shaking so hard it almost hurt. Something was wrong with me, so wrong, and I thought about my dream, Carl reaching for me as the fire moved closer . . .
“Megan.” I looked up, startled, and saw Margaret peering at me through the driver’s side window.
“I don’t mind if you want to sit out here,” she said, “but you’ll need to be out of the parking lot by two because we’re having it resurfaced.” She paused for a second and then said, “Why don’t you come inside and sit down? You seem a little upset and I can call your mother or father and have them come get you.”
“No.” That was the last thing I wanted, to have to be Miracle Megan right now. “I—can I just come in and sit down for a minute? I just . . . I need to . . . I need to not be in the car right now.”
She nodded and so I got out of the car and went inside.
Margaret’s office was small; it had a desk that held a computer and printer, two chairs, and a small bookcase filled with monthly Bible guides that the church sold. Some of them dated back to before my parents were born.
“Here,” she said and pointed at the chair on the other side of her desk. “Sit.”
I sat, and she left and came back with a glass of water. She gave it to me and then got out her purse and dug around in it for a while before handing me an old-fashioned peppermint candy, a red and white swirled circle wrapped in plastic. “Eat this. I thought I had a candy bar in here but the Gaines girl must have taken it last Sunday after the service. If her mother would stop telling her she needs to lose ten pounds, she’d probably stop running around taking candy out of people’s purses when she’s supposed to be setting up the covered dish supper.”
“Emily Gaines?” Emily was a very pretty tenth grader who was almost as awfully thin as I used to be. If she lost ten pounds, she’d be nothing but Barbie hair and bones.
“Yep. Finish your water.” She sat down at her desk and started typing. “No school today?”
I put the glass on the floor by my chair, looking down as I did. “I—I’m doing a special project. So I get to leave early.”
“Nine in the morning is pretty early.”
I shrugged. Her fingers flew over the keys. “You type really fast.”
“That I do. You’re practically born knowing how to type now, but when I grew up we all had to take typing and didn’t pass unless we typed sixty words a minute. I got along fine till computers came along and then . . . well, you can guess what kind of adjustment that was.”
I nodded, even though I couldn’t. I couldn’t even picture not having computers, and the only time I’d seen a typewriter was in an old movie I had to watch for school in seventh grade.
When Margaret was done, she printed out a couple of pages and got up, motioned for me to follow her. “You can help me make the bulletin for next week’s service.”
We photocopied pages on a tiny copier that jammed a lot and then folded the bulletins. It took forever because Margaret said I didn’t line the edges up right. When we were done we took them over to the church and put them on a table in the hallway just inside the front door, and then Margaret said she’d make me lunch.
I said, “Okay.”
When we got to her house, she made me drink another glass of milk. I got up to look at the plants in her living room and dumped half of it on them while she made peanut butter sandwiches. Next to the plants was a picture of Rose, smiling and holding a bingo card. I wondered if Margaret missed her, then thought of the bedroom I’d seen and how it held so much of Rose, and knew she did.
“You did tell your parents you were here the other day,” she said after I finished eating my sandwich.
I nodded. She squinted at me and then slid her glasses back up her nose. “Good. I hope you don’t want dessert, because all I have is applesauce.”
I shook my head. “Look, about the other day, I don’t want you to think that I think you and Rose were—well, you know how some people in town are. But they’re totally wrong. Rose was great. Not that you’re not nice too. It’s just that I never thought—I mean, I know that plenty of people are . . . you know. But I just didn’t think about it in Reardon.”
Margaret raised both eyebrows. “How eloquent. But I think I understand what you’re saying, and yes, Rose and I didn’t go out of our way to talk about our life together. I love Reardon, but it’s a small town and people here, especially back when we first bought the house—they had very definite thoughts about things, and we just weren’t up to trying
to change that. We’d spent enough time trying—and failing—to make people see what was really going on in Vietnam after we got back from the war. And I also had my parents to think about. They were very old-fashioned, but I loved them dearly.”
She got up and went into the living room, came back with a photo that she handed to me.
I looked at it. It was of a much younger Margaret and Rose, standing in front of their house. Margaret had one arm around two older people who had to be her parents, beaming and holding a SOLD! sign, and Rose was staring at the camera, her hands clenched tight by her sides.
“My parents died about a year after this was taken,” Margaret said as I gave the photo back to her. “I hadn’t expected to lose them so soon.” She touched both their faces, and then rested a finger under Rose’s unsmiling face.
“I was so worried about Rose back then. She had a rough time our first year here. Lots of nightmares she wouldn’t talk about. She felt bad too, like she wasn’t herself, she’d say. Like she wasn’t real. And I knew there were things she couldn’t remember about the war, that she—that I think she wouldn’t let herself remember. But whenever I’d ask, she’d pretend everything was fine.”
“What happened?”
Margaret put the photo down and looked at me for a long moment, like she was considering something. “She got through it as best she could. She remembered some things and made her peace with what she couldn’t or wouldn’t. It was always with her, of course, but the parts of her that were so hurt got better. The mind—” Margaret tapped her head with her fingers. “It’s very resilient.” She looked at the photo again and then said, “Do you talk to your parents about the crash?”
“I—no.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, you should.”
“I don’t—I don’t need to,” I said through gritted teeth. “Believe me, I know what they think. What a miracle I am.”