The Last Time We Say Goodbye

  “Don’t you park in the garage?” she asks as I come up the sidewalk, then figures it out and answers her own question. “Oh, right. Of course you don’t.”

  “Did you want something?” I’m ready to take Mom’s approach and go to bed early so that this “tremendous” day will be over. Stick a fork in me; I’m done.

  “I wanted to check up on you,” she says. “I haven’t, like, talked to you for a while. Not since . . .”

  “Patrick,” I fill in. I lumber down onto the steps beside her. “I didn’t see you at the funeral.”

  “I had to work,” she says with a sideways glance: yep, guilt. “But those things are hard for me. It takes me back to when . . .”

  “Me too.”

  We sit for a minute, her smoking, me trying not to breathe it in.

  “You know what I remember most, from my dad’s?” she says after a while. “People kept saying, ‘It’s going to be all right.’ That’s what they told me, over and over and over, like Don’t you worry, little girl, it will all be okay, because there’s got to be some bullshit overall rule of the universe that no matter what happens, no matter how bad it gets, everything will be all right in the end.”

  “Yeah,” I murmur.

  “And you know what I kept thinking? I kept thinking, That is a fucking lie. It is not going to be all right. It will never be all right, ever, ever again. So stop fucking lying to me.”

  “You thought that? How old were you, fifteen, that you thought ‘stop fucking lying’?”

  Her blue eyes crinkle up in amusement. “I had an advanced vocabulary for my age.”

  “So I gather.”

  She laughs and smokes.

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you,” I say after a minute. “You came to Ty’s funeral, but I didn’t go to your dad’s.”

  She shrugs. “I wasn’t there for you when your dad checked out, either. Plus I wouldn’t have been able to appreciate you being there at the time, anyway.”

  “And knowing me, I probably would have said something stupid like ‘It’s going to be all right.’”

  We both smirk.

  “Well, you don’t know until you know,” she says. Then she’s ready to change the subject. “So how’s it going with the spirit situation? Have you seen him again?” she asks. “Since you gave the letter to Ashley? I want details.”

  I can’t help but tense up. “I’ve seen him.”

  “A lot?”

  “Yes. A lot.” Like halfway through the state of Missouri in the backseat of the car a lot. “Anyway, there’s something else now.”

  “Something else?” Sadie tries to sound like it’s no big deal, but I can tell she’s interested. She’s able to see this Ty ghost thing as a simple mystery to be solved. Because it’s not her house. Not her life.

  “You remember the collage Ty made, for his own funeral? He put all of these pictures in a special frame?”

  She looks appropriately somber. “Yes.”

  “And there was a blank space in the collage.”

  She nods.

  I sigh. “That space was supposed to be for a picture of my dad. And I found the picture. And I feel like Ty wants . . . he would want me to give it to my dad.”

  “Oh. Okay. That sounds complicated.”

  “You’re telling me.” I lean my head back and wish there were stars to gaze up at, but the sky is muted by clouds, a dark, oppressive gray. It’s March, but I can smell snow in the air. It feels like this winter is hanging on, that it’s never going to end. I sigh. “I do not want to deal with my dad.”

  “I get that. Your dad’s a douche,” Sadie says.

  I sit up. “What’d you say?”

  “Your mom, she was—I mean, she is so great.” Sadie puts her chin in her hand, her eyes lost in thought. “I always wished my mom could be more like your mom. My mom is so uptight about everything. Your mom was so laid-back and funny. She used to make pancakes shaped like teddy bears, with the chocolate chip eyes and the strawberry mouth, and she sewed you all these great costumes for Halloween, and you always got the best birthday cakes. My mom . . .” She shakes her head.

  “Your mom was busy. She had a lot of kids to take care of,” I say.

  “I wish—” She stops herself.

  It’s not that hard to figure out what she was going to say. She wishes her dad were here.

  Because her dad was the kind of dad all the kids wanted their dads to be. He was a fourth-grade teacher, but one of the cool ones, one of those who wore dress shirts rolled up at the sleeves, who could play Bruce Springsteen and Coldplay on his guitar, who didn’t look dumb in sunglasses. He had this big booming voice that made you sit up and listen, but he was always in a good mood.

  Sadie flicks ashes off her cigarette. “So. You think Ty wants you to make up with your dad.”

  I remember the way I kept finding the empty frame on the floor in the hallway. The light on in the playhouse. The cologne. I could explain all those things away, but they seem to add up to something. They seem to add up to Ty.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “I wish there were some way I could figure it out definitively, one way or the other—I’m crazy or I’m haunted—I don’t care. I just want to know.”

  “I get that,” Sadie says. “I went to a medium once. Did I tell you?”

  I shift on the step and stare at her. “No you didn’t tell me. When was this?”

  “Madam Penny.” She takes a long drag, contorts her mouth to blow the smoke away from me. “About two years ago.”

  I reach over and take her cigarette out of her hand, chuck it in the snowbank.

  “Hey. What the hell?”

  “I’m doing your lungs a favor. Anyway, Madam Penny,” I push on before she has time to get truly mad at me. “What was that like? I want details.”

  She snorts. “It cost me a hundred bucks for a half hour. I was so sure I was going to be able to talk to my dad. I had this gold watch that he used to wear all the time, because her website said she worked better if you brought in an item that you associated with the person you wanted to speak with.”

  I remember that watch. When Sadie’s dad rolled up his sleeves to teach long division, we’d see it gleaming on his wrist. Sometimes during class he’d pick one of the students to hold his watch and keep track of time when he read out loud to us—because he’d get lost in a story, he used to say.

  “So what happened?” I ask.

  “I got in there, and she immediately said she could feel someone on the other side reaching out to me, an older male figure, she said. A wise man.”

  “Yeah? Your dad?”

  “Nope.” She picks at a hole in the knee of her jeans. “Gregory, she said his name was. He was a monk who died in the twelfth century.”

  I stare at her, completely baffled. “What?”

  Sadie laughs at my expression. “Madam Penny said he was my spirit guide. He was there to direct me on my soul path. We each have an invisible helper in this life, she said, someone to lead us and help us along our way.”

  “If that’s the case, then my spirit guide is fired,” I say.

  “I know, right?”

  “So . . . did you get to talk to your dad?” I ask, but I can already see the answer coming.

  She looks off down the street for a few seconds before she answers. “No. She went on about this Gregory person for twenty minutes, and then I tried to get her to look at the watch and she started telling me about my grandfather, who died when I was two so I wouldn’t have known him from Adam, and then she babbled on about a great lover I had in a past life, a guy in a bomber jacket who fought in the Second World War, who loved me like the moon and stars, I remember she said. He wanted to send me a message of love and forgiveness, she kept saying. Love and forgiveness. Forgiveness and loooooove. And then my time was up.”

  It’s quiet. Then Sadie finally says, “So it was a huge waste of money.”

  I try to keep it positive. “Hey, but it was entertaining.”

  ?
??Right. It was a real barrel of laughs.”

  “I’m sorry. That sucks.”

  She shakes her head. “I was naive. God. A hundred dollars. It kills me to think about all the stuff I could have bought with a hundred dollars back then.”

  “It was an experiment,” I say. “You went in with an open mind.”

  “I really thought my dad would talk to me,” she says. “I thought I would get all the answers.”

  She sniffles, and that’s when I realize she’s crying. It’s been two years and she’s still so disappointed that she didn’t get to speak to her dad that the thought brings her to tears.

  I envy her for that.

  I reach into my backpack to find a pack of tissues, which I carry around on the off chance that one of these days my tear ducts will start working again and then I’ll cry a fricking river. I hand her one. “But you still watch Long Island Medium,” I point out as she takes it and dabs at her eyes. “You’re still a believer, right?”

  “Yeah, well, I prefer to think that Madam Penny was flawed.”

  “Seriously, seriously flawed,” I agree.

  “I was so pissed. I egged her house later,” Sadie confesses.

  My mouth falls open. Then we both start snickering. Then outright laughing.

  “You really are a delinquent,” I observe when our laughter fades. “Wow. What did she look like? Was she all dark and mysterious and gypsy-like?”

  Sadie thinks for a minute. “She looked like a cross between my grandma and Betty White. I remember she was wearing a sweater with Christmas trees sewn on the front.” She blows her nose. Sighs. “Shit. I came here to cheer you up, not the other way around.”

  “You did cheer me up,” I say. Which is true.

  She bumps her shoulder into mine. “You’re a good friend, Lex.”

  No, I’m not, I think. “You’re a good friend, too,” I answer. “I’m glad you saw me running that night. I’m glad you took the time to figure out why.”

  “Hey, I was serious when I said we should start running together again,” she says. “Just as soon as the weather warms up. You and me. Jogging.”

  “Don’t push your luck,” I say.

  She smiles, the traces of tears still silver on her cheeks.

  28.

  IT’S FUNNY HOW SOMETIMES YOU DON’T SEE the obvious things coming. You think you know what life has in store for you. You think you’re prepared. You think you can handle it. And then—boom, like a thunderclap—something comes at you out of nowhere and catches you off guard. Like on Wednesday, when Ashley Davenport ambushes me before first period.

  She’s there on the other side of my locker door when I close it. I jump a mile.

  “Hi,” she says.

  She’s dyed her hair again, a deep, glossy brown this time. It suits her, makes her face all about her huge blue eyes, which are focused on me like laser beams. Concerned. Determined.

  “I’ve been hoping to catch you.”

  “Um—okay?”

  “I saw you at Patrick’s wake,” she says, her voice hoarse like she has a cold.

  She doesn’t offer me any other explanation. She simply takes off her backpack and puts it on the floor and pulls out a familiar, tattered envelope.

  For Ashley, it reads.

  “I think you should read this,” she says.

  “Oh” is all I can think to say. I’m frozen. I don’t really understand what’s happening here. I thought that envelope was gone for good, that I’d never know what was in it, but here she is offering the letter, like what he had to tell her concerns me, somehow.

  I swallow, hard. The text. The text.

  “Do you want to go somewhere else? Like the library?” she asks.

  “But don’t you have class?”

  The bell rings. She shrugs and smiles faintly. “I can be late.”

  We go to the library. No one bothers us as we make our way to the lonely corner behind the stack, where Ashley holds out the letter.

  My hands tremble as I take it.

  “I want it back. So I’ll be over there.” She tilts her head to indicate the study tables in the center of the library. “Take as much time as you want.”

  Then it’s just me and the letter.

  I slide it out of its envelope. The paper crackles as I unfold it.

  It’s dated December 10. Ten days before Ty died.

  I take a shaky breath and slide myself down against the corner, draw my knees up to my chest, and I read.

  Dear Ashley,

  I wanted to write you this letter to explain why I broke it off with you.

  First, I have to say I’m sorry for how I did it. I didn’t know what to say to you or how to explain the truth about how I feel, so I went with the old cliché “this isn’t working for me,” which made it sound like the problem was you.

  It’s not you.

  You’re the most amazing girl I’ve ever known. You are beautiful—but I think I should list smart first, because you are so crazy smart, and that’s what I first noticed about you—that for such a gorgeous girl you sure had your head on straight, you’re a girl who knows things, and you had all these ideas and these complex thoughts about life. You’re beautiful, too. You know that. People always tell you that. Sometimes when I would look at you it used to make my chest hurt, how beautiful you were. And you’re funny. Remember that time you made me laugh so hard I snorted chocolate milk up my nose? But you didn’t make a big deal over it, and that’s because you’re nice, you’re nice to everybody. You’re always considering how other people feel. I think that’s what I admire most about you, how sweet you are in this world that’s full of crap.

  Sorry.

  So it’s really not about you, Ash. Please believe me when I say write that. You are perfect.

  This is my problem.

  The other night when I kind of freaked out on you—sorry for that too btw—you were trying to get me to talk about my dad, and I said I hated my dad, and you got this surprised look, like you didn’t know I was the type of person who could hate someone. Who could hate my dad.

  But I am.

  That’s when I saw how messed up I am. And I saw myself so clearly right then, and it was like I could also see the future.

  You’re so perfect and you’re so beautiful and you’re so kind and when I’m with you, I want to be those things, too, I want to be the best person but the truth is, I can’t.

  I’m messed up.

  I go through phases where I think everything’s going to be okay and the sky is blue and stuff and I can feel the sun and the air going in and out of my lungs and I think, life is good. But then every time, I also know deep down that the darkness is coming. And it’s going to keep coming. And when I’m in the darkness I’m going to screw up everything. And if you’re with me that’s when I’m going to screw you up, too.

  You deserve better than that.

  You’ve got good friends and awesome parents and this amazing life ahead of you. You need to have a boyfriend who will be part of that. Not me.

  My sister has a boyfriend, and she’s so into him and she’s freaked out that she’s so into him, because that’s how she is, but when I see them together, I think, they work. Most couples in high school you know aren’t going to work out, and maybe that’s how it should be. But with them, it’s so obvious that they’re right for each other. They make each other better, somehow. They fit.

  You and me, Ash, we don’t fit. You’re like the sun and I’m like a big black cloud.

  I’d always be darkening your skies.

  I’ve tried, but I can’t fix myself. I can’t change it. So I did the right thing, letting you go. You’ll see. It may take a little bit of time, but you’ll understand.

  I wish I had the guts to tell you this out loud, or even give you this letter, but I probably won’t. Still, I’m glad I wrote it. Putting it into words, on paper, helped me understand some things. I get it, now.

  Don’t cry any more tears over me, Ash. I’m not worth it. But I
want you to know, in case I ever do give you this letter and you read it first before you burn it or something, that for just a little while, you made me feel like I was really alive. Like I was special.

  Thanks for that.

  Thanks for picking me to be the one who got to stand in your sunshine for a while. I’ll carry that around with me for the rest of my life—that you saw enough good in me that you wanted to hold my hand and kiss me and smile at me like I was the only guy.

  Be happy.

  Love,

  Ty

  My chest feels like it’s in a vise, tightening, tightening. I brush my fingers over the words, Ty’s words in Ty’s messy print, and over the stains on the paper where Ashley’s tears must have dropped when she read it. I read the letter again. And again. I try to memorize every word.

  I sit there for a long time.

  The bell for second period rings. The library stirs as if, up till now, time has been stopped, but it’s going again. I find Ashley at the back table. When she looks up at me, her face wrinkles up like she’s going to cry, but she contains it.

  I hand her back the letter.

  “Thank you for letting me read this.”

  “He was wrong, though.” Her voice breaks. “I’m not perfect. I have dark days, too.” She wipes a tear off her pale cheek. “I could have helped him, if he would have let me. If he’d just given me the letter himself.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  She looks up with shining eyes. “No. Thank you, for giving it to me when you did.”

  I can’t talk. I nod. She nods.

  Then we both have to move on.

  20 March

  In the last photograph ever taken of Ty and Dad together, from back when we were still a family, they’re playing chess.

  June 24 is the date my mom scrawled on the back of the photo. The summer I was 14 and Ty was 12. The year before Dad traded us for Megan.

  I remember that day.

  There was a tornado—an F4 on the Fujita scale, and if you speak the tornado lingo, which pretty much everybody in Nebraska does, you’ll know that’s not the most powerful tornado (the F5 is), but it’s still big enough to take out a town like Raymond. When the sirens started going off, the twister had formed 20 miles north of us. The sky turned green. Mom herded us all into the basement to wait out the storm.