Mick Harte Was Here

  I nodded. “Yeah. Well, that’s sort of what I’ve been thinking too. Only that would mean that God had no control over it. And if God has no control, then he can’t be all that powerful, can he? Unless, of course, he makes it a rule not to interfere in our lives or something. Or who knows? Maybe there isn’t a God at all. Only I don’t even want to consider that option right now.

  “The point is, there’s no way to know any of this stuff for absolute, positive sure. Just like there’s no way to know what Mick’s doing right now. Or who he’s with. Or if he’s lonely. Or scared.”

  I stopped for a second. “You don’t think he’s scared, do you, Zo? ’Cause I hate it when I think about that. But the idea keeps coming into my head. And I can’t get it to stay away.”

  Just then my throat began to ache the way it does when you’re trying not to cry. “Or maybe he’s not even out there at all. I mean maybe he’s just gone, period.”

  I swallowed hard. “Oh God, Zo. I want so bad to know he’s okay. But I keep trying to picture him in my head. And I can’t. ’Cause I just don’t know where to put him anymore.”

  Zoe reached out her arms to me. And when she did, I caved in. Totally, I mean. Sobbing out of control.

  She rubbed my back and waited for the worst of it to be over. And then, out of thin air, these magical words came out of her mouth.

  “Put him everywhere, why don’t you?”

  It stunned me when she said that. I don’t know why, exactly. But when I looked at Zoe’s face, I could tell that she was almost as surprised as I was.

  She shrugged. “It just sort of came to me,” she said. “But it makes sense, don’t you think, Phoeb? Because like if God is everywhere the way they say he is, and Mick is with God, then Mick could be everywhere too.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Couldn’t he?”

  For a second I couldn’t even answer. I was still just so amazed, you know? At how right it felt.

  “Then he could hear me, Zoe,” I whispered. My stomach filled with butterflies.

  Slowly, I leaned back on the couch and tried to let it all sink in.

  At the other end, Zo pulled the blankets up around her chin. And for a long time neither of us said a word.

  I thought she had fallen asleep, when I felt her tap me on the foot.

  “Phoeb?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I could be wrong, you know. He could just be up in the clouds tap dancing on God’s piano.”

  I hit her with my pillow.

  Getting a Grip

  THE MEMORIAL SERVICE was on Saturday.

  Like I said, there was never any doubt that Mick had wanted to be cremated. He’d made up his mind about it last year when my Great-grandmother Harte died.

  He and I weren’t really that close to our great-grandmother. She’d been in a nursing home for most of our lives, and she was over ninety when she died. So I can’t say that I grieved that much. Or at all, actually.

  Mick was more upset than I was. As soon as she was gone, he started feeling guilty that he hadn’t spent more time with her.

  “I should have gotten you to take me out there more often,” he told Pop. “I could have taught her how to play Pictionary or something.”

  But even though Mick felt bad that she had died, the thought of going to her funeral gave him the creeps. The morning of the service, he told my father that Great-grandmother had appeared to him in the bathroom mirror and told him she didn’t want him to come.

  Pop put his hands on Mick’s shoulders, and said a bunch of stuff about “looking life’s difficult moments squarely in the face and coming out a better man.”

  Then he gave Mick a hearty squeeze and said, “In other words … go put on your suit.”

  The funeral was at the chapel in the nursing home. The casket was open. So you could see the body. That’s what they call you after you die, by the way. They call you “the body.”

  When Mick first saw it from the hall, he actually gasped.

  “Oh God, she’s … she’s there!” he said.

  The next thing I knew, he was squatting down by the entrance, taking these real deep breaths like he had just run a marathon or something.

  “Ho boy, ho boy,” he said. He was sweating like a pig.

  Pop tried to pick him up. But Mick stayed frozen in his squatting position, so my father was forced to set him back down.

  “Don’t make me go in there, Pop,” he begged. “I mean I realize a lot of people are okay with this sort of thing. But I think it’s pretty clear that I’m not handling this with the dignity we had both hoped for.”

  My father told him to get a grip. “The only way to conquer your fears is to face them head-on,” he said.

  Then he picked Mick up again and shook him a little bit till his legs unfolded. After that, he took him by the hand and led him inside.

  Big mistake.

  By then Mick had worked himself into such a state of panic that when he saw the body up close in her curly wig and red hat, he became sort of mesmerized, you know? He couldn’t take his eyes off her. But it wasn’t until he spotted the lace hankie in her hand that the pressure really got to him.

  I felt him tap me on the shoulder.

  “Do you think she’ll be blowing her nose anytime soon?” he blurted.

  Then he busted out in this wild hysterical laughter that I knew he had no hope of controlling.

  My father snapped his fingers at him. So loud you wouldn’t believe. And since Mick couldn’t quit laughing, Pop just kept snapping and snapping, until it sounded like he was keeping time to the funeral music that was being piped in over the loudspeaker.

  Finally, my mother grabbed my father’s hand to stop him, and told Mick to please wait outside until the ceremony was over.

  On the way home, my father started a lecture on humiliating your family in public.

  Mom told him to knock it off. “This isn’t Mick’s fault, Ed. He told you he couldn’t handle it and you insisted on dragging him in there anyway.” Then she rolled her eyes and added, “And ye gods … that snapping.”

  It’s kind of satisfying to hear your own father get yelled at. But Mick didn’t gloat or anything. Instead, he made the announcement that when he died, he wanted to be recycled into a neat little pile of ashes and buried in a pleasant cemetery somewhere. It sounded pretty nice the way he put it and all.

  Mom said for her funeral she wanted a big street parade like they have in New Orleans —with a Dixieland jazz band playing and people strutting all over the place with umbrellas.

  Pop promised that’s exactly what he would do if she died first. Then as soon as her back was turned, he made the cuckoo sign at her.

  GETTING DRESSED for Mick’s memorial service was awful. I mean if ever there’s a time when you shouldn’t be caring what you look like, your brother’s funeral is pretty much it. But still, in the back of your head, you just keep thinking about all those people who are going to be looking at you. People you haven’t seen for years, probably. And the next thing you know, you’re weaving a black velvet ribbon into your hair. And trying to track down the right purse to go with your shoes.

  My parents and I drove to the church in total silence. I sat in the back, careful not to cross the imaginary line that had always divided the seat into “Mick’s side” and “my side.”

  Mom was sitting right in front of me. I stared at the back of her head and wondered why I’d never noticed the strands of gray that were mixed in with her dark brown hair.

  Then suddenly it dawned on me that the reason I hadn’t seen them before was because they’d never been there before. And it made me feel so sick with sympathy I reached out and touched her hair.

  As soon as my mother felt my fingers, she put her hand over mine. Then with her other hand, she reached for Pop. And that’s how we rode the rest of the way to church. Connected like a family chain, sort of. With one link missing.

  It was crowded when we got there. But the front pew had been reserved for us. We w
ere celebrities. And when we walked in the church, still holding hands, the whole place got totally quiet.

  I kept telling myself, “Act natural, act natural.” But the entire time I was saying it in my head, it just struck me as wrong, you know? That at a time like this, I should have to work so hard to please others with my behavior.

  When the service finally started, I tried to concentrate on my prayers. And after that, the stories.

  That’s mostly what the service was—stories about him. Our minister had suggested that people bring their favorite memories about Mick to the church. And whoever wanted to could go to the microphone and share them.

  The school janitor went first. His name is Mr. Finnius. He and Mick had been friends since kindergarten, I think it was. He told about the time Mick got his head caught in the wrought-iron railing in front of the main office and Mr. Finnius got him out by smearing Crisco in his hair.

  People laughed, which sounded weird because you almost never hear people cracking up in church. It’s kind of too bad, when you think about it. I mean I bet you anything God would rather hear laughing than all that crying and begging for forgiveness people dump on him every week.

  Mick’s kindergarten teacher went to the microphone next. She told about the spring pageant, when Mick broke away from the Dance of the Bumblebees and started spinning wildly all over the stage, doing a dance completely his own. After the show—when she asked him why he’d done it—he told her that “the music got in his pants.”

  There were lots of other stories, too. Each one of them seemed funnier than the one before it. And when the last person sat down, I swear it was like the whole mood in the church had changed. There was just this kind of joy that I can’t even explain. And I mean it was so like Mick, you know? To be able to make people laugh at his own service that way.

  I went last. I didn’t want to go at all. But it seemed sort of right that somebody from our family should say a few words. And since neither of my parents thought they could handle it, I had told them I’d try.

  When I walked to the microphone, my heart was pounding so hard in my chest I was sure I’d have some sort of attack before I got there. But once I’d made it to the front, I took a couple of deep breaths and got on with it.

  “My mom wanted me to read you her favorite Mother’s Day card from Mick,” I said. I held it up for them to see.

  Then I told them about how Mick had been in fifth grade when he wrote it. And how he and my mother had been arguing all week about this one certain thing that Mick really wanted, but that Mom positively refused to let him have.

  “On the Friday morning before Mother’s Day, they’d had another battle,” I said. “And Mick left the house totally annoyed with her. Except, as it turned out, that was the day they were making these cards in art.”

  I smiled a little. “Mick told the teacher that he wasn’t in the right mood to make a card for his mom. Then the teacher told Mick to get in the mood or get an F.”

  I held up the card and showed it again. Slower this time. So everyone could see the sloppy wad of lace glued to the paper. And the word “MA” scribbled in pencil at the top.

  I opened the card and read it out loud.

  “Roses are red,

  Violets are blue

  I still don’t know why

  I can’t get a tattoo.

  Your son,

  Mick Harte”

  Dogs Can

  Laugh in

  Heaven

  I WENT BACK TO SCHOOL the Tuesday after the memorial service.

  That’s when I found out I was famous.

  Zoe and I were walking into the building, when we passed a bunch of sixth-graders standing outside the door. As I reached for the door handle, I heard one of them say, “Hey, look. There’s the sister of the dead kid.”

  My blood went cold when I heard that. And my stomach heaved so violently I thought I might get sick.

  I ran inside and ducked into the girls’ bathroom. But by the time I got there, the shock had worn off and I was just plain mad.

  “Ignore him,” said Zoe. “The kid’s a total moron.”

  But she knew there was no way I could ignore something like that. And a second later, I was outside again, pushing my way through the crowd of kids till I found the creep who’d said it.

  I shoved him up against the wall and pointed my finger in his face.

  “Don’t you ever call my brother ‘the dead kid’ again, do you hear me? His name was Mick Harte. And from now on, if you want to talk about him—which you’re not even fit to do—you use his name. You got that, creep? Do you have that?”

  When Zoe pulled me away, I was shaking so hard I couldn’t stop. I didn’t care, though. It was right for me to do that. And I’d do it again. I swear to God I would.

  I WASN’T SURE what to expect when I went to my first class. In the back of my mind, I suppose I thought it would be a little like the memorial service. People would come up and say they were sorry and all. Then I’d say thanks or something equally stupid. But we’d get through it.

  Only as it turned out, it was a lot easier than I imagined. Because nothing happened at all. That is, unless you count how quiet the room got when I walked in. And how everyone pretended they weren’t really looking at me, when the whole time they were plainly sneaking peeks as I walked to my desk.

  All except Eileen Fentendorf, that is. Eileen turned right around in her chair and followed me straight to my seat.

  I stared at her until she turned back. Don’t ever get into a staring contest with me, by the way. You’ll never win.

  Eileen Fentendorf knows that now. She was in three of my morning classes and I stared her down in every one of them.

  Just for the record, though, by lunchtime not one single person had come up to me to say they were sorry.

  No one had even said Mick’s name.

  “They’re not trying to be mean, Phoebe. They just don’t know what to say,” Zoe told me.

  I tried to shrug it off. “Yeah, well, no big deal,” I said.

  But when we sat down to eat and my so-called real friends waved from the other end of the lunch table and quick looked away, I finally lost it.

  I glared at them like you wouldn’t believe. “I’m not going to go nuts if you talk about him, you know. What’s wrong with you guys, anyway? Didn’t you go to grief counseling? Zoe said you were there. But you must not have been listening. ’Cause we’re all supposed to be saying Mick’s name, remember?”

  Cara Cook looked totally mortified. “Yeah, but we just weren’t sure if we should or not, Phoebe. I mean we didn’t want to make you feel worse or anything.”

  Yeah, right. Like that was even possible.

  Then all at once, Lindy Nelson sort of lunged for my hand, and squeezed it way too tight. And Amy Lightner blurted out something incredibly stupid, about how her mother said to say hi to my mother.

  I pretty much learned my lesson after that. I didn’t force them to talk anymore. Mostly I just sat there staring at my hoagie while the three of them crammed their lunches down their throats so they could get the heck away from me. Their mouths were still full when they took their trays back.

  After they were gone, I put my head down on the table, and I didn’t move. Not even after the bell rang.

  Zoe stayed with me till the cafeteria had emptied. Then I heard her calm, quiet voice next to my ear. “Phoebe, I think you should go to the nurse and ask her to let you go home.”

  I nodded blankly and stood up. Zo walked me to the hall. I never made it all the way to the nurse, though. To get to her office, you have to go through the main reception area, and Mrs. Berryhill was there. As soon as she saw me, she put her arm around me and steered me through her door.

  It’s too bad she didn’t have a clue about the kind of mood I was in. Maybe then she wouldn’t have been so quick to tell me about how she had lost her own mother two years ago, and how losing a family member is the worst kind of pain there is, and how in time I would
learn to accept my loss and go on.

  I stood up.

  “He’s not my loss, Mrs. Berryhill,” I told her. “I didn’t just misplace him or leave him behind on a bus somewhere. He died, okay? Mick died. But he will never—ever—be lost. So, please. Do not say that word to me one more time.”

  I didn’t wait for her to reply. I just turned around and ran out of her office as fast as I could. I didn’t stop, either. I kept right on going—out of the building, down the block, and up the street to my house.

  Nana from Florida was already talking to Mrs. Berryhill on the phone. I ignored her fingers snapping at me as I blitzed down the hall to Mick’s room. Then quietly, I pulled his door shut behind me.

  This time, I had known from the start where I was headed. I went straight to Mick’s bed and crawled underneath his covers.

  Then I buried my face in his pillow.

  And I breathed in the smell of him.

  IN MY DREAM, I was sitting in Mrs. Berryhill’s office—only her office wasn’t inside the school. It was outside—in the middle of a forest—which I realize sounds totally stupid. But in dreams, stuff like that seems perfectly normal.

  Anyway, at first Mrs. Berryhill was nowhere in sight. But then I looked into the woods and saw her darting in and out from behind the trees, the way cartoon characters do sometimes when they’re trying to find someone.

  “HEY, MRS. BERRYHILL, WHO’RE YOU LOOKIN’ FOR?” I shouted out. Only she was too far away to hear me.

  That’s when I decided to help her in her search, and I stood up on her chair and hollered out, “OLLI-OLLI-OXIN-FREE!” Which is sort of this international kids’ language for “Come out, come out, wherever you are.” And so I wasn’t surprised when I heard a bunch of feet running through the forest in my direction.

  Only the weird thing was, the feet didn’t belong to a kid. They belonged to Wocket. Our old dog. She trotted out of the trees, happy as anything, wearing her old red cowboy hat, plus these four little red cowboy boots on her feet, which were like the cutest things you’ve ever seen.