“Whoa, it’s scary up here, huh, Charrulls?”
“Go back inside, Thomas,” I told him. “Please. I just want to sit out here by myself for a while.”
He acted like he didn’t even hear me. Shaky and stiff-legged, he started inching his way toward me.
“Thomas. Go back inside,” I repeated. “I mean it.”
He hunched over to help balance himself against the steepness of the roof and kept coming. He couldn’t seem to talk and walk at the same time.
“God, Thomas!” I finally yelled this time. “Why can’t you just leave me alone? Why can’t you ever just leave me alone?”
Finally, just inches from my foot, he stopped and looked up. His face was frozen in a tense, unnatural grin. There were drops of sweat on his top lip.
Slowly, almost in slow motion, he straightened up. “You shouldn’t say God, Charrulls,” he said quietly.
Then, still trembling, he studied the distance between us and inched one more step closer. I was just about to yell at him again when suddenly—with no warning at all—he lunged forward and grabbed for my foot.
“No!” I said as his hands reached for my ankle. I pulled my foot away. It was automatic. I didn’t even think about it. I just saw him start to grab me and I pulled away.
Thomas fell.
It happened so fast I don’t even remember much about it. Or maybe I just don’t want to. That happens sometimes. You forget what you don’t want to remember.
All I know is that the roof was steep and Thomas couldn’t catch himself. And he slipped and rolled toward the edge. And then he was gone. Just like that. He fell.
I heard him hit the ground. I don’t want to talk about it, but I heard that noise.
Sometimes when emergencies happen you freeze. You want to help, but you can’t. Your brain won’t tell you what to do. I saw a dog get hit by a car once. I couldn’t even scream.
But this time was different. As soon as I saw what was happening I slid to the window as fast as I could and pulled myself inside.
“Mom! Ben! Quick! It’s Thomas!” I shrieked as loudly as I could. But outside Thomas had already started screaming. And my mother and Ben were racing out the back door to see what had happened.
I should have gone too. I know I should have. But for some reason I just couldn’t bring myself to go down there.
Instead, I began frantically pacing back and forth on my floor. “At least he’s yelling,” I told myself. “At least he’s not … well, quiet. Quiet is bad. Loud is good. Yelling is loud. Yelling is good.…”
I just kept babbling on and on like that. I couldn’t stop. If I stopped, I might start to think. And if I started to think … well, I just didn’t want to, that’s all.
Suddenly downstairs there was a lot of commotion. Lydia came through the front door just as Mom and Ben were helping Thomas out to the car. Their voices mixed together in loud and confused conversation.
“Hey, what happened? Why’s Thomas crying?”
“Here, son, here’s a tissue. Hold his arm, Janet.”
“Quick, Lydia. Open the front door.”
“Somebody tell me what happened!”
“He fell. We’re taking him to the emergency room. Are you doing okay, son? Here, wipe your nose. You okay?”
They whisked him out the front door. A second later Ben’s truck pulled away. I ran to the end of the hall in time to see it turn the corner.
“Oh God, oh God, oh God …”
It’s all I could say. It wasn’t praying, exactly. But it wasn’t cussing either.
“Oh God, oh God, oh God …”
I tiptoed back to my room. I got in bed and covered up with my bedspread. A second later I got out again. I paced a few more steps, sat down, sat back up, lay down, stood up, and finally buried my head in the pillow.
He’s okay. Yeah, sure he is. No one yells that loud if they’re not okay. It was just a little tumble, that’s all. A little tumble off the roof. He landed on the grass, right? Grass is soft, right?
Tears filled my eyes. I hadn’t meant to hurt him. Why would I want to hurt him? Just because I was upset? That didn’t mean anything. Just because I was upset didn’t mean I’d hurt him.
It was an accident. Yeah, of course it was. I’m positive. I never would have made him fall on purpose. I don’t care if no one believes me, either. I wouldn’t have done a thing like that. If I’d known Thomas was going to fall, I never would have pulled away from him the way I did. Honest to God. I wouldn’t have.
I wiped my eyes and took a deep breath.
“Just let him be okay. Come on, God. He’s only five. Just make him all right.”
(eleven)
T
WO HOURS. That’s how long they were gone. Two hours that seemed more like ten.
As soon as I heard them pull into the driveway I raced downstairs. Lydia was just about to open the door. She looked surprised to see me.
“Where’d you come from?”
I strained to see outside. Thomas was walking up the porch steps with my mother and Ben. His arm was in a sling. Other than that, he seemed to be okay.
I raised my eyes toward the ceiling and said, “Thank you.”
Lydia looked at me funny and said, “You’re welcome.”
After the three of them came inside, things got more confused than ever.
“What did you break, Thomas?” Lydia wanted to know. “What’s wrong with your arm?”
Before he could answer, my mother looked at me and frowned. “Where have you been?” she demanded. “We were worried sick about you.”
Anxiously Lydia pulled at the rubber band in her hair. “Will someone please tell me what he broke?”
“We didn’t know where you were or who you were with or when you were coming home. You know better than to go storming off like that. You know how worried I get.”
Lydia was about to explode.
“Collarbone,” said Ben, finally answering her.
“Collarbone,” echoed Thomas. “It doesn’t hurt anymore. I woulda hada cast only they don’t put a cast on collarbones. Right, Dad? I just get to have a swing.”
“Sling,” corrected Ben.
“Next time you pull a stunt like that you’re going to be punished,” continued my mother, waving her finger in my face.
Lydia still seemed frustrated. “How, though? How did he break it? You can’t break your collarbone by just falling over in the grass.”
Just for a split second Thomas looked at me. Then he quickly looked away.
“Can too,” he said quietly.
Lydia’s expression grew angry.
“No, you can’t, Thomas!”
“Can too, can too,” he repeated just as calmly.
Lydia threw her hands in the air and left the room in a huff.
Ben shook his head. “Didn’t take long to get back to normal, did it?”
My mother was still glaring at me. “You and I aren’t done yet, bucko,” she said. I’m serious. She actually called me bucko.
Ben took her arm and pulled her toward the kitchen. “We’ll finish this discussion at dinner,” she called, still waving her finger.
I just sighed.
Thomas sat down on the couch. He didn’t turn on the television. He just started staring at his sling.
It made me feel sick inside.
I sat down next to him.
“I’m sorry, Thomas,” I said softly. “I’m really sorry. I never meant for this to happen. It was an accident.”
Thomas raised his head. He wasn’t smiling exactly, but he didn’t look mad, either.
He motioned for me to come closer. Like he had a secret or something.
Careful not to touch his sling, I leaned over next to him.
“I didn’t tell, Charrulls,” he whispered in my ear.
Puzzled, I raised my eyebrows.
“About what happened on the roof,” he explained. “I didn’t tattle like I did before.”
Even then I didn’t fully under
stand.
Thomas took an exasperated breath. “ ’Member how you got mad at me when I told them that you said there was a hand in the closet? Well, this time I didn’t tell them what happened. I didn’t tattle about anything.”
Suddenly I felt even worse than before. How could he have remembered that? How could it have been so important to him?
I didn’t know what to say. I just sat there watching Thomas’s face grow even more serious. Then, after what seemed to be the longest he had ever been quiet, he finally looked up at me and whispered, “Now you like me. Right, Charrulls?”
GUILT. That’s one word I don’t have to bother looking up in the dictionary. Everyone knows what guilt means. Guilt is the way you punish yourself when there’s no one else to do it for you.
Guilt is a little voice inside your head that screams, “You should be ashamed of yourself!” And even though it’s a silent voice, your whole body hears it. And it makes your shoulders slump over a little bit. And sometimes your chin drops down to your chest. And your feet drag when they walk.
That’s what guilt does to me, anyway. I’m not kidding. When I finally left Thomas that afternoon, my head and shoulders felt so heavy I wasn’t sure I could even get them upstairs.
Now you like me. Right, Charrulls?
I couldn’t get it out of my mind. All the way up the steps it kept echoing around in my brain.
You ought to be ashamed of yourself! screamed the silent voice in between echoes. Poor Thomas. Poor little Thomas.
When I got to my room I didn’t go inside. My feet kept right on going, straight down the hall to the attic door. I can’t explain why. They just took me there.
I put my hands over my ears to try to shut out the voice. It wasn’t any use, though. When the voice is inside, covering your ears just traps it.
I pulled on the light at the bottom of the staircase and carefully began edging my way around the stack of boxes piled high on the steps. It was dark at the top. There’s another light I could have pulled on, but I didn’t. Just the mood I was in, I guess. Besides, I know my way around the attic by heart. I know exactly where the pictures are. Even if it was pitch black, I could still find them.
The cardboard box was right where I left it. I picked it up and set it down under the small window in the corner. The fading light coming in was dim and hazy, but there was still enough to see.
I lifted the top and looked at the first photograph. It was the one of me and Dad and the new sandbox he built. I was wearing baggy overalls and holding a hoe. I was practicing to be a farmer.
Tears started to fill my eyes. I didn’t want them to. But I guess they’d been building up for quite a while. A second later I started to sniff. That did it. Once the sniffing starts, I’m a goner.
I buried my face in the sleeve of my sweatshirt. Then it all sort of came pouring out at once. I started sobbing and I couldn’t stop.
I tried to keep the noise down, but it wasn’t easy. Sobbing is like an explosion. All of your emotions erupt like a volcano and everything on your face starts running all at once. The first couple of minutes are the noisiest. But even after that, stuff keeps running. It’s a lot to ask a sweatshirt to sop up, if you want to know the truth.
“You okay?”
The voice came out of nowhere. It took me by surprise. Startled, I looked up.
It was Ben! Oh, geez, not now! How had he gotten up the stairs without me hearing?
Instinctively I ducked back into the safety of my soggy sweatshirt. Crying isn’t something that I like to do in front of people; I don’t care how normal it’s supposed to be.
Ben started coming closer. As I heard his footsteps I drew my arms tighter around my hidden face. Somehow I forced myself to stop the tears.
He stood there a moment before sitting down next to me. When he did, our arms touched.
I pulled away.
I was still making quiet snuffling noises by then, but I was pretty much under control. I kept my head down, though. I felt uncomfortable as anything.
Nervously I shifted my feet. What should I do? What should I say? Did he know? Should I confess?
I rolled my eyes. Confess? Yeah, sure … right, Charlie.
Oh, by the way, Ben, I made Thomas fall off the roof and break his collarbone. He’s keeping it a secret so I’ll like him.
I felt more tears well up in my eyes. I was going to start crying again. I just couldn’t find a way out.
Without saying a word, Ben reached out for me. I felt his arm around me, and I buried my face in his shoulder. I didn’t even think about it.
We stayed like that until the crying stopped again. It wasn’t the noisy kind this time. Just the quiet, muffled sniffling you do when you’re finishing up.
Through it all, Ben didn’t say a word. Except for my sniffling and a little gulping, the two of us remained silent. The silence wasn’t awkward, though. Not like the strained silences we’d had on our trip to Lake Murky.
When I was finished, I lifted my face off his shoulder and wiped my eyes. Ben gave me one last pat and removed his arm. No sense overdoing the hugging stuff. Not when neither one of us was used to it.
I couldn’t think of anything to say. I guess Ben couldn’t either. The awkwardness was coming between us again. You could almost feel it start to separate us.
I couldn’t stand it this time. Maybe it was the guilt. Or maybe I just felt closer to Ben than I had before.
“Thomas fell off the roof,” I blurted out suddenly. “I was out there and he reached for me and I pulled away and he fell.”
I turned and looked him in the eye. “He did, Ben. I didn’t push him. I thought maybe I did at first, but I didn’t. I wouldn’t have done that. I know I wouldn’t have.”
Ben took his hand and brushed the hair back from my forehead. Then he looked at me and slowly nodded.
I waited for more, but it never came. He believed me, though. I could see in his eyes that he believed me.
We sat there another couple of minutes before Ben suddenly reached across my lap and picked up the photo of Dad and me and the sandbox. It was lying face down next to my leg. He turned it over and smiled.
The smile turned into a chuckle.
“Great picture,” he said, laughing softly. “That hoe was twice as big as you were.”
I sniffed and nodded.
He reached out and pulled the cardboard box of photos closer.
“Would you mind if I looked through the rest of these?” he asked, already digging into the carton.
I felt myself tensing up again. There was something about Ben looking into my box of pictures that felt wrong. I mean, the sandbox picture wasn’t really that personal. But to look through the whole box—I don’t know—it was almost like he was invading my family’s privacy or something.
I was still thinking it over when I heard Ben take a deep breath.
“Susan used to take a lot of pictures,” he said almost in a whisper.
It was the first time he’d ever mentioned his wife’s name. Susan.
Ben didn’t get weepy or anything. He just stared into space a second and then quickly reached into the box again. How could I say no after that?
The next picture was the most recent one that Mom and Dad and I had taken together. It was taken in a studio, the kind where the photographer gives you a choice of fake backgrounds to stand in front of.
I cleared my throat. “Those aren’t really the Alps,” I told Ben. “It’s just a picture of Alps.”
I wasn’t planning to explain every photograph. I just didn’t want him asking me a bunch of questions about Switzerland, that’s all.
The next picture was taken during one of our first family vacations.
Ben raised his eyebrows. “Disney World?”
“Land,” I corrected.
He pointed at me in the picture and smiled. “Thomas has one of those Donald Duck hats.”
My face turned red. I’ve never really forgiven my parents for buying me that hat. I know
I begged, but they should have been stronger.
After another second or two, Ben dug deeper into the carton. I swallowed hard. Now we were getting to the personal stuff. My heart began to beat faster. I was almost positive which picture was next.
Maybe I should have warned Ben it was coming.
“Their wedding picture,” I blurted loudly.
Ben was surprised. You could see it in his eyes. The glass was smudged and dirty with fingerprints from all the times I’d held it. But he lowered it to his lap and stared through the smudges.
It was one of those pictures that you imagine seeing at the end of fairy tales. My mother was in this beautiful white gown and Dad was wearing one of those suits with a sash around the middle. They were standing in front of the altar in the church, kissing.
See? I wanted to yell. They really did love each other once!
I didn’t, though. I just sat there with my heart still pounding like crazy while Ben stared down at the picture. It took him a long time, too. I didn’t have a watch or anything, but it was definitely a while.
Finally he took a big deep breath and turned to me. Then he smiled this really sad smile.
“It’s really been hard on you, hasn’t it?” he asked me softly.
I didn’t answer.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I wish I could have made things easier for you. I just didn’t know how.”
He put his arm around my shoulders again and held me.
I didn’t pull away.
(twelve)
T
HOMAS GOT to take his sling off a few weeks ago. You can tell that he misses the attention it brought him. The other day he made a sling out of an old towel and wore it to dinner. He asked Lydia to cut his meat loaf. Ben told him to go upstairs until he could act normal.
I guess you could say the two of us are making progress. Thomas and me, I mean. The last time Martin came over to play Monopoly, he started making the top hat and the iron dance with each other.
“Stop it, Thomas,” I ordered.
He ignored me.
“I mean it. Put them down.”