It's Not Summer without You (4 page)

It had been two months. I’d survived June. I thought to myself,
I can do this
. I can go to the movies with Taylor and Davis, I can swim in Marcy’s pool, maybe I can even go out with Cory Wheeler. If I do those things, it will be all right. Maybe letting myself forget how good it used to be will make things easier.

But when I slept that night, I dreamed of Susannah and the summer house, and even in my sleep I knew exactly how good it used to be. How right it was. And no matter what you do or how hard you try, you can’t stop yourself from dreaming.

chapter
four
jeremiah

Seeing your dad cry really messes with your mind. Maybe not for some people. Maybe some people have dads who are cool with crying and are in touch with their emotions. Not my dad. He’s not a crier, and he for sure never encouraged us to cry either. But at the hospital, and then at the funeral home, he cried like a lost little kid.

My mom died early in the morning. Everything happened so fast, it took me a minute to catch up and realize it was all really happening. It doesn’t hit you right away. But later that night, the first night without her, it was just me and Conrad at the house. The first time we’d been alone in days.

The house was so quiet. Our dad was at the funeral home with Laurel. The relatives were at a hotel. It was just me and Con. All day, people had been in and out of the house, and now it was just us.

We were sitting at the kitchen table. People had sent over all kinds of stuff. Fruit baskets, sandwich platters, a coffee cake. A big tin of butter cookies from Costco.

I tore off a chunk of the coffee cake and stuffed it into my mouth. It was dry. I tore off another chunk and ate that too. “You want some?” I asked Conrad.

“Nah,” he said. He was drinking milk. I wondered it if was old. I couldn’t remember the last time anybody had been to the store.

“What’s happening tomorrow?” I asked. “Is everyone coming over here?”

Conrad shrugged. “Probably,” he said. He had a milk mustache.

That was all we said to each other. He went upstairs to his room, and I cleaned up the kitchen. And then I was tired, and I went up too. I thought about going to Conrad’s room, because even though we weren’t saying anything, it was better when we were together, less lonely. I stood in the hallway for a second, about to knock, and then I heard him crying. Choked sobs. I didn’t go inside. I left him alone. I knew that’s the way he would want it. I went to my own room and I got into bed. I cried too.

chapter
five

I wore my old glasses to the funeral, the ones with the red plastic frames. They were like putting on a too-tight coat from a long time ago. They made me dizzy, but I didn’t care. Susannah always liked me in those glasses. She said I looked like the smartest girl in the room, the kind of girl who was going somewhere and knew exactly how she was going to get there. I wore my hair halfway up, because that was the way she liked it. She said it showed my face off.

It felt like the right thing to do, to look the way she liked me best. Even though I knew she only said those things to make me feel better, they still felt true. I believed everything Susannah said. I even believed her when she said she’d never leave. I think we all did, even my mother. We were all surprised when it happened, and even when it became inevitable, a fact, we never really believed it. It seemed impossible. Not our Susannah, not Beck. You always hear about people getting better, beating the odds. I was sure Susannah would be one of them. Even if it was only a one in a million chance. She was one in a million.

Things got bad fast. So bad that my mother was shuttling between Susannah’s house in Boston and ours, every other weekend at first and then more frequently. She had to take a leave of absence from work. She had a room at Susannah’s house.

The call came early in the morning. It was still dark out. It was bad news, of course; bad news is the only kind that really can’t wait. As soon as I heard the phone ring, even in my sleep, I knew. Susannah was gone. I lay there in my bed, waiting for my mother to come and tell me. I could hear her moving around in her room, heard the shower running.

When she didn’t come, I went to her room. She was packing, her hair still wet. She looked over at me, her eyes tired and empty. “Beck’s gone,” she said. And that was it.

I could feel my insides sink. My knees too. So I sat on the ground, against the wall, letting it support me. I thought I knew what heartbreak felt like. I thought heartbreak was me, standing alone at the prom. That was nothing. This, this was heartbreak. The pain in your chest, the ache behind your eyes. The knowing that things will never be the same again. It’s all relative, I suppose. You think you know love, you think you know real pain, but you don’t. You don’t know anything.

I’m not sure when I started crying. When I got started, I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t breathe.

My mother crossed the room and knelt down on the floor with me, hugging me, rocking me back and forth. But she didn’t cry. She wasn’t even there. She was an upright reed, an empty harbor.

My mother drove up to Boston that same day. The only reason she’d even been at home that day had been to check on me and get a change of clothes. She’d thought there’d be more time. She should’ve been there, when Susannah died. If only for the boys. I was sure she was thinking the same thoughts.

In her best professor voice, she told Steven and me that we would drive ourselves up in two days, the day of the funeral. She didn’t want us in the way of funeral preparations; there was a lot of work to be done. Ends in need of tying up.

My mother had been named executor of the will, and of course Susannah had known exactly what she was doing when she’d picked her. It was true that there was no one better for the job, that they’d been going over things even before Susannah died. But even more than that, my mother was at her best when she was busy, doing things. She did not fall apart, not when she was needed. No, my mother rose to the occasion. I wished that was a gene I’d inherited. Because I was at a loss. I didn’t know what to do with myself.

I thought about calling Conrad. I even dialed his number a few times. But I couldn’t do it. I didn’t know what to say. I was afraid of saying the wrong things, of making things worse. And then I thought about calling Jeremiah. But it was the fear that kept me back. I knew that the moment I called, the moment I said it out loud, it would be true. She would really be gone.

On the drive up, we were mostly quiet. Steven’s only suit, the one he’d just worn to prom, was wrapped in plastic and hung in the backseat. I hadn’t bothered to hang up my dress. “What will we say to them?” I asked at last.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “The only funeral I’ve ever been to is Aunt Shirle’s, and she was really old.” I was too young to remember that funeral.

“Where will we stay tonight? Susannah’s house?”

“No idea.”

“How do you suppose Mr. Fisher’s handling it?” I couldn’t bring myself to picture Conrad or Jeremiah, not yet.

“Whiskey,” was Steven’s answer.

After that I stopped asking questions.

We changed into our clothes at a gas station thirty miles from the funeral home. As soon as I saw how neat and pressed Steven’s suit was, I regretted not hanging up my dress. Back in the car, I kept smoothing down the skirt with my palms, but it didn’t help. My mother had told me that rayon was pointless; I should have listened. I also should have tried it on before I packed it. The last time I wore it was to a reception at my mother’s university three years ago, and now it was too small.

We got there early, early enough to find my mother bustling around, arranging flowers and talking to Mr. Browne, the funeral director. As soon as she saw me, she frowned. “You should have ironed that dress, Belly,” she said.

I bit my bottom lip to keep from saying something I knew I would regret. “There wasn’t any time,” I said, even though there had been. There had been plenty of time. I tugged down the skirt so it didn’t look so short.

She nodded tersely. “Go find the boys, will you? Belly, talk to Conrad.”

Steven and I exchanged a look. What would I say? It had been a month since prom, since we’d last spoken.

We found them in a side room, it had pews and tissue boxes under lacquer covers. Jeremiah’s head was bent, like he was praying, something I’d never known him to do. Conrad sat straight, his shoulders squared, staring into nowhere. “Hey,” Steven said, clearing his throat. He moved toward them, hugging them roughly.

It occurred to me that I’d never seen Jeremiah in a suit before. It looked a little too tight; he was uncomfortable, he kept tugging at his neck. But his shoes looked new. I wondered if my mother had helped pick them out.

When it was my turn I hurried over to Jeremiah and hugged him as hard as I could. He felt stiff in my arms. “Thanks for coming,” he said, his voice oddly formal.

I had this fleeting thought that maybe he was mad at me, but I pushed it away as quickly as it had come. I felt guilty for even thinking it. This was Susannah’s funeral, why would he be thinking about me?

I patted his back awkwardly, my hand moving in small circles. His eyes were impossibly blue, which was what happened when he cried.

“I’m really sorry,” I said and immediately regretted saying it, because the words were so ineffectual. They didn’t convey what I really meant, how I really felt. “I’m sorry” was just as pointless as rayon.

Then I looked at Conrad. He was sitting back down again, his back stiff, his white shirt one big wrinkle. “Hey,” I said, sitting down next to him.

“Hey,” he said. I wasn’t sure if I should hug him or leave him be. So I squeezed his shoulder, and he didn’t say anything. He was made of stone. I made a promise to myself: I would not leave his side all day. I would be right there, I would be a tower of strength, just like my mother.

My mother and Steven and I sat in the fourth pew, behind Conrad and Jeremiah’s cousins and Mr. Fisher’s brother and his wife, who was wearing too much perfume. I thought my mother should be in the first row, and I told her so, in a whisper. She sneezed and told me it didn’t matter. I guessed she was right. Then she took off her suit jacket and draped it over my bare thighs.

I turned around once and saw my father in the back. For some reason, I hadn’t expected to see him there. Which was weird, because he’d known Susannah too, so it only made sense that he’d be at her funeral. I gave him a little wave, and he waved back.

“Dad’s here,” I whispered to my mother.

“Of course he is,” she said. She didn’t look back.

Jeremiah and Conrad’s school friends sat in a bunch together, toward the back. They looked awkward and out of place. The guys kept their heads down and the girls whispered to one another nervously.

The service was long. A preacher I’d never met delivered the eulogy. He said nice things about Susannah. He called her kind, compassionate, graceful, and she was all of those things, but it sounded a lot like he’d never met her. I leaned in close to my mother to tell her so, but she was nodding along with him.

I thought I wouldn’t cry again, but I did, a lot. Mr. Fisher got up and thanked everyone for coming, told us we were welcome to come by the house afterward for a reception. His voice broke a few times, but he managed to keep it together. When I last saw him, he was tan and confident and tall. Seeing him that day, he looked like a man who was lost in a snowstorm. Shoulders hunched, face pale. I thought about how hard it must be for him to stand up there, in front of everybody who loved her. He had cheated on her, left her when she needed him most, but in the end, he had shown up. He’d held her hand those last few weeks. Maybe he’d thought there’d be more time too.

It was a closed casket. Susannah told my mother she didn’t want everybody gawking at her when she didn’t look her best. Dead people looked fake, she explained. Like they were made of wax. I reminded myself that the person inside the coffin wasn’t Susannah, that it didn’t matter what she looked like because she was already gone.