Keep Me in Your Heart (28 page)

None that show
, Trisha almost said. “No. I’m recovered from the accident.”

“So what brings you here to the nursing home? Anything I can do for you?”

“Actually, I was hoping I could do something for you.”

“And what’s that?”

“I’ve been thinking about Christina’s old volunteering job. I was wondering if it was filled. If maybe I could have it.”

Seventeen
 

M
rs. Kimble looked surprised. “Well, goodness, girl, I’ll never refuse good, free help. But what about school? Shouldn’t you be doing fun things?”

“Don’t you know about the senior blahs? All I want is to get out of there.” More and more Trisha had turned the yearbook project over to Frank. She simply didn’t have the interest for it anymore. School felt like a prison, her classes like solitary confinement.

“You sure you want to work here?”

“Real sure. I know it gave Christina a lot of satisfaction. So, is a job available?”

“Of course it’s available. There’s a volunteer schedule posted on the bulletin board. All you
have to do is sign up and sign in when you arrive. If you can’t come, call us so that we can shift things around.”

“Sounds simple. When can I start?”

“Tuesday. That’s when the new schedule is out.”

Trisha nodded, anxious but satisfied. “I—I probably won’t be as good at the job as … my friend, but I’ll try very hard not to let you down.”

Mrs. Kimble tipped her head, her brown eyes thoughtful. “It takes a long time to fill up a hole in your heart, Trisha. If this will help, then go for it. If you change your mind, you just come tell me. I’ll understand.”

“Thanks, but I won’t change my mind. Christina always liked you,” Trisha added.

“And I always admired and liked her. What happened was a real pity. Lordy, yes, a real pity.”

Trisha’s parents weren’t too pleased with her decision, but to their credit, they didn’t give her any arguments. Cody was very understanding. “If it’s what you want to do, then you should do it,” he said when she told him following school on Monday.

“I’ll still be coming to see you, so don’t think you can slack off and stop being my boyfriend,” she told him.

“You still want me for a boyfriend?”

“Naturally. Why wouldn’t I?”

“It just seems like a girl as pretty as you could have any guy she wanted. Instead you pick a lame-brain like me.”

“Don’t you ever call yourself names, you hear?” She shook her finger under his nose. “You’re not a ‘lame-brain.’ You’re my boyfriend, and I won’t have anybody running you down. Not even
you
.”

“It’s just so hard sometimes, Trisha. I think I’m getting better, then without warning, my mind goes completely blank. I can’t think of a simple word or how to solve a math problem. My homeschool teacher is really understanding, but I know that I’m different now than I was before the accident. I’ll never catch up.”

His pessimism cut through her heart. The accident had wrecked so many things. “All you can do is try,” she said.

“I am trying. That’s what’s so bad. No matter how hard I try, sometimes it doesn’t make a difference. I want to graduate with our class.
I want to think about the future, but it’s just too hard for me to make any plans.”

“Stuck in neutral,” she said. “That’s what I call it. We can’t go back. We can’t go forward. We’re just plain stuck.”

“Maybe I should have stayed in the coma. It would have been easier on everybody.”

“Don’t say that. It was horrible for everyone—for you of course, as well as for your family. I wanted to talk to you, but I couldn’t. At least now we can be together.”

“When I woke up in the hospital, I felt like I was floating out of a fog and landing on a bed like a feather. I didn’t know who I was. My mom looked familiar, but I couldn’t remember who she was. Can you imagine not recognizing your own mother?”

“But that didn’t last long.”

“Yes … but I want everything the way it was before. It’s been more than two months since the accident, and I still can’t return to school.”

“You will, but believe me, it’s pretty boring at school. Personally, I can’t wait until the year’s over.”

“Then what?”

“I don’t know, Cody,” she answered honestly. “That’s still the big question in my mind too.”

“You should move on. You don’t need me in your life complicating things.”

Trisha took his hand in hers, studied his fingers, remembered the way he used to touch her before the accident. “Don’t you see? We’ve been through something together that no one else can ever understand the way we do. Who’s going to be patient with me when I’m in a crowd and a sudden memory hits and I start crying? I have no history with anyone but you. I can’t think about dating another guy, hoping he’ll be understanding without me having to explain every time I fall apart.”

“But that’s just the point, Trisha. I don’t remember. And it’s making me crazy.”

“You don’t remember now,” she said. “But you will. I know you will.”

“Come to Florida with us,” Abby begged Trisha as spring break approached. “We’ll have fun and get tans and play volleyball on the beach and pester Frank and all his friends.”

“Not interested,” Trisha said. “Cody’s here. Besides, I’m making progress with Mr. Tappin.”
When Abby looked blank, Trisha added, “He’s an old man with Alzheimer’s who lives at the home. Sort of a special project of mine. He won’t eat unless somebody feeds him and even then, he won’t eat for just anybody. But if I feed him, he eats.”

Abby made a face. “Gee, the excitement must be overwhelming for you.”

“Don’t be mean. He was a special project of Christina’s too. He has no one, you know. He’s all alone.”

“Does the old guy yell? My neighbor’s mother got Alzheimer’s and she swore worse than any HBO comedian.”

“He doesn’t speak at all. He doesn’t even leave his room unless we put him in a wheelchair and take him outside. He’s totally withdrawn.”

“Ugh! What a life. It’s nice of you to care about him, though. Sorry if I came off as insensitive.”

“I used to feel the same way whenever I went to the home to help Christina. Now I don’t think anything about it at all. And I feel better doing something that’s helping somebody else.”

Abby looked pensive. “So is that what
you’re going to do? Fill in the blanks that Christina left behind?”

Trisha bristled. “That’s not fair. I’m doing a good thing here. And I’m doing it because I want to.”

“Hey, hey … I don’t mean to offend you. Sure, you’re doing a nice thing. I’m only asking you
why
you’re doing it.”

“Because I want to. Because I don’t want to go through my whole life and feel like I never made some kind of difference in the world.”

“You’re not that old,” Abby pointed out. “You’ve got plenty of time to impact the world.”

“You think so? I once thought so too, but now I don’t. We all thought Christina had plenty of time. But we were wrong, weren’t we? In truth, how much time do any of us really have?”

After her friends left town for spring break, Trisha busied herself with working at the nursing home, visiting Cody, and helping her mother with several spring-cleaning projects around the house. She missed her friends, and felt restless and unfocused no matter how active she strived to be. She even filled out a job
application at Home Depot, but her parents had a fit and forbade her to turn it in.

In the middle of the week, while her mother took Charlie to the dentist, Trisha was puttering around the house when the doorbell rang. She found Tucker on her porch. “Can I come in?” he asked.

Seeing him dressed in a suit, she almost asked,
“Who died?”
because she hadn’t seen him in a suit since Christina’s funeral. She decided the question was in bad taste. “You want a soda?” She led him to the kitchen, burning with curiosity as to why he’d come. She’d known he wasn’t going away for spring break, but she hadn’t expected to see him until classes resumed.

“No thanks,” he said, sitting at the table and removing his sunglasses. His eyes were red-rimmed. When he spoke again, he said, “It’s over.”

“What’s over?”

“The coroner’s inquest. I went before a judge yesterday and then again today to tell my story, then he ruled on the accident.”

Trisha went hot and cold all over. For some reason, she thought she’d have known about
the hearing in advance, but now it was all over. The news was upsetting. “And … ?”

“The accident’s been ruled an accident, not vehicular homicide.” He sagged in the chair. “I wasn’t blamed.”

She turned his words over in her mind, not sure how to respond or even how to feel about the verdict.

“There were a lot of factors about that night that contributed,” Tucker said. “The ice, the other car, the flap at the game. But speed wasn’t one of them. I wasn’t speeding, so the judge ruled that I wasn’t at fault.”

She had an instantaneous image of his hand on the gearshift and of Cody saying
“Slow down.”
“Okay,” she said, her voice feeling stuck in the back of her throat. “I guess that settles it then.”

“I came here first to tell you because I thought you should hear it from me.”

“What about Christina’s parents?”

“They were notified about the hearing, but they didn’t show. I talked to them just before they moved, though. I wanted them to know how sorry I was about … everything. Her father said he was sorry about how he treated me at the funeral home. I told him I understood.
He said that nothing would bring Christina back, that making me suffer wouldn’t change anything.”

Trisha tried to digest all that Tucker had said. She’d known the Eckloes for years, and now they were gone. Christina was gone. Cody was deeply wounded. Tucker had been judged blameless at the hearing. Nobody was to blame. It had been happenstance, fate, a fluke, bad timing. All was forgiven.

“Are you going to be all right?” Tucker asked. “You look really pale.”

“Was your lawyer with you at the hearing?”

“Yes. He was representing me.”

“But you told your story to the judge?”

“Yes.”

“And now it’s over?”

Tucker hunched forward, rested his forearms against his knees, and stared down at the floor. “It’ll never be over, will it? The only girl I ever loved is dead, and I was driving the car when she died. That’s the bottom line, isn’t it?”

She didn’t agree but knew it was the truth. “I know your parents are glad you’re not being blamed,” she said.

“Yes, they’ve supported me all the way.” He stood. “Will you tell Cody?” he asked.

She said she would and watched him make his way toward the front door. She braced her arms on the countertop and listened while his car pulled out of the driveway and drove away. She stood staring out the window over the sink where a vine in an old clay pot was trying to send out new shoots of green. The ordeal was over. Tucker was blameless in the eyes of the law. Christina had died in an accident. And yet, ever since the night of the crash, a memory she couldn’t grab hold of kept haunting her. And now, even if she did remember, what possible good would it do?

Eighteen
 

C
ody’s family and doctors allowed him to return to school following spring break. As Trisha walked proudly at his side, kids greeted him in the halls like a long-lost voyager.

“I feel like a freak,” he admitted when they were standing at his locker before the first bell sounded.

“Why? Everyone’s knocked out that you’re back. This is what you said you wanted, isn’t it—to be back?”

“Sure, I want to be here. It’s just that Mom’s arranged with my teachers for me to have special treatment.”

“Such as?”

“Stupid stuff. I get extra time to get to classes. If I want to leave before a class is over, I can get up, walk out, and go to the office and wait for the next class to start. In short, I don’t have to play by regular rules.”

“And you think you’ve got a problem? A lot of us would love your problem.”

“Don’t you get it? It tells people that I’m ‘different,’ that poor Cody can’t cut it and needs special handling. I don’t want special privileges.”

Actually, Trisha thought special treatment was a good idea. Cody’s attention span was still brief, and he had trouble with self-control when he became frustrated. “Do you know what stuff you want from your locker?” she asked, changing the subject.