Love and Other Unknown Variables (27 page)

0.4

I
drive without knowing where I’m going. I’m out in the farmland that surrounds the suburbs. My phone rings, but I don’t answer. James texts me once.

Dude?

Greta sends three.

Where are you?

Are you ok in there?

Don’t be stupid.

Oh, I’m well past stupid. I left stupid in the dust when I thought I could handle a serious relationship with a terminally ill girl. A gorgeous, talented, funny, and most awesomest girl in the world. But still, a girl destined to leave me.

I scan the horizon. Soybeans and tobacco as far as the eye can see. The road curves and I follow it. On the horizon is a dilapidated structure practically falling in on itself. The physics involved in holding its shape are beyond my scope. It’s the ghost of a barn.

I’m reminded of Charlotte’s painting.
I am. The barn
. Part of me wants to pull a fast U-turn and haul balls home. The part in control of the car slows down and pulls onto the dusty shoulder.

I march through high grass, crickets rising like popcorn kernels in hot oil with each step. The early spring sun is still hot even though it is sinking lower in the sky.

When I reach the barn, I place a hand on the worn wood, feeling the sun’s heat there. I let myself remember Charlotte and the warm smell of her skin. Charlotte always smelled like vanilla, like sugar cookies just out of the oven.

I think of the Harvest Moon and how it reminded Mrs. Dunwitty of her youth, even when she was so far away from it. But the memory of Charlotte is painful. Whenever I get a whiff of a bakery, will I feel like shit? Even when I’m eighty? I need to tell Becca no cookies can be served in whatever old folks’ home she dumps me in. The more sterile the better. I can’t think of any memories involving industrial cleaning products.

I don’t know when the madness slips in, but I start talking to the barn like it’s Charlotte. At first, I’m moaning stuff like, “How am I supposed to go on without you?” Melodramatic crap. Soon though, I’m telling her all the things I should have said, but never did. Things like, “I love the way your nose wrinkles when you smile.”

I wonder if I can stay here. The thought of going back and facing my friends and family and Ms. Finch and school and all the dumb expectations I had for my life feels overwhelming. Definitely unappealing. I could hide in this barn, this falling down wreck of a barn, until everyone forgets about me. I could hide here with nothing but Charlotte in my mind.

I don’t want to go back because as soon as I do, everyone will try to help me forget her. I promised I wouldn’t forget, and if that means hanging on to this pain until I die, then that’s what I will do.

I lie down on the warm earth and shut my eyes, willing Charlotte to me. She’s tilting her head back and closing her eyes, too. Our fingers are tangled together, so it’s hard to tell which are mine and which are hers. She’s so beautiful and so alive—if only for that one moment.

I don’t know what step on the whole grieving process this is, but man does it hurt. Tears leak out in streams that run down the sides of my face, dripping along my ears, and pooling in the dry dirt.

0.5

I
walk into a maelstrom of activity when I get back. Dad is staring into a huge pot of soup on the stove even though it’s one of those classic southern spring-is-for-wussies-so-how’s-about-we-jump-straight-to-90-degrees days. Mom is upstairs, and I can hear her pleading with Becca to come down. Greta is pacing the kitchen, gnawing on her fingernails, as James plows through the last of the chips in a jumbo-sized bag.

I freeze in the entryway enjoying the last few seconds of anonymity before they notice me. Then I’ll be the guy with the dead girlfriend and everyone will examine me like I’m a time bomb. I understand now how Charlotte must have felt trapped inside her cancer with no way to escape it while we stood around watching her like she was a caged bird.

I drop my keys on the counter and everyone turns to look at me. Somehow, even Mom heard it over her own voice. She comes barreling down the back staircase, eyes wild, and hair sticking out in odd places. She reaches the bottom step and freezes. No one speaks.

“I’m sorry,” I say to them all. “I needed some time.”

They still don’t move. Dad asks, “But you’re okay?”

“No. Not really.” I try a smile, but it’s like it doesn’t fit on my face anymore. “But I’m not the Romeo type, so everyone can relax.”

Dad’s mouth pulls up on one side, and he turns away to stir his soup. James grabs Greta’s hand from where she’s biting at her cuticles. Mom approaches me like I’m a wounded animal she’s not sure about. She reaches out and runs her fingers through my hair, then hugs me and smothers me all at the same time. I give in to the comfort of it for a second before I pull away.

“I’ve got to talk to Becca.” I squeeze mom’s arm before going up to Becca’s room.

I pull the chair back over to the wall and climb up. “Hey!”

Her eyes flit up to mine.

“Good,” I say. “Eye contact is good. Now, how about coming out of there?”

Becca looks back down at the book in her lap. I can just make out one page. A brown rabbit pokes out of a garbage sack as a fairy with electric blue eyes flits above its head. It’s the copy of
The Velveteen Rabbit
that Charlotte illustrated for her.

“Oh, Bec.”

The silence from within her wall shatters into big, hiccupping sobs.

“Please, come out, Bec. Please?”

She nods, the barest of movements, but it’s all I need to start chucking books off the top of the wall. Inside, she stands and starts to push them away from her. Open books cascade like an avalanche of snowy paper. I hurdle over the books between us and grab her in a big hug.

She disintegrates, and it’s all I can do to catch her and hold her while she sobs and melts through my fingers. I realize I’m not alone. Becca won’t forget either.

0.6

T
he funeral is the worst thing I’ve ever endured. I’ve decided I hate funeral flowers more than I hate poetry. I leave the rose Mrs. Dunwitty gave me on Charlotte’s coffin. I think it’d make both of them happy. I don’t want to talk about it anymore. Possibly ever.

Charlotte’s buried in a cemetery next to her mother. There’s space for Mr. Finch and Ms. Finch. It’s a family plot. There’s no room for me.

We stop at a gas station on our way out of town. Greta and Becca go inside to use the restroom. I pump the gas.

“It’s getting cold,” James says as he climbs out from the backseat. “You got a sweatshirt or something?”

I nod toward the trunk and toss him the keys. He unlocks it and swears. “Jesus, Charlie. This trunk is disgusting. How do you find anything?”

“I don’t. It’s where I put things to forget about them.”

“Wait, I see a sweatshirt trapped under all this crap. I’ll save you.” He dives in, his feet kicking in the air. I shake my head as I walk around to help him.

“You can relax,” says James, as he scrambles back out of the trunk with the hoodie. “You’re safe now.” He pulls it on, and even though it’s big on me, it looks like he went shopping at the baby gap. I smirk.

“Little tight,” James grimaces. “You need to clean this trunk, man. I may have even seen a body back there.”

I chuckle and peer further into the depths of my trunk. My heart misses a step as I recognize a face. Mrs. Dunwitty’s angel. The angel I smashed in a time and place far from this reality. She is lying on her side, broken wing lost somewhere in the clutter, neglected.

“Get me that trash can,” I say, pointing toward the pumps.

“Man, I didn’t mean clean it now.”

“Trash can,” I plead and start pulling out crap as fast as I can. As James returns, dragging the heavy canister, I emerge from my trunk, arms full of papers, fast food wrappers, and a single shoe. I shove it all in the can and dive back for more. My hands shake and I feel like I’m moving through Jell-O. I can’t get the stuff out fast enough.

I look at James. Behind him, Becca and Greta are walking toward us from the station.

“Help me.”

James nods and starts to pull out papers and soda bottles. He holds a few questionable things up, dangling each over the trash can in turn and asking, “Trash?” Things like gym shorts, an old duffle bag, and a science journal stolen from my dad’s office at school. For each of these I grunt and nod. Trash, trash, trash. It’s all trash.

But then James is holding a can of flamingo-ass paint over the can and jiggling it, saying, “Trash?”

“No!” I rescue the paint can and dig around to find the brush, setting them to one side.

After a few more armloads, the trunk is empty except for the angel, her wing, the paint, and paintbrush. I’m frozen in the angel’s concrete stare until James clears his throat beside me.

“It looks much better, but we should get on the road. Don’t you think?” He places one hand on my shoulder and the other on the trunk lid, ready to close it. I nod, still watching the angel watch me. “Okay, good,” he says as he begins to close the trunk.

“Wait!” I shout and brace the lid. I reach in and pull the angel out. She’s heavy. My body strains against her weight. But I lift her out and hug her to my chest.

James looks at me as if he’s wondering what size straightjacket to get me for my birthday. He screws up his mouth into a twisted half-grimace. I can’t meet his eyes, so I look down at the angel in my arms and say, “Okay, now I’m good.”

Greta recognizes the angel. “Oh,” she says, like she’s been holding her breath for too long. She helps me place the angel on the bench seat in the back. She slides in on one side and braces it with her arm. I do the same with mine.

From the front seat, I can hear Becca sniffle. I pull Mrs. Dunwitty’s handkerchief from my suit coat pocket and hand it to her.

“Where to?” James asks from the driver’s seat.

“I need to see Charlotte one more time.”

James nods and puts the car in gear.

Becca wipes her tears on Mrs. Dunwitty’s starched white handkerchief that still smells a little like the Harvest Moon it cradled. She looks from me to the angel and back again. “Charlotte will love her, Charlie.”

I nod and hold more tightly to my angel.

“You make a good hero.” Becca’s voice is a whisper of wings. “Atticus would be proud.”

0.7

T
he cemetery sits in a valley, surrounded by rolling green hills, ringed by woods. The funeral home has taken away the tent and chairs, but from the parking lot I can still see the huge bouquets of flowers surrounding the place where Charlotte lies.

I heft my angel out from the backseat. James hops out and pops the trunk lid. I feel good now that I have a plan, like I’m in charge of at least one small thing in this world.

“Bec, could you grab that paint and brush?”

Becca peers into the clean trunk. “Is this her wing?” she asks, holding up my angel’s broken wing. I nod. She takes the wing and the paint supplies.

Greta comes around to the back, too, and asks with definite mom-ness in her tone, “Whatcha doing with the paint, Chuck?”

James touches Greta’s shoulder to keep her from following. “Let him go.”

“What’s he going to do?”

“Whatever he has to do.” He closes the trunk, and as I walk away, I hear him saying something about trusting me for once and haven’t I grown this year and Greta isn’t the boss of me.

She punches him in the shoulder saying, “I’m the boss of everyone.” And he laughs and pulls her close, kissing her on the top of her head.

Becca and I walk through the maze of graves. The angel is pretty small (as angels go), but she feels heavier the closer I get to Charlotte. There’s a layer of sod covering her grave, bits of black earth visible in the seams. I place the angel at Charlotte’s head.

“I hate that she’s broken,” I say, straightening the statue so she can watch over Charlotte.

Becca takes Mrs. Dunwitty’s handkerchief from her pocket, saying, “Hold her steady.”

I kneel beside the angel and watch as Becca ties the handkerchief like a sling, fastening the wing back on the statue.

“How’d you do that?” I ask.

“It’s not like I fixed it, really. I just made it more bearable.” She leans across the angel and kisses me on the cheek like she did when she was a little girl. Her eyes are calm.

She dips her head toward the earth where Charlotte lies. “Best friends forever,” she whispers. She only glances back once as she returns to the car.

As I paint the angel pink, I think about the Finches, and all I’ve learned from them. The more I think, the more confused I become. There’s no way to sort it out right now, and in the end, there’s no reason to. I have plenty of time. Perhaps I’ll be an old curmudgeon like Dimwit one day. Imagine how genius I could be with so much time to sort through this mess.

Or not.

What I do know is that the world looks different crouching here on Charlotte Finch’s grave, a paintbrush in hand, the smell of flowers in my nose. From here, the world looks less like the orderly line of concrete numbers I had always relied on and more like chaos.

I am so involved in painting the broken wing that I don’t hear the footsteps. I feel a change in the air around me and smell a certain familiar perfume—Charlotte, but not quite.

“Hanson, what are you doing?” Ms. Finch asks.

“She shouldn’t be alone.”

There’s silence behind me. I keep painting. Luna sits beside me, watching my every move, like she’s still protecting Charlotte somehow.

I finish the wings before I face Ms. Finch. She’s changed out of her funeral clothes. Her blue eyes are ringed with red and her skin is as pale as the bleached stones in the oldest section of the cemetery. She looks like hell.

I hold out the paint can and brush and nod at the angel. “Want a turn?”

Ms Finch stares at the angel. “She’s broken,” she mumbles.

“It happens,” I say. “But, see? She’s on the mend.”

“How did she break?”

“I ran her over with my car.” I smile at the memory of my time with Mrs. Dunwitty.

Ms. Finch laughs, a short, hard sound. She runs a finger over the handkerchief holding on the broken wing. “Hand over that brush.”

I watch her in the failing light. Her eyes focus on each molecule of paint adhering to the rough stone of the angel’s body. And I have to know.

“Are you coming back to school?”

“No.” She paints a few more strokes and lets the brush fall across her lap.

“For what it’s worth, you were a good teacher.”

She smiles crookedly and something that should have been a laugh gurgles in her throat.

Ms. Finch finishes painting. She sets the brush down and wipes her fingers on her jeans, leaving pink smudges along her thighs. “I have something for you.” She reaches into the purse behind her. “I wasn’t going to give it back. I’m sorry about that.”

A familiar paperback novel is in her hands.

“No,” I say, an electric current coursing through my spine, “I gave that back to Charlotte. It belongs to you.”

Ms. Finch opens the book to the page with the inscriptions. “Not anymore,” she says as she leans across Charlotte’s grave to hand me the book. Inscribed in Charlotte’s looping script I see my own name.

To Other Charlie, who may need reminding he's the reason the mockingbird sings.

I choke back a sob and flip through the pages, running my finger along the lines of the drawings as if they were the lines of Charlotte’s face. I love this book.