The Color of Silence (20 page)

Chapter 42

There's music filling the room, but in a softer way than it usually does. Alexandra must be back. Or maybe she's still here. I can't tell. The days are kind of blurring together recently, and I don't know if it's today or tomorrow anymore.

Or maybe it's still yesterday.

I wonder why she's keeping the volume down so low.
I like it loud and full, so that I feel completely surrounded by it.

Sometimes when I'm listening to music, I feel like I'm somewhere else. Somewhere special and beautiful, so far away that no one even knows it exists. Somewhere I can't take Alexandra or Patrick, even though I would like to have them with me always. Somehow I don't think they would be able to follow me.

I would really like to listen to Alexandra tell me more things about herself and about her life, but music is almost as good.

Being wrapped up in a blanket woven from beautiful notes is one of the most warm and comfortable feelings I know.

So comfortable that I start to drift so far away that I almost can't hear the music anymore.

“She looks so peaceful.” Patrick's voice is quiet, but the sound of it brings me back a little. I didn't even know he was here.

“I guess,” Alexandra's voice is just a whisper, but I still hear it.

I knew she was here.

Two words is usually Alexandra's limit when she talks to Patrick, so I'm surprised to hear her keep going. Her voice is so soft that I can barely hear her. “Everyone keeps on saying that this is for the best. That she's fought long enough. And it's just
not
true
!” Alexandra's voice sounds odd. Heavy and wet.

“I'm sorry. I know you lost another friend here last year.” Patrick's voice is gentle. I strain my ears to hear Alexandra's answer.

Patrick said “another friend.” Does that mean he thinks that Alexandra and I are friends?

“She was so excited about that stupid machine. I don't know if I feel bad because I'm going to miss her or because she's going to miss life. You know?” Alexandra ignores Patrick's comment.

Why did she call the Wizard stupid?

I think the Wizard is wonderful.

“I know what you mean and I don't have the answer, either. I'm glad she had a chance to spend time with you, though. I'm glad you could help her with her words.”

“We didn't get very far. She wasn't finished talking at all. She was pushing me to go faster, and I didn't know how, and now it's too late!” Her voice hardens on the last word. Definitely angry now.

At who? Or what?

I'm glad she helped me with my outside words. She should be too. We didn't find very many, but that's OK. I still got a chance to make her laugh. To show her my rainbow. To say hi to Patrick.

It was wonderful.

It was everything.

“I know you feel angry about all of this, but take it from me, feeling angry doesn't help. In my work, I've had to say good-bye to a lot of people. You have to try to think about the good things. Like how nice it was for Joanie to have a friend her own age in this place.”

He said it again. That we're friends.

“I'm not sure how nice it was for her. I'm not very interest-ing. It was nice for me, though.”

I think that Alexandra just said that we're friends. It wasn't loud and it wasn't clear, but I still got the message.

The best message of all.

Alexandra sniffs a little. Now she definitely sounds sad.

She's sad because she thinks she's losing me.

Losing another friend.

I think she's afraid she's going to miss me.

I'm glad she likes me enough to think she'll miss me,
but I don't want her to be sad.

I'm not sad or afraid.

I know where I'm going.

I'm going to walk around inside my rainbow every minute of every hour of every day now. I won't have my stones anymore but my colors will still be there, made up of all of the people who filled my life—Alexandra, Patrick, Kathleen, Brenda, Debbie, Ms. Blaine, and even Mike.

Definitely Mike!

And lots of other people I haven't remembered yet.

Maybe even my mother will show up one day.

Wouldn't that be an adventure?

This whole life has been an adventure.

But I think it's time for a new one to start.

I'm glad I'm not alone in this moment.

I want to try to say good-bye.

I don't want any tears though.

“I love you, kid.” Patrick leans over and kisses me on
the cheek.

I didn't even have to ask.

Alexandra kisses my other cheek, her tears falling on my face like soft rain from a memory.

She doesn't say good-bye out loud.

But I know.

My eyes open and look at her for just a second before my rainbow reaches out for me and pulls me into its colors for the last time.

Chapter 43

Pink and white balloons are floating in the breeze, tied to the front door of the church like people do at kids' birthday parties so that guests will know which house to go to.

Except this isn't a birthday party.

It's a funeral.

I don't know if I can do this.

I didn't go to Cali's funeral. My dad went alone while
I stayed home and tried not to imagine it happening. I tried not to imagine the heartbroken faces and endless tears—the anger, the pain, the incredible sadness.

I sat in my room and tried not to see my best friend in a box that she would have hated because she thought coffins were environmentally unfriendly and gross. Cali always said she didn't want a funeral, because funerals were just a way to make everyone feel lousy and cry a lot. She told me she wouldn't want anyone to see her dead because it wouldn't be her anymore. That she would be somewhere else.

She never told me where.

I guess she didn't tell her parents how she felt about funerals. Why would she have? She was only sixteen.

She's in a coffin, in the ground, in the graveyard. If she knows about it, she's really pissed off by now.

I don't want to go in. I don't want to hear some guy talk about Joanie like he knows her. I don't think anyone really knew her. How could they? Her whole world was inside her head.

I'm surprised to see so many people here. I didn't think Joanie knew that many people. It's nothing like Cali's funeral, though. My dad told me that there were hundreds of people there. So many that the church filled up, and they had to broadcast the service through loudspeakers on the lawn, like an outdoor music festival.

I've seen maybe fifty people go inside today. Not hundreds, but still more than I expected.

“Hi Alex. Are you coming inside?” Patrick is suddenly standing beside me. I'm still on the sidewalk, staring at the balloons. He looks at them too.

“I don't know if she liked balloons or not, but they seem…
I don't know, somehow right for her today. Light, colorful. Like her.” He smiles a little. I look at him. He looks different without his bright nursing scrubs. He's in a blue suit, with a white shirt. His tie is bright pink, though, and I can suddenly imagine Joanie laughing at the sight of it.

The thought makes me smile and sniff at the same time.

“I forgot. I spoke to Kathleen and to Joanie's case worker, and we all agreed that this should go to you.” He reaches in his pocket and takes out the necklace that used to hang over Joanie's bed.

Her rainbow.

“No, I don't…I can't…I mean, I barely knew her. You all knew her a lot longer than I did.”

“Not really. She's moved around a lot, poor kid.”

“But there must be someone closer to her than me to give this to.” My hands are in my pockets. I don't want Joanie's rain…necklace. I don't deserve it.

“You're her friend. I think she would want it to be with you.” He's holding it out to me. The sun is shining through the stones, lighting them up until they sparkle. It really looks like an upside-down stone rainbow.

I think about Joanie's eyes the day I finally figured out what it meant to her. How excited she looked to be sharing it with me.

And then suddenly I'm crying. Not just delicate little tears like the actresses in all of those movies Cali loved to hate.

Real crying—my eyes pouring out useless tears as my nose starts to run. I try to stop, squeezing my eyes tightly shut to try to hold the tears back and dry myself up. But it's no use. They've been waiting too long to be let loose, and they just come out in a big flood, washing away my self-control.

Sobbing and gulping and sniffing and snorting, making a total mess of myself. Crying so hard I can barely breathe. Standing here making a complete fool of myself out in public where any random stranger can see me.

“Hey, it's OK. Everything's going to be OK.” Patrick puts his hand on my shoulder. I'm pretty sure I scared him. I shake my head at him.

“I'm all right. Sorry. Thank you.” The words come out in gulps, each one forced by a sob. “Go ahead in. I'll be OK.”

I'm still sniffling, but I've managed to stop crying for the moment. I take the necklace from him and put it carefully into my pocket. Patrick nods and gives my shoulder another squeeze. Then he turns away and heads up the steps and into the room where lots of people who don't know anything about rainbows are saying good-bye to someone who probably knew more about them…about everything…than we'll ever understand.

I know I should go in.

After all, I'm the one with the rainbow in my pocket.

But I'm afraid if I go in and listen to everyone say good-bye, I'll start crying again.

If I start crying again, I might never stop.

Chapter 44

“I'm a coward.”

“What?” Dad looks up from where he's watching TV.
He didn't even see me come in. I thought of sneaking back out before he noticed me, but the words came out on their own before I could stop them.

I seem to be losing control over everything.

“A coward.” It comes out louder than either of us expected.

“Why do you think that?” He uses the remote to turn the TV off and turns his full attention on me. I don't want his full attention. I want to end the conversation. So why do I keep on talking?

“Because I let a friend down. Again.” He nods a little.

“Joanie?”

“Yes.”

“Why do you think you let her down?” He pats the couch beside him so that I'll sit down, but I shake my head no.

“I tried to go to her funeral, but I couldn't go in. I just stood outside and cried.”

“Oh, Alex! I wish you had told me about it. I would have gone with you. I know how hard this is for you.”

For a second I feel like running over and sitting in his lap like I used to when I was a little girl and needed to feel safe. But I don't. My father looks at me with soft eyes.

“Tell me what happened, honey.”

“I went to the church. But I couldn't go in there and watch all of those people crying about her and talking about how short her life was and how she was gone too soon and how tragic it was and how awful it was and how it should never have happened.
I couldn't sit there and watch them watching me, knowing it was my fault that she died. Knowing her parents wish it was me up there in the box instead of their daughter.” I take a deep, sobbing breath, trying to get control, but it doesn't work. I feel like everything inside of me has liquefied and is coming out my tear ducts.

“
Joanie's
parents?” He says it gently, like he's afraid his voice might make me actually melt into a puddle on our nice living-room rug.

“What? No! What do you mean? Joanie doesn't have parents.” What's he talking about?

“You said her
parents wished you were in the box. Whose parents?”

I look at him. He's blurred by saltwater, but I can still see him looking at me intently.

“
Cali
's parents. I got the two funerals mixed up for a second, I guess. I'm just tired.”

“But you didn't even try to go to Cali's funeral.”

“No! Of course not. How could I go there and face everyone?”

“But you did go to Joanie's.”

“I
tried
to go. But I couldn't even do that one thing for her.”

“Going to the funeral was for her?”

“Who else would it be for?”

“I don't know. I always thought funerals were for the living. I'm not so sure the dead are as interested in them as we are.” Dad pauses for a minute, then looks at me. “Do you think she was there?”

“Who? Joanie? At her funeral? I don't know. I don't know where people go after. If anywhere. Do you? Do you really know where Mom is? Do you really know that she isn't just…gone.”
I throw the last question at him like a challenge.

“I know what
I
believe. I believe that your mom is with us every day. I think she watches over both of us, loving us and wanting us to be happy. But that's me. You'll have to figure out what you believe.”

I look at him through murky almost-tears and actually start to laugh.

“Sounds like a bumper sticker.”

“I get some of my best material off bumper stickers. I see a lot of them at work.”

“It's not really a very helpful answer.”

“It's the best one I have. How about a question instead? What if Cali was at her own funeral?”

“What if Cali was at her own funeral?” I sound like a parrot, but it's such a strange question, I can't help it.

I try to imagine Cali standing there watching all those people sitting around listening to someone talking about her through a microphone and loud speaker. I heard that the choir sang and everyone cried. What would Cali have done?

Probably laughed. And joined in with the choir. Sung about watermelons.

The thought makes me smile, just a little bit. I try to wipe it off before Dad sees it.

“She would have hated every second. Well, except for the loudspeakers. She liked loud. And maybe the singing.”

“What about Joanie?”

“Joanie?”

“Yes, what if Joanie was at her own funeral?”

“I don't know. I mean, I feel like she might have enjoyed it, listening to people say nice things about her. It's strange. I feel like I knew her, but all she ever really said to me was ‘blue' and ‘hi'…oh, and ‘yes' and ‘no.' That's pretty much it.”

And rainbow.

I don't say that one out loud because it feels like it might be a secret just between us.

“The computer you mentioned.”

“Yeah. She loved it. It's not fair that she never got to really talk with it. She had so much to say. We were just getting started, and it all just…ended.”

Everything just ended.

“How do you know she loved it? Did she tell you?”

“No, not with words. Sometimes I could tell what she was feeling. At least I thought I could.”

“Did she feel anything about you?”

“Maybe. Probably. She liked me, I guess.” My hand sneaks into my pocket to hold onto the polished stones.

“Would she be upset if you didn't go to her funeral?”

“I don't know. Probably not. She seemed…nice…understanding…kind.”

“How do you know if she never spoke to you?”

“I don't know. I just did. I don't even know if I'm right.”

“Do you think Cali would be angry at you for not going to her funeral last year?”

“Definitely not. She hated funerals!”

“Do you think Cali would be angry with you for letting her drive the car that night?”

I didn't see that one coming. Dad is getting sneaky. Or daring. Or both.

“I don't know.”

“Maybe you need to figure that out.”

“Maybe. If I knew how.”

“Maybe you should ask her.”

I look at him to see if he's trying to be funny. He's smiling, but his eyes look tired and a little sad, like they always do. I smile back, even though I feel tired and sad too.

“I'm sorry, Dad,” I whisper it as I come onto the couch and curl up on his lap. He doesn't ask me what I'm sorry for. He just wraps his arms around me, pulling all of me together into one piece and holding on tightly so I don't fall apart again.

But I do anyway.

I start to cry, burying my face in my father's shirt. Sobbing like a baby while my daddy tells me I'm going to be OK, to go ahead and cry.

Everyone says that crying can make you feel better. But I don't think so. Every tear just brings another one. It makes your nose run and your stomach hurt. And when you're finished, all you feel is tired and sore. But not better. Not less sad.

How can I ever feel better?

How can anyone ever feel better when someone dies?

Except that, right in this moment, just for this moment, sitting here messing up my father's shirt, I do feel just a little bit better.

Just for this moment.