We Are the Ants (35 page)

She turned toward me, the bare hint of a smile on her lips. “Henry. I can't believe that for as long as you and Jesse dated, I've never met your mother.”

“Lucky you.”

Mom scowled at me. “You know, I have a box of baby pictures around here somewhere. Keep it up, mister.” She pushed back her chair. “It was really nice to meet you, Helen. We should have lunch sometime.”

“Absolutely.” She waited for Mom to disappear outside before motioning for me to sit. When I did, she stared at me for so long that I began to feel the same way I did when the sluggers examined me. “I never liked you, Henry.”

Mrs. Franklin's pronouncement should have shocked me, but it didn't. “Thanks?”

The hard edges of her face softened momentarily. “It wasn't you—I'm sure you're a fine young man.” I noticed the way she lingered on my black eye, and wasn't sure I believed her. “It was Jesse. I wanted him to focus on his studies. You were a distraction.”

“Jesse would have been valedictorian if—”

“I'm glad he found you, though. You made him happy.” Mrs. Franklin's voice was wooden, like she was reciting lines, but I didn't know whether it was because she was insincere or because if she allowed any emotion to creep into her voice, she'd fall apart.

“About the other night—”

Mrs. Franklin held up her hand. “I think I understand.”

“You do?”

“No, I suppose not. But I'm sure you had your reasons.”

“You turned Jesse's bedroom into a sewing room.”

“I'd burn down that house if I had the nerve.” Mrs. Franklin's composure cracked. A mad giggle escaped from her mouth, and she seemed as surprised by it as I was. “Jesse is imprinted all over that house. Down every hallway, in every wall. He's gone, but he'll never be
gone
.”

I considered taking her hand, offering her comfort, but if that was what she wanted, there had been plenty of opportunities after Jesse's death. His funeral, the wake, the lonely days after when even eating had become an unbearable chore. “Why are you here?”

Mrs. Franklin cleared her throat. “We didn't speak at Jesse's funeral—I was too bound up in my own grief to be concerned with yours. I hope you can forgive me.”

“There's nothing to forgive.”

“I wanted to ask you . . . I wanted to know . . . Did Jesse tell you he was sad?”

The question blindsided me the same way Jesse's suicide had. “No more so than anyone else.”

“Did he ever talk about wanting to hurt himself?”

“Not with me,” I said. “Audrey knew a little, but he kept that part of himself from me.”

For some reason, that made Mrs. Franklin smile. “So like Jesse. He hated to be a bother, and only wanted to make ­people smile. Especially you.”

“He did. I don't think I was ever happier than with Jesse.”

“Neither was I.” Mrs. Franklin folded her hands in front of her, and I think we both got a little lost remembering how amazing Jesse was. The way the sun shone brighter, and no trouble seemed to matter when he was near. “Do you think it was my fault?”

“I don't know.” It probably wasn't the answer Mrs. Franklin hoped for, but it was honest, and she deserved the truth. “Maybe. Maybe it was my fault. Maybe nobody is to blame.”

“My son was very lucky to have had you in his life.” Mrs. Franklin pushed back her chair and stood. She was even more imposing towering over me. “Please don't break into my house again.”

“Yes, ma'am.” As she turned to leave, I stopped her. “Did you find anything when you were cleaning out Jesse's room?”

Mrs. Franklin furrowed her brow. “Like what, Henry?”

“I don't know. Anything that might have explained why he killed himself?” The whole time we were talking, I kept hoping she'd reveal that she'd discovered a letter addressed to me, something Jesse had left behind that would make sense of everything.

She shook her head, eyes downcast. “What would it have changed if I had?”

“At least we would have known.”

“But knowing wouldn't return Jesse to us.”

She began to head toward the door again. I'd broken into her house looking for closure, and I think she came to mine looking for the same. I'm not sure either of us found what we were looking for, but maybe continuing to search was the best we could do.

“Mrs. Franklin?”

She sighed. “Yes, Henry?”

“If you knew the world was going to end, but you had the power to stop it, would you?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Mrs. Franklin's back was to me, but I imagined I could see the determined set of her jaw, the same resolute expression I'd seen on Jesse's face a hundred times. “Because Jesse believed that life wasn't worth living, and I refuse to prove him right.”

I was having a dream. The sluggers abducted me and cut off my limbs. Then they reattached them wrong. My left arm became my right leg, my right leg became my left leg, and so on. Then they tossed me onto the floor and forced me to try to crawl to the button. I wanted to reach the button more than anything, but it was impossible to walk with an arm where my leg should have been.

Jesse was in the dream too. He was lecturing me on the impermanence of memory. Most of the words jumbled together because I was busy having my body parts rearranged, but I remembered him telling me that memories are often amalgams of truth and fiction, sewn together in our heads by our subconscious to support our personal beliefs about the world. He droned on and on about dendrites and voltage gradients, but in my dream I couldn't stop wondering how much of what I remembered about Jesse was truth and how much was fiction.

As the aliens prepared to switch my hands, feet, and genitals, I heard a banging from the shadows. The sluggers turned as a unit to look toward the source of the noise, but Jesse hadn't noticed and was still talking about memory, this time in rhyming couplets. He might have also been speaking Italian. Apparently, I am also an Italian poet in my dreams.

The banging grew louder and I tried to sit up, but, lacking limbs, I fell off the table instead. My last thought before I hit the ground and woke up was,
Not the nose
.

The pounding sound traveled with me out of my dream, but I was groggy and confused, so it took me a moment to realize someone was knocking on my window.

It was 1:37 a.m. Who the fuck was knocking on my bedroom window at 1:37? I lifted the window a crack. “What?”

“Bro. I lost my keys. Let me in.” Charlie slurred his words, barely able to form a coherent sentence. Luckily, I'd been speaking Charlie Denton my entire life.

“Do you know what time it is?”

Charlie was too busy puking to answer. I threw on some clothes and snuck through the house to avoid waking Mom. Charlie wasn't waiting by the door, and I was shocked by a blast of arctic air when I walked outside in nothing but shorts and a tank top.

“Shit.” Charlie's car was parked on the front lawn. The headlights illuminated the front of the house, and the hazards were blinking. “You've got to be kidding me.” The keys were in the ignition, so I quickly backed the Jeep into the street and parked behind Mom. I couldn't do anything about the tire tracks marring the grass. Mom was going to strangle Charlie when she saw them.

Charlie stumbled toward me. The front of his work shirt was crusty with vomit, and he was sweating profusely, even in the cold. “Jesus, Charlie, we have to get you inside.”

“When did I eat broccoli?” He lurched and opened his mouth; I thought he was going to throw up again, but he fired off a wet burp that made my skin crawl. “Better.”

“Where's Zooey?”

“Parents' house.”

It's been nearly two weeks since Zooey's loss, and I ­haven't seen much of her or Charlie. Their obstetrician suspects the baby suffered from chromosomal damage. Mom told me those types of pregnancies frequently miscarry early on, but not always. Only, Mom didn't use the word
miscarry
. She referred to it as
nature's fail-safe
, as if that could draw the poison from the sting. I didn't have the heart to tell her that with Zooey so far along, the correct term was actually
stillbirth
. Anyway, it doesn't matter what word we use; their baby is dead.

“You reek,” I said. “Let's get you washed up.”

Charlie didn't put up a fight when I led him inside and got him out of his work clothes, which probably needed to be burned. He stood compliantly under the shower, letting the water run over his head. I turned it up as hot as he could bear to warm his bones so he didn't get sick. I had no idea how long he'd been outside my window, but his skin was icy. When we ran out of hot water, Charlie dressed and followed me to his room. His eyes were bloodshot, and he was sweating cheap booze.

“Don't go anywhere.” I left Charlie sitting on his bed while I ran to the kitchen for water and aspirin to mitigate his inevitable hangover.

I heard the first crash as I was filling the glass, and ran back to Charlie's room. He'd knocked over the crib, spilling out the mound of stuffed animals within, and I couldn't get to him before he punched a hole in Diego's mural.

“Charlie, what the fuck are you doing?” I tried to tackle him before he hurt himself, but he lunged at me. His fist glanced off my shoulder. I wrestled for his arms, but Charlie was bigger and stronger than I was, and the alcohol flooding his body amplified his rage. He punched me in the stomach, knocking the breath from me, and followed it with a knee to my groin that dropped me to the floor. Before I knew it, Charlie was straddling me, punching my ribs and my arms. All I could do was protect my face and plead for him to stop.

The blows slacked off, and Charlie staggered to the rocking chair. He collapsed into it, sobbing.

“Evie Nicole Denton.” Charlie repeated the name over and over.

My entire body hurt. Every breath felt like I had rusty fishhooks for lungs, but I crawled toward my brother.

“When was the last time you slept, Charlie?”

He looked at me like it was the first time he'd really seen me all night. “She had a name! We gave her a fucking name!”

“It's a beautiful name.”

“She was tiny, Henry. Littler than my hand.” Charlie's body shook. He pulled his knees to his chest and buried his face in them.

When Jesse died, people said a lot of things to try to make me feel better:

He's in a better place.

At least he's not in pain anymore.

God has a plan.

Bullshit platitudes that made me want to rip their faces off. Even Mom tried to tell me that everything happened for a reason. The only person who didn't was Charlie. After the funeral, he told me that Jesse Franklin was an asshole, and I was better off with him dead. I decked Charlie on our front lawn. Split his goddamn lip. My second punch left him with a black eye that lingered for two weeks. It was the only fight with my brother I ever won.

“You need to hit me some more?” I asked. “I think I've still got some unbruised ribs on my left side.”

Charlie sneered. “Such a fucking pansy.”

“We'll see who's a pansy when Mom rips you a new asshole for driving home drunk and tearing up the lawn.”

“Whatever.”

“You could've killed yourself, idiot.”

“That was the point.”

I hugged my ribs, breathing shallowly. At least he hadn't hit my face. My eye was only just healed from Adrian's surprise punch in the hallway at school. “Don't bother,” I said. “Unless the aliens abduct me again, we're all going to die in a couple of weeks.”

Charlie glanced at me. “Do you honestly believe that shit?”

“Did you think I was making it up?”

“I always figured you belonged in a mental hospital.”

“Maybe I do.”

Charlie's eyelids began to droop, and his breathing slowed. I should have left him to sleep in the chair. It would have served him right to wake up at least half as sore as I was going to. But I grabbed his wrist and helped him to his bed. He crashed into the pillows, asleep before he hit them.

“I really wanted to be a dad,” he mumbled.

I pulled the blankets over Charlie and set his phone beside him before turning off the lights. I stood in the doorway, listening to my brother snore.

“For the record, I think you would have been a good dad.”

  •  •  •  

I stood at the edge of the ocean, letting the water wash over my feet. My eyes were closed, but I was looking up, and I swore I could still see the stars through my eyelids. On my left was mighty Hercules, and on my right Mars and the constellation Libra. Somewhere out there the sluggers were orbiting Earth in their spaceship.

“I don't know if you can hear me, but I'm ready to press the button now.” The air was still. There was no moon and no shadows. “I want to press the button.”

I shivered uncontrollably, but figured it was my due to suffer for this. If I'd pushed that button when I'd had the chance, I wouldn't have needed to stand outside in the cold night, begging the aliens to save me.

Only it wasn't myself I wanted to save. It was my brother, who wanted to be a father, and Zooey who deserved to finish college. It was Mom and Nana and Audrey and Diego. Even Marcus. They deserve to live, even if I don't.

“Please.”

The Big Bang released so much energy that the universe has been expanding outward from it for more than thirteen billion years. Eventually, that expansion will cease, and gravity will cause the universe to contract. All those galactic clusters and far-flung stars ringed by planets—some dead, some teeming with alien life—are going to come zipping back toward one another, faster and faster as the pull of gravity draws them toward the center. No one is sure what will happen in the Big Crunch. The universe and everything in it could collapse into a massive singularity, or it could initiate another Big Bang, a new beginning to the universe. Maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing. Maybe the only way to really start over is to tear everything apart.