You Will Know Me(31)

“Like how beetles are,” Drew decided. “They make a hole in the wood and stay there.”

From upstairs, she could hear Eric moving. From the basement, Devon.

“Sometimes it’s for years. All by themselves,” Drew said. “Do you think they get lonely?”

Katie looked at him, half hidden behind the stack of dinner plates he carried.

A rush of heat pushed under her eyes.

The thing you try never to think about when you go to a funeral is the thing that’s really happening. The body in the box going into the ground.

But now, with Drew there, his chin resting on the plates, looking at her gravely, talking more about beetles, all she could think of was Ryan Beck, in a box in the ground, all alone.



Everyone picked at the defrosted ziti except Devon, who held her wrist and sipped a green smoothie through a straw. Practice had been confused and unproductive again, she said. Everyone kept wondering about the funeral, talking about the mug shot of Ryan on the news.

“And saying things about Hailey. All kinds of things.”

“What things?” Katie asked. “What about her? Was it about the police?”

“The police?” Eric asked. “What did you hear?”

Devon shrugged. “I tried not to listen.”

“You shouldn’t listen,” Eric said, leaning back. “Those girls, they can’t help it, but they’ll also distract you if they can.”

“The flexion, I could feel it,” Devon said, staring at her wrist. “There’s no time to rest it before qualifiers.”

“I like Hailey,” Drew said. “I feel bad for her.”

“We all do,” Katie said, rubbing his hand. But all she could think about was Hailey’s face behind the glass, Ryan’s body in that box. Her head ached.

“I wonder when it’ll get back to normal,” Devon said, chin resting on the rim of the glass.

“Soon,” Eric said. “Try to put it all out of your head.”

“It’s only been four days,” Katie said, looking at Eric. “The Belfours are in mourning.”

But they were talking over her, talking about Devon’s heel drive and the new vaulting table. It all seemed impossible, the way they were just charging forward.

“The vault’s pitched too low,” Eric said. “I saw it right when I walked in. I’ll talk to Bobby.”

“No, it was my fault,” Devon said. “There was just so much noise in the gym. Everyone talking, no one working. Dad, I can’t get that double twist back on my Yurchenko.”

Eric nodded, a stitch of worry over his brow. “Slow and low, I know.”

“The funeral was just today,” Katie tried again, louder.

But only Drew seemed to be listening to her.

“Mom,” he said, staring at her between the tines of his fork, “how come they didn’t burn him? Ryan, I mean. Like when Mrs. Wheeler from school died.”

Something in Katie’s chest contracted painfully, her fork dropping from her hand and clattering onto the table.

“Hey, everybody!” Katie said. “The funeral was very sad for everyone. For Ryan’s mother, for Hailey. It was all very sad. That boy died just four days ago.”

They all turned and looked her, and at her fork in the center of the table.

Drew reached over and retrieved her fork, handed it to her.

“Katie,” Eric said, but before he could say more, Devon stood up, fingers ringed around her swollen wrist.

The wrist looked bigger than ever; it looked alive, the pulsing throb of a fat heart.

“It is really sad, Mom,” Devon said, backing away. Her face pale and strained. “No one ever said it wasn’t really sad.”

*



“I’ll talk to her,” Eric said, crawling beside Katie in bed. “Practice is how she works through feelings.”

“And how do you work through feelings?” Katie asked, pulling their bedspread back with a snap.

He looked at her. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there today.” Then adding, “And I’m sorry it was hard for you.”

“For me?” she said. “Funerals are pretty hard for everyone. And, you know, people were surprised you weren’t there.”

He reached for her arm. “I should have been there.”

And there was a pause, and she was so tired.

“Okay,” she replied, because in the end it was so easy to just surrender to it. To his handsomeness, his dedicated dad–ness, the depth of his feelings, which he seemed to wear all over that car-tanned face, in all the smile lines around his eyes.

“Oh,” she added, her own voice sounding so small, girl-like. “Except Hailey. I need to tell you about Hailey.”

“What about her?” His fingers drifting down her sternum, his other hand on her hip.

“She was upset. Very upset.”

“Of course she was. God.”

“But…no, I mean, she…she was angry. And she really, really wanted to talk to me.”

“Why would she want to talk to you?” he said, his fingers pressing on her pelvis.

“I never found out,” she said, looking down at his hand.

The weight of the day began sinking into her. Sinking her. She wanted to hold on, to talk about it, but it seemed too involved, too heavy and strange.