Everything I Never Told You(17)

“What are you doing here?” Nath demands. Up close, he can see that Jack’s shirt is dark blue, not black, that though he’s wearing dress pants he still has on his old black-and-white tennis shoes with the hole in the toe.

“Hey,” Jack says, eyes still on the ground. “Nath. How are you?”

“How do you think I am?” Nath’s voice cracks, and he hates himself for it.

“I gotta go,” Jack says. “My mom’s waiting.” A pause. “I’m really sorry about your sister.” He turns away, and Nath catches him by the arm.

“Are you?” He’s never grabbed anyone before, and he feels tough doing it, like a detective in a movie. “You know, the police want to talk to you.” People are beginning to stare—James and Marilyn hear their son’s raised voice and look around—but he doesn’t care. He leans in closer, almost to Jack’s nose. “Look, I know she was with you that Monday.”

For the first time Jack looks Nath in the face: a flash of startled blue eyes. “She told you?”

Nath lurches forward so that he and Jack are chest to chest. Blood throbs in his right temple. “She didn’t have to tell me. Do you think I’m stupid?”

“Look, Nath,” Jack mumbles. “If Lydia told you that I—”

He breaks off suddenly, as Nath’s parents and Dr. Wolff come within earshot. Nath stumbles backward a few steps, glaring at Jack, at his father for interrupting, at the elm tree itself for not being farther away.

“Jack,” Dr. Wolff says sharply. “Everything all right?”

“Fine.” Jack glances at Nath, then at the adults. “Mr. Lee, Mrs. Lee, I’m very sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you for coming,” says James. He waits until the Wolffs have started down the curving path out of the cemetery before grabbing Nath by the shoulder. “What’s the matter with you?” he hisses. “Picking a fight at your sister’s funeral.”

Behind his mother, Jack gives a quick backward glance, and when his gaze meets Nath’s, there’s no doubt: he is frightened. Then he turns the curve and is gone.

Nath lets out his breath. “That bastard knows something about Lydia.”

“You don’t go around making trouble. You let the police do their work.”

“James,” Marilyn says, “don’t shout.” She touches her fingers to her temple, as if she has a headache, and closes her eyes. To Nath’s horror, a dark drop of blood runs down the side of her face—no, it’s only a tear, stained black by mascara, leaving a dirty gray trail on her cheek. Hannah, her small heart awash in pity, reaches up to take her hand, but her mother doesn’t notice. In a moment Hannah contents herself by clasping her own fingers behind her back.

James fishes in his jacket pocket for his keys. “I’m taking your mother and sister home. When you’ve cooled off, you can walk.” As the words leave his mouth, he winces. Deep inside, he wants more than anything to calm Nath, to put a comforting and weighty hand on his shoulder, to fold him into his arms, on this day of all days. But already it takes all his strength to keep his own face from crumpling, to stop his own knees from buckling and spilling him to the ground. He turns away and grabs Hannah’s arm. Hannah, at least, always does what she’s told.

Nath sinks down on the roots of the elm and watches his parents head back toward the car, Hannah trailing after them with one wistful backward glance. His father doesn’t know what Jack is like. Jack has lived down the street from them for eleven years, since he and Nath were in the first grade, and to Nath’s parents he is just a neighbor boy, the scruffy one with the dog and that old secondhand car. In school, though, everyone knows. Every few weeks a different girl. Every girl the same story. Jack doesn’t date; there are no dinners out, no flowers, no boxes of chocolates in cellophane wrap. He simply drives the girl out to the Point or the drive-in or a parking lot somewhere and spreads a blanket across the backseat of his car. A week or two later, he stops calling and moves on. He’s known to make a specialty of deflowering virgins. At school, the girls are proud of it, like they’ve joined an exclusive club; clustered at their lockers, they whisper a giggling, salacious play-by-play. Jack himself talks to no one. It’s common knowledge that he’s alone most of the time: his mother works night shifts at the hospital, six nights a week. He does not eat in the school cafeteria; he does not go to the dances. In class, he sits in the back row, picking the next girl he’ll ask for a ride. This spring he had picked Lydia.

Nath huddles in the cemetery an hour, two hours, three, watching the cemetery workers stack the folding chairs, gather the flowers, pluck balled-up papers and tissues from the grass. In his mind, he dredges up every single thing he’s ever heard about Jack, every fact, every rumor. The two begin to blur, and by the time he is ready to head home, he is bubbling with a terrible fury. He tries to imagine Lydia with Jack, tries desperately not to picture them together. Had Jack hurt her somehow? He doesn’t know. He knows only that Jack is at the heart of everything, and he promises himself he will find out how. Only when the gravediggers lift their shovels and approach the open grave does Nath clamber to his feet and turn away.

As he skirts the edge of the lake and turns onto their street, he spots a police car parked outside Jack’s house. About goddamn time, Nath thinks. He sidles closer to the house, slouching below the line of windows. Behind the screen, the front door stands open, and he climbs the porch stairs on his toes, sticking to the edges of the worn boards, making sure they don’t squeak. It’s his sister they’re talking about, he tells himself with each step; he has every right. At the top, he leans toward the screen door. He can’t see anything except the entryway, but he can hear Jack in the living room, explaining slowly, loudly, as if it’s the second or third time.