Only Child(53)

“What’s the one with the hole in the middle for?” Daddy asked.

“For lonely,” I explained. “Lonely is see-through, so I made a hole because there’s no see-through color.”

“Lonely? Because of Andy?” Daddy made a sound in his throat.

“Well, inside my hideout I don’t feel lonely,” I said.

“No? Why not?” Daddy asked.

I didn’t know if I should tell Daddy that in here I talked to Andy and read books to him. He would probably think that was weird. “I…it’s because I pretend Andy can hear me in here,” I said, and I pointed the light circle in a corner of the closet because I didn’t want me and Daddy to see each other.

“You talk to him?” Daddy said in a quiet voice.

“Yeah,” I said back. “And I read out loud.”

Daddy wanted to find out everything at once about my hideout, and I didn’t know that was going to happen. “I mean, I know it’s not real life, because Andy is dead, and dead people can’t hear you,” I said. “So it’s stupid anyway.”

Daddy took my hand that was holding Buzz, and he put it in between us and then we weren’t talking in the dark anymore, and that made it harder, because he could see my red face.

“I don’t think it’s stupid,” Daddy said.

“It makes me feel good when I say stuff to him, that’s all.” I put my shoulders up and down.

“So why did you include lonely on your feelings pages?” Daddy asked.

“That’s for the lonely feeling outside of my hideout.”

“Outside of your hideout you feel lonely?”

I put my shoulders up and down again. “Sometimes.”

For a little while we didn’t talk about anything else. We just sat in the hideout and were quiet together, and I liked that.

“Daddy?” I said after a while.

“Yes, bud?”

“I think I should add one for sorry.”

“Add one what?”

“A feelings page.”

“For sorry? Why?”

“Because I acted bad and I made Mommy upset. And it’s my fault that she ran away from home. I’m sorry that I did that. I want her to come home so I can tell her sorry.” Tears came in my eyes.

Daddy looked at me, and then he put his hands on both of my arms and squeezed them in a gentle way. “Zach, listen to me, bud,” he said. His voice sounded like something was stuck in his throat. “It’s not your fault Mommy is upset. Do you hear me?”

Tears started to spill over on my face.

“She didn’t run away from home. She…had to get away for a little while. She’ll be home later, OK?” Daddy said, and then he put his forehead against my forehead and he pushed out a big breath. I could feel it on my face, but it didn’t bother me. “None of this is your fault.”

“OK, but, Daddy?”

“Yes?”

“I still have a sorry feeling sometimes, and it’s about Andy. I feel like I want to say sorry to Andy.”

“Why do you want to say sorry to Andy, bud?” Daddy pulled his forehead away from mine to look at me. Now more tears were coming out of my eyes, and I wiped them off with my hands, and that made the Buzz light circle bounce all around the hideout.

“When the gunman was at the school, I didn’t even think about him,” I told Daddy. “When we were hiding in the closet and we could hear the POP sounds, and then the police came and we walked in the hallway and I could see some of the hallway with the blood, and then we went to the church…the whole time I didn’t even think about Andy.” Big crying sounds were coming from my throat now and it was hard to talk, but I wanted to tell this to Daddy. “I only thought about him when Mommy came and asked me where he was.”

“Oh my God, Zach,” Daddy said. He grabbed me under my armpits and pulled me over on his lap. “You do not have to feel sorry about that. You were scared. You’re only a child, you’re only six!”

“I’m not finished yet about why I’m sorry about Andy,” I said. “And the other thing is really bad.”

“Tell me,” Daddy said into the hair on the top of my head.

“After Andy got killed from the gunman, at first I was feeling happy sometimes. I mean not like super happy, but I remembered all the bad things he always did, and I thought it was going to be better without him here. I thought the fighting would be gone, and Andy couldn’t be mean to me anymore. That’s what I thought, and that’s why I was kind of happy that he wasn’t here anymore.”

I waited for Daddy to say something, but he was quiet. I could feel his chest going up and down, and when his breath came out it made my head warm.

“That’s bad, right?” I asked Daddy.

“No. It’s not bad,” Daddy said in a quiet voice. “Do you still feel happy about that?”

“No. Because it’s not what happened. It didn’t get better. And—he didn’t only do bad things. Now I have good memories, too. I don’t want Andy to be gone forever.”

After a while Daddy started to shift around and said, “Gets hot in here, huh?”

“Yeah,” I said. “But it’s cozy. I like it in here.”