Only Child(88)

“Huh,” Mommy said, and she put her head down on my head. “So sympathy is one of the secrets?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “I don’t think I did that with Andy when he was still alive and he was acting mean, but then after I got it and I started to feel the sympathy for him.”

Daddy made his eyebrows go up. He looked at Mommy and shook his head a little.

“Mommy?” I said.

“Yes, baby?”

“I think you have to try to feel the sympathy with Charlie, too. Please don’t make him go in jail. I could feel his feelings with him today, at the cemetery, and he is sick from sadness like us and Merlin.”

Mommy was quiet for a long time after that. I thought maybe she got mad at me again, like the last time I told her that she should have sympathy with Charlie, before she made me go to school.

But then she asked, “What are the other two secrets?” and she didn’t sound mad.

“One is to be curious about things. And the fourth one I don’t know yet. I tried to finish the book at the cemetery to find out, but it got too cold and too dark,” I said.

“Should we finish it now?” Mommy asked. “Or are you too tired? We can always do it tomorrow.”

I didn’t feel tired, and I didn’t want us to leave the hideout, so I jumped up and said, “I’ll go get the book. It’s in my backpack.” I zipped downstairs and grabbed the book and also Buzz, so we would have enough light to read, and then I zipped back upstairs.

Right when I was about to go back in the closet, I heard Mommy and Daddy’s voices and I stopped to hear what they were saying.

“…we both played our part in this,” I heard Mommy say. “You can’t put this all on me.”

“I know, I know,” Daddy answered. His voice was very quiet. “Please let’s not argue, OK? Not tonight. I’m so damn relieved we have him back safe and sound.”

Then they didn’t say anything else for a while, so I went back in the closet.

Mommy had her head down on her knees, and Daddy had his head against the wall. Their heads popped up when they heard me come back in.

I told Mommy and Daddy what happened so far, how Jack and Annie got to Antarctica and how they go on a helicopter trip to a volcano with the researchers. And of course the researchers find out Jack and Annie are kids—I knew they were going to—but they don’t really get in trouble. They’re supposed to wait at the house until someone comes and brings them back down from the mountain. But they leave the house instead and they fall into a ravine.

That’s how far I got at the cemetery. When I was telling Mommy and Daddy about it, I was starting to feel a little tired, so I gave the book to Daddy so he could read the rest. Daddy opened it and the picture of me and Andy fell out. Daddy looked at it for a while and then gave it to me. I found the tape in the corner of the hideout and taped the picture back on the wall where it was before. Then I snuggled my back against Mommy and listened to Daddy’s reading. Mommy’s body made my body warm, and Daddy was reading in a quiet voice. My eyes started to feel heavy, and it was hard to keep them open.





[ 53 ]


    Club Andy


THAT WAS THE LAST THING I remembered, and then I woke up and I was in Mommy and Daddy’s bed and it was light outside. I didn’t remember how I got out of the hideout and in the bed, and I didn’t remember what happened in the book and if Jack and Annie found out the fourth secret of happiness.

Mommy was asleep in the bed next to me, and I shook her shoulder a little bit.

“Mommy?” I said. Mommy rolled over and opened her eyes. When she saw me, she smiled and put her hand on my cheek.

“Mommy, did Daddy leave again?” I asked.

“No, sweetie. He’s sleeping on the couch downstairs.” Mommy rolled over and looked at the clock on her nightstand. It said 8:27. “Wow, we slept late. You can go wake up Daddy if you want.”

I went downstairs, and Daddy wasn’t sleeping anymore. He was in the kitchen, reading the newspaper on his iPad.

“Hey, sleepyhead,” Daddy said when he saw me. He picked me up and squeezed me tight, and I could smell his breath—it smelled like coffee. “Hey, I want to tell you something, Zach. I am incredibly proud of you, I really am.” I got a warm feeling in my stomach when Daddy said this to me.

“That was a brave thing you did yesterday, do you know that?” Daddy asked.

“I wanted to be brave for once like you and Andy. But it didn’t work. My mission didn’t work,” I said.

“Oh, I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” Daddy said, and he grabbed my chin with his hand and looked at me with a serious face. “And I think you’re brave all the time.”

“Not at Andy’s wake. I acted like a baby then. And when Mommy took me to school I wasn’t brave,” I said.

“Oh, Zach, that had nothing to do with you not being brave. That was…it wasn’t the right time to ask you to go back to school,” Daddy said.

“OK, but, Daddy?” I asked.

“Yes, bud?”

“I think after Christmas I could go back. To school.”

“Yeah? Cool,” Daddy said. “Is Mommy still in bed? Do you want to bring her a cup of coffee?”