Only Child(89)

“OK,” I said, and Daddy let me put the sugar in Mommy’s coffee and the half-and-half and stir everything up. I tried to carry the cup, but it was very full with coffee and hot, so Daddy took it and we went upstairs together. Mommy did a little smile when Daddy gave her the cup.

“Did you finish the book?” I asked.

“No way. You passed out pretty much right after I started reading. We want to finish it together, right?” Daddy said.

“Can we finish it now?”

“Sure, if it’s OK with Mommy,” he said, and Mommy said, “Well, we need to find out what that last secret is, don’t we? Back to the hideout?”

I put my shoulders up and down. “We can stay in the bed, too. The hideout isn’t working anymore,” I said.

“Oh, but I liked it in there yesterday,” Mommy said. “I would like to finish the book there if you don’t mind.”

So we crawled back in the hideout and sat the same way like yesterday, me leaning against Mommy, and Daddy against the wall. Daddy picked up the book. “What’s the last part you heard?”

“I don’t remember. Just how they were in the ravine,” I said.

“OK, let me see….” Daddy went through the pages. “Chapter seven then, I think.” He started and he read the book all the way to the end. Jack and Annie meet some dancing penguins. There’s a little orphan penguin that Jack names Penny, and Jack and Annie take Penny with them to Camelot, where Merlin lives. They tell the first three secrets of happiness to Merlin and give him Penny. Merlin takes care of Penny and he gets happy again.

Jack and Annie realize that the fourth secret of happiness is to take care of someone who needs you. And Jack thinks it maybe works the other way around, too: “I think sometimes you can make other people happy by letting them take care of you.”

After Daddy got done reading he closed the book and he looked at me and Mommy, and his eyes looked very shiny. No one said anything for a while.

Then Mommy said in a quiet voice, “This is a good one, this secret. What do you think?”

“Yes,” I said. “We could try this one maybe. Me, you, and Daddy. Take care of each other. Right?”

“Yes,” Mommy said.

“Is it going to make us happy again?” I asked.

“Well, I think it could help us feel better,” Daddy said. I saw him look at Mommy behind me and he gave her a little sad smile.

“I think that the way we’ve been trying to deal with…everything, the death of your brother, all separately, instead of together—that wasn’t the right way,” Mommy said.

I leaned forward and looked at the picture on the wall. “I really miss Andy,” I said. “It’s like it hurts my whole insides sometimes.”

“Me too, buddy,” Daddy said.

“I wish I could still feel him in here, but I can’t. Now I’m scared he went away forever.” A big lump came in my throat when I thought about that.

Daddy leaned over and hugged me for a long time. He said with a quiet voice, “Missing Andy—that’s a form of feeling him, though, isn’t it? Don’t you think? Maybe one day it won’t hurt our whole insides anymore, I don’t know. I think we will miss him and we will be thinking about him all the time, our whole lives. That’s always going to be part of…who we are. And that way he’s never gone, he’s always going to be with us and inside us.”

“He’s looking over us from heaven?” I asked.

“Yes, sweetie, he is,” Mommy said.

I touched Andy’s face in the picture with my hand. “And then we will see him in heaven after we die?” I asked.

“I hope so,” Daddy said, and tears ran from his eyes into his beard.

“I think Daddy’s right,” Mommy said. “You’ve been doing the right thing all along, talking to him and about him, keeping him close to you.”

Daddy stretched out his back and wiped the tears off of his face. “We don’t have to hang out in this closet forever though, do we? Because it’s killing my back right now. And I stopped feeling my left butt cheek a while ago.” He poked his finger in the left side of his butt a few times.

“It could be our meeting spot in here,” I said. “Like our clubhouse or something.”

“I like that idea,” Mommy said. “What should we call our club?”

I thought about that for a minute. “Club Andy?” I said.

“Club Andy it is,” Daddy said. “Now let’s go get some breakfast.”





[ 54 ]


    Keep On Living


“READY, MOMMY?” I asked, and Mommy stared at the handle of the front door for a little while like she was waiting for the door to open by itself. I looked up at Mommy’s face, and she had her lips pressed together. I grabbed her hand and squeezed it tight. Mommy squeezed my hand back, and then she let go of it and opened the door.

A big cold wind came in the house, and Mommy took the two sides of her sweater and pulled it closed in front of her belly. She walked down the porch steps, and the wind blew her hair all around. I walked down the porch steps behind her, and Daddy was behind me. Mommy turned around and looked at us, and her chest went up like she took a big breath in. Then she turned back and went straight to the news van that was still parked in front of our house.