Along for the Ride(75)

He glanced around the room, then back at me. ‘You think?’

‘Eli,’ I said. ‘You have one chair.’

‘Yeah. But just because all the furniture at my old place was Abe’s.’

Hearing this, it was all I could do not to start, or jump, so jarring was it to hear him say his name, after all this time. Instead, I took another sip of my coffee. ‘Really.’

‘Yeah.’ He sat back, picking a bit of sticky crumb off the side of the Rice Krispie pan. ‘The minute he made some prize money riding, he was all about decorating our place. And he bought the stupidest stuff. Huge TV, singing fish…’

‘A singing fish?’

‘You know, those plastic ones that you hang on the wall, and when you walk by they start singing, like, some Motown song?’ I just looked at him. ‘Okay, so you don’t know. Consider yourself lucky. Ours was, like, the center of our apartment. He put it right by the door, so it went off constantly, and everyone had to listen to it.’

I smiled. ‘Sounds interesting.’

‘That’s not the word I’d choose.’ He shook his head. ‘Plus he insisted on buying these big papasan chairs, you know the ones that are circular, filled with squishy cushions? I wanted a plain, normal couch. But no. We had to have these stupid things that everyone was always getting sucked down into. No one could ever get up and out of them on their own. We were always having to pull people out, like a freaking rescue mission.’

‘Come on.’

‘I’m totally serious. It was ridiculous.’ He sighed. ‘And then there was the whole water bed thing. He said he’d always wanted one. Even when it leaked, and gave him a crazy backache, he would not admit it was a mistake. “I must have spilled something,” he’d say, or “I really pulled a muscle on that last ride.” He was hobbling around like an old man, complaining constantly. All night long, all I could hear was him thrashing around, trying to get comfortable. It was, like, an endless squishing.’

I laughed, picking up my mug again. ‘So what happened? Did he finally give it up?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘He died.’

I knew this, of course. But even so, hearing it this way was like a shock to the system, all over again. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I –’

‘See, but that’s the thing, though.’ He sat back, shaking his head. ‘Everyone always wants to tell these stories, all the stories. It’s all anyone wanted to do at the funeral, and after. Oh, remember this thing, and this, and what about this? But the ending to every story is the same. He dies. That’s never going to change. So why even bother?’

We were both quiet for a moment. ‘I guess,’ I said finally, ‘that for some people, it’s how they remember. You know, by telling the stories. It keeps the person close.’

‘But I don’t have that problem,’ he said quietly. ‘Not remembering.’

‘I know.’

‘You want to talk about failure?’ He looked up at me, meeting my eyes. ‘Try being the one who was driving. Who got to live.’

‘Eli,’ I said. I tried to keep my voice low, even, the way his had been when he’d been reassuring me. ‘It wasn’t your fault. It was an accident.’

He shook his head. ‘Maybe. But the bottom line is, I’m here and he’s not. And everyone who sees me – his parents, his girlfriend, his friends – they know that. In all the uncertainty, it’s the one thing they know for sure. And it sucks.’

‘I’m sure they don’t hold it against you,’ I said.

‘They don’t have to.’ He looked down at his mug, then up at me. ‘The whole do-over thing, that’s all I think about since it happened. What if we’d left that party earlier, or later. If I’d seen the car coming at us and not stopping, a moment sooner. If he’d been driving instead of me. There are a million variables, and if even one was different… maybe everything would be.’

We were both quiet for a moment. Finally I said, ‘You can’t think like that, though. You’ll make yourself crazy.’

He gave me a wry smile. ‘Tell me about it.’

I started to say something, but then he was getting to his feet, picking up the tray and taking it to the kitchen. Just as he did, I heard a thump from the wall by his bed, followed by another. I stood up, walking closer, and listened again.

‘That’s the McConners,’ Eli said from the kitchen.

‘The who?’

He came over, standing behind me. ‘The McConners. They own this house. Their son’s room is right through that wall.’

‘Oh,’ I said.

‘He usually wakes up once or twice a night. Asks for water, you know, the whole thing.’ Eli sat down on his bed, the springs creaking beneath him. ‘If it’s really quiet, I can hear every word.’

I sat down beside him, listening hard. But all I could make out was two voices murmuring: one high, one lower. It was kind of like Heidi’s waves, distant white noise.

‘I used to do that,’ Eli said. We were both whispering. ‘The whole waking up, wanting water thing, when I was a kid. I remember it.’

‘Not me,’ I told him. ‘My parents needed their sleep.’