See You at Harry's(41)

I grit my teeth as I listen to Gil chuckling about it.

A few people get up and refill their plates with food while others continue to share stories about Charlie. I can’t tell, but it looks like Holden and Gray are holding hands under the table.

Everything feels so strange. So wrong. People keep laughing as they share Charlie stories. It’s like everyone forgot that the kid they’re talking about isn’t here anymore. That he’s never coming back. Every time someone laughs, I feel myself getting angrier.

“Oh, remember that time when he took all the pots out of the lower cabinets and made a house inside and refused to come out?” Trevor asks.

I remember that day. I had to crawl in and get him. I remember I yelled at him because I’d torn my favorite jeans on the cabinet when I crawled in after him. And everyone gave me dirty looks like I was the worst big sister ever.

They all laugh again.

“Stop it!” I yell. I wasn’t expecting to, but it just comes out. Loud. I stand up. “Stop talking about him like he isn’t dead!”

It’s the first time I’ve said the word out loud, and it hangs in the air like a terrible, terrible cloud, sucking all the laughter out of the room in an instant.

“It’s OK, Fern,” my dad says. “People need to do this.” But he looks as miserable as I feel.

“No, they don’t!” I yell. “It isn’t right!”

They look at me in shock. Offended. Like I’m some little brat spoiling their party. Like once again I’m the one being mean to Charlie.

“You shouldn’t be laughing! You shouldn’t be talking about him like . . . Charlie is gone! He is never coming back! And you’re all laughing!”

My dad gets up and starts coming toward me.

“Fern,” Holden says. “Stop it.”

“He’s dead!” I yell, ignoring him. “Charlie is dead!”

My dad is pulling me backward. His hands squeeze my arms hard as he pulls me, and I welcome the pain. Anything to make the other pain I feel go away. But I know it can’t. I struggle so he’ll squeeze harder.

“Come on,” he says calmly. “Let’s go outside.”

He drags me to the door. Holden gets up, too, but my dad motions for him to stay.

The restaurant is totally quiet except for me struggling in my dad’s arms.

“He’s dead!” I yell one more time before the door slides closed. “He’s dead.”





AS SOON AS WE GET OUTSIDE, my dad lets go of my arm. I run to the picnic table and crawl below. The underside is covered with more carvings and dried-up gum in different colors. I pull my knees to my chest and try to disappear.

My father’s footsteps crunch in the leaves and stop next to the table.

“Fern,” he says.

I pull myself into a smaller ball.

He sits down and leans under. “I don’t think I can fit in there.”

I shift my body a little so my back is to him.

“All right.” He sighs and bends down, struggling through the space between the seat and the tabletop. He finally manages to squeeze himself under. He sits cross-legged, facing me. And waits.

“Fern,” he says quietly. “Look at me.”

I shake my head, keeping my face covered with my arms.

He touches my arm, then gently pulls his hand away.

“You seemed pretty angry in there.”

“I’m not going to apologize,” I say.

“I wasn’t going to ask you to.” He shifts and bumps his head. “Not very comfortable under here, is it?”

“Charlie liked it.”

He nods.

“I know how upset you are,” he says. “I understand.”

“No, you don’t,” I say.

“Well, I want to. Will you talk to me?”

“Everyone was acting like Charlie was just some happy memory. Like they’ve already moved on. I don’t want to move on! I don’t want him to be just a memory. I want him back.”

“We all do,” my dad says quietly.

“And everyone knows it’s my fault, but no one will admit it. Mom and Sara blame themselves a little, but I think they also blame me. They won’t look at me. Mom won’t even . . . She hasn’t even . . . I want her to hold me. But she doesn’t. She’s like a stranger.”

My dad reaches over and touches my knee. “This is impossibly hard on everyone,” he says. “We’re all trying to cope in our own way.”

“But I need her! I need her to be my mom! Why can she hold Sara but not me?”

“I’ll hold you,” he says, and he leans forward and pulls me to him. He rubs my back the way my mom used to, but it doesn’t feel the same.

“We’re being punished,” I say into his dress shirt. “We didn’t pay enough attention to him, so he got taken away from us. We didn’t deserve him.”

“No.”

“Yes!”

“No. You know that’s not true. Life doesn’t work that way.”

“There has to be a reason!”

“Stop it, Fern. Just . . . stop. Could we have paid more attention to Charlie? Sure. Heck, I know there were times when it was my turn to watch him and I’d get distracted by other things. But, honey, God doesn’t punish little kids for other people’s mistakes. It doesn’t work that way.”