The emails to Ben go on like this, every few days, for several weeks, and it’s impossible to read them all, not just because they’re long but because they’re giving me a horrible twist in my gut. Within the emails are references to texts and phone calls she made to him. When I ask Ben how often, he doesn’t answer. And then I see one of his last emails to her: Find someone else to talk to, he told her. Shortly after that email, You have to leave me alone. And then I think of her last email to him: You don’t have to worry about me anymore.
I have to stop. Ben is now looking at me with an expression I don’t like. I prefer the cocky strutting asshole from a few nights ago. Because I want to hate Ben McCallister. I don’t want him looking at me with soft eyes. I don’t want him looking vulnerable, almost needy, like he wants reassurance. And I certainly don’t want him doing something generous, like offering to take the kittens off my hands, which is what he does.
I just stare at him. Like, Who are you?
“I’ll leave them with my mom next time I go to Bend. It’s pretty much a zoo at her place anyway, so she won’t give a shit about two more strays.”
“What about until then?” I ask.
“I share a house in Seattle. It’s got a backyard, and my housemates are all vegans, big into animal rights, so they can’t say no or they’ll risk looking like hypocrites.”
“Why would you do that?” I ask. I don’t know why I’m challenging him. I need to find a home for the cats; Ben’s the only taker. I should shut up.
“I thought I just explained why,” he says. The growl back in his voice is a relief.
But by the way he’s looking at everything in the room but me, I think he knows that he didn’t really explain why. And by the way I’m looking at everything in the room but him, I know that I don’t really need him to.
x x x
The next morning, Ben comes by the house for the cats as I’m finishing taping up the last of the boxes. I put Pete and Repeat into their carrier, collect all their toys, and hand them over.
“Where are you headed?” he asks me.
“UPS depot and bus station.”
“I can give you a lift.”
“That’s okay. I’ll call a cab.”
One of the cats yowls from the carrier. “Don’t be stupid,” Ben says. “You’ll have to pay for two cabs.”
I’m half afraid Ben will rescind his offer to take the cats, and that’s why he’s offering the ride, but he’s already loading the duffel bags into the trunk and putting the cats in the back. The car is filthy, full of empty Red Bull cans, smelling of cigarettes. There’s a beaded cardigan balled up in the backseat.
The mysterious roommate Harry Kang helps us haul the boxes to the car, and though we have not exchanged two words during my entire stay, he grasps my hand and says, “Please tell Meg’s family that my family has been praying for them every day.” He looks at me a moment longer. “I’m going to tell them to pray for you, too.” And though people have been saying this crap to me all the time since Meg died, Harry’s unexpected words bring a lump to my throat.
Pete and Repeat yowl all the way to the UPS place, and Ben waits with them in the car while I ship the boxes. Then Ben drives me to the bus station in time for the one p.m. bus. I’ll be home for dinner. Not that there’ll be dinner.
The cats continue to screech the whole time, and by the time we get to the bus station, it smells like one of them has peed. By this point I’m convinced he’s going to say he changed his mind, that the offer to take them was basically his revenge for my T-shirt email.
But he doesn’t. When I open the door in front of the bus station, he says, “Take care, Cody,” in a quiet voice.
I suddenly wish I were taking the cats. The thought of returning home alone makes me desolate. As much as I want to put miles between me and Ben McCallister, now that I’m doing just that, I understand what a relief it’s been to share this weight with someone.
“Yeah. You too,” I tell him. “Have a good life.”
It’s not what I meant to say. It sounds too flippant. But maybe it’s the most you can hope for someone.
10
The bus breaks down with a flat tire in the mountains, so I miss my connection in Ellensburg and it’s after midnight when I get home. I sleep until eight, go clean the Thomas house, and then that night, I lug the two bags over to the Garcias.
I ring the bell, which is something I rarely ever did before, and Scottie answers. When he opens the door, I ask how it’s going but I don’t need to ask, because I smell butter.
“Cupcakes,” he says.
“Delicious,” I say, attempting some cheer.
Scottie shakes his head. “I never thought I’d say this, but I’d like some broccoli right about now.”
Joe and Sue hesitate when they see me, as if it’s not Meg’s clothes and books I’ve brought back, but Meg herself. Then they come forward and are thanking me and Sue is crying silently, and it’s just too much to bear. I know they love me. Sue has long said she loves me like a daughter, but it’s different now that she doesn’t actually have a daughter.
I turn to Scottie. If this is hard on me, it’s worse for him. So, as if I’m Santa unpacking gifts, I say: “Shall we see what we’ve got?”
Except no one wants to see it. So I pull out her laptop, which I’ve kept separate in my backpack. I hold it out to Joe and Sue. They look at each other; then they shake their heads. “We discussed it,” Joe says, “and we want you to have it.”
“Me?” I know how expensive this computer was. “No. I can’t.”
“Please, we want you to,” Sue says.
“What about Scottie?”
“Scottie is ten,” Joe says. “We have the family computer. He has plenty of time to have his own laptop.”
Sue’s face falters, as if she no longer trusts the promise of time. But she pulls it together and says: “And you’ll need it for when you go away to college.”
I nod, and we all pretend like this is going to happen.
“It’s too much,” I say.
“Cody, take it,” Joe says almost harshly. I understand then that giving me the computer is not really a gift. But maybe my taking it is.
x x x
When it’s time to leave, Sue packs up a dozen cupcakes to take home. They’re frosted pink and gold, colors that tell a story of sweetness and joy. Even food lies.
Scottie takes Samson out for a walk and joins me half the way home.
“Sorry about the computer, Runtmeyer.”
“S’okay. I can play DS.”
“You can come over and teach me to play one of your games.”
He looks at me seriously. “Okay. But you can’t let me win. I feel like people are letting me win because I’m the dead girl’s brother.”
I nod. “I’m the dead girl’s best friend. So it’s an even playing field. Which frees me up to totally kick your butt.”
It’s the first time I see Scottie smile in ages.
x x x
When I get home, Tricia is there, nuking a Lean Cuisine. “Want one?” she asks. This is the height of mothering for her.
We sit down to Chinese Chicken, and I show her the laptop. She runs her hands over it, impressed, and I wonder if she resents that the Garcias have provided me another thing that she can’t. This in addition to all the dinners, the family camping trips, everything that they gave me while Tricia was working at the bar or out with one of her boyfriends.
“I’ve always wondered how to work one of these,” she says.
I shake my head. “I can’t believe you still don’t know how to use a computer.”
She shrugs. “I’ve got this far. And I know how to text. Raymond showed me.”
I don’t ask who Raymond is. I don’t need to know that he’s the
latest Guy. Tricia never bothers bringing them around, or introducing me, unless we happen to bump into each other. Which is just as well. They’ve usually dumped her by the time it takes me to learn a name.
We eat our meals. Tricia doesn’t want one of Sue’s cupcakes because they’re fattening, and I don’t want one either, so Tricia digs around for low-fat Fudgsicles with only moderate amounts of freezer burn.
“What was with the cats?” she asks me.
“Huh?”
“You asked if we could have cats. Are you trying to fill up the gap left by Meg with a pet or something?”
I choke on my Fudgsicle. “No.” And then I almost tell her because I want to tell someone about Meg’s cats, about her whole life there that I knew nothing about. But I’m pretty sure the Garcias didn’t know about it either. And this town is small; if I tell Tricia about the cats, she will invariably tell someone, and it’ll get back to Joe and Sue. “There were a couple of kittens and they needed homes.”
She shakes her head. “You can’t give homes to every stray out there.”
She says this like people are constantly knocking down our door for a nice, dry, warm place to stay, when, in fact, we are the strays.
11
An academic adviser from the community college leaves me a message, saying that they are aware of my “extenuating circumstances” and if I want to come in for a meeting, he will help me find a way to fix my record. Madison, a girl who���d been in most of my classes at school, also calls, leaving another Are you okay? message.
I don’t return either call. I go back to work, picking up a few more cleaning jobs, six a week now, decent money. Meg’s laptop stays on my desk, along with the rest of my schoolbooks, all of them collecting dust. Until one afternoon, the doorbell rings. Scottie is on the porch, with Samson, who’s tied up to a rail. “I’m here to take you up on your offer to kick my butt,” he says.
“Come on in.”
We fire up the computer.
“What are we playing?” I ask.
“I thought we’d start with Soldier of Solitude.”
“What’s that?”
“Here, I’ll show you.” He clicks on the web program. “Hmm.” He fiddles around some more. “I don’t see your network. Maybe we have to reboot the router.”
I shake my head. “There’s no router, Scottie. No Internet.”
He looks at me, then looks like around like he’s remembering who I am, who Tricia is. “Oh, that’s okay. We can play something on your computer.” He pulls the laptop back toward him. “What games do you have?”
“I don’t know. It depends if Meg had any games.” Scottie and I look at each other and almost smile. Meg hated video games. Thought they sucked out valuable brain cells. And sure enough, there’s nothing on the computer except what came preloaded.
“We can play solitaire,” I say.
“You can’t play solitaire with two people,” Scottie says. “That’s why it’s called solitaire.”
I feel like I’ve let him down. I start to close the computer. But then Scottie holds it open. “Is that what she sent the note from?”
Scottie is ten. I am pretty sure it’s not healthy for him to be talking about stuff like this. Not with me. I close the computer.
“Cody, nobody tells me anything.”
His voice is so plaintive. I remember the good-bye she sent him, also from this computer. “Yes, this is the computer she sent the note from.”
“Can I see it?”
“Scottie—”
“I know everyone wants to protect my innocence and stuff, but my sister swallowed poison. It’s kinda too late.”
I sigh. I have a printout of her suicide note in the box under my bed, but I know that’s not what he wants to see. I know he’s seen the note, or read it, or heard about it. But he wants to see its origin. I open up the sent mail file. I show him the note. With squinting eyes, he reads it.
“Did you ever think it was weird that she said that the decision was ‘my own to make’?”
I shake my head. I hadn’t.
“It’s just, when we used to get busted for doing something together and she wanted to keep me out of trouble, that’s what she’d tell Mom and Dad. ‘Scottie had nothing to do with it. It was my own decision.’ It was how she’d protect me.”
I remember all the times Meg dragged Scottie into one of her schemes and then had to extricate him. She was always taking the fall for him. Most of the time, deservedly so. I still don’t quite get what he’s saying, so the ten-year-old has to spell it out for me.
“It’s almost like she’s protecting someone.”
12
After Scottie leaves, I go through Meg’s emails yet again. There’s all that deleted sent mail, which I haven’t been able to understand. Why would she delete only the sent messages but not the inbox? Or did she delete mail from her inbox, too, only I don’t know what to look for? Why those six weeks? And what else did she delete? Is there a way to find the old messages? Are they gone for good? I have no idea. I don’t know anyone who would know this.
But then I remember Harry Kang, Meg’s roommate, who studies computers. I fumble for the scrap of paper Alice wrote her cell phone on, and I call it. She’s not there, so I leave a message, asking her to have Harry call me.
The next morning, at seven forty-five, my phone rings, waking me up.
“Hello.” My voice is groggy.
“This is Harry Kang,” he says.
I sit up in my bed. “Oh, Harry, hi, it’s Cody.”
“I know. I called you.”
“Right. Thank you. Look, I don’t know if you can help me with this, but I have a computer and I’m trying to find deleted emails.”
“You’re calling me because your computer crashed?”
“It’s not my computer. It’s Meg’s. And I’m trying to recover files that I think she tried to delete.”
He pauses now, as if considering. “What kind of files?”
I explain to him about all the missing sent messages and how I’m trying to recover them, and recover any other messages that might’ve been deleted.
“It may be possible to do that using a data recovery program. But if Meg wanted those files deleted, maybe we should respect her privacy.”
“I know. But there was something in her suicide note that makes me think that she might not have acted alone, and then there’s a bunch of missing emails. It doesn’t feel right.”
The line goes quiet for a minute. “You mean someone might’ve coerced her?”
Can you coerce someone to drink poison? “I don’t know what I mean. That’s why I want to find those emails. I wonder if they’re in this folder I found in her trash. It won’t open.”
“What happens when you try?”
“Hang on.”
I turn on the laptop and drag the file from the trash. I open it and get the encryption message. I tell Harry.
“Try this.” He feeds me a bunch of complicated keystrokes. Nothing works. The file remains encrypted.
“Hmm.” He gives me another set of commands to try, but still they don’t work.
“It seems like a pretty sophisticated encryption,” Harry says. “Whoever wrote it knew what they were doing.”
“So it’s locked for good?”
Harry laughs. “No. Nothing ever is. If I had the computer, I could probably decrypt it for you. You can send it down if you want, but you’ll have to hurry because school ends in two weeks.”
x x x
I take the computer to the drugstore, which has a shipping outlet at the back. Troy Boggins, who was a year ahead of me in high school, is working behind the counter. “Hey, Cody. Where you been hiding?” he asks.
“I haven’t been hiding,” I say. “I’ve been working.”
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“Oh, yeah,” he drawls. “Where you working these days?”
There’s nothing to be ashamed of about cleaning houses. It’s honest work and I make good money, probably more than Troy. But Troy didn’t spend four years of high school going on about how the minute the ink was dry on his diploma, he was getting the hell out of here. Well, I didn’t either. Meg did, though like most of her plans, it became my plan too. Then Meg left and I stayed.
When I don’t answer, Troy tells me it’ll cost forty dollars each way to mail the computer. “Plus more if you want insurance.”
Eighty bucks? That’s how much a bus ticket costs. The weekend’s coming up, and I have cash from the extra shifts. I decide to take the computer to Tacoma myself. I’ll get the answers faster that way.
I tell Troy I changed my mind.
“No worries,” he says.
I turn to walk away. As I do, Troy says: “Wanna hang out sometime? Go out for a beer?”
Troy Boggins is the kind of guy that, if you added fifteen or twenty years, Tricia would date. He never paid me any attention in high school. His sudden interest should be flattering, but instead it feels ominous. Like without Meg by my side, it’s clear what I am. What I’ve been all along.
x x x
When I tell Tricia I’m going back to Tacoma for the weekend, she gives me a funny look. It’s not like she’ll stop me. I’m eighteen, and even if I weren’t, she’s never been that kind of mother. “Is there a guy?” she asks.
“What? No! It’s for Meg’s stuff. Why would you say that?”
She narrows her eyes and sniffs, like she’s trying to smell something on me. Then she gives me twenty bucks for the trip.
I text Alice that I’m coming and ask if I can crash, and she responds with a bunch of exclamation points, like we’re buddies or something. She says she’ll be gone most of Saturday at her internship, but we can hang out Sunday. I tell Harry I’m coming too, and he says he’ll look at the computer right away, that he’s looking forward to it.
x x x
I get in late, but the couch has been made up for me. I crash there. In the morning, Harry and I go into his room, which has, like, five computers in it, all on and humming. We turn on Meg’s. He opens her mail program first. “I’m not sure about retrieving the deleted email,” he says once he’s looked around. “Her mail program is set to use IMAP, so once messages are deleted here, they’re also gone from the server.”