“My parents said something to me the day I told them I was pregnant with you,” she said. “I’ve never told anyone but your father this, but they said I’d reap what I’d sown. They said everyone I loved would suffer like I’d made them suffer. I was so scared, but then you were born and you were—you were so beautiful, so perfect, that I knew you were a sign that God forgave me for hurting my parents even though they couldn’t.”
She gripped the curtains in one hand. “But then the phone rang the day you were supposed to come home from camp and your father answered it. He said your name and I—”
“It was like every light in the world went out,” Dad said. “Like we—like we were dead too. With David, we knew he had a chance. We knew we could help him. But with you there was nothing we could do. No chance to save you. And then you were alive, and we swore nothing would ever hurt you again. That you would be safe no matter what. That you would be fine.”
He cleared his throat, blinking hard, his eyes wet. “Meggie, Margaret mentioned Dr. Lincoln again last night, and I—I think you should go see him. I think we all should go see him. Would you be willing to do that?”
“I don’t know,” I said. I didn’t know if I could talk about the crash. Just thinking about it was bad enough. “Can’t we—isn’t this enough? I’ve told you everything, I’ve told you how I really feel and that . . . you see that now, right?”
Dad started to nod, but Mom shook her head. “I—I think you need help. I think we all do. I think you’ve felt alone for a long time and I . . . I think you have been. I don’t want that for you and I promise . . .”
She broke off and looked at me like she saw me, just me and not a miracle. “I promise that we will try to be what you need. I promise you won’t be alone anymore.”
Twenty-Four
Mom kept her promise. She and Dad were trying to really be there for me, really see me, and when they smiled at me now I usually felt like they meant it. I still had trouble sleeping, though, and I still saw Sandra or Henry or Walter or Carl when I looked out my window or walked down a hall at school. But I didn’t see them as often as I had before, and when I did, I tried not to wish them away. I tried to just see them and keep going.
I still felt like I wasn’t real a lot of the time too, and worried that my body would somehow disappear or that I’d end up somewhere else. End up back in the crash. Dr. Lincoln said that was normal. He taught me things to do when I felt like that. Counting backward by sevens, touching something to ground myself, or paying attention to my breathing. Sometimes it helped. Sometimes it didn’t. He said that was normal too.
I told Dr. Lincoln what Margaret said about his posture the last time I saw him and he laughed and said he’d be sure to thank her for the advice when he saw her.
“So when you see her, she doesn’t spend all her time trying to get you to consume more dairy products?” I said. “How do you manage that?”
“We’re talking about you,” he said. “Tell me more about what happened when you saw Sandra at school yesterday.”
I saw Dr. Lincoln once a week, and every other week me and Mom and Dad and David went in and talked as a family too. Mostly we talked about what was happening with me and school, or Mom and Dad asked me if I was ready to tell them what had happened when the plane crashed. I wasn’t. The worst, though, was when David said he felt like no one cared what he did and read a list of things that had happened to him that no one had noticed.
The family sessions weren’t my favorite.
Dr. Lincoln and I talked about the crash a lot. I didn’t like doing it, and every time we did I had to keep my eyes closed when Mom or Dad drove me home afterward so I couldn’t see the hills or the trees. Dr. Lincoln also said I needed to start telling people what had really happened to me. I said it wasn’t the kind of thing you started conversations with.
He said, “Are you kidding me? How many times have you heard someone talk about being in a car accident or how some relative of theirs died in a gruesome way?”
I understood why he and Margaret got along a little better after that.
I saw her once a week too. I was still doing my independent study project, only now I was doing it for real. My topic was women who’d served in the Vietnam War, and Margaret was my project coordinator. I wasn’t going to get credit for it, but I still wanted to do it. The first time we all went to see him, Dr. Lincoln told my parents I needed something to focus on besides what had happened, and it needed to be something I liked. They thought soccer. I said no.
Soccer wasn’t what it had been to me before. When I thought about it, I only thought about the crash. The game . . . that was gone for me. So I picked doing my independent study project instead. I’d gotten about twenty pages done, which I thought was pretty good. I’d told Margaret that when I saw her yesterday, hoping it would distract her from the fridge and milk.
It didn’t work, and when I was done drinking the glass she’d given me, she said, “Now, last time I was telling you about how the hospitals were set up, but I realized I forgot a few things. Do you have any paper? Good. Do you have any that isn’t in a notebook that looks like it fell in a puddle?”
“No.”
She sighed and went and got some. “I wish Rose could be here,” she said when she sat back down. “She could have told someone besides me her story.”
“But you guys traveled and talked about the war all the time.”
“I did all the talking,” she said. “Rose could get other people to talk, but she never talked about what happened to her to anyone but me. I think—I think she might have talked to you, though. I think she would have known you’d understand.” She cleared her throat. “How about some more milk?”
I shook my head. She got me a glass anyway.
As I was leaving she said, “I saw Ron Reynolds the other day. He’s heading out of town again.”
I shrugged.
“I heard he’s selling the house.”
“He is,” I said. “Or at least he’s trying to. No one’s come to look at it yet.”
“And Joe? How’s he doing?”
“He’s okay,” I said. She patted my arm and told me she’d see me soon.
I was pretty sure Joe was okay. He’d found out about the house when he’d come over last Monday. His father had been out front talking to the real estate agent, and he looked surprised when he saw Joe get out of Mrs. Harrison’s old car and walk up our driveway. He didn’t say anything to him though, and when Joe went over there later he didn’t stay long. He called me when he got back to Mrs. Harrison’s and told me his dad was selling the house.
“He is?” I said. “Why?”
“He doesn’t want to be here anymore.”
“What did you say?”
“What could I say? I asked him if I could go to Beth’s room. He said no and I went anyway. I have her favorite slippers. I don’t know why I grabbed them. I guess I just hate to think of someone buying the house and throwing all her stuff away.”
When he came over the next night, I saw he had a black eye. I got him some ice even though he pointed out it wouldn’t do any good, and we sat on the porch and talked. He said he wasn’t mad at his father.
“I am,” I said, and he shot me a quick smile, then looked at the ground.
“I didn’t hit him back,” he said. “I don’t want you to think that I’m like . . .”
“I know who you are,” I said, and he looked up and smiled at me again.
My parents had freaked less than I thought they would about us hanging out. He came by to see me the day after I’d had the big talk with them because he hadn’t seen me out running. He came by during dinner, which Mom and Dad really didn’t like, but they’d only said, “Five minutes,” and then peered through the window as we talked out on the driveway. I could tell they thought he wouldn’t come back.
He did.
He came by every night and tonight he said he was thinking about getting a dog. He’d have to move out on his own if he di
d that, though, and he wasn’t sure he had enough money or if he wanted to live alone.
“You wouldn’t be alone, though. You know that, right?” I looked at the lawn when I said that.
“I know,” he said, and we sat with our hands touching until Dad flipped the porch light off and on a bunch of times.
“Subtle,” he said, smiling. “I—I called my mom last night. She said she doesn’t want to see me. That she can’t.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah,” he said, and looked over at his house. “She said that too.”
I leaned over and rested my head on his shoulder. “Come over early on Friday, okay? My dad and David are going to Clark when David gets out of school so David can go to the dentist. They’ll bring a lot of pizza home.”
“Right. I’m sure your parents want me to come over and mooch pizza.”
“I want you to.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay then,” he said, and squeezed my hand gently. “I will.”
I told Mom and Dad about Friday this morning. They looked at each other and then at me.
“You have to stay in the kitchen with us,” Mom said.
“At all times,” Dad added.
“But he can come?”
They nodded, and then told me to get ready for school. David smirked at me as I grabbed my bookbag. Today was actually a teacher workday. I still had to go to school anyway.
My guidance counselor hadn’t come out and said it, but my chances of repeating my senior year were pretty good unless I did a lot of work. We didn’t even talk about college. That chance was pretty much gone, especially since I’d officially given up soccer. I told Coach Henson I wasn’t ever coming back because Dr. Lincoln said I should. He said it would provide closure.
When I told him, Coach stared at me for a moment before saying, “I already figured that one out, Meggie.”
Sometimes Dr. Lincoln didn’t know as much as he thought he did.
The plan my guidance counselor and I came up with meant I had a full day of school again, and a lot of homework every night. I had two years of French already, which was what the state required for graduation, and so I was allowed to drop that and spend the class period in the guidance office catching up on homework. I also spent lunch in there doing homework. And at night and on the weekends, when I’d done all my regular homework, I got to do extra assignments to make up for all the ones I’d missed.
My parents were really excited when I first started making up all my work, because they thought it meant something bigger than it was. They thought it meant I was thinking about the future, that I was making plans. I had to tell them to stop. I had to explain that I could still barely deal with my present.
I got to school and took four tests in the guidance office. They were all essay, designed to replace ones I should have taken before. My right hand was numb by the time I was finished.
As I left, I saw Jess and Lissa. They were in the cafeteria with a bunch of people, eating pizza and decorating for a dance. I’d seen posters for it around school. Last year, the three of us had sworn we’d go to every dance together, no dates, just us having fun no matter what our boy situation was.
I’d tried talking to Jess and Lissa right after I started seeing Dr. Lincoln but as soon as I walked up to them in the hall and said, “Hi,” I saw Carl standing behind them, cracking his knuckles. I saw myself kneeling next to him while he stared sightlessly at a burning sky. I walked away, hid in the bathroom trying to breathe like Dr. Lincoln said I should, and when I finally went back out into the hall they were gone.
I wouldn’t have waited for me either.
When I walked by them as they were decorating for the dance, my hand still smarting from all that writing, Lissa pretended she didn’t see me. Jess smiled at me a little though, so I waved. Neither of them waved back.
But they didn’t look away either.
When I got home my hand hurt less. My heart did too.
Mom told me to strip my bed so she could wash the sheets. David was out in the backyard doing something with his bike. He waved when I stuck my head out the back door and yelled, “Hey,” at him.
Upstairs, I pulled the sheets off my bed and looked out the window. It was going to snow sometime in the next couple of days. I could tell from the sky. It had a kind of heaviness to it, a sense of stillness. Of waiting.
Soon the crash site would be gone, buried under snow, and the spring thaw would wash anything left away.
I wanted to see it. I knew what it looked like in my dreams. In my memories. But now I wanted to see it for real. I needed to.
I went downstairs and found Mom. She’d made David come inside, and they were watching a movie together. He had a new Band-Aid on his hand.
“I have to go out for a while,” I told her.
She shook her head. “I don’t think so. Where are your sheets?”
“Upstairs. Look, Mom, I want to see where the plane . . . where it crashed.”
She looked at me. “David, go upstairs and do your homework.”
“I don’t have any.”
“Then read a book.”
“Mom!”
“Go. Now.”
He went, and she and I looked at each other.
“Why now?” she said.
“It’s going to snow in a few days.”
“So?”
“It won’t—it won’t be there anymore.”
“It will.”
“Not like it is now. You know what the spring thaw does.”
She sighed. “You could get lost.”
“I won’t. You can call over to the Park Service office and see if they have someone who will take me up there.”
“I’ll come with you. Let me just call around and see if one of David’s friends . . .” She trailed off, frowning at the look on my face. “You don’t want me to come with you, do you?”
“It’s not—it’s not you, not like that. I have to see it the way I saw it when it happened.”
“I wish you’d let me come.”
“Mom—”
She held up a hand. “I understand what you’re saying, Meggie. I do. I just—I wish you’d let me in more.”
“I asked,” I said. “And I—I’ve told you why I need to do this. Doesn’t that count for something?”
She sighed. “Go get your sheets and put them in the washing machine. I’ll call the Park Service office, but if they won’t go up with you and won’t call me the second you get back, then you can’t go.”
There was someone at the Park Service office who could drive me up to near the crash site. They were willing to call her after too. When I went outside she came after me, stopping me with a hand on my arm.
“Meggie, please,” she said, and then took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “Please be safe.”
I kissed her cheek and got in my car.
Twenty-Five
The person Mom had talked to was waiting for me outside the Park Service office. Her name was Wanda. She was older than Mom, and had long brown hair threaded with gray and a big nose. She knew who I was, and not just because Mom had called her.
“I went out with the team when your plane went down,” she said as we shook hands. “Nice to finally meet you. Wish I’d been in town the day you got home.”
I mumbled something and thought about going home. I’d had to leave town to get out here though, drove out onto the road that circled Reardon and up into the hills, past endless trees. It had been hard, a lot harder than I thought it would be.
“Come on,” Wanda said, jerking her thumb in the direction of a beat-up truck, the Park Service logo barely visible. “We’ve got a ways to go.”
My legs felt like rubber as I walked to the truck, but I did it. I got in. I buckled my seat belt.
“Okay?” Wanda said.
“Okay,” I said, and we left.
Wanda didn’t talk much as we drove, but after a while she said, “I actually knew San
dra. She’d only been out here a few months. Lived over in Clark because she thought Reardon was too small. I told her that come winter, when she was trying to get out here every morning she’d change her mind. Her husband came out here about a month ago. Brought the baby with him. He wanted to go up to the site too.”
“Oh.” I hadn’t thought about other people wanting to see it. I hadn’t thought about the people who’d been left behind, Carl’s family and Sandra’s and Walter’s and Henry’s. All those people who’d gotten phone calls like my parents had, only they hadn’t had anyone come home.
Stop, I wanted to say, please stop, but then she started telling me things I didn’t know about all the people that had been with me, that I’d seen too much of and hadn’t known at all. She told me she hadn’t met Walter, but that there’d been a desk set up for him in the office that he’d never gotten to see. She knew Henry a little, because sometimes he’d come in to talk when the weather was bad enough to ground his plane. She didn’t know Carl at all, though she met his wife when she’d come to see the crash site too. She paused then, like she thought I might ask about her, but I couldn’t think of a thing to say. “I’m sorry” was too small, too nothing.
We stopped in a stretch of woods that looked like everything else we’d passed.
“We’re actually off park land right now and back in Clark County,” she said. “Sometimes developers would come through here and talk but since the crash there hasn’t been a . . . well.” She cleared her throat. “The site’s just up over that little hill there.”
“It’s here?” It couldn’t be. I didn’t remember this at all.
She nodded. “I’ll wait here for you, give you some time alone. Yell if you need anything, though. I’ll leave the window down a bit.”
I looked out the truck window. Nothing looked familiar. Maybe I’d remembered things wrong. What if I had? My palms were sweating. Maybe I should just ask to go back. Maybe this was a really bad idea. Maybe . . .