After

by Kristin Harmel

  She made a muffled sound. “Like I said. Don’t worry about it, Lacey.”

  And then, for the first time in our friendship, Jennica hung up without saying goodbye.

  I sat down at the kitchen table and put my head in my hands. Jennica was mad at me. Logan barely talked to me. My mom was trying to put on a happy face, but she avoided the house and her kids as much as she could. And then there was Tanner.

  I walked upstairs and knocked lightly on Tanner’s door. He didn’t reply, so I knocked again. “Tanner?” I called out. “Can I come in?”

  I waited a minute, and hearing no reply, I pushed open the door.

  The shades were drawn and the room was dark, even in the middle of the afternoon. The lamp beside Tanner’s bed was on, but he was crouched in the shadows next to McGee’s cage.

  “Hey, buddy,” I said. I crossed the room and knelt beside him. “How’s it going?”

  Tanner was staring into the cage like his life depended on it, his concentration entirely fixed. I glanced into the cage to see what McGee was doing.

  Except McGee wasn’t there. I bent my head to look inside his little plastic cave. No McGee. Nor was he on the hamster wheel. And the cage was small, only a few feet long and a few feet tall.

  “Tanner?” I asked, starting to feel alarmed. “Where’s McGee?”

  Without looking at me, he raised his right arm and pointed toward the window.

  “He’s over by the window?” I asked. Tanner shook his head.

  I struggled to figure out what he meant. “He’s outside?” That didn’t make sense. “You let him outside?” But Tanner shook his head again. And then I noticed a tear roll down his right cheek. He blinked quickly and wiped it away as he went on staring at the empty cage.

  Suddenly, I got it. “Tanner?” I asked. “Did McGee die?”

  Tanner nodded once, still without looking at me. “Oh, Tanner,” I breathed, blinking back tears. “I’m so sorry. Why didn’t you tell anyone?” Tanner kept staring at the cage.

  “Tanner, where is he?” I glanced toward the window. “Did you bury him out back?” Tanner nodded again.

  I swallowed hard. “Well, come on,” I said resolutely. “McGee needs a proper funeral.”

  Tanner finally looked up at me, surprise playing across his face. “A funeral?”

  An hour later, I had helped Tanner make a little cross-shaped headstone out of Popsicle sticks and glue. With a thin Sharpie he wrote “Good Bye McGee” on the horizontal sticks and drew a little picture of the hamster. While he drew, I downloaded “Amazing Grace”—the song that had played for much of our dad’s funeral—on my iPod and grabbed my portable speakers from my room. Then, I got Mom and Logan and told them we needed to do something in the backyard.

  Mom was mystified at first, but her face crumpled when I told her what had happened. She excused herself, and I could hear muffled sobs coming from her bathroom. Logan, on the other hand, just rolled his eyes.

  “You’re making me come outside for a hamster’s funeral?” he demanded.

  I glared at him. “No, I’m making you come outside to be supportive of our brother.”

  Looking annoyed, he got up and followed me downstairs, grumbling under his breath.

  A few minutes later, we all stood under the old, arching oak tree in the left corner of the backyard, where Tanner had buried McGee. With a solemn look on his face, Tanner carefully stuck his Popsicle-stick cross in the ground and secured it with a pile of little pebbles. Then he stood up and pushed play on my iPod. The strains of “Amazing Grace” drifted through the yard, and as we all stood in silence, clustered around the tiny grave, the song and the solemnity of the moment reminded me uncomfortably of Dad’s funeral. I gulped.

  “Do you want to say a few words in McGee’s honor?” I asked my little brother.

  “Lacey,” my mom said, “you know he doesn’t like to talk. Don’t push him.”

  But Tanner surprised us all by turning to face us and clearing his throat. “McGee was my friend,” he began. I turned the iPod down a little. “He always understood me. He didn’t try to make me talk. But he listened if I wanted to talk.”

  We stared at him. He hadn’t spoken this much at a stretch since last November.

  “He was just there for me,” Tanner went on. He looked at the ground. “He was fun to play with. And I never had to talk about Dad or about being sad with him.” He paused. “Thank you for coming to the funeral.” Then before any of us could respond, he walked quickly away, toward the house. We stood and watched him in shocked silence until he disappeared into the house, pushing the door closed behind him.

  • • •

  After Tanner disappeared into the house, Mom went back to cleaning the kitchen, as if all her meticulous scrubbing and organizing could restore order to our lives, too. Sydney came and picked up Logan, who left without a word to any of us. And as our house fell silent again, I knew I had to get out.

  I changed into running shorts, a sports bra, and a long-sleeved T-shirt and laced up the running shoes I hadn’t put on in nearly a year. I used to love running, but I hadn’t gone out once since the accident. At first, it was because my leg had been broken. But then, after it healed and after the doctors told me I should try to ease back into my normal routine, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Running made my leg ache, a dull, throbbing pain in the two places where the bone had been crushed. And the last thing I needed was a physical reminder of the accident.

  But today, I wanted to feel it. I wanted to hurt. I wanted to feel something. And so I pulled my hair back in a ponytail, plugged earbuds into my iPod, and left the house without saying goodbye.

  Evening was approaching, and with it, cooler temperatures. I shivered as I stretched in the driveway, but I knew that I’d warm up as I ran. I took off down the street, no particular route in mind. I pulled up Star Beck’s latest album, the one she’d written herself, on my iPod, and let myself slip into the music as my feet pounded the pavement.

  My leg ached, as I knew it would, every time my left foot hit the ground. I tried to imagine the exact places my femur had broken, tried to imagine the bone shattering as our car crumpled around us. It seemed unfair that my leg would be able to heal almost entirely, while my dad’s injuries had stolen him in a matter of seconds. In a way, it was comforting that my leg still hurt, and I found myself wishing that it would ache more, as if hanging on to the pain of that day would give me a do-over.

  I avoided, as I always did, the intersection where the accident had happened. It used to be part of my jogging route, but now I went the other way, winding deeper into our subdivision. I ran back toward the cranberry bogs, which were awash in red, ripe fruit. It was harvesting season, and even as the sunlight waned, I could see a few men in hip boots in what appeared to be a brick-colored sea, raking floating cranberries into containers. My dad had harvested cranberries as a side job when he was putting himself through college. I tried to imagine him out there with the other men, but I couldn’t fix the image in my head. I used to be able to close my eyes and see the outline of his face so clearly, but now he had all but disappeared.

  I turned away from the bogs. I ran along the main road for a little while, then dipped into the next neighborhood. Jennica lived here, and I ran by her house, not sure what I was intending to do or say. But the lights were all off, and her mom’s car wasn’t in the driveway. Perhaps she and her mother and sister had gone out to dinner, like a normal family.

  I ran on. My leg still ached, but the pain felt like a companion now instead of a burden. I was running with it, not against it. I turned down a street I hadn’t been on before and noticed, way off at the end, a guy in a long-sleeved gray tee, a baseball cap, and running shorts mowing the lawn of a big house that sat a little way up a hill. As I ran toward it, I thought about what an insurmountable task it seemed like with the push mower he was moving around the enormous yard. My feet took me closer, and just as I was about to pass by the house and loop down another street, the g
uy mowing the lawn turned, and I realized with a start that I knew him.

  It was Sam.

  I stopped in my tracks without meaning to, and our eyes met. He stared for a moment and then shut off the mower.

  “Lacey?” he yelled down the lawn a little uncertainly. “Um, hi,” I said. I took my earbuds out and glanced around, unsure of what to do. I was suddenly conscious of how I must look. I was drenched in sweat, my hair was frizzing out of my ponytail, and I didn’t have any makeup on, which meant that the two pimples on my chin were probably staring right at Sam, in all their angry red glory.

  As Sam made his way down the lawn, I was surprised to see a tattoo on his left calf. I couldn’t help staring. It was a Celtic claddagh, a pair of hands clasping a heart with a crown on top. My dad had the exact same one. I knew it meant love, friendship, and loyalty. My mother’s wedding ring had the same design on it too, and my dad had once explained to me that it meant he had married his best friend, the woman he loved most in the world, and someone he’d be loyal to forever.

  “You have a tattoo,” I said.

  “What?” He looked surprised and glanced down at his leg. “Oh. Yeah. I got it after my dad …” His voice trailed off. He looked down, then he smiled at me. “I thought my mom was going to kill me when I came home with it. The guy at the tattoo place thought I was eighteen.”

  I smiled. “My dad got a claddagh tattoo too. On his arm. He got it when he and my mom got married.”

  “Oh yeah?” Sam said. “That’s cool.”

  We stood there awkwardly for a minute. “So,” Sam finally said. “What are you doing here?”

  I could feel the color rise to my cheeks. I probably looked like I was stalking him. “I was just going for a run,” I said, and added hastily, “I had no idea you lived down here.”

  Sam glanced back at the house. “I’d invite you in, but my mom’s sort of freaking out right now. My little brother just gave her his report card, and he failed English. They’re screaming at each other. That’s why I came out to mow the lawn.”

  “You have a brother?”

  “Yeah,” Sam said. “Joey. He’s eight.” He paused. “Is it just you and Logan?”

  “I have another brother too,” I said. “Tanner.” I paused and added, “He’s eleven. He doesn’t talk very much anymore. Since the accident.”

  “It’s crazy how much things change, isn’t it?” Sam said. “You know, after.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. I suddenly wanted to change the subject. I glanced up at the lawn. “So you mow this whole thing by yourself?”

  Sam laughed. “Yeah, it’s crazy,” he said. “Our old house had a much smaller yard, so it was a lot easier. But you know, I don’t really mind. It’s kind of nice to have a reason to be outside.”

  “I know,” I said. Silence settled over us.

  “So the other day was really cool,” Sam said after a minute. “I mean, I think it was a really good idea.”

  I smiled. “Thanks.”

  Sam took off his cap raked a hand through his hair, getting a few tufts of grass stuck in his thick, dark strands. “Hey, could I run with you for a little while?”

  “You want to run with me?”

  He shrugged. “If that’s cool,” he said. “I used to run track at my old school. My dad was the coach, actually.” A shadow flickered over his face.

  “Sure,” I said. “I haven’t run in a while, though.” I paused. “Not since the accident, actually. So I’m not very fast.”

  “Good,” Sam said. “Then you’ll be easy to beat when I race you.”

  I laughed. He pushed the mower back up to the house and then jogged back down the driveway.

  “You’re not going to change clothes?” I asked.

  He glanced down at his grass-stained sneakers, his faded running shorts, and his sweaty shirt. “Nah,” he said.

  We set off at a slow jog, and until we reached the end of the block, neither of us said a word. I was conscious of the silence between us and of my pounding heart, which was pumping blood so loudly that I feared Sam could hear it too. It wasn’t until we were at the end of the street that Sam spoke.

  “So do you have a boyfriend?” he asked.

  Startled, I looked up at him. “Um, no,” I said. I cleared my throat and focused on my pace. “Do you have a girlfriend?”

  “Nah,” he said. He paused and added, “I had one at my old school. But that was a while ago.”

  We jogged in silence again, and then Sam blurted out, “I think we should go out. You and me, I mean.”

  “What?” It sounded ruder than I’d meant it to.

  “It’s what I was trying to ask you that day in the car. Before you got mad. I think we should go out. Like, together.”

  I could feel myself blushing. “Really?” I asked. “Why?”

  “You don’t want to?” Sam asked. I noticed he wasn’t looking at me, but his face seemed redder than it should have, considering that we weren’t jogging that hard.

  “No, no, I do,” I said quickly. “I’m just not used to …” I didn’t know what to say. What, that I wasn’t used to guys liking me? That I wasn’t used to being asked out? “You don’t even know me,” I finally concluded.

  “What are you talking about?” he asked. “I sit next to you in two classes, and we’ve talked pretty much every day for the last month and a half.”

  “I guess,” I said. I didn’t know why I was being so reluctant. I was completely attracted to him; how could I not be? And I knew he wasn’t asking me out just because he felt sorry for me or wanted to gossip about how great he was for taking out the poor little fatherless girl.

  “Besides,” Sam continued, “how are you going to get to know me if you don’t let me take you out to dinner?”

  “When?” I asked.

  “Tomorrow night?” he said.

  I thought for a minute. “Yeah,” I said. “I could do that.”

  We both fell into silence again, and as I ran, my mind swirled, thinking about the fact that at this time tomorrow, I’d actually be out with Sam Stone. Who was hot and sweaty—and really, really gorgeous—as he jogged next to me right now.

  “So tell me about your little brother,” Sam said as we turned out of his neighborhood onto Long Pond Road.

  I hesitated, then began to tell him about how much Tanner liked animals and video games and how he used to love searching for the prize in the bottom of the Cracker Jack boxes at ball games. And before I knew it, I found myself telling Sam about Tanner’s almost constant silence and how much it worried me. He told me that he was really scared to see his brother withdraw from everything he used to love. And I was surprised to realize that our mothers seemed to have reacted to losing our fathers the same way: by throwing themselves into their work and social lives instead of spending time with us.

  “It’s like she thinks that if she just works hard enough, she can forget,” Sam said, glancing down at me.

  “That’s exactly how my mom is too,” I said. Somehow, it helped to know that my family wasn’t the only one crumbling, the only one where the remaining adult had retreated rather than dealing.

  It was the best conversation I’d had since the accident.

  As we jogged and talked, our feet eventually carried us to my house, like that’s where we’d been going all along. By the time we got there, we’d covered everything from Jennica to Sam’s best friend Chris at his old school who didn’t call anymore to how hard it was to come into a close-knit community like this one and make friends, when everyone had known one another since preschool.

  We stopped in my driveway, and as we stood catching our breath, I asked, “Do you want to come in and get some water or something?”

  Sam looked at his watch. “Nah,” he said. “My mom’s probably wondering where I am. I’d better get home.”

  “Want me to get my mom to drive you?” I asked. Then I added apologetically, “She won’t let me drive, even though I’m sixteen. It has to do with the accident.”


  Sam nodded, like he understood and wasn’t going to judge me. “Nah, I’m good,” he said. “I should be able to make it home in twenty minutes if I pick up the pace a little.”

  “You saying I’m slow?” I teased.

  He laughed. “No. I’m saying I enjoyed our conversation too much to put any thought into actually running.”

  Then, before I realized what was happening, he leaned down and gave me a quick peck on the lips. He pulled back, looking embarrassed, before I could get my mouth to unfreeze long enough to reply.

  “Pick you up at six,” he said.

  He was already disappearing down the street before I raised my hand in a silent goodbye. My lips were still tingling as he vanished around the corner.

  chapter 14

  I practically floated up to my bedroom and booted up my computer. After a quick shower to rinse my hair and wash the run away, I went online. Jennica’s screen name popped up in a little IM window, accompanied by her AIM tone, which was the sound of a kiss.

  JENNICAJENNICA: Hey Lacey.

  JENNICAJENNICA: I’m sorry.

  I gulped. I paused and typed back.

  LACEYLOO321: it’s ok

  JENNICAJENNICA: i was a jerk.

  LACEYLOO321: u weren’t a jerk.

  JENNICAJENNICA: i was.

  LACEYLOO321: weren’t

  JENNICAJENNICA: was

  LACEYLOO321: agree to disagree?

  JENNICAJENNICA: only if u accept my apology.

  LACEYLOO321: deal.

  LACEYLOO321: :-)

  LACEYLOO321: hey, i’m sorry u r upset about ur dad.

  JENNICAJENNICA: :-(

  JENNICAJENNICA: it’s no big deal.

  LACEYLOO321: yeah it is. i shouldn’t act like it’s not. i’m sorry if i do that.

  JENNICAJENNICA: it’s ok.

  JENNICAJENNICA: besides. it’s not a big deal. Not like ur dad. i know that, ok?