Only Child: A novel

by Rhiannon Navin

  “Please don’t worry about me. It’s not…you don’t have to worry about me. It will be all right. OK?” Charlie said.

  I looked back out the window.

  “Please? My best buddy?” Charlie said, and he sounded like he was a kid asking me that question.

  “OK,” I said. I looked back at Charlie and we both let our tears spill over.

  “Charlie?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m sorry about…how Mommy is talking about you like that,” I told him.

  “Your mom…she is in a lot of pain right now,” Charlie said. The car was warm, and I wanted to stay here, with Charlie.

  “Charlie?”

  “Yes?”

  “Can you still feel your son? Do you…is it still like he’s with you or something?” I asked.

  “Sometimes. Sometimes it feels like he’s right here, close to me. And sometimes…it feels like he’s been gone a long, long time,” Charlie said.

  Then he said, “Go now. Time to go home. Listen, I’ll watch you from here, OK? I’ll watch you walk up to your house and until you go inside, all right?”

  I grabbed my backpack and opened the back door, and before I got out I said, “Bye, Charlie.”

  “Bye, Zach. My best buddy,” Charlie answered.

  When I walked up our road, I could see two police cars in front of our house and the news vans were still there, too. I thought that I was probably going to get in huge trouble. When I walked to our house, I started to feel cold again, and I walked with slow, tiny steps. I turned back around and I saw the lights from Charlie’s car behind me. I pressed the button on Andy’s watch that makes it light up: 6:10.

  When I got close to our house I saw a man was leaning against one of the news vans. I realized it was Dexter, and then he saw me, too, and started walking to me fast.

  “Oh man, Zach, there you are, man! Everyone’s been looking for you,” he said, but I didn’t say anything back. I gave him a death stare and walked past him and to our front door. My heart was beating super fast when I pushed the doorbell button.

  [ 51 ]

  This Crying Thing

  AFTER THE DOOR OPENED, nothing went how I thought it was going to. I didn’t get in huge trouble, not even in a little bit of trouble. Mommy opened the door and she was hugging Clancy, so that’s where he was—I forgot him at home. When she saw me, she yelled, “Oh my God, he’s here!” Then she went down on her knees and hugged me and like rocked from the left side to the right side over and over again.

  “My baby, my baby, my baby,” she said a lot of times. Behind her I saw Mimi and Grandma and Aunt Mary and two policemen coming out of the living room. But no Daddy.

  Mommy stopped hugging me and held me a little away from her and looked at me all over. “Are you all right, Zach?” she asked.

  “Daddy isn’t here,” I said in a quiet voice.

  “Oh, jeez,” Aunt Mary said, and she pulled out her phone and pushed a button. Into the phone she said, “Jim, he’s home. He came back home!”

  “He’s out looking for you, honey,” Mommy said. “He’ll be here soon, OK?”

  My body did a shiver and my teeth started clicking together again.

  “Oh, Zach, you are freezing,” Mommy said, and then everyone made a big fuss: “Here, let’s take your shoes off. And the backpack. Let me feel your hands. Oh my God, they’re ice-cold. You must be starving. Let’s make you something to eat.”

  The policemen said they would have to ask me some questions, but Mimi said, “Let’s get him settled first. Here, let’s have another cup of coffee,” and so everyone sat down in the kitchen, even the policemen.

  The alarm box lady said “Front door!” and right after that Daddy came in the kitchen. He stood in the door for a second and he didn’t say anything, just stared at me. Then he walked across the whole kitchen with giant fast steps to where I was sitting. He pulled me off the barstool and lifted me up and hugged me so tight, it was hard for me to breathe, and then I heard the sound. And I could feel the sound.

  It was like it came from all the way inside Daddy’s belly, and then it moved up his throat and came out through his mouth next to my ear. It was like a very low choking sound. Daddy’s chest went up and down fast, and that’s when I realized he was crying. That’s what it sounds like when Daddy cries.

  Now he cried with the low, loud choking sound, and he held me tight like that for a long time. I pulled back, because I wanted to see what it looked like when Daddy cried. His face looked younger, like from a boy and not like a man, with his face wet all over from tears and his chin was shivering up and down.

  “Zach,” he said, and my name came out like a big breath from his mouth. “I thought I lost you, too.”

  “I’m OK, Daddy,” I told him, and I wanted his chin to stop shivering and it was my fault that he was so sad, and I felt bad about that. I put my hands on Daddy’s cheeks and they got wet from all his tears, and I rubbed my hands over his beard.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, and Daddy did a little laugh.

  “You sweet, sweet boy,” Daddy said, and he hugged me tight again. “You have nothing to be sorry about.”

  He put me back down and I saw that everyone else in the kitchen was crying, too. Mommy was crying and Mimi and Grandma and Aunt Mary. They looked at me and at Daddy and cried, and maybe it was the first time they saw Daddy cry, too, I didn’t know, probably, though.

  After everybody got done crying, one of the policemen got up and said, “We don’t want to intrude any longer than necessary. Just a few things we need to ask this young man. We can always circle back around tomorrow for the details.” And he asked me some questions about where I was the whole time, and I told him that I went to the cemetery and how I got there and all that stuff.

  The policeman had a little notebook and he wrote down some things. “Is there anything else you feel like you need to tell me?” the policeman asked, and I shook my head no. I could feel the red juice spill starting to happen because I didn’t tell him that I went there because I wanted to talk to Charlie. The other policeman got up, too. “All right, we’ll check back in tomorrow and get all the necessary paperwork done. Everything looks like it’s in order for tonight.”

  The policemen left, and then Mimi said the three of us could probably use some time—and that meant me and Mommy and Daddy, and so her and Grandma and Aunt Mary left, too.

  When everyone was gone, it felt weird to be home with just us three and it was like we didn’t know how to act anymore when we were together. It gave me a shy feeling.

  “You didn’t eat anything yet, honey,” Mommy said. “What would you like?”

  “Cereal, please,” I said, and all three of us ate cereal, and we sat at the counter, me in the middle in between Mommy and Daddy and for a little while it was only the crunch, crunch from our chewing.

  Then Mommy asked in a quiet voice, “So you went to the cemetery?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Why?”

  I thought about my mission and how Charlie didn’t come home with me, so my mission didn’t work out. I put my head down because I didn’t want Mommy and Daddy to see that tears were coming back in my eyes.

  “Why did you go there, Zach?” Mommy asked again, and she pushed my chin up with her hand and looked at me. “Because of Andy?”

  “Yes,” I said, and that was not lying because I also wanted to go to Andy’s grave when I went there. But it wasn’t telling the truth either, because I didn’t tell her that I went there to find Charlie.

  “I wanted to visit Andy and…be with him again. Like before in…here at home,” I said.

  “In Andy’s closet?” Mommy asked, and I looked at Daddy, because he told my secret.

  “I had to tell Mommy, Zach. It’s the first place I looked when we couldn’t find you. OK?”

 
“OK,” I told him, and it didn’t matter anymore, because the hideout wasn’t special anymore anyway.

  “You wanted to be with Andy again?” Mommy asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “I used to feel him in the hideout. It’s hard to explain. I could talk to him and stuff and it made me not lonely. Daddy noticed that, too, right, Daddy?”

  Daddy said, “It felt like it, yes. It was nice…to imagine that.”

  “I didn’t only imagine it,” I said. “That’s really how it was. But then it stopped working. I couldn’t feel him anymore in there, and then it was just me, alone in the bed….”

  “Alone in the bed?” Daddy asked, and he looked like he was crying again. He wiped his eyes with his napkin. “Man. This crying thing. I could get used to this.”

  “Alone in the bed like in the song, you know? ‘Ten in the Bed’?” I said, and Daddy looked like he didn’t get it. “Never mind,” I said.

  Mommy pushed her cereal bowl away and took my hand. “Zach, I’m…so sorry. I’m sorry that you…felt so lonely.” Mommy’s voice came out with a lot of breaks in between. “If something bad had happened to you…,” and then it was like she couldn’t keep talking.

  “It’s OK, Mommy,” I said.

  “No. It’s not OK, honey. You were feeling so alone that you ran away to be with your brother at the cemetery. And I didn’t realize you were gone for…quite some time. That was not OK.”

  “It’s because you’re feeling a lot of pain. Charlie told me that today,” I said.

  “Wait,” Mommy said.

  “What?” Daddy said. They both stared at me, and right away I was sorry I said that, because now I got worried that I would get Charlie in more trouble.

  Mommy sat up straight. “What does that mean, Zach: Charlie told you that today? How?” I could tell she was getting mad.

  Daddy leaned over and covered Mommy’s hand with his hand and he said, “Zach, it’s important that you tell us what you meant by that. OK?”

  “But is he going to be in more trouble? He didn’t do anything wrong. He helped me,” I said, and my words were coming out fast.

  “How did Charlie help you?” Mommy asked.

  “He told me it was time to go home because you were probably worried about me. And he took me home in his car.”

  Mommy looked at Daddy, and she let out a long breath very slowly. “You were in Charlie’s car?” she asked.

  “Mhmm.”

  “You have to give us the full story, buddy,” Daddy said.

  “OK. I went to the cemetery because I wanted to find Charlie. I mean, I wanted to visit Andy, too, but mostly I went because of Charlie. I wanted him to come here with me and we could talk to Mommy and make it so that all the fighting could be over. And so that Charlie doesn’t have to go in jail. And Daddy could come back home,” I said.

  “You went to the cemetery to find Charlie?” Mommy asked.

  “Yes. He goes there every day,” I explained. “He says good night to his son every night there.”

  Daddy pressed his lips together and shook his head up and down slowly. “How did you know that?” he asked.

  “From the news,” I said. “But he didn’t want to come here.” I started to cry because I did that whole thing, and I tried to be brave and not scared for once, so that I could make everything better, and it didn’t even work. “My mission didn’t work like how I planned it. I wanted you and him to talk, and then you could see that he’s really sorry and he feels bad about what his son did,” I said to Mommy. “And so then you could stop being so mad at him.”

  Mommy stared at me for a minute.

  “He took you home in his car?” Mommy asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “He said I should go home, and I told him I didn’t want to go back home, but then we went anyway. He dropped me off at the middle school bus corner, and I walked the rest of the way. I think he didn’t want to come, because of…because of how mad you are at him.”

  “You didn’t want to come back home?” Mommy said. Her words came out quiet, and her nose sounded very stuffy from all the crying. For a while no one said anything, and then Mommy asked, “Do you think you could show me your hideout? I’d really like to see it.”

  [ 52 ]

  The Last Secret

  “STILL SMELLS LIKE BOY in here,” Mommy said when me and her crawled in the hideout. “Wow, I always forget how big this closet is.”

  “Can I join you, too?” Daddy asked from outside the closet, and Mommy said, “OK.”

  We all sat down in the back, and it was very smushed with three people, but I didn’t mind it. I liked being in here with Mommy and Daddy. I sat in front of Mommy and leaned back against her, and she put her arms around me. Daddy sat across from us and leaned his back and head against the wall.

  “What are those?” Mommy asked, and pointed at the feelings pages.

  “Feelings pages,” I said, and I explained to her what they were and why I made them, like I explained it to Daddy when he first came in the hideout.

  “Let me see if I still remember which is which,” Daddy said, and we played a game where I quizzed him.

  “Black?” I asked.

  “Scared.”

  “Red?”

  “Embarrassed.”

  We went through all the colors, and Daddy remembered them all.

  “You were feeling a lot of feelings, huh?” Mommy asked.

  “Yeah,” I answered.

  “So the white one is for sympathy? Why did you make one for sympathy? That’s a feeling you have?” Mommy wanted to know.

  “Me and Daddy came up with that one. Sympathy is the third secret of happiness.”

  “The third secret of happiness…?” Mommy asked.

  “Yes, remember from the Magic Tree House Merlin missions?” I said.

  “Um,” Mommy said.

  “Remember I was going to try out the first secret of happiness with you? Pay attention to the small things around you in nature? But then you didn’t have time because you were on the phone.”

  “I…I don’t remember that,” Mommy said.

  “Zach has been reading about the secrets of happiness, and he wanted to try them out because he felt like we could use them around here,” Daddy said.

  “We’re like Merlin,” I told Mommy. “He’s sick from all the sadness, and that’s why Jack and Annie try to find the four secrets of happiness for him, so he can get better. And we’re like sick from sadness, too, because of Andy, so it’s the same, kind of.”

  “Huh,” Mommy said, and she put her head down on my head. “So sympathy is one of the secrets?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I don’t think I did that with Andy when he was still alive and he was acting mean, but then after I got it and I started to feel the sympathy for him.”

  Daddy made his eyebrows go up. He looked at Mommy and shook his head a little.

  “Mommy?” I said.

  “Yes, baby?”

  “I think you have to try to feel the sympathy with Charlie, too. Please don’t make him go in jail. I could feel his feelings with him today, at the cemetery, and he is sick from sadness like us and Merlin.”

  Mommy was quiet for a long time after that. I thought maybe she got mad at me again, like the last time I told her that she should have sympathy with Charlie, before she made me go to school.

  But then she asked, “What are the other two secrets?” and she didn’t sound mad.

  “One is to be curious about things. And the fourth one I don’t know yet. I tried to finish the book at the cemetery to find out, but it got too cold and too dark,” I said.

  “Should we finish it now?” Mommy asked. “Or are you too tired? We can always do it tomorrow.”

  I didn’t feel tired, and I didn’t want us to leave the hideout, so I jumped up and said, “I’
ll go get the book. It’s in my backpack.” I zipped downstairs and grabbed the book and also Buzz, so we would have enough light to read, and then I zipped back upstairs.

  Right when I was about to go back in the closet, I heard Mommy and Daddy’s voices and I stopped to hear what they were saying.

  “…we both played our part in this,” I heard Mommy say. “You can’t put this all on me.”

  “I know, I know,” Daddy answered. His voice was very quiet. “Please let’s not argue, OK? Not tonight. I’m so damn relieved we have him back safe and sound.”

  Then they didn’t say anything else for a while, so I went back in the closet.

  Mommy had her head down on her knees, and Daddy had his head against the wall. Their heads popped up when they heard me come back in.

  I told Mommy and Daddy what happened so far, how Jack and Annie got to Antarctica and how they go on a helicopter trip to a volcano with the researchers. And of course the researchers find out Jack and Annie are kids—I knew they were going to—but they don’t really get in trouble. They’re supposed to wait at the house until someone comes and brings them back down from the mountain. But they leave the house instead and they fall into a ravine.

  That’s how far I got at the cemetery. When I was telling Mommy and Daddy about it, I was starting to feel a little tired, so I gave the book to Daddy so he could read the rest. Daddy opened it and the picture of me and Andy fell out. Daddy looked at it for a while and then gave it to me. I found the tape in the corner of the hideout and taped the picture back on the wall where it was before. Then I snuggled my back against Mommy and listened to Daddy’s reading. Mommy’s body made my body warm, and Daddy was reading in a quiet voice. My eyes started to feel heavy, and it was hard to keep them open.

  [ 53 ]

  Club Andy

  THAT WAS THE LAST THING I remembered, and then I woke up and I was in Mommy and Daddy’s bed and it was light outside. I didn’t remember how I got out of the hideout and in the bed, and I didn’t remember what happened in the book and if Jack and Annie found out the fourth secret of happiness.