Last Summer

by Holly Chamberlin

  She smiled now, watching Rosie grab Meg’s arm as Meg started to cross against a light. They would have their old argument there on the curb. “But there are no cars coming!” Meg would point out. And Rosie would retort, “But you never know what could happen.” In so many ways they were Jane and Frannie in miniature....

  The light turned green and the girls moved on, Jane following. She had enjoyed herself in Portland, and it was obvious that the girls had, too, but she had missed Frannie. A lot. If she could only get over her own inflated sense of pride ...

  But was it really pride that stood in the way of reconciliation with Frannie? If so, that was pretty pathetic. Pride, it was said, went before a fall. You didn’t have to grow up a Catholic to have learned that lesson.

  Well, maybe pride (which might simply be another term for stubbornness) was a factor, Jane thought, but maybe once again she was allowing fear to dictate her behavior. Fear of a repeat of the emotional loss she had already sustained. What if Frannie changed her mind and didn’t want Jane back in her life after all? She didn’t know if she could stand to lose Frannie twice. That was a new and sobering realization.

  They reached Free Street, found the car, and climbed inside. The forty-five-minute drive home was uneventful. The nail polish debate seemed to have been decided on the way north. Peridot had won as the coolest new color. When Jane pulled up to the Pattersons’ garage Meg thanked her again and hurried into her house, eager, she said, to present her mother with the scarf she had bought her. She said nothing about the little ruby and Jane thought that Meg was likely to keep that purchase to herself for a while, a secret treasure. Jane and Rosie walked around to their own front door.

  “Thanks, Mom,” Rosie said as Jane put her key in the lock. “This day was just—”

  “Let me guess,” Jane interrupted. “It was awesome!”

  Rosie rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. And it would have been even more awesome, Jane thought, stepping inside, if Frannie had been with us.

  45

  Dear Diary

  My Final Entry

  I’ve said before that a particular day was the worst day of my life, especially since last fall. I’ve said that a lot.

  It turns out that I was lying. Today was the worst day of my life. Beyond a shadow of a shadow of a doubt.

  I can’t even put down on paper what happened. What the person I thought was my best friend did to me. How she betrayed me. I’ll never get over it. Ever. Everything is gone now. Nothing matters anymore.

  So if nothing matters then I’m going to go ahead and say it.

  Meg broke a solemn oath she made to me years ago. She told my big secret. She told Mackenzie Egan that I used to wet the bed at night. And Mackenzie told everybody in the entire school.

  I can’t face anyone ever again. I feel like dying.

  I want to die.

  Rosemary Alice Patterson, age 14

  46

  Meg was sitting cross-legged on the living room couch watching the local evening news. It was boring. Nothing really exciting ever seemed to happen in Yorktide and its neighboring towns. Big deal, a guy was caught driving drunk. Like that was news? It happened every day! Some idiot was smoking in bed and the bed caught fire. Nobody was hurt, which was good, but come on, Meg thought. Why can’t something really interesting ever happen here, like some sort of spying scandal, something big? That was another reason for moving far away when she got older, to begin a new life in a place where interesting things took place and—

  Meg abruptly uncrossed her legs, reached for the remote, and pressed the volume button. The announcer, a woman with curly red hair, was hinting at the next story, or whatever you called it. Teasing it. And it was a bad story. Not exciting or interesting. Just bad.

  The show went to a commercial. Meg shot to her feet and called out, “Mom! Get in here, fast!”

  Frannie appeared a half a moment later, holding a damp dish towel. “What is it?”

  Meg pointed to the television. “Listen. The news is back.”

  They did listen. After a moment, Frannie dropped the towel to the floor and put her hand to her mouth. “Oh, my God in heaven,” she said. “I know that family from church.”

  “Me, too.”

  Together they watched and listened to the brief report. A boy named Kenny Ray, aged twelve, from a neighboring town, had shot himself in the head in a failed suicide attempt. A note found near his bleeding and unconscious body explained that he was no longer able to stand being a target of bullying by some of the boys at his school. They hated him, the note said, because he was gay.

  School officials were being questioned, as were fellow students and neighbors of the family. The parents claimed they had known nothing about the bullying. Their son had never complained to them.

  “He’s such a good boy,” his mother said, tears streaming down her face, her hands clutched to her chest. “Why would anyone want to hurt him?”

  His father, a tall, spare man in a work shirt and jeans, was clearly unable to speak. He stood behind his wife, his head bowed, his mouth tight.

  When the report was over and the announcer moved on to a lighter news item, Meg turned off the television.

  “This is a disaster,” Meg said forcefully. “This is wrong, wrong, wrong.”

  “Isn’t there an older boy in the Ray family, too?” her mother asked, still staring at the television though it was no longer on.

  Meg nodded. “Yeah. I think he’s in college now. He was a big athlete in high school. I remember seeing his picture in the paper, like, every week.”

  Frannie now sank onto the couch. “I feel sick to my stomach,” she said. “Literally.”

  “Violence is sickening,” Meg agreed. “Physical or verbal or psychological. I hope the police find the creeps who taunted that boy. And then I hope they—”

  “Remember what you just said about violence, Meg.”

  “Yeah. I know. But there can be justice without violence.”

  Frannie opened her mouth to speak, but the sound of Petey tramping down the stairs from the second floor made her close it again. Petey came into the living room and looked closely from his sister to his mother and back again. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  Meg didn’t know what to say. She looked to her mother for guidance.

  “Nothing’s wrong,” Frannie said, feigning a smile.

  “Oh,” Petey said. “Is Daddy coming over?”

  Meg was convinced by his expression that he hadn’t really believed it when his mother said that nothing was wrong. Petey was not dumb. And children had an instinct for trouble.

  “No,” Frannie answered. “I don’t think so. Why?”

  Petey shrugged. “No reason. I just miss him, that’s all.”

  Meg glanced down at her mother. She looked awful, her face ashen, her eyes strained. Meg thought that maybe her mother could use some time alone to process the awful news they had just heard. “Hey,” she said, as brightly as she could manage. “I have an idea. Why don’t I take Petey to the park for a while? There’s some time before dinner, right, Mom?”

  Frannie looked up at her daughter. Her eyes were suddenly bright with tears. “Right,” she said. “Just be careful.”

  “Don’t worry, Mom,” Meg said, reaching for her little brother’s hand. “You can count on me.”

  A moment later they were out the door and headed toward Yorktide Memorial Park. Petey was quiet, as if affected by the suddenly strange mood that had come over the Giroux house after the evening news. And lies didn’t sit well with children. Meg knew that for a fact.

  She held back a sigh. The world was such a scary place. She supposed it always had been, and maybe in a lot of ways more dangerous than it was now, at least, more dangerous than the world was for a twenty-first-century teenaged girl living in one of the most privileged countries in the world. She didn’t have to worry about tsunamis or famine or volcanoes. She didn’t have to worry about civil war. At least, she hoped that she didn’t. The fir
st civil war sounded horrid enough. Those pictures of wounded soldiers and the prisoners of war were pretty unbearable to look at. But she could still be worried about crime and financial ruin and one person bullying another person until that person finally snapped and tried to harm herself—or kill himself.

  Meg felt Petey squeeze her hand.

  “Hey.” She smiled down at him.

  “Mom looked sad,” he said.

  “Oh,” Meg said, keeping her tone light, “I think she’s just tired. You know she works really hard.”

  “Maybe Daddy could help her with some stuff.”

  “Mmm. Maybe.” How did you tell a six-year-old child that his father was a lazy bum? You didn’t tell him.

  “I’m going to go on the slide,” Petey announced. “Gregory at camp says he goes down the slide headfirst.”

  “He does, does he? Well, you’re not doing that!”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s way too dangerous,” Meg said, pushing aside memories of her own headfirst slides. Just because she had been a daredevil didn’t mean that Petey should be one, too. Do as I say, not as I do. That was another one of her mom’s favorite expressions. Meg thought it might become one of hers, too, at least where Petey was concerned.

  Petey shrugged. “Okay. Hey, maybe I could help Mom with some stuff. I’m getting pretty strong. Maybe I could help her mow the lawn!”

  Meg bit back a smile at the thought of her little brother struggling with the heavy, old mower her mother had bought ages and ages ago. “That’s really nice of you,” she said, “to want to help Mom. Though maybe instead of mowing the lawn you could help her load the dishwasher. I know she hates doing it.”

  Petey smiled and nodded.

  Brother and sister walked on. Meg thought she could feel a tiny hint of fall very vaguely in the air. If it was her imagination, so be it. She was tired now of summer (it had been a difficult one, albeit productive) and ready to move on. Fall brought a fresh start, with a new school year and—

  Meg was caught short by an image of Mr. and Mrs. Ray. She saw all too clearly Mrs. Ray’s tear-streaked face and Mr. Ray’s grimly set mouth. Fall would not bring a fresh start for them. It would bring only more grief. She wondered if they could ever move on and recover from this awful thing that had happened to them. By all accounts they were a loving family, but they had somehow failed to protect one of their own, maybe not through any fault or negligence. Maybe it had just happened. Like Rosie had said that afternoon in her bedroom when Meg had been moaning about not looking like Kate Middleton. Life could be random and unfair.

  Right there on the sidewalk, Meg felt overcome with a fierce love. She loved her family beyond words. And she would do anything and everything in her power to protect her brother, and her mother. She didn’t mind taking on more responsibility. Like her mother had always told her, she was tough. Megan Christine Giroux was strong. She really believed that now.

  “I see the park!” Petey cried.

  “Wanna skip?” Meg asked.

  “Sure! I’m a way better skipper than you!”

  “Are not!”

  And together, still hand in hand, they skipped on toward the park.

  47

  Later that night, after the dinner dishes had been cleaned and put away and Petey had gone off to bed, Frannie poured herself a glass of red wine. She hardly ever drank—she didn’t have time to be tipsy—but this night, she felt she deserved just one glass before bed. Nothing else helped her sleep these days, not praying or counting sheep, not even warm milk. Maybe wine would work.

  Glass of wine in hand, Frannie sank onto the living room couch and sighed. Her thoughts were tumultuous, an unpleasant mix of sadness and anger and frustration. She hardly knew the Ray family, but somehow, their tragedy had brought her closer to them, or them closer to her. As a parent it wasn’t hard to put herself in Maria Ray’s shoes and know something of what she must be feeling right now. You didn’t have to be the most sympathetic or empathetic person in the world to feel connected to the Rays’ tragedy.

  And, not surprisingly, the Ray family’s tragedy brought to mind—as if it had ever been far off—Rosie’s own story, and what she had endured at the hands of those girls for all those months. And, of course, of what Jane, as a parent, had gone through once she had finally learned the truth. Maybe, Frannie thought, Jane’s refusal to befriend her was understandable, even reasonable, after all.

  Still, Jane’s refusal to communicate had pretty much made any friendly gesture Frannie might make toward Rosie impossible. It was a weird situation. Somehow, Frannie had become the pariah of the bunch, the only one left out of the Patterson-Giroux dynamic. It was unfair, but Frannie felt helpless to change the situation. She remembered that saying: When God closes a door He opens a window. Something like that. But for the life of her she could see no open window, no way to salvage a remnant of the past, no way out of the isolation that seemed to engulf her.

  Frannie took a sip of the wine. She so wanted to talk about the Ray family’s recent tragedy with someone, but with whom? There was no comfort to be found with Jane anymore. And Peter, of course, would be no help. He never had been good at listening to an expression of grief, let alone with offering sympathy or consolation. Frannie remembered when her parents had died, within months of each other. The depth of her pain had blinded her to the extent of her husband’s emotional distance. Later, after she had passed through the initial intensity and shock of her loss, she realized that aside from an occasional pat on the shoulder, Peter had left her entirely alone in her moment of need.

  When they were first married, and for some time after that, Frannie had decided that Peter’s inability to comfort was simply due to his being a “typical man,” thoughtless and obtuse. After a while she had had to face the fact that he was actually an incredibly self-absorbed person. To a great extent, other people didn’t exist for him. And in Frannie’s experience, people like that didn’t demonstrably change.

  She took another sip of wine. Okay, yeah, she thought, so I feel terribly isolated. Big deal. This was not a time to pity herself when others in her community were experiencing much greater pain. That poor family. Frannie had told Meg not to watch the news in the next few days when Petey was around. She didn’t want him to hear about the Ray boy, ask questions, and be confused by whatever answers she or Meg could muster. Frankly, Frannie wasn’t at all sure what she could say to Petey that wouldn’t scare him. She didn’t get the local daily paper at the house, so he wouldn’t find out about the Ray boy that way, and Frannie doubted the tragedy would be talked about in front of the kids at Petey’s day camp, especially since some of the kids were bound to know Kenny Ray, at least by sight. So, hopefully, Petey was safe for the moment.

  Frannie heard a creak on the stairs and looked up to see Meg descending. She was wearing a pair of pajama bottoms and a T-shirt.

  “I thought you were upstairs for the night,” Frannie said as Meg came into the living room. She felt momentarily guilty to be caught drinking a glass of wine. But nothing in Meg’s manner or expression betrayed disapproval. I’m not her father, Frannie told herself. And Meg knows it.

  Meg shrugged and sat next to her mother on the couch. “Nah. I couldn’t really get involved in my book. It’s really good, but I can’t stop thinking about that poor family.”

  “I know what you mean. I feel as if I’ve been hit by a train. Utterly flattened. And I’ve hardly even spoken to the Rays. Just friendly, Sunday-morning coffee hour small talk.”

  “Did you know their younger son was gay?” Meg asked.

  “No,” Frannie said. “I suspect they didn’t, either. Well, unless he had told them. But if he had already told his parents, he could have turned to them for help when the bullying got bad. Unless they had rejected him, which I find hard to believe. They seem so nice. The poor boy must have felt so awfully alone.”

  “Yeah. Mom? What if Rosie ... What if she had tried to kill herself?”

  For a moment
, Frannie thought she might be sick, and with an unsteady hand she put the glass of wine on the small table by the side of the couch. “But she didn’t try to kill herself,” she said forcefully. “Remember that.”

  “But she might have. And then ...”

  Frannie put her hand on her daughter’s arm. “Don’t even think it, Meg. Please.”

  “I can’t help it,” Meg protested. “Then I would have been responsible for killing her.”

  “No. A person who kills herself makes her own decision. It’s a bad, terribly sad decision, but it’s her own.”

  Meg was silent for a long moment. Finally, she said, “I’m not so sure about that now. At least, not when it’s a young person committing suicide. I know sometimes I act like I know everything, but I don’t. No one my age does, especially someone who’s depressed.”

  Frannie thought about that. “Okay,” she said then. “Honestly? I’m not so sure about that, either. I’m not so sure that a young person’s decision to take her own life is her decision alone. Or that she’s really responsible for that decision. But I don’t want you to be blaming yourself for something that didn’t happen and that might never have happened.”

  “I’ll try,” Meg said. “Seriously.”

  A crunch on the gravel-covered front walk caused Frannie to turn her head and peer out the open living room window.

  “What ... It’s Jane and Rosie,” she said. “I wonder what’s going on. Jane hasn’t been over here since ...”

  Frannie got up from the couch and opened the door before Jane or Rosie could knock.

  “I’m so sorry, Frannie,” Jane said immediately. “Will you forgive me?”