Second to No One

by Palmer, Natalie

  I moved slowly toward her and laid my final project on her desk. “I finished this last week. I’m sorry I didn’t get it to you on time.”

  “You didn’t need to do this. You passed with flying colors and even if you hadn’t…”

  “I can’t be your aid next year.”

  She nodded once. “I figured.”

  “I never asked my mom, but I know how she’d feel about it. I just don’t want to put any more stress on her right now.”

  Ms. Delrose examined me carefully as though checking to make sure I was still breathing. “How are you, Gemma?”

  How could I answer that truthfully without falling apart? “I’m okay,” I lied.

  “My father passed away when I was twenty-three.”

  I nodded sympathetically. “I’m sorry.”

  “Even after having lived through it myself, I still have no idea what I can say to you that won’t sound moronic.”

  I couldn’t help but smile ever so slightly. “You’re doing fine.”

  She took a deep breath. “Will I be able to see you next year in advanced photography?”

  “Yeah, I think so. I should be able to fit that in without too big of a problem.”

  “Good.” She took hold of my project for the first time and began flipping through the pages. “Life…” She took another exhausted breath. “Life can be a mess sometimes. But we still need to capture it. Print it out on photo paper and try to never forget it. Even the worst times.”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think I want to see any pictures of the past week.”

  “Right, probably not.” She tapped her chin with the back of her pencil. “But someday when time has numbed the pain a bit, I hope you can look back at this time and realize how lucky you are that you even had a father like yours. I hope you can see the miracle that lies in the mere fact that he was such a good person and that the two of you had such a wonderful relationship. That doesn’t happen every day, you know.”

  “Yeah.” I stuffed my hands in my pockets. “I guess so.”

  “Okay,” she said louder as she added my project to her pile. “I need to get going. But I’m planning on coming to your father’s funeral on Saturday, though, if that’s okay.”

  “Oh, yeah, of course. But don’t feel like you have to.”

  “I want to be there, Gemma. You’re one of my favorite students, you must know that.” She pushed herself out of her chair and lifted her purse out of her bottom drawer. “And besides, my mother is insisting that I take her to it as well. I think you’ll have quite the Brookwood showing.”

  “Really?” I hadn’t been back to the assisted living center since Tag and I had quarreled. I didn’t expect them to know about my dad’s passing and I especially didn’t expect any of them to come to the funeral.

  “Oh definitely, my mom and Mrs. Peachtree and of course Tag. But not Toni, apparently, because she still thinks that cancer is contagious.”

  I laughed despite myself and Ms. Delrose flashed me a sympathetic smile. “Oh honey, I know it’s hard. It’s the worst thing in the world. But even the worst things in the world pass with time. That’s not to say that you’ll ever stop missing him, because you won’t, but it will get easier. I promise.”

  I walked Ms. Delrose to the faculty parking lot then made my way around the school to where Drew was waiting for me out front. As I climbed into the passenger chair, she finished typing a message on her phone then set it on her lap.

  “Who was that?” I asked, nodding toward her phone.

  “Bryce. It’s our nine month anniversary today and he made reservations at some restaurant in Highlands.” She checked her rearview mirror and began to reverse. “But we can do it another night if you need me. You’re my priority right now.”

  “No, go,” I said, rubbing my temples between my forefingers. I had had a constant headache for the past four days. “I need to help my mom clean the house anyway. Everyone will be coming Saturday after the funeral and of course she wants it to look perfect.”

  “How are things with your mom?”

  I shrugged one shoulder because I didn’t have the energy to shrug both. “I don’t know. She’s been a robot since my dad died. She’s either locked herself in her room or she’s flipped into a stone cold project mode. I can’t talk to her.” But the truth was, I didn’t know what I would say to her anyway. The truth was, I didn’t feel like I knew who she was anymore and I hated myself for thinking that if one of my parents had to die, I wished that it would have been her.

  “You’re going to be okay, sweetheart. I know it’s hard, but you’re going to be fine.”

  I nodded my head mechanically for the millionth time that day as another nameless friend of my mom’s rubbed my upper arm raw and told me that I was somehow going to survive this. I took a pretend sip from my cup and eyed the crowd in my living room. The funeral had ended hours ago and still there were masses of people lingering in my house, my kitchen, my hallway, as if waiting to see if he was by some miracle going to come back.

  “Gemma, hon.” A familiar voice came from behind me and I felt the touch of Tag’s cold fingers against my hand. “We’re going to go now.” He nodded behind him where Mae and a few other ladies from the assisted living center were standing. They eyed me pitifully while scrunching balls of tissue between their fingers.

  “Thank you for coming,” I said to them all. “It meant a lot to have you here.”

  “It was a beautiful service,” Mae said. “Soph would have stayed longer had she not had to help her son move today.”

  “Soph?” Then it occurred to me that must be Ms. Delrose’s first name. “Oh, that’s okay. I’ll see her in the fall.”

  The ladies then did a simultaneous three-point turn and headed back toward my front door. But Tag lingered with his arm slipped through mine. His voice quivered as he spoke. “Darn it, Gemma, I was hoping for a miracle. I really was. It’s not fair that a young father should go when I’m stuck here with all these crazy ladies.”

  I couldn’t help but smile as I squeezed his hand between mine. “Thank you, Tag.”

  He furrowed his brow. “What for?”

  “For telling me the truth. For opening my eyes, before it was too late.”

  “Oh, right.” He jutted his jaw forward and nodded proudly. “Is that what I did? Well, I could have said it a bit nicer, I suppose. Mary’s always gettin’ after me for speaking my mind and making the ladies cry.”

  “I needed to hear it.”

  “Right then.” He frowned and let go of my arm. “I’ll tell Mary she’s wrong then, we’ll see how that goes over.”

  I laughed softly into Tag’s shoulder as he gave me a hug. “I’ll be by to play more cards with you when things settle down around here.”

  “I’ll be looking forward to it,” he said, then he scooted through the crowd and left out the front door.

  “Hey Gemma.” A new hand was touching my arm but I was used to it by now. I turned around to see Trace, his head down, his eyes avoiding mine. I had seen him at the funeral and I knew he was around, but we hadn’t said a word to each other all day. We’d barely spoken since Lauren’s birthday party, and I could still feel the awkwardness between us.

  “Hey, Trace.” I folded my arms over my chest and searched for a way to relieve my aching back. “Thanks for coming.”

  “Of course.” He looked at my eyes and for a millionth of a second I felt the same flutter in my stomach that I had back in junior high.

  “Kind of weird that we’re already done with our sophomore year.” He kept looking at me but said nothing, so I continued. “Seems like just yesterday you were taking me on one of your crazy hikes.”

  “Look,” he finally said with a barely audible voice. “I’m sorry about everything. I never should have kissed you, I never should have gott
en so mad at you, and I definitely shouldn’t have said the things I did at Lauren’s party.”

  I didn’t know what to say. He had obviously put a lot of effort into this and I couldn’t help but feel guilty for hardly giving him a second thought all year. “Oh, um, it’s okay. No biggie.”

  “So we’re okay?”

  “Yeah.” I felt a surge of relief. “We’re fine.”

  “Can I ask you something then?”

  “Oh.” Again I was taken off guard. “Yeah, sure.”

  He looked at the ground while he made a design in the carpet with the tip of his shoe. “This is weird.” He laughed nervously and wiped his face with his hands.

  “What is it?”

  “Well…” He looked around to make sure we weren’t being heard. “What’s the story with Drew and Bryce?”

  “Drew and Bryce?”

  “Yeah, I mean, they’ve been together for a while. Do you think it’s going to last much longer?”

  I was totally perplexed. Here we were, at my dad’s funeral of all places, and he was asking me if I thought Drew and Bryce were going to break up? “Uh, I don’t know, Trace. Why?”

  “Come on, you’re Drew’s best friend. I’m sure she’s talked to you about it.”

  I searched my brain for something that might answer his question. “We really haven’t. I think she still likes him, I guess. Why are you asking this?”

  Trace looked deflated, “Because I’m getting impatient and I thought you might be of some help … even if you were the last person on the planet that I wanted to ask.”

  “Impatient?” Then it clicked. “You like Drew?”

  “Shhh.”

  Despite all the crappy stuff going on in my life at the moment, I clapped my hands and said with excitement, “You like Drew!”

  Trace turned a deep shade of red. “I knew I shouldn’t have talked to you about this.”

  “No, this is good,” I said in a softer voice. “This is really, really good.”

  “But she has a boyfriend.”

  I shrugged a shoulder. “It won’t last forever.”

  Trace didn’t look convinced. “Well, I actually have to go. I’m really sorry about your dad.”

  “Thanks for coming, Trace.”

  He lifted half his mouth into a smile. “Maybe after Jess leaves we can hang out.”

  I had no idea if he was joking or being serious, but I had learned my lesson and I wasn’t about to go there. “Have a good summer, Trace.”

  When he was gone I looked around for Jess or Drew, but my house was a sea of strange faces so I escaped up the stairs, down the hall, and into my bedroom. I couldn’t bear to hug one more person, to fake any more smiles, or to hear one more person gasp when they found out that I was the one who found him on the couch. I closed the door behind me until the voices from below were only a hushed whisper. I looked at my bed. But it wasn’t enough. I needed a small, dark space. A place that would allow me to feel close to myself. I got down on my hands and knees and crawled into my closet, back behind the dresses, and into the corner next to Jess’s drawing. I leaned against the wall and let my head fall against an old Halloween costume. The plastic wardrobe bag clung to my hair and stuck to my face. But I was alone, so I was comfortable.

  I thought about another time I was in that very spot in my closet. It seemed like a lifetime ago when my dad caught Jess and me in there together. Not that there had been anything to catch. We hadn’t even kissed back then. But my dad had been so worried. I smiled at the memory. His wide eyes and his stiff upper lip. His command that Jess had to stay out of my room. I loved the fact that my dad was worried about me, that he lost energy over my welfare, my safety. An ache swelled in my heart. He would never worry about me again. He would never open a door on me and a boy again. He would never scare another one of my boyfriends away, ever again.

  Then I thought about the last time I was in that spot in the closet. It was the night I found out Dad had cancer. My mom hadn’t known I was in my room. The words she had uttered to my dad that night so long ago ran clear through my mind. How will I raise her without you? It’s not that hard. I wanted to tell her. Just love me and be kind to me and try not to order me around so often. But how did I tell that to her when we barely even spoke to each other anymore? I was sixteen years old. I didn’t need my mom as much as I once did. Yet I ached for her. For the relationship we once had, before things got so…complicated.

  I missed her. I missed telling her about my day. I missed listening to her laugh. I missed the feel of her playing with my hair. I had become so used to the pitch blackness of my closet that when the door opened and daylight flooded the small space, my eyes burned and I had to blink a few times before I could see who had opened it. It was her. It was my mom. I groaned within myself and sunk deeper into the wall. I sat silent, waiting for her reprimand and praying silently that by some miracle she wouldn’t see me in there.

  She stepped into the closet and stopped in the center. I didn’t look up at her face. I couldn’t bear the possibility of locking eyes with her. She took a breath, then turned one hundred and eighty degrees. Maybe she didn’t see me. I held my breath, willing her to leave. But she didn’t leave. Instead she stepped closer to me, and in one sweeping motion, she ducked around my old dresses and took the spot next to me against the wall. I glared at the side of her face in the darkness. What was she doing? Couldn’t she see that I wanted to be alone?

  “I thought I’d find you here.” Her voice was soft, gentle, quiet. I was surprised by the sudden yearning I had to curl into her side and rest my head on her shoulder. But I didn’t. She inhaled deeply, then spoke again, “This is torture, isn’t it? All those people down there, in black, talking about Dad as though he were a character in a book they read once. I couldn’t stand it any longer.”

  It was impossible for me to peel my eyes away from her face, her jawline, her eyelashes, her strong lips. That was the first time in months—maybe years—that Mom had sounded human.

  “I miss him,” she said. “I miss him so much that…” She stopped. Her breath was heavy in the darkness. “Did I ever tell you about our first date?” Her words were drenched with the moistness of oncoming tears.

  “Yes,” I said. “He took you to the beach, but it was raining, and you were mad because your new white shoes got ruined.”

  She laughed softly at the memory. “Yes, but after that, when he walked me home, we were both barefoot and windblown, and I actually remember thinking that if he had the nerve to ask me out again, I would throw my muddy shoes at him. But then he slipped his hand in mine, and for a reason I can’t explain, I held it back, and at that moment I knew that we were going to be together for the rest of our lives.” She fell silent then whispered. “The rest of his life at least.”

  At that moment, it dawned on me for maybe the first time ever, that Dad was Mom’s Jess. They were young once. They got butterflies when they were together. They got nervous about their first kiss. They got lost looking into each other’s eyes. They fell in love.

  They were married for over twenty years. For twenty years, they woke up next to each other in bed. They ate breakfast together. They waited to be together after work. They shared stories about their day. They laughed together, cried together, raised children together. They were best friends, and they were in love, but now he was gone.

  I imagined what my life would be without Jess. What if he was the one who died? What if I was the one who had to continue on without him? My heart ached for my mom. If Jess died, I would go absolutely ballistic. I don’t know how I’d go on. So considering all that, it seemed that my mom was actually kind of amazing.

  “I’m sorry, Mom,” I said, and I finally let my head rest against the soft part of her arm.

  “I’m sorry too. It breaks my heart to think about you and Bridget living life wi
thout your father.”

  “No, I mean, I’m sorry for how horrible I’ve been to you for the past”—had it been so long?—”couple of years. You’ve been going through so much, and I was just so mad at you. Not for any particular reason either. I think I just wanted to be mad at someone, and you were an easy target. I wanted you to put everything back together again, to fix things, to fix Dad. But you couldn’t, and I started hating you for it.”

  “I’ve spent a lot of time hating me too,” she replied. “Trying to figure out what I could have done differently. I keep thinking that if I would have gone back to work earlier, then your dad wouldn’t have had to work so hard. Maybe he could have stayed well longer.”

  “Mom, you’re not the reason he got sick.”

  “I just keep looking for answers.”

  “I don’t know that there are any.”

  She let her head rest on top of mine, and we sat in the pitch-black silence for a long time. We could hear the muffled voices below us, the front door opening and closing, car engines turning on and then disappearing down the road. We knew people must be wondering where we were, but neither one of us said a word just in case the moment would be lost and gone forever.

  At some point, the door opened again, and Bridget stood between us and the daylight. Without saying a word, she too took a place next to us on the floor of my closet.

  “I didn’t see Rick today,” my mom said matter-of-factly.