EMILY HADN’T WANTED anyone at the funeral with her. Her two closest friends had both offered to come. They had asked their parents and confirmed rides, but Emily had told them not to attend. The thought she might have cried in front of them filled her with anxiety.
On top of that, them not being able to remember Andy alive because they might cement his dead body’s image into their minds’ eyes hurt her beyond belief. Emily's own memories were already being taken over by the ghostly version of him she had seen inside the casket. She wanted them to remember him as the guy who always won four square and got more hoops than anyone when playing basketball in the summer. Emily wanted them to remember the time they all watched him swim to the furthest buoy and help her mom navigate home when she got lost driving them all back from a Halloween party. In their memories, maybe he could always be alive and vibrant.
Emily had texted her friends not to come. Maddie replied with a text that sounded relieved. “I understand. Just know I’m here for you.”
Grace, on the other hand, had a different reaction.
Her text came back within nanoseconds of Emily’s.
“Dude, you can’t do this alone. I want to be there for you. I know I don’t know what to say or do to make you feel better, but I really don’t want you to be alone.”
But Emily was resigned. She told Grace that she would definitely call her right after the funeral and that she “would be fine.”
Now, coming clean on her promise, Emily sat in her room with the cordless, transposing Grace’s number from her cell. Why wasn’t her cell on?
It seemed to ring forever. Blrrrrrr. PAUSE. Blrrrrrr. PAUSE. The pauses each brought Emily a desire to hang up. To pretend that no one was home. But then…
“Weber residence.”
“Hi, can I talk to Grace, please,” Emily said into the landline.
Emily dreaded having to call Grace at home. She dreaded having to call Grace at all. It would have been so much better to just drop a text. But Grace had texted her before the funeral to remind her of her promise to call when she got home. Emily hoped that Grace’s mom wouldn’t ask about everything.
“Ok, yes… this Emily?” Grace’s mom, Ji, asked with her Korean accent.
“Yes, it’s me,” answered Emily, “Hello, Ji.”
“Ah, ok. Hello… How are you?” she asked with an awkward warmth.
Emily knew that Ji cared about her. But she really didn’t want to talk about things with her. It was all strange enough as it was. It would be hard enough to have a normal conversation with Grace, let alone with her mom.
“All good, I mean, everything’s ok… is Grace home right now or should I call back later?” She asked again, trying to spur Ji to action without being rude.
“Ah, yes, yes, of course,” Ji called loudly into the invisible abyss, “Grace!”
Emily could hear Grace’s feet pounding quickly toward her mom in the background. Her frenetic feet got louder and louder.
Emily and Grace had been best friends throughout middle school. From the moment they realized that they both loved to sing Disney princess songs rather than Ariana Grande, they found friendship in their shared guilty, private pleasure.
Emily found it comforting to have a friend that she could be herself with. In a time where her peers were outgrowing Emily’s idea of fun and replacing it with “cool,” she loved having Grace to lean on. They were both wholesome and churchgoing, which they more or less hid from the student body.
Grace’s mom was Korean and married her American father, Robert, after the pair met in Korea. He had been obsessed over the culture since he ate his first kimchi and barbecue when he had been in the army and stationed there.
Turned out he liked more than Korean food. He fell in love with Ji, and she with Robert. He brought her back to the States, and she never returned. They were happily married. Grace was from a wonderful family with what seemed to Emily like no problems. Her big brothers were even nice to her.
“Hey…” Grace came onto the phone.
“Sorry to call your home phone but you know, I said I’d call. Your cell is off,” Emily said, avoiding the significant topic.
“Yeah, sorry Em, my brother stole my charger and then went and left it at his friend’s house. So it’s out of battery,” Grace replied.
“Oh,” said Emily.
“Yeah… sorry about that, pretty crummy timing,” Grace repeated, nervously, “How was the funeral?”
Grace felt like such an idiot asking a question like that. “Of course the funeral sucked, you moron,” she thought to herself.
“It was fine. It was a funeral. I mean, not that I know what they are supposed to be like,” Emily said.
Conversation seemed to be like a bubble floating above them, not sure on which one of them it should land and pop.
Emily suddenly became secretly happy that they weren’t on a video call like they’d usually be. Feeling so sad and awful was hard enough when she was alone. She didn’t want to put this tragedy on to Grace and make her feel like she had to baby Emily. Or to walk on eggshells. Emily needed normal more than ever.
“Anyway,” Emily drawled, “School starts in a couple days. Can’t believe how fast the summer went by.”
Andy had died during the last couple weeks of summer break. Emily couldn’t have been more relieved about the timing because she didn’t have to face her teachers and the kids at school and their faces feeling sorry for her. More pity. More sorry looking frowns and sad eyes oozing with a suggestion that she wasn’t strong and that they should all pretend they cared.
“You didn’t tell anyone about Andy, did you,” Emily asked Grace, trying not to sound accusatory.
“No, course not,” Grace said, “I mean, Maddie knows, but you knew that.”
“Yeah,” Emily said.
The pace of the conversation was nothing like the mile a minute chat that the girls usually shared. They had been able to talk about nonsense for hours and now; the momentum was lost with this earth-shattering event. How could they possibly just talk about cute boys and mean teachers now?
“Well, I guess I should go,” Emily said, “Thanks for not telling anyone. I mean, that probably sounds weird but I just don’t want, you know, people asking me about it or whatever.”
“Yeah. I get it. I guess you don’t really want to talk about it,” said Grace.
“Pretty much… well… I suppose it will help having school as a distraction. See you.”
Emily hung up the phone and stared at it. She had always wanted to be a bit more special than she was. She had always wanted to be noticed for something. Talent. Or beauty. But not for being the girl whose brother died that summer.
CHAPTER FOUR
“I’VE GOT TO get back to work,” Pepper announced as they all cleared the supper dishes from the table.
Almost as if not listening, her mother, Marie, replied mindlessly, not looking up from the two plates she just stacked together.
“Those are some long hours you’ve been working…”
“Yup.”
Mindless silence was all they seemed to share now.
Everyone moved piles of dishes swiftly toward to the kitchen production line. In Emily’s house, everyone was expected to pitch in, no matter how big or small.
“Em, you’re on washing, Katie, you can dry,” said Pepper, blandly.
She hated it that every night for the past couple months, since the funeral, Pepper announced who did what. Washing dishes after supper had been a well-oiled machine since she could remember. Emily used to do the drying. Andy used to do the washing up. Pepper’s daily instructions were a constant reminder that things had changed.
But this was how communication worked after Andy died. Curt. Functional. Imperative. If it wasn’t a direction, it had no place in household conversation. Small talk was useless, unnecessary and forced.
Pepper was big and burly, stepdad to three of the four kids. He and Marie, Emily’s Mom, had put together their own little li
fe, patching together a family of six. They had added a fourth child to the brood, Joey, who the other three children never saw as anything but their own. There were no halves in the family. Pepper was “Dad” and to the outside world, they were one big, happy family that always existed as seen on the surface.
Red-headed, tall and intimidating, Pepper was imposing, and he had a temper to match. To his credit, he had tried to be a true father to his three stepchildren from day one, but he mostly focused on the discipline part of parenting. There was no end of elbows off the table, chew with your mouth closed, speak up, speak clearly… shut up.
Even though Emily didn’t want to like him, he was bossy, controlling and intolerant. She knew deep down inside he had loved Andy and Katie as his own. And of course he adored Joey; as his own, true child that went without saying.
Emily wasn’t so sure he had the same affection for her as he did the others. Andy had been impossible not to love; he had been angelic, obedient, a top performer in school and responsible.
He and Pepper had liked to do a lot of the same things, like build things out of wood and go fishing. She could still hear them talking excitedly about their fishing trip to the Mississippi River. Pepper had taken an entire week off for this epic trip- the only excursion outside of Minnesota Andy would ever take.
Andy had already had some cancer treatment. Pepper and her grandpa had decided he needed a break from Minneapolis and thinking about being sick. The three of them piled in a car to take an eight-hour road trip and spend several days fishing on a barge in the middle of one of America’s mightiest rivers: the Mississippi.
Perhaps an epic trip for a bunch of outdoor boys, all Emily could think of was a really smelly car ride and the boredom of watching a bobber. Despite not wanting to go herself, Emily felt jealous. Pepper would have never taken her away like that. Even if she had enjoyed fishing, he never seemed to want to be alone with her.
And if he didn’t want to be around her before, he definitely didn’t want to be with her now. He didn’t want to be around anyone now.
Pepper had usually been full of aggressive energy. He had been a hunter, stalking them and looking through tunnel visioned binoculars for ways he could criticize the children’s behavior and performance. He now lost his attention to detail and didn’t notice the minor mistakes and messes made by Katie, Joey and Emily. Nothing wound him up anymore. It was a haunting peace that Emily didn’t want to complain about yet reminded her that life wasn’t the same anymore.
Pepper was quiet and concentrated on not upsetting Marie. For the first time in Emily’s life, she noticed that he walked on eggshells at home rather than a red carpet; he no longer owned the scene but obsessed over pleasing Marie, or rather not making her cry. Not that it took much. She cried when she spilled sugar, when she went to the bathroom, when she was driving…
Pepper dealt with his own grief by keeping himself busy. He took on overtime doing roofing, painting or whatever other job he could get from the construction company he worked for.
As for the children, Marie and Pepper did what they thought was best to support them.
The hospice nurse had left information about a grief counselor for children, and one day they had booked an appointment for the three children to go together.
But Emily refused.
“Emily,” Marie pleaded, “Why don’t you just go once, and then if you don’t like it or get anything out of it, I won’t ever make you go again.”
“You can’t make me go for a first time,” Emily had said, immediately regretting her sassy choice of words as she knew it might set off her mom’s tears.
Marie clicked her nails. Catching herself, she stopped and clenched her hands into fists.
“Emily, you are right. I can’t make you go. And I don’t want to make you go. I was kind of hoping… look Emily, I’m just doing my best here. I don’t want any of you to get all messed up over all of this… what’s happening around here… it’s just not normal, you know?”
Marie ruffled her hair with her hands and pulled in her lips tightly. Emily tried to be more gentle but stand firm.
“Mom, I will be okay. I can deal with it all on my own. I really hate talking to other people about sad stuff, and I know that one day I’ll feel a bit better. I just need some time to myself.”
She didn’t know if she really believed she would feel better, but one thing was for certain: she didn’t believe in magic wands. If her own family, the people she loved more than anything, didn’t have words to console her, some shrink would not have them either. Unless he or she was a genie, no thanks.
It broke Marie that she couldn’t help her daughter. She had always been a great, attentive mom. If any of her children ever wanted to play a game of cards, needed “scratchies” on the back or wanted something special for Saturday breakfast, she always delivered with love. But she conceded to Emily’s wishes. She wouldn’t make Emily talk if she didn’t want to.
The family finished drying the last dish and put things away. It was 6pm.
Pepper went to the door and grabbed his coat off the hook.
“Hey,” said Marie, grabbing his attention, “I know it’s late, but could you grab a tub of icing for Emily’s cake on your way home? The gas station on 76th has some, so you don’t have to go to Anderson’s.”
“Yeah. No problem.”
And he left. Without kissing Marie goodbye.
CHAPTER FIVE
THANK GOD THE family finally had something to look forward to. It had been almost three months since Andy died. Even Emily was sick of TV watching and TV dinners.
Emily’s family usually saved TV dinners for football nights and the odd weekend movie night. It wasn’t typical in their house. But as the supper table’s silence went on and on, it was easy to transition in to the easy company the television provided the family. There was a zombie like atmosphere. Life was clouded in an invisible but tangible silence that made life hard to understand. The TV gave them all an excuse not to talk.
Finally, Emily’s birthday gave them all a reason to get dressed up, eat cake and celebrate. It was Emily’s birthday weekend. Her 14th birthday landed on a Saturday this year.
Normally, family birthday parties took place at home but this year, Emily’s grandma and grandpa offered to take the all fifteen, the cousins, the aunts and uncles to Rosa’s Italian. Emily loved the pizzeria, and so did the rest of the family; it would be so great to meet up with everyone for a positive reason.
Emily and Katie had gotten dressed up together, primping and fussing in a way they had never done together before. Katie had always been a bit of a tomboy, but today, she let Emily curl her hair and even put a bow in it. Emily wore her favorite a-line jean miniskirt with buttons down the front and a cropped, black and white oversized sweater. She had white sneakers on, the ones that even though she knew could be washed she only wore when she knew they had no chance of getting dirty. She felt ready to party, finally feeling like a teenager again.
The car ride to the restaurant had been almost overly pleasant. Pepper suddenly found the tongue he seemed to have left at the funeral parlor. He babbled about the strange colors a customer chose to paint their kitchen. He talked about looking forward to football season. He told them a story about his boss’ son’s field trip. He even asked the kids if they’d like to choose the radio station. That’s when Emily truly felt something strange was going on.
The family walked in to the warm restaurant. Savory air comforted them with smells of oregano and the mouthwatering scent of yeasty pizza dough cooking on a wood-fired grill. They were late, which was highly unusual as Pepper thought ten minutes early was on time. But Marie, for some reason, was running behind schedule so when they arrived, the entire table was full of relatives apart from the five seats left for Emily and her gang.
Emily loved her extended family. She felt very lucky to have had so many kids to play with while she was growing up. It appeared adults only ever wanted to sit around eating and drinking, s
o having a clique of cousins made these family occasions not only tolerable but something to look forward to.
She had fraternal twin cousins, Emma and Eddie, that were 13. They were destined to be a standup comedy duo. They never stopped cracking jokes; they must have read joke sites all day, and they had their own social media account where they played practical jokes on people. They had about three thousand followers on SpiderWeb.
Pepper always berated Emily’s Aunt G and Uncle Paul for allowing them social media accounts and uncontrolled access to the public at such a young age (they started at eleven and a half). He had denied Emily her own. But as far as Emily had known, they had only ever had one weirdo try to meet up with them, and they were pretty good about telling their parents if they had strange stalkers.
Her other cousins, to Auntie Marla and Uncle Pete, were Josh and Annie. Annie was one year older than Emily at fifteen and had just started high school. She had spina bifida and whether through her own ambition or that of her pushy mom, was an incredible swimmer, so much so she could have been on track to be a Paralympian. She was a great inspirational force in Emily’s life. She got up six days a week and swam before school.
Annie also stuck up for Emily sometimes when Andy had been a bit harsh on her. She really appreciated that, and Andy had always respected what Annie had to say.
Josh was in eighth grade like Emily and hardly lived in Annie’s shadow. He loved sports, too, and was a star soccer player he never failed to make his parents proud. He was really into bikes as well, which Emily loved. Emily had never been one for long walks but give her a bike and she was off. Josh was the only one of the cousins as crazy about cycling as she was.
Her little family gang was held together by two heads of state: Grandma and Grandpa. Never forceful, nor demanding, they somehow knew exactly how to orchestrate a bit of bonding when the family needed it most. And that is what Emily’s birthday was meant to be. A time to bring the family back together. Build a new kind of memory. To celebrate life. Emily’s life.
The End Defines the Beginning : A Boarding School Coming of Age (Harlow Academy Series Book 1) Page 2
