“Who is Penelope’s daughter?”
She shrugged. “She never said. Maybe it’s a friend she used to know. Poor woman.”
Penelope’s daughter. Strange. Maybe the braided girl was right, that it was an old friend. Or maybe it was nonsense.
Once the lunch was over and the chairs were stacked away, Christopher told me that Mary had been coming to the shelter for about a month and she seemed to be suffering from dementia.
I guess I sort of knew how she felt. But I decided if I saw her again, I’d ask her about Penelope’s daughter. Maybe I could help her figure out what she was looking for.
There was nothing I could do to make up for everything I’d done, but if I could help just one person finish these next six months better off than she started them, that would be something.
Home.
My mother used to make pancakes every Sunday morning. After she died, my dad avoided the kitchen each week. Now that I was home, I decided to reinstate the Sunday tradition.
I put a kettle of water to boil on the stove and then I looked out the window. Tommy was sitting in the chestnut tree, holding a fishing pole.
Tommy. I thought of all the things he’d been through in his short life and all the loss he’d experienced. He was so confused about where I’d gone and why I was suddenly back. I owed him more than I was giving him. Maybe not an explanation, but I had to try to make it better.
I watched as he balanced on a thick branch, raising his fishing pole and swishing it forward and back. Ten o’clock to two o’clock. I smiled. He was giving his latest batch of homemade flies a “test run.”
I put a tea bag in my mug and set it on the counter. Then I went outside, creeping around the side of the house to where the chestnut tree towered over our tall wooden fence.
Tommy didn’t see me at first. I watched him send a cast out, expertly avoiding branches and flowers. I couldn’t think of any other ten-year-old who would consider this a fun Sunday morning, but Tommy always was different from other kids in the neighborhood, and sometimes those other kids teased him for it.
I looked at the rough bark on the tree and the wooden slats nailed into the trunk for climbing. I used to climb the tree too, with Jules. We would sit at the top, where the summer pruning created perfect flat seats. We’d pluck the spiky chestnuts, leaving their green outer shells intact, and throw them at the neighbor boys.
I always took particular care in aiming for Jack’s head. He told me later that he rode his bike by my house on purpose. I asked him if he liked pain.
Jack, Will, Jules, and I became inseparable. Stayed that way for a long time, until Will left for the war right before Christmas.
A fishing fly landed at my feet.
“Hey, Nikki,” Tommy called out from his perch. “What do you think? Would you take the bait?”
I picked the fly up and squinted one eye as I examined it. My hand started to shake, and the fly slipped from my fingers. “Definitely. She’ll fly true.”
“Wanna come up and cast with me?”
I thought about my trembling hands and the spasms that had plagued my weak muscles since my Return. Hanging from branches wasn’t a good idea. “Thanks, buddy, but I don’t think I’m much for climbing trees lately.”
“You’re no fun anymore,” Tommy said, sounding disappointed.
“I’m sorry, Tommy.”
“Everyone says sorry,” he said. “I’m tired of everybody being so sorry. I just want things to be normal.”
I didn’t say anything, because my first instinct was to apologize again.
“Now that you’re home, can we be normal again?”
How was I supposed to answer that truthfully? I knew my Return would be difficult, but as I watched Tommy playing in the backyard, hoping for something that could never happen, I was struck by how painful it had become. It hurt to see the life I’d never have.
“Can’t we, Nikki?” Tommy pressed. “Be normal?”
“Yeah.”
I’d started to walk away when he added, “You can pick a fly. From my personal collection in my room.”
I knew how precious his collection of favorites was. I forced a smile. “Thanks, Tommy. How about I pay you for it?”
He smiled wide, then started to reel in the line as I turned to go.
FIVE
NOW
After school in Mrs. Stone’s classroom. Five months left.
A week passed and my mark doubled in size, to two fingers wide. One morning, Mrs. Stone offered to help me catch up since I’d started school almost a month later than everyone else.
She’d assigned the class thirty-page “practice thesis” papers, due in the spring. I decided the finished paper would go to my dad, to give him some sort of physical evidence that for six months I was here and making an effort.
When I showed up in her classroom after school, she was talking to a student at her desk. I didn’t get a good look because I kept my head down and went directly to my normal seat in the back, even though every chair was empty.
I pulled out my textbook, ignoring the conversation at the front. Until I heard Jack’s voice.
“The deadline’s not for a couple of months,” he said.
My heart sputtered. I glanced up. Jack’s back was to me, so I watched, grateful for the chance to stare at him.
“That’s fine,” Mrs. Stone answered. “I stay late most days, so you’re welcome to work here—then I can help you when you need it. But don’t you have football?”
“Practice doesn’t start until three thirty. So that’ll give me an hour.” Jack peeked toward the back of the room and I ducked my head. “I really appreciate your help.”
“I’m happy to see you taking more of an interest in English,” Mrs. Stone said. “Those competitive college programs are looking for well-rounded applicants. Too much math and science isn’t nourishing to the soul.”
I smiled at her enthusiasm, flipped through the pages of my book, and took my notebook out of my bag.
I didn’t hear his footsteps, so his voice startled me.
“Hi,” he said.
I dropped my notebook.
Jack sat down beside me in the same seat he used during class. I couldn’t move. He reached to get my fallen notebook and held it out for me.
“Thanks,” I said. This time there was a little sound behind the word.
I should have asked him about his project. Or his football. Or the weather. That’s what old friends would do. But the words weren’t there, so I turned back to my open lit book.
“You missed the big game Friday,” he said.
Was he expecting a conversation? I couldn’t do it. I knew he didn’t have feelings for me anymore. It was one of the reasons—the main one—I’d gone with Cole. At the time, his betrayal shattered me, but the Feed had since taken away the hurt. It didn’t matter anymore. But did I dare let him in again?
I could feel his eyes on me as he waited. The wait seemed very long, to the point where it would have been uncomfortable for anyone else.
And yet he sat, watching me.
Waiting.
Patient.
Still.
By this time, I’d almost forgotten what he said. Something about missing something.
“Yes,” I said.
“Now you’ve done it.” His tone was quietly playful.
I couldn’t help it. I looked up at him questioningly.
“You’ve added a third word to your repertoire. Hi, thanks, and now yes.” His lips turned up at the corners, and the heat rushed to my face. He noticed. “At least that much hasn’t changed.”
I turned back to my notebook, my hands trembling.
He leaned toward me. “Now that we have our first conversation out of the way, do you want to tell me where you’ve been?” From the way he spoke I knew his smile was gone.
I could feel little beads of sweat form on my forehead.
“You left me. Without a word,” he said. He sounded tentative, as if he were trying to keep his voice even. I took in a deep breath, but I couldn’t figure out what he was feeling. There wasn’t one singular emotion that was stronger than the others. “Don’t you have anything to say to me?”
He waited. My heart felt like it would burst through my chest into a million little pieces, and I could see this wasn’t going to work.
I started to close my book.
“Don’t—” he blurted, and I froze. “Don’t go. You don’t have to talk to me. I’m the one who should go.” His voice sounded achingly sad. I could hear him packing his bag.
Say something. Say something. “Um…”
Jack paused, as if further movement might stop my words.
He was the reason I came back. I couldn’t scare him off. As hard as it would be to talk to him, it would be much harder to watch him walk out that door. “No,” I said. I took a shaky breath. “You don’t … have to leave. Please.”
He took his book back out and put it on his desk. I followed, setting my own books out.
“Thank you,” Jack whispered.
We didn’t talk for the rest of the hour.
Jack didn’t try to speak to me the following day. Or the day after. Or the day after that.
But he was in Mrs. Stone’s classroom, in the seat next to mine, every day for an hour after school, the only sounds coming from our pencils scratching against our papers. And the days passed like this quickly. Too quickly.
I stole glances at him. Sometimes he tucked his hair behind one ear, but mostly it hung loose around his face. Sometimes he had stubble, as if he were shaving every other day. Sometimes I was sure he could feel me staring. His lip would twitch, and I’d know he was about to turn toward me, so I would hurry and look at my paper.
And sometimes I would read the same sentence in the textbook over and over, and at the end of the hour, the only thing I’d learned was that Jack liked to tap his eraser on his desk when he was stumped, and when he would stretch forward, his shirt lifted, exposing a tiny bit of skin on his back.
I fooled myself into thinking it could go on like this indefinitely, us being together without any questions.
But on one of these afternoons, someone called Jack’s name from the hallway. I fought the urge to look up, because I knew that voice. It was the same one that told me bangs were definitely “out” on my first day of middle school. Lacey Greene.
After that I’d spent the rest of sixth grade growing them out. I learned early on that it was safer for girls like Lacey Greene not to notice you. Sure enough, Lacey didn’t notice me again until I started dating Jack last year.
“So, Jack, this is where you’ve been hiding out,” she said. I couldn’t see her face, but I imagined it working hard to look indifferent. I lowered my head closer to my notebook.
“Hi, Lace,” Jack said. He tapped his eraser on the desk.
“What’s so important that you’ve been skipping out on the the Ray?”
The Morning Ray was a hangout for students after school. We used to go there every day. I almost felt her eyes cutting over to me.
“Mrs. Stone said I could work on my personal essay here. For applications.” Tap, tap, tap.
“I thought those weren’t due for a few months,” she said.
“That’s right,” Jack answered.
It was quiet for a few moments. Jack wasn’t going to elaborate. I tested the air, but I couldn’t really sense anything. It was more a lack of emotion than anything else.
“Just remember senior year is supposed to be fun, Jack.” She paused and then added, “You used to know how to have fun.”
Her voice held implications. I wondered how things had ended up between them after football camp, and if she blamed me. I could’ve blamed her. But it was so long ago.
“Thanks for the reminder, Lace.” Tappity tap.
I heard her footsteps echo as she turned and walked away, and the tapping stopped. Whatever their past, there seemed to be nothing between Jack and Lacey now.
“Becks?” A different voice called from the hallway.
I looked up to find Jules standing in the doorway. She pointed to her hat, the red one I had knitted.
“I love it. Thanks.”
I smiled and raised my fingers in a little wave. Jules hadn’t joined me for lunch again, but she stopped by my nook nearly every day. A couple of days ago, I put the hat in a sack and gave it to her.
Jules glanced from me to Jack. “Hey, Jack,” she said.
“What’s up, Jules.” I could hear a grin in his voice as he spoke her name, and where moments ago the air was empty, now the space around us seemed charged with something sweet. Affection, maybe. I couldn’t tell if it was coming from Jack or Jules. Or both.
Something tore at my heart a little, at the thought of Jack and Jules together. Maybe I was imagining it. Tasting the air was still so new to me, I didn’t know which emotions belonged to the people around me and which ones were mine.
Jules turned and left. I could’ve sworn her cheeks were a little flushed.