It's Not Summer Without You

The house was so quiet. Our dad was at the funeral home with Laurel. The relatives were at a hotel. It was just me and Con. All day, people had been in and out of the house, and now it was just us.

We were sitting at the kitchen table. People had sent over all kinds of stuff. Fruit baskets, sandwich platters, a coffee cake. A big tin of butter cookies from Costco.

I tore off a chunk of the coffee cake and stuffed it into my mouth. It was dry. I tore off another chunk and ate that too. “You want some?” I asked Conrad.

“Nah,” he said. He was drinking milk. I wondered it if was old. I couldn’t remember the last time anybody had been to the store.

“What’s happening tomorrow?” I asked. “Is everyone coming over here?”

Conrad shrugged. “Probably,” he said. He had a milk mustache.

That was all we said to each other. He went upstairs to his room, and I cleaned up the kitchen. And then I was tired, and I went up too. I thought about going to Conrad’s room, because even though we weren’t saying anything, it was better when we were together, less lonely. I stood in the hallway for a second, about to knock, and then I heard him crying. Choked sobs. I didn’t go inside. I left him alone. I knew that’s the way he would want it. I went to my own room and I got into bed. I cried too.

Chapter five

I wore my old glasses to the funeral, the ones with the red plastic frames. They were like putting on a too-tight coat from a long time ago. They made me dizzy, but I didn’t care. Susannah always liked me in those glasses. She said I looked like the smartest girl in the room, the kind of girl who was going somewhere and knew exactly how she was going to get there. I wore my hair halfway up, because that was the way she liked it. She said it showed my face off.

It felt like the right thing to do, to look the way she liked me best. Even though I knew she only said those things to make me feel better, they still felt true. I believed everything Susannah said. I even believed her when she said she’d never leave. I think we all did, even my mother. We were all surprised when it happened, and even when it became inevitable, a fact, we never really believed it. It seemed impossible. Not our Susannah, not Beck. You always hear about people getting better, beating the odds. I was sure Susannah would be one of them. Even if it was only a one in a million chance. She was one in a million.

Things got bad fast. So bad that my mother was shuttling between Susannah’s house in Boston and ours, every other weekend at first and then more frequently. She had to take a leave of absence from work. She had a room at Susannah’s house.

The call came early in the morning. It was still dark out. It was bad news, of course; bad news is the only kind that really can’t wait. As soon as I heard the phone ring, even in my sleep, I knew. Susannah was gone. I lay there in my bed, waiting for my mother to come and tell me. I could hear her moving around in her room, heard the shower running.

When she didn’t come, I went to her room. She was packing, her hair still wet. She looked over at me, her eyes tired and empty. “Beck’s gone,” she said. And that was it.

I could feel my insides sink. My knees too. So I sat on the ground, against the wall, letting it support me. I thought I knew what heartbreak felt like. I thought heartbreak was me, standing alone at the prom. That was nothing. This, this was heartbreak. The pain in your chest, the ache behind your eyes. The knowing that things will never be the same again. It’s all relative, I suppose. You think you know love, you think you know real pain, but you don’t. You don’t know anything.

I’m not sure when I started crying. When I got started, I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t breathe.

My mother crossed the room and knelt down on the floor with me, hugging me, rocking me back and forth. But she didn’t cry. She wasn’t even there. She was an upright reed, an empty harbor.

My mother drove up to Boston that same day. The only reason she’d even been at home that day had been to check on me and get a change of clothes. She’d thought there’d be more time. She should’ve been there, when Susannah died. If only for the boys. I was sure she was thinking the same thoughts.

In her best professor voice, she told Steven and me that we would drive ourselves up in two days, the day of the funeral. She didn’t want us in the way of funeral preparations; there was a lot of work to be done. Ends in need of tying up.

My mother had been named executor of the will, and of course Susannah had known exactly what she was doing when she’d picked her. It was true that there was no one better for the job, that they’d been going over things even before Susannah died. But even more than that, my mother was at her best when she was busy, doing things. She did not fall apart, not when she was needed. No, my mother rose to the occasion. I wished that was a gene I’d inherited. Because I was at a loss. I didn’t know what to do with myself.

I thought about calling Conrad. I even dialed his number a few times. But I couldn’t do it. I didn’t know what to say. I was afraid of saying the wrong things, of making things worse. And then I thought about calling Jeremiah. But it was the fear that kept me back. I knew that the moment I called, the moment I said it out loud, it would be true. She would really be gone.

On the drive up, we were mostly quiet. Steven’s only suit, the one he’d just worn to prom, was wrapped in plastic and hung in the backseat. I hadn’t bothered to hang up my dress. “What will we say to them?” I asked at last.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “The only funeral I’ve ever been to is Aunt Shirle’s, and she was really old.” I was too young to remember that funeral.

“Where will we stay tonight? Susannah’s house?”

“No idea.”

“How do you suppose Mr. Fisher’s handling it?” I couldn’t bring myself to picture Conrad or Jeremiah, not yet.

“Whiskey,” was Steven’s answer.

After that I stopped asking questions.

We changed into our clothes at a gas station thirty miles from the funeral home. As soon as I saw how neat and pressed Steven’s suit was, I regretted not hanging up my dress. Back in the car, I kept smoothing down the skirt with my palms, but it didn’t help. My mother had told me that rayon was pointless; I should have listened. I also should have tried it on before I packed it. The last time I wore it was to a reception at my mother’s university three years ago, and now it was too small.

We got there early, early enough to find my mother bustling around, arranging flowers and talking to Mr. Browne, the funeral director. As soon as she saw me, she frowned. “You should have ironed that dress, Belly,” she said.