The Beginning Of After Part 27

Something in the way he said this made me uneasy. I shook my head.

"I'm really not."

"Yes. You dazzle me. With everything that you've been through, you . . . you just keep . . ." Stuck again. He reset himself with a deep breath. "I should have done a painting of you."

The uneasiness grew. To make it go away, I kissed him, and we started again, his hands moving gently over my back. After a minute, there was Joe's tongue on my lower lip. The tickle of it took me by surprise. I giggled and he stopped.

"Are you all right?" he asked, a pleading edge to it.

"Nothing will happen this time, I promise." Then I added, "There's no swimming pool in sight."

Joe smiled. "Or David Kaufman." He leaned in again.

But I jerked away. "What?"

The sound of David's name, here in Joe's truck above the sound of the heater and the engine. With Joe's arms wrapped around me. David's name, like some kind of Molotov c.o.c.ktail thrown through the moonroof.

What did Joe know? How?

Instinctively I crawled out of his lap and back over to my seat, staring out the windshield. When I finally had the courage to glance at Joe, he looked stricken with panic.

"David Kaufman . . . you know, I just meant, prom night," he said. He smacked himself on the forehead with a fist. "I'm an idiot, even mentioning that."

I felt a phew flow out of me.

But now David was somehow here, and Joe and I were so far apart, not even our breath was mingling anymore.

"It's okay," I told Joe. "There's time. Can you just take me home now?"

Chapter Thirty-three.

Snow was coming, everyone said. And they were making a gigantic deal out of it too. First snow of the season, a White Christmas, and all that.

"They say eight to ten inches," announced Nana over the buzz of the TV as I was leaving for school.

"Maybe we'll get a snow day tomorrow and I won't have to take Ms. Pryzwara's physics test," murmured Meg at her locker. She was just saying it to anyone, although I was the only person there.

sn.o.ball fight n d parking lot, pa.s.s it on, read the text from Joe. I answered him back (cool) but didn't pa.s.s it on.

Suzie called me that afternoon to cancel our session that day. "Just to be safe, with the roads," she said.

We went home and the sky was still that teasing gray color, and everyone was b.u.mmed out. Even at night, I kept peering at the streetlamp at the end of our driveway, to see if there were flakes twirling in its little spotlight, but there was nothing but black night air. Oh well, I thought as I climbed into bed. It'll probably just be a little showering of rain and everyone will shut up about snow for Christmas.

But when I woke up the next morning, I knew instantly that it had happened. It was the quality of sound that gave it away-everything was just m.u.f.fled. Tires pa.s.sing on the road, birds chirping, and maybe somewhere off in the distance, a snowplow. I bolted up in bed and peeked through the blinds, and there were my woods, my trees and my rocks and my sloping ground, blanketed in bright, glaring white.

I heard Nana turn on the television news downstairs, the sound that Toby and I used to get all excited about on days like this. He'd come in and scramble onto my bed and we'd cross our fingers in as many ways we could think of, and perk up our ears for Mom to shout the official snow day announcement.

The thought of Toby on my bed in his dinosaur pajamas sent me all the way under the covers, where it was dark and sweaty and tears didn't count, until a minute later when Nana poked her head in to say, "No school today, sweetie. Stay in bed as long as you like."

But even deep in the bed, the memories came to me, and when Masher barreled past Nana and did a flying leap onto my stomach, I took that as a cue to get the h.e.l.l out.

In my boots and ski pants and big puffy parka, I left the day's first set of footprints up the middle of our unplowed street, alongside Masher's as he bounded from one little snow pile to the other. Suddenly, none of the rules of the world applied. I didn't have to make way for cars and I didn't have to go to school, and all the neighbors in these houses with the smoke piping out of the chimneys didn't have to go to work. And maybe I didn't have to think about Mom and Dad and Toby, like I could get a snow day for that, too. And for worrying about Meg and Nana and college and what happened in Joe's truck and of course, David's emails.

I thought about my canceled Suzie appointment and felt so very grateful that I'd already gotten my snow day for that. I knew she was going on vacation for a couple of weeks, and I wouldn't see her until after the holidays.

The crystals of the snow glistened in the sunlight. It was light, powdery stuff. Not good for s...o...b..a.l.l.s or sledding, but prettier and sweeter, like sugar. I walked a big loop up and down our street and then past Meg's house. I wanted desperately to go in. To pull her out of bed and pile into the family room to watch DVDs by their fireplace, drinking hot cocoa. But that was on the other side of a line I felt too wimpy to cross, so I kept walking, hoping Meg had been watching me from her window.

Once back inside, I went into Toby's room to see what was up with the foster cats.

I crouched down to peer into the big dog crate. Lucky, who'd been curled up with her babies, got up and stretched, then walked out of the carrier without them. They were getting big now and wanted to move, move, move, so they followed their mother out of the carrier and into the room.

One, two, three fluffy bodies, all striped, bounded past me. But there were four kittens in the litter.

I poked my head into the crate. One kitten, the white one, was still lying there, sleeping.

Or maybe not sleeping.

My hand shook as I reached out to pet it, expecting to feel it wake up under the warmth and pressure. But it was cold and stiff.

"Oh my G.o.d," I said aloud.

I looked at Lucky, who was sitting under the desk, licking herself. She glanced back at me, and if a cat could shrug, that's what she did. She just twisted her head and narrowed her eyes as if to say, Stuff happens.

I wasn't sure what came next. What was I supposed to do? It was a snow day and I was sitting on the floor of my dead brother's room with four cats that weren't mine.

Nana was shaking her head, trying not to seem as completely repulsed as she was. "Did it even seem sick to you?" she asked. She was doing a great job of hiding the I told you so threaded between her words.

"No. I don't think so. I mean, there was some diarrhea in the litter box, but I had no idea whose it was. It seemed like she was eating, but maybe it's hard to tell." I felt like I saw her playing with the others yesterday. But maybe that was three days ago.

I held the kitten wrapped up like a mummy in a towel, so it looked like I was cradling some old rag. It was easy to pretend there was nothing inside.

"What are you supposed to do with it?" asked Nana.

"Eve said I should just bring it in to Ashland. They have an incinerator for that purpose." I winced. "But they're not open yet because of the roads."

Eve had not been surprised, or accusing. She had just sighed and said, "I hate kitten death." She reminded me that it happened a lot and sometimes there was nothing you could do about it. But I knew from the heavy, sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that I should have been paying more attention.

"You took on too much," said Nana, reading my mind, reaching out to stroke my hair. I just nodded, biting my lip.

At three o'clock, Eve called me from Ashland to say that they were finally open and I could bring the kitten in.

"Laurel, the roads are still bad," said Nana. "Can't you put your . . . bundle . . . in the garage and take it in tomorrow?"

"I have to do this now. I owe it to her." I placed the towel in a big shopping bag and grabbed the car keys.

"Please drive carefully," she said.

"Nana, just for the record, you can pretty much a.s.sume that for the rest of my life. You don't have to say it."

I rushed out to the car without saying good-bye. It had gotten cold now that the sun was sinking out of sight, and the snow that had been brilliant white that morning was already looking dingy, the color of old underpants.

I drove about ten miles an hour to Ashland, tapping the brakes when I went downhill like my dad had taught me to do on slippery roads. The car fishtailed once at a traffic light, but I got it straight again the way he showed me, by letting go of the wheel for a second.

When I got there, the parking lot was empty. Inside, Eve smiled sadly at me.

"n.o.body here today?" I asked.

"Most people canceled their appointments, but we did have a couple of emergencies. A dog who got hit on Spinner Avenue-he's in surgery right now." She zeroed in on my shopping bag. "Is that it?"

"Yes . . ." I was going to tell her what happened; I had a whole story complete with an apology. But she stood up and took the bag from me, then glanced into it.

"Do you want to come with me?" she asked.

I shook my head.

"Do you need your towel back?"

I shook my head again. Eve disappeared down the hall, and then reappeared about ten seconds later. "Okay. We'll take care of it," she said, sliding back onto her wheeled stool.

"Should I talk to Dr. B? Should we try to figure out why it died?"

"No. It'll be okay." Eve stared at me in a sad, kind way that she usually reserved for clients.

I wanted more from her, or from someone, but I wasn't sure what that was. So I said, "Do you need me to stay and help?"

"I think we'll be okay," said Eve. "But we'll need you tomorrow. It'll be busy with all the catching up."

"Okay. I'll come in after school."

"Take a candy cane," said Eve, nudging the jar toward me, and I did.

I got back in the car and started driving home. To get my mind off the kitten, I started to make a mental list of all the things I had to do before school the next day. But the feeling of cold white fur, the image of stick-straight legs that ended in stiff little paws, kept swishing back into my head.

When I felt the tears starting to come, I knew I had to pull over somewhere. Before I even knew what I was doing I was making a right turn into the train station parking lot, which was practically deserted. I stopped the car diagonally across the two best parking s.p.a.ces-the ones my father had been ecstatic about getting on a few rare occasions-and put my forehead on the steering wheel, and cried.

After a few minutes, the car felt hot and the windows fogged up, so I climbed out to lean on the hood and get some fresh air. It was getting even colder and darker now, harder to see my breath. I peered down onto the train platform, where a handful of people stood waiting for the train into the city. Most of them were huddled in the cold-weather shelter that burned heat lamps, but one girl was waiting by herself with a backpack, near the steps.

Meg.

I opened my mouth to call to her, but stopped myself. Instead I walked over to the steps and walked down them as quietly as I could, hoping she would turn around and see me without me having to say her name. Finally I was about five steps above her and whispered, "Meg?"

She turned to look at me, her eyes red and swollen. "Laurel, oh my G.o.d. What happened?"

I was confused for a second and then realized that my eyes, too, were red and swollen. What a pair we made.

"Nothing. Long story. What happened to you? What are you doing here?"

Megan looked away, across the train tracks to a billboard for vodka, her chin trembling. "My parents are splitting up."

"What?"

She nodded her head yes and lowered herself down onto the next-to-last step, which I knew was ice-cold, but I walked down to sit next to her anyway.

"They've been fighting all night and sometime this morning, my dad told my mom that he's leaving."

"Oh, Meg. For real?"

"Total sayonara, au revoir, and all that jazz. Apparently he was going to wait until next fall when I went to college, but he can't make it that long. Isn't that charming? He can't make it that long, like it's a living h.e.l.l to be in our house."

I put my arm around Meg, and she leaned her head on my shoulder, sniffling.

"Are you, like, running away?" I asked.

"Just a little. I was going to go stay with my sister. I can't be near my dad until he packs up and goes to some hotel. I'll vomit if I see him."

We were quiet for a few moments. The northbound train pulled into the station and let some pa.s.sengers off.

"I'm sorry about that day," I said. It was like pouring water into a curved vase. The empty s.p.a.ce between us was there, waiting, the perfect shape and size for those exact words. "I should have been there for you the way you've been there for me."

Meg nodded, her head still on my shoulder. "I was so mad, but then I felt so bad about being mad. Then I felt mad about feeling bad."

"Isn't that from a Dr. Seuss book?" I said, and that made Meg giggle. "No. That makes perfect sense to me. I just . . . I was just somewhere else. But now I'm here."

"I really missed you."

"Me too." I paused. "I kissed Joe, like, a lot. And I got into Yale."

Meg lifted her head and stared me square in the face, straight and serious. "Really?" I wasn't sure which piece of news was more amazing to her.

I opened my mouth to elaborate, thinking how strange it was that I could tell her about Joe but not David Kaufman. Suddenly we heard the familiar faint rumble that meant the train was rounding the soft bend toward the station. Meg stood up and grabbed her backpack.

"Are you sure you want to go to Mary's?" I asked. "Because you could come back to my house and stay with me as long as you need to. That way you wouldn't have to miss school. Or put up with your sister."

Meg glanced at the train, all noise and slick metal, as it chugged up to the platform. Then she smiled at me and threw her backpack over her shoulder, leading the way back up the stairs to my car.

Chapter Thirty-four.