“Are you okay?” Jane asked, because Ruth’s eyes had become unfocused; she seemed distant and strange.
She took a moment to answer. She looked up at the ceiling, then stared into the fire. “I don’t know,” she admitted finally. “It’s weird. I never thought I’d be saying this, but… I miss her. Emilia. Being back here makes me miss her.” She bit her lip, paused again, folded her hands in her lap and interlaced her fingers. “When she died, I felt so many things. This rush of pain, of sadness, of guilt, of regret. I should have come back to see her. I should have moved her out to California with us after my dad died. I should have done more to take care of her. But I don’t know. I don’t know that she really did that much to take care of me.” Ruth closed her eyes, and when she opened them, they were red and wet, and Jane reached over and took her hand.
“I’m sorry, Mom.”
“I’m sorry, too, because now you know what it’s like. To lose a parent,” Ruth whispered. “It’s a terrible thing. And yours was so good. So much better than mine.”
Jane was crying now, too, and they sat in silence for a few minutes, holding hands, crying, letting their soup get cold.
“I want you to know that I’m here for you, Janie,” Ruth said. “I never want you to feel how I felt with Emilia. I never want you to feel like you have to go through this alone. You can always come to me.”
“I know,” Jane said. “I know.”
“Grief is different for everyone,” Ruth continued. “There’s no right or wrong answer. Just remember that, okay?”
“Okay, Mom.”
“For example, sometimes grief is crying onto your grilled cheese sandwich,” Ruth said, wiping at her cheeks.
“Does it make you feel any better that these look like the best grilled cheese sandwiches ever made? Tears or no tears.”
Ruth smiled. “It does, a bit, yeah.”
“Let’s do this.”
They ate cross-legged in front of the fireplace, dipping their sandwiches into the bowls of tomato soup. The food and the fire warmed Jane’s body until her skin had a faint pink glow to it, and neither of them spoke until there were only a few crumbs left on their plates.
It was only after they’d eaten two s’mores each and cleaned up all the dishes, leaving them out to dry on the counter, that Jane felt the first wave of fatigue wash over her.
“Oy,” she said.
“Same,” Ruth agreed.
They’d brought in sleeping bags and pillows from the back seat of the car, and they spent a few minutes getting everything unrolled and set up.
“Is it okay to leave this burning?” Jane asked, already buried in the sleeping bag, just the tip of her nose showing, her voice muffled.
“It’ll be fine. We need the warmth,” Ruth replied.
A few moments of rustling as Ruth settled into her own sleeping bag. As soon as she was still, the only noise was from the fire, crackling and popping as it burned away. Behind that, if she strained her ears, Jane could hear nothing but an overwhelming silence. She almost said something, but she realized Ruth was already sleeping, snoring gently, passed out in ten seconds flat.
Jane rolled over onto her back, the fire warming the right side of her face, the left side feeling abruptly chilled.
So this was it. The first night of her new life. She pulled her phone out of the sleeping bag and checked it. Still no service. She hadn’t even texted Salinger—her best friend back home—to let her know she’d made it.
She opened her messages now, even though the phone was useless, even though the battery was almost dead. She wrote a text to Sal. I miss you so much. I hate it here. I want to come home.
She didn’t hit Send. She clicked back to her messages. She scrolled down until she found Dad.
The last message he’d sent her said: Outside!
He’d been picking her up from Sal’s house. The night before his heart attack.
Jane ran her thumb over the text.
Outside!
She squeezed her eyes closed and imagined he’d just sent that text, that he was outside now, waiting for her, the heat blasting in his old pickup as he drummed his fingers against the dashboard in time to whatever was playing on the radio.
She almost imagined she could hear his truck idling, the driver’s-side door creaking as he opened it and stepped out onto the driveway, his faint footsteps as he walked up to the front door, to knock lightly, to come and fetch her since she didn’t have any cell service to respond to his text. She almost imagined she could hear those knocks—tap-tap-tap—and then her eyes opened suddenly, because she had heard them, or no, of course she hadn’t, she’d just been concentrating so hard, trying to hear them, that she’d tricked herself into believing they were there.
She sat up in her sleeping bag, wiping at her eyes (had she started crying again, or had she never really stopped?), peering into the darkness of the house, the flickering shadows that the fire cast on all the walls, the unfamiliar shapes of furniture jutting out of the floor like icebergs.
Tap-tap-tap.
She froze.
She’d heard it that time, she was sure she had, and she was up and on her feet, running to the window at the front of the house, pushing the cellophane aside to peer out of the dirty, cloudy glass.
The moon was bright in the sky. The driveway was empty. Of course the driveway was empty, because her father was dead and his pickup truck had been repossessed and he would never again come to pick her up, never again come to drive her back home.
Tap-tap-tap.
It was only an old tree, the wind knocking it against the side of the house, its branches clicking against the windows like long, dry fingers.
Tap-tap-tap.
Grief is different for everyone, Ruth had said, and maybe Jane’s grief manifested itself in visions, in thinking she could almost see the outline of Greer’s truck in the driveway. Almost. But when she blinked—it was gone.
She was still holding her phone. She looked down at the screen now, open to her father’s text, and felt a heavy, cold ache in her stomach.
Outside!
She looked out the window once more.
She’d give anything—anything—if that were true.
Although Ruth had told her she could wait until Monday to start school, Jane woke up early the next morning and got dressed while her mother slept. It was Friday, and Jane figured it would be nice to ease into it, to have only one day of school and then a weekend, instead of five straight days of classes.
She made instant oatmeal they’d bought at the co-op and ate it standing over the kitchen sink. She kissed Ruth on the forehead before she left. Her mother mumbled and rolled over; she’d never been much of a morning person.
The bus stop was at the beginning of the street, a ten-minute walk. It was a gray, chilly morning. Jane wore a flannel and her jean jacket, and after three minutes her fingers were numb. Jane was sure she’d be the only senior riding the bus. In California, she had walked to the high school or else gotten a ride with Sal and her brother.
She reached the end of the street and looked down the road. She could just about see the bus now, about a quarter mile away, making the occasional stop, dutifully extending the bright-red stop sign.
Another minute and then it was pulling up in front of her, brakes screeching, and she climbed the steps before she could change her mind.