She watched them pull out of the driveway too fast and disappear in a blink at the end of the road. The sun was still high, but the afternoon had cooled a little, and shadows stretched across the empty field. She felt like she could smell the dirt hiding under its yellow grass, but it was probably just her imagination, senses already running too high.
She walked out onto the porch, locking the door behind her, and went down the steps. She turned in the direction the boys had gone, but at the end of the road she went north, toward the cemetery’s scalloped white gates.
As she walked past all the old gray headstones, a breeze followed, high up in the trees, making yellow sunlight dance in the grass under her feet. At the end of a row of flat plaques set in the ground, she found his, fresh and tidy, a wreath of plastic flowers standing sentinel on wire legs.
The police had scraped Shaun’s body from that field, even though, according to the boys, there was hardly anything left to call a corpse. Evie didn’t even know if he’d had a funeral. None of them had had the courage to go back to Nan’s house yet, and so no one had asked when—or if—one might even happen.
And if there had been a funeral, Evie wondered, had his mother come? Had she been sober enough to know, or selfless enough to care, that her own and only son was dead?
She ran her fingers over the stone. Shaun Phillip Henry-Deacon, Beloved Grandson. Just shy of nineteen. Evie couldn’t imagine that he was just dirt now. All that light, all that spark and shine. It seemed impossible.
The small plot was covered with a strip of fresh sod, like a fuzzy green blanket tucked over him. She peeled the edge back and dug her fingers into the soft, wet earth below, squeezing it between her fingers.
She remembered all of them, last Halloween, climbing the fire escape at the Grains. Shaun boosting her till she’d caught hold of the rough, rusty bars that had flaked under her grip as she dangled and kicked. She’d followed the ladder up into the dark sky, the abandoned building’s eerie black windows spurring her upward.
Halloween in Cold Water meant a dance and a bonfire in the park by the river, a DJ in the band shell and fireworks that lit the night sky. From the top of the Grains, you could just see their colors glow. Brilliant, bright sparks and smoke rising, faintly screaming and fading away.
Sunny, Ré and Alex had lined the roof already, feet dangling over the side, all looking west toward the fireworks. Far below them, Evie saw long, parallel lines of moonlight on train tracks curving off in both directions. The drop had made her shiver.
She’d lowered herself onto the ledge next to Ré. His backpack was full of beer, and as he handed her one, his fingers had brushed hers. It was the first time she could remember actually touching him. His skin was warm, and his eyes had flicked up to hers, surprised but unreadable. They’d both looked away quick.
Then Shaun had thrown himself down on her other side, charging her shoulder, teasing her balance. He’d pulled the beer from her and pressed her hand to his thigh. It had become habit by then, the feel of him under her fingers. His crash at her side. That fear of falling. On the roof of the Grains, on top of the world, he’d said low to her, “I’ll never ever let you go.”
Remembering those words, and the feel of his living body, she squeezed the dirt in her hands till it crushed between her fingers. Is it still true? she wondered. Are you still here? Up on that roof or in my bed still? Or are you just here, in this dirt, and gone?
She hadn’t meant to get drunk that night, but the cold air and the fireworks, that rusty old rooftop, Shaun and Alex cracking dirty jokes. The surprise in Ré’s eyes. It had made her drunk already. Drunk on them—Sunny and the boys.
After the fireworks, they’d all thrown pebbles into the sky, trying to hit the rail containers. Ré had won. Bang.
“What would you do?” she asked Shaun now, lying back and looking up through the trees over his grave. Puffy, white clouds floated through a jagged patch of sky. Her hand was wet and filthy, black half moons under her nails. She rested it on her belly, trying to feel whatever it was Ré had felt two nights ago, right before he ran out of her room, scrambling to get away.
“What would happen,” she asked again, “if I chose Réal now?”
She thought of Shaun’s mother, choosing herself over her son, weakness over blood. Would she be doing the same thing—abandoning Shaun?
That night on the roof, she’d been spilling with love for all of them. She’d gotten drunk on them, climbing that rusty fire escape to the highest point of their whole lives. Opening herself to the endless, exploding sky.
“Don’t get much better than this,” Alex had said, holding Sunny’s hand.
And maybe he was right.
Because getting back down had been a lot harder than getting up. Getting down had been climbing over the edge and seeing just how far there really was to fall. Trusting that the bolts would hold. That you’d make it back to earth in one piece.
And even when you’d safely reached the end of the escape, you still had to jump the last ten feet into glass and garbage and cracked concrete.
Shaun had been the first to go over. And when he got to the end and the ladder ran out, he’d just let go, trusting. Maybe, she thought, instead of climbing down, they should have all just jumped that night, right off the roof into the black.
12
R
“What the hell were you thinking?” Ré snapped. All his feelings bubbled over as soon as
