“Wanda Jean’s little sister.”
“Oh crap,” I said.
“Yeah,” he said. “Oh crap.”
“Do you hate her? Is that why you didn’t take the ride?”
“No. I don’t hate her. I just wanted to take the bus home with you. I wanted to see how you were doing after . . . you know.”
But I didn’t want to talk about that yet. I wanted to talk about this Zoe Dinsmore connection.
“Did Mary Ellen’s family hate her?”
“No. They didn’t hate her. They avoided her because it brought up too many feelings and they didn’t know what to say to her. But they didn’t hate her. They knew she didn’t do it on purpose.”
“So did you meet her back then? Or did you just know who she was?”
“I met her once, but it was years after the thing happened. I think it was after she got clean for the first time and was going to meetings. I think she wanted to make amends to the family. You know. Like the ninth step of the program. You know which one that is?”
Of course I knew. I’d been sitting in meetings. The twelve steps were read at the beginning of every meeting. I had them memorized. I heard them in my head as I was trying to fall asleep at night.
Nine. We made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
Roy kept talking.
“But I guess you’re not supposed to do that if it would only hurt people more. Or maybe she was just respecting the family by staying away, I don’t know. Or maybe she was scared. I know I would’ve been. But she knew I was Mary Ellen’s boyfriend. Everybody in town knew that. So she saw me at a bus stop one day. She was in the market and she saw me waiting for a bus, and she stepped out and came over and told me who she was. But I already knew. And she asked me if I would give a message to the family for her.”
He limped along in silence for a time. The bus stop had just come into view, and not a moment too soon.
“And did you?” I asked, when I could tell he was not going to continue on his own.
“I did.”
“Oh,” I said.
I figured I shouldn’t ask. It felt wrong to ask.
We reached the bus bench at long last. He settled himself on the seat, even though he might not be there for long. I knew he was really tired.
We sat staring off into the distance together, as though we could make the bus materialize by watching hard enough.
“Was it private, do you think?”
It surprised me that I asked. I hadn’t known I was about to ask.
“Was what private?”
“The message.”
“Oh. We’re still talking about that. Well. I don’t know.” Then he veered in a slightly different conversational direction. “Do you know her? How do you know her?”
“That’s a really long story. Longer than we’ve got.” I flipped my chin in the direction of the bus, which had just come into view. A little dot several blocks down. “But I will tell you, just . . . when we’ve got more time. But you can never, ever tell Mom about any of it.”
“Okay,” he said. “I guess I can wait.”
We stared at the bus, watching it grow larger in the distance.
Then, just out of nowhere, he said it.
“‘Tell them my heart is broken, too.’”
“What?” I had no idea what he was trying to tell me.
“That was the message. ‘Tell them my heart is broken, too.’”
“Oh,” I said.
I tried to imagine the scene as he passed those words along. He was likely around my age when he was given that task to perform. I wondered how it felt to say a thing like that to the family. I wondered if they said anything in reply. If they cried.
But I never asked. To this very day I’ve never asked. So that was one part of the story that will stay with only the people involved. And maybe that’s okay, because maybe it’s theirs alone. Maybe nobody else has a right to one damned second of it. One damned feeling.
“I let you down,” Roy said.
“Is that another part of the message?”
“No, I’m saying that to you right now.”
“Well, don’t ever say it to me again.”
And he never did.
We’re not dead yet. And he might have some more apologies for me on his deathbed, but I hope not. He doesn’t owe me any. But up until now he’s done as I asked.
Chapter Eighteen
Worth
“Why didn’t you tell me you knew my brother?”
It was the following morning. I had just come back from running with the dogs and hadn’t seen her on the way out. It was astonishingly hot for not even eight o’clock in the morning. I could feel sweat running down every part of me. My chest, my back, my face and neck. Every limb.
For a minute she didn’t answer. Just stood on her porch and petted her panting dogs. I thought maybe she hadn’t understood the question because I’d been breathing so hard when I asked it.
She straightened up, and the dogs trotted around the side of the cabin to drink from their bucket.
“Honestly?” she asked. “I didn’t remember his name after all this time. Even back then I mostly knew him by sight. I saw him around town with one of the families. I knew he was dating that girl. The sister. Until I saw him with you in the meeting last night, I never put two and two together.”
“Oh,” I said.
I had been mad, and now I felt silly because of it. I felt deflated, feeling all that anger drain away. She might’ve noticed; I’m not sure. She seemed to be watching my face as though it was an interesting process, whatever was happening there.
“Don’t be too hard on your brother,” she said. “We’re all just doing our best, even if it doesn’t look so good
