He saw the box of pizza on the filing cabinet. Meghan left one in the office while she took the rest out to the worksite.
“It’s cold,” she said. “I can warm it up.”
Cecil shook his head. He tore open the packet and poured the brown powder into the mug. He used the spoon to stir carefully. Meghan tore off a few sheets of paper towels.
She got a slice of pizza out of the box. Cheese pizza filled people without complaint. It was cheap and easy, and Cecil didn’t have to pick off toppings before he took a bite.
Meghan sat in her chair, facing him. She glanced at Wilcox and Reeve watching her. Wilcox nodded lightly and went back to their close conversation.
“How are you doing?”
“I don’t, okay, I guess.”
Meghan didn’t judge Cecil’s indifference to the recent news that his sister presumably drowned. Children were resilient. Depending on his living condition and experience, Cecil had to deal with the information in his own way.
She watched him take small bites, chew with his mouth closed. He wiped his face and sipped at the hot chocolate. At thirteen, he was average height and a little less than the average weight for a child his age. He waited and watched, and as Meghan saw him take in the rest of the office, she realized there was a layer to Cecil that wasn’t open to scrutiny.
“So, you like to read.”
He nodded munching.
“You see your uncle at the Memorial Dance on Saturday night?”
Cecil stopped munching. He looked thoughtful for a second and shook his head.
“Do you spend a lot of time with your uncle?”
The headshake was short and pointed.
“I heard your sister likes to draw,” Meghan said. “I didn’t see pictures on her wall in the bedroom.”
Cecil shrugged.
Meghan removed a business card from the top center draw in the desk. She slid it across the surface. Cecil looked at it but didn’t pick up the card.
“I want you to call me, that’s my private number. It’s the same one your mother has,” she said. “I want to make sure you’re doing okay with all of this. It’s going to get harder before it gets better.”
“I know,” he said.
It wasn’t the kind of answer that had an attitude. Cecil seemed precocious without being derivative, like the know-it-all attitude of teenagers. Cecil was a little underdeveloped physically, but Meghan suspected he occupied himself with science fiction and fantasy novels. He had an active imagination. Speculative fiction helped foster creativity. It allowed children to develop problem-solving skills, and above everything else, it was a healthy way for Cecil to cope with the intense emotions brought on by the sudden death of a family member.
“Did you like to read to Christine?” she asked.
Cecil shook his head. “Chrissy doesn’t like most of the books I like. She likes the little kid stuff. I read all that stuff a long time ago. I don’t want to reread it all.”
Meghan nodded. She picked up on the present-tense of the answer. Cecil hadn’t put it all together; they were dealing with the loss of his sister.
“Hey, Cecil, come on, let’s go.” Earl Melton stood in the doorway to Meghan’s office. It wasn’t an order. Meghan saw Earl held back his grief.
She watched as Cecil struggled to put on the coat. It took a little to fit his arms into the sleeves. He pulled on the ski cap again.
“Thank you for the cocoa and the pizza,” he said.
“You are very welcome, Cecil. I am sorry for your loss.” Meghan waited to see the response.
Cecil blinked at her as if not understanding how to answer. He kept his mouth tight as he turned around. Earl wrapped an arm around Cecil. At thirteen, kids weren’t interested in physical contact with adults. They had a relation, a bond that meant Earl played surrogate, and it looked positive. Meghan didn’t read into anything when it came to their family. They had a lot to work out and a whole town to face. Cecil was on the long road to adulthood, and the death of someone close took away the spirit of being a child.
Chapter Fifteen
Meghan managed to manipulate the conversation among the adults in the room after the Tuktus left. It came to using Duane as her mouthpiece. Reeve tolerated Wilcox inviting the mayor. When it came to conversation about how to talk to the rest of the town, he was a good contact. She’d suggested the gathering, and Duane ran with it.
“We’ll address the news delicately,” Duane said.
At that point, it wasn’t about what Wilcox wanted, or how Reeve reacted to the spread of information. It was up to the family; Meghan wanted Duane to understand the logistics.
“You might want to talk to Earl about arranging a vigil,” she said. “We can manage a donation point here to keep an eye on the funds.”
The idea took Duane by surprise. “Yes, we can do that, in the name of the town to help with coping.”
Meghan held back from saying anything. She liked that someone else noticed the mayor’s position.
“Don’t make this about you,” Wilcox said. “It’s not a platform to run a reelection campaign. This is about everyone. I will follow up with Christine’s school counselor to make sure they have the right plan for talking to her classmates.”
Children in Alaska dealt with the death of friends more often than the rest of the United States. Despite its geography size, Alaska was a small community. With the least people per square mile in the US, most everyone knew each other. Statistically, people between the ages of fifteen and twenty-four were among the highest affected by depression and suicide in Alaska. Teenagers had a myriad of
