That night, Sam sent an e-mail to everyone in the group.
When I came to the first meeting, I didn’t realize right away that it was supposed to only be for people whose parents had died. By the time I realized, I didn’t know how to tell you guys. I felt really good around you; it feels weird to have a parent in a coma too, and we didn’t think he was going to wake up, so I felt like I’d lost my dad too. I didn’t mean to trick anyone, and I’m really sorry if anyone feels that way. You guys really helped me, and I would love to keep spending time with you if you’ll have me. Cody wrote back an e-mail, copied to the rest of us:
Glad your dad’s okay. You don’t have to apologize to us.
No one else responded—or if they did, they didn’t CC everyone. I wondered how Cody could act so forgiving. Did Mindy and Kelsi feel the same way I did? Or was I the only one who was upset?
But the thing was, I was the one who had opened myself up.
I was the one who got hurt.
chapter 20
The next two weeks passed quickly. Sam was absent from school pretty often, and when he was there, I avoided him. Soon he stopped trying so hard to talk to me or to get me to forgive him. I think he knew it wasn’t going to happen.
In English class, where he and I usually partnered up, he began working on projects with Matt Alexander, and I started working with Gillian Zucker. We had two Tuesday meetings of our group—one at McDonald’s (where we all got Happy Meals and giggled our way through playing with the toys like little kids) and one at the ice rink again—and I don’t think I was the only one who felt Sam’s absence.
Sunday, November fifteenth dawned gray and bleak, which seemed fitting. It was officially the anniversary. It had been an entire year. Today we’d begin a whole new year of days my father would never get to live, things he’d never get to see. But saying it, admitting it had been nearly a year already, was more difficult than it should have been.
It had been fifty-two Saturdays since I’d taken my sweet time in the bathroom and cheerfully headed out the door for the five-minute car ride that would change our lives. I felt tears prickle at the backs of my eyes as I lay in bed.
Despite myself, I went to the window to look for a rainbow, and I almost wanted to kick myself for believing there was even a chance one would be there. Not only did I not believe in stuff like that, but it would have been scientifically impossible, given the overcast skies. You needed sunshine for a rainbow, and I had the feeling there wouldn’t be any today.
I looked at the sky anyhow, hoping that there would be some kind of sign that my dad was up there, watching. But still, nothing.
Then, something made me look down. My window overlooked the front yard and the street, and as I glanced at the grass, I noticed the strangest thing.
The lawn, which had been covered for the past few weeks in a growing blanket of orange, red, and yellow leaves, had been raked, and there was a big pile of leaves in the corner, almost exactly where my dad used to put the leaf pile.
For a fleeting instant, I was sure my dad had done it, that it was the sort of sign Sam had talked about, except that instead of painting a rainbow in the sky, my dad had done something much more personal.
Then I remembered. I had told Sam about the leaves, hadn’t I? But he couldn’t have done this. With as coldly as I’d been treating him, it was hard to believe that he would show up with a rake in the wee, cold hours of the morning and do something so incredibly touching.
I stared down from the window for a long time at the leaf pile. And while I looked, a little bit of the ice melted from around the outside of my heart.
? ? ?
Mom surprised us all by making light, fluffy blueberry pancakes for breakfast.
“I thought it would be a start to a tough day that your dad would appreciate,” she said as she brought the platter to the table. Logan shuffled over to the fridge to grab the maple and blueberry syrups, and Tanner poured juice for all of us, sloshing a little over the side of Mom’s glass.
“Sorry,” he said.
She smiled at him. “No problem.”
It was like we were in a time warp and had gone back to normal. Well, almost. Logan didn’t look at all like himself; his eyes were bloodshot, his hair was a mess, and I could swear I could smell alcohol on him, although Mom seemed oblivious. Mom still looked vacant, but I knew she was trying. And Tanner, of course, was being his usual quiet self.
Or so I thought. After we’d downed our pancakes and Mom had stood up to start clearing the table, he suddenly said, “Knock, knock.”
We all looked at him. Logan and I exchanged glances. Mom stopped in her tracks.
“What?” I asked, sure that I must have heard him wrong.
“Knock, knock,” Tanner repeated. We hadn’t heard a joke come out of Tanner’s mouth in a year. “Um, who’s there?” I asked. “Little old lady,” he said.