Read Online The Last Good Day of the Year by Jessica Warman - Free Book Online Page B

sort of is. “It’s not your fault, Gretchen.” But she undeniably played a big role. “It’s not anybody’s fault except Steven’s.” But her pain—and my father’s—cannot stay so sharply focused on him. The blame oozes onto everything and everyone connected to that night; it is impossible to keep it neatly contained; it is too slippery, and there is far too much of it. And just when you think you’ve managed to get it under control, you find more seeping from cracks that you didn’t even realize existed.
    Helen rushes to her car without attempting to collect the papers she’s left to scatter up and down the street. She fumbles through her purse as she looks for her keys, glancing over her shoulder every few seconds to make sure my mom isn’t about to pounce.
    It feels like we’re on stage, the whole world watching the drama of our sad lives playing out on our dead-end street. Mrs. Souza peeks out her front door to gawk at the scene, but she would never do anything besides stare at us with her big, droopy eyes and openmouth; I don’t think I’ve heard her say one word in my entire life. The whole time she’s looking at us, she keeps a withered hand on the neck of the German shepherd sitting calmly at her side.
    Susan comes running out the door and wraps her arms around my mother from behind, wrangling her back into our house as the rain starts. In our living room, my mom sobs into Susan’s chest while Gretchen and Abby—Hannah still in her arms—hurry into the kitchen.
    â€œShh, shh,” Susan says, stroking my mom’s hair as if she were a child. “She’s gone, honey. It’s okay now.”
    â€œIt’s not okay. It’s never going to be okay. Never, never, never, never.”
    â€œShh. I’ve got you. Take a deep breath.” Susan meets my gaze and mouths
Call your father
, but I don’t know where to find his work number.
    â€œIt’s never going to be okay.”
    â€œShh. I know. I know. I know it won’t.”
    Through the living room window, I can see Remy walking around in the downpour, trying to pick up the papers Helen left behind, though most of them have started to dissolve into pulp that will easily wash away with the rain. Hannah’s tap shoes dangle from his free hand. When he sees me staring at him, he waves the drippy papers and gives me a slight shrug, as if to say it’s no problem for him to clean up the mess, even though it’s not his.

    Â 
    I felt for his family more than anything, you know. Jack and I go way back, all the way to Little League. This didn’t used to be the kind of town where people had crazy secrets and kids couldn’t play outside without having to worry about getting pestered by perverts. It was a nightmare for that whole family from the time Stevie had his accident in the swimming pool. It was like the doctor left a couple of wires unattached when he was putting Stevie’s head back together, but most of the time it didn’t seem like a major malfunction. He got headaches all the time and forgot little things he’d known all his life; Helen was always reminding him what their phone number was. Other times, though, something would misfire and he’d screw up big. Their neighbors who lived at the end of the street had a bunch of kids of all different ages. I guess they left their house unlocked a lot of the time because the kids came and went at all hours. One day the wife comes home with her twins and a trunk full of groceries—in the middle of the day while the other kids are all at school and her husband’s at work—and she sends them right upstairs for a nap and then finishes bringing in her groceries and putting them away, and when she goes up to check on the kids she finds Stevie asleep in her bed. He was fast asleep under the covers, as if it were the most normal thing in the world.
    After the thing with