Only Child: A novel Read online

  Andy takes the temper medicine in the mornings so he behaves at school, but it only works for a little while, and then his bad temper comes back when he gets home from school. One time I heard Mommy and Daddy fighting about the temper medicine because Daddy said Andy should take some in the afternoons so he behaves better at home, too. But Mommy said no, she wasn’t going to give him more, it wasn’t good for him, only before parties or special occasions where he has to behave good.

  After a while I looked up at the top bunk. No Andy.

  I knew Andy wasn’t there, but I said his name into his empty room anyway: “Andy.” There was no one there to hear it. It was like Andy’s room swallowed up his name and then it was gone, like him.

  I went out of his room fast and downstairs. I could hear voices and sounds coming from the kitchen. Maybe Mommy was back from the hospital. But when I walked in the kitchen, Daddy was there and Grandma and Aunt Mary, not Mommy.

  Daddy was sitting on the same barstool where he ate his cereal last night and he was still wearing his work clothes from yesterday, except for the suit jacket. Everything looked all wrinkly, and his beard was starting to grow. Daddy’s beard grows really fast, so he has to shave every day or he starts to look like Uncle Chip when he was still alive. Uncle Chip always let his beard grow, and it tickled me when he gave me a hug and a kiss, and sometimes food got stuck in it, and that was gross, so I’m glad Daddy always shaves, just today he didn’t.

  His face looked all whitish where the beard wasn’t growing, like Mommy’s face yesterday at the hospital, and his eyes were dark all around. Maybe he didn’t sleep last night, even though he said it would be the best thing for us. The clock on the microwave said 8:10, and that meant I missed the school bus because it comes at 7:55 every day. So Daddy was going to have to drive me to school then probably. When I thought about McKinley, I thought about the POP sounds again and the people lying in the hallway, and the big scared feeling from last night came right back. I didn’t want to go back there. What if Andy was still there? Then I was going to see him dead with blood on him.

  Grandma was sitting next to Daddy on a barstool, talking on the phone. She sat with her back very straight. She always sits like that and sometimes she sticks her finger into mine and Andy’s backs so we will sit up more straight, too, and she even does it to Daddy sometimes. Grandma didn’t look like her normal self and it was because she didn’t have on her red lipstick. I don’t like her lipstick, because when she gives me kisses it leaves red lip stamps on my face. I never saw her without it on before, it made her look different—like, older. She looked a little bit more like Mimi now, who is really old, she has white hair, and Grandma’s hair is blond. Also Mimi never wears lipstick. When Mimi smiles or laughs, her whole face gets wrinkles on it, especially around her eyes and her mouth. Grandma doesn’t have those, her face stays the same when she smiles.

  Grandma’s lips shivered in between saying words into the phone. Aunt Mary was standing next to her with her hand on top of Grandma’s hand on the counter, and a lot of tears were running down her face.

  “Daddy?” I said, and all at the same time, Daddy, Grandma, and Aunt Mary lifted their heads up and looked at where I was standing by the door.

  “Oh my goodness, let me call you back,” Grandma said into the phone, and she put it down on the counter. Then she walked over to me, and I could see her lips were shivering even more now. “Oh, Zach,” she said, and she leaned down to me and her breath smelled bad, like old. She gave me a hug, and it was a little too hard and too tight. I moved my head to the side so I didn’t have to smell her breath anymore.

  I saw Daddy and Aunt Mary were looking at me. Aunt Mary had her one hand over her mouth and she made her forehead all wrinkly and more tears were running down her face. When Grandma’s tight hug was done, Aunt Mary opened her arms wide and I walked to her fast. Aunt Mary’s hug was soft and warm. I could feel her whole body shaking from crying, and I could feel her warm breath on the top of my head. “Hey, monkey,” she said into my hair. We just stayed like that for a long time until I felt Daddy’s hand rubbing my back.

  “Hey, Zach,” Daddy said, and then Aunt Mary stopped hugging me. “I’m glad you got some sleep.”

  “Daddy? I’m late for school, right?” I said. “I don’t want to go today. I’m…I don’t want to go there today.”

  “Oh, no, you’re not going to school today,” Daddy answered, and he pulled me close to him and up on his lap. “Not for a while.”

  From where I was sitting on Daddy’s lap, I could see the TV was on in the family room. It was the news about how the gunman came to McKinley, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying because the sound was turned all the way down like at the hospital. I didn’t know why people put the TV on with no sound.

  After Grandma made me breakfast, people started coming in our house, and all day long more and more people came. They made a big pile of wet shoes and umbrellas in the hallway, and the alarm box in the kitchen kept saying “Front door!” in the lady robot voice so you can know someone was leaving or coming in even if you can’t see the door. Everyone brought food, and Grandma and Aunt Mary tried to fit all the containers and bowls in the fridge in the kitchen and the one in the basement, and they put some food out for people to eat, but no one ate anything.

  Grandma made Daddy go upstairs to clean up, and when he came back down, his hair was wet but he still didn’t shave. Daddy walked around and talked to all the people, and it looked like we were having a party.

  We have parties a lot at our house, and sometimes people from Daddy’s work come, from his office and his clients sometimes. Daddy always wants me and Andy to stand by the door to say hi to the party guests and do handshakes. Handshakes are very important for when you’re older. Your hand can’t be too loose because that’s wimpy, but you also can’t squeeze too hard, the handshake has to be just in the middle, it’s called firm, and you have to look the other person right in the eye and say, “Nice to meet you.” Sometimes I practice by myself in my room before parties so I do it right.

  I thought it was weird we were having a party today, because Andy died and Mommy was at the hospital because of the shock and that’s not a good time for a party, but more people kept coming in, all standing and sitting down in the kitchen and family room and living room. There were no kids, except me, only grown-ups, and it was like I didn’t even belong in the party.

  I stayed close to Daddy the whole time. I wanted to talk to him and ask him when Mommy was coming home, and could we go see her at the hospital, but Daddy didn’t have time because he had to talk to the other grown-ups and do handshakes.

  “I’m so sorry for your loss,” “Our deepest condolences,” “I just can’t believe something like this could happen in Wake Gardens,” the people said. Daddy had a little smile on his face, not a happy smile, but one that looked like he put it on his face on purpose and then left it there and it never went away. Some of the people, some I knew and some I never saw before, gave me hugs or patted me on the head and I didn’t want that, to get hugs like that from everyone.

  In the afternoon, one of the people who came to the party was Miss Russell. I was just coming out of the living room, still following Daddy, when I saw her walk in the front door. She looked smaller or something and like she was cold, she was giving herself a hug with her arms. She blinked her eyes fast a few times when she looked around in the hallway. Her face looked very white and she had dark all around her eyes. When she saw me standing behind Daddy, she stopped blinking her eyes and gave me a little smile.

  She came over to us and said, “Hi, Zach,” in a very quiet voice. Daddy looked at her and reached out his hand. “Hello…,” he said, and Miss Russell took his hand and shook it slowly.

  “Nadia Russell,” she said. “I’m Zach’s teacher.”

  “Oh, right, I’m sorry, of course,” Daddy said.

  “I’m so v
ery sorry…about Andy…,” Miss Russell said, and her voice sounded like it got stuck in her throat a couple of times.

  “Thank you,” Daddy said. “Oh, and…thank you…very much. For keeping Zach safe yesterday. I’m…I’m very grateful.”

  Miss Russell didn’t say anything back, she just shook her head yes. Then she looked around Daddy, at me. “Hey, Zach.” She did a little smile again. “I’m not staying long, but I wanted to give you this…You can keep it, OK? Maybe you’ll like having it.” Miss Russell took my hand and dropped something inside. It was one of her favorite charms from her charm bracelet, she showed it to us a lot of times. It was a silver angel wing with a heart on it. She told us that her grandma gave it to her, and it meant love and protection and it was very special to her because now her grandma wasn’t alive anymore.

  “Thank you,” I said, and my words came out like a whisper.

  After Miss Russell left I walked around with Daddy for a little while longer, but then I felt like I wanted to take a break from walking around, so I sat down on the yellow chair in the corner of the family room. The yellow chair is kind of behind the couch, and the people in the family room were all looking at the TV and talking in quiet voices, so no one knew I was there. The sound on the TV was still turned all the way down. First it was commercials, but then the news came back on and it was still about McKinley.

  A lady with a microphone was standing in front of McKinley next to the sign that says MCKINLEY ELEMENTARY. I could see it said WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 6TH on it, and that was yesterday, so Charlie forgot to put the date on today, which is his job first thing in the morning before school starts. Behind the news lady were some police cars, but no more fire trucks and ambulances. There were a lot of the vans with the standing-up bowls on the roofs, like I saw in front of the church.

  I could tell the lady started to talk in the microphone because her lips were moving, but in the family room it was just lips moving with no sounds coming out in a very quiet room. I really wanted to hear what she was saying and if she was talking about the gunman, but I didn’t want people to know I was behind them on the yellow chair, so I stayed quiet and watched the lady’s lips move.

  Pictures of people came on the TV, and over the pictures it said “19 Confirmed Dead” and then the pictures got big on the screen, one at a time, and stayed big for a little while, and then the picture went back to small. The next picture got big and then the next. I realized it was pictures of people who got killed from the gunman. I knew who all the people were in the pictures, some kids from fourth and fifth grade, and it looked like the pictures of them were from field day because they all had on McKinley field day T-shirts. And there were pictures of some grown-ups from school, too: Mrs. Colaris, our principal, Mrs. Vinessa, Andy’s teacher, Mr. Wilson, our gym teacher, and Mr. Hernandez, the custodian.

  I knew all the people in the pictures, and yesterday I saw some of them at school, and now they were dead. In the pictures they looked like they always look at school, and I thought that now they didn’t look like that anymore. Now they were lying in the hallway with blood on them.

  The next picture that got big was Ricky, so that meant he was dead, too. I wondered if Ricky’s mom knew that Ricky was dead, or if she was still at the hospital, waiting in the waiting room, and then I remembered that Daddy told her we were going to check if Ricky was there when we went through the NO ENTRY door to see Mommy, but we never did that, and that wasn’t very nice of us.

  After Ricky came Andy. He looked sweaty and was bending his knees like he was getting ready to jump. His blond hair was sticking up in the front from the sweat, and he was making a silly face with his tongue out of the side of his mouth. Andy always makes silly faces in pictures, and Mommy gets mad because we don’t have a single good picture of our family where everyone smiles and we can hang it up on the wall.

  I stared at Andy’s silly face. It looked like he was going to jump out of the TV right into the family room, and I held in my breath and wanted him to jump, but then his picture got small and disappeared. Another picture got big, and Andy’s silly face was gone.

  [ 11 ]

  Secret Hideout

  I TURNED AROUND IN THE YELLOW CHAIR and saw Daddy sitting in the kitchen. I went to him and tried to swallow the lump of breath in my throat. I swallowed and swallowed and my mouth got really dry, but the lump didn’t move. I tried to get on Daddy’s lap, but Daddy was looking at his phone, not me. He only let me sit on one leg, and it wasn’t comfortable.

  I tried to sit all the way on Daddy’s lap, but he said, “Buddy, give me a second to breathe, OK?” and he pushed me off.

  Grandma came over and the red lipstick was back on her lips. “Zach, Daddy’s very tired. Let’s give him a break,” she said to me. Then Mrs. Gray our neighbor came in the kitchen and said, “Oh my God, Jim, I’m so sorry for your loss,” and Daddy got up to talk to her, so his second to breathe must have been over.

  I had to walk some steps backward because Daddy’s barstool pushed into me. I started not to like how Daddy’s face looked with the smile/not smile that was back on it, so I left the kitchen and went upstairs.

  The party sounds followed me up the stairs like they were taking a piggyback ride on my back, and they were getting louder. It was all I could hear, even though I was walking away from the party. I walked faster down the hallway and shook my head to get the sounds out. I wanted to get to my room and leave the sounds outside. But when I passed Andy’s room, I had to stop and look inside. It was like there was an invisible force pulling me in. Right away my eyes went up to Andy’s empty top bunk.

  I always want to be in Andy’s room and see his things and hang out with him, but Andy never lets me. He would probably be really mad at me for being in here now. I pretended like I was a spy, scouting out the enemy, looking all around, touching the enemy’s things, opening drawers and doors and looking for clues. I touched the robot arm on Andy’s desk and pretended it was the enemy’s weapon and I had to figure out how to use it.

  Andy got the robot arm from Mimi for Christmas, and that wasn’t fair because she gave me Hungry Hungry Hippos, and that’s a baby game. I wanted something cool to build like Andy. It looks like a real robot arm and has a motor and batteries. You can make the arm move up and down, and the claw can pick things up—it’s so cool. I asked Andy if I could try, but of course it was a no. Andy built it all by himself, no grown-up helped him, even though the box said “12 & up,” and he was only nine then.

  I heard Mimi talk about it to Mommy in the kitchen: “Andy’s so incredibly smart, too smart for his own good.” People say that all the time about Andy—“He’s so smart,” and “I’ve never met such a smart kid.” And it’s the truth, he really is smart, like more smart than other people, he did a test once that showed that. He just doesn’t feel like doing his work, and he doesn’t want to sit in one place for a long time. He went to a special class for smart kids when we still lived in the city where they did third-grade work in first grade, but at McKinley they don’t have a special class like that, so Andy hates school now because it’s boring for him.

  Andy read all the Harry Potter books in first grade. Daddy always tells that to everyone, and I can tell he’s really proud about that. I tried to read the first Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, because I’m also in first grade now and I wanted Daddy to tell proud stories about me, too, but the book had a scary picture on the front and a lot of hard words. Andy made fun of me because it took me like half an hour to read two pages, so I stopped.

  I found the On switch on the robot arm and flipped it up. I tried to get the claw to pick up a pencil from Andy’s desk, but it was hard, and the claw kept dropping the pencil. Then I thought I heard a sound on the stairs like someone was coming up, so I turned it off really fast. If Daddy was coming up, he would probably get mad at me because I was in Andy’s room touching his stuff. I saw Andy’s closet d
oor was open, so I went inside and pulled the door closed, but not all the way.

  I almost couldn’t hear the party sounds in the closet. Andy’s closet is really big, such a waste for a boy, Mommy says. Andy didn’t put his clothes away. There was a big messy pile of clothes on the floor behind the hamper. I put the clothes in the hamper and walked all the way in, behind the handsome shirts and the jackets that were hanging up, and there was a whole space in the back. It was dark back here, but I could see Andy’s sleeping bag rolled up in the corner of the closet, and I sat down on it. I sat really still and my heart was beating at super speed and I was waiting to see if Daddy was going to find me, but nothing happened.

  I sat on the sleeping bag roll and then I thought about how yesterday I was in the closet in my classroom, so now it was two days in a row that I was sitting in a closet. I never sat in a closet before today and yesterday, because closets are not for hanging out, they’re for putting stuff away.

  And there’s not a lot of space in closets, which I don’t like. I get scared in smushy places. Sometimes Andy puts a blanket over my head only because he knows how much I hate that. He holds it tight and laughs when I start feeling scared and try to get him off me, but he’s too strong. And on elevators Andy always makes jokes like “Hey, scaredy-cat, I know this one’s going to get stuck! We will be stuck in here for like days with nothing to eat, and we’ll have to go to the bathroom right in here!” He keeps talking like that until Mommy tells him to stop, and then he makes faces like he’s dying behind her back.

  Daddy got stuck on the elevator at his office once and he wasn’t scared, but other people next to him were. Daddy said it was funny because they were only stuck for a few minutes, so what did they even get scared about? But I don’t think that’s funny. I would get scared, too. Andy calls me a scaredy-cat all the time, and he’s actually a little right about that. I get scared a lot about different things, especially at bedtime or in the middle of the night. It’s stupid that it’s like that. Sometimes I wish I could be more brave like Andy and Daddy. They’re never scared of anything.