The Beginning of After - By Jennifer Castle Page 0,114

tables up and seat backs in the upright position,” I said, opening the car door. I waved my Village Deli bag at Nana. “All set!”

All set. Like it was that simple. But then again, why couldn’t it be?

I leaned back into the car. “Are you getting out?” I asked Meg.

She shook her head. “I can’t stand long good-byes, you know that. We already had our paws all over each other. Consider yourself sent off.”

“Fair enough,” I said.

“So, adios,” said Meg, biting her lip.

“Hasta la vista.” I started to close the door, then stopped. “And oh, by the way. I love you.”

Meg sniffled now, unable to hide her tears anymore. “I love you, too. Now get out of town.”

She backed down the driveway and I watched her, not waving. When she was gone, Nana came out of the house and put her arm around me. “Everything’s in the car?” she asked.

“It is now,” I said, opening the front door of the Volvo and putting the sandwich bag inside.

“Then how about one last bathroom trip and we’re on the road?”

I looked at her, with her gigantic, round sunglasses and her “driving clothes,” a velour tracksuit and white sneakers. It was one of many outfits she’d bought for Hilton Head. She’d be leaving for the fall and winter in just a few weeks.

“Yeah, good idea,” I said. I didn’t have to go, but I was glad for a few minutes in the house before we left.

I walked through the living room, did a lap around the kitchen, a dip into the den. Was I supposed to be feeling something specific here? I’d lived in this house my whole life. I was coming back, of course. Then I realized, it wasn’t the house I needed to say good-bye to. It was just this time, this state of being.

I went upstairs and did a quick search of my room to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything. Nana had made my bed, and I thought, It could be months before I lift back these covers again.

A quick peek into Toby’s old room. It was empty of cats now; I’d found good homes for all of them and sometimes got emails from their people, with pictures.

I opened the door to my parents’ room and looked at the bed, and had a flashback to a morning many years earlier, when we were leaving to go camping, and Toby and I were so fired up we had to wake our parents. “Let’s hit the road before it hits us first!” we yelled, jumping on the bed, throwing one of my dad’s favorite expressions at him.

I went back downstairs and looked out the window.

There was David.

He sat on the patio, Masher’s head in his lap, talking on his cell phone. I opened the sliding glass door and he turned around to look at me.

“Hey,” I whispered, “we have to leave in a few minutes.”

He nodded and said, “Okay, thank you,” into the phone, then flipped it shut. “Sorry about that, it was Dr. Ireland.”

“Is your dad all right?”

David stood up and came toward me. “Better than all right. He wrote a few sentences by hand yesterday.”

“That’s great,” I said, as David put his arms around me and rested his chin on my shoulder.

“And he says that having my dad help me study for the GED is making a big difference.”

“I knew it would,” I said, burying my face in his hair.

One week after the memorial bench ceremony, we’d had the headstone unveiling at the cemetery. It was just Nana and David and me, by choice. The three of us sharing two umbrellas in the rain, as the rabbi spoke. We didn’t say a thing until after we’d placed three rocks on each stone. One for each of them, one for each of us. Nobody spoke until after we got back in the car, and Nana took off her hat and said, “Let’s go have wine with lunch.”

By that time, David and Masher were living in an apartment two towns over, where David had a job specializing in sound equipment at a music store. He drove to the Palisades Oaks twice a week. Which was maybe half as much as he was coming to our house.

Once Nana figured things out about us, she forbade David from sleeping here at night, even on the couch. He wasn’t allowed over if she wasn’t home, and if we were in my room the door had to remain open. But she loved having him stay