Page 88 of Goodbye Days

When we’re finished, Nana Betsy’s sons start driving the U-Haul to Greeneville. She’ll follow behind in her car. Jesmyn goes home to practice. Nana Betsy and I sit on her front steps once more in the cool of the burning-leaves-scented, indigo October twilight. For fifteen minutes or so. She needs to head out. But we say goodbye to each other.

She tells me the police came to talk to her about the Accident. She says she didn’t tell them anything I told her and never would.

I thank her. And my stomach opens with a dank emptiness as I think about how I’ve made her a liar before her God. As I think about how I’m living under a spreading shadow.

She asks me to go with her to lay flowers on Blake’s grave when she returns for Memorial Day.

I tell her I will.

She asks me to have a good and happy life, full of laughter, love, and friendship.

I tell her I’ll try.

Two months after the Accident and I’m already getting to the point where I suspect my brain of creating false memories of them. Sauce Crew fan fiction. Where you can’t remember if it’s something you dreamed or something that actually happened. You believe dreams.

I have this persistent “memory” now of all of us hanging at a school playground on some temperate afternoon—perhaps during the closing days of school when spring is yielding to summer.

For some reason, one of us has a portable stereo you can hook up to an iPod. We sit on the playground equipment, listening to music. That’s all. I remember nothing else.

I can’t imagine when or why this would’ve happened. I don’t remember any other occasion besides this once that we did this. I don’t remember any other details.

But my brain is convinced that it did happen.

If my brain wants to manufacture new memories of them, I’ll accept it and I won’t ask too many questions.

Jesmyn and I trade few words as we sit in front of Eli’s house, waiting to go in.

“Is Adair coming?” Jesmyn asks.

“Let’s pray she doesn’t.” I start to open my door.

Jesmyn laughs to herself.

“What?” I ask.

“It’s not really funny. I just realized that because Eli only ever saw me in the summer, he never once saw me wearing a jacket. I love jackets. It reminded me how little time we knew each other. One season.”

She’s wearing a gray wool belted motorcycle jacket, with a slightly diagonal row of buttons instead of a zipper.

“He would’ve dug that jacket. It looks good on you.”

She gives me an anxious smile. “Let’s do this.”

“I’m nervous too.”

“At least you’ve done one of these.”

“Still.”

“I only knew him for a couple of months. I’m sure I’ll still have parts of his story that you and his parents don’t, but I don’t want to be a disappointment.”

“I doubt you’ll be.”

We glance at each other and I lean in and hug her. More for my solace than hers. I love nearness to her. Not in a lustful way. In the way I loved rubbing satin between my fingers when I was little. There’s something inexplicably comfortable about it.

We take a collective deep breath and walk up the front steps. It’s the first time I’ve been to Eli’s house since before the Accident. The keen ache of nostalgia entwines my heart.

I look around, awestruck. I’ve always heard that there were nice houses in Hillsboro Village, but I’ve never been in one. It’s filled with books stacked on clean, modern, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. They have an exposed-brick wall in their living room, and on it hang several abstract paintings. I’m clueless about art, but I could easily see them in a museum, and it wouldn’t surprise me if they cost more than my house.