Page 6 of The Last Thing You Said

And that’s when the little girl named Lucy threw up all over Trixie’s shoes.

Trixie was very nice to Lucy. She called for the teacher and rubbed Lucy’s back and said, “You’re fine. You’re fine.”

“Trixie,” said their teacher, “please take Lucy to the nurse.”

The nurse called Lucy’s mother, and Trixie waited with her in the office until her mother arrived.

“I’m going to call you Lulu,” Trixie said as they sat side by side in yellow plastic chairs.

“Why?” Lucy asked.

“Because you look like a Lulu.”

The next day, Lucy, now called Lulu, wasn’t nervous about kindergarten. Trixie and Lulu built a village with blocks and played kitchen and practiced writing their names. They swung together on the monkey bars. They sat next to each other during snack time. Everywhere that Trixie and Lulu went, everything they touched was left with a fine dusting of silver and gold glitter.

“Bye, Lulu,” Trixie said at the end of the day. “I can’t wait for us to be friends again tomorrow and the next day and forever.”

She squeezed Lulu’s hand, and when she let go, Lulu traced the line of glimmering gold across her palm that sealed their friendship forever.

4 · Ben

At dinner, Dad talks nonstop.

“The lake was pretty crowded today, don’t you think, Ben? Beautiful day. The resort’s booked up for the summer already, and most of them want guides, too. Lots of fishing in our future.”

Fishing is one of the few things we have in common anymore, although it’s not like it used to be. Nothing is. Dad and Uncle John grew up at the resort and know every single inch of Halcyon Lake like the backs of their hands—the widemouth sweet spots and the best weed beds for bluegills. Dad works at the resort during the summer, too, when he’s off from his job teaching earth science at the middle school.

Mum sets a platter of brownies on the table. Today her blond hair is a perfect wave held back with a headband that matches her light blue blouse. Mum is from London, and she’s got the accent and obsessions with Jane Austen and gardens to go along with it.

“I spent the morning working up at the cemetery,” Mum says when Dad finally stops rambling. Like she’s gone to the grocery store or the library. A common errand. “A few of the bricks around Mr. Wilson’s garden had come loose, so I fixed those and weeded a bit.”

Not only has my mother planted a garden for Trixie, she tends to neglected graves, too. She’s gone to the cemetery almost every day since Trixie died, even in winter.

“You should come with me, Ben,” Mum says. “It would be good for you to help with your sister’s garden. I find that digging in the earth to make room for something beautiful is rather therapeutic.”

Sure. Sometimes she comes back, her face streaked with dirt and tears, and she drinks cup after cup of tea. Incapable of doing anything else, her energy and emotions used up in the dirt.

“I’ll stick to fishing,” I say, “but thanks.”

“I’m with you there, son,” Dad says.

“Is that right?” I mumble. I can’t remember the last time my dad and I fished together.

Mum sighs. Dad clears his throat and takes a drink from a bottle of beer. He never used to drink at dinner. Now he keeps the fridge and liquor cabinet stocked. It’s convenient for me when he forgets to lock it.

“I saw Lucy Meadows up at the resort today,” Dad says. “She’s helping out with Emily this summer.”

I can barely swallow the last of my hamburger, suddenly dry and tasteless. I take a long drink of water. I don’t say anything.

I guess I do remember the last time I went out fishing with my dad.

Of course it was last summer, before Trixie died. Our family and the Meadows family had gone out on the pontoon. Trixie fell asleep in the sun but Lucy fished. She sat next to me on one of the chairs in the bow, propped her feet on the edge of the boat, and waited. She always had more patience than Trix. She reeled in some perch and a nice smallmouth bass.

“That poor girl,” Mum says.

That’s something I don’t get about my mother—how she is always so concerned about Lucy, how Lucy’s doing. If it were me, I’d be pissed. I’d be thinking all the time: Lucy is alive but my daughter isn’t.

Lucy is alive but my sister isn’t. Maybe if I’d paid more attention that day, instead of thinking about Lucy—that she was so close, that her skin was so warm, glistening in the sun—maybe Trixie would be alive.