Page 116 of Happiness for Beginners

“Shoulda sent you two into the backwoods years ago.”

He was trying to make me laugh, but instead I just sighed.

“So,” Duncan said, after a pause, “he didn’t get hurt or anything?”

It was a question about his vision. Duncan knew, but he didn’t know if I knew. “Do you mean his sight?”

“So you know?” Duncan asked.

I nodded. “And you do, too.”

“Of course I know. He’s my best friend.”

“But you didn’t tell me.”

He seemed genuinely puzzled. “Why would I tell you?”

It was a good point. A month ago, I wouldn’t have cared much.

“So he did okay?” Duncan asked. “He didn’t get maimed?”

“He lost his glasses at one point,” I said. “Then I broke them. But we duct-taped them back together.”

He nodded. “Big fan of duct tape.”

It was strange to see Duncan again after weeks of Jake touting all his good points, but it was even stranger now that I knew what GiGi had told me about our mom. Somehow, even though it didn’t change anything, it changed everything. I’d been vacillating all day over telling Duncan. Part of me thought he should never have to know, and another just-as-vocal part thought we both should have known all along. Suddenly, the vacillating stopped: I just knew I needed to tell him, and—standing in our childhood hallway in the only home Duncan even remembered—the words were out as soon as I felt the impulse to speak them. I was almost as shocked to hear them as he was.

“Mom tried to kill herself,” I said then.

He went white. “What?”

“Not today!” I said. “When we were kids.”

He stared.

“The day she left us here and didn’t come back? It was because she tried to kill herself.”

“I don’t remember that day.”

“I do.”

“GiGi told you this?”

I nodded.

“Today?”

I nodded.

“Why today?”

“Because I asked her.”

Duncan ran his hands through his hair. “I always thought Mom left because I was such a little shit.”

“But that’s just it!” I said. “By being a little shit, you saved her!”

He frowned.

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