Page 67 of Happiness for Beginners

“Are you kidding?” he whispered back, glancing around. “An air horn wouldn’t wake them.”

I gave a little smile, and looked down at my hands in my lap.

After a minute, Jake said, “It wasn’t your fault, you know.”

I looked away. “Of course it was my fault. I was the big sister.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I should have gone with him.”

“What were you—nine years old?”

I nodded. I knew what Jake was trying to say. I realized that it was complicated, and that siblings aren’t the same as parents, and that I should have forgiven myself long ago. But there was no changing any of it, and even though I knew that no regret was strong enough to change the past, I still kept hanging on to it. Somehow, it seemed like the only decent thing to do.

“I’m sorry,” Jake said in a quiet voice.

“After it happened, my mother became frantic. She was frantic at the lake looking for him. Even after they found him in the water, she stayed frantic. It was like she couldn’t stop looking. She woke up night after night and paced around the house. Two months later, she was pregnant.”

“On purpose?”

I nodded. “I think so. Trying to replace him. But the thing was, he was irreplaceable.”

Jake gave a little half smile. “And that’s how the world wound up with Duncan.”

“Some brothers and sisters don’t get along,” I went on. “But Nathan and I were real, genuine friends. He was a year younger, but it didn’t matter. We fought, but we always made up. We palled around together. We built forts. We went exploring. We drew each other pictures. We stood up for each other.”

“So, basically, exactly the opposite of you and Duncan.”

I shrugged. “I don’t know what my mother was thinking. Before we knew it, there was this new baby—this colicky, stuck-pig-sounding baby—screaming its head off twenty-four/seven in the house. New babies have got to be tough on a family under the best of circumstances but Duncan was unbearable. So my father disappeared into his job. My mother had been working part time as a librarian, but she quit to deal with the baby—which was the opposite of what she needed. She got trapped in our sad house with an inconsolable infant. And I—”

Here, I paused.

“You?” Jake prompted.

I shrugged. “I just got forgotten.”

Jake leaned in a little closer.

“My parents separated within a year,” I went on. “My dad moved to San Diego and got remarried. I hardly ever see him now. And for two years after that my mom stayed in Evanston in our house and tried to raise Duncan and me on her own, but she just couldn’t hack it. It was a nice house in a nice part of town, but there wasn’t enough money—or maybe she just couldn’t manage it all. We got yellow bills. They kept turning off the water and the power and it would take her days to get it back on. There were piles of laundry everywhere—so many, you couldn’t tell dirty from clean. She cried all the time and forgot to make dinner. She forgot to pay the lawn guy so many times, he just stopped coming, and our grass grew like three feet tall. The pool in our backyard sprouted a sheet of algae. I tried to pick up the slack: I folded the clothes and taught myself to heat up soup and make grilled cheeses, but one morning, not long after I turned thirteen, she drove us across town to Grandma GiGi’s and left us there.”

“It’s lucky Grandma GiGi is so awesome.”

I gave a nod. “That part was lucky.”

“Do you ever see your mom now?”

I looked out at the night shadows. “Every now and then, we go to coffee, and she tells me about her job while I nod and nod. She’s a graphic designer–slash–yoga instructor now, and when she asks me how I am, I tell her I’m great.”

“Because you’re always great.”

“That’s right.”

“She wasn’t at your wedding, was she?”

I shook my head.

“Was your dad?”

---