Page 10 of What Comes After

“They’re coming, Mom!”

“Okay, Devyn. I already told Mary that I’d have the door unlocked. They know to come right inside,” my mom called out from the kitchen.

I stayed where I was, leaning over the back of the couch, watching the rain fall as I waited for Theo to get here.

Theo was my best friend. He was my best friend, just like his mom was my mom’s best friend.

The coolest thing about it was that we all lived close to each other. Theo lived with his mom and dad across the street from my parents and me. There were other kids in the neighborhood that we sometimes played with, but Theo and I liked hanging out with each other the best.

Neither one of us had any brothers and sisters, so we always got together to play while our moms talked about adult stuff.

Ugh.

That was so boring.

Theo felt the same way. We’d hear our parents talking, and if it was possible, we’d find a way to leave the room. They’d always talk about the news or the weather or something they’d heard happened to someone in the neighborhood.

No eight-year-old wanted to listen to any of that.

Today was Saturday, it was the beginning of April, and Theo and his mom were coming over for a couple of hours. There was a girl at our school who’d gotten cancer. I didn’t really understand much about it, but I knew it meant that she was very sick, in the hospital a lot, and wouldn’t be at school for a while.

She was nine and in the grade above me, so I didn’t know her. The PTA had come up with an idea to help raise money for her family, though. There was going to be a bake sale tomorrow, and that was why Theo was coming over with his mom.

Our moms were going to spend the day baking stuff to be sold at the bake sale while Theo and I would get to hang out and play.

I started giggling as I watched Theo and his mom make their way over to our house. Mary had her umbrella open and was carrying a bag on her other arm. Theo was walking beside her, holding a bag in each of his hands, but I could see he was torturing his mom. She was trying to get them across the street quickly, and Theo was pretending to head for the puddles in the road.

He never actually jumped into any of the puddles, but based on her reaction, his mom obviously believed he might do it.

As soon as they crossed and stepped onto the sidewalk, Theo looked up at our house. I waved excitedly from the window, and he smiled back at me as he said something to his mom. She looked up at the window and smiled at me, too.

Since I couldn’t wait any longer and their hands were full, I hopped down off the couch and ran to the front door.

“Hi, Mary. Hi, Theo.”

“Good morning, Devyn. Thanks for opening the door for us. We’ve got our hands full,” Mary said.

“You’re welcome.”

As she worked on closing her umbrella, I looked at my best friend. “Did you see me trying to jump in the puddles on the way here?”

I started laughing again. “Yeah. You looked like you were about to be in big trouble.”

“Nah. I was just having fun. Mom knew that. Right, Mom?” he asked, looking up at her.

She lifted one of her eyebrows and sent a stern look his way, that same look that my mom would sometimes give me.

While she didn’t really seem mad at him right now, I knew that Theo and I both understood what those looks meant. Playing around and testing our parents wouldn’t be a smart idea whenever we saw that look.

My mom finally joined us at the front door.

“Hi, Rhonda. Sorry about the water. This rain is just crazy,” Mary said to her.

“Oh, don’t worry about it. I was just talking to David about it this morning. I hope it clears up before the bake sale tomorrow,” my mom replied.

See?

They immediately started talking about the weather.

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