When I finish the candy I still don’t want to talk so I push my head under Dad’s sweater and feel the warmth of his chest as he breathes up and down and I smell his Gil lette Cool Wave Antiperspirant and Deodorant. He doesn’t even say, No Caitlin, and pull me out. He lets me stay there and pats my head through the sweater. If it’s through the sweater I don’t mind. Otherwise I don’t like anyone to touch me. Dad talks to the world outside the sweater and his voice makes a low hummy-vibratey feel. I close my eyes and wish I could stay here forever.
CHAPTER 3
LET’S TALK ABOUT IT
DAD SAYS IT’S TIME TO GO BACK to school so here I am.
Back in Mrs. Brook’s room.
Sitting at the little round table.
I look at the walls and not much has changed except that the mad face on the Facial Expressions Chart now has a mustache. I know because I have looked at that chart about a million times to try to figure out which emotion goes with each face. I’m not very good at it. I have to use the chart because when I look at real faces I don’t Get It. Mrs. Brook says people have a hard time understanding me because I have Asperger’s so I have to try extra hard to understand them and that means working on emotions.
I’d rather work on drawing.
Hi Caitlin, Mrs. Brook says softly. She still smells like Dial Body Wash.
I look at the chart and nod. This means I’m listening even if there’s no eye contact.
So how are you?
I suck on my sleeve and stare at the chart.
How are you feeling?
I stare at the chart some more and hear myself sigh. My stomach feels all yucky like it’s at recess which is my worst subject but I take a deep breath and try to Deal With It. Finally I say, I feel like TiVo.
She leans across the table toward me. Not too close to my Personal Space because I’ll use my words to tell her to back off if she gets too close. Say again?
TEE-VO.
What do you mean?
I fast-forward through the bad parts and all of a sudden I’m watching something and I’m not sure how I got there.
She scratches the part in her hair with her forefinger. The rest of her fingers stick up in the air and move like they’re waving. Then she stops. I see, she says.
I look around the room. What do you see? I ask.
I think you’d like to forget about the painful events you’ve been through.
I want to tell her that I prefer TiVo on mute and I wish she’d cooperate. But if I do it’ll start a whole Let’s Talk About It discussion so I say nothing.
The funeral must have been very difficult, she says.
I wonder what she means. We sat in church. It was not very difficult. It was like TiVo on mute. Everyone spoke so quietly I could barely hear them and almost no one talked to me. They looked at me which I did not like and some of them even touched me which I hate but no one tried to Start a Conversation with me and no one laughed like crashing glass and there was no lightning movement and no one appeared out of nowhere and nothing happened suddenly.
Let’s Talk About It, she says.
I turn around in my chair so I can’t see her anymore.
I know it’s difficult but you can’t keep it all inside. She stops talking but not for long. Did you cry at the funeral?
I shake my head. At the funeral a lot of grown-ups cried but I don’t know why. Most of them had never even met Devon. I think about how much Dad has been crying and the words jump out of my mouth. Dad cried.
Did that upset you?
I grip the back of my chair. I didn’t like it.
Why not?
I don’t know.
Were you sad for him?
I don’t know.
Were you afraid?
I don’t know.
Did it make you uncomfortable?
I try to think of a different answer than I don’t know because Devon says people don’t like I don’t know all that much. I don’t know why. So I try hard to focus on her question. Did it make you uncomfortable? I think about what is comfortable. Being completely covered by my purple fleece blanket under my bed or putting my head under the sofa cushion or reading my Dictionary. I did not have any of those things at the funeral. Yes. I was uncomfortable.
Why?
I don’t know. Please stop asking me questions.
Caitlin. Your father is sad.
I turn back toward the Facial Expressions Chart. I wonder how Mrs. Brook knows what he’s feeling right now. And I wonder if I’ve done something wrong. Why?
Her head pokes forward like a turtle before she pulls it back in and says in her Nice Voice, He misses Devon.
Oh. MISS is a strange word, I tell her. Have you ever looked it up in the Dictionary? There is MISS like MISS Harper the principal. There is MISS like you will MISS your bus if you don’t hurry because you have to step on every crack. And there is MISS like dead.
Do you miss Devon?
I don’t know.
She does the turtle head jerk again — just barely but I see it.
He’s not completely gone anyway, I tell her. I think about his bedroom even though the door is shut and his bike leaning against the back of the house and his chest in the corner of the living room.
Her face squishes up like she’s trying to Get It. That’s true, she says slowly. A part of Devon will always be with you.
Which part, I wonder. No parts of his body are left because he was cremated. That means burned up into ashes.
Can you feel him?
I look around the air. I look down at my hands. Are parts of Devon scraping me? Is that what I’m supposed to feel? The heat is blowing from the vent in the ceiling and I feel that. But that’s only air from the furnace. Or does it have Devon in it? Where do you go when you get burned up and turn into smoke in the air? Maybe you get sucked into furnace systems and blown out through the vents. I shrug.
Can’t you still feel Devon? Mrs. Brook asks again.
Maybe. I’m not sure it’s really him though. It could be anyone. What would he feel like?
I mean the things he did for you. The things you did together. You’ll miss him but he’ll always be with you. Just in a different way.
I don’t want him around in a different way. I want him around in the same way. The way he was before. When he makes me popcorn and hot chocolate. And he tells me what to say and what clothes to wear and how not to be weird so kids won’t laugh at me. And he plays basketball with me. He always gives me a chance to win by tripping or moving slowly or going the wrong way when I do a fake. I can tell when he’s doing something on purpose by looking at his mouth. His lips move a certain way when he’s thinking. When he’s being sneaky his lips move a different way. But when he’s being sneaky he’s doing it to be nice to me.