26. Grayson

Chapter 26

Grayson

18 Years Ago

T he first thing I see when I wake up is a mop of dark brown hair hanging from the top of my bunk bed. Two blue eyes identical to mine stare at me. Delilah giggles and her hair disappears, and then a stuffed dolphin flies at me from the top bunk.

"Lila!" I laugh, rolling out of bed and climbing the latter onto hers.

"Are you ready for the best day ever?" she singsongs, grabbing another one of her stuffed animals and hugging it to her chest.

Dread tugs at me. "No," I say. "Macy is leaving today, remember?"

Her smile flips, but when she looks down at her stuffed animal, it returns. "Yeah, but Mom and Dad are giving us twenty dollars to spend at the festival! I'm going to buy a new stuffy." She grins at the one in her arms. I wish I was as excited as her.

Everyone jokes about how different we are even though we're twins. Delilah was born first. It's like those extra minutes in the world made her so much wiser than me. The grown-ups like to say she could babysit me . "Do you think Mom and Dad will let me stay home?"

"I don't know, but I really want you to come," she complains. "The festival only happens twice a year! Do you know how long a year is?" Her eyes widen.

It's only open at the end of summer, and around Halloween. There are bounce houses and toys I can buy with the money Mom and Dad are giving me, but I want to play with Macy one last time before she leaves. I do know how long a year is because that's how long until she's coming back.

"I don't want Macy to go either." She frowns. "When we get bigger, you have to marry her. Then her and I will be sisters and she'll have to live here all the time. Not just in the summer."

"Married people kiss." My face scrunches up.

"You're going to have to kiss someone when we're bigger. Every grown-up kisses, so you might as well kiss her. You think she's pretty, don't you?"

My face gets hot, but I lie and say no.

"Delilah! Daniel! Come eat, we gotta go soon," Mom calls from the kitchen.

Delilah grins at me. "I bet we're having strawberries." She loves the fruit. Me not so much. We just learned what a bet was last week. "I bet we're not."

She lifts her chin. "Okay, then if we do have strawberries, you have to eat them forever ." She emphasizes the last word. Forever sounds like a long time.

"And if we don't have strawberries, then you can't eat one ever again," I say.

She puts her hand out for me to shake, and then we race to the kitchen to find two bowls of cereal. "Ha!" I point a finger at her, but she doesn't look like she lost. She smiles proudly. I follow her gaze to the bowl and realize we're having cereal…with sliced strawberries mixed in.

I slump my shoulders and frown. I'm really not going to like the outcome of this loss.

Delilah sticks her tongue at me right as dad comes up from behind us and kisses both of our heads. He ruffles my hair and then takes a seat across from us at our dining table. "Let me guess, you two already made a bet for today."

"Yup! And guess what, Daddy?" Delilah beams.

"What, pumpkin?"

"Daniel has to eat strawberries forever."

"Whatever," I mumble. "I'll win tomorrow's bet." I take a bite of cereal, milk dripping from my chin.

My mom's perfume fills the room and suddenly my chair is being pushed closer to the table with a loud squeak against the wood floor. "How many times do I need to remind you to push yourself in? Look at your lap," she says. I glance at the milk staining my pajamas with a shrug.

She kisses my head just like dad did, then sits beside him with a mug of steaming coffee. Her smile is wide and contagious when my dad presses his lips into her cheek and whispers something in her ear. "Hurry up and finish breakfast so you two can get dressed," mom says. She takes a long sip of coffee and shuts her eyes like it's the most delicious thing she's tasted.

"Mom," Delilah says.

"Yes, sweetie?"

"Can we please listen to Taylor Swift on the way to the festival?"

"We've heard every single song in her album a million times," I mumble my complaint.

"So? You don't even want to go."

"You don't?" dad asks with a frown.

I shake my head.

"But you love the festival. It won't be open again until the fall, you know?" Mom says.

"Does this have something to do with a certain brunette girl leaving this afternoon?" Dad eyes me.

"I want to play with her one last time," I say. I take a sip of my apple juice and glance at her grandparent's house through the window.

My mom sighs. "There's no one to watch you, sweetie pie. I'm sorry."

I look at the floor.

"What if we asked the Brookes's to watch him? We can make it home before they leave for their flight," Dad says. I pipe up.

My mom looks considerate for a second, then says, "I'll call and ask." I want to hop up and down. She talks on the phone for a little while, and when she puts it down, she says, "Finish eating so you can get ready."

I smile widely, but when I look at my sister, she's frowning.

I scoop cereal into my mouth until there's only red fruit and milk in the bowl. I stand to take the dish to the sink when Delilah yells, "Stop!" She peeks inside my bowl. "You have to eat all of them."

I groan and eat one. She laughs at the way my nose scrunches in disgust. I put them all in my mouth, nearly choking as I chew. Once I finish, I run to the bathroom we all share and brush my teeth as fast as I can. I put on my clothes and when I run back into the main living area, my dad laughs. "Daniel, come here." He pulls my shirt off and turns it around. "You put it on backward, goof." Oops. I sit on his lap for a minute while he fills out his daily cross word puzzle. My mom and sister are both getting ready, so it's just the two of us. I grab the pencil out of his hand and write my name in one of the rows since I just learned how.

"Very good, buddy."

I touch the face of his watch. The glass is cold against my finger.

My sister calls my name from our room.

"Sounds like you're being summoned," he says.

I climb out of his lap and ruffle his hair like he always does to me, making him laugh. He reaches out and does the same to me.

Delilah is sitting on the floor, emptying her sparkly backpack. She has a twenty-dollar bill resting beside her. "Do you want me to get you a toy with your money?" she asks.

A lot of my friends from school fight with their sisters. I don't. Not ever. She's my best friend. So is Macy. I would never fight with either of them. "Yeah." I grin.

"What do you want?"

She always picks out cool toys. "You choose."

Her eyes light up and then we slap our hands together in a familiar way. It's our secret handshake. "Gotta go," I say, rushing to the hallway. "Bye, Lilah!" I call over my shoulder as I race to my parents' room.

"Love you!" she calls.

"Love you too!"

I knock on their bedroom door so my mom can walk me to the Brookes' house. She comes out of her room with a knowing smile. I always catch her watching Macy and I play with the same look on her face. She pinches my cheek and I laugh. "Are you positive you don't want to come with us today?"

"Yes, Mom," I mumble.

She laughs and it's bright and happy. "All right. Come on, I'll walk you there."

I reach up and hold her hand with a wide smile on my face when we cross the yard between my house and Macy's grandparents'. I try not to feel sad waiting for someone to open the door, knowing it's going to be a year until I see Macy again. A year sounds like forever.

Her grandma greets me with a warm hug like always, and then I wave my mom goodbye and dart inside the house.

Macy's hair is wild in the mornings before she brushes it, and today is no exception. She sits at the table, dancing in her chair and eating pancakes. Once she notices me, a bright smile overtakes her face. She takes one large bite before leaving her plate and running out the sliding glass door. She calls over her shoulder, "You can't catch me!"

I laugh and chase her, but she's much faster than I am. She gets smaller along the shoreline. I stop to catch my breath, my hands on my knees. She peeks over her shoulder and runs my way. Once she's within range, she says, "Slow poke."

"When you come back next summer, I'll finally catch up to you. I'm going to practice every day."

She looks at the sand, using her foot to draw random shapes in it.

"Are you okay?" I ask when she doesn't say anything else.

When she nods, her chin quivers. She angles her face down so I can't see it. I reach for her hand and squeeze in encouragingly. She slowly meets my gaze with tears in her eyes.

My chest squeezes. "What's wrong?"

She sniffles. "I'm scared to leave. A year is a really long time."

My throat tightens again, but I won't cry. I'll be strong for her, like my dad always is for my mom. I notice something round washed up, so I walk over to it and see it's a sand dollar. I hand it to her, but her frown deepens.

"What's the matter?"

"I can't take this with me. It'll break."

Oh . "Well, I'll hold onto it until you come back. Okay?"

"You promise?"

"I pinky promise." I hold out my smallest finger and she wraps hers around it.

"Riveting! I can't wait to see it when I return."

Riveting? She always uses vocabulary I don't understand. I try to hang on to her pretty words until I can get home to ask my mom for help looking them up in the dictionary. I repeat "riveting" several times in my head, so I don't forget.

"Macy!" her mom calls from the house. "Come put away your plate!"

Macy looks at me with wide eyes and runs back to her house. By the time I make it there, her dish is already in the sink and she's dancing in the living room, jumping on the couch cushions.

"Get down," her mom says.

"She's fine. Let her have fun," Macy's grandma says, which just makes her mom sigh.

Macy hops off the couch to grab my hand, then pulls me up on the furniture and starts jumping. I copy her and she chuckles. My stomach tickles whenever I hear the sound. I like being the cause of it. So, I dance with my arms flailing around, which makes her head tip back with heavy laughter.

"Hey there, kiddo!" her grandfather comes into the living room.

I wave at him mid-jump. He shakes his head at the site of us with an easy smile.

I overhear the grown-ups say they need to leave in two hours for the airport, meaning my family will be home before that.

Macy and I play inside so she doesn't get all dirty before leaving. I count to twenty while she hides, catching sight of her mom glancing at her watch.

We play at least thirty rounds of hide and seek when I hear her mom say to someone, "We needed to leave twenty minutes ago. Where are they?"

Has it already been two hours? I glance out the window and only see my dad's car in my driveway since they took my mom's car to the fair. "Oh, they're back!" I lie, knowing Macy's family is waiting on me, and I don't want to make them late for their flight.

"Great!" Macy's mom says. "We don't have time to go over but tell your family we said goodbye!"

I nod, but no one sees, because everyone is grabbing luggage and rushing out the door in organized chaos. Macy turns to me with tears in her eyes. "I'm going to miss you." She wraps her arms around me. I try not to, but my throat tightens, and my vision goes blurry. I squeeze her tightly. "I really hope this year goes by fast," I whisper into her wild hair that she still hasn't brushed. She smells sweet. Like cake at a birthday party.

"Come on, Macy. Time to go," her grandfather says, practically prying her away from me.

I follow them out the front door and then her grandfather locks it while everyone else piles into the car. Macy's grandma rolls down the driver's window and tells me to go home, so she can see that I made it there safely.

"Bye!" I call with tears falling down my face. Macy waves at me frantically from the back seat.

I drag myself away from the Brookes. My chest aches.

I go through the back door since we usually leave it unlocked, and then I wait in my empty house for my family to return. I open the pantry for a snack and eat it on the couch since no one is here to tell me not to.

I turn on the television with crumbs covering my fingers. I lick away the evidence and put on my favorite cartoon. Countless episodes play until my stomach growls again. During my second trip to the kitchen, I glance out the window only to see one car in the driveway. Did they forget about me? I find a package of cheese from the fridge and eat the entire thing.

I hear a car pull up and run back to the window, only to find its Macy's grandparents returning from the airport.

I go to the room me and Delilah share and find a page in my dinosaur coloring book to work on. I color six whole pictures, working extremely hard to stay in the lines, by the time my room starts to darken. It's nighttime. My heart beats fast, and I run to the living room. Maybe I didn't hear them come home. But like before, the house is empty, and terrifyingly quiet.

I'm starving. Again. I eat gummies. I hope they bring fast food home. Maybe that's what's taking so long. But fast food is supposed to be fast .

I plop onto the couch with a loud sigh, ready to watch even more cartoons when red and blue light up my walls. There's finally a second car out front when I look at the window, only this one belongs to a police officer. Am I in trouble? Someone knocks on my door, and I freeze. I'm not supposed to open it for anyone but my mom and dad.

I run and hide beneath a barstool when a second knock comes and a muffled voice calls from the other side of the door. "This is the police. Please open up."

I squeeze my eyes shut and try to wish them away.

"Daniel, buddy, come open the door," a familiar voice calls. Uncle Ron?

He lives in Fort Meyers, but I only see him on holidays. I know I'm only supposed to open the door for my parents, but I don't think they would want me to leave my uncle outside, so I climb out from beneath the stool and unlock the door.

Uncle Ron doesn't smile or give me a hug. His eyes are red, and he looks scared. A girl police officer with long brown hair follows him inside. I don't know why I'm shaking, why my heart is beating so quickly. They ask me to sit on the couch with them.

"Daniel, something happened when your family was driving home from the festival," Uncle Ron says. He looks like he might cry, which shocks me because I didn't think grown-ups ever cried. "They were in a car accident."

I gasp and cover my mouth. "Is my mom's car okay?" I ask. She was so happy when she bought the vehicle, I remember the pink in her cheeks when she jumped up and down in our driveway to show it to us.

"Have you heard of heaven, Daniel?" the police officer asks.

I nod my head. Heaven is where old people go. It's where my grandparents went.

She looks down for a moment, and when her eyes meet mine, they shine. "Your family went to heaven today. I am so sorry," she says in a broken voice, then gets up and leaves the room. I look at my uncle who isn't crying, and then I laugh when I realize the cop was making a joke.

My mom and dad are much younger than my grandparents were when they went to heaven, and Delilah is only six like me. She wouldn't leave me because we're best friends, and my mom and dad love me, so they wouldn't leave me here either.

"Good one, Uncle Ron." I smile.

He clears his throat and shifts. "This isn't a joke, kid."

I laugh a little more.

" Damn it ! It's not funny, Daniel!" I flinch from how loud his voice is. He sniffs and looks at the wall angrily. His jaw ticks and then he says in a low voice. "Everyone in the car died."

"Stop!" I shout. "That's not funny!" I slap him repeatedly in the chest, trying to make him take back his cruel joke.

He grabs my small hands and looks at me without a hint of a smile. There are two creases between his eyebrows when he says firmly, "They are gone, Daniel."

I'm screaming the word "no" repeatedly, shaking my head, and running down the hallway. I slam the door to our room behind me and click the lock into place. I pick up Delilah's stuffed dolphin and hug the plush toy to my chest, inhaling the smell of my twin. Please come home.

Uncle Ron tries to open the door, and I shout at him to leave me alone. Eventually he does, and in the silence, I wonder if he was telling the truth.

Delilah was just here, throwing this very toy at me. Laughing and making bets about strawberries. She isn't old enough to go to heaven. Mom and dad take care of me. Where would I go if they all left me here and went to heaven?

I hardly remember what happened after that. It's like a fairy came and stole my memory because it hurt too much. I remember glimpses of a woman talking to me. "I help kids like you," she said. "Your Uncle Ron will become your legal guardian. He's going to take care of you." I didn't bother listening.

I waited for my mom, dad, and twin sister to get home every day. I watched cartoons to pass time. I pictured Delilah's laugh as she darted inside. My mom would likely tell her she needed to take off her shoes and my dad would ignore the chaos to kiss my head.

Uncle Ron slept in my parent's bedroom that week. Most of the time he stayed inside the room with the door closed. Silence raged on and on every day, and I wondered how a home could become a house in a matter of seconds.

One night after dinner, I sat in front of the TV but couldn't bring myself to turn it on. Because distractions were like sleeping, and the second I woke up, everything would come crashing back to me and it hurt all over again.

I watched my reflection in the dark screen. Nothing moved in the background.

There was only me.

I lifted my arm and flapped it in the air and my stomach began hurting. So badly. It was a different stomachache from when I'm sick. This one felt like I might die and go to heaven too.

The pain moved to my chest, through my arms, and down my legs.

The realization was the loudest thought I've ever had. They aren't coming home.

I would never see my twin again. She'd never eat another strawberry. I remember, before all of this happened, how I thought a year was long. I'd give anything to wait a year in comparison to a lifetime to see them again. As I saw the emptiness behind my reflection, I realized how permanent forever was.

I curled into myself and cried harder than I ever had. If I had gone with them to the festival, I'd be in heaven with them. Instead, I'm left alone in a huge world without parents or a sister who I called my best friend.

I climbed the ladder and slept on the top bunk, hugging Delilah's stuffed animals. I wonder if she bought a new one like she said she would. I wonder what toy she was bringing back for me. I had a million questions for her, but they would go forever unanswered.

Are there strawberries in heaven? Can you see me lying in the top bunk and crying myself to sleep every night? Do you miss me as much as I miss you?

Uncle Ron made me move to his house in Fort Meyers. I even had to start a new school, since he wouldn't drive me forty-five minutes every day to my school in Sanibel. I was the only kid in the first grade without a best friend. Mine was in heaven and I had no interest in finding a new one. During recess every day, I sat on the bench by myself, and when my teacher tried to get me to play with the other kids, I acted as if I couldn't hear her.

My uncle picked me up in car line daily. He made sure I did my homework and woke me up every day so I wouldn't be late. But he never spoke about my family. He didn't give me hugs or kisses like mom and dad did. He didn't read to me before bed. He pretended not to notice when my eyes were red and swollen.

Every day I lived in deafening silence. Every day hurt. Every day I wished I'd gone to heaven too.

A year had come and gone.

Uncle Ron took a week and a half off work that summer. My old house was in his name, so he brought me there for the short amount of time.

I was in my old room the moment Macy hopped out of her grandpa's truck with her bright yellow backpack. She bounced up and down on her tippy toes and lifted her face toward the sun. She looked at my house and a huge smile overtook her face. I was suddenly less alone in this huge world, until she ran to my front door, and I stupidly hid inside my closet.

I never told anyone what happened to my family. I can't say the words. I never will. Everything was so different from last summer, so much so I decided staying away from the only person I had left was easier than voicing the truth.

Macy's voice was muffled, but my uncles carried since it was so deep. I sunk to the hard floor, and me and Delilah's clothes covered my pained face when I heard him tell Macy that my family and I moved away, and that he was a stranger who bought our home. When the front door closed, I ran to the window to see her walk to her house with her shoulders slumped. She lifted her hand to her face and wiped her cheek. I was crying too.