Remembering
This is about 9,000 words/20 pages. Enjoy!
Remembering
Kelly N. Thomas
December 13, 2009
Present
As I drive home from his parents’ house, I remember that I was five once and that when I was five, he had been twenty-two. I remember holding his hand as we walked through the supermarket. My arm was above my head, even though he was leaning a little to the side to accommodate me. My left hand was at my mouth, my thumb being sucked on. It was a nasty habit that had stuck with me. I can’t remember now what we had been looking for, but that detail is irrelevant. The only part that matters is the fact that I still remember him. I don’t want him to fade away and this memory reassures me, even though it’s only been two hours since they closed his casket and lowered it into the earth.
As I drive, I still hear the thud,
thud,
thud,
of the hot, dry, California soil hitting the sleek, black coffin like a cadence. Before then, it really hadn’t seemed real, but now I had found that what happened was real, and that I would have to learn to cope with my loss. I knew it would be hard to do and I tried to get myself to stop thinking about it. I couldn’t. How did this happen? was the question I kept asking myself in my mind, over and over again.
-------
Eleven Days Earlier
I remember I had been sitting at the kitchen table, sipping coffee like any other day when suddenly, my life changed. My apartment was a small, cozy, homely place and I found comfort in it. Pictures of family and friends were hung everywhere; they reminded me, still reminded me, of home. I had chosen to go to college 3,000 miles away for a single reason: freedom.
I looked up at the clock and sighed. I had twenty minutes till I had to get up off my ass, stop thinking of home, and get ready for classes. It wasn’t as if I was going to learn anything. I was still pondering why he had woke me up at 6 a.m. and told me that he had something to say that I needed to know. Why had he done that? Why had he told me that he was catching a flight to tell me? Why did he say that he needed to be here, to tell me in person? Something wasn’t right and half of me didn’t want to know what was wrong, but the other half was hating the fact that I had to wait until 5:30 to get an answer.
I walked back into my apartment after a very long day and immediately looked to the clock on the microwave. Only an hour until he would be here. I threw my jacket on the back of the chair and threw my backpack on the table, then walked over to the stove and started up a pot of water to boil. He’d probably be hungry.
I smiled then as I started to remember what life used to be like with him; how I used to tag along to parties with him, drink with him, and fall asleep with him. That of course had all been when I was older. When I had been younger, he had taken me to see children’s plays, read me stories at bedtime, and took me shopping with him. My big brother figure had changed a lot over the years.
I put the spaghetti noodles into the pot and started heating up the sauce. I looked up to the clock again. He’d be here any minute. Thank god. I just wanted to see him, wanted to know what was so important for him to be here to tell me. I got out the plates and silverware, doing tasks just to keep myself busy. I heard the buzzer and ran over to the door, pushing the button so that he could come up to my apartment. I ran back over into the kitchen and strained the noodles, added the warm sauce into the pot, and then I mixed it all together.
I jumped when I heard the knock at the door, even though I knew he’d be there. I rushed back to the door and opened it up, giving him a wide smile. “Paulie!” I remember saying as I jumped into his arms and hugged him while he spun me around before he set me down. I remember him holding me out at arms length, looking me over. “How are you?” I asked. He looked a little pale, a little thinner than I remembered, but it had been almost three years since I had seen him. He was thirty-seven now. His muscles were definitely smaller, but they were certainly still there.
“Hi Mandy,” Paul said softly, pulling me back into him as he shut the door. “I’ve been better, I guess,” he told me before he sniffed the air and smiled. “My favorite, you remembered.”
I remember laughing a little and leading him over to the stove, plating him up some. “No meatballs though because I didn’t have the time,” I smiled at him sheepishly. He took the plates and went over to the table. “You wanna beer?” I asked, already grabbing two from the fridge.
“No. And how did you even get that? You’re not twenty-one,” he said, his tone incredulous.
“I-“, I stuttered. “Well, what’s it matter?” I asked him then, grabbing cokes instead. Something felt off. “When did you stop wanting beer?” I asked while I walked over, handed him his drink and sat down.
“I’m just trying to back off it,” Paul told me after a few mouthfuls of his food and a few sips of his coke. “You shouldn’t be drinking at all. I know, I know, you’re going to say that I’m the one who got you started. I can’t argue with you there, but,” he paused then and dropped an already full fork of spaghetti back down onto his plate, “it’s not good for you Mandy. You’re wasting your life away. Just like I did. It’s too short, too precious.”
I looked at him, confused. “What do you mean? It’s too short, too precious?” I asked suspiciously. “When did you start thinking stuff like that?”
“I meant exactly what I said and that doesn’t matter either,” he replied to me as he finished his plate and went for seconds.
I sat there quietly, watching him. He seemed different, more mature, more mellow… more adult. I decided to just let that side of the conversation go. “Well, okay. What have you been up to lately?” I asked him, frowning some as I finished off the rest of my plate. My stomach was dropping even more just with the way he was acting. My first instinct on the phone had been right. Something was wrong.
“Not much. I’ve been trying to get my G.E.D. Be glad you actually finished high school,” he said seriously, shaking his head some as he ate. “I wish I had. I just want a good job,” he paused. “Not that a good job will matter now,” he added under his breath. He sighed heavily and then went back to eating.
I remember giving him a look of utter disbelief. He was making my head run in circles. “Paul,” I paused, “what do you mean by saying that a good job won’t matter now?” I asked, trying to get to the bottom of things. Was this leading into his bad news that he had to tell me in person?
He looked up at me. “Nothing, nothing,” he muttered, taking both of our plates over to the sink and leaving them there. He paused with his back to me for a few seconds too long.
I got up from my chair and walked up to him. “Why’d you come? After almost three years, what is so damn important that you had to tell me in person?”
Paul turned around to look at me. “I need you to help me with something,” he told me slowly, looking at the ground between us instead of at my face. “It’s important. Please don’t say no.”
He sounded like he was begging me, something that he had never done before. “Okay, okay, I’ll help,” I tried to soothe, watching his eyes grow glassy for a moment before they cleared; he smiled, and then looked up at me. “What is it?”
“A list,” he muttered, barely audible as he pulled a worn paper folded in quarters from his back pocket. “I need to make some things right...things I did wrong before.”
I frowned at him, even more confused then before. “Like what?” I asked lightly, trying to keep the situation light. That list, whatever it was, obviously meant a lot to him by the way he was looking at it, looking at me.
“Here, read it,” he said, holding it out to me. I took it. He turned back around and started washing the dishes as I read.
“Okay, so you want to fix this stuff, apologize, help out people that you hurt before?” I asked, not sure why this was suddenly so important to him.
“Yeah. I’ve been thinking lately and I’ve realized that I need to set some stuff straight before…” he paused again.
“Before?” I prodded, thinking he had just lost his train of thought.
“I just need to make it right. To feel better about myself,” he offered in response. I wasn’t convinced.
-------
Present
I park my car and turn off the engine, then pull the keys out of the ignition and just sit there. I lean forward so that my forehead is resting against the steering wheel. This isn’t fair. I reach over and grab the list, look it over. There are tears in my eyes, tears that have been there all day, tears that have been there since Tuesday when I had walked in to wake him up and he had been silent, cold, still. I shake my head. I can’t think about that. I hold the list tighter in my hand, my jaw set. This isn’t over. Forget school, forget the plane. I have to go back, I have to finish this. I find that my hand has already shoved the keys back into the ignition and has already put the car in reverse. I pull out of the airport parking lot and out onto the road, my face set. I’m beginning to see why Paul did this. He wasn’t just doing it for himself. He was helping me out as well the whole time. Paul really didn’t want me to end up like him. Like the failure that he felt that he was.
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Nine Days Before the Funeral
“Where did you want to start?” I asked as we walked through the airport. I desperately wanted to see the ocean again, but Paul seemed set on finishing this list as soon as possible. It was unnerving really, how adamant he was about it. For the most part, the items on the list were simple things to fix like repaying the owner of a car that he had once smashed the window out of in middle school.
“I figured we’d start in my hometown. I have to apologize to that elderly couple and see if I can find my friend from high school. I also need to see Elaine,” he told me as he took my hand and led me out to his car.
I vaguely remember wondering why he had taken my hand. Maybe it was just out of habit. “Who’s Elaine?” I asked, looking down at the list. I knew why he wanted to visit the elderly couple, Mr. and Mrs. McKee, and Andy, his friend from school, but who was this Elaine.
Paul chuckled a bit at my question. “Remember that girl I stood up at senior prom? That’s Elaine. I’ve never quite forgiven myself for being such an ass to her.” He held open my door for me and helped me in, then walked around to his side and got in.
“Okay, sounds like a plan,” I smiled, holding back a snort of laughter. Elaine was such a geek.
Paul started the car and pulled out of the parking lot at the airport. We stayed silent for most of the trip. Mostly he just commented on stuff that had happened in the past three years that I hadn’t seen or heard of because of my absence. We arrived in front of a two story home and pulled over against the curb. Paul’s hands began to shake as he turned off the car, but he didn’t move to get out.
“This the McKees’ place?” I asked. I watched him nod and frowned. “Paul, it’s not a big deal, just go up and apologize to them. You played a Halloween prank on them when you were thirteen. They didn’t press charges so they must not hate you. Just go up and introduce yourself, say you’re sorry, and say thank you to them for not pressing charges,” I told him, patting his shoulder lightly.
“Come with me,” he said, commanding me more than asking me.
I got out of the car with him and walked up to the house. I knocked on the door when he didn’t and stood there with him. I felt like his support system. It made me feel good that for once he was relying on me to help him, instead of vice versa.
A woman answered the door. She was a younger woman, probably mid to late twenty’s. Paul looked at her and shook his head, then walked back to the car. “Can I help you?” she asked me.
“Is this still the McKee residence?” I asked her, looking back over my shoulder at Paul’s retreating back. I hoped he wasn’t this way with everything on his list.
“No, the McKee’s passed a few years ago. I bought the house from them when they went into the nursing home down the street,” she told me, looking somewhat quizzical.
“Alright. Sorry to bother you. Have a nice day,” I said, I turned around and headed in the direction of the car. I stepped in and shut my door, then buckled my seat belt. “What do you want to do?”
Paul shook his head and pulled away from the curb. “I have to fix it somehow.”
“Paul, it’s a lost cause. They passed away a few years ago according to the woman. They were in a nursing home when it happened,” I told him. I gasped some as he made a u-turn.
“I’m going to go to the nursing home and talk with some of the seniors there. Maybe, maybe I can get the McKee’s to forgive me for just doing a good deed. Maybe I can make another person’s day just a little bit better.” He pulled into the parking lot at the senior citizen home and got out without another word.
I followed him in and waited as he talked to the woman at the front desk. She smiled kindly at us, nodding her head at what Paul was saying. I couldn’t hear him. He was talking in a low voice, and his body was bent slightly towards the woman, almost as if he didn’t want me to hear. “I think we can manage that,” the nurse said with an even wider smile before she motioned us both to follow her.
She led us back to a giant room that looked as if it had about four or five separate rooms in it because of the way the furniture was positioned. Elderly men and women were shuffling and wheeling themselves around the room, talking with others, playing cards and board games. Some were just sitting there staring off into the distance. The nurse led us over to an older gentleman who was sitting on the couch watching TV. She introduced us to the man; his name was Tobias Smithson.
We sat down in chairs across from him as the nurse left. We talked to him for almost two hours. He was a very interesting man who had lived a lot of life. He had been a commander on a ship in the Navy during the Korean War. He had four children to a wife that had passed away about three months ago. A glassy look came to his eye when he began talking about his family and we soon learned that his kids lived scattered throughout the country.
We got up when a nurse came and told Tobias that it was time for his dialysis treatment. Paul and I walked from the center in silence. It was hard to believe that we had just met a man that had been through so much and was so at peace. I got into the car when Paul unlocked the door and sat back in my seat. My head was spinning over the conversation that we had just had.
“Well, are you going to mark that off the list for me or no?” Paul asked after he had pulled out onto the street in the direction that we had been going before we made the u-turn. It was almost dark now, the sun setting off into the distance.
“Oh yeah, sure,” I replied. I dug into my purse and found the list and a pen, then drew a line through number four. “Where are we going now?”
“Dinner. Then I want to go see Elaine,” he said. “I talked to her old neighbor Jeff and he told me that she still lived in the same house she grew up in. That makes my task a lot easier. I’m going to have to find Andy.” He pulled into a little diner about ten minutes later. “You remember this place?”
I smiled. “Of course I remember this place.” It was the first place where Paul had kissed me. He had taken me here for dinner the night before I turned sixteen. I felt little butterflies in my stomach. Had he brought me here for a reason? I got out of the car and walked into the restaurant with him. We took a seat at a booth and waited for the waitress.
-------
Present
“Mandy!” Paul’s mom says in surprise as she answers the door about an hour after I left the airport. “What are you doing back here?” Her eyes are bloodshot, red rimmed.
I step closer to her and pull her into a hug, her petit body falls into mine. “It’s okay Mrs. Dotson,” I try to soothe, even though it isn’t okay. She just lost her son. I move inside with her and take off my shoes, and then I walk back to the kitchen and sit her down at the table. “Tea or coffee?” I ask her, putting the teakettle on the stove to boil. I walk back over to her and sat down across from her at the table, then take her hand in mine and lightly squeeze it. “I need you to help me with something. I can’t do it on my own.”
She looks up at me. “Whatever you need Mandy,” she tells me softly before she gets up and walks over to the stove. She’s brought us both teas.
“Thanks,” I say, holding the cup between both of my hands. I reluctantly let go of the cup and pull the list from the back pocket of my jeans after a few seconds of thought. “I need you to help me find these people. I need to finish what Paul set out to do.” I frown as I look down at the half finished list. I hand the list over to her. “I need you to help me find out what the last one on the list is.”
“I’ll help you. I’ll do whatever you need sweetheart,” Mrs. Dotson replies before she gently takes the list from me. Her eyes widen at the tasks we have completed and the ones that are as of now, still undone.
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Nine Days Before the Funeral (Night)
I walked up to another house with him. This had to be Elaine’s place. I stood to the side, as he knocked on the door and I remember feeling out of place. A woman with dark hair and thick glasses opened the door. Her eyes widened as she took in Paul standing there in front of her. “Y-yes?” she stuttered as she pushed her thick glasses back up on the bridge of her nose.
“Hi Elaine, just thought you might like that dance that you were supposed to have at prom with me.” Paul chuckled some as he watched her. “I shouldn’t have stood you up like I did.”
Elaine’s mouth dropped open a little. “I should have expected it. I knew I wasn’t good enough for you. I don’t know why I even asked,” she told him, her voice withdrawn, but there was still a sharpness to it.
Paul laughed loudly in response. “Come on. Just let me take you out for one dance, please?” he asked as he held his hand out to her. He seemed at ease in this situation. Really, Paul held the upper hand here. It should be easy to get Elaine to dance with him so that he could check her name off his list.
“Well….okay,” Elaine said. She seemed as if she was trying to sound like she was grudgingly giving in, but she didn’t quite pull it off. She slipped on some shoes then took his hand and walked out with him. “Who’s this?” she asked then, looking to me.
“Just my little helper.”
“Helper?” Elaine asked as she walked with him to the car. She gave me a once over when I stepped into the back seat of the car.
“You’ll see,” Paul retorted, helping her into the car before he went around to his side and pulled out. He was heading towards the park.
He pulled into the parking lot after about two minutes. He helped Elaine from the car after he got out himself and I followed them with the boom box. He took her over to the gazebo and walked up into it with her. He looked to me and nodded his head as I watched him pull Elaine into him and wrap his hand lightly around her waist, over her hips. I pressed the play button and forwarded the CD to number six, then stood back and watched them as they talked and danced.
They were actually kind of cute together. The night was so beautiful. The song ended and Paul hugged her. Elaine blushed brightly and then we all walked back to the car and drove her back to her house.
“Check that one off, Mandy,” Paul told me after he got into the car from walking Elaine to the door.
“Already did,” I murmured. I looked out the window. “Why are you doing this?” I remember asking him. “Why do you need my help?”
Paul’s face fell slightly as he heard my questions. “I’ll tell you when we get back to my place.”
I looked back down to the list and then looked up to him. “Why does the last one on the list say ‘Find blank’?” I asked then as I looked down to the list again. The final to do was just the word ‘find’ and then a black line spread across the space on the page for about an inch.
“I’ll tell you that at some point.”
“Why not now?”
“Because I can’t tell you that now. Not yet,” Paul said as he parked in his driveway and got out of the car. I followed him into the house and over to the living room. My stomach was dropping more and more with every passing second.
-------
Present
“Do you have any idea what the last task on the list is?” I ask Mrs. Dotson after she doesn’t respond the first time.
“It’s his son.”
“What?! He has a son?” My mouth drops open and my eyes widen. How could he not tell me that?
“Yes. He decided with Angela to put the boy up for adoption though,” Mrs. Dotson replies. “He’d be about two and a half now.”
I still can’t wrap my brain around this new development so I just stare at the table. “Why didn’t he ever tell me?” I ask softly, my voice barely a whisper.
“When you left for college, Paul went even farther downhill. He turned even more to alcohol, started abusing Angela…did you ever wonder what happened to them as a couple?”
“I didn’t know he ever had a serious relationship with her,” I respond. Paul had never seemed to be the one to have a serious relationship.
“They did. Paul didn’t want a baby though and pressured Angela into putting the baby up for adoption. That’s why I didn’t talk to him anymore. After she sacrificed all that for him, he left her.”
My mouth drops open again. How was I going to fix that? That was one of the things Paul hadn’t accomplished. He had never gone to talk to Angela.
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Eight Days Before the Funeral
I remember waking up the next morning to Paul knocking on the guest room door and the smell of pancakes and coffee. I remember walking downstairs and into the kitchen with him. He hadn’t told me the answer to my question the night before, but I hadn’t wanted to ask him. It was the morning and he seemed to be in a good mood. I didn’t want to upset him.
I sat down at the table with him and he pulled out the now very familiar list. He looked it over a few times and sighed heavily. “Problem?” I asked. I took a sip of my coffee then dug into my pancakes.
“I don’t know how to fix things up with mom.”
“Just go talk to her. I can’t really help you there.”
“I didn’t plan on taking you with me to see her,” he responded.
I looked at him, slightly shocked. “Oh, why?”
“A lot of the reason why she won’t talk to me deals with what I can’t tell you.”
“So it deals with the last task on the list?” I asked. I desperately wanted to know more. What was he keeping from me? Why was he keeping it from me? Could it possibly be all that bad?
Paul shook his head. “It does, but I’m not telling you, Mandy,” I remember him saying before he got up and put his shoes on. “I’ll be back later. Probably much later. Everything is where it was before you left and if you need me, call my cell,” he said before walking out the door.
I stared after him.
-------
Present
I had to do this. I had a plan. I had to achieve it. Maybe in doing this Paul would accomplish his ultimate task, one that hadn’t been written on the list. I look up at the sky as I step from his car. The car I had inherited from him. Is he watching me somewhere from up there, guiding me? I sure hope so.
I walk into the local adoption agency. Paul’s mom told me that they had done everything through this agency. I don’t even know where to start, what to say. I just know that I have to find this little boy for Angela. I figure it’s the only way to get her to forgive Paul and his actions. “Hi,” I say uncertainly to the lady at the reception desk. “I’m looking for a boy who was put up for adoption about two years ago.”
The woman nods and begins typing away at the computer. “Do you know the boy’s name?”
“His last name is either Dotson or Krieder,” I tell her, as I take the offered seat beside her desk.
“I have a Nathaniel Krieder. He’s two and a half, born the fourth of June 2007.”
“That has to be him,” I murmur. “Who are his new parents?”
“No one. He was with a temporary family for about a year, but things didn’t work out. The couple couldn’t handle the work load.”
“Y-you mean he hasn’t been adopted yet?” I ask the woman stupidly. Could I really have gotten this lucky? But wait, if Nathaniel hadn’t been adopted yet, why hadn’t Angela tried to get him back after Paul left her?
“That’s exactly what I mean. Would you like to try to adopt him?”
“N-no. Can I come back tomorrow? I need to…figure some things out.”
“Sure,” the woman says uncertainly. I’m already off the chair and running to the car.
-------
Eight Days Earlier (Night)
I looked up as Paul walked in the door. He was smiling.
“I’m guessing it went pretty well?” I asked, getting up from my spot on the couch.
“It went really well,” he smiled wider. I remember him picking me up and swinging me around. I remember laughing.
“That’s great Paul,” I told him, laughing some more as he kept spinning around with me. He set me back on my feet and I fell into him, extremely dizzy. “I’m guessing we’re done with the list for tonight?” I asked. I looked up to the clock. It was almost nine at night.
“Stop guessing! Of course that’s it for the day,” he said as he led me over to the couch and we sat down.
He wrapped his arm around me and turned on the TV to the travel channel. We both loved the travel channel.
“Paul?” I asked as a commercial break came on.
“Yes, Manders?”
“Why do you have the list?”
He looked down at the floor for a moment and sighed heavily. He looked back up to me. “I don’t think you really want to know,” he replied after what felt like an eternity of silence and brooding.
“I do really want to know, or I wouldn’t be asking you,” I remember telling him. I reached over and took his larger hand in my smaller one.
He looked at me then, really looked at me. He took in my expression, my body language. “I don’t know how to tell you this.”
“Then just tell me,” I said, offering him an encouraging smile.
“I found out last week that I have a brain tumor.”
My face had to have been a mask of horror. “Oh god, Paul, no,” I said, shaking my head. I remembered not believing it. I still don’t believe it. “C-can’t they do something?”
“No. It’s inoperable and the cancer from the tumor has already spread,” he told me softly. I can’t even describe the look on his face. He pulled me to him, and then pulled me up into his lap. “I have five weeks, to make everything right. That’s why I need your help Mandy.”
“I’ll help you, Paul, I’ll help you,” I whispered. I rested the side of my head against his chest as he held me. I don’t remember much after that, just a lot of tears. Paul had been the most solid thing in my life. What would life be like without him?
-------
Present
My knuckles were already rapping at Angela’s door, even though I don’t remember how I got here. The door opens and there stands a woman with blonde hair, blue eyes. She was thin, fair-skinned, and about 5’6” in height. Very much Paul’s type.
“Hi.”
“Hello,” I respond. “I’m Mandy, a friend of Paul’s,” I explain, knowing she knows whom I am talking about.
“Oh…I don’t really want to talk,” she tells me as she closes the door in my face.
“Wait!”
“What do you want?” she asks me through the door.
“I want to talk about your son, Nathaniel.”
The door opens a crack. “What do you know about Nathaniel?”
“I know he was never adopted.”
“So? I don’t want him anyway.”
“Why?” I ask. “I thought you were upset with Paul in the first place for making you put him up for adoption.”
“I was, but I don’t want a baby, especially his baby,” she responds to me, her voice sounds ruthless.
“You know, I can’t apologize for what Paul put you through, but I think you need to forgive him. He’s-“
“I know he’s dead. I read it in the paper and I don’t give a damn.”
My mouth drops open for what feels like the millionth time in the past two weeks. “Oh, okay.” The door slams once again in my face. I’m not very good at this.
I turn and trudge to the car. I get in and drive to Paul’s house and walk inside. It feels so empty without him. I’m glad his mom gave me the key. I just want to be alone. I run up the stairs and into his bedroom. I stop at the doorway and look at the bed wishing that Paul was still there and everything that had happened was just a horrible nightmare.
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Six Days Before the Funeral
I woke once again to Paul’s knock at the guest bedroom door. We hadn’t done a thing the day before. I had just wanted to spend time with him and I hadn’t felt emotionally or physically capable of actually going out to do anything. I knew that his list was important to him and now I knew why, but I couldn’t come to terms with losing him.
He had reminded me that I had gone almost three years without a single word to him, but I had always thought that he would be there for me when I was ready to go back to him. I had gone to college for freedom, but I had only recently realized that I had moved so far away to have my freedom from him.
At first I thought that I had picked Penn State because I needed to get away from my parents. I needed to be able to go out and party and have fun. Now I realized that there had been a second reason for wanting my freedom. I felt like Paul was always using me for something. I was far too attached to him and I was tired of always waiting for him to see who I really was.
I showered and dressed as I thought about all this, then walked downstairs. “Morning,” I murmured, sitting down at the table and drinking the lukewarm coffee. I knew that I should make Paul’s last days the best that he could have, but I didn’t feel like smiling.
“Morning,” Paul replied, sitting down opposite with me.
“I’m sorry about yesterday,” I said, my voice cracking some as I lifted my mug to take another sip.
Paul frowned as he watched me. He reached across the table and put his hand on my shoulder after brushing away my thick, blonde hair. I felt him squeeze it lightly.
“What’s on the agenda for today?” I asked him, looking up into his soft, warm, brown eyes.
“I need to go talk to Andy, patch some things up. I figured you could tag along with me,” he said, shrugging. He let go of my shoulder and took my finished cup of coffee from me. “Do you want some more?”
I shook my head.
He walked over and placed the cup into the sink, then walked back over to me. “Mandy, it’s not the end of the world. I knew you’d be upset, but I didn’t think you’d take it this badly.”
“Paul, for eighteen years you were my world!” I exclaimed, standing from my chair as I did so. “You were like my big brother,” I paused and looked down to the floor.
“Until I made things complicated,” he finished for me.
“Well, if you put it that way, then you were really only my big brother for sixteen years,” I told him softly.
“I don’t regret kissing you, Mandy,” he told me, his voice and eyes and touch soft.
“That doesn’t matter now though.”
“What does matter then?”
“Nothing.”
He looked at me for a moment, then pulled me into a hug. He squeezed me too him tightly. “How about we just go see Andy and have a good time?”
“How do you know it’s going to be a good time? You made him hate you, remember?”
Paul laughed softly. “Yes, but he’ll take one look at you and take me back as a best friend,” he told me.
“You’re a pig,” I said, hitting his shoulder lightly, but a smile had crept onto my face. This was how it was supposed to be.
“I know, but you still love me.”
“Yes, you’re right. Come on,” I said, putting on my shoes before walking outside with him to his car. He opened the door for me and I slid inside.
-------
Present
I close the door to Paul’s bedroom and walk back to the guest bedroom I had been staying in. I climb into the bed and worm my way under the covers. I’m not cold; I just want to feel safe. I close my eyes as I feel tears pricking my eyeballs. I don’t want to cry. Paul wouldn’t want me to. I feel alone now. I’ve been on my own since I went to college, but now I truly feel alone.
I roll onto my back and look up at the ceiling. I wonder if he’s up there, watching over me. I hope that he is because even though he’s physically gone, I still need him. I need him to comfort me and I need him to help me finish what he started.
Angela seems like a lost cause. What can I possibly do to get her to forgive Paul? Maybe I could get her to listen to me somehow and then I could take her to see Nathaniel. I think that if she saw her son, she might come around and eventually forgive him. Right now she’s just hurt. If Paul had done something like that to me, it would be hard for me to forgive him too. I’d be hurt too, but would I be hurt enough to not give a damn that Paul was dead? No. Would I be hurt enough to slam a door in someone’s face who was trying to help? No.
I can’t think about this now though.
There are still some little things to be done on the list, but nothing should be too hard to handle. For the most part, Paul had fixed all his relationships before he had passed away. He had left me with paying off the debts from broken windshields, paying back the convenience store owner on the corner for the candy that he had stolen, and the like. I could handle that because Paul’s mom has the rights to Paul’s bank account and has agreed to help me.
I roll back over onto my side and sigh. As soon as I wake, I’m going back to the adoption agency. To hell with Angela.
-------
Six Days Before the Funeral (Afternoon)
We walked up to Andy’s front door together and I remember my hand being in Paul’s. Our relationship wasn’t complicated anymore. We had decided the night he had first come to see me at my apartment that we should just be friends and be the way we used to be around each other. I watched him knock on the door and smiled some as I looked up to him and saw him smiling. The door opened and I watched a man step out. He was thinner than Paul and a little nerdier looking, but cute in his own way.
“Paul,” he said as I watched his eyes cloud over. He sounded angry, upset, and business-like.
“Glad to see you still know my name Andy,” Paul smirked. He let go of my hand and instead wrapped his arm around my waist. “Do you remember this girl’s name though?”
“No,” Andy replied in the same tone. He wasn’t exactly warming up to Paul too well.
“Knew you wouldn’t. This is Mandy. She’s all grown up, isn’t she?” he asked, smiling more. He seemed to really be having fun with all this.
“Ah. Still robbing cradles then, I see.”
I looked at him stunned for a moment then narrowed my eyes. “Excuse me? I’m twenty and we’re not even together.”
Andy looked at me skeptically. “Whatever. You two want to come in?”
Paul smiled wider. Maybe Andy was a pushover, just like Paul had suggested he would be. “Sure, but we wouldn’t want to impose.”
“Shut up and just get in here,” Andy said, closing the door behind us once we had stepped inside. We followed him back to his living room and took our seats. I was just an observer now.
“You know Andy, I’m sorry that things turned out the way they did.”
“It’s not a problem. Steph got over it, then I eventually got over it.”
“I’m surprised she ever got over me. You know, with me being so hot and dreamy and all,” Paul said with a round of laughter.
“You watch it or I won’t forgive you at all.”
“Dude, you have to admit though that your sister was hot.”
“Paul,” Andy warned, “You’re crossing the line.”
Paul laughed harder. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry. Really and truly. If I would have known that dating your sister would lead to the end of our friendship, I wouldn’t have done it.” He sounded truly sincere. I wondered if he had joked around with his mother first like he just had with Andy. I doubted it.
“It wasn’t really you dating or dumping my sister,” Andy said. He looked hurt as he looked out the window.
Paul’s expression grew serious. “Andy, I didn’t know who I was then, what I was doing. I know now that I was wrong.”
“Yeah, and how are you going to fix that?” Andy said. It was kind of ironic really.
“I don’t exactly know yet.”
“Then maybe you should figure that out!”
“I’m trying!” Paul said, his voice louder in volume than before. “What the hell do you think I’m doing here? I’m trying to fix things!”
“Not everything can be fixed.”
“I know that.”
“You can’t go back and just change the past.”
“I wish I could,” Paul responded. They were going back and forth and back and forth like crazy.
“But you can’t.”
“I know, damn it! I KNOW!” Paul stood up then and glared down at Andy.
“Then why the hell are you trying to fix everything?”
“Because I’m sorry, god damn it, I’m sorry!” He glared down at Andy for a few more seconds before he sat back down in his chair. “I never actually hurt you.”
“You hurt me because you came to hate me,” Andy said. I was so confused now that I could barely keep their voices straight.
“I didn’t need you to help me.”
“Yes you did. If I didn’t help you, you’d still be out there doing crack, stealing money from homeless beggars, and smashing the windows of cars.”
Paul looked out the window then, his jaw clenched, his hands balled into fists. “I’m sorry I hated you and thank you for helping me.”
“You don’t have to thank me. I was your friend then and I’m still your friend now. You were just too damn stubborn to see that,” Andy retorted. He seemed to be watching Paul just as closely as I was.
Paul’s hands relaxed as his facial muscles relaxed as well. “I want to thank you though. You’re right. If you hadn’t gone to my mom about what was going on, I’d probably still be doing all those things.”
The light finally came on it my brain. “Wait, is this why my parents wouldn’t let me around you?” I asked, astonished. “’Cuz you were doing crack?”
Paul looked at me. “Yes, that’s why. It’s not something I’m very proud of.”
“You shouldn’t be proud of something like that,” I said. Maybe I should have listened to my parents and stayed away from him. I thought back on everything that had occurred in the last few years of my relationship with Paul. He had become distant to everyone but me. He had always told me that I was the only one he could talk to, but finding out this information today, he obviously couldn’t talk to me about everything because he had chose not to. If I had stayed away from him, would I be the person I was today? Would he still be trying to change me for the better? No, because without his influence, I wouldn’t be an alcoholic, just like him. I wouldn’t be a party girl. I wouldn’t be so stubborn or quick tempered. I wouldn’t be me though, either.
I snapped out of my reverie when I heard Paul telling me it was time to leave. I took his offered hand and got up from the couch. I said a goodbye to Andy then walked out with Paul to the car. “What’d I miss?”
Paul chuckled. “Nothing. Just another task to cross off the list.”
-------
Present
It’s the day after Paul’s funeral and I’m walking into the adoption agency for the second time in two days. The weight that was hanging over me yesterday is still hanging over me today, but I have a specific goal to accomplish, so I feel better.
The same woman who I talked to yesterday greets me today. “Can I help you?”
“Yes. I’d like to adopt Nathaniel Krieder.”
The woman smiles at me and seems genuinely pleased. I follow her back to a room and I’m introduced to another woman, Josephine Steingraber, and I sit down in an armchair on the opposite side of the desk from her. She tells me about the adoption process, then hands me a stack of papers to fill out about a foot high. “When you’re done with those, come back and see me. Then we can get everything sorted out and find out if you’re right for Nathaniel.” She leads me out to the front door.
I walk out to my car and lay the paper work out the seat beside me. I’m glad I don’t have a job yet, because that is going to take me days.
-------
Four Days Before the Funeral
I woke up this time on my own. I looked over to my clock and groaned. It was almost one in the afternoon. Why hasn’t Paul woke me up yet? I asked myself. My eyes opened wide then and I hurried out of bed, out the door, and down the hallway.
He hadn’t been feeling well yesterday. We hadn’t gone anywhere to do anything at all. The list wasn’t finished yet! He still had four weeks, right? That’s what the doctors had told him. They had said six weeks, two had passed, which left four. He had been complaining of a headache that just wouldn’t go away. He hadn’t eaten a single thing, which hadn’t really scared me. Paul had been eating less and less lately.
I rapped on his door when I got to it and sighed in relief as I heard his voice coming from the other side of it. “Can I come in?”
“Yeah,” he answered.
I walked in and smiled as I saw him. He was sitting up at least. “How’re you feeling today?”
“About the same as yesterday.”
I frowned and walked over to sit beside him on the bed. “Would you like something to eat? I can make or go get whatever you want,” I offered. I just want him to get better, even though I knew it could only get worse from here.
Paul gave me a small smile. “I’m not all that hungry, but I could eat a scrambled egg.”
I smiled as I heard him. “Okay, I’ll be right back.” I ran down from the kitchen and started up a burner after placing a pot with some butter on it first. I went to the fridge and get out two eggs. I remember that I smiled more as I heard his footsteps on the stairs. He was doing much better than yesterday.
“Smells delicious Mandy.”
“It’ll taste even better,” I promised him as I cracked open the eggs and began scrambling them in the pan. I turned off the burner then plated some up for the both of us. I walked over and sat his plate down in front of him. “What would you like to drink?” I asked.
“A beer.”
I turn back to him from the fridge. “It’s breakfast.”
“I don’t care, I need a beer.”
“No. If I can’t have a beer, you can’t have a beer,” I challenge.
“You can have a beer, it won’t kill you.”
I stop in my tracks at the word, but I don’t say anything. “I thought you were trying to quit.”
“I was, but I’m dying anyway, so what does it matter?”
I turn to the fridge and shake my head. Tears were already welling in my eyes. I grabbed the container of orange juice and poured us both glasses, then walked over to him and set them down. “Don’t say that.”
“It’s the truth.”
“I know it’s the truth, Paul, but sometimes, the truth hurts.”
-------
Present
Three days after my trip to the agency, I’m sitting at Paul’s kitchen table filling out even more paper work. They had gotten back to me this morning and said that I was suitable for Nathaniel. I had gone in to see him earlier and he was the sweetest little boy anyone could ever meet. He was deaf in one ear, but was so funny and loving and carefree. Now all I had to do was fill out the final paperwork to adopt him. Then I could bring him home with me. Even though Paul wasn’t here anymore, it was somehow still home.
-------
Three Days Before the Funeral
I woke up once again on my own. I remember instantly having that bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. You could call it mother’s intuition, but I wasn’t a mother, not yet. I slipped out of my bed slowly; dread was filling my body as I pulled on my housecoat. I walked out of the guest room and down the hall, treading along the carpet slowly. I reached Paul’s door and stopped, then lightly knocked on the solid wood. There was no answer.
No, this was impossible. I knocked a little harder. “Paul?” I called, timidly but loudly. “Are you in there?”
Again, there was no answer. I felt myself becoming dizzy and leaned against a table along the hallway that used to hold a fish tank. I righted myself after I took a few deep breaths and slowly opened the door.
I peeked around the door and my heart stopped. “Paul?” I asked, even though I knew I wasn’t going to get a response. I covered my mouth with my hand and slowly walked towards the bed. I reached my other hand out to him, my mind vaguely going to the hope that he was just playing a trick on me.
I shuddered as I felt his cold skin. “Oh god,” I murmured, tears falling from my eyes and down my cheeks. I couldn’t stop them. “Oh no, Paul, no,” I remember sobbing while I laid my head down on his still chest.
“No.”
-------
One Month After the Funeral
“Well, what do you think?” I ask Nathaniel as I show him his new bedroom. I can’t seem wipe this stupid grin off my face.
“This is awesome,” he replies excitedly, his eyes that were so much like Paul’s lighting up some.
“I’m glad you like it,” I say to him, ruffling his hair as he wraps his tiny arms around my one leg. “You ready for a bedtime story and then bed?”
“Yes!” he says, jumping in under the covers.
I laugh softly as I watch him, then walk over and tuck him in. I sit down and read to him about the Three Little Pigs, then turn off the light. It has been such a long day. I walk down the hallway to the guest bedroom in Paul’s house, which is now my house and my bedroom. I’ve decided to take online courses to finish out my sophomore year, and then transfer to a school closer to home.
I change into my nightclothes, and then I turn off the light and crawl into bed. I smile some as I look up at the ceiling. “Did I do well?”
The List
1. Fix thins up with Mom
2. Find Mandy
3. Angela
4. Apologize to and thank the McKee’s
5. Give Elaine her dance
6. Reconnect with Andy
7. Repay Mr. Shoel’s
8. Work at a homeless shelter/soup kitchen
9. Get G.E.D.
10. Repay the church for broken window
11. Make amends with Billy
12. Find ___________________
Kelly :)
Remembering
Kelly N. Thomas
December 13, 2009
Present
As I drive home from his parents’ house, I remember that I was five once and that when I was five, he had been twenty-two. I remember holding his hand as we walked through the supermarket. My arm was above my head, even though he was leaning a little to the side to accommodate me. My left hand was at my mouth, my thumb being sucked on. It was a nasty habit that had stuck with me. I can’t remember now what we had been looking for, but that detail is irrelevant. The only part that matters is the fact that I still remember him. I don’t want him to fade away and this memory reassures me, even though it’s only been two hours since they closed his casket and lowered it into the earth.
As I drive, I still hear the thud,
thud,
thud,
of the hot, dry, California soil hitting the sleek, black coffin like a cadence. Before then, it really hadn’t seemed real, but now I had found that what happened was real, and that I would have to learn to cope with my loss. I knew it would be hard to do and I tried to get myself to stop thinking about it. I couldn’t. How did this happen? was the question I kept asking myself in my mind, over and over again.
-------
Eleven Days Earlier
I remember I had been sitting at the kitchen table, sipping coffee like any other day when suddenly, my life changed. My apartment was a small, cozy, homely place and I found comfort in it. Pictures of family and friends were hung everywhere; they reminded me, still reminded me, of home. I had chosen to go to college 3,000 miles away for a single reason: freedom.
I looked up at the clock and sighed. I had twenty minutes till I had to get up off my ass, stop thinking of home, and get ready for classes. It wasn’t as if I was going to learn anything. I was still pondering why he had woke me up at 6 a.m. and told me that he had something to say that I needed to know. Why had he done that? Why had he told me that he was catching a flight to tell me? Why did he say that he needed to be here, to tell me in person? Something wasn’t right and half of me didn’t want to know what was wrong, but the other half was hating the fact that I had to wait until 5:30 to get an answer.
I walked back into my apartment after a very long day and immediately looked to the clock on the microwave. Only an hour until he would be here. I threw my jacket on the back of the chair and threw my backpack on the table, then walked over to the stove and started up a pot of water to boil. He’d probably be hungry.
I smiled then as I started to remember what life used to be like with him; how I used to tag along to parties with him, drink with him, and fall asleep with him. That of course had all been when I was older. When I had been younger, he had taken me to see children’s plays, read me stories at bedtime, and took me shopping with him. My big brother figure had changed a lot over the years.
I put the spaghetti noodles into the pot and started heating up the sauce. I looked up to the clock again. He’d be here any minute. Thank god. I just wanted to see him, wanted to know what was so important for him to be here to tell me. I got out the plates and silverware, doing tasks just to keep myself busy. I heard the buzzer and ran over to the door, pushing the button so that he could come up to my apartment. I ran back over into the kitchen and strained the noodles, added the warm sauce into the pot, and then I mixed it all together.
I jumped when I heard the knock at the door, even though I knew he’d be there. I rushed back to the door and opened it up, giving him a wide smile. “Paulie!” I remember saying as I jumped into his arms and hugged him while he spun me around before he set me down. I remember him holding me out at arms length, looking me over. “How are you?” I asked. He looked a little pale, a little thinner than I remembered, but it had been almost three years since I had seen him. He was thirty-seven now. His muscles were definitely smaller, but they were certainly still there.
“Hi Mandy,” Paul said softly, pulling me back into him as he shut the door. “I’ve been better, I guess,” he told me before he sniffed the air and smiled. “My favorite, you remembered.”
I remember laughing a little and leading him over to the stove, plating him up some. “No meatballs though because I didn’t have the time,” I smiled at him sheepishly. He took the plates and went over to the table. “You wanna beer?” I asked, already grabbing two from the fridge.
“No. And how did you even get that? You’re not twenty-one,” he said, his tone incredulous.
“I-“, I stuttered. “Well, what’s it matter?” I asked him then, grabbing cokes instead. Something felt off. “When did you stop wanting beer?” I asked while I walked over, handed him his drink and sat down.
“I’m just trying to back off it,” Paul told me after a few mouthfuls of his food and a few sips of his coke. “You shouldn’t be drinking at all. I know, I know, you’re going to say that I’m the one who got you started. I can’t argue with you there, but,” he paused then and dropped an already full fork of spaghetti back down onto his plate, “it’s not good for you Mandy. You’re wasting your life away. Just like I did. It’s too short, too precious.”
I looked at him, confused. “What do you mean? It’s too short, too precious?” I asked suspiciously. “When did you start thinking stuff like that?”
“I meant exactly what I said and that doesn’t matter either,” he replied to me as he finished his plate and went for seconds.
I sat there quietly, watching him. He seemed different, more mature, more mellow… more adult. I decided to just let that side of the conversation go. “Well, okay. What have you been up to lately?” I asked him, frowning some as I finished off the rest of my plate. My stomach was dropping even more just with the way he was acting. My first instinct on the phone had been right. Something was wrong.
“Not much. I’ve been trying to get my G.E.D. Be glad you actually finished high school,” he said seriously, shaking his head some as he ate. “I wish I had. I just want a good job,” he paused. “Not that a good job will matter now,” he added under his breath. He sighed heavily and then went back to eating.
I remember giving him a look of utter disbelief. He was making my head run in circles. “Paul,” I paused, “what do you mean by saying that a good job won’t matter now?” I asked, trying to get to the bottom of things. Was this leading into his bad news that he had to tell me in person?
He looked up at me. “Nothing, nothing,” he muttered, taking both of our plates over to the sink and leaving them there. He paused with his back to me for a few seconds too long.
I got up from my chair and walked up to him. “Why’d you come? After almost three years, what is so damn important that you had to tell me in person?”
Paul turned around to look at me. “I need you to help me with something,” he told me slowly, looking at the ground between us instead of at my face. “It’s important. Please don’t say no.”
He sounded like he was begging me, something that he had never done before. “Okay, okay, I’ll help,” I tried to soothe, watching his eyes grow glassy for a moment before they cleared; he smiled, and then looked up at me. “What is it?”
“A list,” he muttered, barely audible as he pulled a worn paper folded in quarters from his back pocket. “I need to make some things right...things I did wrong before.”
I frowned at him, even more confused then before. “Like what?” I asked lightly, trying to keep the situation light. That list, whatever it was, obviously meant a lot to him by the way he was looking at it, looking at me.
“Here, read it,” he said, holding it out to me. I took it. He turned back around and started washing the dishes as I read.
“Okay, so you want to fix this stuff, apologize, help out people that you hurt before?” I asked, not sure why this was suddenly so important to him.
“Yeah. I’ve been thinking lately and I’ve realized that I need to set some stuff straight before…” he paused again.
“Before?” I prodded, thinking he had just lost his train of thought.
“I just need to make it right. To feel better about myself,” he offered in response. I wasn’t convinced.
-------
Present
I park my car and turn off the engine, then pull the keys out of the ignition and just sit there. I lean forward so that my forehead is resting against the steering wheel. This isn’t fair. I reach over and grab the list, look it over. There are tears in my eyes, tears that have been there all day, tears that have been there since Tuesday when I had walked in to wake him up and he had been silent, cold, still. I shake my head. I can’t think about that. I hold the list tighter in my hand, my jaw set. This isn’t over. Forget school, forget the plane. I have to go back, I have to finish this. I find that my hand has already shoved the keys back into the ignition and has already put the car in reverse. I pull out of the airport parking lot and out onto the road, my face set. I’m beginning to see why Paul did this. He wasn’t just doing it for himself. He was helping me out as well the whole time. Paul really didn’t want me to end up like him. Like the failure that he felt that he was.
-------
Nine Days Before the Funeral
“Where did you want to start?” I asked as we walked through the airport. I desperately wanted to see the ocean again, but Paul seemed set on finishing this list as soon as possible. It was unnerving really, how adamant he was about it. For the most part, the items on the list were simple things to fix like repaying the owner of a car that he had once smashed the window out of in middle school.
“I figured we’d start in my hometown. I have to apologize to that elderly couple and see if I can find my friend from high school. I also need to see Elaine,” he told me as he took my hand and led me out to his car.
I vaguely remember wondering why he had taken my hand. Maybe it was just out of habit. “Who’s Elaine?” I asked, looking down at the list. I knew why he wanted to visit the elderly couple, Mr. and Mrs. McKee, and Andy, his friend from school, but who was this Elaine.
Paul chuckled a bit at my question. “Remember that girl I stood up at senior prom? That’s Elaine. I’ve never quite forgiven myself for being such an ass to her.” He held open my door for me and helped me in, then walked around to his side and got in.
“Okay, sounds like a plan,” I smiled, holding back a snort of laughter. Elaine was such a geek.
Paul started the car and pulled out of the parking lot at the airport. We stayed silent for most of the trip. Mostly he just commented on stuff that had happened in the past three years that I hadn’t seen or heard of because of my absence. We arrived in front of a two story home and pulled over against the curb. Paul’s hands began to shake as he turned off the car, but he didn’t move to get out.
“This the McKees’ place?” I asked. I watched him nod and frowned. “Paul, it’s not a big deal, just go up and apologize to them. You played a Halloween prank on them when you were thirteen. They didn’t press charges so they must not hate you. Just go up and introduce yourself, say you’re sorry, and say thank you to them for not pressing charges,” I told him, patting his shoulder lightly.
“Come with me,” he said, commanding me more than asking me.
I got out of the car with him and walked up to the house. I knocked on the door when he didn’t and stood there with him. I felt like his support system. It made me feel good that for once he was relying on me to help him, instead of vice versa.
A woman answered the door. She was a younger woman, probably mid to late twenty’s. Paul looked at her and shook his head, then walked back to the car. “Can I help you?” she asked me.
“Is this still the McKee residence?” I asked her, looking back over my shoulder at Paul’s retreating back. I hoped he wasn’t this way with everything on his list.
“No, the McKee’s passed a few years ago. I bought the house from them when they went into the nursing home down the street,” she told me, looking somewhat quizzical.
“Alright. Sorry to bother you. Have a nice day,” I said, I turned around and headed in the direction of the car. I stepped in and shut my door, then buckled my seat belt. “What do you want to do?”
Paul shook his head and pulled away from the curb. “I have to fix it somehow.”
“Paul, it’s a lost cause. They passed away a few years ago according to the woman. They were in a nursing home when it happened,” I told him. I gasped some as he made a u-turn.
“I’m going to go to the nursing home and talk with some of the seniors there. Maybe, maybe I can get the McKee’s to forgive me for just doing a good deed. Maybe I can make another person’s day just a little bit better.” He pulled into the parking lot at the senior citizen home and got out without another word.
I followed him in and waited as he talked to the woman at the front desk. She smiled kindly at us, nodding her head at what Paul was saying. I couldn’t hear him. He was talking in a low voice, and his body was bent slightly towards the woman, almost as if he didn’t want me to hear. “I think we can manage that,” the nurse said with an even wider smile before she motioned us both to follow her.
She led us back to a giant room that looked as if it had about four or five separate rooms in it because of the way the furniture was positioned. Elderly men and women were shuffling and wheeling themselves around the room, talking with others, playing cards and board games. Some were just sitting there staring off into the distance. The nurse led us over to an older gentleman who was sitting on the couch watching TV. She introduced us to the man; his name was Tobias Smithson.
We sat down in chairs across from him as the nurse left. We talked to him for almost two hours. He was a very interesting man who had lived a lot of life. He had been a commander on a ship in the Navy during the Korean War. He had four children to a wife that had passed away about three months ago. A glassy look came to his eye when he began talking about his family and we soon learned that his kids lived scattered throughout the country.
We got up when a nurse came and told Tobias that it was time for his dialysis treatment. Paul and I walked from the center in silence. It was hard to believe that we had just met a man that had been through so much and was so at peace. I got into the car when Paul unlocked the door and sat back in my seat. My head was spinning over the conversation that we had just had.
“Well, are you going to mark that off the list for me or no?” Paul asked after he had pulled out onto the street in the direction that we had been going before we made the u-turn. It was almost dark now, the sun setting off into the distance.
“Oh yeah, sure,” I replied. I dug into my purse and found the list and a pen, then drew a line through number four. “Where are we going now?”
“Dinner. Then I want to go see Elaine,” he said. “I talked to her old neighbor Jeff and he told me that she still lived in the same house she grew up in. That makes my task a lot easier. I’m going to have to find Andy.” He pulled into a little diner about ten minutes later. “You remember this place?”
I smiled. “Of course I remember this place.” It was the first place where Paul had kissed me. He had taken me here for dinner the night before I turned sixteen. I felt little butterflies in my stomach. Had he brought me here for a reason? I got out of the car and walked into the restaurant with him. We took a seat at a booth and waited for the waitress.
-------
Present
“Mandy!” Paul’s mom says in surprise as she answers the door about an hour after I left the airport. “What are you doing back here?” Her eyes are bloodshot, red rimmed.
I step closer to her and pull her into a hug, her petit body falls into mine. “It’s okay Mrs. Dotson,” I try to soothe, even though it isn’t okay. She just lost her son. I move inside with her and take off my shoes, and then I walk back to the kitchen and sit her down at the table. “Tea or coffee?” I ask her, putting the teakettle on the stove to boil. I walk back over to her and sat down across from her at the table, then take her hand in mine and lightly squeeze it. “I need you to help me with something. I can’t do it on my own.”
She looks up at me. “Whatever you need Mandy,” she tells me softly before she gets up and walks over to the stove. She’s brought us both teas.
“Thanks,” I say, holding the cup between both of my hands. I reluctantly let go of the cup and pull the list from the back pocket of my jeans after a few seconds of thought. “I need you to help me find these people. I need to finish what Paul set out to do.” I frown as I look down at the half finished list. I hand the list over to her. “I need you to help me find out what the last one on the list is.”
“I’ll help you. I’ll do whatever you need sweetheart,” Mrs. Dotson replies before she gently takes the list from me. Her eyes widen at the tasks we have completed and the ones that are as of now, still undone.
-------
Nine Days Before the Funeral (Night)
I walked up to another house with him. This had to be Elaine’s place. I stood to the side, as he knocked on the door and I remember feeling out of place. A woman with dark hair and thick glasses opened the door. Her eyes widened as she took in Paul standing there in front of her. “Y-yes?” she stuttered as she pushed her thick glasses back up on the bridge of her nose.
“Hi Elaine, just thought you might like that dance that you were supposed to have at prom with me.” Paul chuckled some as he watched her. “I shouldn’t have stood you up like I did.”
Elaine’s mouth dropped open a little. “I should have expected it. I knew I wasn’t good enough for you. I don’t know why I even asked,” she told him, her voice withdrawn, but there was still a sharpness to it.
Paul laughed loudly in response. “Come on. Just let me take you out for one dance, please?” he asked as he held his hand out to her. He seemed at ease in this situation. Really, Paul held the upper hand here. It should be easy to get Elaine to dance with him so that he could check her name off his list.
“Well….okay,” Elaine said. She seemed as if she was trying to sound like she was grudgingly giving in, but she didn’t quite pull it off. She slipped on some shoes then took his hand and walked out with him. “Who’s this?” she asked then, looking to me.
“Just my little helper.”
“Helper?” Elaine asked as she walked with him to the car. She gave me a once over when I stepped into the back seat of the car.
“You’ll see,” Paul retorted, helping her into the car before he went around to his side and pulled out. He was heading towards the park.
He pulled into the parking lot after about two minutes. He helped Elaine from the car after he got out himself and I followed them with the boom box. He took her over to the gazebo and walked up into it with her. He looked to me and nodded his head as I watched him pull Elaine into him and wrap his hand lightly around her waist, over her hips. I pressed the play button and forwarded the CD to number six, then stood back and watched them as they talked and danced.
They were actually kind of cute together. The night was so beautiful. The song ended and Paul hugged her. Elaine blushed brightly and then we all walked back to the car and drove her back to her house.
“Check that one off, Mandy,” Paul told me after he got into the car from walking Elaine to the door.
“Already did,” I murmured. I looked out the window. “Why are you doing this?” I remember asking him. “Why do you need my help?”
Paul’s face fell slightly as he heard my questions. “I’ll tell you when we get back to my place.”
I looked back down to the list and then looked up to him. “Why does the last one on the list say ‘Find blank’?” I asked then as I looked down to the list again. The final to do was just the word ‘find’ and then a black line spread across the space on the page for about an inch.
“I’ll tell you that at some point.”
“Why not now?”
“Because I can’t tell you that now. Not yet,” Paul said as he parked in his driveway and got out of the car. I followed him into the house and over to the living room. My stomach was dropping more and more with every passing second.
-------
Present
“Do you have any idea what the last task on the list is?” I ask Mrs. Dotson after she doesn’t respond the first time.
“It’s his son.”
“What?! He has a son?” My mouth drops open and my eyes widen. How could he not tell me that?
“Yes. He decided with Angela to put the boy up for adoption though,” Mrs. Dotson replies. “He’d be about two and a half now.”
I still can’t wrap my brain around this new development so I just stare at the table. “Why didn’t he ever tell me?” I ask softly, my voice barely a whisper.
“When you left for college, Paul went even farther downhill. He turned even more to alcohol, started abusing Angela…did you ever wonder what happened to them as a couple?”
“I didn’t know he ever had a serious relationship with her,” I respond. Paul had never seemed to be the one to have a serious relationship.
“They did. Paul didn’t want a baby though and pressured Angela into putting the baby up for adoption. That’s why I didn’t talk to him anymore. After she sacrificed all that for him, he left her.”
My mouth drops open again. How was I going to fix that? That was one of the things Paul hadn’t accomplished. He had never gone to talk to Angela.
--------
Eight Days Before the Funeral
I remember waking up the next morning to Paul knocking on the guest room door and the smell of pancakes and coffee. I remember walking downstairs and into the kitchen with him. He hadn’t told me the answer to my question the night before, but I hadn’t wanted to ask him. It was the morning and he seemed to be in a good mood. I didn’t want to upset him.
I sat down at the table with him and he pulled out the now very familiar list. He looked it over a few times and sighed heavily. “Problem?” I asked. I took a sip of my coffee then dug into my pancakes.
“I don’t know how to fix things up with mom.”
“Just go talk to her. I can’t really help you there.”
“I didn’t plan on taking you with me to see her,” he responded.
I looked at him, slightly shocked. “Oh, why?”
“A lot of the reason why she won’t talk to me deals with what I can’t tell you.”
“So it deals with the last task on the list?” I asked. I desperately wanted to know more. What was he keeping from me? Why was he keeping it from me? Could it possibly be all that bad?
Paul shook his head. “It does, but I’m not telling you, Mandy,” I remember him saying before he got up and put his shoes on. “I’ll be back later. Probably much later. Everything is where it was before you left and if you need me, call my cell,” he said before walking out the door.
I stared after him.
-------
Present
I had to do this. I had a plan. I had to achieve it. Maybe in doing this Paul would accomplish his ultimate task, one that hadn’t been written on the list. I look up at the sky as I step from his car. The car I had inherited from him. Is he watching me somewhere from up there, guiding me? I sure hope so.
I walk into the local adoption agency. Paul’s mom told me that they had done everything through this agency. I don’t even know where to start, what to say. I just know that I have to find this little boy for Angela. I figure it’s the only way to get her to forgive Paul and his actions. “Hi,” I say uncertainly to the lady at the reception desk. “I’m looking for a boy who was put up for adoption about two years ago.”
The woman nods and begins typing away at the computer. “Do you know the boy’s name?”
“His last name is either Dotson or Krieder,” I tell her, as I take the offered seat beside her desk.
“I have a Nathaniel Krieder. He’s two and a half, born the fourth of June 2007.”
“That has to be him,” I murmur. “Who are his new parents?”
“No one. He was with a temporary family for about a year, but things didn’t work out. The couple couldn’t handle the work load.”
“Y-you mean he hasn’t been adopted yet?” I ask the woman stupidly. Could I really have gotten this lucky? But wait, if Nathaniel hadn’t been adopted yet, why hadn’t Angela tried to get him back after Paul left her?
“That’s exactly what I mean. Would you like to try to adopt him?”
“N-no. Can I come back tomorrow? I need to…figure some things out.”
“Sure,” the woman says uncertainly. I’m already off the chair and running to the car.
-------
Eight Days Earlier (Night)
I looked up as Paul walked in the door. He was smiling.
“I’m guessing it went pretty well?” I asked, getting up from my spot on the couch.
“It went really well,” he smiled wider. I remember him picking me up and swinging me around. I remember laughing.
“That’s great Paul,” I told him, laughing some more as he kept spinning around with me. He set me back on my feet and I fell into him, extremely dizzy. “I’m guessing we’re done with the list for tonight?” I asked. I looked up to the clock. It was almost nine at night.
“Stop guessing! Of course that’s it for the day,” he said as he led me over to the couch and we sat down.
He wrapped his arm around me and turned on the TV to the travel channel. We both loved the travel channel.
“Paul?” I asked as a commercial break came on.
“Yes, Manders?”
“Why do you have the list?”
He looked down at the floor for a moment and sighed heavily. He looked back up to me. “I don’t think you really want to know,” he replied after what felt like an eternity of silence and brooding.
“I do really want to know, or I wouldn’t be asking you,” I remember telling him. I reached over and took his larger hand in my smaller one.
He looked at me then, really looked at me. He took in my expression, my body language. “I don’t know how to tell you this.”
“Then just tell me,” I said, offering him an encouraging smile.
“I found out last week that I have a brain tumor.”
My face had to have been a mask of horror. “Oh god, Paul, no,” I said, shaking my head. I remembered not believing it. I still don’t believe it. “C-can’t they do something?”
“No. It’s inoperable and the cancer from the tumor has already spread,” he told me softly. I can’t even describe the look on his face. He pulled me to him, and then pulled me up into his lap. “I have five weeks, to make everything right. That’s why I need your help Mandy.”
“I’ll help you, Paul, I’ll help you,” I whispered. I rested the side of my head against his chest as he held me. I don’t remember much after that, just a lot of tears. Paul had been the most solid thing in my life. What would life be like without him?
-------
Present
My knuckles were already rapping at Angela’s door, even though I don’t remember how I got here. The door opens and there stands a woman with blonde hair, blue eyes. She was thin, fair-skinned, and about 5’6” in height. Very much Paul’s type.
“Hi.”
“Hello,” I respond. “I’m Mandy, a friend of Paul’s,” I explain, knowing she knows whom I am talking about.
“Oh…I don’t really want to talk,” she tells me as she closes the door in my face.
“Wait!”
“What do you want?” she asks me through the door.
“I want to talk about your son, Nathaniel.”
The door opens a crack. “What do you know about Nathaniel?”
“I know he was never adopted.”
“So? I don’t want him anyway.”
“Why?” I ask. “I thought you were upset with Paul in the first place for making you put him up for adoption.”
“I was, but I don’t want a baby, especially his baby,” she responds to me, her voice sounds ruthless.
“You know, I can’t apologize for what Paul put you through, but I think you need to forgive him. He’s-“
“I know he’s dead. I read it in the paper and I don’t give a damn.”
My mouth drops open for what feels like the millionth time in the past two weeks. “Oh, okay.” The door slams once again in my face. I’m not very good at this.
I turn and trudge to the car. I get in and drive to Paul’s house and walk inside. It feels so empty without him. I’m glad his mom gave me the key. I just want to be alone. I run up the stairs and into his bedroom. I stop at the doorway and look at the bed wishing that Paul was still there and everything that had happened was just a horrible nightmare.
-------
Six Days Before the Funeral
I woke once again to Paul’s knock at the guest bedroom door. We hadn’t done a thing the day before. I had just wanted to spend time with him and I hadn’t felt emotionally or physically capable of actually going out to do anything. I knew that his list was important to him and now I knew why, but I couldn’t come to terms with losing him.
He had reminded me that I had gone almost three years without a single word to him, but I had always thought that he would be there for me when I was ready to go back to him. I had gone to college for freedom, but I had only recently realized that I had moved so far away to have my freedom from him.
At first I thought that I had picked Penn State because I needed to get away from my parents. I needed to be able to go out and party and have fun. Now I realized that there had been a second reason for wanting my freedom. I felt like Paul was always using me for something. I was far too attached to him and I was tired of always waiting for him to see who I really was.
I showered and dressed as I thought about all this, then walked downstairs. “Morning,” I murmured, sitting down at the table and drinking the lukewarm coffee. I knew that I should make Paul’s last days the best that he could have, but I didn’t feel like smiling.
“Morning,” Paul replied, sitting down opposite with me.
“I’m sorry about yesterday,” I said, my voice cracking some as I lifted my mug to take another sip.
Paul frowned as he watched me. He reached across the table and put his hand on my shoulder after brushing away my thick, blonde hair. I felt him squeeze it lightly.
“What’s on the agenda for today?” I asked him, looking up into his soft, warm, brown eyes.
“I need to go talk to Andy, patch some things up. I figured you could tag along with me,” he said, shrugging. He let go of my shoulder and took my finished cup of coffee from me. “Do you want some more?”
I shook my head.
He walked over and placed the cup into the sink, then walked back over to me. “Mandy, it’s not the end of the world. I knew you’d be upset, but I didn’t think you’d take it this badly.”
“Paul, for eighteen years you were my world!” I exclaimed, standing from my chair as I did so. “You were like my big brother,” I paused and looked down to the floor.
“Until I made things complicated,” he finished for me.
“Well, if you put it that way, then you were really only my big brother for sixteen years,” I told him softly.
“I don’t regret kissing you, Mandy,” he told me, his voice and eyes and touch soft.
“That doesn’t matter now though.”
“What does matter then?”
“Nothing.”
He looked at me for a moment, then pulled me into a hug. He squeezed me too him tightly. “How about we just go see Andy and have a good time?”
“How do you know it’s going to be a good time? You made him hate you, remember?”
Paul laughed softly. “Yes, but he’ll take one look at you and take me back as a best friend,” he told me.
“You’re a pig,” I said, hitting his shoulder lightly, but a smile had crept onto my face. This was how it was supposed to be.
“I know, but you still love me.”
“Yes, you’re right. Come on,” I said, putting on my shoes before walking outside with him to his car. He opened the door for me and I slid inside.
-------
Present
I close the door to Paul’s bedroom and walk back to the guest bedroom I had been staying in. I climb into the bed and worm my way under the covers. I’m not cold; I just want to feel safe. I close my eyes as I feel tears pricking my eyeballs. I don’t want to cry. Paul wouldn’t want me to. I feel alone now. I’ve been on my own since I went to college, but now I truly feel alone.
I roll onto my back and look up at the ceiling. I wonder if he’s up there, watching over me. I hope that he is because even though he’s physically gone, I still need him. I need him to comfort me and I need him to help me finish what he started.
Angela seems like a lost cause. What can I possibly do to get her to forgive Paul? Maybe I could get her to listen to me somehow and then I could take her to see Nathaniel. I think that if she saw her son, she might come around and eventually forgive him. Right now she’s just hurt. If Paul had done something like that to me, it would be hard for me to forgive him too. I’d be hurt too, but would I be hurt enough to not give a damn that Paul was dead? No. Would I be hurt enough to slam a door in someone’s face who was trying to help? No.
I can’t think about this now though.
There are still some little things to be done on the list, but nothing should be too hard to handle. For the most part, Paul had fixed all his relationships before he had passed away. He had left me with paying off the debts from broken windshields, paying back the convenience store owner on the corner for the candy that he had stolen, and the like. I could handle that because Paul’s mom has the rights to Paul’s bank account and has agreed to help me.
I roll back over onto my side and sigh. As soon as I wake, I’m going back to the adoption agency. To hell with Angela.
-------
Six Days Before the Funeral (Afternoon)
We walked up to Andy’s front door together and I remember my hand being in Paul’s. Our relationship wasn’t complicated anymore. We had decided the night he had first come to see me at my apartment that we should just be friends and be the way we used to be around each other. I watched him knock on the door and smiled some as I looked up to him and saw him smiling. The door opened and I watched a man step out. He was thinner than Paul and a little nerdier looking, but cute in his own way.
“Paul,” he said as I watched his eyes cloud over. He sounded angry, upset, and business-like.
“Glad to see you still know my name Andy,” Paul smirked. He let go of my hand and instead wrapped his arm around my waist. “Do you remember this girl’s name though?”
“No,” Andy replied in the same tone. He wasn’t exactly warming up to Paul too well.
“Knew you wouldn’t. This is Mandy. She’s all grown up, isn’t she?” he asked, smiling more. He seemed to really be having fun with all this.
“Ah. Still robbing cradles then, I see.”
I looked at him stunned for a moment then narrowed my eyes. “Excuse me? I’m twenty and we’re not even together.”
Andy looked at me skeptically. “Whatever. You two want to come in?”
Paul smiled wider. Maybe Andy was a pushover, just like Paul had suggested he would be. “Sure, but we wouldn’t want to impose.”
“Shut up and just get in here,” Andy said, closing the door behind us once we had stepped inside. We followed him back to his living room and took our seats. I was just an observer now.
“You know Andy, I’m sorry that things turned out the way they did.”
“It’s not a problem. Steph got over it, then I eventually got over it.”
“I’m surprised she ever got over me. You know, with me being so hot and dreamy and all,” Paul said with a round of laughter.
“You watch it or I won’t forgive you at all.”
“Dude, you have to admit though that your sister was hot.”
“Paul,” Andy warned, “You’re crossing the line.”
Paul laughed harder. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry. Really and truly. If I would have known that dating your sister would lead to the end of our friendship, I wouldn’t have done it.” He sounded truly sincere. I wondered if he had joked around with his mother first like he just had with Andy. I doubted it.
“It wasn’t really you dating or dumping my sister,” Andy said. He looked hurt as he looked out the window.
Paul’s expression grew serious. “Andy, I didn’t know who I was then, what I was doing. I know now that I was wrong.”
“Yeah, and how are you going to fix that?” Andy said. It was kind of ironic really.
“I don’t exactly know yet.”
“Then maybe you should figure that out!”
“I’m trying!” Paul said, his voice louder in volume than before. “What the hell do you think I’m doing here? I’m trying to fix things!”
“Not everything can be fixed.”
“I know that.”
“You can’t go back and just change the past.”
“I wish I could,” Paul responded. They were going back and forth and back and forth like crazy.
“But you can’t.”
“I know, damn it! I KNOW!” Paul stood up then and glared down at Andy.
“Then why the hell are you trying to fix everything?”
“Because I’m sorry, god damn it, I’m sorry!” He glared down at Andy for a few more seconds before he sat back down in his chair. “I never actually hurt you.”
“You hurt me because you came to hate me,” Andy said. I was so confused now that I could barely keep their voices straight.
“I didn’t need you to help me.”
“Yes you did. If I didn’t help you, you’d still be out there doing crack, stealing money from homeless beggars, and smashing the windows of cars.”
Paul looked out the window then, his jaw clenched, his hands balled into fists. “I’m sorry I hated you and thank you for helping me.”
“You don’t have to thank me. I was your friend then and I’m still your friend now. You were just too damn stubborn to see that,” Andy retorted. He seemed to be watching Paul just as closely as I was.
Paul’s hands relaxed as his facial muscles relaxed as well. “I want to thank you though. You’re right. If you hadn’t gone to my mom about what was going on, I’d probably still be doing all those things.”
The light finally came on it my brain. “Wait, is this why my parents wouldn’t let me around you?” I asked, astonished. “’Cuz you were doing crack?”
Paul looked at me. “Yes, that’s why. It’s not something I’m very proud of.”
“You shouldn’t be proud of something like that,” I said. Maybe I should have listened to my parents and stayed away from him. I thought back on everything that had occurred in the last few years of my relationship with Paul. He had become distant to everyone but me. He had always told me that I was the only one he could talk to, but finding out this information today, he obviously couldn’t talk to me about everything because he had chose not to. If I had stayed away from him, would I be the person I was today? Would he still be trying to change me for the better? No, because without his influence, I wouldn’t be an alcoholic, just like him. I wouldn’t be a party girl. I wouldn’t be so stubborn or quick tempered. I wouldn’t be me though, either.
I snapped out of my reverie when I heard Paul telling me it was time to leave. I took his offered hand and got up from the couch. I said a goodbye to Andy then walked out with Paul to the car. “What’d I miss?”
Paul chuckled. “Nothing. Just another task to cross off the list.”
-------
Present
It’s the day after Paul’s funeral and I’m walking into the adoption agency for the second time in two days. The weight that was hanging over me yesterday is still hanging over me today, but I have a specific goal to accomplish, so I feel better.
The same woman who I talked to yesterday greets me today. “Can I help you?”
“Yes. I’d like to adopt Nathaniel Krieder.”
The woman smiles at me and seems genuinely pleased. I follow her back to a room and I’m introduced to another woman, Josephine Steingraber, and I sit down in an armchair on the opposite side of the desk from her. She tells me about the adoption process, then hands me a stack of papers to fill out about a foot high. “When you’re done with those, come back and see me. Then we can get everything sorted out and find out if you’re right for Nathaniel.” She leads me out to the front door.
I walk out to my car and lay the paper work out the seat beside me. I’m glad I don’t have a job yet, because that is going to take me days.
-------
Four Days Before the Funeral
I woke up this time on my own. I looked over to my clock and groaned. It was almost one in the afternoon. Why hasn’t Paul woke me up yet? I asked myself. My eyes opened wide then and I hurried out of bed, out the door, and down the hallway.
He hadn’t been feeling well yesterday. We hadn’t gone anywhere to do anything at all. The list wasn’t finished yet! He still had four weeks, right? That’s what the doctors had told him. They had said six weeks, two had passed, which left four. He had been complaining of a headache that just wouldn’t go away. He hadn’t eaten a single thing, which hadn’t really scared me. Paul had been eating less and less lately.
I rapped on his door when I got to it and sighed in relief as I heard his voice coming from the other side of it. “Can I come in?”
“Yeah,” he answered.
I walked in and smiled as I saw him. He was sitting up at least. “How’re you feeling today?”
“About the same as yesterday.”
I frowned and walked over to sit beside him on the bed. “Would you like something to eat? I can make or go get whatever you want,” I offered. I just want him to get better, even though I knew it could only get worse from here.
Paul gave me a small smile. “I’m not all that hungry, but I could eat a scrambled egg.”
I smiled as I heard him. “Okay, I’ll be right back.” I ran down from the kitchen and started up a burner after placing a pot with some butter on it first. I went to the fridge and get out two eggs. I remember that I smiled more as I heard his footsteps on the stairs. He was doing much better than yesterday.
“Smells delicious Mandy.”
“It’ll taste even better,” I promised him as I cracked open the eggs and began scrambling them in the pan. I turned off the burner then plated some up for the both of us. I walked over and sat his plate down in front of him. “What would you like to drink?” I asked.
“A beer.”
I turn back to him from the fridge. “It’s breakfast.”
“I don’t care, I need a beer.”
“No. If I can’t have a beer, you can’t have a beer,” I challenge.
“You can have a beer, it won’t kill you.”
I stop in my tracks at the word, but I don’t say anything. “I thought you were trying to quit.”
“I was, but I’m dying anyway, so what does it matter?”
I turn to the fridge and shake my head. Tears were already welling in my eyes. I grabbed the container of orange juice and poured us both glasses, then walked over to him and set them down. “Don’t say that.”
“It’s the truth.”
“I know it’s the truth, Paul, but sometimes, the truth hurts.”
-------
Present
Three days after my trip to the agency, I’m sitting at Paul’s kitchen table filling out even more paper work. They had gotten back to me this morning and said that I was suitable for Nathaniel. I had gone in to see him earlier and he was the sweetest little boy anyone could ever meet. He was deaf in one ear, but was so funny and loving and carefree. Now all I had to do was fill out the final paperwork to adopt him. Then I could bring him home with me. Even though Paul wasn’t here anymore, it was somehow still home.
-------
Three Days Before the Funeral
I woke up once again on my own. I remember instantly having that bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. You could call it mother’s intuition, but I wasn’t a mother, not yet. I slipped out of my bed slowly; dread was filling my body as I pulled on my housecoat. I walked out of the guest room and down the hall, treading along the carpet slowly. I reached Paul’s door and stopped, then lightly knocked on the solid wood. There was no answer.
No, this was impossible. I knocked a little harder. “Paul?” I called, timidly but loudly. “Are you in there?”
Again, there was no answer. I felt myself becoming dizzy and leaned against a table along the hallway that used to hold a fish tank. I righted myself after I took a few deep breaths and slowly opened the door.
I peeked around the door and my heart stopped. “Paul?” I asked, even though I knew I wasn’t going to get a response. I covered my mouth with my hand and slowly walked towards the bed. I reached my other hand out to him, my mind vaguely going to the hope that he was just playing a trick on me.
I shuddered as I felt his cold skin. “Oh god,” I murmured, tears falling from my eyes and down my cheeks. I couldn’t stop them. “Oh no, Paul, no,” I remember sobbing while I laid my head down on his still chest.
“No.”
-------
One Month After the Funeral
“Well, what do you think?” I ask Nathaniel as I show him his new bedroom. I can’t seem wipe this stupid grin off my face.
“This is awesome,” he replies excitedly, his eyes that were so much like Paul’s lighting up some.
“I’m glad you like it,” I say to him, ruffling his hair as he wraps his tiny arms around my one leg. “You ready for a bedtime story and then bed?”
“Yes!” he says, jumping in under the covers.
I laugh softly as I watch him, then walk over and tuck him in. I sit down and read to him about the Three Little Pigs, then turn off the light. It has been such a long day. I walk down the hallway to the guest bedroom in Paul’s house, which is now my house and my bedroom. I’ve decided to take online courses to finish out my sophomore year, and then transfer to a school closer to home.
I change into my nightclothes, and then I turn off the light and crawl into bed. I smile some as I look up at the ceiling. “Did I do well?”
The List
1. Fix thins up with Mom
2. Find Mandy
3. Angela
4. Apologize to and thank the McKee’s
5. Give Elaine her dance
6. Reconnect with Andy
7. Repay Mr. Shoel’s
8. Work at a homeless shelter/soup kitchen
9. Get G.E.D.
10. Repay the church for broken window
11. Make amends with Billy
12. Find ___________________
Kelly :)