Perfect Glass (A Young Adult Novel (sequel to Glass Girl)) (29 page)

On my third day home, the day of Jo’s funeral, Henry texted—
Log in to Skype, Pittsburgh. I need to see you
.

When his face appeared on my screen, I hardly recognized him. He’d grown a scruffy beard and his hair curled over his ears and down on his neck. His Wyoming cap was caked with dirt, and his face looked deeply tanned and streaked where sweat ran through the dust on his cheeks.

The whole effect made his teeth look whiter than ever and I smiled when he smiled.

“Okay.” He released a breath. “I wasn’t sure.”

“About what?” I asked, sitting up in the bed and running a finger through my tangled hair.

“About you. Thanet said you haven’t made it to school in a few days and my mom called to tell me she was concerned.”

“But now that you’ve seen me?”

One side of his mouth tugged up. “Now that I’ve seen you, I know.”

“You’re being deliberately obscure, Henry.”

He shook his head. “I’m still worried about you, but now that I’ve seen your face, I can tell you’re going to be okay.” His eyes scanned his screen like he was reading me. “You’re sad. Your eyes are puffy. You’re wearing my t-shirt. You’re miffed at me. But you smiled, so I feel better now.”

“I’m glad one of us feels better.” My voice sounded flat and sarcastic, two things I usually avoided, conversationally. “Why haven’t you called? Is that how you deal with things ‘on your terms?’ You’ll talk to Thanet, but not me?”

His chest expanded as he took a huge breath, blowing it out slowly. “I felt like I would lose it if I thought about it too much. Self-denial is my friend for a while longer.”

“Self-denial?” I said.

His eyes softened and he touched his screen. His hand stayed close to the camera long enough for me to see fresh cuts and blisters. “Meg, you’re my future. But right now, I’m here. Time is running out and if I don’t finish, none of this will feel like it was worth it.”

“But my friend died, Henry. I needed you.” I choked on the last part. I hated playing the emotion card, even if it was out of my control. Henry’s face fell because I’d touched his Achilles heel.

“I’m so sorry about Jo, honey,” he said. “What can I do to help?”

My mom knocked on my door and tiptoed in. “Hi, Henry.” She waved to him and he waved back and said hello. “The memorial starts in an hour, Meg. Do you need anything?”

“No, I’m fine. I’ll get in the shower.” I turned around and watched her put a stack of clean clothes on my dresser. Henry stayed quiet, too.

When she closed the door behind her, he leaned onto his elbows and closed his eyes. “I wish I could make all this go away.” When he opened his eyes again, I noticed they were bloodshot and watery. He must be exhausted.

“I know you do.”

“Have you talked to Quinn about Jo?” he said.

“Some, I guess. His mom was her nurse.”

Henry nodded. “He’ll be at the funeral, then.”

I shrugged. “He might be.”

“Can you call me when it’s over?” he said. “I was making it okay until I saw you. I’m sorry, Meg. For both of us.”

***

The weirdest thing about Jo’s funeral was that I sat on the front row. People from all over the country came to mourn the Jo Russell of coffee table art books. Art history majors wept. Other painters came, too. I knew them from their clothes and how they carried themselves, with self-conscious shoulders and wrinkled pants. How, out of a roomful of creative geniuses, did I end up on the front row?

Someday it will be a funny story to tell. When my parents and I parked in the lot across the street, Clayton and Miriam waved me over to a side door. They greeted my parents, then Clayton said, “Meg, we’ve got clear instructions from Jo that you’re to come in with the family and sit down front.”

“We’ll meet you by the car afterwards,” my mom said. She hugged me and nodded—her way of saying I’d be okay.

I followed Clayton and Miriam through the nondescript, side door into a small room with uncomfortable chairs, full tissue boxes, and cheesy pictures of a very pale, wimpy Jesus. I sat in one of the pastel chairs. The seat, with a crater in the middle, was what Henry would call “rump sprung.” I checked my watch. Ten minutes before the funeral was scheduled to start and we were still the only “family” in the room. Clayton and Miriam were quiet, the throat-clearing uncomfortable sort of quiet.

Someone from the funeral home stuck his head through the door and said, “Everyone here?”

Clayton nodded and stood, motioning for Miriam and me to stand as well.

“Follow me, then.” He paused, looked at me, and ceremoniously said, “I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you,” I said, but the words felt wrong in my mouth, more question than statement.

The man led us down an empty hallway and, just before he opened the double doors that led into the sanctuary, he looked back at us and whispered, “Ready?”

People stood when the doors opened and the three of us walked down the center aisle to the front. I recognized the backs of a few heads—Jenny’s, Quinn’s, and Abby’s—but mostly the clothes and hats and hairdos were a blur. Being led in as one of three people Jo claimed as family weakened my already shaky hold.

Someone, a man I didn’t know, began to speak. I tried to listen…I really did. But my mind and with it, my senses, flickered and shut down. The man was talking underwater and, though his mouth moved, no actual words made it to me. There was no coffin. Jo’s choice, I’m sure. In its place, someone had made a kind of shrine out of a framed picture of Jo and a few of her smaller paintings on easels. Her self-portrait was front and center.

The man finished and sat down in the empty place next to me. A woman appeared out of nowhere to stand behind the podium. She looked kind of like Jo. Not in a familial way, but in that way women who’ve been friends for life look alike. I wondered where she’d been for the last few months.

She read a famous poem I memorized quickly because it was printed on the back of the program.
Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
…
put out my hand and touched the face of God
. And she talked about a Jo I’d never known—a woman who wore gypsy skirts and head wraps and entertained painters and sculptors, writers and poets. A woman who, when she had a son, was the happiest human being alive.

And, too soon, it was over. With no casket, there was no burial. There was no gathering somewhere to eat. Jo would have hated for people to be in her house, looking through her things, anyway. So all the people who had covered all the miles to see her off, got back in their cars and retraced their steps.

My parents met me at the side door, as promised, and we walked to the car without talking. I’m fairly certain this day brought up a lot of buried sadness for all of us. We were cordial but careful, moving to the car like we weren’t sure our legs would carry us all the way.

In the driveway, before we got out of the car, my mom said, “Would anyone mind if I paint for a while?”

“Of course not,” my dad said. “I think I’ll go to the office to get some work done. I’ll take my truck.”

And I lay down on the couch, staring out the window at the icicles hanging onto the eaves. I’d nearly fallen asleep when the deep sound of Quinn’s car engine rumbled down the driveway. His knock on the door was soft, just a hesitant touch of knuckles on wood.

“It’s open,” I called, unable to move from my position. The door squeaked open slowly. I closed my eyes until I felt him standing over me.

“You look like a giant,” I said, opening one eye and then both.

“You look really comfortable. Is there room for me?” His voice was soft, tentative, muffled by the sound of blood rushing in my ears.

I sat up and scooted over to give him room.

“Can I get you anything?” he said.

“I’m pretty sure that’s my line,” I said. “Can I get you anything?”

“No, thanks.” He smirked at me.

I made a big deal of arranging a quilt around my legs.

“Meg Kavanagh sits pensively after funerals,” he said. “You’d think I’d have you figured out by now.”

I smiled a secret smile because, although I didn’t want to encourage him, I also found him endearingly sweet. He will be good to someone one day and she’ll be a lucky girl. His wardrobe alone will keep her guessing. For the memorial service, he’d worn dark pants and a black t-shirt that said Art Is Life. I’m sure he chose the shirt carefully, with Jo in mind.

“How weird was that?” I said.

“So many weird things,” he said. “Which one are you talking about?”

“Me. On the front row. Me, walking in like family. And no one else claiming to be related to her. She’s got to have nieces and nephews and cousins. And siblings. Right?”

He shrugged. “Not necessarily. She could have pushed them all away. Or maybe she really was the last of her family.”

“Sad.” I looked over at him to see if that thought bothered him, too.

“I like what the guy said about her.” He smiled as he thought about it. “How when people would tell her she was a perfect artist, the best they’d ever seen, she’d tell them to get lost because those were the people who didn’t understand art.”

“What else did he say about her? I had trouble following him. I want to remember everything.”

Quinn glanced at me and squinted his eyes. “He said that part about how she squinted at her subjects to paint them because that’s the only way she could get an impression of their souls. And that, until she began losing herself to dementia, she talked about how beauty is sacred and the only way we can know God.”

Jo was full to bursting with faith and spirit and love. The tragedy of all tragedies could be that I met her too late.

Quinn used his thumb to chase a tear on my cheek and dry the path it left. He pushed that thumb into the palm of his other hand and rubbed slowly. “I know you’re in love with Henry,” he said, surprising me with the turn of his thoughts. “And that’s great because he makes you happy and all.”

He smiled and squinted at me again, tilting his head up and to the right as he stared. “Maybe what I’m attracted to in you is more than your looks and your brain and your humor.” He leaned closer like he had a secret. “It could be your soul,” he whispered.

I pushed his cheek until he was squinting at the door to the kitchen instead. “Is this when you tell me I’m your soul mate, O’Neill?”

“No, listen,” he said. “You look at people like they matter. You don’t always have to compete with everyone for everything. You have this endlessly deep reservoir of profound thoughts. That’s not just a personality type and it’s more than the fact that you lost your brother.”

I stared at my hands in my lap. Quinn was having this earnest, solemn moment that really had little to do with me and everything to do with his own understanding of life. I felt like an intruder in some stream-of-consciousness conversation he was having with himself.

“You’re sort of shiny to me because you understand some connections in life that I don’t get,” he said.

“That’s not entirely true, Quinn. You get things in your own way. You’ve taught me things.”

He grinned. “Liar.”

He laughed when I laughed and then he got quiet and serious. “I think, even though I’ve acted cynical about the whole thing, you’re different because you believe in something mysterious. And because of that, I bought a book.”

“You bought a book?” I said. “Like, a Bible?”

“We have a Bible, Meg. We’re unchurched, but we’re still American.” He shook his head and smiled. “I bought a philosophy book about belief and I’m reading it. I don’t get it, but I’m trying.” He rubbed his palms together. “I think you are most excellent, Meg Kavanagh, and I want whatever that is in my world.”

“I’m really glad.” I swallowed back anything else I could have said that would make this moment feel comfortably ironic again. Because I’d found that irony had no place in discussions of belief. “It’s not like I was raised in a family of churchgoers, either. I’m trying to figure things out, too. It sort of hit me in the back of the head. Now it’s like breathing. I have to breathe; I have to believe.”

Quinn laced his fingers behind his head and stretched out, staring up at the ceiling. “I get that. For you, it’s more than following a bunch of rules—no sex, no booze, no swear words, pray every night and twice on Sunday.”

“So much more,” I said.

“And there’s a reason behind that way of life for you that has nothing to do with how others see you.” He laughed at himself. “I’m not making any sense.” Sitting up, he shifted, and in his eyes, I could see his struggle to find the right words.

“I think it’s more about sacrifice than rules,” I said. I paused, making sure I really meant what I said. “You just try to stop living for yourself. Helping Jo taught me that.”

“Yeah.”

We were lost for a moment. Just absorbing. Making sure not to say more than what needed saying.

“Anyway,” he said, studying my face. “Thanks. For being you.”

“I don’t know what to say to that.”

“Say we’re cool.” Quinn’s signature wry smile returned.

“Okay.”

“Okay, what?” he said.

“Okay, we’re cool.”

“And that we’re best friends,” he said.

Now he was just mocking me. “No.”

Laughing, he held his hand out to shake mine, just like the first time we’d met.

“Yes.”

henry

“Y
ou sure you’ll be okay? You’ve probably never been alone in your life.” John packed while I held Aidia, bouncing her on my knee to get her to laugh. “Your nearest English-speaking friend will be Patrick, half an hour away.”

“I’m not gonna have a lot of time for socializing, John. I plan on working around the clock and knocking this project out in a couple of weeks.” Aidia put her hands on my cheeks and leaned in to bite my nose.

John stopped next to the window and peered out at the flex building. We’d spent the last week unloading the shipping container and loosening the building materials that had been wedged in like a 3D puzzle. John helped me sort things into piles, interior and exterior, according to the building diagrams I’d made.

“I feel really weird leaving you here,” he said.