Charmed Thirds_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [44]
Matthew Michael Darling succumbed to SIDS at two weeks old. I'd say that he would have been three and a half years older than I am, but if he were still alive there would be no me. The Darlings wouldn't have wanted a third kid to mess up their picture-perfect family, a blond girl who looks like Mom and a brown-haired boy who looks like Dad. Not that I'm even sure he had brown hair, or any hair at all, because no one ever talks about him. I only know as much as I do from Bethany, who was seven years old at the time of his birth and death. Old enough to remember that he briefly existed, but too young to know the details. And I can't bring myself to ask anyone else.
For the next two weeks, my mom and dad will mourn their way through the length of their son's brief life. My mom will pop emotion-numbing pills. My dad will get on his bike and ride and ride and ride in what I can only assume is a vain attempt to outrace Matthew's memory.
“Oh, Mom . . .” I wanted to say something that would let her know that I understood. But the truth is, I didn't understand. Matthew is such a nontopic of conversation that I don't have the vocabulary for speaking the language of senseless loss. So I said nothing else before grabbing a Coke and escaping upstairs.
Now I'm really dreading these last weeks at home. I can't wait to get back to school. When I saw him later that afternoon, Marcus picked up on my restlessness, though I didn't explain the deeper reasons for it.
“I know just what you need.”
“What?”
“A road trip!” His eyes didn't merely dance. The greens of his irises do-si-doed with the browns, swirling, dipping, twirling in excitement.
“Road trip?”
“You know how you wanted us to hang out more with Percy and Bridget . . .”
He told me how spending so much time with his dad this summer, and hearing his tales about the open road, had given him a serious case of wanderlust.
“Why can't the four of us drive from New Jersey to California? Let's explore this great nation of ours. From the mountains to the prairies! From the land where my fathers died to the land of the pilgrims' pride! From sea to shining sea!” He sang the last parts, his hand patriotically thumping his chest.
I did not share his excitement. I was getting tired of everyone thinking they knew what was best for me all the time.
“How are Pepe and I supposed to get back home?”
“Fly,” he said, as if it were merely a matter of flapping my wings.
“Marcus, I didn't work all summer, remember? I've got no money. I'm barely keeping myself afloat . . .”
He dropped his hand to his side, sensing defeat. “I'm sure you can get a cheap flight on the Internet. You don't start school for a few more weeks; you can be flexible.”
Flexible was not how I felt. This is how I felt: My middle-school science teacher once did a demonstration to illustrate how physical properties are transformed by outside forces. He stretched a large rubber band into a cat's cradle between his hands. Then he released the rubber band and dipped it into a beaker of liquid hydrogen. After a few seconds, he removed the rubber band and banged it against the lab table, and it shattered into a bizillion pieces.
“No, I can't,” I said.
“Nothing is absolute,” he said, his voice calm. His voice was always calm lately, the result of hours and hours of solitary reflection, he tells me. “Everything can change . . .”
Everything can change, I thought. Everything already had. Instead I said, “Why don't you just stay here and fly out when you had planned? Are you afraid to spend time with me?”
“Jessica . . .” The sound of his voice saying my name soothed me, and it's all I wanted to hear him say. Just my name, over and over and over again in his buttery baritone. I wanted my name to be his mantra, the word he meditated on, his tool for finding calm in the world.
But he kept on talking.
“I just asked you to drive three thousand miles with me. How would that make me afraid to see you?”
“You knew I probably wouldn't or couldn't do it.”
“I thought you would say yes. We've talked