South of Superior - Ellen Airgood [134]
After Jim left, Paul got in his truck and drove. He roamed all over the back roads surrounding Edwardsville, Up and down the streets of the town itself, around the old two-story brick high school, through the parking lot of the A&W. He ended Up finally at the curve on East Phillips Road. He coasted to a stop on the shoulder, then got out of the truck and stood on the crunchy, sun-sparkled snow.
It had been hot and muggy the day of the accident. The cicadas were rasping in the trees, and the world had seemed slow, so slow. It was summer vacation, Paul was twelve, and he was bored. He was sitting on the porch drinking Tang with ice cubes in it, reading a Popular Mechanics. He was supposed to be mowing the lawn, but he figured he’d do that later, when it was cooler. Suddenly there was a roar in the driveway. Manny, on his new bike. Paul dropped the magazine and ran down the steps, thinking, Thank God, something to do, I’m saved. The slow, dull world had burst into life.
Manny took him for a ride around the block, and then another one, and another. At first this was great, but pretty soon it was boring. “Come on, let’s go somewhere,” Paul had said. “Show me what this thing can do.”
“Can’t do it. You don’t have a helmet, and this thing’s not built for two.”
It didn’t take Paul all that long to wear him down.
They headed out into the country, going slow at first but then faster and faster, and then they came Up on this curve and everything after that was a blur. Paul knew he hadn’t leaned the way he should have. He knew Manny was going way too fast. God, it had been fun before it was all disaster.
He walked slowly along the curve, more aware of his limp than ever. He knew from having been told—here was where he’d been thrown, clear of the bike and clear of the trees that lined the road. Here was where Manny had landed. Hit his head, died instantly. The bike had scattered into a hundred pieces from the force of the crash. If he looked, he could probably still find a chunk of something, hidden in the gravel and weeds, twenty-four years later.
Twenty-four years he’d been limping along on his bad leg, telling himself he was a philosopher, a thinker, a student of life. What bullshit. Really he was just a man who always expected the worst.
Paul stared into the winter sun for a moment, giving himself an excuse for his watering eyes. You’re an idiot, he said to himself, but not Unkindly. He tried, but he couldn’t keep tears from brimming in his eyes.
“Manny, I am sorry,” he said out loud. The words vanished into the clear winter air. But it was true. Manny shouldn’t have died that day. Paul shouldn’t have ended Up in the hospital and come out six weeks later with three pins in his leg and a burden of guilt so big he could barely drag it, and could never set it down. He was sorry, but he couldn’t change the past. We were dumb, both of us, he thought to his cousin now. It was an accident. A stupid, useless, unnecessary, preventable accident. It was both our faults, it was nobody’s fault, it doesn’t matter whose fault it was. I’m alive and you’re not, and I have to accept that. It’s done.
Back at the house that night Paul sat on the couch beside his dad, turning Greyson’s kaleidoscope in his hands, putting it Up to his eye now and then. He pretended to watch the news. There was a letter written on a heavy piece of drawing paper in his pocket that had come in the mail that day. The address was in Greyson’s handwriting, but Madeline wrote the letter. He knew she didn’t know it had been sent. He knew her. No way would she have put this in the mail.
Dear Paul, the letter said. We miss you. That’s all I’m writing to say. We’re okay, but—
Remember the night we carved the pumpkins? Remember how good it smelled and how you played the piano? I didn’t know you could play the piano.
I don’t know what I’m trying to say. Greyson’s good, but not as good as with you here. I wish—
The letter broke off there. There was a sketch of Paul playing the piano, Greyson beside him with a harmonica,