He shakes his head.
I put my hands in my pants pocket and rediscover my gummy worms. I pull one out and dangle it in front of him. Want this? Her name is Laurie.
He looks at it for a moment then takes it but doesn’t put it in his mouth.
It’s not a real worm, I tell him. It’s to eat.
He still doesn’t eat it and I’m about to ask him to give it back if he’s not going to eat it but then he says, Thank you. I don’t think I can take it back now.
He puts it in his mouth and part of it hangs out as he chews. Finally the worm disappears. I miss her, he says.
Laurie the worm?
He shakes his head. Mommy.
Oh.
He turns his head to look up at me and moves closer but doesn’t invade my Personal Space. I try to look in his eyes. When I do I’m surprised. They are like Bambi eyes. They’re simple. Like the eyes on the Facial Expressions Chart and they stay still so I can see what’s inside.
Don’t you miss your brother? he asks. The Bambi eyes do not even blink.
What do you mean?
He’s dead. Right?
How do you know?
Everyone says you’re the weirdo whose brother is dead. Oh. Sorry. I didn’t mean to say weirdo. That’s just what people say. Are you weird?
I don’t know.
He shrugs. You’re not weird to me. I think you’re nice.
Thank you, I say. I’m remembering Your Manners.
I hear someone clap. A teacher voice calls out, Okay class! Two minutes! Then we need to line up!
Thanks for the gummy worm.
Very good, I say, you remembered Your Manners.
He nods. Mommy said that’s important.
It is. You get stickers.
His lips go down a little at the ends and his head tilts like he doesn’t Get It. I don’t think that’s why.
You do get a sticker though, I tell him.
From who?
Your dad.
He doesn’t have any stickers.
I have a lot. I can bring you some.
Okay. Thanks.
You said thanks. That’s two stickers now. You’re welcome. See? I’m good at Your Manners too.
He giggles. They’re not MY manners.
I know. They’re YOUR Manners.
What? His Bambi eyes look smiley but also a little… something else… maybe confused?
Everyone has to learn Your Manners, I explain.
You’re silly! He giggles some more.
Why are you laughing?
Because they’re EVERYONE’S Manners! MY Manners are when I say please and thank you. YOUR Manners are when YOU say please and thank you.
I Look At The Person. All this time I thought I was learning YOUR Manners when really I was learning MY Manners? But then… everyone’s manners are the same.
Now you Get It!
Ohhh. Thank you. You’re very helpful. I think it’ll be easier to learn YOUR Manners — I mean MY Manners — now that I know they belong to me and I’m not trying to learn somebody else’s.
The bell rings and the boy stands up and looks at me with his Bambi eyes. A teacher voice calls out and he turns and starts walking toward it but then he turns around again. What’s your name?
CaitlinAnnSmith.
Oh. Can I just call you Caitlin?
Only if you don’t shout it. I hate when people shout my name.
He nods. Okay. My name’s Michael.
I hold my right hand up and close and open it three times.
His mouth corners go up and his cheeks get puffy and his Bambi eyes smile. He has cute little dimples and blond wavy hair that drops below his cap. He holds his left hand up and opens and closes it several times back to me.
I wonder if this means I have a friend.
CHAPTER 11
THE DAY OUR LIFE FELL APART
MRS. JOHNSON GIVES ME BACK MY group project. It says Well Researched and Very Interesting and Excellent but at the bottom she also writes, Why are there capital letters in the middle of your sentences? Common nouns are not capitalized. Only the special words are capitalized. I look at my paragraph. I did not put capital letters in the middle of the sentences. They are only at the beginning of some words. She has put an X over the H in Heart and written a lowercase h. It doesn’t look right that way. I’m sure she’s wrong about the special words and capital letters even though she’s a teacher. How can any word be more special than Heart?
At home I think about Devon’s Heart. I sit on the sofa and look at his chest. It’s still under the gray sheet. There are rays of light coming in through the blinds and the dust swirls around in the beams and hits the chest and I wonder if any of the dust particles are Devon and if I can feel him.
I close my eyes and remember some of the things that happened on The Day Our Life Fell Apart. That’s what Dad calls it. After we came home from the hospital that night — with no Devon — Dad was yelling and kicking the furniture and the walls and he started pounding the chest with his fists and shouting, Why? Why? WHY? and he threw the woodworking books and Scout manual into Devon’s room and slammed the door and said, No no no no no, until I screamed at him to STOP IT! STOP IT! STOP IT! Then he put the sheet over the chest and now he never even looks in that corner.
I press myself against the sofa and squish my eyes tight and even though I try not to I remember being at the hospital and how there were sharp lights and siren noises and loudspeaker noises and beeping noises and medicine smells and finally people dressed in green pajamas and paper slippers said to Dad, We tried but we couldn’t close your son’s chest. His Heart — there was nothing left — there was nothing we could do. Nothing we could do.
I’m shaking and sucking my sleeve and I try to stop thinking about The Day Our Life Fell Apart but when I open my eyes Devon’s chest is staring at me so I slide off of the sofa and crawl over to it and pull the sheet up from the bottom and push underneath it and get inside the empty hollow chest and I imagine myself as the Heart. Devon’s Heart. My arms are atria and my legs are ventricles and I pump the blood all around the right way because there has to be something I can do. Something I can do. First I pump the blood to the lungs to pick up the oxygen then to the left atrium and ventricle then to the aorta to go all around his body like it should. All my valves are working so the blood flow is right and I can feel the beat and I rock with it because rocking makes me feel alive and I want his chest to be alive. I pump the blood around Devon’s body. Dev-on. Dev-on. Dev-on. I say it louder and louder to make it true and my whole body is beating for his louder and louder and wilder and wilder and my head is banging the sides of the chest but I don’t care. DEV-ON! DEV-ON! DEV-ON! And I hear Dad’s voice screaming like at the hospital and I don’t want to hear it because I don’t want any part of The Day Our Life Fell Apart to happen again so I focus and become the Heart louder and louder and harder and harder but then I fall out of the chest because there’s no way to close it and I feel Dad grabbing me but all I can do is scream the words from the green hospital people, I TRIED BUT THERE WAS NOTHING I COULD DO!