Celeste Ng - Everything I Never Told You

In Lydia’s honor, the school has closed for the day, and Lydia’s classmates come, lots of them. Looking at them, James and Marilyn realize just how long it has been since they’ve seen these girls: years. For a moment they don’t recognize Karen Adler with her hair grown long, or Pam Saunders without her braces. James, thinking of the crossed-out list of names, finds himself staring and turns away. Slowly the chairs fill with some of Nath’s classmates, with juniors and freshmen he finds vaguely familiar but doesn’t really know. Even the neighbors, as they file in, feel like strangers. His parents never go out or entertain; they have no dinner parties, no bridge group, no hunting buddies or luncheon pals. Like Lydia, no real friends. Hannah and Nath recognize a few professors from the university, their father’s teaching assistant, but most of the faces in the chairs are strangers. Why are they even here, Nath wonders, and when the service starts and they all crane their necks toward the coffin at the front, under the sassafras tree, he understands. They are drawn by the spectacle of sudden death. For the past week, ever since the police dragged the lake, the headlines in the Middlewood Monitor have all been about Lydia. Oriental Girl Found Drowned in Pond.

The minister looks like President Ford, flat-browed, white-toothed, clean-cut, and solid. The Lees do not attend church, but the funeral home had recommended him, and James had accepted without asking any questions. Now James sits up straight, pressing the chair’s back into his shoulder blades, and tries to listen to the service. The minister reads the Twenty-third Psalm, but in the revised text: I have everything I need instead of I shall not want; Even if I walk through a very dark valley instead of Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. It feels disrespectful, a corner cut. Like burying his daughter in a plywood box. What else could you expect from this town, he thinks. On his right, the scent of the lilies on the casket hits Marilyn like a warm, wet fog, and she nearly retches. For the first time, she wishes she were the sort of woman, like her mother, who carried a handkerchief. She would have pressed it to her face and let it filter the air, and when she lowered it the cloth would be dirty pink, the color of old bricks. Beside her, Hannah knits her fingers. She would like to worm her hand onto her mother’s lap, but she doesn’t dare. Nor does she dare look at the coffin. Lydia is not inside, she reminds herself, taking a deep breath, only her body — but then where is Lydia herself? Everyone is so still that to the birds floating overhead, she thinks, they must look like a cluster of statues.

Out of the corner of his eye, Nath spots Jack sitting at the edge of the crowd beside his mother. He imagines grabbing Jack by the shirt collar to find out what he knows. For the past week, his father has called the police every morning asking for new information, but Officer Fiske says only, over and over, that they are still investigating. If only the police were here now, Nath thinks. Should he tell his father? Jack stares at the ground in front of him, as if he is too ashamed to look up. And then, when Nath himself glances back to the front, the coffin has already been lowered into the ground. The polished wood, the white lilies fastened to its top — vanished, just like that: nothing but the blank space where it had once stood. He’s missed it all. His sister is gone.

Something wet touches his neck. He reaches up to wipe it away and discovers that his whole face is wet, that he’s been crying silently. On the other side of the crowd, Jack’s blue eyes are suddenly fixed on him, and Nath blots his cheek in the crook of his arm.

The mourners begin to leave, a thin line of backs filing toward the parking area and the street. A few of Nath’s classmates, like Miles Fuller, give him a sympathetic glance, but most — embarrassed by his tears — decide not to speak to him, and turn away. They won’t have another chance; in light of Nath’s high grades and the tragic situation, the principal will exempt him from the last three weeks of school, and Nath himself will decide not to attend commencement. Some of the neighbors circle the Lees, squeezing their arms and murmuring condolences; a few of them pat Hannah on the head, as if she’s a tiny child, or a dog. Except for Janet Wolff, her usual white doctor’s coat replaced by a trim black suit, James and Marilyn don’t recognize most of them. By the time Janet reaches her, Marilyn’s palms feel grimy, her whole body dirty, like a rag passed from hand to soiled hand, and she can barely stand Janet’s touch on her elbow.

On the other side of the grave, Jack stands off to the side, waiting for his mother, half-hidden in the shadow of a big elm. Nath weaves his way over, cornering him against the tree trunk, and Hannah, trapped at her parents’ side by a thicket of adults, watches her brother nervously.

“What are you doing here?” Nath demands. Up close, he can see that Jack’s shirt is dark blue, not black, that though he’s wearing dress pants he still has on his old black-and-white tennis shoes with the hole in the toe.

“Hey,” Jack says, eyes still on the ground. “Nath. How are you?”

“How do you think I am?” Nath’s voice cracks, and he hates himself for it.

“I gotta go,” Jack says. “My mom’s waiting.” A pause. “I’m really sorry about your sister.” He turns away, and Nath catches him by the arm.

“Are you?” He’s never grabbed anyone before, and he feels tough doing it, like a detective in a movie. “You know, the police want to talk to you.” People are beginning to stare — James and Marilyn hear their son’s raised voice and look around — but he doesn’t care. He leans in closer, almost to Jack’s nose. “Look, I know she was with you that Monday.”

For the first time Jack looks Nath in the face: a flash of startled blue eyes. “She told you?”

Nath lurches forward so that he and Jack are chest to chest. Blood throbs in his right temple. “She didn’t have to tell me. Do you think I’m stupid?”

“Look, Nath,” Jack mumbles. “If Lydia told you that I—”

He breaks off suddenly, as Nath’s parents and Dr. Wolff come within earshot. Nath stumbles backward a few steps, glaring at Jack, at his father for interrupting, at the elm tree itself for not being farther away.

“Jack,” Dr. Wolff says sharply. “Everything all right?”

“Fine.” Jack glances at Nath, then at the adults. “Mr. Lee, Mrs. Lee, I’m very sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you for coming,” says James. He waits until the Wolffs have started down the curving path out of the cemetery before grabbing Nath by the shoulder. “What’s the matter with you?” he hisses. “Picking a fight at your sister’s funeral.”

Behind his mother, Jack gives a quick backward glance, and when his gaze meets Nath’s, there’s no doubt: he is frightened. Then he turns the curve and is gone.

Nath lets out his breath. “That bastard knows something about Lydia.”

“You don’t go around making trouble. You let the police do their work.”

“James,” Marilyn says, “don’t shout.” She touches her fingers to her temple, as if she has a headache, and closes her eyes. To Nath’s horror, a dark drop of blood runs down the side of her face — no, it’s only a tear, stained black by mascara, leaving a dirty gray trail on her cheek. Hannah, her small heart awash in pity, reaches up to take her hand, but her mother doesn’t notice. In a moment Hannah contents herself by clasping her own fingers behind her back.

James fishes in his jacket pocket for his keys. “I’m taking your mother and sister home. When you’ve cooled off, you can walk.” As the words leave his mouth, he winces. Deep inside, he wants more than anything to calm Nath, to put a comforting and weighty hand on his shoulder, to fold him into his arms, on this day of all days. But already it takes all his strength to keep his own face from crumpling, to stop his own knees from buckling and spilling him to the ground. He turns away and grabs Hannah’s arm. Hannah, at least, always does what she’s told.