When Ole Golly leaves, Harriet wishes she could still tell her the things that were happening. She imagines it must be even worse when someone dies. I felt differently. I didn’t want my father to know the things that had happened after he’d died, what our grass looked like, what had happened to Ellen, what was happening with my mom still sneaking out to meet Bill, how when she was home her door was closed, how Thomas was becoming the same way. I didn’t want him to know things that had happened in the past either, the things that would cause him pain, like Mr. Warren. I wanted to go into the past and say things differently. I wanted to go back and tell him the things I never did or change the things I did say, or say them better. I wished I had called him more when he was alone.

I wasn’t bookish like Marie, but we’d just read The Catcher in the Rye in sophomore English. Holden Caulfield talks to his little brother who is dead, and he changes the things he said to him in the past, to make up for the times he left him out. He tells Allie it’s okay, he can come with him now, to go get his bike and meet him outside Bobby Fallon’s house. When Suzie Sheerin read it aloud in class, my throat hurt. I understood how he wanted to go back to fix the things that could never be fixed. I felt like that every day.

I heard laughter in the distance and looked up. At the top of the street, two figures turned the corner. One of them was Sage in her J. C. Penney’s uniform. She had to come down our street to take the trail to the bus. Abbey was with her. Sage had her head down, but Abbey saw me and waved.

“Hey, Libby,” she called. I half waved back but pretended to concentrate on my book.

Sage didn’t say anything until they were almost past the house. “Did Marie leave?” she called out. She had stopped and was looking back up toward me. She was wearing her sneakers and holding her waitressing shoes. She had her hand over her eyes to shield them from the sun. Even in her ridiculous outfit, she looked cool.