Twenty-One

Mrs. Eisen’s funeral was scheduled for 11:00 a.m.

When I came downstairs for breakfast, Mom said they would make do without me and that I should stay home with Oren. But she said to be sure to wake up my brother in half an hour and tell him to get his butt next door by ten fifteen.

I would have been okay working, even if it meant leaving Oren by himself in our basement to watch TV or something—I wasn’t his babysitter. My parents must have thought Oren would be upset if I left him by himself so I could work at the funeral home.

It wasn’t like we could hide it from him though. All he had to do was look out a window and he’d see all the cars. He might even see them loading Mrs. Eisen’s casket into the hearse.

I was tempted to tell my parents that he’d even been inside the building the day before because he wanted to learn more about funerals. But I was worried that then I’d have to answer a ton of questions and maybe even get in trouble.

When Oren arrived, I told him about the movie that afternoon as I began to unpack my quilling supplies.

He pulled out his phone.

Why aren’t you helping with the funeral?

“Nate will be doing everything today. He won’t do as good a job as I do, but that’s because he doesn’t care as much. He doesn’t want to be a funeral director when he grows up.”

You want to do that?

I nodded. “Yeah. I mean, I’ll have to go to school and everything, but I definitely want to be a funeral director. I’m already a junior funeral director.” Sort of.

Oren looked impressed, which made me feel good.

“Anyway, we can work on this stuff until lunch. Are you excited about going to the movies?”

He shrugged.

I’d looked up what was playing, but I had no idea what kind of movies he liked. “What do you want to see? Do you like action movies? Superhero stuff?”

Another shrug, although this one also came with a small nod.

It was hard making all the conversation, even if I was getting pretty good at reading him.

He reached into my craft caddy for one of my fine-point markers. I thought he was going to start writing on some of the strips, or maybe scribble me a note, but instead he shoved the marker deep into the cast on his right forearm.

He jammed the marker in and out as he grimaced.

“What are you doing?”

Then the grimace turned to relief.

Ah, now I knew. I’d seen that expression on my brother’s face the previous summer, when he had his cast. “Are you scratching your arm?”

Oren nodded and blew out a loud breath as he put the marker down.

“Can I sign it?” I said.

He blinked at me.

“Your cast, I mean.”

He blinked again, and I started to fidget as I realized my mistake. Why would I want to sign his cast when I’d proclaimed we weren’t friends? That we’d never be friends?