Five Minutes More (22 page)

I don't speak. I don't move.

Mom sees the paper, crushed now in my fist. “You saw it,” she says. “I was afraid you thought...He's not dead.”

I make a fist and hit her forearm. “You're lying,” I say. She shakes her head. “No.” I hit her shoulder with my other fist. She grabs my arm. “Seth's alive,” she says.

“You're lying!” I shout, beating on her with my free hand. One punch catches her on the side of the face and her eyes fill with tears. Another lands just below the collarbone.

Somehow she manages to get both of her arms around me. She doesn't seem to care that I'm filthy and I stink. “Seth's alive,” she says again.

I don't trust her. “Let me go!” I shout. I try to twist away, but she won't let go.

I hit and kick with all my strength, but she won't let go. I scrape her arm with my fingernails. She keeps holding on to me.

I can feel something raw and angry inside me trying to get out. “Why did he leave me?” I scream, and I don't know if I mean Seth or my father.

Mom holds me tight against her chest. “I'm not going to leave you. I'm not letting go,” she says. “If you run away, I'll never stop looking for you. Never.”

I try to pull away, but I can't fight her anymore.

“Never,” she whispers again.

And then something breaks inside me. I feel a sharp pain in my chest and I sag against my mother, shaking and crying—for Seth, for my dad, for me.

I think this park is the most beautiful place I have ever seen. There are trees everywhere I look. Strong, tall trees that will still be here when it's time for someone to say good-bye to me. But today we're here to say good-bye to my dad.

I push Seth's wheelchair up to the top of a rise that seems to. Have slid in just under the sky. I breathe deeper and I feel, somehow, connected to all of this.

The right side of Seth's body doesn't work the way it used to, that's why he needs the wheelchair. When he tried to kill himself, he had a stroke. He has to learn how to walk again, how to feed himself, how to write his name, how to talk. But Seth's alive, and that's all I care about. I'm teaching him how to juggle, and that makes us both laugh.

The trail ends in an open area. This is the place. A forest fire a year ago destroyed this part of the park. But I can see so many tiny green things growing again, up through the
sooty ground. We're here to plant a tree for my dad, to celebrate his life with a living thing.

I set the brake on Seth's chair. He gives me his loopy, lopsided smile and takes my hand with his good one.

Mom stands beside us, puts her arm around my shoulders, and I put mine around hers. We've talked a lot in the past few weeks—just the two of us and with a counselor too. Some of the things have been hard to say and hard to hear. But I'm learning that saying the words and living the feelings help.

And I've talked to Marissa too. I've fixed things with her. But not with Brendan. He wants the person I used to be, and I'm not that person anymore.

Overhead the sky is a deep, cloudless blue that seems to go on forever. I like to think that Dad still goes on somehow. I hate what he did, but I don't hate him. I close my eyes, and even though it feels kind of hokey, I send my love out into that endless blue, to wherever he is, whatever he is now.

Tomorrow my mother and I are going to see Claire. I don't know if we can be the family Dad wanted, but I am going to try, harder than I have ever tried at anything before.

Tomorrow I'm going to hug Claire and find out whether or not she will hug me back.

Thanks to Judy Gorham, who has known me since I was a geeky teenager—and has the pictures to prove it—for always cheering me on. Thanks to Andrew Wooldridge for his excellent editing. And special thanks to Susan Evans for reading the early versions of this book and for urging me to finish it. I'm glad you're here. This book is for you.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as
ALS
or Lou Gehrig's disease, attacks nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, causing muscle weakness, atrophy and paralysis. There is no known cure. Suicide has been called a permanent solution to a temporary problem. If you suspect someone close to you is thinking about suicide, please tell someone.

Darlene Ryan
is the author of
Saving Grace
,
Responsible
and
Rules for Life
. Darlene lives in Fredericton, New Brunswick.