The Beginning of After

girls from my school who I’d known forever. Once, when we were little, I’d taken a bath with one of them, but I couldn’t remember which.
    Now they came and sat down with me, on the ground made bumpy by the oak tree’s roots.
    “We just wanted to say hi and let you know how sad we are for you,” said Andie, sweeping her famous chestnut brown hair away from her face. “You must be going through hell.”
    “It’s so brave of you to do this today,” added Hannah, blond, touching my shoulder.
    “Thank you.”
    “We’re starting up a memorial fund, from our class to your family,” said Andie. She was known for her obsession with charities, always coordinating some kind of clean-up day, food drive, or group donation. Some kids did sports, Andie did Good.
    “We’d like to do something, you know, permanent. Maybe plant a tree at the rec center park,” chimed in Hannah, who was wearing one of the craveable dresses she designed and sewed herself.
    “Okay,” I said, still feeling like a moron. Why couldn’t I say something funny or smart? I was always looking for a chance to talk to these girls, and now here I was, mute.
    The rec center park. That was a nice spot, near the town pool and tennis courts, where they had Family Fun Night every summer. The year before, Toby and I had almost won the egg toss, but he’d dropped it when there were just three pairs left. I was pissed, that evening in late August. I’d never won anything at Family Fun Night and was sick of Mom always packing a picnic from the Taco Bell drive-through instead of preparing sandwiches and salad and cookies like all the other moms did, and making us go home before the fireworks because they gave her a headache.
    It wasn’t a great memory, but the thought of it still made my throat close up. Fortunately, just then Meg appeared around the corner with a mortified look on her face. She came toward us and said hi to Hannah and Andie, then reached down and helped me up without asking if I needed the hand.
    “My mom’s here,” said Megan, and we said quick good-byes before stumbling away.
    “What the hell was that?” I asked her once we were out of earshot.
    “I am so sorry. They cornered me after the test and asked if I knew where you were, and for some reason I told them because I’d just gotten your message, and before I could follow them out, stupid Mrs. Cox came over to talk to me about my English paper.”
    “It’s okay,” I said. “They were just being nice.”
    At least, I think that’s what it was. If Andie Stokes and Hannah Lindstrom being nice felt like being run over by a steamroller and thinking you should be grateful, then yeah, that was it for sure.
    When Mrs. Dill dropped me home, Nana was on the phone with someone. She waved at me as I closed the front door, then turned away. Masher ran in from another room, and I knelt down to bury my fingers in the fur on his back.
    “Yes, I understand,” she said in what I knew was her “I was raised to be pleasant to everyone” tone. “Well, we appreciate the update, Lieutenant. If there’s anything we can do to help, just let us know.” She hung up the phone quickly, then turned back around. “Oh! I was hoping to be able to give you a big congratulations hug the second you walked in!”
    “Who was that?” I asked. I stood up, and Masher darted from the room, like he knew his job for now was done.
    “It was Lieutenant Davis, just filling us in.”
    “On what?”
    “Can we talk about it later? I want to hear about the tests.”
    “After you tell me what he said.”
    Nana sighed and looked at the ceiling. “They’re trying to determine an official cause of the accident. They need to do that, you know, for their records.”
    “I know about records.”
    “Well, they said Mr. Kaufman may have had too much to drink; they tested his blood alcohol level in the hospital that night. It was right on the borderline. But Lieutenant Davis personally thinks there was another car involved. So they’re still hoping someone will step forward.”
    I sat down, remembering what I’d overheard at the funeral, and felt almost glad that the blame on Mr. Kaufman was becoming more official. If I could blame him, I couldn’t blame myself. I could hate him, even, and nobody would fault me for it.
    Not my dad. I knew he always disliked Mr. Kaufman a little, along with the two or three other dads in our neighborhood who made lots of money and bought lots of big, obvious things with it.