The Beginning of After

else.
    Mrs. Kaufman didn’t have quite the same turnout my family had, and those who went both days were looking a little more haggard at having to do the whole thing over again. I found myself glad that they’d done my family first, while people were still fresh to their grief. Even the rabbi seemed weary. It made me happy, for a second, and not ashamed about it. Our funeral was better.
    David wore the emo-goth outfit I’d seen the day before, and this time I noticed his black army boots. He was surrounded by relatives. His grandparents were staying at the house, I heard from one whisper. They were encouraging him to come back from the hospital and sleep in his own bed, but David wouldn’t do it.
    I watched him as the rabbi gave the cue, and David stood up to throw the first bit of dirt on his mother’s grave. As he did this, someone in the crowd burst out with a sharp sob. David looked up for a moment, the shovel in his hands, to see where it had come from. It was the first time that day I’d seen his face full-on, unshrouded by his shaggy hair now combed back, his bright eyes moving. He kept scanning the guests as the rabbi started talking again and an uncle put an arm around his shoulders.
    Those eyes landed on me, flickering with some kind of new energy and purpose. David raised his head a little more now, really registering me with an acknowledgment. I looked back, held his gaze for a few moments, but that was all.
    It felt like enough.

Chapter Four

    N ana was letting me sleep in the mornings, but not too late. She’d wake me by sitting on the edge of the bed.
    “Laurel, sweetie, it’s already ten o’clock,” she said on the Monday after the accident. It had not yet been a week.
    Nana and I didn’t talk about how long she’d be staying; we both knew it was for good. I’d listened to her on the phone with lawyers and bank people, dealing with the wills and becoming my legal guardian and other things that had to matter now. She did it without complaining. After all, she was the only one left who could. Her husband, my grandfather, had had a heart attack when I was still a baby, and my mother’s parents died before I was five. Both my mom and dad were only children, so there were no aunts, uncles, or first cousins. But Nana had always been there for as long as I could remember, and now, of course, she was here in our guest room.
    If it was ten, that meant third period at school, which meant Meg was in journalism class. I would have been in history. They were giving me an indefinite amount of time off, and nobody had even said anything about bringing me homework assignments.
    That was the expected thing, the thing the school automatically had to do. I knew that. But the thought of my classmates having a normal day without me just made me feel deeply, despairingly lonely.
    “What do you want me to do?” I asked Nana, who was now flicking cat hair off my comforter. I needed her to tell me what came next, because staying in bed wasn’t cutting it. All I could do in bed, when I wasn’t struggling to get back to sleep after some screwed-up dream, was watch Toby’s movie collection on his portable DVD player. He liked action and martial arts movies from all eras, and most of them were awful, but they were great at helping me not to cry.
    I was sure that once I started to cry, I would never stop. I mean, how could I ever stop?
    “I’d like you to come in and eat some breakfast. I don’t think you’ve had a decent meal all week.”
    It was true. Seder had been the last time I’d eaten a solid, balanced amount of food at a normal time. I always thought it was totally soap-opera for people to lose their appetite after something huge, but now I understood why. It wasn’t just that I couldn’t even imagine wanting to eat. It was that the emptiness combined with the little nag of hunger seemed like a duty.
    “What about you?” I asked Nana. “Will you eat with me?”
    “My stomach’s still a little upset, but I’ll have some matzoh and ginger ale.”
    In the kitchen, I sat down at the table, and she served me up a plate of pancakes, turkey bacon, and eggs.
    “What about Passover?” I asked, eyeing the pancakes.
    “I think we get excused this year,” she said wryly.
    I picked up one of the pancakes, slightly warm in my hands, and started to eat it like a big, limp cookie. It was something Toby and I loved to do, and it drove Nana crazy. But this time she just smiled and pushed the newspaper