It’s Not Summer Without You

“So where are we going?” I asked Jeremiah. I tried to catch his eye, to make him look at me, just for a second. It seemed like he hadn’t looked me in the eye once since he’s showed up, and it made me nervous. I needed to know that things were okay between us.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I haven’t talked to Con in a while. I have no clue where he’d go. I was hoping you’d have some ideas.”

The thing was, I didn’t. Not really. Not at all, actually. I cleared my throat. “Conrad and I haven’t spoken since—since May.”

Jeremiah looked at me sideways, but he didn’t say anything. I wondered what Conrad had told him. Probably not much.

I kept talking because he wasn’t. “Have you called his roommate?”

“I don’t have his number. I don’t even know his name.”

“His name is Eric,” I said quickly. I was glad to know that at least. “It’s his same roommate from the school year. They stayed in the same room for summer school. So, um, I guess that’s where we’ll go, then. To Brown. We’ll talk to Eric, to people on his hall. You never know, he could just be hanging out on campus.”

“Sounds like a plan.” As he checked his rearview mirror and changed lanes, he asked me, “So you’ve been to visit Con at school?”

“No,” I said, looking out the window. It was a pretty embarrassing thing to admit. “Have you?”

“My dad and I helped him move into the dorms.” Almost reluctantly he added, “Thanks for coming.”

“Sure,” I said.

“So Laurel’s cool with it?”

“Oh, yeah, totally,” I lied. “I’m glad I could come.”

I used to look forward to seeing Conrad all year. I used to wish for summer the way kids wished for Christmas. It was all I thought about. Even now, even after everything, he was still all I thought about.

Later I turned on the radio to fill the silence between Jeremiah and me.

Once I thought I heard him start to say something, and I said, “Did you just say something?”

He said, “Nope.”

For a while we just drove. Jeremiah and me were two people who never ran out of things to say to each other, but there we were, not saying a word.

Finally he said, “I saw Nona last week. I stopped by the retirement home she’s been working at.”

Nona was Susannah’s hospice nurse. I’d met her a few times. She was funny, and strong. Nona was slight, maybe five foot two with spindly arms and legs, but I’d seen her haul up Susannah like she weighed nothing. Which, toward the end, I guess she very nearly did.