A Sudden Silence Read Online Free Page B

girl?" I knew which girl.
    "The one Bry was making the clock for."
    "No. I mean, yes. It must have been for Chloe Eichler. I didn't know he was making a clock for her."
    "She's a hearing girl, he told me. Bry was pleased about that. He said they were walking through Laguna one day, and she saw a beautiful old handmade clock in an antique store window that she wished she had for her room, and Bry decided he couldn't afford that, but he could sure make her a hand-tooled one." Grandpa turned, holding the two rectangular ladder pieces, one in each hand. "Do you want to finish it for him? For her? I'm doing one at the same time at home. We could check up on each other."
    I stood and smoothed the chenille cover, not looking at him.
    "Well, I don't know. I don't have that much time. I've signed up for a really heavy load...."
    Grandpa raised his eyebrows. "You have the summer."
    "I have a job lined up for Taco Bell, but now I'm not sure. I'll think about the clock. But it doesn't seem right, Grandpa. This was his. For her."
    "Of course it would be right. Who else is there?"
    But Grandpa didn't know how I'd seen Chloe for the first time that night, how I'd been thinking about her right at the minute Bry was killed. How I'd been wishing she was my girl and not his. Those were the things that made it seem not right for me to be taking over where Bry left off. Those, and other things. "I think I'll go to bed," I said.
    Grandpa sighed. "Yes. Tomorrow will be hard. But Jesse..."
    I stopped.
    "Take that job, Jesse. It's going to be harder for you if you don't keep busy these next months. You get to just lying around thinking, and that can be bad."
    I nodded. "Good night, Grandpa."

    I'd decided to stay alert during Bry's funeral, to check who was there and who wasn't. You never could tell. But it wasn't easy to stay alert. In the first place, this was my brother's funeral. That was
his
coffin placed in front of the pulpit, candles at either end, flowers piled high on the polished wood.
    This was Bry's favorite hymn we were singing. In church he'd sing it with us, no tone and too loud most of the time, the way he'd talk too loud, not knowing he was doing it.
    "'Amazing grace, how sweet the sound,'" we sang. I was having trouble getting the words out. Why hadn't amazing grace saved him? Why hadn't he sensed that car, felt the vibrations the way he could so often? For the same reason I hadn't heard it. It had been on us too fast.
    I gave up trying to sing, standing still, letting the sound of the hymn wash over me, and I knew that my father wasn't singing either. My mother was, though, and when I looked up at her face I saw a sort of healing there. Maybe what I saw was amazing grace.
    The church overflowed. All the park people had come. Just one of the Strathdee sisters, though. Even for a funeral Fluffy couldn't be left alone.
    There was Chloe with her brother, and a man and a woman who were her parents, I guess, and Bry's shop teacher and Ms. Diprolini, who is the principal at the high school. A red glow from the good shepherd stained-glass window slanted across Chloe's face. She was wearing a dark blue shirt and skirt, and I thought,
Bry's girl.
His hearing girl. I hated myself for even looking at her.
    Mr. Lichen, Bry's speech therapy teacher, my father, my grandfather, and I carried the coffin along the aisle after the service was over. Bry didn't feel heavy at all. When he used to jump on my back he'd felt heavy, all right, but not today. The aisle seemed awfully long, though, and the smell of the flowers sickening. I was glad to get outside into the air.
    I don't think all the people who'd been in the church came to graveside. I would have liked to skip this one myself.
    I looked at the clusters of people standing on the grass, a safe distance from the fresh mound of earth. There were faces I recognized and others I didn't. Most of the kids who'd been at the party that night were there, serious and pale now, not looking at each other or