LITMIR.BIZ

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“She’s cool,” he said. “You should keep this one.”

      I heard the sound of dishes clinking together in the kitchen and left the brothers to help clean up. I found Miss Emma up to her elbows in dishwater.

      “Let me dry.” I picked up the dish towel hanging from the handle of the refrigerator.

      “Why, thank you, darlin’.” She handed me a plate. “I heard you playing in there. That was lovely. I didn’t know a sound like that could come out of that electric thing.”

      “Thanks,” I said, adding, “Marcus plays really well by ear.”

      “It’s his choice of music that makes me ill.” I had the feeling nothing Marcus did would be good enough for her.

      “It’s what everybody listens to, though,” I said carefully.

      She laughed a little. “I can see why Jamie likes you so much.”

      I felt my cheeks redden. Had he talked about me to his parents?

      “You care about people like he does.”

      “Oh, no,” I said. “I mean, I care about people, but not like Jamie does. He’s amazing. Three weeks ago, I almost killed him. I did. Now I feel like…” I shook my head, unable to put into words how I felt. Taken in. By Jamie. By his family. More at home with them than I’d felt in six years with my icy aunt and silent uncle.

      “Jamie does have a gift with people, all right,” she said. “The way some people are born with musical talent or math skills or what have you. It’s genetic.”

      I must have looked dubious, because she continued.

      “I don’t have the gift, Lord knows,” she said, “but I had a brother who did. He died in his thirties, rest his soul, but he was…it’s more than kindness. It’s a way of seeing inside a person. To really feel what they’re feeling. It’s like they can’t help but feel it.”

      “Empathy,” I said.

      “Oh, that stupid tattoo.” She squirted more dish soap into the water in the sink. “I about had a conniption when I saw that thing. But he’s a grown man, not much his mama can do about it now. He doesn’t need that tattoo.” She scrubbed the pan the corn bread had been baked in. “My aunt had the gift, too, though she said it was more of a curse, because you had to take on somebody else’s pain. We were at the movies this one time? A woman and boy sat down in front of us before the lights were shut out. They didn’t say one single word, but Aunt Ginny said there was something wrong with the woman. That she felt a whole lot of anguish coming from her. That was the word she used—anguish.”

      “Uh-huh,” I said, keeping my expression neutral. Miss Emma was going off the deep end, but I wasn’t about to let her see my skepticism.

      “I know it sounds crazy,” she said. “I thought so too at the time. When the movie was over, Aunt Ginny couldn’t stop herself from asking the woman if she was all right. Ginny had a way of talking to people that made them open right up to her. But the woman said everything was fine. As we were walking out of the theater, though, and the little boy was out of earshot, she told us that her mother’d had a stroke just that morning and she was worried sick about her. Ginny’d picked right up on that worry and took it inside herself. She ended up with a bleeding ulcer from taking on too many other people’s worries. That’s how Jamie is, too.”

      I remembered Jamie after the accident, when I wondered why he’d expressed no anger toward me. You already feel like crap about it, he’d said. Why should I make you feel any worse?

      I shivered.

      Miss Emma handed me the corn-bread pan to dry. “Here’s what happens with people like Jamie or my brother or my aunt,” she said. “They feel what the other person feels so strong that it’s less painful for them to just…give in. I knew when Jamie was small that he had the gift. He knew when his friends were upset about something and he’d get upset himself, even if he didn’t know what had them upset in the first place.” She reached into the dirty dishwater and pulled the stopper from the drain. “One time, a boy he barely knew got his dog run over by a car. I found Jamie crying in bed that night—he couldn’t have been more than eight or nine. He told me about it. I said, you didn’t even know that dog and you barely know that boy. He just kept crying. I thought, oh Lord have mercy on me, please. Here’s my brother and Aunt Ginny all over again. It’s a scary thing, raising a child like that. Most kids, like Marcus, bless his heart, you have to teach them how other children feel and how you need to be sensitive to them and all.” She pulled another dish towel from a drawer and dried her hands on it. “With Jamie, it was the opposite. I had to teach him to take care of himself.”

      I bit my lip as I set the dry pan on the counter. “Are you trying to…are you warning me about something?” I asked.

      She looked surprised. “Hmm,” she said. “Maybe I am. He likes you. I can tell. You’re a nice girl. Down-to-earth. You got a good head on your shoulders. He’s had a few girlfriends who took advantage of his kindness. I guess I’m asking you not to do that. Not to hurt him.”

      I shook my head. “Never,” I said, thinking of how good it felt to have Jamie’s arms around me. “I couldn’t.” I thought I knew myself so well.

      Chapter Six

       Laurel

      “I GUESS WE’RE SUPPOSED TO SIT UP THERE.” Maggie pointed to the front row of seats in the crowded Assembly Building. Trish Delphy’s secretary had called us the day before to say the mayor wanted us up front at the memorial service. I was sure our special status had to do with Andy, who was scratching his neck beneath the collar of his blue shirt. I’d had to buy him a new suit for the occasion. He so rarely had need of one that his old suit no longer fit. I let him pick out his own tie—a loud Jerry Garcia with red and blue swirls—but I’d forgotten a shirt and the one he was wearing was too small.

      “We’ll follow you, sweetie,” I said to Maggie, and she led the way down the narrow center aisle. The air hummed with chatter, and the seats were nearly all taken even though there were still fifteen minutes before the start of the service. There’d been school buses in the parking lot across the street, and I noticed that teenagers occupied many of the seats. The lock-in had attracted children from all three towns on the island as well as from a few places on the mainland, cutting across both geographic and economic boundaries, tying us all together. If I’d known how many kids would show up at the lock-in, I never would have let Andy go. Then again, if Andy hadn’t been there, more would have died. Incredible to imagine.

      I sat between my children. Next to us were Joe and Robin Carmichael, Emily’s parents, and in front of us was a podium flanked by two dozen containers of daffodils. Propped up on easels to the left of the podium were three poster-size photographs that I was not ready to look at. To the right of the podium were about twenty-five empty chairs set at a ninety-degree angle to us. A paper banner taped between the chairs read Reserved for Town of Surf City Fire Department.

      Andy was next to Robin, and she embraced him.

      “You beautiful boy,” she said, holding on to him three seconds too long for Andy’s comfort level. He squirmed and she let go with a laugh, then looked at me. “Good to see you, Laurel.” She leaned forward a little to wave to Maggie.

      “How’s Emily doing?” I asked quietly.

      Joe shifted forward in his seat so he could see me. “Not great,” he said.

      “She’s gone backward some,” Robin said. “Nightmares. Won’t let us touch her. I can hardly get her to let me comb her hair. She’s scared to go to school again.”

      “She had her shirt on inside out,” Andy piped in, too loudly.

      “Shh,” I hushed him.

      “You’re right, Andy,” Robin said. “She was already sliding

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