The Truth About That Summer

seventy-six

The blistering summer days pass quickly now, a blur of snotty noses and sticky fingers at the center, sore muscles and scraped knees from surf lessons with Brynn, and the best sex I've ever had almost nightly with Luke.

Sometimes, if we're lucky, even more than nightly sex with Luke.

Luke, who's also helping Brynn and me with the Summer Bash now. Butterflies in my belly make me blush just thinking about him, innocent or not.

We're making steady progress with the Bash, getting more and more done as the days tick down and pressure mounts. Just last week we managed to nail down a local BBQ shop for the food at a reasonable price - far more reasonable than they initially proposed, I might add, and secured a DJ that's sure to be better than the parents that usually volunteer.

Anything, I think, will be better than some dad's 80's playlist on shuffle.

We even decided on our photo-booth backdrop: four surfboards riding a monster wave. We're still in the process of painting it - Luke far more interested in painting me in unsavory places when Brynn isn't looking than his real work.

("What?" His eyes danced every time I pushed him away, "It's just finger-painting.")

Despite the distractions, it's coming along. It's bright and colorful, festive and cheerful, and definitely better than gorilla-nipple-pinching.

Plus... like Brynn said, it reminds me of before.

When I get home, the work doesn't stop, Casey's room a combination of exhausting emotional and physical labor that gets harder the deeper I get into it.

More and more, bit by bit, I've chipped away at it. I managed to pack some of his old clothes in a handful of boxes, but couldn't bear dropping them off at the donation center myself. Luke did it for me, sitting quietly the entire ride home as I stared out his truck window, silently fuming.

Fuming at Grams for making me do this, fuming at my parents for insisting upon it. Fuming at God or the world or whatever force took him away in the first place.

But still I came home and went right back up to his room, removing the boxes from beneath his bed and going through them item by item, deciding which to keep and which to toss.

What a difficult decision, when it all seems like treasure. And of course it does, when it's all that I have left of him.

His prized baseball cards or his collection of skateboards and surfboards - keep, donate, sell?

His old stack of CDs that he still kept for some reason, even after he started downloading music on his iPod and phone - who would even want CDs anymore? No one. Of course not.

But why wouldn't I want them? Why wouldn't I want to remember the songs that got stuck in his head the most?

It's impossible to decide. Each find brings back a memory and each memory brings a new wave of ache.

But still, I do it. Because Grams is right, it is time. And because I meant what I said that day on the beach with Luke... I have been selfish. Horribly, terribly selfish.

So I continue to do this for Casey. I've been going easier on Grams, on Mom and Dad. I answer when Mom calls, I fill her in on the center and Bash coordinating with Brynn, leaving Luke out every time to avoid the argument it will bring.

Still, I couldn't help refusing when she tried to get me to see her shrink friend again. But this time, Grams was there to back me up.

"She's really doing better," I heard her say over the phone one night when she thought I'd fallen asleep on the couch. "You and Joseph will be so happy to see it. It's slow progress but it's there... She's... it's like she's coming back to life."