Page 26 of Goodbye Days

“I wish I had siblings closer in age. I have two older brothers, Bo and Zeke, but they’re ten and twelve years older than me.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah, they’re married and have kids and stuff. They don’t even live around here. I’m basically an only child.”

It’s dusk when we arrive at Centennial Park. We start walking.

“All right, squirrel rodeo time,” I say.

“What am I supposed to be doing?”

I explain.

“So I have to keep the squirrel on the path for eight seconds?” Jesmyn asks.

“That’s right.”

We pass people holding hands, having picnics, taking engagement photos, kissing, throwing babies in the air. Summertime parks are where the most vibrant displays of living go on. I wonder if watching people live is something that will ever again fade into the background for me.

I examine Jesmyn’s face for some clue of what she’s thinking. I’m unable to read her yet.

She busts me. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“Do I have something on my face?”

“No.”

“Okay,” she says softly, pointing at a squirrel by the side of the path, its tail twitching. “Start the clock.” She moves carefully and steers the squirrel onto the path. It jumps a few feet and stops. She pursues it with quick, fine steps, her cowboy boots making a clip-clopping on the pavement, like little hooves. The squirrel leaps along the path a few more feet and starts to veer off to the right. She cuts it off and it keeps moving along the path.

I watch her in the yellow haze of the declining day. She moves with a certain natural rhythm; maybe because she’s a musician. It’s a relief to find beauty in something.

She turns back to me, smiling. “How long?”

“What?”

“Dude, you were supposed to be timing me.”

“I had a panic attack,” I blurt out, unclear on why I chose this exact moment to confess this.

Her smile dims; a cloud covering the sun. “What? Like while you were timing me?”

“No, no. The night of Blake’s funeral. I had a full-on panic attack. My sister took me to the hospital and everything.”

“Holy shit, Carver.” She motions to a nearby bench and we sit.

“I’m okay now. The doctor didn’t even give me any medicine.”

“What was it like?”

I start to answer but pause to let a couple with a stroller pass by. “Being buried alive. Falling through ice.”

“What are you going to do to treat them?”

I lean forward and run my fingers through my hair. “Maybe I’ll—I don’t know, actually. Maybe see if they keep happening, and if they do I’ll talk to someone, I guess.”

“Like a psychiatrist or something?”