It was a horror, albeit a slow, conversational one.

Dear Trevor,

O Carl, I miss you, too. Yours is a face that’s smoked 10,000 cigarettes. You told the same stories of closing deals on suburban split-levels until I wanted to punch you in the mouth. You were unable to make even the simplest decision. And you were the best friend I had since I died.

Carl is still in there, Trevor. Right where I left him. I stayed by him for what must have been many days, trying to get him to come back with me. He simply couldn’t decide what to do. So he did nothing. And now, like Martin, he’s turning back into nothing. Or into compost. His elements are coming unlimbed and unchained.

I know what happened to Martin now, because Carl showed me. It was a horror, albeit a slow, conversational one. The kind of horror that might happen over an afternoon of television and sandwiches. It was just as final and just as eternal.

I’ll tell you more tomorrow, Trevor. I’ll tell you everything.

Dad

I’m back. Carl is not.

Dear Trevor,

I’m back. Carl is not.

Your letters nearly filled my little box at the post office. How I can have been gone so long is a mystery of this place. In the woods, time must stop, because activity nearly does.

I barely made it out of that horror of a place. I failed in getting anyone to return. I saw Julia. I saw what little was left of Martin. I saw others as well. And Carl, my dear Carl. He’s in there still. He likely always will be.

Your letters, Trevor, were a shock to me. I ‘ve wondered–for days, apparently–if I had imagined them all. For a while, I convinced myself that the woods were everything. But somehow, I made it out. And my little cabin is still here and Sung-Hee is still here and Gordon. And your letters.

I’m back. I’ll write you more tomorrow, after I’ve read all your news.

Dad

I’ve proved that I don’t need you.

Dear Dad,

Mom wants me to play in the father/son basketball game!

Can you talk to her, please? I’m pretty sure if you walked in to her room, covered in dirt, and told her to back off a wee bit, she would.

But I know that’s not gonna happen. In fact, if you never even write to me again, I’ll survive. I’ve survived for 13 years. I’ve got Mom. I’ve got brothers and a sister. I’ve got friends. I’ve even got a dog now. I’ve proved that I don’t need you.

I don’t need to go to every stupid thing at school. I definitely don’t need to go to this dumb father/son game. I don’t want anyone feeling sorry for me.

You know what I really want? I want to be normal. If everyone else’s dad suddenly dropped dead, I’d probably be happier, but I just want to get through this stupid year. I mean, I know I’ll get through it. 16 weeks to go and summer will be here.

You know who else won’t have a dad in the father/son game? Brian Haase. His dad is alive, but had some sort of nervous breakdown or something. He sits at home. He’s seems like a nice guy, but he’s really quiet. That’s gotta be hard, too. For Brian, I mean.

Once again, Brian and I are in the same boat.

It’s kind of a crummy boat.

Your son,

Trevor

The two words I hate most in the English language.

Dear Dad,

I hate that you’re not writing back.
I hate that you died.
I hate not having a dad.
I hate Mr. Schick.

Mom says I shouldn’t use the word “hate.” Instead, I should say, “dislike.” OK. I dislike Mr. Schick. I dislike him intensely. In other words, I hate him.

Yesterday at practice, Mr. Schick announced to the team that we’ll be having a father/son basketball game. He said, “As soon as you get home, go right up to your dad and really encourage him to come and play. What I’d like to see is every boy’s dad out there on the court!”

Then he turned to me and said, “Oh, and Trevor, you’re still welcome to come, even though you don’t have—even though your dad has uhhh, passed away.” Everybody looked at me to see how I would respond. My response was in my head, where I thought: Mr. Schick is a bastard. I wish he would pass away.

The two words I hate most in the English language are “passed away.” Just say “died.” My dad died. He’s dead. You didn’t pass away.

There is no damn way I’m going to a father/son basketball game. Heck, Mr. Schick probably wouldn’t play me anyway.

Your son,

Trevor

Mom went out on a date last night.

Dear Dad,

Mom went out on a date last night. She told us. Sort of.

After basketball practice, she was making dinner. Hamburgers and french fries, which I like. But she only made enough for Rhonda, Rhett and me. She didn’t eat. She said she was having dinner with a friend.

“Who?” Rhonda asked.

“You don’t know him,” said Mom.

“Him?” Rhonda said. Even Rhett stopped eating at that point and looked up. OK, maybe he didn’t completely stop, but he slowed down.

“It’s no big deal,” Mom said. I think she actually blushed. “It’s just dinner. Just a friendly dinner.”

“Who is this guy?” asked Rhonda.

“His name is John Simon. He builds kitchen cabinets. He’s a friend of–”

“Kitchen cabinets? You’re going out on a date with a guy who builds kitchen cabinets?”

“It’s not a date. It’s just dinner. He’s just a friend.”

“Who we haven’t met.”

“Sounds like a date to me, Mom,” said Rhett.

“Eat your dinner. I have to get ready.”

“You have to get ready!” shouted Rhonda. “If you have to get ready, then it is definitely a date!”

“Eat your dinner!” shouted Mom.

“Do we get to meet him?” I asked.

“NO!”

“Geez, I just asked a question.”

“It’s not a date!”

I’m pretty sure Mom was crying when she stomped out of the room. I’m not sure if I felt sorry for her or not, because it was so weird. Rhonda seemed really pissed about the whole kitchen cabinet thing. Rhett just walked to the front door and left. He didn’t seem mad, though. He just goes out a lot.

Mom left, too, a few minutes later. Rhonda and me stayed home lone and watched TV. I wanted to watch the Olympics, but Rhonda watched some stupid show about college girls decorating their dorm rooms. She was really on edge, so I didn’t try to change the channel. I’m pretty sure she would have punched me if I did.

I went to bed before Mom came home. I didn’t ask her about it in the morning. Should I have?

And are you ever going to write me back?

Your son,

Trevor

He told us we were all winners just for coming out.

Dear Dad,

I like your drawing of Julia. I’ve got a picture for you, too. Here’s another drawing of Mr. Schick, blowing The Whistle of Satan, as I like to call it. You’ve never heard a sound so shrill as that shrieking whistle.

I started basketball tryouts yesterday. They go this week. Then, at the end of the day on Friday, Schick will tell us who made the team and who didn’t. Yesterday he told us we were all winners just for coming out. Then he had us run a set of lines and told us we were the most pathetic bunch of slackers he’d ever seen. He seemed more sincere on the last statement than the first.

I’ve already resigned myself to not making the team. When I’m cut on Friday, it will be a relief and I won’t have to come to these stupid practices anymore. Then I can go home after school and play X Box. Or maybe I can finally start taekwondo lessons.

I know all about your Dad dying at the gravel quarry. Mom’s dad died when she was a kid, too. Burst appendix. According to Mom, her dad was a real jerk. All this dying doesn’t feel so much like a joke to me as a curse. Sometimes, I wonder if it means I’ll die when I have kids. I also wonder if it means Mom is gonna die soon. Then I’d be an orphan. What would happen to me then? Rhett is a senior, so he’d probably just live on his own. Me and Rhonda would have to live with someone, though. Maybe Aunt Fredi, but I think she’s an atheist, so Mom would probably never let us go there. She probably has in her will that we go to live with some church friend. Hopefully it would be with someone whose house doesn’t smell weird.

Some of the houses of church people have weird-smelling houses. Like Mrs. St. Claire. She’s got a really fancy house, as jammed full of knickknacks and doilies as a house can be. If there’s a flat surface, you can bet Mrs. St. Claire has put a doily on it. And there’s not a doily in the place that doesn’t have some porcelain ballerina or glass elephant on top. You can’t walk into the place without breaking something. Last time we went there, Rhonda pushed me and I knocked a glass clown off its doily. It’s little umbrella broke off. The grown-ups were all in another room, but I still I freaked out and started looking through drawers for some glue. Rhonda told me to relax. She opened a window and just chucked the broken clown into the bushes. Then she took a little glass panda from a group of other glass pandas and put it on the bare doily.

“Mrs. St. Claire will never notice,” said Rhonda. “Let’s go get some chips.”

Rhonda is the smartest person I know. Or at least that’s what she tells me.

Your son,

Trevor

It makes me wonder if God ever kills people simply as a joke.

Dear Trevor,

Maybe your mom just wants to get you a dog. I’d like you to have a dog. Maybe your mom senses that you are kind of lonely and that a dog would help. Maybe it’s not about her at all.

By the way, Chairman Mao was the leader of Communist China back in the 60s and 70s. You’ve seen pictures of him wearing a little cap with a red star on the front. And no, I never worked for him.

I drew a picture of Julia. She always looks like she is about to realize something, but never quite does. As if she’s thinking, “I just realized—oh wait. No, never mind. I guess I didn’t.”

I think that Julia waited all her years down on earth for her life to get started. And then, just when it did—just when she got married and became part of a family—she died. It makes me wonder if God ever kills people simply as a joke. I don’t think He does, but there does seem to be evidence that He has a dark sense of humor.

Here’s an example: My father died when I was young—just like you, I guess. He immigrated to the States as a young man, because work in the coal mines back at home had dried up. He worked in mines in Montana, but the work was so dangerous he wanted to stop before it killed him. So he moved to Tacoma and got a job in a gravel quarry, where he was crushed to death in a small landslide. Funny, eh? A real knee slapper.

I had a full life up until I died, but it was only half done. And there were many parts of it that were only half lived. I had a mess of wonderful, noisy children. I loved and was loved by a happy, bossy, beautiful woman. I started a business and had it going in a direction I was beginning to like. And all along this thing was waiting right outside of my peripheral vision. One day, I turned my head a bit to the left and there it was. And six months later, here I was.

I’ve got to get out of here. I need to get on with things again somehow. What should I do, Trevor?

Dad

I can’t imagine that I’ll make the team.

Dear Dad,

I’ve been trying to figure out who else is going out for basketball. Some of them are easy to figure. Donnie Joad is going out, because he does anything that’s free. Skip Hendrickson is, because he’s good at everything and likes to make sure everyone knows. Rick Jarvis isn’t, because he plays soccer year around on his fancy club team. Mudgett isn’t. He doesn’t do regular sports. Just taekwondo, which seems way cooler than basketball to me. I hear that Rusty Foster is. I hope I don’t have to get dressed next to him. Yikes. A bunch of eighth graders are and I hope like heck that Gilman isn’t one of them. I still haven’t seen him around school since the fight.

Brian Haase is going out for the team, which I never expected. He’s not much of a sports guy. Maybe him and I will get cut together. It would be a relief to not be the only kid to get cut.

Because, you see, I can’t imagine that I’ll make the team. I mean, I’m gonna try and everything, but I’m just not very good at this whole basketball thing.

Dad, I have a question for you: that Julia woman up there with you. Are you, like, interested in her? I mean, would you ever date her or anything? Do people do that sort of thing up there?
 
Here’s another question for you: If mom were to date, what would you think about that?

Your son,

Tom

What you’re talking about, Trevor, is The Other.

Dear Dad,

Dang it, this whole advice-by-mail thing totally sucks. I come home from school after trying to hide my black eye all day, after trying not to talk about it, after getting called a wussy-boy by Mudgett. Then I open a letter from you that says, “Don’t hide your black eye. Tell everyone how you got it.”

Our timing stinks.

I talked to my English teacher, Mrs. Henry, today. I’m not sure she believed me when I told her I got the black eye boxing with my brother. I think half the school figures that Mudgett creamed me in a fight. Heck, he hasn’t even fought me yet and most people already figure I’ve lost.

Mrs. Henry tried not to stare at my eye when we talked, but she failed on that one. She was having a conversation only with that corner of my face. My black eye has its own gravitational pull.

“If you were trying to learn about life aboard a ship, I’d have you read Melville or Jack London,” she said. “If you were trying to learn about, oh, I don’t know, bullfighting, then I suppose Hemingway would be your man. But what you’re talking about, Trevor, is The Other. It’s Heaven and Hell and God territory. There’s only one kind of writer for that—a theologian—which is literally someone who studies God. Unfortunately, very few theologians died, came back from the dead and wrote about it. Lucky for us, some of them were smart enough to speculate. To try to fill in the gaps with both logic and intuition.”

The Other—that’s what Mrs. Henry calls everything religious. She talks about it like it’s science fiction. In The Other, there are laws that control how things happen. And, according to Mrs. Henry, these laws are on a higher level than our regular laws.

“I know space and time don’t matter to God,” said Mrs. Henry. “if they do, he’s not much of a god, is he? When we pray for others, we pray that God will intervene in their lives the next day, or in a different place. We pray to a single God, asking him to insert himself into our lives, knowing that a few other million people around the globe are asking the same of him. God could only answer these requests if space and time do not matter to him. If he lives outside of it. In The Other. And if he does, then past, present, future, are all the same to him. So are heaven, hell and earth.

“Death? Well, that shouldn’t matter either, because God conquered death a few thousand years ago.”

I was going along with Mrs. Henry. And all she said sounded pretty encouraging to me, until she sucked all the air out of my tires with just a couple of sentences.

“Before we go farther down this road, Trevor, we need to be completely clear on something. This is speculation on my part. This is conjecture. I don’t begin to pretend to know what happens when we die. Those who do claim to know are almost certainly wrong.”

I protested. She just got done talking about how clear everything looked. How logically laws operated in The Other. She said that she’d be getting input from the smartest guys who’d ever lived. Then she says that even they don’t know. So what’s the point?

“There are only a few tiny things I know for sure,” Mrs. Henry said. “I can tell you those with utmost certainty. Those are the things that matter. These other things—how was the world made? What happens after we die?—we can only make educated guesses. And that’s OK, Trevor. We don’t have to know everything.”

“I’m not asking to know everything,” I said. “I just want to know about my dad. Can he help me or not?”

“Ahh,” she said.

I hated that “ahh.” Even Mrs. Henry could be annoying sometimes. That “ahh” meant, “I have just figured you out.”

But she hadn’t. Not a chance. I walked out.

By the way, tomorrow is thanksgiving.

Your son,

Trevor

I said, “Can I ask you a really weird question?”

Dear Dad,

Yeah, Mom sold the lots. I don’t think they give us much money, but I suppose every little bit helps.

I always figured we’d be richer if you hadn’t died. Probably better not to think about that too much.

I did talk to Mrs. Henry today. I said, “Can I ask you a really weird question?” When she said yes, I said, “If someone were dead, but you know, still alive. Like up in heaven or wherever, would they be able to do anything to help people here on earth?”

She smiled and raised an eyebrow at me, but she didn’t laugh or call me an idiot. She said, “Why did you choose to ask me?” I told her I didn’t really know, but I figured she was just smarter than other grown-ups. She seemed to like that. “I’m not smarter,” she said, “just better read.”

Then she explained that when she has questions she doesn’t know the answers to, she goes to others to get her advice. “Like who?” I asked. “I consult the great thinkers—Shakespeare, Dante, Plato, Cervantes, —oh, there are dozens more.”

“You mean books?” I asked. Of course she meant books. And she threw in a couple of the Bible writers then as well. She explained that when it came to most questions, these great thinkers usually disagreed. For example, she said, Plato seemed to think of the Underworld as an actual place. Shakespeare, James and others seemed happy to believe in ghosts. Chesterton and Lewis believed in some form of heaven and hell. While others, such as Hemingway and Twain, seemed sure that God, heaven and hell were pure fiction.

She sure knows about a lot of writers.

“So how do you figure out what the truth is?” I asked.

“That’s the fun part,” she said. “You find out what others—particularly others smarter than you—have to say on the subject. Then you do something remarkable. You use your brain.”

It was a pretty cool conversation. It almost made me forget Mudgett. Almost. Except for the fact that he showed me his taekwando outfit in his backpack, then he said, “You know what I do everyday after school, wussy-boy? I go to the Y and take lessons in kicking your butt.”

Great.

Your son,

Trevor

I’m definitely not resting in or on anyone’s bosom, Abraham or otherwise.

Dear Trevor,

I wish I had a Bible here, so I could look up some of those passages you mentioned. You’d think if I was in Heaven or someplace near it that there’d be Bibles all over the place. Clearly, the Gideons haven’t passed through yet.

I’m definitely not resting in or on anyone’s bosom, Abraham or otherwise. That said, my neighbor, Martin, has got quite a bosom. If he were a woman, he’d probably wear about a D cup. On Martin, his bosom just looks like a high-riding roll of fat. I don’t know how he stays so fat when we all eat so little. The only woman I know up here is Sung-hee, the waitress, and she is so manly she has no bosom at all. Even if she did, I think it’s pretty unlikely she’d let me rest anywhere near it.

I don’t know of any gullies around here, but to be honest, I haven’t explored much past the immediate neighborhood. There certainly might be a gully in the woods.

Drew said that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. I don’t know how that applies here. Like you said, I haven’t seen God. No old men with white beards. No floating bright lights. No one surrounded by angels or sitting on a throne. Then again, I don’t seem to be absent from my body. My body is not much to speak of, but it doesn’t hurt all the time like it did when I was there at home, all run through with cancer.

The one verse that you wrote of that jumped out at me was that one that said something like, “you die and after that, the judgment.” Maybe that’s what this is. Maybe I get a mediocre eternity because I lived a mediocre life. My hands shake as I write such a thing.

I asked Carl, my neighbor on the opposite side from Martin, why he thought he was here.

“We’re in hell,” he said, plainly. “We brought this on ourselves.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said to Carl, because we’re all sick of him going on and on about how this place is hell. “But what did you do to end up here?”

“It’s not what I did,” said Carl. “It’s what I didn’t do. I clearly didn’t do enough.” Then Carl told me that he was a Presbyterian elder back in the old place. Turns out he knows quite a bit about the Bible, as he attended church most of his life. I read your letter to him, and he kept interrupting me to give more color.

That sheep and goats bit? Carl explained that Jesus was saying that sheep are those who helped those less fortunate. They make it into heaven because they looked after the poor, it seems. The goats are those who turned their backs on those in need, so they went to hell.

That one makes my hands shake, too.

Dad

When a kid with a dead dad says something like that, it always shuts everybody up.

Dear Dad,

Drew just left and I’ve escaped to my room so I don’t have to listen to Mom drill me about what a wonderful guy he is.

He was nice as pie. In fact, he makes me think of a piece of pie. Not homemade like Mom’s, but more of a store-bought pie like other kids’ moms always bring to potlucks. Generally sweet and filling. Drew smiled a lot and told mom what a beautiful home we have, which is basically not true. I mean, it’s fine and everything, but our carpet is old and none of our furniture matches. He was definitely getting carried away.

When we first started talking, Drew seemed excited. He smiled in that store-bought pie kind of way and said he’d found the best verse that explained what happened when you die. It is in Second Corinthians, chapter five. Drew said that it says, “To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.” I looked it up after he left. What it really says is, “We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.”

I asked Drew if that was the only verse. He said, “No. Of course not. But it’s the most clear.” It doesn’t seem clear to me, because Dad, you don’t seem to be present with the Lord. I mean, you haven’t seen God, have you?

I pushed Drew to tell me about some other verses and he reluctantly told me about how God says that one day he’ll separate the sheep from the goats, meaning that sheep are good and goats are bad. This made no sense to me, because goats and sheep both seem about the same to me. I mean, goats give milk and sheep give wool. My friend Paul is lactose intolerant and he can only drink goat’s milk. And I always get goat cheese on my gyro at It’s Greek to Me and it’s delicious.

Then he talked about a story called The Rich Man and Lazarus. Jesus tells the story, and in it, a rich man and a beggar named Lazarus both die. The rich man goes to hell, but he can look across this gully and see Lazarus all happy in some place called Abraham’s Bosom, which is weird. Abraham had a bosom? I guess it must mean his lap or something. But it would be weird to spend even a day in Abraham’s lap. I wouldn’t want to be in his lap for eternity. I suppose it’s just symbolic.

The rich man calls across the gully, asking Abraham to send Lazarus over to him with a glass of water. I suppose if I was in hell, I’d want a glass of water, too. But Abraham says that no one can cross the gully.

Here’s probably a stupid question: Are there any gullies up where you are?

When I asked Drew if Abraham’s Bosom was just another word for heaven, he rubbed his eyebrows with his finger and said, “I don’t know. Some people think it’s more of a purgatory.”

He showed me a couple of other weird verses, too, like where a guy was caught up into something called “the third heaven.” He said that in the book of Revelations, it says that heaven is described as a place where Jesus will wipe every tear from your eyes and there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain. I liked that one quite a bit. Oh, and one other one said, “It is appointed to man once to die and after that the judgment.” That one doesn’t tell you much, but at least it’s pretty straightforward.

I kept trying to interrupt him and ask him about what actually happens when you die, like on a minute-by-minute basis. He said no one knows that. He said that since the Bible doesn’t have much to say about it, he doesn’t think it’s the point.

“It is to me,” I said. “And I bet it would be to you if your dad had died.” I knew that would shut him up and it did. When a kid with a dead dad says something like that, it always shuts everybody up.

After a minute of silence, he asked me if I was worried if you were in heaven or not. I said that yes, I was. He asked me if you’d asked Jesus into your heart. I said I’d already told him that Mom said you did. He said, “Then you don’t have anything to worry about.” Then he recited John 3:16 to me, about how if you believe in Jesus you have everlasting life.

“Yeah,” I said, “but is it a good life or a bad life? Because if you have everlasting life that’s bad, isn’t that basically hell?”

Drew said he had to go, but that he’d be happy to keep talking to me about this, which I thought was nice, considering how much he’d kept rubbing his forehead the whole time he’d been there.

Personally, I’m more confused than ever. I guess I think that maybe I know more about what happens when you die than Drew does. Not because I’m smarter than him, but just because of your letters.

Even with your letters, I still don’t really get what’s going on where you are. Isn’t there someone you can ask?

Your son,

Trevor

P.S. What do you mean when you say “my unbearable shame?” I thought we were being honest here. Can you please just explain it to me?

It’s better than watching one of Mom’s dumb PBS shows.

Dear Dad –

I looked up the definitions of psychologists and psychiatrists. I’m not sure I really understand the difference. The dictionary says that a psychiatrist is an M.D. and a psychologist is a Ph.D. I don’t know if that will help Dr. Jones. I could look up more if you want me to.

Your story about Mom freaked me out. I guess I forget that she misses you, too. She always seems to be keeping it all together. I mean, she’s not perfect or anything. She can get really cranky sometimes and some of the stuff she does drives me crazy.

Almost every night she falls asleep on the couch in front of the TV. She snores in this annoying, snuffly way, more of a gargle than a snore. If I change the channel, she opens her eyes and yells, “I’m watching that!” If Rhonda or I tell her she’s asleep, she’ll yell, “I’m just resting my eyes!” Then she’ll nod off again and start snoring away.

Rhonda’s pretty skilled at changing the channel. She slowly lowers the sound so that Mom doesn’t wake up, then switches it over to something she wants to watch, then slowly raises the sound, but not as loud as it was before. She and I have to sit close to the TV to hear it, but it’s better than watching one of Mom’s dumb PBS shows.

Mom tells lots of stories about you. I like to hear them, but they get all mixed up with my memories. I can’t figure out if my memories of you are real or if I’m just remembering a story Mom told me.

She tells this one story about this camping trailer you made. The whole thing was made of plywood, built from plans you bought from Popular Mechanics. She says you were too cheap to buy a regular tent trailer. The trailer you made folded flat so you could tow it behind a car and then was supposed to fold out into the size of a regular camper once you got to your destination. The first time you went out to try it, Mom says, the whole family drove for hours and arrived at the campground right as it was getting dark. Then just as you began to fold out the trailer, you threw out your back. Mom had to set the whole thing up with you groaning on the ground in pain, barking instructions at her.

I don’t know if she ever managed to get the camper setup, but she says you never used it again. I wish I’d seen it. It sounds pretty cool to me.

Oh, I finally heard back from Drew—Misty Lee’s pastor who promised to find out what the Bible said happens to us when we die. He was wondering if he could get together with me in person to share what he found. I thought that would be kind of weird, so I asked if he could just tell me over the phone. He said that would be fine, but that he’d have to call me back the next day when he had more time to talk. I told Mom about it when I hung up the phone and she called him right back and invited him over. So now he’s coming over and Mom is all excited that I’m interested in something about the Bible. This freaks me out, too.

Anyway, he’ll be here tomorrow so I’ll let you know what he has to say.

Your son,

Trevor

As you get older, you get more comfortable being uncomfortable.

Dear Trevor,

Was it hard to be me? It IS hard to be me. The only wisdom I have for you is that I think it’s hard for each person to be themselves. As you get older, you get more comfortable being uncomfortable.

There’s another guy who lives up here that goes by the name of Dr. Jones. He’s not sure if that’s his real name, but he thinks it is. He was either a psychologist or a psychiatrist when he was where you are. He can’t remember which and he can’t remember the difference between the two. In fact, if you could look that up and let me know, I could pass the information on to him. I bet old Jones would appreciate it.

Anyway, Dr. Jones does occasionally remember some really specific things about his area of expertise. A while ago, he was telling me about this idea of his—that we’re all at the center of our own universes. And that feeling of being the center—of having the whole of existence focused on us—is strongest during adolescence, because that’s when we’re most focused on our identity.

Stick with me here.

Jones said that right about at your age, two feelings occur. The first one he called “imaginary audience.” That is the feeling that everyone you know is intimately interested in just about everything you do. This is why when I was a teenager, I used to get so upset when I got a zit, because I thought that the whole world noticed. Nobody did. Why? Because each person is so focused on their own faces that they rarely notice flaws in others.

The other idea is what Jones called “imaginary fable,” which is that no one—not even any of these people interested in your zits—ever understand you. No one does. They don’t know what you’re going through. How could your parents or teachers understand you? They’re so old, right?

I don’t mean to get in the least bit preachy—what right have I?—but you are not alone in your experiences—in your suffering. Life is hard for everyone. Hell, even this existence I have is hard for everyone up here, including me. Even now I struggle with the stupidest of vanities. So I check my kitchen-shear-chopped hair before I venture out. I sweep off my porch in case of visitors. I check my breath before I visit Sung-Hee at the Laughing Gull and Sung-Hee is just about the manliest, most sexless woman I have ever met.

Even someone as foreign to you as—dare I say it?—your mother, probably understands what you’re going through far more than you would guess. She was a girl once, who worried about what boys thought of her. Once upon a time, a million years ago, she moved to a new school and put up with all the uneasy stares of other kids.

I know your mom tends to try to make everything all right. I know she wants you to always look on the bright side. Believe me, there is more value to that outlook than you may understand right now. But believe me about another thing as well: your mom understands pain. She understands hard times. She understands loneliness.

There was a day there at the end, when I was at my weakest. I’d finished a round of chemo and had come back home. We were in the middle of a conversation. I was talking to your mom about a piece of real estate property we owned—down the dead end road on the end of our street. I was giving her advice on how long to hold it before selling it, when I just nodded off to sleep right in the middle of a sentence. Of course, I don’t remember going to sleep or much at all about the conversation, but I do remember waking up and seeing your mom there. She was bawling. What I mean is she wasn’t just crying. She was racked with sobs, shaking away. Her face was all puffy. Her hands were buried in her hair and she was hanging on by the roots.

When she noticed me awake, she quickly wiped her face with a sopping wet Kleenex, pulled her hair back into place and tried to smile at me. She apologized for crying and asked if she could get me a glass of water or a sandwich.

When I try to remember what your mom looked like, I see her at a dozen different ages. I see her when we first met, when she was still in high school and skinny as a fencepost. I see her in her wedding dress, with the little pillbox hat and the veil that came even with her chin. I see her in a pair of clam diggers down on the beach, with your sister pulling her by the hand as they turned over rocks, looking for families of crabs. And I see her sitting on the side of the bed, sobbing away when she thought I couldn’t hear. I don’t mind the image, because she was feeling so much and now I understand how much feeling matters—how much I miss it. Your mom let it all loose, all alone when she thought no one was watching.

Would you ever open up to your mom, the way you’ve opened up to me in these letters? I never did with my mom, your grandma. And if you did, I have no idea how she’d react. She’d probably want to pray for you.

If she did, you’d survive just fine.

Dad

Rhonda and Rhett think I’m faking it. They’re right.

Dear Dad,

 How do I feel about Misty Lee? Definitely not heartbroken. I guess I feel mostly confused and ripped off. I feel like a jerk for ever having asked her to go with me. I think she takes the whole thing about as seriously as choosing which TV show to watch. And I think Rick Jarvis is a jerk for asking her to go with him on the same day, but I guess he doesn’t take any of it seriously either.

I wish someone down here would take something seriously.

The one feeling that stays with me are the little hairs on her stomach.

And I now return to my original opinion: Misty Lee is not that cute.

What pisses me off even more are my friends, who sat by and watched the whole thing like it was some kind of show.

I guess I don’t have to worry about Will Mudgett trying to kill me anymore. I’m assuming he won’t want to kill me now. He’s hardly ever at school these days.

The whole world here is just one fake after another. No one means what they say, except my teachers, who say they’re going to give me bad grades and then do it. I’m almost grateful to them.

By the way, I stayed home from school again today. I told Mom I didn’t feel good. Rhonda and Rhett think I’m faking it. They’re right. But why should I go back?

Rhett said, “You’re scared of something. That’s why you’re staying home. You’re just being a pansy. Just like when you wouldn’t jump off the marina.”

I wish he would stop bringing that up.

Drew called again to tell me he is still working on answers to my questions. That’s all. He’s a pretty nice guy.

I felt sick to my stomach reading your description of the woman captain. She sounds like something out of a horror movie. I don’t think I would go and see her each time if she is so awful to look at. But I guess you always wonder about her. Does she have a name?

You stopped talking about her so that you wouldn’t give me nightmares, which made me wonder—do you have dreams? If so, what about?

Your son,

Trevor

This guy thought I was thinking of killing myself.

Note – This is post is a bit more adult, in  Judy-Blume kind of way.

Dear Dad,

I went to school today and somehow really freaked out Misty Lee. And then her pastor called me at home. The two events were totally unrelated, at least as far as I can tell.

When I showed up for school, I found out that all the junior high students were having a picture taken together that day. They stacked us up on the bleachers in the gym and a photographer climbed up on a stepladder on the other side of the gym and clicked away. All the students were standing on the bleachers. I was right next to Misty Lee and because the photographer had us stand sideways, she was leaning right back into me. The photographer kept asking us to cram closer together, so Misty Lee was really jammed into me. Everyone was looking forward, so I slipped my arms around her. She didn’t seem to mind that. Then I slipped my hands down inside her jacket and put them up inside her blouse.

I didn’t grab her boobs or anything. I just touched her bare stomach with my hands. Boy, did she ever stiffen up at that. Wherever I ran my hands, I could feel her muscles tighten. I just kind of let my fingers dance over her stomach. Misty Lee is covered in these tiny little hairs. I can still feel them under my fingers right now. I can feel the curve of her skin as it dipped in toward her belly button. I could feel when Misty Lee tried to pull away from me, but there was nowhere she could go. We were so crammed together that she couldn’t even reach my hands with hers. I was free to roam.

I sound like a perv. I’m not. I swear, I never touched anything other than her stomach. I wasn’t trying to take advantage of her. I honestly thought she would like it. Heck, I thought she was liking it at the time.

But as soon as the crowd broke up, she turned around with this terrified look on her face. She said, “I hope you—” and then she just ran off and left me. I didn’t see her for the rest of the day. I was pretty sure I freaked her out, but honestly I don’t know why. I mean, all I did was touch her stomach. She’s the one who stuck her tongue into my mouth. When your girlfriend is a French kisser, wouldn’t you think they’d want you to touch their stomach? That’s what I thought.

I was stalling over my math homework after dinner when Mom said the phone was for me. It was Drew, Misty Lee’s pastor. I thought for sure Misty Lee had called him, after she freaked out from the stomach touching. But he said he was just calling to talk to me more about my questions from the Friday before. He got my number from Misty Lee.

Anyway, Drew asked me why I was so interested in what happens when we die. Before I could answer, he asked if I’d ever considered committing suicide. That freaked me out. This guy thought I was thinking of killing myself. I said no. I knew it would shut him up if I told him about you dying, because it always shuts everybody up.

“My dad died.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“It wasn’t your fault.” That’s what I always say when people say they’re sorry. It always kind of pisses me off when they apologize like that.

“I know it wasn’t my fault. But I mean, I’m sorry for you. I mean, I’m sorry it happened. And now I can see why you’re interested. Was you Dad a believer?”

“You mean a Christian?”

“Yes.”

“Well, he became one before he died.” And then I told him how you never went to church with us unless someone was getting married or had died. I told him how you would sit hunched up in front of the TV set and ignore all of us Sunday morning, even though you never ignored us the rest of the week. I told him how you had gotten cancer and how Mom had asked Pastor Mel to come and visit you and how he had come, almost every single day, for the last few months of your life. I told him that Mom said you had asked Jesus into your heart before you died and that she said you were up in Heaven now, with Jesus.

“Your mom is right, Trevor,” said Drew. “If your dad asked Jesus into his heart, then he is in Heaven right now.”

And then I told him that I didn’t think that’s true. And I don’t. Because heaven does not sound like what you are describing to me, Dad. I mean, I don’t want to insult your little town, because some of the people there sound pretty nice, but you don’t seem to like it much and you say the food is pretty miserable and you say it’s kind of boring. I guess I have often imagined that Heaven could be pretty boring, because if you ask Mom what we’ll do in Heaven, she’ll tell you that we’ll worship Jesus all day long.

Even when church is really good, I can only stand it for an hour. I can’t imagine worshipping Jesus, all day long, forever. But I don’t think Mom’s got it right.

Anyway, I don’t think you’re in Heaven. But I wasn’t going to tell Drew that you were writing me letters from beyond the grave. He already thinks I want to kill myself. If I told him about the letters, he’d probably drive over. Drew asked me why I didn’t think you were there. Was it because you only asked Jesus into your heart right before you died? I couldn’t tell him the real reason, so I said yes. Drew said that wouldn’t matter to God, because eternal life is a gift, not something we earn.

I asked him what the Bible says happens when a person dies. He admitted that it doesn’t really say much. “Don’t you think that’s a little weird?” I said. “I mean, the whole point of the Bible is to make people Christians, right? And the whole point of being a Christian is going to Heaven isn’t it? That’s the offer, isn’t it? Then don’t you think the approach could benefit from a little more info about what we actually get?”

Drew kind of laughed and said if I was really interested, he’d do a little research. Which is fair, I guess, even though I expected a pastor to be able to rattle some of this stuff off. I thought he’d get questions about death all the time. Maybe not. But I thought it was pretty cool of him to offer to do the research, and I wanted to know what he would find out, so I said yes.

If you’re not in Heaven, I don’t know where you are, Dad. Hell? Your town doesn’t sound bad enough to be Hell. It sure doesn’t sound as bad as junior high.

Your son,

Trevor