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Show Woodworth/249 "Do you really think so?" she asks. They never discussed this before. After that quiet ride home from Exeter, with her mother's arm wrapped tight across her chest, Marty and N\egan never mentioned that Jake had even died. It was as if he had only decided to go to boarding school permanently. "Yes." Her tone suggests that she has considered every possibility, and this can the the only right answer. "Jake never had any reason to kill himself." "He hated school." "So what? Mom and Dad would have taken him out in a minute, and let him live at home, if he had really let them know that he hated it. They would have done anything he said. And besides, he could have just run away. He didn't have to kill himself." "I don't know." "What difference does it make?" Rachael interrupts. She has been looking out the window, towards the hedges and the sounds of laughing and splashing at the Grayson's pool. "Do you guys understand that it doesn't make the slightest bit of difference? She turns, holding her cup in both hands, and Marty and Megan both look up at her. "Jake is dead, and there is nothing you can do about it. The problem is, you all never let Jake die. Suicide or not, he is dead. Living here is like living in a God damned mortuary. It couldn't be any sicker if you had a casket in the middle of the kitchen, ««toiaHBtaBMan B everybod |
