Free The Other Side of the World by Jay Neugeboren Page B

hoping to get a Glenn Martin.”
    â€œMaybe,” I said.
    â€œAfter supper, I can show you the models I’ve already made. I have Fokkers, Aircos, SPADs, Junkers, Vickers, Halberstadts, and a Sopwith that’s a triplane with three wings, which is quite
rare. My grandfather helps me build the planes sometimes, and he’s quite patient with me. Even though I’m the smartest student in my class, I also have a large temper for a boy my age. I can be difficult at times.”
    â€œSelf-knowledge is a wonderful thing,” Seana said.
    â€œAt school, I’m required to have my own teacher with me all day, in addition to the regular teacher for the other students,” he explained to Seana. “It’s called special education.”
    â€œFigures,” Seana said.
    â€œFigures?”
    â€œSpecial education for a special guy, and you’re pretty special, aren’t you?”
    â€œI certainly hope so,” Gabe said.
    Â 
    After we helped Trish put the children to bed—Gabe showed us his model airplane collection and then read a story to Seana while I read one to Anna—Trish took down a small metal box from a cabinet over the sink, and asked if we wanted to smoke some funny stuff with her.
    She pushed away a bunch of clothes and laundry so we could sit side by side, and stuffed what looked like pencil shavings into a small clay pipe. She lit the pipe, inhaled, held the smoke down in her lungs, exhaled, and passed the pipe to Seana.
    â€œSweet,” Seana said after she’d taken a long drag.
    â€œLovely, lovely,” I said after I’d let the smoke permeate my lungs and float up toward my brain. “This is quality stuff.”
    â€œThat’s because some of it’s Nick,” Trish said.
    â€œ Nick?! ” I said.
    â€œDid you really ?” Seana asked.
    â€œUh-huh. Just a small sprinkling, though.”
    â€œHow wonderful,” Seana said.
    I felt nauseated, dizzy. “You actually put some of Nick’s ashes in here?” I asked.
    â€œUh-huh,” Trish said. “I thought of doing this—what we’re
doing now—I mean I had it in mind ever since your phone call—as being a kind of private memorial ceremony Nick would appreciate, wherever he is. He’s part of us now…”
    This was when Seana’s cell phone rang. “It’s Max,” she said, looking at the phone’s display screen and grinning. “His timing has always been impeccable.”
    While Trish and I passed the pipe back and forth, Seana talked with Max, and told him we’d visited with Nick’s parents, were now visiting with Trish and her children, and that she’d found another home away from home—a quiet place where the two of them could be happy campers while working on their books. She told him we’d already paid for a room at an inn we weren’t going to use, and suggested he drive up and be our guest there.
    â€œThat would be so cool ,” Trish said. “Even though I only met your dad a couple of times, I fell in love with him, Charlie, and used to wish he’d been my father. Is that okay?”
    â€œSure,” I said.
    â€œI mean, it’s like I miss him because I wanted to know him and never did, and maybe now my chance has come. Is that okay?”
    â€œSure,” I said again.
    â€œWe all miss you, Max,” Seana was saying. “We do. And that includes me because I become very sad when I’m away from you.”
    â€œMe too,” I said, and I asked Seana to ask my father if he wanted to say hello to his beloved son.
    â€œHe says he only called because he misses us and that I should say ‘Goodbye and good luck’ to you,” she said a moment later.
    â€œThat’s the title of my favorite Grace Paley story,” Trish said. She rested her head against Seana’s shoulder. “But you’re still my favorite author, so there’s no need to be