Belzhar by Meg Wolitzer

Author:Meg Wolitzer
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2014-09-08T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

13

AT THANKSGIVING DINNER, OVER AN ENORMOUS turkey and various kinds of goat cheese, Griffin’s dad raises a glass to me. “There’s one person in particular who I’m thankful for. Our guest, Jam,” he says. “She was heroic.”

“It was nothing, I do it all the time,” I joke.

Griffin knocks his glass against the others, but he doesn’t smile. After the meal, his mom insists she has the kitchen covered and sends us off. I want to go see Myrtle and her kid, who Mrs. Foley has named Frankie. Reluctantly, Griffin comes with me. In the barn, I crouch down to pet the now cleaned-up buck, who, astonishingly, can already stand and walk, while Griffin stays to the side.

I assume his aloofness is because of the fire. But you’d think he’d be cheered up even a little by seeing the baby goat doing so well. Finally he asks me, “Are you done?” and we leave the barn.

• • •

By the next morning, the snow has stopped, and after Griffin takes care of some jobs around the farm, he suggests we go cross-country skiing. I’ve never done it before, but it turns out not to be as hard as I’d thought. He leads the way across broad white spaces and a frozen lake. Together our skis move back and forth, making identical quiet sounds out here in the open. It seems as if no one is around for miles. Being outside in the wildly white, silent day with Griffin, even after having barely slept the night before, is somehow bracing—I think that's the word. When the grounds narrow and he moves ahead of me, I see how graceful he is on these skis.

Then, back at the house, he prepares some cocoa in a little copper pan with a cinnamon stick thrown in. “Mexican style,” he calls it, and we take our mugs over to the fire and play a round of the card game Bullshit. His parents are off in the barn, and we have the place to ourselves for a while. Our faces are warm and flushed as we slap down cards on a small, scuffed table.

Without thinking I say, “Your dad told me about the fire.”

He looks up from his hand of cards. “Nice going, Dad,” he says.

“Well, I’m glad he told me. It’s this huge, awful thing that happened to you.”

“Not everything should be talked about.”

“If you do want to talk about it,” I say, “I’d like to hear.”

“Why, so you can get all the gory details and discuss it with Sierra back at school?” says Griffin.

“Hardly.”

“What happened was my friend Alby came over early that night,” he says, his tone flat. “And we got high in the barn, and I guess at the end he must’ve tossed the joint. Did my dad tell you that?”

I try not to react to this. “No,” I say. “I didn’t know.”

“Well, now you do.” He slaps down a card. “And in the middle of the night I heard my parents shouting, and I ran outside to the barn.

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