The Rest of the Story

by Sarah Dessen

Parents are always precious. But when you only have one, they become crucial.

but then he was always wanting us to go out driving together, when he’d spent the entire time I was behind the wheel gripping what Bridget’s dad called the “oh shit” handle over his window and pounding an imaginary brake.

I felt reassured when all the day’s listings were people like Mrs. Maguire, who had lived a good, full life. An obit for a younger person, like my dad’s age, always made me sad. A teen or a child was heartbreaking. It just didn’t fit, like a rule had been broken, and I’d find myself trying to piece together the part of the story that wasn’t told.

I wasn’t sure what it was about Trinity, exactly, that caused me to find myself doing things I normally thought impossible. Maybe that it wasn’t her faith in me as much as her frustration. She just had no time for my neurosis, which made me wonder if maybe that was an option for me, as well.

Even after all this time, it was hard for my dad to talk about my mom’s issues. He preferred to avoid the subject as much as possible, as if bringing it up did some disservice to her or her memory. This was in marked contrast to what I’d seen of Celeste, Mimi, and the rest of the family at the lake, for whom my mother’s problems were as much a part of her story as, well, I was. There were lots of ways to love someone, I guessed, both by remembering and forgetting.