“Horrible, I still can’t believe it. He seemed fine to me.” Courtney shook her head sadly, and her husband Doug put his arm around her, drawing her close.

“I know.” Chris sighed. “You know, it’s shocking because we all got together for lunch on Friday? Abe seemed fine.”

“That’s what I keep saying.” Courtney looked at Rick, stricken. “Right, Rick? We can’t believe it. His parents are so upset, too. They’ll be here tonight. They’re the nicest people.”

Rick sighed. “They are. We met them when we went out there. It’s just awful. But I get it, I understand. We went through it with him, last time he tried. He took pills. We all thought he was over it, but I guess he wasn’t.”

Chris remained skeptical, but hid it. “Had you noticed him becoming depressed again?”

“Honestly, I didn’t,” Courtney interjected, her bloodshot eyes bewildered. “I think he was having a hard time with the rejection though, I know that. He told me that.”

Next to her, Rick nodded. “I think that’s what did it. It put him over the top.”

“What rejection?” Chris asked, keeping his tone less urgent than he felt.

“His poems,” Rick answered. “He was trying to get his poems published. You should read them. But he kept getting rejection after rejection.”

Courtney scowled. “These agents, they’re really the worst. He wrote to one in New York, and the agent emailed him, ‘We don’t have time to take any more clients, and if we did, we wouldn’t take you.’ Isn’t that so mean?”

“That’s terrible.” Chris supposed it answered why Abe would commit suicide now, but still. “Rick, did you talk to Abe Friday night? Did he call you or anything?”

“Well, yes.” Rick’s expression darkened, and a deep frown creased his forehead. “He did call me, but I couldn’t take the call. I keep thinking, what if I had? What if I just taken the five minutes to talk to him? Maybe he wouldn’t have—”

“Rick, no, don’t say that.” His wife, Sachi, rubbed his back, her expression strained. “We were at my mother’s that night, and she’s been in chemo, so she wasn’t feeling well. Rick was helping me with her—well, you don’t need to know the details. I asked Rick not to take the call right then, I thought it was a social thing. I never realized that…”

Courtney nodded, her eyes glistening. “Rick, it wouldn’t have made a difference if you’d taken the call. Nobody knows that better than me. He called me that night, too, and I talked to him. He was upset about the rejection, but I never would’ve thought he would kill himself.”

Doug chimed in, “Honey, like the pastor said, everyone has their own struggles. You did your best. You were on the phone with him a long time.”

“Was I? I didn’t think I was.” Courtney reached into her purse, thumbed to her phone screen, and showed it to her husband. “Look, he called me at 9:35 P.M., and I was only on for fifteen minutes. I wish it had been longer.”

Rick glanced at Courtney’s phone, nodding sadly. “It must’ve been right after he called me.”

Courtney nodded. “Probably, and like I say, he was disappointed but not suicidal. He even asked if we could get together Saturday night, last night. He wanted us to go out to dinner, but we couldn’t.”

Doug frowned, glancing at Chris. “I had a work thing last night. My boss’s birthday. I couldn’t miss that. We had to say no.”

Courtney’s eyes glistened with new tears. “But I feel like Rick does, what if I had said yes? What if we made the plans? He needed friends this weekend, and I wasn’t there for him.”

Chris still had no answers. “Courtney, you can’t blame yourself for this. You were a wonderful friend to him, and so were you, Rick.”

“Thanks,” Rick said, miserably.

Courtney wiped a tear from her eyes. “I just really loved him. We all did.”

“He knew that.” Chris noticed over Courtney’s shoulder that there was a lull in the guests greeting Jamie. “Folks, excuse me, I’d like to pay my respects to Jamie, okay?”

Chapter Thirty-six

Susan picked up the dirty laundry in Raz’s bedroom while he showered in his bathroom, getting ready for their therapy session. Ryan was already at his therapist’s office, and her therapist had wanted to see her and Raz together. She had agreed, though she couldn’t deny the unease in the pit of her stomach. She knew the family needed professional help, but all three of them in simultaneous therapy put their crisis in relief—Neil’s survivors were barely surviving.

Susan picked up sweat socks, which reeked, then his favorite jeans. It had been a long and difficult day yesterday, with Raz coming home after practice, emotionally drained about Mr. Y’s suicide. Raz had even stayed inside last night, alone in his room. It was the first Saturday night he hadn’t gone out in a long time.

You’re the parent, remember?

Susan picked up a stained T-shirt and tried not to think about what Neil would’ve said about the mess in this room. He was the one who used to nag the boys about their room, their shower schedule, and whether their homework was done. He always had a running timeline of their quiz, exam, and midterm schedules. He checked their grades on the CVHS portal and he shepherded them through the PSAT, SAT, AP testing, and college application process.

She kept picking up clothes, going through the things that Neil used to do, and she hadn’t even realized how many tasks there were until he had passed. She picked up a wet towel, then straightened up, suddenly assessing the scene. Raz’s bedroom had always been a pigsty, but she found herself seeing it with new eyes, and for the first time, she realized that it bordered on hoarding.

Raz’s bed was flush under the window, but the sheets looked grimy. Piles of dirty laundry lay around the bed on the floor and some had been stuffed under the bed, mixed in with sports pages, Sports Illustrated, empty cans of Red Bull, and Snickers and gum wrappers. Dirty underwear and sweatshirts were mounded on top of the television, and video games were strewn about. The controllers were buried under old CDs, which Raz never even bought anymore.

Susan blinked, appalled. She didn’t know when it had gotten this way. She had to be the worst mother ever born. Her own son had been burying himself in filth and she hadn’t even realized it until this very moment. She felt shocked at the realization, horrified at her own neglect. How had she been so selfish? So blind?