The Last Song(117)

Will noticed the torn jeans and blood on Jonah’s leg as Ronnie rushed toward him. Driven by his own demons, Jonah pushed frantically at the crate, and the corner of the box smashed into one of the shelves. The half-squirrel/half-fish creature toppled off, landing on Jonah just as Ronnie reached him.

His face was tight and red. “Go away! I can do this by myself! I don’t need you!” he screamed.

He tried to move the crate again, but it was pinned by the shelf, locked in place. Ronnie tried to help him, but Jonah shoved her away. By now, Will could see the tears on his cheeks.

“I told you to go away!” he shouted at her. “Dad wants me to finish the window! Me! Not you! That’s what we were doing all summer!” His words came out in broken gasps, angry and terrified. “This was what we did! All you ever cared about were the turtles! But I was with him every day!”

As he shouted through his tears, his voice cracked.

“And now I can’t reach the middle part of the window! I’m too short! But I have to finish it, because maybe if I finish it, then Dad will get better. He has to get better, so I tried to use the chair to reach the middle of the window, but it broke and I fell into the glass and I got mad and then I wanted to use the crate, but it’s too heavy—”

By then, he could barely get the words out, and he suddenly rocked back and collapsed onto the ground. Wrapping his arms around his knees and lowering his head, he began to sob, his shoulders convulsing.

Ronnie took a seat on the floor beside him. She slipped an arm around his shoulder and pulled him toward her as he continued to cry. As Will watched, he could feel a lump in the back of his throat, knowing he didn’t belong here.

Still, he stayed while Ronnie held her brother as he cried, not trying to hush him or assure him that everything was going to be okay. She just held him wordlessly until his sobs began to subside. Finally he looked up, his eyes red through his glasses, his face blotchy with tears.

When Ronnie spoke, her voice was gentle—as kind as he had ever heard her.

“Can we go in the house for a few minutes? I just want to check the cut on your leg.”

Jonah’s voice was still quavering. “What about the window? It has to be finished.”

Ronnie met Will’s eyes, then returned her gaze to Jonah. “Can we help?”

Jonah shook his head. “You don’t know how.”

“Show us.”


After Ronnie cleaned Jonah’s leg and put some Band-Aids on it, Jonah led them back to the workshop.

The window was nearly complete—all of the detailed etchings of the faces were finished, and the reinforcing bars were already in place. The work that remained consisted of adding hundreds of intricate pieces to form the heavenly glow in the sky.

Jonah showed Will how to cut the lead strips and taught Ronnie how to solder; Jonah cut the glass, as he’d been doing most of the summer, and slid them into the lead strips before making room for Ronnie to set the pieces in place.

It was hot and crowded in the workshop, but eventually the three of them fell into a rhythm of sorts. At lunchtime, Will ran out to pick up some burgers and a salad for Ronnie; they took a short break while they ate but were soon back at their task. As the afternoon rolled on, Ronnie called the hospital three times, only to learn that her dad was either in tests or sleeping but doing well. By the time dusk settled in, they’d finished about half the work; Jonah’s hands were getting tired, and they took another break to eat before moving some lamps from the living room to add additional light to the workshop.

Darkness fell, and Jonah was yawning steadily by ten; when they went inside to relax for a few minutes, Jonah fell asleep almost immediately. Will carried him to his room and put him in bed. By the time he returned to the living room, Ronnie was already back at the workshop.

Will took over the glass cutting; he’d seen Jonah doing it all day, and though he made some mistakes in the beginning, he quickly got the hang of it.

They worked through the night, and by the time dawn began to break, both of them were dead on their feet. On the table in front of them lay the completed window. Will wasn’t sure how Jonah would feel knowing he hadn’t had a hand in finishing the final pieces, but he figured Ronnie would know how to handle it.

“You two look like you’ve been up all night,” said a voice behind them. Turning around, Will saw Pastor Harris standing in the doorway.

Pastor Harris was leaning on his cane. He was wearing a suit—probably for his Sunday church service—but Will noticed the horrific scars on the backs of his hands and knew immediately that they extended up his arms. Thinking back to the fire at the church and the secret he’d kept all these months, he found it impossible to meet the pastor’s eyes.