Echoes Between Us

by Katie McGarry

  “Sawyer!” Mom gasps as the man rolls away from her. Her blond hair falls wildly over her bare shoulders. She grabs a sheet and pulls it over her body. Her naked body. A man with a hairy chest snatches a pillow and puts it over a place I shouldn’t be seeing.

  My brain convulses, like a DVD stuck in the player. “What the—”

  “What are you doing?” Mom bites out and her anger feeds mine.

  “Me? What am I doing? Who is this?”

  Mom pulls the sheet up higher as she sloppily reaches for the speaker on the bedside table. She hits it once, twice, and finally gets it right on the third try. I grow eerily cold as I let the bat drop from my ear. “Are you drunk?”

  “I had a drink,” she said.

  A drink? “It’s Monday night. A school night. In fact, where were you today? Did that drink take you all damn night? Is this who you were with while I took care of your daughter?”

  “Get out of here, Sawyer.” Mom slurs my name.

  “Where’d you get the drink?” I demand. “Because you haven’t been shopping. You drank all that was in the house on Friday.”

  Mom leans up on her knees, sheet still wrapped around her, and spit flies from her mouth as she shouts, “Get out!”

  Shifting on the bed, the hairy-ass bastard that was just up on my mom is reaching for his pants. He stops moving as my pissed-off attention switches to him. “How do you know her?”

  “Don’t answer.” Mom wipes at her nose, an indication she’s about to ugly cry.

  I raise the bat to my ear again, and there’s no doubt he reads in my expression that I’d have no problem swinging it and pounding him into next week. “How do you know her?”

  His hands shake as he tries to put his pants on, but he’s trashed as well. Some sweaty, middle-aged guy with a beer gut was just on my mom, and I’m kicked in the gut when I spot the gold ring on his left hand. “How do you know her?!” I yell.

  “At the bar. We met at the bar.”

  “When?”

  He glances at my mom for an answer, for affirmation, but I’m running this show. Not her. I step toward him, and he scrambles back on the bed until he hits the wall. “Tonight. We met tonight.”

  “How many nights does she go to a bar and pick up men like you?”

  “I … I don’t know.” He looks at Mom again, and as I start to swing he throws up his arms for protection. “A lot. She’s there a lot, but this is my first time going home with her.”

  First time—for him. How many nights after Lucy fell sleep, after I fell asleep with earbuds in did this happen? Monsters. My mom was bringing home the monsters. I point the bat at the door. “Get out.”

  “You can’t tell him to leave. I’m your mother!”

  “Yeah, and you suck at it!”

  The man grabs his shirt, his shoes, and leaves his socks behind. There must be one brain cell working because the man bolts.

  “I’m a grown woman!” she screams at me. “I have the right!”

  “To leave in the middle of the night? To not even tell us where you’re going? How often do you do this, Mom? How many nights have you brought strangers into our house in the middle of the night with you drunk as hell to screw some guy while Lucy slept down the hall? What type of mother brings that type of danger into our home?”

  Everything I had explained away for months comes crashing down on me. “The money, Mom? Was it really just an error or have you been drinking it away? Is Dad the liar or are you? He’s been sending the child support checks and you’ve been lying to me about it, haven’t you?”

  Mom picks up the speaker, throws it at me, but I duck and it breaks into pieces when it hits the wall. “Get out of here!”

  Gladly. I throw the bat at the wall and it leaves a hole in the drywall.

  VERONICA

  Lucy’s wrapped tight in one of my blankets and is sitting on my lap. Unable to sleep after my conversation with Glory, I answered my cell on the first ring. My heart had skipped a beat. I sent Sawyer away and that one ring caused me to want to take it all back. But then I heard Lucy’s terrified voice, followed quickly by the sound of her banging on the door.

  Dad didn’t listen to Lucy’s pleas that he stay with us. He was down the stairs before I could gather Lucy in my arms. Besides shouting up at me to stay here and that things were under control, I haven’t heard again from either him or Sawyer. Each second that passes is marked by a heart palpitation.

  The door to our apartment opens, and we whip our heads in that direction. Dad enters first. His weary eyes meet mine and I say a silent prayer of thanks that he’s okay. He steps to the side and Sawyer walks in. It’s Sawyer, but not Sawyer. There’s no joy in his eyes, no smile full of life. He’s grim and looks as if he’s aged. On his shoulder is an overstuffed backpack and in his hands is an equally overstuffed duffel bag.

  Lucy slides off of my lap as I stand. Another heart palpitation, but this one so painful, I grip my chest. “What happened? Why are you packed?”

  Sawyer drops to his knees and holds out his arms as Lucy runs into them. They hug like two people who have gone to war and seen terrible atrocities. They hug as if it’s the one reason the two of them still breathe. They hug like a brother loving a sister and a sister loving a brother.

  He kisses her cheek and releases her, and she wraps both of her hands around one of his as he stands. “Thank you,” he says to my dad.

  Dad nods. In a way I’ve seen him do only with people he deeply respects. “I meant what I said, you and Lucy are welcome here.”

  “I know, but I need space. I…” Sawyer appears small then, and lost. “I need time to figure things out.”

  “It’s a standing offer.”

  It’s Sawyer’s turn to nod and then he tugs on Lucy’s hand for them to leave. I lose the ability to breathe. He’s leaving, to God knows where, for a reason I don’t understand, all without even looking at me.

  The shock is so overwhelming that it takes me longer than it should for me to thaw, for my body to move. He’s gone. Sawyer’s gone. I sprint across the room, ignoring my father’s calls to give him space, and I’m down the stairs and out the door.

  Sawyer’s bent over the backseat of his car parked near the curb, strapping Lucy into her car seat. He stands and shuts the door, and I finally find my voice. “Sawyer!”

  He spins and looks at me as if startled, as if I’m the spirit in the night he can’t believe he sees. We stare at each other. His blond hair appears silver in the moonlight and he’s the one who is a ghost—lost in a world he doesn’t seem to understand.

  “What happened?” I ask.

  He shakes his head and glances away. My entire chests aches with the sadness radiating from him.

  “Where are you going?” I ask.

  “I don’t know.” His voice cracks. “A hotel tonight. I think. Maybe Sylvia’s tomorrow. I … I don’t know yet.”

  “Sawyer,” I whisper as I don’t know what else to say.

  “You broke up with me,” he says, and there’s a harshness to his tone. “You broke up with me because I love you. You’re pushing me away, and I don’t understand why.”

  I bite my lower lip to keep the pain of his truth away, but it doesn’t help. “I know.” And I want so badly to tell him I was wrong. That I am wrong. That his text messages made me question my decisions and that Glory’s words have shaken me. I want to be selfish and take it all back, but I can’t. Not now. Not when something has happened that has torn him to shreds. I can’t add an additional burden to his already heavy weight.

  “I want to jump.” Sawyer scrubs his hands over his face. “I want to jump so bad.”

  Unable to stand his agony anymore, I stumble forward and I silently thank God when he holds on to me. I hug him tight, as if I could squeeze out all the hurt. “I love you, Sawyer. I swear to you, I love you.”

  I look up at him, he cradles my head with his hands and he kisses me. His lips warm, the movement as soft as a whisper, his emotions as strong as a prayer.
As fast as it starts, it ends and then Sawyer’s gone. Away from me, walking around the front of his car, and without another glance at me, he climbs into the passenger seat, starts his car and leaves.

  I stand there, my arms crossed over my chest, holding myself together as I realize that Glory is possibly right. I am dying, not from my tumor, but from a slow, crushing bleed in my heart … and I’m terrified.

  SAWYER

  Sunday November 10: Nothing extra doing today. Didn’t go on the cure all day.

  Stayed inside all afternoon. It wasn’t nice out anyway.

  Morris was over tonight. Nothing specially important discussed, but had a nice time anyway. Gee, Diary dear, I’m just crazy ’bout Morris. I think he’s splendid. He sure is great to me.

  Veronica loves me. I believe her, and I’m holding on to her words to keep myself upright.

  It’s two in the morning, and Lucy’s sound asleep in the double bed in our small town’s only decent hotel. The stuffed animals I was able to shove into the bag stand guard as sentries near her pillow.

  My cell’s in my hand and I keep waiting for it to vibrate, but Mom hasn’t tried to contact me. Not a call, not a text, nothing. She was drunk tonight, which means she’s probably passed out, maybe in her own puke since I wasn’t there to clean her up. Why I feel guilty about that, I don’t know, and that only pisses me off more.

  I sit on the patio, and the sliding glass door to the room is ajar about two inches so I can hear Lucy if she wakes, and the drapes are open so I can keep an eye on her as well. Beyond me is the in-ground pool that’s closed for the season. If there was water still in it, I would already be doing laps, but it’s empty. A lot like me.

  “What’s doing, brother?” Knox is a black shadow at first, but turns into flesh and blood as he steps into the dim porch light. He offers his hand, I take it, and then he drops into the aging plastic chair next to mine.

  The surfer boy looks as if I woke him in January during a deep hibernation. I guess I did. “I’m sorry for calling.”

  “Don’t be. Being here is part of the job. Someday, you’ll pay it forward, become someone’s sponsor, and you’ll be the one hustling in the middle of the night.”

  I snort. “For when I meet the other person addicted to jumping.”

  He’s good enough that he chuckles, then sobers up. “That person is out there, brother, and the universe will cause your paths to meet. I just hope you’ll say yes to helping instead of no.”

  Me, too.

  “Only reason I’m not at a quarry jumping right now is because I’m responsible for Lucy.” I rub my hands together as I lean forward. “To be honest, I thought about leaving her with Mom so I could jump.” I pause. “And I’ve been trying to convince myself she’ll be fine by herself here for an hour. I won’t do it. I won’t leave, but I hate that I have the thoughts.”

  “Focus on the positive. You didn’t leave her at home or here. Instead you called me and we’re going to hang out until you’re strong enough to be on your own.”

  “I don’t know if I’ll ever be strong enough.”

  “You already are. Everyone else can see it in you and you’re just the last to know.”

  I rub my hands again then lock my fingers tight enough together that there’s a shot of pain. “I think Mom has a drinking problem.” The words feel foreign, and there’s a part of me that’s already trying to dissuade myself from this truth. “She can go days without drinking, though.”

  “Yeah, but when she does drink, can she stop?”

  She thinks she can, but … “No.”

  “Alcoholism comes in many different forms. Everyone thinks of the stereotype—the guy in the wife-beater, unshaven, a belligerent drunk who beats anyone in his way. Alcoholism affects all sorts of people, from all different walks of life, and it affects people in all different types of ways. The one thing we alcoholics have in common is that alcohol rules us. We never rule it. Even when we don’t drink—it still has the power to knock us on our asses. I tell myself daily that there’s no safe place for me and alcohol together. There never will be.”

  I hear his words, understand them almost, but it doesn’t help this dark anger festering inside me. “Mom has been bringing men into our house in the middle of the night. She’s drunk. God knows if the men are drunk. What I do know is that some of them have looked in on my sister and scared the crap out of her.”

  The mere thought that those men watched my sister as she slept causes my hands to close into fists.

  “How are you feeling, brother?” Knox asks.

  I’m exhausted. “Angry.”

  “And you’re going to be, but I will say this: there’s one benefit to being an addict.”

  Doubt it. “What’s that?”

  “You understand what it’s like to have a problem—a disease—you have a hard time controlling, and you know what it’s like to be desperate to find someone who understands and will forgive you when you mess up. You know how to hate the illness, but not the person.”

  My eyes shut tight as the back of my head hits the wall behind me. Anger pushes back at him so hard that I’m surprised he’s still upright in his seat. “No offense, but I really don’t want to hear this.”

  “If I remember my stories correctly…” Knox continues like he has no fear to tread where I wish he wouldn’t. “Someone in your life has already shown you that grace.”

  Veronica.

  She didn’t bat an eye when I told her my secret, and she called me out on the fact I’d want to jump again, too.

  “Maybe,” Knox says. “Just maybe, God put that person in your life knowing there’d come a time when you might need to show that grace to someone else.”

  I crack my neck to the side as fury races through me. “Did you not hear me when I told you that Mom’s been bringing strange men home in the middle of the night? That some of those men crept into my sister’s bedroom? That her screaming is the only thing that may have protected her? Or did you miss how Mom’s been lying to me about money?”

  “You angry?” Knox asks.

  “Angry? I’m a nuclear bomb.”

  “Good. Then maybe you’ll stop enabling her and she’ll get some help.”

  My forehead furrows. “I don’t pour the alcohol down her throat.”

  “You step in and clean up after her, then you play her role when she can’t.”

  “She’s my mom,” I spit out. “And that’s my sister in there. What am I supposed to do? Abandon them?”

  “No,” Knox says slowly. “But you need to start looking at how you handle your relationships. Like I had to evaluate my relationship with my parents. Am I doing the thing that will make them happy or am I doing the thing that will help put them on a path to get better? We want the people we love to be happy, but there’s a difference between instant-gratification happy and long-term happy. Long-term happy—it often means you do things in the present that don’t feel good.”

  I stare at the empty pool and try to imagine what it would look like with the water shimmering. “I’ve been taking care of her for so long, I don’t know how to stop.”

  “You need to find your voice.”

  I shake my head, not understanding.

  “What’s the first step in Al-Anon and AA?”

  “Admit that we are powerless over alcohol and that our lives have become unmanageable.”

  “Key word for you right now is ‘admit.’”

  Frustration shimmies down my spine. “I am admitting it.”

  “Not to me, but to the world. One of alcoholism’s greatest weapons is silence. How many people have you told about your mom besides me?”

  No one.

  Telling people.

  My mother is an alcoholic.

  Will they believe me?

  Maybe.

  Maybe not.

  But I need to start living for me.

  VERONICA

  Sawyer: I didn’t jump. I thought you’d be worried.

  Me: I was. I’m glad y
ou texted and I’m glad you didn’t jump. How are you?

  Sawyer: My mom’s an alcoholic.

  Me: I’m sorry.

  Sawyer: I know.

  Me: I love you.

  Sawyer: I love you.

  Me: I don’t want to push you away.

  Sawyer: Then don’t. I’ve got to go. I’ll text when I can.

  The text messages were from earlier this morning. Since then, I went to school without him. Sylvia braved leaving her friends at lunch to sit with me. Everyone at school stared. Lots of people talked. I decided we were friends when she acted like she didn’t give a damn what people thought because she sat with me.

  “Do you know what’s going on with Sawyer?” she had asked. “He’s not at school and he’s not answering his texts. Besides that, he’s been off. Since before last spring and he’s been getting worse. Sawyer and I don’t always see eye to eye, but he’s my friend and I care.”

  “I know some things, but not all.”

  “Will you tell me what you do know?”

  I wish I could, but I’m loyal to him. “It’s his business to tell.”

  She pursed her lips, unhappy, but replied, “I can respect that. Can you at least tell me he’s okay?”

  The urge is to say he’s fine because that’s what people do, but I’m tired of lying. “He’s not. He’ll need his friends.”

  “Then it’s a good thing he has us.” Holding a tray full of food, Miguel had dropped down next to Sylvia.

  “He’s really going to need you two,” I agreed.

  Miguel’s face contorted as he shook his chocolate milk. “I said ‘us,’ amiga. Not unless you plan on checking out.”

  Sylvia and Miguel watched me for an answer. I thought I was checking out, but I don’t want to anymore. “I’m in.”

  In.

  Not pushing away.

  It’s an odd feeling. A bit frightening. A bit exhilarating. A bit sad that Sawyer wasn’t there to experience it with me.