by Megan Walker
Rachel babbles from the bed beside me. She’s feeling that happiness now. I know I have, so often. With Ty, playing games or reading to him before bed. With Felix, as we hold each other at night and talk and laugh and make love. On stage, pouring my heart into my music and letting the fans sing it back to me.
Why can’t I remember what that feels like?
“Because you’re full of shit,” that Jenna says. I can almost see her picking up the pacifier, twirling it around on her finger. “You think you’re so much better than me, but you’re just pretending. You always have been.”
“That’s not true.”
“God, look at yourself. This is so much better than my life?” She gestures at me, her cherry-stained lip curled.
I flick a glance at myself in the mirror. No makeup, my hair pulled back in a ponytail. I haven’t gotten to the salon since before Rachel was born, so my roots are showing, a wedge of brown in between black and red. Dark circles under my eyes. A grubby t-shirt, a pair of jeans.
“Yes,” I say definitively. “This is a million times better.”
She groans then. Rolls her eyes. “Full. Of. Shit. You know how to make yourself feel better.”
“No.” I glare at where she would be, there by my dresser like she has any right to be in my room. Any right to be in my life at all.
She never cared much what people thought she had a right to do.
“No,” I say again. “You thought you knew how to make yourself feel better, but all that shit you did—all the parties and the getting blackout drunk and the pills and the guys—all it did was make you feel nothing at all—”
“Which is better, right?”
“Until you felt it all, every little bit of it and it was so much worse. And what you did to your family, and how you could barely even look at your own son—”
“Because you’re doing such a bang-up job of that now, aren’t you?” Her gray eyes settle on little Rachel, who is contentedly chewing on her fist. “At least I knew I would be a shitty mom.”
Anger burns my lungs. “You didn’t even try. You were nothing but a selfish stupid little fuck-up who—”
“Who is still you,” she says flatly, but her eyes flash with anger, too, her fists balled up tight like mine are around the comforter. “No matter what you tell yourself, deep down you know you’re still me, and I’m still you, and everyone’s going to figure that out, aren’t they? Ty, and Felix, and they won’t want anything to do with you—”
“No!” I blurt out, jumping to my feet. “I’m not you, I’m not you, I hate you! You killed my sister and I hate you!”
I’m shaking, standing there, staring at nothing. I already knew I was staring at nothing.
There’s a beat, my heartbeat maybe, thick and heavy like a bass drum.
“Mom?” Ty’s voice calls up the stairs. “Did you say something?”
I swallow, my throat so dry the words scrape together coming out of my mouth. “No, honey, it’s okay.”
On the bed, Rachel makes a little noise like a whimper, and my heart constricts.
Rachel, named after my sister. Who I killed.
It was an accident, of course. A car accident—the word “accident” is even in the name. But it was still my fault. I was driving. It was my life we were fighting about, the choices I was making to date a guy like Grant, to not be there for my four-year-old son, to make Mom and Dad afraid every day that something bad was going to happen to me.
Us yelling at each other, me reaching down to turn up the radio to drown her out, blowing past the stoplight.
“You should have left them completely,” I murmur to myself in the mirror. The tired-looking Jenna with the dark circles under her eyes. “You should have run away back then, gone completely away, and Rachel would still be alive.”
I look down at Rachel, my Rachel, and I feel something click together.
I was supposed to be different now. I was supposed to be better. But I’m not. I’m still that same girl. And I thought that fighting to stay here for my family was the better choice, but maybe that was the selfish one all along.
I feel the water rising around me. With the people I love on the other side, and the glass will break.
It did once before.
My pulse feels thready in my veins. I don’t want to hurt them anymore. I don’t want to hurt Ty or Rachel. I don’t want to hurt Felix.
I twist my wedding band around on my finger, pull it off. Stare at the engraving on the inside.
Two words, it says.
Soul mates.
I close my eyes.
We’re already married, of course, but in the Mormon church there’s a special ceremony in the temple where you get married—either for the first time, or again if, like us, you joined the church afterward. The belief is that the marriage in the temple binds you together for all eternity—no “til death do us part.” And not just for the two people getting married, but their kids too.
Together forever. With my soul mate. With my family. We both loved that concept, and we’ve been planning to do it after I’d had Rachel and things had settled down a little. We’ve both been looking forward to it.
I stare down at my ring, and a dead weight settles on me.
Felix is my soul mate, and all I want is to be his, but he doesn’t deserve to be trapped with me forever. I love him so much, but he deserves better than I can ever give him. My kids do too. And I’ve been lying to him, lying to myself, letting us believe any different.
Maybe if I was gone . . .
The tears spill over then, burning hot tracks down my cheeks. “What do I do?” I whisper. A prayer.
But I don’t feel anything in response, like usual lately. Maybe because God knows I’m still the same selfish, hurtful girl. Maybe I was lying to myself ever thinking that God could feel I was worth answering.
I look at the clock. Look down at Rachel. Then I pick up my phone from the dresser, where it sits next to the sheet music and Rachel’s pacifier.
My fingers tremble as I text my mom, asking her if she can come over and watch the kids for me until Felix gets back.
It barely takes thirty seconds before I get a reply, saying she’s happy to, and she’ll be over soon.
If she leaves in the next few minutes—which I think she will, she’s been dying for me to give her more Nana time with Rachel—she should be here long before Felix gets home. My parents only live about ten minutes away, in a house I helped them buy with the first big AJ windfall.
I bought them a house, but only after I killed their daughter.
I can’t let the glass break and drown anyone else I love. I can’t I can’t.
I grab a piece of sheet music and a pen, and I write a note on the back. Quickly, so I don’t lose my nerve. Then I set my ring on top of the note. More tears spill over. More and more, and I think they may never stop.
But I need them to, before my mom gets here.
Rachel whimpers again, and I pick her up—my baby, this perfect little person Felix and I made—and hold her in my arms. Tears drip from my face onto her soft, dark hair, and I don’t want to go, not at all. I want to hold my beautiful baby, who I love so much, I can feel it now, and I want to sit on that couch downstairs with my son and my husband.
And now I’m not gripping the steering wheel making myself go home to be with my baby. I’m gripping my baby and begging to stay with them, wanting nothing more than to stay with them, even if it means drowning silently.
But they need more than I am, more than I ever could be. They deserve more, and this is the only way I can think of to give it to them.
Twenty-four
Felix
When I get home from my meeting, I find Jenna’s mom in the living room holding Rachel, while Ty races up and down the stairs, feverishly avoiding going to bed.
“Pa
jamas,” his grandmother says, for what I gather is not the first time.
“Hey,” I say. “Thanks for coming over to help Jenna.”
“She said she had to run a few errands. And that you would be home first.” She shrugs. “I was just happy she called me, finally. I’ve been dying to come over and cuddle my grandkids.”
“You can stay longer, if you want.”
She gives me a knowing look. “I think I’ll let Ty’s dad take care of bedtime,” she says, and she stands up and nuzzles Rachel’s plump cheek before handing her over to me. “But tell Jenna I’m happy to come over again tomorrow. I’m glad she’s getting out.”
I am too, even if I’m surprised by it. I would have thought she’d tell me if she needed to run errands. I would have gone to the store for her. But maybe she knew I would offer, and didn’t want it. It’s good for her to get out of the house, and I’ve probably been too pushy about doing things for her lately.
Ty comes catapulting down the stairs again, still not in pajamas. “Bye, Nana!” he shouts, clobbering her around the waist.
“Oof,” she says with a laugh. “Goodbye, Ty. I’ll see you soon.” And then she gives Rachel one last kiss in my arms and ducks out the door.
“Seriously,” I say to Ty. “Pajamas.” I bounce Rachel up and down and follow him up the stairs. “Everything you wear looks like pajamas,” I tell her. “But let’s find some fresh ones so you don’t start smelling of spoiled milk, shall we?”
The next hour is a melee of nagging Ty and listening to his crazy ideas of what to do with the next Twinkie and bouncing Rachel and changing a diaper while trying not to trip over Rocket, who likes to squeeze between the changing table and my feet at inopportune times. But I don’t flash a delivery man and no one has explosive diarrhea or quits their career, so I suppose I can’t complain too much. Still, by the time I get Ty into bed with his light out for the night and Rachel settled in her crib for however long that’s going to last this time, I’m ready to take a shower and check out for a bit.
Jenna still isn’t back, but I suppose if she had multiple errands to run, she wouldn’t be. Part of me hopes she’s sitting in a Wendy’s parking lot somewhere enjoying a frosty that she doesn’t have to share with anyone and taking a moment to herself. She could use it.
But I still miss her. I pull out my phone to text her.
Please tell me you went somewhere fun, I text.
There’s no answer except a muffled chirp from our bedroom. I head over there. It’s not like Jenna to forget her phone, but remembering to meet Rachel’s many expanding needs hasn’t exactly left either of us with an abundance of brain.
Sure enough, there’s her phone on the nightstand, but Jenna’s nowhere in sight, and I’m sure I didn’t miss hearing her come home. I’m about to head back downstairs for the baby monitor before taking as long a shower as Rachel will let me, when my eyes catch on a piece of paper in the middle of the bed, and the silver band glinting on top of it.
Jenna’s ring.
My hands go cold, and I take a step toward the bed, staring down at the note, not quite daring to touch it.
I’m sorry, Felix, it says. I love you all, so much, but I can’t be here anymore. Don’t look for me. I’ll be fine.
I reach down and pick up the ring, holding it in my hands. It’s a band with a woven pattern engraved around it. Jenna didn’t want a diamond, so we got matching bands instead. I slip it onto my finger with mine, though it only fits to my second knuckle.
I look down at the note. I can’t be here anymore.
My logical brain is way ahead of the rest of me. She left me. I know that she left me, and I know I’m going to have a reaction to that. Any moment now, that’s going to feel real, and I’m going to start to panic about where she went and whether she’s safe and how things have possibly gotten so bad that she feels like she can’t—
My phone rings in my hand, and I glance down at it. Jenna. I put the phone to my ear. “Hey. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Dana says in my ear. “Thanks for asking.”
I pull the phone away from my head and double check the caller ID. Sure enough, it’s my sister Dana. I guess I only registered half of the letters. “Dana, this isn’t a good time—”
“And when will it be a good time, Felix?” she asks. “Don’t pretend you’re not dodging my calls.”
I groan. This is really not the moment I want to have this conversation with my sister. “Look,” I say, “I don’t mean to avoid you, but I’ve got a lot going on right now, and—”
“That’s exactly why I’ve been calling. How is Jenna?”
Something inside me cracks. Tears spring into my eyes, and my face crumples. “Not great,” I say. Dana is about the last person I want to talk to about this, but she’s here on the phone, and the idea right now of having to dial a phone, of even knowing who to call . . . “She left me,” I say. “She left a note and her ring, and she said she can’t do this anymore, and now I don’t know where she is, or if she’s safe—”
“Oh, god,” Dana says. “Yes, she clearly shouldn’t be alone if she has postpartum depression.”
Those words feel like they physically hit me. “What? She doesn’t. . .”
“Felix,” Dana says. “Haven’t you read any of the articles I sent you?”
“A few,” I say. That’s a lie. I only read the one.
“After she had it with Ty, I was concerned. That’s why I’ve been calling to check on her. I talked to her last week, and she didn’t sound good. I was trying to tell you this.”
I feel like I’m having this conversation from a mile behind Dana. “Jenna told you she had postpartum depression with Ty?”
“No,” Dana says. “But she and I had a conversation about how she had a hard time bonding with him, and the emotional state she was in at the time, and I just assumed.”
“And did you tell her this?”
Dana is quiet for a moment. “I wasn’t sure if I should. It’s against the rules for me to criticize your family, and I can never be sure what’s going to come off as a criticism to you.”
Shit. I made that rule—and told Dana if she broke it that she’d never see us again—after Dana offhandedly suggested at Thanksgiving dinner that it clearly would have been more rationally responsible for Jenna to have aborted Ty when she was pregnant with him. “Yeah, okay,” I say. “I’m sorry I haven’t answered your calls. But Jenna’s been through this before. I don’t think it’s depression, just the trauma, you know? Maybe PTSD?”
“I’m sure she has been like this before,” Dana says briskly. “She probably has regular depression as well. That raises her chances of having an episode after a baby significantly.”
I shake my head. “Jenna struggles, but her problems are a lot like mine. I don’t think it’s—”
My eyes catch on my pill bottle, sitting on my nightstand. The anti-depressants I’ve been on for the side-effect.
I’ve been doing so well coming down off the subs. Somehow feeling even better than I was when I was at a full dose. No one’s been able to explain to me why that might be. And Jenna and I, we usually both have these dips in mood, her because of her trauma, and me because of my addiction, but we get each other in this dark, primal way that sometimes leads us to spiral down together into a pit of despair, but also lets us find our way out together. And yet, she started partying and I started doing drugs, both of us because of this deep unhappiness that we couldn’t shake, that is inexplicable to both of us, even now—
“Fuck,” I say. “We both have depression.”
“That would certainly explain some things,” Dana muses.
“Like why I dropped out of Juilliard.”
“Or at least why you dropped out so spectacularly.”
“Fuck.”
“Felix, stop saying that. It’s so vulgar.”
; “How did you know about this?” I ask her. “How could you possibly—”
“Because I had postpartum depression with Ephraim,” Dana says, like this is the most obvious thing in the world.
I think back to that. So much of what I know about what’s normal after having a baby, I took from watching Dana. “I remember you crying a lot.”
“Uh-huh. And am I a crier?”
Definitely not. “Fuck.”
“Felix,” Dana says. “What can I do?”
“I have to find her,” I say. She said in her note not to look for her, but obviously that’s exactly what I should do. “I don’t have the first idea where to—”
That’s not true. Obviously she didn’t tell her parents where she was going, but I can call Alec. He’s in New York, as far as I know, but she might have called him. And I could check with Gabby, and with Anna-Marie, though I doubt she’d go to either of them if she’s trying to avoid me.
Maybe some of her friends from church?
“I’m so sorry I didn’t call you back,” I say. More sorry than she’ll ever know.
“Do you need me to come take the kids?” Dana asks.
“No. They’re already in bed, and I don’t want to have to alert Ty to this if I don’t have to. But maybe you could take them if she’s not back by morning?”
“Of course,” Dana says.
I stare straight ahead, but I’m not seeing anything. My finger strokes Jenna’s ring, still halfway stuck on my finger.
Jenna was suffering—things got this bad, and she didn’t feel like she could tell me. Or maybe she tried, but I didn’t get it. When we go through things like this, I’m usually right there with her, but I’ve been so much better lately—
I got medicated and felt better and I left her there, all alone in that pit, at the worst possible moment.
“Thanks, Dana,” I say, my voice sounding hollow.
“I’ll call you in the morning. Text me if she comes home, so I don’t worry.”
“I will.” I want to apologize again for ignoring her, but it’s not really Dana I want to apologize to. It’s Jenna. For missing this. For abandoning her. For not insisting she get the treatment she needs. I hang up the phone, and I check hers, as if that’s somehow going to tell me where she’s gone.