We're sitting now. At the kitchen table. Kyle hasn't said very many things, but the next thing he says terrifies me more than anything has ever terrified me in my life.
"Was anyone hurt, Ben?"
I want to shake my head no, but it won't move. My answer won't come, because I don't know. Of course no one was hurt. Donovan was awake, he would have gotten out in time.
Right?
I gasp for another breath when I see worry in Kyle's eyes. He quickly pushes away from the table and stalks toward the living room. I hear the TV click on and, for a second, I have the thought that this is probably the last time that TV will ever click on to the Bravo channel now that my mother won't be watching it anymore.
And then I hear the stations change and change again. But then I hear the words "fire" and "Hyacinth Court," and "one injured."
Injured. He probably tripped running out of the house and cut his finger or something. That's not so bad. I'm sure he had house insurance.
"Ben."
I stand up to join Kyle in the living room. I'm sure he's summoning me to tell me it's okay, that everything is okay and I should go to bed.
When I reach the entryway to the living room, my feet stop moving forward. There's a picture on the TV in the top right-hand corner. A girl. She looks familiar, and I can't place her right away, but I don't have to because the reporter does it for me.
"Latest reports indicate that Fallon O'Neil, sixteen-year-old lead actress in the hit TV show Gumshoe, has been airlifted from the scene. No word as to her condition, but we'll keep you updated as reports come in."
Kyle doesn't tell me it'll be okay.
He doesn't say anything at all.
We stand in front of the TV, soaking up news reports that break in between infomercials. At a little after one in the morning, we learn that the girl was taken to a burn center in South Bay. Ten minutes later, we learn she's in critical condition. At one thirty in the morning, we learn she has suffered fourth-degree burns over thirty percent of her body. At one forty-five, we learn that she is expected to survive, but will undergo extensive reconstructive surgery and rehabilitation. At one fifty, reporters state that the owner of the home admitted to spilling fuel near a car parked outside his garage. Investigators state they have no reason to believe the fire was caused intentionally, but a complete investigation will follow up to corroborate the homeowner's claims.
One reporter insinuates that the victim's career may be put on hold indefinitely. Another says producers will have a huge decision to make when it comes to either recasting the role or putting production on hold while the victim recovers. The news reports transition from updates on the victim to how many Emmy Awards Donovan O'Neil was nominated for during the height of his career.
Kyle turns off the television at approximately 2 a.m. He sets the remote down carefully--quietly--on the arm of the couch.
"Did anyone witness what happened?" His eyes lock with mine, and I immediately shake my head.
"Did you leave behind anything? Any possible evidence?"
"No," I whisper. I clear my throat. "He's right. He kicked over his gas can and then went inside the house. No one saw what I did after that."
Kyle nods and then squeezes the tension out of the back of his neck. He takes a step closer. "So no one knows you were there?"
"Only you."
He then closes the distance between us. I think he might want to hit me. I don't know for sure, but the anger in the set of his jaw indicates he might want to. I wouldn't blame him.
"I want you to listen to me, Ben." His voice is low and firm. I nod. "Take off every item of clothing you're wearing right now and put them in the washing machine. Go take a shower. And then you're going to go to bed and forget this happened, okay?"
I nod again. I might be sick in a second, I'm not sure.
"You are never to leave the slightest traceable connection to what happened tonight. Never look those people up online. Never drive by their house again. Stay away from anything that can trace you to them. And never, ever speak another word of this. Not to me . . . not to Ian . . . not to anyone. Do you hear me?"
I'm definitely about to be sick, but I still manage to nod.
He studies my face for a minute, making sure he can trust me. I don't dare move. I want him to know he can trust me.
"We have a lot to do tomorrow to prepare for her funeral. Try to get some sleep."
I don't nod again, because he walks away, turning out the lights as he goes.
I stand in the dark for several minutes. Quiet . . . still . . . alone.
I should probably be worried that I'll get caught. I should probably be upset that from this point forward, I'll always feel a sense of guilt whenever Kyle looks at me. I should probably be worried that this night--coupled with this morning and finding my mother--will screw me up in some way. If maybe I'll suffer from PTSD or depression.
But none of that matters.
Because as I run up the stairs, swing open my bathroom door and expel all the contents of my stomach into the toilet, the only thing my thoughts surround is that girl and how I've just completely ruined her life.
I drop my forehead to my arm as I sit here with a death grip on porcelain.
I don't deserve to live.
I don't deserve to live.
I wonder if my bloodstain will look like Gary Busey.
Fallon
I barely make it to the toilet before I throw up.
Beads of sweat trickle down my forehead.
I can't do this.
I can't read anymore.
There's too much. Too much and it's too hard and I'm too sick now to keep reading.
I somehow pull myself off the floor and make it to the sink. I wash my hands. I cup them under the stream of water and bring my hands to my mouth, swishing the water around. I do this several times, washing the taste of bile out of my mouth.
I look in the mirror at the scars that run from my cheek to my neck. I pull my shirt off and look at the scars on my arm, my breast, my waist. I run the fingers of my right hand up my arm and neck, over my cheek, and back down again. I run them over my breast and down my waist.
I lean forward until I'm flush against the counter . . . as close to the mirror as I can get. And I really look at them. I look at them with more concentration than I've ever looked at them before, because what I'm feeling is confusing me.
It's the first time I've ever looked at them without at least a trace of anger following close behind.
Until I read Ben's words, I never knew how much I blamed my father for what happened to me. For so long, I've hated him. I made it difficult for him to grieve with me over what happened. I found fault in everything he said. Every conversation we had turned into a fight.
I'm not excusing that he can be an insensitive jerk. He's always been an insensitive jerk. But he's also always loved me, and now that I have a clearer picture of what happened that night, I shouldn't blame him for forgetting about me anymore.
I only stayed at his house once a week, and he had just found out someone he loved had died. His mind must have been wrecked. And then for me to expect him to react with perfect precision when he sees his house is on fire is way more than I should expect of him. In a matter of minutes, he was grieving and then angry and then panicking because of the fire. To expect him to immediately remember that I had texted him twelve hours earlier to let him know I was sleeping at his house that night is completely unrealistic. I didn't live there. It wasn't like living at home with my mom and me being the first thing she would think about in a panic. My father's situation was completely different, and I should treat it as such. And even though we've kept in touch over the past few years, our relationship isn't what it used to be. I take half the blame for that. We don't get to choose our parents, and parents don't get to choose their children. But we do get to choose how hard we're willing to work in order to make the best of what we're given.
I pull my cell phone out of my pocket and open a te
xt to my father.
Me: Hey, Dad. Want to have breakfast tomorrow? Miss you.
After I hit send, I pull my shirt back on and walk back into the living room. I stare down at the manuscript, wondering how much more I'll be able to endure. It's so hard to read, I can't imagine Ben and his brothers having to live through this.
I say a quick prayer for the Kessler boys, as if what I'm reading is happening now and Kyle is even still around to be prayed for.
And then I pick up right where I left off.
Ben's novel--CHAPTER THREE
Age 16
"Great is the hand that holds dominion over man by a scribbled name."
--Dylan Thomas
You know what's worse than the day your mother kills herself?
The day after your mother kills herself.
When a person is in a lot of physical pain--say they accidentally slice off their hand--the human body produces endorphins. These endorphins act similarly to drugs such as morphine or codeine. So it's normal not to feel very much pain right after an accident.
Emotional pain must work in a similar way, because today hurts so much worse than yesterday did. Yesterday I was in some kind of dreamlike state, as if my conscience wouldn't fully allow me to believe she was actually gone. In my mind, I was holding on to that thin thread of hope that somehow, the entire day wasn't really happening.
That thread isn't there anymore, no matter how hard I try to grasp it.
She's dead.
And if I had money and connections, I'd numb this pain with whatever drugs I could find.
I refused to get out of bed this morning. Ian and Kyle both tried to fight me into going to the funeral home with them, but I won. I've been winning all day, actually.
Eat something, Kyle said at lunch.
I didn't eat. I won.
Aunt Chele and Uncle Andrew are here, Ian said around two o'clock this afternoon.
But they're gone now and I'm still in bed, so I won.
Ben, come eat dinner. There's lots to eat, people have been bringing food by all day, Kyle said when he stuck his head in my bedroom around six o'clock.
But I chose to stay in bed and not touch those sympathetic casseroles, making me the winner yet again.
Talk to me, Ian said.
I'd like to say I won this round, but he's still sitting on my bed, refusing to leave.
I pull the covers over my head. He pulls them back down. "Ben. If you don't get out of bed I'll start overreacting. You don't want to force me to call a psychiatrist, do you?"
Jesus Fucking Christ!
I sit up in bed and punch the pillow. "Just let me fucking sleep, Ian! Dammit!"
He doesn't react to the fact that I'm yelling. He just stares at me complacently. "I have been letting you sleep. For almost twenty-four hours now. You need to get out of bed and brush your teeth or shower or eat or something."
I lie back down. Ian pushes off the bed and groans. "Benton, look at me!"
Ian never yells at me, which is the only reason I pull the covers from over my head and look up at him. "You aren't the only one hurting, Ben! We have shit to figure out! You're sixteen years old and you can't live here alone and if you don't come downstairs and prove to me and Kyle that this didn't completely fuck you up, then we're probably going to make the wrong decision for you!"
His jaw is twitching, he's so mad.
I think about this for a second. About how neither of them lives here. Ian is in flight school. Ben just started college. My mother is dead.
One of them is going to have to move back home because I'm a minor.
"Do you think mom thought of that?" I ask, sitting up on the bed again.
Ian shakes his head in frustration. His hands drop to his hips. "Thought about what?"
"That her decision to kill herself would force one of you to give up your dream? That you'd have to move back home to take care of your brother?"
Ian shakes his head, confused. "Of course she thought about that."
I laugh. "No, she didn't. She's a selfish fucking bitch."
His jaw hardens. "Stop."
"I hate her, Ian. I'm glad she's dead. And I'm glad I was the one who found her, because now I'll always have the visual of how the black hole in her face matched the black hole in her heart."
He closes the gap between us and grabs the collar of my shirt, shoving me back down on the bed. He brings his face close to mine and talks through tightly gritted teeth. "You shut your fucking mouth, Ben. She loved you. She was a good mother to us and you'll respect her, do you hear me? I don't care if she can see you right now or not, you'll respect her in this house until the day you die."
My eyes rim with tears and I'm suffocating with hatred. How could he defend her?
I guess it's easy when his memory of her isn't tarnished by the visual I got when I walked into her room.
A tear falls from Ian's eye and lands on my cheek.
His grip loosens from around my neck and he turns around and buries his head in his hands. "I'm sorry," he says, his voice tearful. "I'm sorry, Ben."
I'm not.
He turns around and looks at me, not even attempting to hide his tears. "I just . . . how can you say that? Knowing what she was going through . . ."
I chuckle under my breath. "She broke up with her boyfriend, Ian. That hardly constitutes misery."
He turns until he's facing me on the bed. He tilts his head. "Ben . . . did you not read it?"
I shrug. "Read what?"
He sighs heavily, and then stands. "Her note. Did you not read the letter she left before the police took it?"
I swallow hard. I knew that's where he went yesterday. I knew it.
He runs his hands through his hair. "Oh, my God. I thought you read it." He walks out of my bedroom. "I'll be back in half an hour."
He's not lying. It's exactly thirty-three minutes when he walks back through my bedroom door. I spent the entire time wondering what could be in that letter that would make the difference between me hating her and Ian feeling sorry for her.
He pulls a piece of paper out of his pocket. "They can't release the actual letter yet. They took a photo and printed it out, but you can still read it." He hands me the piece of paper.
He walks out of my bedroom and closes my door.
I sit back on my bed and read the last words my mother will ever say to me.
To my boys,
I've spent my entire life studying writing. No writing course . . . no amount of college . . . no life experience could ever prepare a person to write an adequate suicide note for their children. But I'm sure as hell going to try.
First, I want to explain why I've done this. I know you don't understand it. And Ben, you're probably the first one reading this, since I'm sure you were the first to find me. So please read this letter in its entirety before you decide to hate me.
I found out four months ago that I have ovarian cancer. Brutal, unbeatable, silent cancer that spread before I even developed symptoms. And before you get angry and say I gave up, that's the last thing I would do. If my illness was something I could fight, you boys know I would have fought it with everything I have. But that's the thing about cancer. They call it the fight, as if the stronger ones win and the weaker ones lose, but that's not what cancer is at all.
Cancer isn't one of the players in the game. Cancer is the game.
It doesn't matter how much endurance you have. It doesn't matter how much you've practiced. Cancer is the be-all and end-all of the sport, and the only thing you can do is show up to the game with your jersey on. Because you never know . . . you might be forced to sit the bench for the entire game. You may not even be given the chance to compete.
That's me. I'm being forced to sit the bench until the game is over, because there's nothing more that can be done for me. I could go into all the details, but the fact of the matter is, they caught it too late.
So now comes the tricky part.
Do I wait it out? Do I allow the cancer to slo
wly rob me of everything I have? You boys remember Grandpa Dwight, and how cancer completely swallowed him up, but refused to spit him out for months. Grandma had to alter her entire life to care for him. She lost her job, the home medical bills piled up, and they eventually lost their house. She was evicted two weeks after he finally died. All because the cancer took its precious time with him.
I don't want that. I can't bear the thought of you boys having to take care of me. I know if I don't end my own life, I might be lucky enough to live on this earth for another six months. Maybe nine. But those months will rob each of you of the mother you knew. And then, when my dignity and my cells aren't enough to satisfy it anymore, the cancer will take everything else it can get, too. The house. Savings. Your college funds. All the happy memories we've shared together.
I know as much as I try and justify my decision, it's still going to hurt the three of you more than you've ever hurt in your life. But I knew if I spoke to you about this prior to doing it, you would have talked me out of it.
I'm especially sorry to you, Ben. My sweet, sweet baby boy. I'm so sorry. I'm sure I could have done it a better way, because no child should have to see their mother in that condition. But I know if I don't do it tonight before you come home, I might never do it. And to me, that would be an even more selfish decision than this one. I know you'll find me in the morning, and I know it will gut you because it's gutting me just thinking about it. But either way, I'm going to be dead before you turn seventeen. At least this way, it will be quick and easy. You can call 911, they'll take away my body, and it'll be over in less than a few hours. A few hours for me to die and be removed from the house is so much better than the several months it could potentially take for the cancer to do its job.
I know this will be difficult for you to deal with, so I've tried to make it as easy as possible. Someone will need to clean up after they take my body, so I've left a card on the kitchen counter for who you should call. There's plenty of cash in my purse. I've left it in the kitchen, on the counter.
If you look in my office, third drawer down on the right, you'll find that I've prepared all the necessary paperwork to file for survivor benefits. Make sure you do this right away. Once the paperwork is filed, you'll get a check in a matter of weeks. There's still a mortgage on the house, but there will be enough left to cover tuition for each of you. I've set all that up through our lawyer.
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