by Laura Gibson
Kelly nodded, unable to form words, to really think clearly at all. He slid out of the car and stumbled to his feet, trying to find something solid to focus on. There was no escape without risking Anna’s life. They were connected now and forever. Brother and sister. If he went down, he would drag her down with him.
Shaking hands, either from rage or fear, Kelly wasn’t quite sure, dialed the only number he had ever memorized, the only number he felt could really grasp the gravity of his situation.
“Logan.” He croaked out, half a block away from the town car that was now pulling away from the curb.
“Kelly?” Logan sounded worried, scared even. Good. Kelly needed scared right now. He needed someone who wasn’t too proud to be afraid.
Chapter Ten
February 12th, 2007
Charleston, West Virginia
Rhett
Rhett cleared his throat again and adjusted his tie as he stared in the mirror at himself. He hadn’t shaved in three days and it was definitely starting to show. His facial hair grew slow, but thick, and once it was out in the open there was no hiding the fact he hadn’t kept care of himself. Couldn’t take care of anything these days.
He rubbed his jaw and wondered if it was too late to actually apply a razor to the scruff or if he had just enough time to clean himself up a bit. Deciding against it, Rhett inspected the dark circles under his bloodshot eyes instead. Rhett pulled down the skin on one and made a face. He really needed to work on better sleeping patterns. He really needed to work on himself as whole. Bitter disappointment that he was.
He used to be able to just curl around Jane and everything would be fine at night, but over the course of the past week, he didn’t really see the point in even trying to crawl into bed. He felt the presence of their shared queen mattress lying behind him and he wondered if it would be wrong to set it on fire, just start over brand new and pretend like his entire life wasn’t completely turned around. He had built so much around her...
He picked up the speech on his dresser and played with the tattered edges, wondering if this was really what he wanted to do. If this was really where he wanted to go with everything. He had written the speech the night after everything happened and he honestly didn’t remember the words inside it. He just knew they contained his heart and all the little shattered pieces that Jane blew out when she decided she had to die.
Rhett bit the inside of his cheek and looked down at his polished patent leather shoes, the white rose pinned to his lapel caught his eye and he fiddled with the pearl end of the pin. He thought about the way Jane had looked at him one week ago to the day and he felt his stomach tighten. Was she dying even then? Was there evidence in her eyes that he missed? Had he not realized her peril?
“Are you ready?” Maggie asked from the hallway, afraid to come inside the room, afraid he wasn’t prepared. Rhett found that idea almost laughable. He was as ready as he was ever gonna be, and that was the honest truth. No amount of standing around, waiting for the impossible to happen was going to change that. She wasn’t coming back.
Rhett put one foot in front the other and found himself standing next to Maggie, hoping she could take point on this. He just didn’t want to have to deal with everything yet, even though he knew he had to, even though he knew it was his responsibility. One last chore. That thought gave him pause and made his heavy heart lurch with such betrayal. She wasn’t a chore. She had never been a chore.
Maggie sighed and put her arm around him, leaning her head against his bicep. She was much shorter than he was, almost by a whole foot.
He looked down at her coppery hair pulled into a small bun at the base of her skull and he wished she didn’t have to do this with him. But that’s the way life had always been for the two of them. They were born into this world as twins, and they would traverse this mortal plane together, tied by their one similarity.
“You ready?” Maggie asked again, looking up at Rhett, her light blue eyes, eyes that matched his own, asking him more questions than her mouth would let her form.
“Yeah.” Rhett cleared his throat again and they walked forward because that’s all they had left.
Jane had been Maggie’s best friend, and simultaneously, Rhett’s fiancé. One poor decision took both those facts away and now they were left with the aftermath, knowing they couldn’t do anything to help her anymore.
Rhett swallowed his anger and he watched Maggie do the same. At the end of the day they all knew it wasn’t anyone’s fault. Things just sort of happened and Jane Seymour just sort of didn’t want to be alive anymore. Not much anyone could say about it.
Maggie coughed into her hand and Rhett looked down at his sister, wondering if she really wanted to go through with this. He had offered to do it all on his own after all.
Magnolia Samuels, Maggie for short, always had a slight cough. No one was quite sure where it came from, but it always produced itself when she was feeling anxious. They may have been twins, but Rhett had always seen himself as the older of the two. He did come out first, and he was bigger, the stronger twin, the one that was marked to survive when everyone else had given up on Magnolia. Now, he knew he was going to be strong for her again. Maggie didn’t need to deal with the death of her childhood friend, she didn’t need to be there when they spread her ashes, but she had insisted.
Rhett squeezed his sister’s hand that was hooked onto his elbow and they exited the small house that he had shared with Jane.
The afternoon sunlight was brighter than he’d like it to be, but the cold of February seemed fitting enough. Again, Maggie looked at him, and again Rhett signaled that they keep moving forward.
Always moving forward. Always putting aside their feelings and making sure the rest of the world was alright.
“You’re the stuff heroes are made out of.” Their dad used to say whenever they came across a new crusade to champion. “You’re gonna change the world some day.”
Maybe that’s why they both were so drawn to Jane. She was born of the constitution needing to be championed, needing to be saved. She was a sensitive soul with a soft smile and a soft heart.
Rhett saw that his father and his other sister were waiting for them in the car. They both looked morose and he knew why. No one really wanted this day to happen. Rhett sighed and opened the passenger door. He climbed into the old station wagon and looked at his dad, “You know where you’re going?”
“I’ve been to the lake before.” Henry’s southern drawl sounded sour and Rhett looked out the window.
“Just askin’, pop.” Rhett rubbed his face again.
When he moved from Texas to West Virginia to pursue a girl, it had created quite the tension in the Samuels household. When he announced that he was going to live with the girl before marrying her, the tension built. Now, it was palpable in the air of mourning and Rhett wished his family had stayed down south.
Henry pulled the station wagon away from the curb and cleared his throat, “So, who’s got Jane?”
“She’s back here.” Francis spoke up, her softer voice cutting through the steal atmosphere that Henry’s had created.
Rhett’s eyes flicked to the review mirror and he saw the urn sitting next to Francis, held close by her small arm.
Francis was only his half sister by blood, but he loved the girl all the same. Rhett and Maggie had always been the daring extroverts of the family, but it was little Fran who really kept the family together.
Too many hot heads under one roof, Francis’s mom would say, so God created a little dove for the Samuels to heal their hearts and minds.
Rhett swallowed and looked away. His first mom, his birth mom, Wren, had died during the c-section. Too many complications arose when she chose to carry the twins to term and there wasn’t anything anyone could do.
Henry hired a nurse, Hillary, to care for the twins so he could continue to look after their cattle ranch, and soon enough, he married that nurse, giving Rhett a second mom and a second sister, Francis.
Henry seemed to recover better than they thought he would, given the circumstances and Maggie and Francis just learned to pick up the slack around the ranch.
Rhett swallowed, he knew he should have moved home when Hillary died, but he couldn’t find it in him. He didn’t want to be a rancher his whole life. He wanted to be a police officer, which is precisely what he had become when he moved to West Virginia. He was happy in Charleston with Jane and he hoped he could make her happy as well.
Rhett made a face as his stomach turned over at that last thought, he couldn’t make Jane happy. At the end of the day, he failed at that.
They had scattered Jane’s ashes over the side of the bridge where he had first proposed. It had been last April and the trees had blossomed with sweet smelling flowers that fell occasionally and littered the ground with their beauty. Some had gotten stuck in Jane’s hair and Rhett had managed to snap a picture of her standing there, small ring on her finger, eyes smiling along with her mouth.
It had been a good day for Jane, a day where her emotions lined up with reality and everything went well. Rhett had hoped he could keep that day forever, saved on a photograph, reminding him that she wasn’t all lost. There were still bits and pieces of her left to him. Parts that she hadn’t taken in her last moments on earth. Rhett glanced up at the barren trees and tried to remember the light pink blossoms, but all he saw were the cold, frozen branches, left dead in the long of winter.
Looking away from the trees that reminded him of his empty misery, Rhett tried to concentrate on the proceedings of spreading the ashes but there was no hope in that.
Maggie had something nice. Fran sang. His father was silent, standing off to the side, not really wanting to be a part of any it.
It would have been nice if Jane’s mother had been there, but she was gone now, just like all their mothers were. Did everyone die an orphan? Or was it only the people that Rhett knew?
When they went to sprinkle the ashes, Rhett was more than disappointed to see the fact that some of the river had frozen over and did not taken off Jane with it.
Parts of her laid on the chunks of ice and clung to it, refusing to disappear. Parts of memories that couldn’t let go. Rhett clenched his jaw and didn’t look away, even when the rest of the family was moving on, their jobs done, he wouldn’t look away. Looking away meant it was over. He would go home to an empty house and she would be gone. Forever.
Fran asked if Rhett wanted to say something before they left, but Rhett declined the invitation. He still wasn’t sure how he felt about the whole thing. He had talked himself into believing that this was what Jane wanted and now he couldn’t seem to figure out what that meant for him. What did he want?
One of his sisters told him that Jane was in a better place. Rhett looked down at the shoveled path and tried to remember what a better place was supposed to feel like. All he could think about was the fact that he had promised to make her happy. To keep her safe and he had failed that. Of course a better place would be far away from him. Of course.
They rode back to Rhett’s home in silence, once Fran spoke up to ask about food but Maggie quieted her. Rhett wished she hadn’t done that. He didn’t want them to be uncomfortable on account of him. That just meant that he was still carrying on the weight that Jane left behind.
She went to her better place and he was left holding the bags, like always.
They parked out front and Rhett lead them into the house, one foot in front of the other. One resolute step after another.
Someone got a casserole out of the refrigerator as everyone sat at the dining room table. The dining room table that Jane refused to sit at because she would much rather watch TV while she ate. The one where the last meal they had shared together had been Pelmeni.
Maggie served the casserole on china plates that Rhett barely recognized and realized they must have been the new ones Jane had been excited about just a week ago. He looked down at the pattern rimming the edges and tried to remember what she had said about them. Something about her mom having her own pattern, something about it being a family tradition. Something about belonging and starting fresh.
Rhett’s father remarked on the casserole and Fran agreed with his polite assessment.
“You can always count on the church to cook when they’re uncomfortable.” He said gruffly.
“Or when there’s a potluck.” Fran added with a small smile, as if she was saying something that was supposed to be taken as a joke.
After minutes of silence and thoughtful chewing Maggie spoke up.
“When do you plan on packing?” Maggie asked with a clearing of her throat.
So it had finally come to this conversation. Rhett knew it would, but he had hoped for second they had forgotten about it. Or they had taken mercy on him.
Rhett swallowed a mouthful of noodles and tried not to grimace, “I’m not.”
“You can’t tell me that you’re going to stay here?” Maggie was frowning, a little indignant. They had just talked about this last night. Rhett hadn’t responded to any of their requests, but everyone assumed the same thing; he would be going home with them.
“I’m not a rancher.” Rhett wouldn’t look up at them, knowing all of their faces were stern and disapproving. They were all ranchers, why shouldn’t he be? Didn’t that make more sense than anything else?
“Listen, son.” His father tried to start like he could still lecture the grown man sitting across the table from him.
“No.” Rhett shook his head, “My answer is final. This is my home now. I’m not going to leave it.”
Fran sighed and Maggie dropped her fork in anger, “If that’s the way you want it.” She started to gather up the plates, intent on doing the dishes whether people were finished or not.
It was her way of deflecting from the situation. Everyone knew Maggie anger cleaned, it was the only way she could clear her head when she was really ticked off.
Rhett wasn’t going to fight her tonight. He didn’t have the energy, not on a day like today. He knew she wanted one, deep down, she wanted a knock down, drag out fight so that they could get out all their feelings in one giant upheaval, but he couldn’t do that for her. He half wished he could, but he couldn’t really feel anything right then and there.
“You know, when I was your age, your mother was already pregnant.” His dad tried again, and Rhett actually managed to look the older man in the eyes this time around.
“He doesn’t want to hear it, daddy.” Maggie’s southern accent came out thicker when she was angry and right then and there she sounded like a true southern belle. “All he cares about is this house.”
Rhett’s father gave him a look that made Rhett think he understood to an extent. Houses were empty things until they were made into homes. And Jane had called this place her home for awhile. And Rhett had thought she liked it for a time.
Rhett looked back down at his hands, he missed her. Tonight he would go to sleep empty and alone. And tomorrow he would wake up, empty and alone. There would be no raven haired beauty to curl around and whisper “I love you” to. There would be no one singing Christmas carols, no matter the season, and there would no longer be any reason to even pretend he wanted to sit at the dining room table.
He didn’t want to go home with them. He wasn’t a rancher. He was law man, and he would stay here, in Charleston, because that’s where he wanted to be. That was the last place where he knew he had belonged. Here, he could still almost feel Jane.
The ache in his chest was more than he could handle, but it was the family members on the outside that he decided who were unbearable. Always talking. Always prodding him to express something more than what he was comfortable sharing. Just lock it up and keep it inside. What was so wrong with that? Why couldn’t he just exist and process it the way he wanted to? Why couldn’t he decide to do wh
at he wanted? Why wasn’t anything of what he had ever given enough? It wasn’t enough for them and it wasn’t enough for Jane.
If this was all just a dream and he woke up the next day with Jane still alive, it wouldn’t matter what he said in the moment. In the present. This quasi sense of self that didn’t exist if there was no Jane. Rhett swallowed and his ears popped and then he was back in his body again. In reality. Knowing Jane wasn’t alive and accepting it.
“Don’t pretend like you’d understand.” Rhett had finally been pushed that evening to his breaking point. Maggie knew it was bound to happen sooner or later, that’s why she just kept pushing. Every little button she knew he had, she made sure to touch. To press and compress and make it snap and pop until Rhett said something that hurt someone and they would have their fight and everything could go back to being normal. That’s when she said the unforgivable words. The words that made Rhett clench his jaw and grit his teeth and hate her in the moment. His own flesh and blood. His sister. The very person he shared a womb with. In that moment, he hated her.
Finally she told him that he didn’t really love Jane. Because then things would have been different. He would have been able to help her. He wouldn’t have placated her, allowed her to live a life of depression and gotten her some real help. Some real treatment.
Rhett stared at her, unsure of what to say next, feeling the blood rush past his ears and flood his mind with rage. Then his feelings took the form of words and he was spitting out the only thing he knew would hurt her. Because he hurt. And he wanted to prove it. His love was true. And it was genuine and he would have loved Jane his whole life. And if Jane would have let it, it would have been enough. Maggie didn’t have that. She had never known love like he had. She was alone. She had no right to look at his pain and tell him it wasn’t real.
“Just because I haven’t thrown myself at the first suicidal boy that looked at me doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t understand.” Maggie bit back, unfazed by his spiteful words. Maggie was always better at fighting than he was. Emotional warfare was her bread and butter. He was just a man. Plain and simple as he was, he was just a man.