More Like Her

by Liza Palmer

“Yes!” Jill yells, her arm reaching out for me. I grasp her hand as she pulls me in close.

  “I’d be honored,” I say, smiling.

  “Yes! Yes! Are you kidding? Yes!” Jill says, pulling me into the group hug.

  “With Maria Teresa as the matron of honor and my other four sisters as bridesmaids, that’s about—”

  “Ten thousand?” I say, interrupting. Lisa laughs.

  “I thought you two could plan the bachelorette party. My sisters are a little out of touch with that stuff and they’re all back in New Jersey. This way we can have something tasteful and small, you know?” Lisa says, giving Jill a quick wink.

  “Strippers,” Jill says, pulling out her cell phone.

  “Do you have them on speed dial?” I ask. Is she calling one right now?

  “No! What—well actually yes, but I’m not calling them right now,” Jill says, tapping something into the calendar in her BlackBerry.

  “Okay . . . well, we’ll see you tomorrow then?” Lisa says.

  “You heading back to the hospital?” I ask.

  “Yeah, they finally brought a cot into Grady’s room. Now, I can just sleep in my own bed,” Lisa says.

  “How’d you work that?” Jill asks.

  “I was just persistent,” Lisa says. I think back to the EMT who decided to let Lisa ride in the ambulance rather than experience bodily harm. Persistence, Jersey style, I imagine.

  “You’re getting married,” Jill says to Lisa.

  “I know,” Lisa says, giving me a look of concern. She starts up her car. Her radio blasts: “Ooooooh, she’s a little runaway . . .”

  “Who is . . . is that Bon Jovi?” I ask, beeping my car unlocked in the distance. My shoulders are lowering. My breath is deepening. Finding a proper home for John Henry has almost taken my mind off of . . . ugh. The lady friend.

  “Uh, yeah. Jerz all the way,” Lisa says, turning it up, her head bopping in time, her entire arm extended and pointing to what I imagine is a sea of adoring fans.

  “See you guys tomorrow. Congratulations, sweetie,” I say, giving Lisa a quick squeeze on her shoulder. She looks up and thanks me. Thanks me and . . . Ooooooooh, she’s a little runaway. I laugh and walk to my car with Jill.

  “Love you,” Jill says as I load John Henry into my car. He’s now sitting in the front seat. I’ve taken it on as my duty to completely untrain him by the time he goes to Clara’s.

  “Love you, too,” I say, pulling her in close.

  “We’re going to figure out this lady friend business,” Jill says.

  “Okay, sweetie,” I say, climbing in my car.

  “See you tomorrow,” she says, walking toward her car. I watch her walk away. Watch her climb into her car, chewing on her fingernails and spinning her BlackBerry around in the other hand. Always doing eight things at once. She gives me a big wave and drives away.

  Chapter 16

  Hero

  The dream goes like this: I’m driving a bus. It’s filled with kids. Cool kids. I know this in my heart. As I drive the bus filled with cool kids, I know it’s an honor. That I’m not one of them. We’re driving through a fancy Swiss village that I have no business being in. I make a turn and drive through what I think is a puddle. It’s not. It’s a river. And we’re drowning. I’ve killed the cool kids. But they’re being rescued. They’re finding another bus. I’m trying to save all of their cool belongings, but I can’t lift them. Spiders. Everywhere. The bus sinks. Deeper and deeper. No one comes back for me as I am drowning.

  “No!” I jolt awake. John Henry lifts his head up from where he sleeps: in a little ball where my legs curl. I may have fallen asleep in that position, thought it was adorable that he leapt up and snuggled in tight, rather than sleeping in his crate. However, at four A.M. when my entire body was cramping in that position, his little snores were far less endearing. Did I move? Of course not. My time with him is limited. Our walks around my neighborhood, sitting on the couch with my arm lazing over his body, the occasional “What do you think of that show, John Henry?” I know I’ll cry like a baby when I walk away from Clara’s Thursday night without him, but I honestly don’t think I’ll be sad. I’ll miss him, but every fiber of my being can’t wait to give him the one thing Emma really wanted for him.

  Between Jenny and me, I don’t know who’s going to miss the pup more. But every morning when I drop him off at her house, both of us always talk about how great it’s going to be. How perfect it is. How much he’ll love having a proper . . . a loving home. Something Emma wanted more than anything. Something she never had. Something she died for.

  GOOD TO SEE YOU again, Frannie, Pamela says, sitting down behind what was once Emma’s desk. Monday morning. Back to school. Life goes on. The Tonka trucks are back to work, the kids are back to running in the halls and Emma is still gone. I can’t even say the word. Just . . . gone.

  The headmistress’s office now smells of balsam and freshly mown grass. It’s tastefully decorated and the light seems more diffused in here, calmer, if that’s possible. With the Agatha Christie–inspired wingback chairs gone, I sink into the woolly heather-gray couch and curl one leg under my body.

  Round two.

  Pamela continues. “So, how have the last few days been?”

  “I feel like all I’ve been doing is talking about how the last few days have been,” I say, my voice clipped and annoyed.

  “I see,” Pamela says, easing back in her chair.

  “I don’t mean to be—”

  “Frannie, you don’t have to be or say anything for me,” Pamela says.

  “I’m crazy now, aren’t I?”

  “You may feel a bit crazy, but I can’t say for sure. I mean, we’re all a bit crazy,” Pamela says, taking a sip of tea.

  “Yeah, but you’re saying it in sort of an ‘I make dream catchers in Taos’ kind of way. I mean, I’m saying it in, like, a ‘rocking in a corner of the room and barking’ kind of way.”

  “Ah, yes. But you get that crazy people don’t ask themselves whether they’re crazy, right?”

  “No, I honestly didn’t think of that.”

  “Right. Because they’re crazy.”

  “Right.”

  “So . . .”

  “What if I said it was more about feeling like—undefined. Lost. Without meaning—not meaning . . . it’s more without understanding. I thought I knew who I was. I thought I knew who everyone was and something about this has made everything I knew seem false. It’s just . . . not how I thought it was,” I say, piecing it together.

  “That makes sense.”

  “It makes sense in a nonsensical way?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Am I going to go back?”

  “Do you want to go back?”

  “No! Noooo.” And I lose it. I heave forward and bury my face in my hands, sobbing.

  “Frannie,” Pamela says gently. I look up, scrubbing my face and wiping my cheeks, and take the tissue Pamela is offering me.

  “I think I got her killed,” I say in a whisper. Saying it out loud for the first time.

  “Why do you think that?”

  “We talked about bullying and then we talked about reconnecting with her sister. Painting. She was . . . resolved.”

  “How does that equal getting her killed?”

  “We got to talking about her family and then the day of . . . she talked to her sister after years of estrangement and it probably set Jamie off. Like he was losing control or something. So, if she was in an abusive relationship, a shift like that? It would have . . . it could have changed things.”

  “Changed how?”

  “He was so small. Remember?” Pamela nods yes. I continue. “He was so physically small. It was pretty clear, I mean, hindsight being twenty/twenty, that the only real control he had over her was mental. He was just . . . weak looking.”

  “I agree.”

  “He looked like a little boy with a big toy gun.”

  “That sounds about right, too.”

 
; “He couldn’t even control it, you know? He couldn’t hit anything that was moving. When Sam was going for the gun, Jamie missed him by a mile. His arm jerked back. He just . . . Emma. Just stood there.”

  “And then . . .” Pamela trails off. I’m nodding. Trying not to lose it again and nodding. My mouth is twisted shut and my eyes are clenched closed.

  “I was trying to see if she was . . . if she could be saved,” I say.

  “And could she?” Pamela asks, her voice soft.

  I am quiet. I open my eyes.

  Pamela asks me again, “Frannie? Could Emma be saved?”

  “No,” I say. I let out a long exhale.

  “So, you blame yourself for getting her killed, and then you blame yourself for not being able to save her. Is that correct?”

  “I’m also blaming myself that Sam . . . that he had to . . .”

  “I see.”

  “He’s not fine. He says he’s fine, but . . .”

  “I know. He killed someone. Yes, he is a hero and saved dozens of lives—yours included—but he’s also a good man. And that’s going to . . . that’s going to affect him for some time,” Pamela says, almost to herself.

  I am quiet.

  “She lied about everything.”

  “She had to.”

  “I didn’t even like her. In the beginning? I thought she was smug, too perfect.”

  “You didn’t know her.”

  “I should have seen something.”

  “She’s been hiding the truth for a lot longer than she’s known you. She was good at it.”

  “I know.”

  “You couldn’t do anything. There was nothing to see. This was a brutal murder. How do you expect yourself to see that coming?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Frannie,” Pamela says, reaching across and taking my hand. Her eyes are kind and concerned. She curls her fingers around mine. The touch of her hand is . . . tearing something. Breaking something down.

  Pamela continues. “Some people are beyond saving—in fact, don’t want to be saved.”

  “She was starting, you know? It’s . . . it’s just . . . so . . . sad,” I say, holding tightly to her hands.

  “I know. It’s sad, but it’s also not your fault. It’s not your fault. It’s not Sam’s fault. Jamie pulled that trigger. Jamie is to blame. I need you to understand that.”

  “Soon.”

  “I’ll take that.”

  We are quiet.

  “Did Clara call you? About John Henry?”

  I smile. It burns my throat as I swallow my tears.

  “She did. She’s going to take him,” I say, beaming.

  “You’re still trying to save her,” Pamela says, her eyes concerned.

  “Maybe.”

  “Give John Henry the chance Emma never had?”

  “Possibly.”

  “What happens when you realize that you’ve become attached to him?”

  “I don’t . . . I don’t understand.”

  “What happens when you realize that you’ve become attached to him?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “That’s probably a question you want to know the answer to before you head over to Clara’s.”

  “I will.”

  “You don’t have to be Joan of Arc, Frannie. You don’t have to sacrifice your own happiness. I think what you’re doing with John Henry is right and amazing, but you never even factored in that you have a proper home and that Emma would have loved for you to have him. That sometimes you do get to keep the puppy.”

  “Not this time though.”

  “But keep your eyes open.”

  I walk out of Pamela’s office in a daze. I never even thought about my home as worthy of John Henry. Why didn’t that even occur to me?

  “He ruined everything! He ruined everything!” Harry Sprague. I look up and down the hallway and take off at a run toward the little boy’s cracking yells. I come around a corner and find Sean Stone cowering in a corner right outside of the art room. I turn to see Harry Sprague being held back by Sam. He’s still kicking and hitting.

  “He ruined everything! He killed her, Ms. Reid! He killed her!” Harry’s voice breaks as the sobs take over. I look at Sam.

  “I found them fighting. He was . . . he just keeps saying that he killed her,” Sam says.

  “Let him go. Let him go,” I say to Sam, my eyes soft. Sam lets Harry go and I step in between him and Sean.

  “Sweetie, sweetie . . . look at me. Look at me! Harry . . . Harry?” I say, kneeling in front of him, his face in my hands. Sam shoos Sean Stone away. He skitters down the hall.

  “I did this, Ms. Reid. I did this,” Harry says, crumpling into my arms. His sobs are wild while he’s simultaneously hugging me and clutching at me. My own tears come fast as I look up at Sam. His jaw is tight, his arms at his sides.

  “Sweetie, I need you to look at me. Harry, honey . . . I need you to look at me,” I say, standing his little rail of body in front of me. His face is blotchy and red, his eyes pooled with tears, his mouth contorted in pain.

  I continue. “Baby, how long have you been walking around with this? You didn’t do this, my sweet boy. You didn’t do this.” I smooth his hair. Wipe his tears. Sam sniffles a little. Looks away. His jaw tight.

  “I got in a fight. She told me I made her think different. She said I was brave and that she was going to be brave like me. And now . . . look! Look what I did!” Harry crumples again in my arms.

  “Jesus Christ,” Sam says, wiping at his eyes. I see Pamela approach our little trio in the corner. She’s about to step in but waits. Harry has to hear this from me.

  “Okay . . . I need you to hear me, honey. I need you to really hear me. Can you make me that promise?” I feel Harry nod as he hugs me. I continue. “Sweetie, no one could do anything to save her. It’s sad, but it’s also not your fault. It’s not your fault. It’s not Headmistress Dunham’s fault. That man pulled the trigger. That man is to blame. I need you to understand that.” Harry’s arms loosen around my body as he stands in front of me. His entire face is contorted in pain, confusion—way beyond anything a boy this young should be dealing with.

  “Is that man going to come back?” Harry asks.

  “No, sweetie. He’s never coming back.”

  “Someone got him?” Harry asks, his breath easing.

  “Yes, baby. Someone got him,” I say, looking from Harry to Sam.

  “Who . . . who got him?” Harry asks, wiping his nose on his school blazer.

  I look to Sam. It’s not my place to tell Harry. I wait. Sam drops his head with a heavy sigh. Pamela watches Sam. He kneels down as I motion for Harry to turn around. Harry looks up into Sam’s eyes as I watch Sam’s face twist with memory.

  “I did, son. I got him,” Sam says. Harry leaps into Sam’s arms, his tiny body hanging around Sam’s neck like an elaborate medal.

  “Thank you . . . thank you . . . ,” Harry sobs. Sam wraps his arms around the little boy, dropping his head to tuck into the boy’s neck.

  “You’re welcome,” Sam says. Once.

  This time he means it.

  “Come on, honey. Why don’t you come talk to me for a while,” Pamela says, taking Harry down to her office. I give him a smile as he walks down the hall. Sam stands.

  “I can’t believe he thought it was his fault,” I say.

  “It seems to be a popular point of view,” Sam says, unable to look at me.

  We are quiet.

  Sam continues. “You’re great with him.”

  “Thanks.”

  Sam clears his throat.

  “My daddy is sick,” Sam says, not looking at me.

  “What?”

  “Daddy is sick.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I say, my voice soft. My hands reach out to him, yet . . . stall in midair.

  Sam is quiet. He watches my hands as they stall out.

  “Have I done that? Have I made you . . .” Sam motions to my hands, now at my sides.

/>   “It didn’t take much, I assure you,” I say honestly.

  “Ha,” Sam says, smiling.

  “I kinda always think that people don’t want what I’m selling,” I say, laughing.

  “Hm,” Sam says, watching me. Finally looking at me.

  “I miss you,” I say. I look right at him. Chin up. Shoulders back. No mask.

  “I didn’t even know I needed you, so . . . ,” Sam says, looking away. He clears his throat again.

  “Sam, I—”

  “I’d better get going. I came in to get a drink of water and I’ve been gone for half an hour,” Sam says, giving me a quick wave and heading on down the hall. As he’s walking out the double doors to the outside . . . he looks back. A smile. A shake of the head and out into the sunlight.

  “What was that all about?” Jill asks, coming around the corner.

  “How long have you been there?”

  “The whole time,” Jill says, biting into a bagel.

  “The whole time?” I say, walking up the stairs to our office.

  “Well, not in the beginning, but right after you walked up. Sure,” Jill says.

  “Unbelievable,” I say, my mind still cloudy and overwhelmed.

  “He didn’t even know he needed you,” Jill repeats as we walk into our office.

  “Out of all that . . .”

  “Oh, the Harry Sprague stuff was heartbreaking. Why is it that all of us want to take the blame for what some psycho did? I mean, what’s wrong with us?”

  “Are you . . . are you talking about your feelings right now?”

  “You’re not really creating a supportive environment.”

  “Have you been to see Pamela?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Good for you,” I say, beaming.

  “I’m going to talk about my feelings, Frannie.”

  “Yes, you are,” I say, as if she just brought me back a tennis ball. Good girl!

  Jill is quiet. Slumped in her office chair.

  “It’s unnerving how much I need you right now. Need you and Lisa. Martin. I’m just a ball of need. This is not a comfortable place for me, Frannie.” She doesn’t look at me. “I’m by myself for ten minutes and I’m checking behind doors to see if there’s a bogeyman behind them.” She scrubs at her face again, rubbing her eyes, hiding the furrowed brow and pools of tears just below.