by Marie Force
The tulip border Mrs. Holbrook lovingly tended was in full bloom on either side of the sidewalk in front of the two-story white clapboard house. White wicker furniture with pretty floral pads decorated a wide front porch where Brian had whiled away many an hour with Carly. He closed the gate behind him and climbed the stairs. As he waited for someone to answer the door, he tugged his tie loose and took off his suit coat.
Mrs. Holbrook came to the door in the same dress she had worn to Sam’s funeral. A headband contained her short auburn curls, and as she opened the screen door for him, he noticed her brown eyes, so much like Carly’s, were still rimmed with red. “Brian,” she said, welcoming him with a warm embrace. “How are you, honey?”
Mortified when his eyes filled again, he wondered if it would ever stop. “I’m okay.”
She cradled his face in her hands. “Your eulogies for Sam and the others were just beautiful. I was so proud of you this week. How you ever managed to do what you did—”
Shrugging off her praise, he said, “Somebody had to.” He glanced up the stairs. “How is she?”
“About the same.” Mrs. Holbrook shook her head with dismay. “She let me feed her some soup earlier, so I guess that’s something.”
“Do you mind if I—”
“Go right ahead.” With the wave of her hand, she invited him upstairs to Carly’s room, which he had never even seen before this week. Everything was different now. Allowing their daughter’s boyfriend into her bedroom was suddenly the least of her parents’ worries.
Brian hung his suit coat on the newel post and started up the stairs.
Carly pulled a blanket around her and nestled deeper into the window seat. She’d had trouble staying warm over the last week, as if her blood had turned to ice or something. Maybe it had. She had spent most of the day staring out the window that overlooked Michelle’s house. The police had come by again to see if she was able to talk with them about what she remembered from that night. She had heard her mother tell them she wasn’t up to seeing them yet.
An hour or so ago, Michelle’s mother had shuffled out to the mailbox. Mrs. Townsend wore an old housecoat and slippers. Her usually stylish hair had hung in ratty strings down her back. On her way inside, she had glanced up to find Carly watching her. She had attempted a smile for her daughter’s best friend, but it had come out more like a grimace.
Carly wondered if Mrs. Townsend was mad at her for not dying with Michelle. She wouldn’t blame her, because Carly felt the same way herself. If she and Brian hadn’t been so anxious to have sex, they would have been in the car with the others. And Carly could say, without a shadow of a doubt, that she would rather be dead than have to live with the images of the others dying.
Over and over she remembered Michelle tugging at her hand. “You can shag him anytime. You can shag him anytime.” Carly put her hands over her ears as if that could stop the relentless refrain.
Everyone was worried. She saw it on the faces of her parents and in Brian’s eyes when he came by to see her. They wanted to know why she hadn’t said anything since the accident. She had heard her parents talking about post-traumatic stress and shock and other terms she didn’t recognize. Carly wasn’t sure why she couldn’t talk. She wanted to, mostly because she was desperate to help Brian through the loss of his brother. But she was afraid if she tried there would only be screams. So she didn’t try.
“Hey,” Brian said from the doorway, diverting her attention away from the window. He crossed the room, knelt before her, and wrapped his arms around her.
Carly ran her fingers through his thick dark hair. Wearing the shirt and tie they had chosen for homecoming what seemed now like a lifetime ago, he looked as she imagined he would someday when he was a successful attorney.
“It was nice,” he said after a long period of silence. “Sam would’ve loved all the attention.” He waited, as if he hoped she might say something. When she didn’t, he continued. “My parents seem to be holding up okay.”
Carly was relieved to hear that. She had thought of them constantly.
“But I’m worried about how my mother’s going to be after her sisters leave and things go back to normal—or what’s passing for normal now. I guess my Aunt Elaine is going to stick around for a week or two, which should help. Toby’s parents were there today and Jenny’s. I think Toby’s mom was drunk, but I can’t say I blame her. I would’ve liked to have been, too.”
He looked up at her with heartbroken eyes. “Talk to me, Carly,” he begged. “I need you.”
Her eyes flooded with tears. Oh, how she wanted to! But the words just wouldn’t come.
Scooping her up, blanket and all, he carried her to the double bed with the fluffy pink comforter. Kicking off his shoes, he lay down next to her and brought her into his arms.
Carly rested her head on his chest.
“This doesn’t have to change everything for us. We’ll have a quiet wedding and go to Michigan, just like we planned. That’s what they would’ve wanted us to do. I know they would.”
She shook with silent sobs.
Brian turned on his side and cupped her damp cheek in his hand. “We’re still alive, Carly, and we have to find a way to go on. We have to live our lives the best way we can. We’ll do it for them.”
She pulled away from him and tried to sit up, but he stopped her.
“I’m sorry, honey.” He guided her head back to his chest. “It’s too soon to be talking about moving on. I know. I’m sorry.” He exhaled a long deep breath full of the hitches that come after tears.
She hated that he was in so much pain, that he needed her so badly, and she had nothing to give him. Hanging heavily over her also was the guilt that came from thanking God over and over again for sparing Brian. If He’d had to take all the others, at least He had left behind the one she couldn’t live without.
She glanced up at Brian and saw his eyes were closed.
Her mother came to the door. A week ago she would have freaked out at the sight of them snuggled together on the bed. Now, though, she came in and adjusted Carly’s blanket to cover Brian, too. She brushed a hand over her daughter’s hair and kissed her forehead. “He needs the rest,” she whispered. “The poor guy has been a trouper this week. I’ll call his mother to let her know he’ll be here for a while.”
After her mother left the room, Carly closed her eyes and wallowed in the comfort and safety of Brian’s tight embrace. If she kept her eyes closed long enough, she could imagine they were married and resting in their bed in the small apartment they had rented in Michigan. She could pretend nothing bad had happened and they were right where they’d always planned to be. But then she remembered something bad had happened. Flashes of fire and that smell… It came rushing back like a nightmare that refused to end. Closing her eyes tighter to ward off the memories, it was all she could do not to scream.
May slipped into June, and somehow life went on. Brian forced himself to get up each day and go to school where he was treated with cautious but distant respect. Outside the main office, they had set up a memorial to the six students who had died. Once, when no one else was around, he stopped to study the portraits: Jenny and Sarah, both blond and blue-eyed; Michelle with her long dark hair and porcelain complexion; Pete’s sandy curls and mischievous smile; Toby, dark-eyed and serious with the military bearing that made him a perfect fit for the Naval Academy.
And Sam. Brian and his brother had so often been mistaken for twins. Looking at Sam’s smiling face was like looking in the mirror. How many times had he been called Sam? How many times had Sam jokingly complained about being mistaken for Brian? Realizing that would never, ever happen again was like losing his brother a second time. There should be two more pictures up there, Brian thought, of the two whose lives had been ruined by the loss of the other six. God, how he missed them—the ones who had died and the one who had checked out of life.
He sat through class in the mornings and left each day at lunchtime, something he wasn’
t allowed to do, but no one stopped him. By not showing up to practice, he quit a baseball team already crippled by the loss of the three starters who’d died. Brian simply couldn’t bear to do anything that reminded him of that last day.
Every afternoon, he spent a couple of hours with Carly. She’d yet to leave her house or say a word, and had apparently developed a fear of cars, too. When her parents tried to take her to a post-traumatic stress disorder specialist, she had silently refused to get into the car. The doctor made an exception by coming to the house, but he had no success in getting through to her. The longer her silence persisted, the more frustrating it became for Brian, who had no one else to talk to.
Carly’s father was equally frustrated, often ranting that she was refusing to talk on purpose. Her mother disagreed, and even though the Holbrook house was thick with tension, Brian preferred it to his own house where his mother rarely left the sofa.
Carly and Brian spent the night of their senior prom watching a movie in her basement family room. He had stopped pleading with her to talk to him and had given up on trying to get her to write notes to him, settling instead for her company, for the opportunity to hold her hand and be close to her. Final exams were done, graduation was just a week away, and the future that once seemed so assured was now filled with uncertainty.
After the movie, Brian took his time walking home. He went into the dark house where his father watched TV alone in the living room.
“Hey,” Brian said.
“Hi, son. How’s Carly?”
“About the same. How about Mom?”
“Same. She just went to bed.” If things had been normal, she would’ve been waiting up for her boys to get home from the prom.
As Brian took a seat on the sofa, he and his father shared a sad smile, united in their concerns about the women they loved. “Is anything ever going to be the same again?” Brian asked.
“I don’t think so.”
Brian sighed.
“My father used to have a theory that there’s one great tragedy in every lifetime. The good news is yours is behind you now, so you can rest easier. You won’t have to worry as much about your own kids.”
“Great,” Brian said with a touch of sarcasm. “That’s good to know.”
Michael shrugged. “I know it doesn’t bring much solace right now in light of all you’ve lost, but someday maybe it will.”
Seeing that his father was struggling to help him, Brian said, “I guess so.” He hesitated and then took the plunge. “Dad? Can I talk to you about something?”
“Of course.” Michael reached for the remote to turn off the TV. He flipped on a lamp and gave his eyes a moment to adjust to the light. “What’s on your mind?”
“Well, ever since the accident, it’s just…”
“What, son?”
“Sam didn’t drive like that, Dad,” Brian said in a rush of words. “I never once saw him be careless or reckless behind the wheel. And it wasn’t just because I was in the car, either. I would’ve heard about it if he were being crazy. I know the investigation found he was speeding and lost control of the car, but I can’t imagine that. I knew him, Dad. I knew him.”
“There were no skid marks, no sign he did anything to try to stop or even slow down. That kind of evidence is hard to overlook, even for me as his father. If there was something else to be found, Brian, believe me, I would’ve found it.”
“There is something else. I’m not sure if it matters, but—”
Michael sat up straighter. “What?”
“A couple of months before the accident, I was coming home from the library one night pretty late. I was on Tucker Road, right around the same place where the accident happened. Anyway, I came around that bend and there was someone standing in the road. I had to swerve to miss hitting him. It scared the shit out of me.”
“Why haven’t you said anything about this before?” Michael asked, speaking now in what his sons referred to as his chief-of-police voice.
“I’d forgotten all about it. The whole thing lasted less than ten seconds, and I never thought about it again until two days ago when I suddenly remembered it. Now it’s all I can think about.”
“You didn’t see his face?”
“No, he was wearing a ball cap pulled down, but it was like he was waiting for someone to come around that bend, you know? What if he was there again and Sam lost control of the car when he swerved to miss him?”
Michael rubbed at the stubble on his chin. “I like that explanation a whole lot better than any of the others.”
“I do, too. I can’t imagine Sam driving that fast, Dad. Especially with Jenny and the others in the car, and especially around those bends on Tucker Road. You were forever warning us about getting into trouble and how it would embarrass you. I’m not saying we were perfect, but we were always careful. Neither of us wanted to disappoint you.”
Michael’s eyes filled with tears. “Thank you,” he said in a hushed tone. “Somehow that makes me feel better.”
“Is there anything we can do about the other thing? The guy in the road?”
“I’ll have someone look into it.”
“Good,” Brian said, relieved. “That’s good. I’d hate to have Sam’s name forever tied to this if it wasn’t his fault.”
“So would I, son.”
Chapter 4
The night before graduation, Brian found his mother in her favorite position since the accident—on the sofa, nursing a glass of what looked like whiskey. The drinking was new in the last month, and it just added to his already full plate of worries. He had seen what alcohol had done to Toby’s mother and to their family. He’d wanted to go over to see Mr. and Mrs. Garrett but had been afraid of what he might find there, so he’d stayed away.
“Mom?”
“Oh, hi, honey. I ironed your shirt and hung it in your closet. Are you going to wear the maroon tie?”
“I guess so. Whatever you want.”
“That would look nice with the black gown.”
“You know, Mom, I’d understand if it was too much for you to go tomorrow night.”
She pushed herself into a sitting position. “Don’t be ridiculous. I wouldn’t miss it for the world, Brian. I’m so very proud of you. Number four in your class.” She shook her head with amazement and patted the cushion next to her.
He sat with her. “I’ve been thinking about deferring Michigan for a year and staying closer to home next year. I’m sure one of the state schools would take me in light of everything that’s happened—”
“No,” she said firmly. “Absolutely not.”
“How am I supposed to leave you and Dad and go halfway across the country? It won’t matter if I wait a year. I’ll still get the degree from Michigan.”
“I won’t have you changing your plans so you can babysit me. That’s not going to happen. You’re going to Michigan, and I don’t want to hear another word about it.”
“What about Carly, Mom? What’s going to happen to her?”
Mary Ann reached for his hand. “I don’t know, honey. But you can’t put your life on hold until she bounces back. The two of you saw the same things, but for some reason it hit her harder. I wish I knew why.”
“We were going to get married.”
“What? Married?”
“I asked her the night of the accident.”
“Oh, Brian.”
“We used the money you guys and her parents gave us to rent an off-campus apartment in Ann Arbor so we could live together.”
“I wondered if you would.”
“Really?” Brian asked, amazed.
“I may be old, but I wasn’t born yesterday,” she said dryly.
“Wow,” he said with a smile. “I really thought I was getting away with something, but I should’ve known you’d figure it out. Anyway, she was kind of freaking out about living together, and since we were going to get married someday anyhow, I just figured why not now?”
Mary Ann held his hand between bo
th of hers.
He rested his head on her shoulder. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, Mom. She’s my fiancée. Do I leave her here and go to school? How do I do that? I love her.”
“Maybe she’ll be better by the time August rolls around. It’s only been a month. She might just need some more time.”
“I’m not so sure. The Carly I know and love would never have let me go through the last month by myself, you know?”
“I know what you mean.” She sniffed and wiped away the stray tear that rolled down her cheek. “Are you worried her condition might be permanent?”
“I’m starting to wonder,” he said, giving voice to his greatest fear. “What am I supposed to do, Mom? This is killing me. I miss her so much. I miss them all, but having her here and unavailable is somehow worse. Is that awful for me to say?”
“No, baby, it isn’t.” She cradled his head on her chest. “It’s not awful. All you can do is hope she’ll come around.”
He looked up at her. “And if she doesn’t?”
“Then you have to find a way to go on. That’s all you can do. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you, Brian, and you have to live every minute of it to the best of your ability. If you’ve learned nothing else from all this, I hope you’ve learned that.”
“What will you do?”
“I’ve been thinking about getting a job.”
“For real?” He had never known her to work.
“I’ve got to do something. I can’t sit here drinking whiskey forever. It’s time to pick myself up and figure out what’s next.”
“I’m glad to hear you say that. I’ve been worried about you.”
She kissed his forehead. “I’m sorry you were worried.”
“You’ll really be okay if I go to Michigan?”
“I’ll miss you like crazy, but I’ll be fine. I promise.”
Brian made two trips to the stage at graduation—one to collect the diploma the school board had voted to give Carly, even though she hadn’t taken her final exams, and the other to pick up his own diploma. Both times his classmates stood and cheered. He’d declined the invitation to narrate a tribute to the five members of their class who had died in the accident. Their empty chairs, as well as Carly’s, were decorated with photos, flowers, and balloons.