by Marni Mann
“I just don’t understand, Hart, why didn’t he let me try?”
“Maybe he didn’t know how to get through his fear. Maybe he was afraid of what would happen to you if you tried. You can torture yourself forever, but you’ll never know for sure.” He was right. “He didn’t feel like he had a choice. But you do, Rae—you have a choice. You can either spend the rest of your life holding out for answers you’ll never get, or you can spend it remembering how much love there was between the two of you and live your life in honor of that.”
I thought about the conversation I’d had with Brady. He’d said that once he paid off his dealers, he would never look back again. No dwelling upon the regret, no wishing for a do-over. He was going to find acceptance and move forward. Could I do that? Would the memory of the love between Darren and me be enough to let me move on?
“I…” As my vision left the stone and slid to Hart’s face, something in the background caught my attention. It was a splash of red from the road ahead of us. The street ran around the back side of the cemetery, rising several feet above and overlooking the hills of tombstones. After Darren’s death, I’d refused to drive on it, even if that meant taking a longer route. I’d heard only a few cars pass us since we’d arrived. It was all background noise. But now, I couldn’t drag my eyes away from the red pick-up truck as it passed. It was an old model—old and familiar. There was rust over the door and all along the cab. It disappeared behind a row of trees before I was able to see the driver.
It was just a coincidence, I told myself. So many men in Bar Harbor drove pick-up trucks, including Shane and Brady, and lots of them were old and red and rusty.
Gerald’s truck had been all of those things, but there was no way he was here. Not today. Not at the same time I was…
“You okay?” Hart asked. “It looks like you just saw a ghost.”
My ghost. His words were more terrifying than he realized.
A coincidence, I repeated in my head.
I shifted toward him slowly, my eyes following. “Love,” I answered finally, “that’s all I want to remember between Darren and me.” I wanted everything else to go away, especially my memories of that man.
“I think that’s the right decision.”
“I know it is.” My voice wasn’t any louder than a whisper.
He looked toward the stone and tipped his head, trying to encourage me to take a step forward. It was difficult, but I did it…and then I took another, and another, until I stood over Darren’s name. I filled myself with breath, and I knelt down on the snow. I wrapped my hands around the top of the stone. It was freezing. My eyes filled and my vision blurred. My fingers ached for his warmth, for the feel of his skin against mine—not Hart’s…Darren’s. This wasn’t anything like embracing my brother. But it was the closest I’d ever be able to get to him. I glanced over my shoulder, wondering how alone I was now.
“I’m right behind you,” Hart said. “And I’m not going anywhere.”
I closed my eyes and rested my face on the stone, on the side that held so many memories of Darren. The scarred side. My skin tingled against the cold.
I didn’t speak. I just let the thoughts flow in my head, and in my heart.
I’m here, Darren. Finally. I know it took me a while. Too long, really. I tried to come before…I just couldn’t do it. I didn’t want to see you here, to think of you as a headstone. And I didn’t want you to see the place I was in. It was ugly and it had been for years. Things are changing, though. I’m changing. I’m getting better. I’m…
Hart’s voice worked its way in. “Rae…”
I turned to face him and saw someone else walking toward us. No—not walking, it was more of a limp. His legs seemed to be dragging his body along, like they were the only part of him that could still bear weight where the rest had fully deteriorated. My stomach began to churn as I studied him. He wore old brown slacks and a thick flannel shirt. A winter hat was pulled over his gray hair. His face was so stony, so grim. I couldn’t bring myself to look at his hands…I’d seen them too much in my nightmares as it was.
I started to shake.
Hart leaned in and whispered, “That’s him, isn’t it?”
I stood as briskly as I could, so he couldn’t take me by surprise like he’d taken my brother. “Yes. That’s Gerald, my…grandfather.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
IN THE YEARS since Darren’s death, I’d dreamt of the horror this man had caused, of the terror his hands were capable of. I’d never thought to rehearse what I’d say to him if I had the chance to see him again. I never thought I would. I had no idea what to expect now that it was happening.
I was seething. “You don’t belong here,” I said harshly. “You need to leave before this gets ugly for you.” Hart clutched my arm.
“He was my grandson.” That was all he offered.
I hadn’t heard him speak in person in so long. The voice brought everything back. He stood at a distance, with his hands clasped and resting against his thighs. The sight of them made the churning in my stomach even worse. I thought I’d be the same quivering, nervous mess I’d always been when he’d haunted my memory. But standing before him, next to Darren’s grave, remembering everything he’d put my brother through and everything I couldn’t save him from, I found strength I never had back then.
I was the storm now.
“After what you did to him, he is no one to you.”
Before Gerald had left, I hadn’t gotten the chance to confront him about what he’d done to my brother. If he ever wondered how much I knew, he didn’t have to question that now.
Hart slid past me and stood in front of Gerald. “Get the fuck out of here.” He was shouting, towering over Gerald’s weakened frame. The old man didn’t budge, so Hart said, “If I have to drag you out of here, I will.”
He’d aged so much since the last time I’d seen him. His back was hunched; his arms were plagued by tremors. Coarse white hair covered his cheeks, and skin hung slack over his eyes. I had loved that face once. I’d kissed it every night before bed and looked forward to seeing it every morning. Looking at it now, all I felt was hatred and disgust.
He exhaled a raspy breath. “I just want to talk to you, Rae. Before I can’t anymore.”
“What does that mean?” I spat.
“I’m sick.”
“That’s for fucking sure,” Hart said.
Gerald coughed, hacking so loudly it sounded like he was going to throw up. He removed an inhaler from the pocket of his flannel and took a deep puff. He finally stood straight again, but still looked like he was about to pass out. “I don’t have much time left.” He coughed again, this time into a handkerchief. There was blood on the white cloth. “I’m dying, Rae. I just need to make my peace. So let me speak to you real quick, and I’ll leave you alone forever.”
“You think that’s a reason for me to talk to you—because you’re dying?” My voice sounded even angrier as it came through my lips than it had sounded in my head for the last five years. “You can’t possibly believe that I care about anything you have to say.”
“You’re right,” Gerald replied. “I don’t believe that.”
Hart kept his eyes locked on the old man. “Say the word, and I’ll drag him out of here before he can say anything else.”
Hart was trying to protect me. But as much as I despised that man, I needed closure. I would hopefully get that by hearing whatever he thought was important enough to track me down and say. From the looks of him, this was probably going to be my last chance to hear it.
“It’s okay. Let him talk.”
Gerald put his inhaler back in his pocket and crumpled the handkerchief. His face spoke of his physical pain. In anyone else, it would have inspired sympathy. I had none for him. “I understand why you hate me, and you’ve got every reason to feel that way. There’s nothing I can say to defend myself.” He took long, deep breaths between thoughts. “I live every day knowing what I did to that poor, innoc
ent boy.”
“So do I,” I told him. I gazed at Darren’s headstone. “He doesn’t, though. He doesn’t live any day knowing anything anymore.”
Gerald shook his head, his eyes softening and gleaming. “I deserve what’s coming for me. I’m dying, slowly and painfully. And alone. No one feels bad for me, and no one should.”
“It doesn’t seem like enough,” I said, taking another step toward them. By Hart’s posture, I knew he wouldn’t let me get much closer. “I’m actually relieved to hear that you’re dying.” It sounded so gross coming out of my mouth, but I did nothing to stop myself from saying it.
“I understand that.” He wobbled on his feet. Hart noticed and tightened his grip to help steady him. “I’ve been calling so I can apologize. Thought I might catch you here today.”
“Wow…that’s quite a coincidence.”
“No. I come here every year on this day.”
Suddenly, even Darren’s grave felt tainted by this man’s presence.
“What makes you think you deserve to mourn for the boy who you drove to suicide, Gerald?” It barreled out of me.
“I know I can’t fix the damage I’ve done, and I can’t bring that boy back to life and make him hurt any less. But there hasn’t been a day I haven’t punished myself for what I’ve done.”
“You want to punish yourself? Then call the police and tell them you molested and raped Darren Ryan before he committed suicide. And tell my mother what you really did, while you’re at it.” He said nothing. “Tell her that her daughter isn’t a liar, and that her son didn’t just kill himself out of teen angst, as she calls it, but because her father was sexually abusing him.” The words brought tears to my eyes again.
His stare dropped to the ground and he fell into another coughing spell. This time, he used the back of his hand to wipe away whatever rose. There was blood on his lips when he finally pulled it away. “I can’t. And that makes me weak, I know.”
I had no sympathy for him whatsoever. “No. It makes you evil.”
“That, too.”
It still seemed so casual to him, so removed. It was tornadoes and typhoons tearing my life apart on a daily basis, and it just didn’t seem to be the destructive force for him that it should have been. I needed him to know exactly how much it had impacted me. “I was going to kill you, you know.” The sound of my confession shocked me. It was something I never intended on telling him, or anyone. It finally felt like something I needed to admit out loud. I couldn’t carry it out, but I could make sure he knew that the thought had been with me. “The night Darren died, I was coming back to the house to put a knife in your chest.”
Hart cringed when I said it.
My voice was getting louder. I didn’t stop it. “I knew what you had done to him, and I wasn’t going to let you ever do it again. But I didn’t get there in time.” My whole body had gone numb. I couldn’t believe I was still standing, or that the tears hadn’t started streaming. “It should have been you with that belt around your neck. You should have had the blue lips. You should have had the lifeless body. You should have died for what you did, not him…not Darren.” I reminded myself to breathe, drawing huge gusts of frigid air into my lungs to steel myself. “I thought for sure if I ever saw you again, I would do it. But I don’t have that impulse anymore.” I sized up his withering form. “By the looks of it, you’ll be gone soon anyway. You don’t deserve my concern, or my vengeful thoughts. You deserve nothing from anyone anymore.”
He nodded, as if he knew he couldn’t argue any of what I’d said. “I hope you haven’t let the past stop you from living.”
I wasn’t even going to dignify his comment with an answer.
“You will never come and visit my brother’s grave again, do you understand? You will die with this as your last memory of him, and me.” Hart’s fists clenched as he waited for Gerald’s response.
But the old man did nothing. He just nodded and turned on his heels, dragging his body slowly down the sidewalk in the direction he’d come from. The tension broke, and Hart’s arms were suddenly around me again, pulling me into his chest. The tip of his nose circled around my cheek as he kissed the center of my scar. “Are you all right?”
I kept watching the back of Gerald’s head until he disappeared from my view. Then I tilted my face up to Hart. “I’m not sure.” If the storm I lived in still had motion, I was now in the eye. Everything had fallen still and silent. “I think I’m okay.”
Hearing Gerald admit what he had done did give me some relief. Knowing he was dying and probably would be gone soon helped a little bit, too. But something still felt unfinished. Unresolved. It had nothing to do with Gerald. It had everything to do with me.
And Darren.
“I need you to take me somewhere,” I said.
“Anywhere you want, we’ll go.”
It was the second time that day my choices had taken me by surprise. “I want to go to my mom’s house.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
“ARE YOU SURE you want to do this?” Hart asked.
We were in my mom’s house, where I’d only been briefly in the five years since Darren had died. I came home briefly to recuperate after the accident, and I left once I could walk on my own. And now, I was outside the door to Darren’s bedroom.
It was time.
I’d called my mom on the way over, to tell her I was coming. Finally. She’d wanted this for so long, and I hadn’t been able to bring myself to do it. I’d kept my key and let myself in. I was relieved she wasn’t there; it made things slightly easier as I got past the initial shock. There was only one person I wanted with me, and he held my hand the whole time.
“I’m sure,” I answered Hart as my fingers clutched the knob. “I have to do this. I have to go in and face what I ran away from. It’s the final step, I think.” I hoped.
I truly thought it would be the closure I needed, something to stop the countdown from repeating each upcoming year, and the dread…and the hurricane of guilt and pain that overtook me every December. I needed to move on. And to do that, I needed to stand in the two places I’d been avoiding all this time. I’d already been to his grave.
Now I needed to be where he’d lived…and where he’d died.
Slowly, I opened the door, letting the air rush out before I stepped inside. I scanned the whole room. It was as if time had stood still. Nothing had changed, really. The blinds were still half open. Two of the posters drooped; their tape had worn off. His clothes were on the floor in his closet. His math book sat on his desk, loose-leaf papers next to it, with equations written all over them. I’d avoided looking at the bed, the last place I’d seen him just before I’d run away.
I couldn’t run again.
I took deep breaths, squeezed Hart’s hand, and lifted my gaze.
I thought I would see him as I had that night. His body in the middle of the mattress, the spot where Gerald had told the paramedics he’d placed Darren after lifting him off the rafters. His bluish skin and his eyes lifeless in his swollen face.
That wasn’t what I saw at all.
***
Darren and I sat on his bed, talking about Driver’s Ed and how he wasn’t ready for that quite yet, even though he’d be eligible in a few months. “I’d rather have you drive me around,” he said. That made me feel necessary, and loved. Then he randomly placed his hands in the air as if they were on a steering wheel and rested his foot on an imaginary gas pedal. “Guess who I am.” His hand dropped from the steering wheel and reached across me as though I were a passenger.
“You’re not mocking Mom, are you?” I asked.
“Of course I am.” He even mimicked her voice and pretended to dig around in something that was supposed to be on my lap. It was her purse…she always kept it there. “Did you take my makeup out of this bag, Rae? How many times do I have to tell you to put my makeup back after you use it?”
“Mom…” I said, playing along. “I didn’t use your makeup.”
“Never mind,” he said. “I found it.” Holding an invisible tube, he lifted it to his eye and drew a line on his bottom lid. Using both hands now, he steered with his knee, his attention not even on the road.
I laughed so hard, I snorted. “Darren, she did that exact thing the last time I was in the car with her. She didn’t even wait for a red light!”
“Watch the wheel while I blend my shadow, won’t you, honey?” he said.
My laughter only got louder. Darren had her mannerisms down, and he sounded so much like her. He even puffed the back of his hair when he finished with the eye shadow like she constantly did when she was driving.
“Darren, stooooop,” I yelled, gasping for breath.
He finally dropped the act and glanced over at me, his giggles almost as loud as mine. “Will you teach me when I’m ready, instead of her?” he asked. “So I can avoid the whole makeup lesson?”
I smiled at him. “Whatever you want.”
His face fell, and he grew solemn. “I love you, Rae.”
He could always surprise me by saying that.
***
“I love you too, Darren.” It was a murmur.
I shook my head and blinked as hard as I could, coming back to the present. Seeing once again the dent in the comforter that his body had left reminded me of the moment I had found him there that night. There was no laughter then.
But there had been laughter. In this room, in this house.
In our lives.
I had to carry the laughter forward now, and the love. I had to leave the rest in the past.
“You’re so strong to be doing this,” Hart whispered. He stood behind me, his hands on my waist, holding my body against his. That was exactly where I wanted him. Comforting me. Calming me.
Healing me.
“I really wasn’t, until you helped me find the strength,” I replied.
It was true. I wasn’t sure I would have gone to the cemetery or come back inside this house again if I hadn’t been with Hart. Brady gave me the comfort I needed to hang on, but neither he nor Shane had been able to get me to go there. Hart gave me courage to move on.