One Last Song

by S. K. Falls

  “And how are you coping with not being able to see Drew any longer?”

  His name was like a pebble stuck in my diaphragm. Every time someone said it, the pebble buried into my flesh a little deeper, making it harder to breathe for the pain. “I’m doing a little better. It still hurts, but I think this will help.” I pointed to the envelope beside me. “And… I’m going to visit the others, too.”

  Dr. Stone nodded, a kind smile on his face. “Consequences. They’re painful, but in the long term they teach us a lot. And you’re trying to make amends with that, in a way. That’s good. It’s forward motion.”

  I was going to apologize one last time to everyone in the TIDD group. I refused to accept that the last memory they’d have of me would be me slinking away, the stench of deceit wafting off my skin.

  I’d learned something from Al-Anon and all the time Mum spent at her Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. They spoke a lot about “indirect amends,” things you do to restore justice in a symbolic way. The people you tried to make amends with didn’t have to forgive you, and your actions going forward didn’t have to depend on their absolution—or lack of it. You just had to find a way to balance out the shit you’d put everyone through. I liked the idea of it; me being not just the destructive hurricane that blew through their fragile lives, but also the relief worker after.

  I smoothed my hand over the envelope I held, felt its sharp edge. Inside was a USB stick, and on that USB stick was an app I’d had a program developer write for me. It had cost ten thousand dollars to hire his team to do it because it was such a specialized, customized thing. My parents hadn’t gotten the bill yet, but luckily, I’d be far away in North Carolina when it came. And by then, I had a feeling my father would have other things on his mind—like all the mistresses he juggled on his business trips. That was part of the reason my parents were separating. My mother had known for years, but only now did she feel like she deserved better.

  The app was something Drew could use when the FA began to really catch up with him. I’d had them add in a cutting-edge voice-commanded music-mixing component, so he could create playlists and even record his own songs or mixes on it. It was like a small, traveling music studio he could take with him wherever he went. I’d had them research the best disability and music apps on the market and combine them into something I hoped Drew would be able to use. My plan was to drop it off in his mailbox at his apartment.

  I felt this desperate urge to have Drew accept my gift, as if it were a talisman of sorts. Time was running out for all of them. It made me think of the TIDD group, of Pierce saying it was a game of Russian roulette. Who would be next? It couldn’t be Drew. It couldn’t.

  Dr. Stone’s deep voice punched into my reverie. “Are you all packed for North Carolina?”

  “Yes. I leave tomorrow at six, bright and early. My mother wanted to drive me, but I told her I’d rather do it myself. We’ve been spending so much time together, I felt it would be good for me to just get out and clear my head on that long trip.” It was something I was really looking forward to.

  “It sounds like you’re all set.” Dr. Stone glanced at his watch. “And we’re out of time.”

  We both stood in tandem, and I reached out my hand awkwardly. He took it in both of his. “You know you can call me anytime, with anything you need,” he said. “I really mean that.”

  “I know you do,” I replied. “Thank you.”

  On my way out, my eye fell on the picture of the Puerto Rican man I’d seen so long ago. “Who is that?” I asked. “He looks so incredibly happy.”

  “That was my partner, Duncan,” Dr. Stone replied. His eyes were on the photograph, a small smile on his face. “He died of AIDS three years ago.”

  Guilt and self-loathing pulled at my insides. “How do you do it? How do you sit there and talk to someone like me when I made fools out of all those sick people?”

  He met my eyes, still smiling. “Because I believe everyone deserves a second chance, Saylor. I think you’ll do something fantastic with your life because of this mistake you’ve made. Wait and see.”

  On impulse, I gave him a hug. “Thank you.”

  * * *

  Dinner at my house that night was a muted affair. It was just Mum and me, Dad’s place at the table bare. We were still using the nice napkins and silverware, as if Mum thought we finally deserved to.

  I’d walked in on my parents fighting not long after Mum and I had had our heart-to-heart. Maybe “fighting” is too strong, too passionate a word. They were talking, in quiet voices, with all the emotion of a couple of strangers discussing the weather.

  Mum had said, “I think it’s time for me to move on.”

  “Hmm.” Dad had sat there with a drink in his hand, twirling his glass round and round. “Are you sure?”

  In that moment, while Dad was waiting for her response and Mum hadn’t said anything yet, she’d glanced up and seen me, half-hidden in the shadows. I’d expected her to stiffen as she would have before, to tell me to leave, but she hadn’t. She’d held my gaze for a long moment and then looked back at my dad. “We both know this has been a farce for years now, Victor. Let’s try to do something meaningful with the rest of our lives.”

  And that was that. I’d tiptoed back out without my dad noticing my fleeting presence or the space I left behind.

  * * *

  My last night in New Hampshire, Mum and I sat at the dinner table and talked about North Carolina, about college, about spring turning to summer.

  By mutual agreement, we’d decided that I’d head out the next day without saying good-bye. Mum was letting me take the BMW—she was getting a new car in the divorce settlement—and it was already packed, ready, and gassed up in the driveway. We lingered for a long time over our plates, even after the food had gone cold and our waters were tepid.

  I stood up and went around the table. Mum stood and hugged me.

  “I love you,” she said. “I’m sorry I haven’t said that nearly enough in the past.”

  I blinked away the tears. “Hey,” I said, in a not-so-smooth attempt to change the subject. “What happened to the dollhouse you were working on?” Her crafting nook was empty, the surface of the table clear of materials for the first time in years. I noticed some scars and stains on the wood that would probably never come out.

  “I’ve decided to give up that hobby,” Mum replied. “I’m going to spend more time in the present, in real life.”

  I squeezed her hand. “That sounds like a really smart idea.”

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Mum went to bed shortly after, and I slipped out the front door. The song of crickets accompanied my every step to the car, which was packed almost to the top with stuff for North Carolina.

  The weightlessness from the lack of medical supplies seemed, to me, enormous.

  A part of me panicked—a new state, a new school, what was I going to do with all my free time? But another part of me remembered what Dr. Stone had said: You’ll do something fantastic with your life. I liked the thought of that. I liked the idea that he was holding his breath, waiting to see what I’d do with the years I had in front of me.

  * * *

  I pulled into a parking space in front of Pierce’s apartment building and sat quietly, the AC blowing cold air right at my face. I tried to calm the frantic hammering of my heart. Breathe in, breathe out. Before I lost my nerve, I forced myself to get out and sprinted all the way until I reached his front door.

  I knocked and waited. A few moments later Pierce’s mother answered, dark circles underscoring her brown eyes. A ghost of a smile crossed her lips as she stood aside. “Come in.”

  We sat on the shabby couch in silence. I glanced toward where I’d seen Pierce last, ensconced in his hospital bed. But all that was left of that night was the painting, Sunset Crash.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t remember your name.” I swung my head around to look at her, startled out of my memory of that night. “So much has happened. I don’
t have the energy to remember another detail.” Her voice was thready, as if her vocal cords could barely muster up enough energy to push out sound.

  “I’m Saylor. Saylor Grayson.” I waited to see what she’d say, if maybe Zee had informed Pierce and her of my enormous treachery.

  But she only nodded. “I remember now. You’re the new girl who joined TIDD. Pierce spoke of you. He said you were a good friend to Zee. He was happy about that. He worried about leaving her, you know.”

  I breathed in slowly. “I read his obituary in the paper, Mrs. Yeung. I’m so sorry.”

  She looked away, toward the wall where I’d been staring only moments earlier. It was as if we could both see him, a ghost of his memory still in the room. I wondered what other memories she had of him, maybe of a baby-faced Pierce, ready to start his first day of kindergarten. Or the time he came out to her. Memories no one else would be privy to. For the first time, it hit me what it must be like to be a mother with a dying child. To see a future you’d been dreaming of simply wither away into nothingness. I blinked against the rising pain in my chest.

  Mrs. Yeung looked back at me. “Thank you.” Her voice didn’t wobble and there were no tears in her eyes. But her body language—her rounded shoulders, the way she held herself on the edge of the couch as if she was ready to leave, too, at a moment’s notice—spoke of a deep, heavy grief.

  “What will you do now?” I asked. “Are you going to stay here?”

  She shook her head slowly. “My lease is up in August. I’m going to visit my sister in Hong Kong, stay there for a while. And then…” She shrugged.

  “Okay.” I knew what she meant. My life was in the “and then…” phase, too. “I’m leaving for college in North Carolina tomorrow. But… would it be all right if I called sometime before you go? Just to chat with you?” I didn’t know what had come over me or why I’d said that; it certainly hadn’t been a part of my plan. The plan had been simply to check on Pierce’s mother, see how she was doing.

  She smiled and patted my hand where it sat on the couch. “That would be nice.”

  I stood up to leave then, but she motioned to me to wait. “Here. I can’t take much with me to Hong Kong.” She went over to the wall and pulled down Sunset Crash. “Pierce would’ve wanted you to have it.”

  I took a step backward. “No… I really can’t take that.” I thought of Zee, hunched over it, cursing, and me taking the paintbrush from her. She hadn’t known about me then; none of them had. I didn’t deserve this painting.

  “Please take it.” She pressed it into my hands, held her palms over my fingers. “It’d calm my heart if it was with you, in your dorm room. Pierce might have had it in his dorm in another life.”

  My fingers closed over the canvas. I saw in her eyes that she needed me to accept this so it wouldn’t be relegated to some dusty corner in her sister’s house, unappreciated, not looked at. She wanted to believe, in some way, that Pierce was still out there.

  “Okay.” I tried to smile. “Thank you. I’ll take good care of it.”

  * * *

  I set the painting in the passenger seat and drove to Zee’s house. When I pulled into the driveway next to her bright yellow car, my palms were soaked with sweat, slick on the steering wheel. I tried breathing slowly, but it wasn’t helping much.

  Then her front door opened and someone stepped outside. The streetlight cast shadows on the person’s face; I couldn’t tell if it was Zee. I opened the car door and got out.

  As I got closer I saw that it was Lenore. She pushed her glasses up on her nose as she watched me walk up. Her hair was in a bun, a few rebellious curls buoyant around her small, unsmiling face. She had her arms wrapped around herself even though it was balmy out. “Saylor.”

  I figured Zee had told her. “Lenore. How… how are you?” I stood there awkwardly playing with a loose string on my t-shirt. I wondered when she was going to start yelling and cursing at me for tricking her sick daughter.

  But she only continued to glare. “Why are you here?”

  “I…” I looked down at my feet, feeling like a sack of shit. Then I remembered: Zee and Lenore didn’t have to forgive me. I could try to get their forgiveness, but if they chose not to give it, that was their prerogative. It didn’t change the fact that I was still going to try to do good to make up for the bad. Thinking that gave me a bit of courage. I looked back up at her, straight into her eyes. “I’m here to apologize to Zee. And to you. I’m really sorry for what I did.”

  Lenore’s expression didn’t change, but I saw her hands clamp tighter around her arms, as if she were physically restraining herself from punching me in the face. “And you think that’s all you need to do? We’re just supposed to say, ‘It’s all right, we forgive you’?”

  “No, I—”

  Lenore walked closer. She was shorter than me, so she had to tip her head back a bit, but the action didn’t make her any less intimidating. “Zee doesn’t want to talk to you. And I don’t want to talk to you. You make me sick. You take advantage of vulnerable people to get what you want. What were you after? Her car? Money? I was this close to suing you and the hospital. Zee talked me out of it. She may have done it once, but don’t think she’ll be able to do it again.” Lenore took a deep, shaky breath and stepped back. I couldn’t see her eyes anymore; her glasses were reflecting the streetlight across. “So I suggest you leave. Now.”

  My heart raced. Everything she said was warranted. Yes, I’d lied. Yes, I’d taken advantage. But still. Somewhere deep inside me, the part that made me me, hurt deeply at her words. “Okay.” I began to walk back to my car. The front door slammed.

  I was getting in, my hands trembling from the aftermath of Lenore’s rage, when I heard, “Wait.”

  I spun around. Zee stood at the top of the driveway dressed in a pair of button-down Christmas pajamas, so out of place here in the warm spring night. She’d lost some weight since I’d last seen her, and they hung loose off her bony frame. I was struck by how frail she looked, how birdlike. She wasn’t wearing a wig; her scalp shone a brilliant white in the orangey haze from the streetlight.

  I walked quickly up the driveway, my heart starting its sprint again. As I came to a stop in front of her, I realized that I’d forgotten everything I wanted to say. My mouth fell open, and I closed it. My mind was a complete blank.

  She smirked at me, her blue eyes sparking. “You upset my mom.”

  “I know.” I slipped my hands into the front pockets of my jeans. “I didn’t mean to. I just came to apologize.”

  She folded her arms across her chest, looking a lot more like her mother than she probably knew. Her thin face was stern. “So apologize.”

  I pulled my hands out and stuck them against the sides of my thighs; they were ice cold and clammy. “I’m so sorry.” I forced myself to not look away from her eyes, even though shame and humiliation burned and boiled inside me, a veritable geyser of emotion. “I lied to you and I acted like a despicable excuse for a friend. But please believe me when I say I genuinely care for you. I’ve never had a friend in my life, and with you, it was so easy. It just felt right.” My throat tightened and I looked away for a moment, noting in my peripheral vision that Zee was still just standing there with her arms crossed. I turned back to her. “I know I was utterly and completely wrong in what I did. I wish I knew how to make things right, but I don’t. And so I’m here, just to tell you that I’m sorry. From the deepest, truest part of me, I’m sorry.”

  She blew out a breath slowly and looked out across the street. When she looked back at me, she had one eyebrow raised slightly. “Wow. That’s some deep shit, Saylor.” She lifted one corner of her mouth in a half smile.

  I smiled a little, too. “Yeah. But it’s honest. I promise.”

  “Well.” Zee tugged at the cuffs of her pajama top. “Thanks.”

  I waited because it seemed like she had more to say.

  “I mean, I think you’ll understand if I don’t fling my arms around your fucking
neck and sob with joy. But, yeah. Thanks. For saying all that. I know it took guts. And honestly, I didn’t think you had them.” She squinted toward my car. “What is that? Sunset Crash?”

  I looked in the direction she was looking. “Yeah. I went by Pierce’s mom’s apartment and she wanted me to take it to my dorm room. I’m leaving for college in North Carolina tomorrow morning.”

  “North Carolina.” Zee held my eyes.

  I shrugged. “It’ll be good to get away from this place for a while.”

  Zee chewed on the inside of her lip, still looking at me frankly. “I wouldn’t go by Carson’s house. If your plan’s to apologize to everyone, I mean. He’s not ready for it; I saw him a couple of days ago. I’d let that one go if I were you.”

  The geyser of emotion bubbled inside me again: Shame. Humiliation. Self-loathing. “Okay.” I wanted to ask her, badly, if she’d spoken with Drew. But instead, I said: “What about Jack? How’s he doing?”

  She shook her head and sighed. “Not too hot. But the lawyer’s pushing things through. They got the go-ahead unofficially, so it should all go down in the next week. The actual assisted suicide, I mean.”

  I nodded, relieved that Noah Preston had made it happen. “Good.” Again I thought of Drew, of how hard he’d fought for this. I remembered that day I’d gone with him to get the signatures on the petition. How he’d fallen and joked about it.

  “So.” Zee stepped back and looked toward her house. “I should get back inside before my mom sends out a search party.”

  “Right.” I pulled my keys from my pocket. “Thanks for talking to me, Zee. I really appreciate it.”

  She threw up a peace sign over her shoulder and called out, “Have a nice life.”

  I stood watching until she disappeared into her house.

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  My body buzzed with adrenaline as I drove to Drew’s apartment the next day. It was six a.m., so I didn’t expect him to be awake, but still. Maybe he’d changed his sleeping habits in the last month.