* * *
I pray we’re ready.
* * *
Stilman Road, a narrow two-lane artery that connected the Hinesville subdivision to the Interstate leading into Richmond, crosses Flatley Creek twice. After nearly converging behind the Greenes’ house, the road and creek run parallel for about a quarter of a mile. The early afternoon blizzard had repaved Stilman Road with twice as much snow and ice as the tractors plowed off earlier that morning.
* * *
“Take your time coming up to this curve, Lil’ Daddy.”
“Chill out, Dad. I got this,” Caleb responded.
“I’m sure you think you do. Damn. It looks like two or three inches of snow fell while we were in the store.”
“The forecast predicts five to six inches tonight.”
“It’s a good thing Nigel left early enough to get here before the storm hits. Okay, Lil’ Daddy. You need to really take it easy on this curve. Take your feet off the gas, but…”
“Dad, I told…”
“Don’t mash the brakes!”
“Dadddddd!”
* * *
Nigel leaped out of bed when he heard Caleb’s distressing cry. The blanket was tangled around his legs, causing him to trip and fall. He yelled out, “Caleb!” He ran toward the room. “I’m coming!” It was not the first time he’d shouted these words. “Caleb! I’m coming!” But it was the first time he’d had to relive this scene from that fateful night.
* * *
Their mother asked Nigel what grades he expected to get as she cut cookie dough into holiday shapes and placed them on a baking sheet. Nigel gave her the answers she wanted to hear as he leaned on the kitchen counter and stared out the window. From the window, he saw Flatley Creek. He saw Stilman Road on the other side of the frozen creek, and he saw a car’s headlights approaching, slicing, swirling. The car, which he intuitively knew was his dad’s car, skidded out of control. Uncurbed, it smashed through the embankment of plowed snow and ice on the side of the road. He watched in horror as it harrowed down the hillside before hurtling through the scab of ice covering Flatley Creek. The sleeted water wasted no time encasing and burying the car.
“Caleb! I’m coming!” Nigel screamed. “Dad!”
He ran out the back door, jumped off the steps, and raced across the yard to the edge of Flatley Creek. Before his dive could take flight, a pair of hands grabbed him; his mother’s hands.
“No! You stay here,” she explicitly commanded. “Do you hear me, Nigel? Stay here! Stay!”
Her dire mandate congealed, hardened, turned to cement around his feet.
* * *
Caleb remembered being bandaged by a curdling darkness and silence. Darkness. Silence. Then a flickering light in the distance. A faint noise. A dull vibration that rapidly intensified. He opened his eyes. He was in his dad’s car. His dad was unconscious in the seat beside him. He reached over to shake his dad and realized they were not sitting upright. He closed his eyes and hoped he was dreaming. He prayed he was. When he opened his eyes, he saw the mucky bottom of Flatley Creek through the windshield of his coffin.
Caleb heard and felt something pounding on the driver’s side window. The pounding continued until the window collapsed from its socket. Flatley Creek poured into the car and filled it until there was only water to breathe. A hand reached inside the car and tugged at his seatbelt. He saw his mother. She was possessed by the unimaginable fear of a mother watching helplessly as her child suffered a horrible death. He would not die; she was not going to let him die. Finally, the seatbelt gave, releasing him. She pulled him out the car and carried him through the frigid water up to the surface. She laid him down at Nigel’s embedded feet and instructed her son, “Take care of your brother,” before she dived back into Flatley Creek. Back into eternity.
* * *
“Caleb!” Nigel yelled as he burst through Caleb’s bedroom door into antiquity. Caleb was lying on the floor—beached on the snow-covered shoal of Flatley Creek. His shivering hands reached for Nigel, but Nigel, benumbed by an incensed wind, stood in the doorway staring at two peculiar-looking red water lilies flickering below the surface of the entombing creek.
God help us.
CHAPTER 25 NIGEL
A new day. In our world, inside 207 Circle Drive, we didn’t always wake up to a new day.
* * *
We had hidden here in the darkness since time mercifully granted us a furlough from the memory of cemented feet, breathing water, and dying. For Caleb, the tragedy of that day had dawned, and Mom’s and Dad’s deaths were yet to be mourned. His guilt had yet to be forgiven. Fourteen years had passed since he’d stared at the bottom of the creek like it was his tomb before he was carried to safety, but he remembered it like it had happened the night before.
Before last night, I had forgotten the unbearable pain I’d felt the morning after that night fourteen years ago. Over the years, I’d remembered bits and pieces of the actual accident, but I’d never thought about how I’d felt the morning after. I’d never felt as alone as I did that morning. My parents were dead and my brother was in a coma.
Caleb lay motionless on the floor with his head in my lap for hours. I noticed his eyes gazing at something that I couldn’t and probably didn’t want to see. As his eyes filled with tears, I felt the hurt he felt. I wanted to help him, but I didn’t know what to say or what to do. He was wounded and falling apart, and the only thing I could do was put my arms around him and try my best to hold us together.
The phone rang in the living room. When it stopped ringing, I heard my cell phone ringing in my bedroom. Getting my bearings, I realized that I had missed first period’s final exam, and third period’s exam was starting in fifty minutes; Dr. Alexander was calling, no doubt to determine my whereabouts. I imagined there was a lot of confusion and cheering outside the auditorium when I didn’t show up this morning, but I didn’t care right then. My brother needed me and he came first. I had to stay with him. I had to take care of him. I had to.
* * *
Karen’s staring at us from her picture on Caleb’s wall. She’s crying but her tears couldn’t fall. She realized she couldn’t save us.
* * *
Caleb sat up, then stood and marched out of his bedroom without saying a word. I hurried out of the room behind him, following him down the hallway. I didn’t have to ask where he was going, and I didn’t try to stop him. Instead, I closed my eyes and prayed the memory of that night lugged more than unbidden anguish back into our life. Caleb walked straight to the front door. Without hesitating, he unlocked the door, turned the doorknob, yanked the door open, and invited the world inside. I opened my eyes in time to witness the first wave crash into Caleb, surging through his nostrils and fill his lungs. Only this time, Caleb didn’t panic. He tried to breathe water, and for a brief second, he did. That’s when Caleb’s eyes rolled back in their sockets. I managed to catch him before his body fell to the floor. I kicked the door shut as I pulled Caleb over to the sofa.
He wasn’t breathing, and he didn’t look like he wanted to. “Breathe, Caleb,” I yelled. “I said breathe!”
He defied me.
I stared in horror as Caleb tried to die. I didn’t think it was possible for a person to will himself to die, but it felt like Caleb insisted on making the impossible, possible. I felt him slipping away. His body went limp and his lips turned bluish-gray. I pounded on his chest to get him to breathe, but he wouldn’t. So, I covered his clenched lips and nostrils with my mouth and tried to breathe for him. Caleb still refused to share my will to live. I couldn’t stop him from dying, but I could stop him from dying alone.
I ran to the kitchen and grabbed the biggest knife out the counter rack, rushing back into the living room. Caleb was almost gone. I dropped to my knees in front of him and pressed the knife’s blade against my neck.
“If you go, I go!”
The knife pierced my skin and blood trickled down my neck.
“Caleb, if you go, I
go!”
Caleb gasped, exhaled his will to die, and began breathing. In a voice I didn’t recognize, he asked, “Why wouldn’t you just let me die?”
I dropped the knife and stared into Caleb’s tear-filled eyes. “You’re my brother and I need you here. I can’t do this without you, Caleb. I wouldn’t know how to.”
* * *
God, please have mercy on my brother.
CHAPTER 26 CALEB
I killed Mom and Dad.
* * *
My brother, Nigel, had been here with me. Here. With me. All this time. Even though he knew what I had done.
* * *
When I looked up, I saw dawn encroaching like marching ants through the gaps in the closed window blinds. I saw sunlight. So I knew it must be morning. The morning after I died. But it was still dark and cold here on the floor; a reminder of the dark and cold on the bottom of Flatley Creek where my untenanted coffin rested.
* * *
I’d lived like a dead man inside 207 Circle Drive for most of this life. But no more. After dying on the bottom of Flatley Creek. After breathing water. After surfacing, was this life. This world. And my fear. Now that my fear isn’t a ghost in the dark, now that I know its origin, I am no longer afraid. No longer willing to live in a pre-empted grave.
I’d walked from my bedroom to the living room countless times, but today it felt like a marathon course. I didn’t care how long it took, I was determined to make it to the front door. Nigel was going the distance with me. I felt him behind me. He figured out my destination and he was not trying to stop me, which convinced me that he believed as strongly as I did that I could open the front door and step outside into a habitable world. Flatley Creek filled my lungs as soon as I turned the doorknob, but today, I was not afraid of drowning, or of dying. I’d died before.
* * *
Fear was the only thing I was scared of now. Fear. I couldn’t live with it anymore. I couldn’t and I wouldn’t. I’d rather die again.
* * *
I tried to die, but Nigel wouldn’t let me. He didn’t want me to die, so he tried to breathe for me. He tried to share his life again. But it wasn’t enough to resurrect my will to live.
My brother wouldn’t let me die alone. He’s trying to die with me. Trying to share my grave.
I heard Nigel yelling, “If you go, I go!”
I couldn’t let Nigel die with me. I couldn’t take what’s left of his life from him.
I felt the moment my life returned.
“Why wouldn’t you let me die?”
“You’re my brother and I need you here,” Nigel tearfully avowed. “I can’t do this without you, Caleb. I wouldn’t know how to.”
My begrudging tears refused to take sides as I gazed past Nigel at a familiar-looking man hanging from a bed sheet tied to a beam in the ceiling.
This was what I now understood. Remembering did not always erase our fears. Memories merely explained the reasons for our consternation.
* * *
The doorbell rang, and Nigel and I both looked up and stared at the door. The doorbell rang again. Nigel stood and, glancing over his shoulder at me, walked toward the door. I pulled myself up off the sofa and retreated to my bedroom. I heard the front door open and close. I heard a man’s voice. I opened my bedroom door so I could listen in.
“I called your house phone and your cell a couple of times, but I didn’t get an answer.”
I couldn’t see the man from the doorway of my bedroom, but I recognized his voice. It was Hubert.
“I’m sorry,” Nigel responded. “I’ve been dealing with some personal problems today. I know I should have called, but…”
“Don’t worry about it. I have you covered,” Hubert cut him off. “I rescheduled your exams for tomorrow since my schedule is open. I stopped by to pick up the exam, and to make sure you and Caleb were okay.”
“We will be,” Nigel said as he walked into the den. “Let me get the exams.”
“I spoke to Karen last week,” Hubert told Nigel.
I tiptoed into the hallway and backed into a shadowed corner. I saw Hubert standing near the door. I’d seen him during his class lectures on TV, but he looked different in person. Taller. More self-assured. And a decade younger than his forty-nine years. An aura of fulfillment resonated from within him. Clearly, he was a man who loved his life.
“How is she?” Nigel returned with a small box.
“She’s heartbroken. Missing you.” Hubert smiled teasingly. “I promised her I wouldn’t say anything, but I have to say this. You don’t have to avoid her. She knows more than you think she does. And she understands.” Hubert grinned and patted Nigel on the shoulder. “She loves you even more now that she knows you spent a few weeks covertly pursuing her before you finally stepped to her.”
You could’ve scraped the embarrassment off of Nigel’s face.
“Don’t go getting uptight,” Hubert advised. “You have nothing to worry about. She loves you, Nigel.”
Nigel gave Hubert the box and said, “Thanks. I owe you.”
“Then pay me back by calling her. Like I told you before, she’s a keeper. Trust me on this.” Hubert smiled encouragingly. “I’ll call before I bring the exams back tomorrow afternoon.”
“I assumed you were going to grade them, too.”
“When did hell freeze over?”
Nigel grinned and followed Hubert to the door.
“I told Karen you’d be in touch with her soon,” Hubert said.
I slipped back into my bedroom and closed the door. I didn’t have to hear the front door open and close to know that Nigel and I were alone again…alone in our amputated world.
* * *
We’re never unchained.
CHAPTER 27
Take care of your brother. Those were their mother’s last words, and Nigel did as he was instructed. He took care of Caleb. Shared his life. Sacrificed dreams. Threw away ambition. And love. All unselfishly.
After learning the truth about that December night fourteen years ago, Caleb felt it was his turn to take care of Nigel because too much of Nigel’s life had been lived behind briar-covered walls, too much of his life still unlived. Caleb saw the life he wanted for Nigel when Hubert stopped by the house. Hubert was cloaked in happiness, and Caleb wanted to see Nigel adorned in similar attire. So, he set about tailoring a new life for his brother.
Caleb knew from having shared it that there were two things missing from Nigel’s life. The main thing missing from Nigel’s life was the freedom to live his life unburdened by the past. The revelations of that December night fourteen years ago had already taken care of that. When Caleb learned the truth about that night, Nigel was released from the burden of secrecy. The only other thing missing from Nigel’s life was someone to share it with. Caleb came up with a plan to change that.
That night, when he figured the odds were as close to even as they would get that Nigel was asleep, Caleb tiptoed out of his bedroom, down the hallway, into the living room. He took the phone off of the stand and walked over to the black recliner by the front window. His eyes were drawn to the closed curtains. He parted the curtains with his index finger, and then, with some hesitance, he leaned forward and peered outside at the muddy bottom of Flatley Creek. He was even more convinced that what he was about to do was the only way to save his brother. He picked up the receiver and dialed her number. Since it was a few minutes past midnight, he figured she was sleep. And she was until the phone beside her bed rang.
“Hello,” she answered.
“Karen,” his voice wobbled. “This is Caleb. Nigel’s brother.”
He could hear Karen the alertness in her voice when she asked, “Is everything okay, Caleb?”
“It is now,” he said. “I’m sorry about waking you.”
“Don’t be,” she responded. “I’m glad you called.”
* * *
After Caleb and Karen had finished talking, Caleb lay in bed and scoured away the memories of making love t
o her. He said goodbye to the woman of his dreams and hello to his friend and their savior.
* * *
Karen drove past their house three times before her nerves and the morning traffic settled enough to let her turn into the driveway. As she pulled in the driveway behind the black Lumina, she glimpsed a man standing at the front window, staring out through the partially opened curtains. It wasn’t Nigel. She was relieved.
* * *
A few seconds before the doorbell rang, Nigel heard Caleb run down the hallway and then he heard Caleb’s bedroom door close. He debated whether he should get up and see who was at the front door or pull the blanket back over his head and pretend he didn’t hear the doorbell. The doorbell rang again, and again, ending Nigel’s deliberation. He climbed out of bed and tottered toward the living room. Nigel didn’t bother to look through the peephole before he opened the door. He wished he had.
“Good morning.” She greeted him with a timid smile. “Caleb invited me over for breakfast. May I come inside?”
“Of course,” he answered. “Come in.”
Neither Nigel nor Karen expected what happened next. But as soon as Karen stepped past Nigel and inside the doorway into their world, her repressed feelings spilled over. “I love you, Nigel,” she cried and flung her arms around him. “I love you.”
Nigel tried to speak, to tell her how he felt, but he couldn’t.
Our First Love Page 17