by Susan May
Shit-for-brains. Arrogant. Creep. An all ‘round bastard. Well, he could take his deli-slicer and his job and shove it.
There was a new Italian restaurant opening up across town. She’d just get herself a job there. Easy. First, a couple of weeks break to shake off the supermarket uniform—tired green polo-shirt and boring black pants—along with the dust, the stink of cheese, and the tooth-grinding boredom of the place.
A new career was what she needed. Annabelle had done an online course last year and gotten herself a job in an office. She could study bookkeeping, or childcare, or even look into getting something at McDonalds and work her way up to manager.
She did have ambition, even if her parents didn’t think so. She just didn’t walk around talking about it, jabbering every ten seconds about her big dreams. No, she was just an ordinary person who wanted to do her own thing, who didn’t like being bullied and lectured by old-fashioned morons like Ramello. He’d done her a favor, really. Now she could work on improving her life. Her job was gone, and so was her boyfriend. Goodbye and good riddance.
When she first saw the mess on her car, she was pissed. Even though she’d parked it a good fifty feet from the staff exit, it was so big she couldn’t miss it.
Bitch was written in big, white, dripping letters all the way across the driver’s side.
What the fuck?
It had to be Andrew, the prick of all pricks.
Her anger hit fever pitch in the time it took to take in the image. He wouldn’t want to be within a mile of her right now, or she’d gouge out his eyes. She’d laughingly told Annabelle only yesterday his messages were getting increasingly angry in tone. They’d both giggled at the thought she was so cool and he was working himself up. He deserved it, the freak. She hadn’t expected this, though.
In case the psycho was watching, she put on her best I-don’t-give-a-shit face and casually walked toward her car as if there was absolutely nothing painted there. She wasn’t about to give him an ounce of satisfaction. If that was the best he had, then he was a loser. A loser who was pretty good in the hip department—but still, a loser.
She wrestled with the contents of her bag looking for her keys. On the outside, she was calm; inside she was shaking with rage. Prick, prick, stupid bastard.
Finally, she found them and she unlocked the car, and yanked open the door. It creaked a complaint, as it always did. The car was an asshole, too. When she got that job as a bookkeeper or a manager, she’d buy a fancy car. Then she’d drive past Andrew’s house every day until he noticed her and realized how good her life had become since him. Maybe she’d even drop in, give him some encouragement, get him in the car and show a little boob, then give him the “ah, ah, ah, you’re not worthy” line.
She threw her bag across to the front passenger seat and slammed the door. It was the last time she’d be driving out of this shitty parking lot. Hallelujah, brother!
Starting up the engine, Kylie leaned forward and peered through the windshield, checking around the parking lot. She wondered if Andrew was out there, skulking behind a car or a wall, laughing at her. The thought of his enjoying this sent another shot of anger through her system. She’d come up with something to pay him back. Nobody, especially a loser like him, was going to get the better of her.
Glancing at the clock, she saw it was still early.
4:32
Annabelle would be getting off work in thirty minutes. Kylie could swing by the office where she worked and wait. Maybe they’d grab a coffee and she could unload everything that had just happened. It always felt better to hear your friend say, “screw them,” with you.
She wondered if Annabelle could get her a job at her office, even temporarily until she’d worked out which online course she might do, or looked into a McDonalds career, or the new restaurant. She’d prefer a beer to celebrate, but she still had six months until she was legal drinking age.
Just as Kylie pulled out of the car park and into the road, her phone beeped, signaling a new message. She knew exactly who it would be.
Andrew-lunatic-car-graffiti-artist. He was probably checking if she got his message.
Loud and clear, you mother-fucker. I’m just working on a reply.
The phone lay on the passenger seat, next to her bag. “Let’s see what you’ve got to say for yourself,” she muttered, leaning across to grab it.
She glanced down at the screen. It was him. The asshole had written he loved her and wanted her back.
Not on your life, buddy. She began to type.
Maybe it was the adrenaline from the anger travelling through her, or her preoccupation with her phone, but somehow she gave the car a little more gas than it needed as she pulled out into traffic.
Her twenty-year-old Honda didn’t maneuver well with sudden acceleration. It pulled too far to the right instead of staying centered; suddenly, Kylie found herself turned into the oncoming traffic lane. Realizing what had happened, she quickly compensated by swinging the steering wheel to the left, bringing the car back onto the correct side of the road.
Days later, she would think about that moment and contemplate what would have happened if she’d only turned the wheel an inch less. There wasn’t time to think when it happened. Time’s a bitch like that.
If the phone hadn’t beeped again—happy and chirpy, as if it wasn’t delivering a nightmare to her—and if she hadn’t been at her wit’s end with that fucking lunatic harassing her, it all might have worked out differently. She didn’t ignore the phone. She glanced at it in her hand, the same hand holding the steering wheel.
Some nosy witness later told the police she’d swerved, and then righted the car back into the correct lane, having seemed to regain control. It was the phone that did it—if she hadn’t been looking at the phone.
She would later tell the police all she remembered was feeling the car jolt as it hit something, simultaneously heard a loud thud, and then saw a momentary blur of gray.
At the time, when she stopped the car and looked in her rear-view mirror, she simply wondered why someone would leave a bag of old clothes in the middle of the road. Her first thought was it was another practical joke, courtesy of Andrew. Next, she heard someone screaming; still believing it was clothes, she wondered why it was such a big deal.
It was only after she climbed out to inspect any damage done to her car by the bag she realized it was not, in fact, clothes. The bundle lay about fifteen feet back from her car. The screaming had stopped, replaced by crying, and there was a woman bent over the clothes.
It struck her, as she stood there staring at the clothes and the woman, she had made a mistake. A terrible mistake. In a flash of horror, she suddenly understood.
Bile rose in her throat and she turned and retched right there in the middle of the road—where everyone could see—but she didn’t care. Even Andrew might be watching and laughing, but still she didn’t care.
The woman was cradling the bundle; a haunting, ghost-like wailing was coming from her. Kylie wiped the stinking spew from the sides of her mouth. She began to shiver as she shuffled toward the scene. As she drew closer, she saw the blood. Her trembling feet gave way beneath her, and she fell to her knees next to the woman… and the boy.
Now her mind had processed everything. Now she understood. She was looking at the end of her life as she knew it.
Movement 3
Each time Dawn was returned, she remembered the first time as if it was embedded in her mind, each subsequent experience only serving to color those memories, but never to overwrite them. She tried to look at everything logically, but each experience, unchanged as it was, felt original. She noticed things every time, but the first time Tommy died was the most horrific.
Dawn leaned over Tommy. Her first instinct was to keep screaming, but she realized if she didn’t calm down she would be of little help to her son.
The blood had soaked quickly through his gray uniform, turning the school emblem on his pocket to a rich burgundy totally discol
oring the words—Mater Dei, Mother of God—making them illegible.
His face was a white she’d never seen before. His eyes were closed, as in sleep. Dawn’s heart pounded as she pulled at him, trying to rouse him. Both his legs were bent at a strange angle, and there was a lump swollen to the size of a golf ball on the side of his head.
Dawn sensed the girl kneeling near her, staring. She turned to her and yelled she should call for help. The way the girl was bent over, staring blankly at them with white-rimmed eyes, made Dawn realize she would be of no help. She couldn’t worry about the girl for now. At the time, Dawn didn’t realize who she was, but she at least looked unharmed.
Dawn stared down at Tommy’s little face, so perfect, so peaceful.
“Hold on, baby. Hold on,” she whispered.
She sucked in deep gulps of air as she brushed her hand across his forehead. Now she’d calmed down, she knew not to move him. Leaning in, she kissed his face and felt his breath slide over her cheek as she did. It was all she could do, the only comfort for him and for her.
Then he coughed. She felt his chest rise and press against hers, and then stop. A single, long sigh escaped his lips, as her hand clutched the back of his head and pulled him more tightly into her. Something was happening. Another breath. Then he was still.
A hush enveloped her, as if all around her the world had been sucked into a sound-proof vacuum. For a moment she, too, stopped breathing. In a mindless attempt to infuse her own life into him, she wrapped her arms about his small body.
He was gone.
She knew it in the center of her being—a mother’s connection broken. Panic gripped her, and she didn’t know whether to stay or run or start screaming again. If this was a dream, this was the time to wake up.
Tommy died that afternoon.
He should have just gone home by the same routine. They should have been halfway down the street, chatting merrily about his lesson, with Dawn barely listening as she mentally checked off the necessary ingredients for that night’s meal.
Instead the woman—girl really—would come squat beside her and say how sorry she was and ask if Tommy was okay.
Dawn wouldn’t answer, because there were no words. Watching her beautiful son die was the worst thing she had ever, could ever, experience.
She’d lost count of the number of times she’d lived through this. Every time it hurt as much as the time before. Eventually, she thought she must become immune to the events, and her heart wouldn’t shatter into a thousand, million pieces—
It always did.
Movement 4
The ambulance would arrive shortly, the sirens distant at first, increasing in volume with each second. Two paramedics would arrive within five minutes and seem to leap on Tommy, one of them pulling her away with: “We’ve got him. We’ll do our best.”
Dawn would stand back, watching and helpless, knowing there was nothing they could do to change it. Then they would clamp electric paddles to his chest, his broken body arching as the current travelled through him.
It would make no difference. His heart had stopped, the injuries too great—internal bleeding, a left lung punctured from a broken rib, his pelvis broken in five places. The blood on his clothes had come from another broken rib piercing outward through his chest. The impact was so sudden and violent it was like a hammer had been taken to his brain; the subsequent swelling destroyed any chance he had of survival.
He was gone, but the paramedics would rush him to the hospital, attempting resuscitation all the way. Dawn would travel with him, holding his hand, her body numb while her mind willed him to survive. The initial shock made it too easy to believe there would be a miracle, the doctors in the hospital could glue him back together, reverse whatever had happened.
As they pulled up to the emergency doors, one paramedic would continue to work on him, while the other would leap out to brief two doctors and a nurse waiting with a gurney. He would be rushed into surgery, everyone running down the brightly lit corridors attending to Tommy, while the medical staff called out commands to each other Dawn couldn’t understand.
Sitting in the waiting room, Dawn would clutch a cup of coffee a stranger had brought her. She would never drink it. A man with a gentle, quiet voice—a counselor, she found out later—would come sit with her. He would talk of hope and God and strength. The first few times she didn’t listen, never heard a single word he said.
Two hours, thirty-seven minutes and twenty-two seconds after the accident, a doctor in pale-blue scrubs would approach her. He would find her still holding the coffee, still staring at the wall.
“Mrs. Graham,” he would say.
She would look up and answer, “Yes,” thinking she was only acknowledging her name. She wasn’t. She was giving him permission to say the words that would change her life. What followed was the same as in the movies—exactly like it. He would say: “Mrs. Graham, I’m very sorry. We tried. His injuries were too severe.”
At first, Dawn had thought he’d said, “We’re tired,” and she began to answer, “Me, too.”
Then the counselor—whom she hadn’t realized was still there—leaned across, patted her arm and said, “Dawn, are you okay?”
She had nodded and mumbled, “Okay,” because she had to be strong for Tommy. He wouldn’t want her crying and making a fuss. He didn’t like standing out in a crowd and had asked it of her—an eleven-year-old guiding her behavior. How funny.
Slowly, she would turn to the counselor and say something she would only remember later. Something ridiculous.
“When can I take him home?”
Then, twenty minutes after that, no, if she were getting the story straight, it would be twenty-two minutes and fourteen seconds later (always those damn fourteen seconds would be there—she’d noticed that) someone would come and ask her if they could take his organs.
He could save lives, help other families; her tragedy could become a blessing for someone.
Not a blessing for her, but for some other mother she didn’t know and would never meet. In return, she would receive gratitude and a small comfort. Very small comfort.
Finally, her sister would arrive, her curly tangle of hair flying out behind her as she ran down the hall, tears rolling down her cheeks. She’d travelled across town, the peak hour traffic was horrific—her sister had a tendency to exaggerate.
Not too long after her sister’s arrival, she would be shepherded into the hall and down the corridor, a corridor that felt as if it would never end. The noise of the hospital would crush in on her, but she would see nothing, except that door. It loomed ahead, growing in size with every step until there was nothing beside her, the door, and the handle that would turn to swing it open and allow her entry into hell.
When she entered the room, she would see him immediately. Tubes where there should be a smile and a monitor beeping out the rhythm of a life that no longer existed. For a moment, she would be confused.
Why was he breathing? Had there been a mistake?
“No,” the counselor would say, as again he touched her arm. She had wanted to say, don’t touch me. I don’t know you. Then he would continue before she could.
“Mrs. Graham, the life support is for the—” He would bow his head for a second and add, “I’m sorry.”
After that, she would walk over to where Tommy lay, tentatively touch his hand, and trail her fingers across his brow. He would feel warm. Still warm.
Her sister’s voice would come from behind, followed by the feel of her arm wrapping around Dawn’s shoulder. Strangely, that would be the catalyst. The simple weight of her sister’s arm would bring her back to reality. That touch would break her there, in that moment. She would feel it as if there were a physical snap in her head, followed by a pulse through her body as if a floodgate that had held back the sorrow was raised, and grief could now rush in and drown her.
Then Tommy would be in her arms, and she would clutch him sobbing and wailing like an injured, trapped animal. The s
ound would resonate through her, into her, shaking her to the core. It would be ten minutes and several seconds of this—she knew the exact time, but these seconds didn’t matter. The important times were coming, when she would realize what was happening. Those seconds mattered—those and that fourteen that kept sneaking in.
A doctor’s entrance to the room would halt her crying. This time he would want to help her, to give her a sedative—possibly admit her. He would take her pulse and keep talking about the shock and the effect it would have on her system.
Her sister would answer on her behalf. As if listening through a wall, she would hear them discussing how often and how many tablets she should take.
Then they would stand, and her sister’s arm would snake about her waist. A silence would settle between them, an empty deadness of unspoken words, because there were no words to speak.
On the walk to the car park, she wouldn’t be present in her body. She would be in the car before she even realized the day had turned to night. The darkness would come as a shock.
She would then notice the dashboard clock glowed 10:38. To her it would feel as if only a few minutes had passed since she’d sat in the car waiting for Tommy, watched him give that little I see you there wave.
Her mind at that moment would travel back to the day before, how at that same time Tommy had been tucked in bed while she washed up. She’d been thinking, her hands deep in suds, how much easier it would be if Craig hadn’t been such a bastard, if he’d never gone on that conference, never met that woman. Maybe then she wouldn’t be washing up at this time, maybe they’d be sitting with a glass of wine watching cable.
She would sit in the car too afraid to move, looking ahead to the empty, yawning future filled with days holding nothing except tears, sleep, and unwavering pain, and she would think, This is my life—it’s over.