by Kate Hewitt
The apartment was quiet as I entered, Ella and Ruby already asleep. I tried not to feel guilty about it; I’d been with them all morning, after all, and yet the simple purity of those snow-filled hours seemed a long time ago now, almost as if they’d never happened at all.
“Nathan?” Maria came into the hallway as I dropped my bag by the door, her face pinched with anxiety. “Did you see the police?”
Her question made me pause in a way it never would have before. Why did she care so much?
“Yes, I did.” I could hardly credit I was being suspicious. I was being stupid. What on earth could Maria possibly have to do with any of it? Nothing. Of course, nothing.
One hand fluttered towards her throat. “And what did they say?”
“Not much. Just that he had recently arrived in the country.”
“From where?”
Again I looked at her. Wondered, I didn’t even know what. “They didn’t actually say.” I realized I probably should have asked. “They also had a new photo pulled from a CCTV camera, of him walking in the street.”
“Oh? Did you learn anything from that?”
I paused, wondering if I should tell her she was in the photo. I felt guilty for suspecting her of anything, when there couldn’t be anything to suspect her of. She didn’t pull the trigger.
It was just that I was so tired, and so desperate for answers, as if Laura’s death could be tidied up, wrapped in a bow, presented as a finished, understood thing. This is how. This is why.
Life didn’t work that way. I knew it didn’t; I’d accepted it a long time ago. I didn’t believe in fate, or God, or some grand plan we are all part of, threads in a huge tapestry nobody could actually see. So why now did I feel this sudden, stupid urge to make connections, to find meaning?
“Nathan?” Maria prompted. She sounded a little nervous, and so, recklessly, I decided to tell her.
“Not really. It was only the back of his head as he walked down the street. But actually, weirdly enough, you were in the photo, Maria.” I knew as soon as I said that I shouldn’t have. Her eyes widened as she scanned my face, registering the tone I’d meant to sound offhand and was anything but. Now I really was a bad actor in some stupid show.
“I was?” Her voice was faint, but then grew stronger. “I was?”
“Yes, you were in front of him, walking down the street. Almost as if he were following you.” I don’t know why I said that; I didn’t actually think it was true. Did I?
Maria’s face paled, her blue-green eyes as huge as lakes.
“Nathan… do you actually think…” Her voice trembled, and I suddenly felt like the world’s biggest jerk.
“I don’t think anything, Maria.” Clumsily, I patted her on the shoulder, and she flinched away. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to sound as if I did. It was just… weird. It shook me a little.”
She nodded slowly, and I couldn’t tell if she believed me. “It is all very strange,” she murmured, her face still pale, her hands fluttering at her sides as if she didn’t know what to do with them. “You think perhaps he has something to do with Global Rescue after all? There could be a link?”
“I don’t know.” I was tired of talking about it all, of going around in circles, ending up nowhere. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Will the police… will they call me in, do you think?”
“I don’t know.” There seemed to be no end to my ignorance. “They didn’t seem to recognize you in the photo, or at least they didn’t mention it to me, and I didn’t tell them it was you. Have you spoken to them before? They mentioned interviewing people…”
“Yes, early on. They questioned everyone who had volunteered at the same time as Laura.” Her hands were now clutched in front of her, fingers laced tightly together.
“If they called you in, Maria, it would just be to ask you questions.”
“I know.” Her lips trembled as she smiled. “I know. It is just…” A pause as she struggled to find the words. “I don’t like the police.”
“Why not?”
“It is not just the police. It is… anyone like that. With… with power.” She swallowed. “I have seen it abused.”
“But this is America,” I said, acknowledging as I said the words how naïve I sounded, how condescending. Terrible abuses of power happened here all the time. “What I mean is, I’d help you. I’d make sure…” I trailed off, aware how inept I sounded, along with naïve.
Maria stared at me for a long moment, her expression closed and fathomless. I had no idea what thoughts were veiled by her clear, blue-green gaze, and I realized I had no right to make any assurances to her at all.
“Maria, what I’m trying to say is, I don’t want you to worry. They won’t call you in anywhere.” A promise I could hardly make, yet I still did. “And if they do,” I added, because this was at least something I could genuinely offer, “I’d be happy to go with you.”
She looked surprised, and still guarded, but after a few seconds she nodded. “Thank you, Nathan.” She smiled, faintly, without it reaching her eyes, and then turned around and went to her room. I watched her go, feeling as if I’d offered so little, and she knew it.
* * *
By the time the grief support group rolled around the next week, the snow had melted to nothing more than a few slushy piles and I’d forgotten about the meeting with the police and that damned photo, or at least pretended to.
“Why are we going again?” Alexa asked in a bored voice as we walked the four blocks to the church.
“I liked it,” Ruby chimed in. “They gave us cookies.” And she’d bonded with Eloise, the leader of the children’s group, which made me less reluctant to bring Ruby along. She was benefitting from it, even if Alexa didn’t seem to be.
“What did you talk about?” I asked, sidestepping Alexa’s question.
“What do you think we talked about?” Alexa snapped, flicking her hair. It was getting harder and harder to reach her; it seemed amazing to me that six months ago, we’d taken a selfie together on my phone, while walking to school. Alexa had been giving a big, cheesy grin, the likes of which I hadn’t seen since.
I didn’t even remember the moment; the sight of it on my phone, when I’d been flicking through photos as I often did, had shocked me. I’d stared and stared, as if it could offer me more than the simple fact of Alexa there, looking nonchalant and carefree, without the sullen darkness that surrounded her now like a shroud.
“We didn’t actually talk,” Ella informed me quietly. “But other kids did.”
“And what did they say?” I asked, trying for a gentle tone, an encouraging smile.
Ella just shrugged.
“They said how it all basically sucks,” Alexa said in a bored voice. “The End. What is the point of this, anyway?”
“Alexa, please. I’m trying.” I smiled encouragingly at Ella, who looked away, her face drawn and pinched.
“Are you really?” The contempt in Alexa’s tone made me cringe; it almost made me furious.
“Yes, actually, I damn well am,” I snapped before I could manage to rein in my temper. “No thanks to you.” Which of course made it worse.
Hurt flashed across Alexa’s crumpled features, so quickly I almost missed it, and then she turned away. “Fine, then go to the stupid group on your own,” she called over her shoulder, and she kept walking down the street, past the open doors of the church.
“Alexa…”
In response, she gave me the middle finger, without even turning around. I stopped there in the street, Ella and Ruby clutching my hands, as my oldest daughter was swallowed up by the darkness.
“Daddy.” Ruby tugged on my hand. “Is Alexa in trouble?”
“Are we going in?” Ella asked, her voice wobbling.
I stared down the street. Alexa was gone. I could race after her, but what was the point? We’d just fight. She was almost fifteen; she’d be fine on her own for an hour. Maybe she’d even cool down a bit, and we could have
a rational discussion later, or something close to it.
And yet I felt as if I were doing something wrong as I mounted the steps with Ella and Ruby, the church enveloping me with its comforting, coffee-scented warmth.
“We’re just leaving her?” Ella asked anxiously. “Where will she go?”
“She’ll be okay, Ella. Maybe she’ll join us in a bit.” I didn’t believe that for a second.
* * *
“Nathan.” Sarah smiled warmly as I took a seat next to her, having dropped Ruby and Ella off at their group. “How has your week been?”
“Alexa didn’t come in with me,” I blurted. I felt the childish need for reassurance. “She was angry about something I’d said… I lost my temper.” I shook my head, wondering at my parenting decisions. Why did I never know what to do?
Sarah’s smile morphed into concern. “Where is she now?”
“Outside somewhere.” To my horror, my voice actually wobbled. “I don’t even know where. She just walked off, and I let her.” I shaded my eyes with my forefinger and thumb, not wanting to break down in a grief support group, of all places—surely the right place for it, and yet I didn’t want to. Not here, not ever. “I’m a crap father, basically,” I told Sarah with an attempt at a laugh. “That’s all you need to know.”
“That’s not true, Nathan.”
“How would you even know?” It came out rudely, even though I hadn’t meant it to.
“You’re here, aren’t you?” Sarah countered. “You’re trying.”
“That’s what I told Alexa.” I grimaced at the memory. “Angrily.”
Briefly, Sarah laid a hand on my arm. “That’s understandable. Look, why don’t we go out and look for her? She can’t have gone far.”
I lowered my hand to look at her. “But the group…”
Sarah shrugged. “Is here every week.”
“Ella and Ruby…”
“Will be fine. I’ll tell Eloise you’re going out. It’s going to be okay, I promise.”
“Considering you’re here, how on earth can you make a promise like that?” I demanded, sounding more broken than angry.
Sarah shrugged again, a sad smile turning up the corners of her mouth. “I have to believe it’s true. Otherwise, how do you get through each day?”
A few minutes later, we were outside, the night seeming darker and colder than before. I questioned my parenting ability yet again, that I’d let Alexa walk off like that. She’d been angry. She’d been hurt. And it was my fault, just as she’d told and shown me again and again.
“She was walking towards the park,” I said as we set off towards Fifth Avenue. “But I don’t think she would go in it. She knows the park can be dangerous at night.” I couldn’t believe I had to say the words. What the hell had I been thinking?
“Are there any other places she might go?” Sarah asked. “Friends nearby…?”
Friends? I realized I didn’t really know any of Alexa’s friends. A couple of them had come to the funeral with their parents, but we’d only exchanged pleasantries, and I couldn’t remember their names or faces. None of her friends visited our apartment; everything seemed to be through social media. “I don’t know,” I admitted. “Probably not.” Although maybe, who knew? Not me, obviously.
“All right, well, let’s keep walking.”
“She’s been angry with me since Laura died,” I confessed as we continued walking towards the park. I felt a sudden, unbearable need to admit to all the ways I’d failed. “She blames me for Laura’s death.”
“That’s understandable,” Sarah murmured, and I nearly stopped mid-stride.
“Is it?”
Sarah turned and caught sight of my shocked expression. “Oh, Nathan, I only meant that it’s a common reaction in bereaved children, to blame the parent for the other’s death.”
“But why?”
Sarah gave me a sympathetic smile. “Because you’re alive.”
And Laura wasn’t. And I knew, without any self-pity or judgment, that Alexa would have preferred I died rather than Laura. Of course she would have. Alexa and Ruby, too. Laura had been there, and too often I hadn’t.
I couldn’t change that. I couldn’t rewrite the past or make it any better. I couldn’t reframe all the memories that kept surfacing, reminding me of how it had really been—the sweet ones, which I savoured, and the cringing ones that made me want to have been better.
All I could do was try to fix the future, and lately I hadn’t been doing that, either; I’d been hiding behind work, staying away because it was so much easier, when I knew my girls needed me, just as Maria had told me they did. Why hadn’t I listened? Why hadn’t I tried harder?
They needed me to show up—not just for a snowstorm, but for every day, day after mundane day, to just be there, again and again. And it would start with me finding Alexa tonight.
* * *
It took forty-five minutes of walking up and down the avenues with Sarah, checking in various cafés and coffee shops, before I finally found Alexa huddled in a diner on Madison Avenue, a can of Coke in front of her. It was five minutes to eight.
“Alexa…” I stood in the doorway, longing for the right words to say, wishing they came naturally. Sarah stood outside, giving us as much privacy as the public space could afford.
Alexa bent her head, her hair falling forward to hide her face. I walked forward. “Talk to me,” I implored in a low voice. “Please. I’m sorry I lost my temper, I really am. But I don’t understand why you’re so angry, Alexa.” Too late I realized how accusing I sounded, as if this was all her fault. “I mean, I understand about being angry,” I tried to explain. “Trust me, I do. I’m angry, too. But… I want us to be in this together. For all our sakes. So we can move forward…”
Alexa still wouldn’t look at me.
I felt impatience pick at the edges of my temper. “Alexa…” It sounded like a warning, even though I hadn’t meant it to. I couldn’t even get my heartfelt apology right.
“You’ve never wanted us to be in anything together,” she said finally, her voice so low, I strained to hear it. “Ever.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“What do you think it means?” She looked up, her face full of fire again. I hadn’t reached her at all. “Mom wasn’t happy with you. Why do you think she was volunteering at that stupid center? Because she didn’t like being your stupid trophy wife. Because she wasn’t interested in climbing some stupid social ladder, or having us all go to these snobby private schools that none of us even like. It’s only you who wanted all of it. Any of it.”
“Alexa…” I felt winded; it hurt to breathe. “You don’t mean that.”
“And what if I do?” she snarled. “What if you’ve got it wrong all along, Dad? You’re playing the grieving husband, but what if it wasn’t like that? I mean, do you even notice Mom is gone? Because you were never even there.”
“That is not true.” My voice came out in a growl. I would not let my daughter tear my memories to shreds; they were suffering enough as it was. “Look, I know I wasn’t always the best father. I know I probably worked too hard—”
“Probably?”
“For God’s sake, Alexa, it was for you and your sisters—our family—”
“For God’s sake?” she sneered. “But you don’t even believe in God.”
I shook my head slowly. “What does that have to do with anything right now?”
“You don’t believe in anything. You don’t care about anything,” she cried. “Of course you don’t care about God. You don’t even care about us.”
And then she was gone again, pelting out of the restaurant and down the dark street, away from me.
Twenty
Maria
I was in the living room, a book on my lap, when the front door was hurled open and Alexa pelted into the apartment, her hair flying, her face streaked with fears.
I rose from the sofa, icy panic flooding my senses. “Alexa—”
�
�Leave me alone.” She hurled the words over her shoulder before slamming into her room. I stood completely still, shocked and silent, listening to the sound of Alexa throwing herself on her bed, and then the far worse sound of her sobbing as if her soul was being torn from her body. I knew that sound.
I hesitated, unsure what to do. Where was Nathan? Ella? Ruby? Should I go in? How could I, when she so clearly wanted to be alone?
How could I not?
Don’t do this, Maria, I told myself. You cannot handle this. It is too much for you.
From the kitchen, I heard my phone ping with a text. I walked to it slowly, the sound of Alexa’s sobbing loud in my ears.
The text was from Nathan: Hey Maria. Is Alexa back?
How to respond? Yes. She is upset.
Okay. I think I’m going to let her cool off for a bit. I’m taking Ella and Ruby out—be back in an hour or so and then we’ll talk. N.
I was not sure this was the right approach, but I did not feel I could say as much to Nathan, at least not over a text.
Alexa continued to sob. I stood in the hallway, my hand hovering over the doorknob. What could I do? What could I say?
I had no words to make things better, no magic wand to wave. I was just a woman—a broken, frightened, ghost-like woman.
But I was coming alive, and I knew that sound too well, and I could not leave a hurting girl alone. I reached for the knob, and I turned it.
The room was dark and cluttered, as it always was, because I was too hesitant to tidy it up properly. Alexa was on the bed, her thin back to me, her hair covering her face as her body was racked with sobs.
“Alexa…”
“Go away.” A deep, whole-body shudder went through her and she curled up into a ball, like a baby, like someone trying to hide.
I sat on the edge of the bed, at a loss. There were no assurances I could give, there were no promises I could make. This was grief—raw, real, ugly, endless. I knew it. I’d felt it, until I hadn’t been able to feel it any longer, and that was its own loss. The knowledge encouraged me, strangely—at least Alexa could feel.