Friends Forever

by Danielle Steel

  Marilyn climbed into their bed, as Connie sat down in a rocking chair with a devastated expression. Marilyn opened her shirt, unhooked her nursing bra, and Jack handed both crying babies to her. She hadn’t gotten the hang of doing it with two of them yet, but she knew they needed to be fed, and she was the only one who had what they wanted. The babies’ timing was exactly what they had expected—they just hadn’t expected this tragedy to happen. Kevin O’Hara was dead at twenty-five.

  Jack gently covered Marilyn with a blanket in case Billy walked in, and Connie sat watching her, crying softly. She could still remember nursing Kevin as though it was yesterday, and now he was gone. She just sat there and sobbed, and then at Marilyn’s invitation, she climbed into bed with her and sat next to her while she nursed her babies. It was comforting to Connie just to be there, and she gently stroked Daphne’s head while she lay at her mother’s breast and finally fell asleep. Jack took them from her as she finished nursing them, burped them, and set them down in their bassinets, and then he came to sit on the foot of the bed with the two women.

  “I’m so sorry, Connie,” he said, as she nodded and continued crying, and Marilyn hugged her again. They sat there until Mike and Sean came to the house. Mike looked ashen after identifying Kevin. Sean hadn’t seen him, but both father and son had sobbed all the way back to Marilyn and Jack’s house to pick up Connie. They sat talking for a while, and Sean went to find Billy and then they went home. Marilyn told them to call if they needed anything, and she promised to come over in the morning. She was going to help Connie make the funeral arrangements. She couldn’t imagine living through it, or how devastated Connie must feel, and for a shameful moment, which she admitted to Jack later as she nursed their babies again, she had been grateful that it wasn’t one of her children. She couldn’t imagine losing Billy or Brian.

  Brian came home after dinner and was shocked when they told him about Kevin. Both boys were sad and silent that night. None of their friends could believe it, nor could Marilyn and Jack. She called Connie again that night to see how she was doing. She still couldn’t stop crying. She said she’d been in Kevin’s room trying to pick a suit for him to wear in his casket, and she dissolved in sobs again as she said it. Marilyn felt terrible that she couldn’t be at the house with them that night, but she couldn’t leave Jack alone with the twins when they needed to be nursed. In the few hours since her milk had come in, they were ravenous, and it wasn’t fair to leave him with starving babies who wouldn’t be satisfied with anything he had to give them. The timing was terrible, but Marilyn was determined to manage it somehow. She called Judy and asked her to come to Connie’s with her the next day. She had just heard from Gabby what had happened, and she couldn’t believe it. It was horrifying to think about and had shocked them all.

  Billy’s phone had been ringing all night as friends called him, and a little while later he went back to the O’Haras’ to stay with Sean. Izzie came over and sat and cried with them, and then Andy came by, and drove her home.

  Billy was still at the house when Marilyn got there in the morning. Judy had picked her up and helped her with the babies, and they took turns manning the phones and doing whatever they could for Connie. She and Mike had to go to the funeral parlor that morning to pick a casket and make the arrangements. But there was so much more to do, people to call, among them the florist, the priest, and the newspaper about the obit. Connie did what she could while they were out. There was going to be a rosary, they had to write a notice of the funeral, and Connie said it was going to be at St. Dominic’s, which was their parish and where Kevin had received his first Communion and been confirmed. It was unthinkable to any of them that they were talking about Kevin’s funeral, and when Marilyn glanced at Mike, he looked like a broken man.

  Sean was sitting on the front steps with Billy, who wore a woebegone expression. Gabby had come over, and Izzie showed up a little while later, and Andy called several times. No one knew what to do to help the O’Haras. They couldn’t bring Kevin back, and all they could do was be there for their friends. Marilyn couldn’t imagine living through it, but Connie was a strong woman, and by the time they left for the funeral parlor, she was able to stop crying at least for a few minutes. She was carrying Kevin’s suit with her on a hanger, and a white shirt and a tie, and she had socks and his dress shoes in a shopping bag. She looked sadly at Marilyn as she got into the car with her husband and reached out to hug her friend. The two women stood embracing for a long moment.

  “Thank you” was all she was able to say without sobbing again.

  “I love you” was all Marilyn could say, and from the bottom of her heart she meant it. “I’m so sorry.” Connie nodded and looked at her.

  “I know,” she said, and with that, Mike started the car and they drove away, to the funeral parlor where their beautiful older son would be washed and dressed and have his hair combed for the last time.

  Chapter 9

  Kevin O’Hara’s funeral was unbearable, unthinkable, intolerable for the entire group. The parents sat there listening to the eulogy, horrified, and at the same time grateful that it hadn’t happened to their own child. The friends he had grown up with came to mourn him and remember what a sweet kid he had once been. Connie, Mike, and Sean sat in the front pew, looking like they’d been struck by lightning, as the closed casket sat in front of them, like a warning to them all.

  The message was one that no one wanted to hear, parents and kids alike: “Be careful. Be watchful. Be smart. This could happen to you.” It had happened to them, and no one could wrap their mind around it. It was easy to say that Kevin had gone wrong somewhere, that he had been arrested, wound up in rehab, and spent two years on probation, but once upon a time he had been a little boy, an innocent child with the same chance at life as anyone else. Was it his fault? His parents’? His destiny? Life? What warning had they not heeded, what danger signs had they ignored? Why was it Kevin in the box at the front of the church and not someone else? Others had taken the same risks and hadn’t died. As she went over every minute of his life, as she sat in the front pew, Connie was no longer sure of anything. All she knew was that he was gone, and it was an agony beyond belief. A pain so enormous and intense that she felt as though her eyeballs were melting and her heart was on fire, and at the same time she felt ice cold.

  Connie didn’t know what she felt anymore except a searing pain as she watched her husband and younger son and six of Kevin’s classmates carry his casket out of the church and put it gently in the hearse to take to the cemetery, where they would put him in a hole in the ground and bury him. She wanted to throw herself in with him, she had loved him so much when he was born, but she couldn’t do that to Mike and Sean now. She had to be there for them, and be strong. She didn’t know how to do it—all she knew was that she had no other choice. Kevin had left her to hold up his brother and father, and she had none of the answers anymore. A piece of her own flesh had been shot and killed in a drug deal in the Tenderloin. It really was unthinkable. And they had no idea who had done it to him, only that he was dead and what drugs were in Kevin’s possession at the time. There was no one to punish, no one to avenge it, but even if they had found the killer, it wouldn’t bring her son back now.

  They drove out to the cemetery in the limousine they had hired, and stood at the graveside as the priest said a few words, and then Connie touched her son’s casket for a last time, the one they had picked with the white satin in it. He was wearing his suit and tie and best shoes, and they were going to leave him there, along with a part of her heart. She was too devastated to even cry on the way home, and everyone who had been at the funeral was waiting for them when they got back.

  Marilyn had come to the house to greet them, and Jack’s restaurant had catered it, like a bar mitzvah or a wedding, only it wasn’t, it was a funeral.

  Afterward Connie couldn’t remember who had been at the house. All she remembered was that Marilyn had set pictures of Kevin all around the living room
and in the front hall. And when it was all over, Mike and Sean were sitting in the study, looking like survivors of a shipwreck. Sean’s friends had stayed to support him, and the young people went upstairs to hang out in Sean’s room. Connie and Mike, and Marilyn and Jack, and Judy and Adam sat there staring at each other, unable to believe what had happened. All they knew was that Connie and Mike’s son Kevin was dead, but what did it mean? How did you come to understand that you’d never see a child you loved again? It was beyond imagining, and Connie kept expecting him to come downstairs any minute in his suit and tie and dress shoes and tell them it was all a joke. Only it wasn’t. It was all too real. His room would be empty forever. His trophies would gather dust and mean nothing. His clothes would hang in his closet until she had the courage to give them away. All Connie understood as she looked at Mike was that they’d never be the same again.

  “You two need to get some rest,” Marilyn said softly. They both looked exhausted, and Connie said they hadn’t slept since it happened.

  Jack’s staff had left the kitchen impeccable, and there was food for them to eat in the fridge, if they got hungry, but Connie couldn’t imagine their ever wanting to eat again. Her clothes were already hanging on her and felt too loose after only a few days.

  Marilyn and Jack finally left the O’Haras’ at dinnertime. The others had gone home long before. And Sean was still upstairs with his best friends. After they played some video games, Billy took out a flask and passed it around. There was bourbon in it, which was all he’d been able to take from his parents’ bar when no one was looking. Gabby and Izzie turned it away after one sip, but Billy, Sean, and Andy took long swigs until it was gone.

  “That’s not going to help anything,” Izzie said quietly, always the voice of their conscience in the group. “It’ll just make you feel worse.” Andy looked sheepish when she said it, Billy shrugged, and Sean lay down on his bed. He had nothing to say, and he was tired of people saying how sorry they were. They weren’t sorry, they didn’t even know. How did they know what it felt like? Even his friends. He would never see his brother again. He was suddenly an only child.

  “Do you want to stay at my place tonight?” Billy asked him. He could only guess how much his friend was hurting. He could see it in his eyes.

  “I should probably stay here,” Sean said with a sigh. It had been an exhausting day. “My mom and dad are in pretty bad shape,” he said matter-of-factly. The contents of the flask had helped to take the edge off. He no longer felt quite as raw, as though barbed wire had been tearing through his skin all day. With the help of the bourbon, he no longer felt the pain. And being numb felt good.

  Andy was the first to leave—he had promised to have dinner with his parents. And then Gabby and Billy left, and only Izzie stayed.

  “You’re going to be okay, you know. I know this must be horrible, and I’ve never had a sister or a brother, but somehow you’re going to make it through this. You’ll be okay.” If she hadn’t been a girl, he would have wanted to hit her, but even thinking it made him want to cry.

  “I’m going to stop things like that one day,” Sean said quietly, as they lay down side by side on his bed, and looked up at the ceiling. Sometimes he thought she was his best friend in the whole group, depending on the day.

  “How’re you going to do that?” she asked, sounding curious, as though they were little kids again and she was asking him how to catch a fish, or how a submarine worked, or what made the fog roll in.

  “I’m going to work for the FBI when I finish college, and I’m going to arrest assholes like the one who killed my brother.” Neither of them said that Kevin shouldn’t have been there in the first place. There was no point now, he was dead.

  “You always used to say that when you were a little kid.” She smiled at him.

  “Well, now I will.” He sounded certain, and she almost believed him. She knew he meant it at that moment.

  “You might change your mind when you get out of college. Maybe you’ll want to do something else.” She was always the voice of reason, and the most practical one of the five.

  “No, I won’t. I always knew I wanted to do something like that. I just didn’t know why. Now I do.” He turned over and lay on his side and looked at her then. He wondered what it would be like to kiss her, but he didn’t really want to, she was his friend.

  “I’m going to miss you when you’re away at school,” Izzie said simply, and he nodded.

  “I’m going to miss you too,” he said sadly, more than ever now. Losing Kevin would make being away from his friends even harder, and he hated to leave his parents after this. He could already feel it.

  “I wish you were coming to L.A.,” Izzie said wistfully.

  “I’ll see you at Thanksgiving and Christmas,” he said, and rolled slowly off his bed. “Come on, I’ll drive you home.”

  They said very little in the car—it was just nice being together. She was trying not to think of what it would have been like if the funeral had been for one of them today. She couldn’t imagine it and didn’t want to. And she wondered if Sean would really join the FBI one day. It still seemed like a dangerous idea to her. And he had new responsibilities to his parents now, as an only child.

  He dropped her off at her father’s house, and she told him she’d come by the next day. And he went back to the house that seemed so dead now. His parents’ bedroom door was closed when he got home, and the house was dark. He walked past Kevin’s bedroom on the way to his own, and for a minute he wanted to go in, and instead he walked into his own room and closed the door, lay down on his bed, and cried.

  Izzie and the others came to visit Sean every day, and most days Billy brought the flask with him, with whatever he’d been able to steal from his parents’ bar, when his mother was busy with the twins. They still annoyed him, but once they started smiling a little, he had to admit they were kind of cute. He even held them a couple of times. And Brian acted like he was in love with them. He had learned how to change their diapers and helped his mother put them to bed, which was something Billy had no desire to learn. But Gabby thought they were cute too. Billy was glad she was on the Pill and couldn’t get pregnant. He couldn’t have handled an accident of that kind, and knew he wouldn’t be ready for kids of his own for at least another ten or fifteen years.

  On the one day he couldn’t steal booze from his parents’ bar to put in the flask, he had gotten a homeless guy to buy him two six-packs of beer. Sean and Billy managed to get drunk every day for most of June. Originally it was in Kevin’s honor, and after a while it was something to do. All of them were bored, although some of them had summer jobs. Sean was helping his father a few hours a day, Izzie was working at a summer day camp at a community center, and Gabby was busy getting ready to leave and not working, and neither was Billy. Jack and his mom were giving Billy a break and said he didn’t have to work his last summer before college. He and Sean sat around drinking every afternoon instead. Andy had a summer job where he had to work mornings, but at lunchtime he came by to see his friends. He was working in a lab, and his mother had gotten him the job. They never let him do anything interesting at the lab, although they were impressed that he was going to Harvard and would be pre-med. But all they let him do anyway was take out the trash or hand forms and clipboards to the patients when they walked in. He wasn’t drinking as much as the others, but he took a sip now and then.

  It was Izzie who finally called them to order and called them a bunch of losers halfway through July.

  “What are you going to do when you’re in college? Sign up for AA? You’re turning into a bunch of drunks. You’re a drag to be with, and all you ever do is drink and play video games and feel sorry for yourselves. You make me sick.” She looked straight at Sean when she said it, and he hung his head. His brother had been dead for only five weeks, and everyone else had given him a pass, but not Izzie, and he knew she was right.

  “So what are we supposed to do?” Billy looked at her as Sean hande
d the flask back to him. This time he hadn’t taken a sip, for the first time in weeks.

  “Why don’t we go to the beach or something?” Izzie suggested.

  “Because it’s freezing,” Billy said practically. The fog had been in for days. San Francisco was always chilly in July and often dreary and gray, which didn’t help their mood.

  “So what? It’s something to do. Better than sitting around here drunk doing nothing.”

  So the next day, after they finished work at noon, they crossed the Golden Gate Bridge and went to Marin. They went to the state beach at Stinson, and had hamburgers, and then sat on the beach in the chill wind. But they all admitted they felt better when they got home.

  Izzie stayed and talked to Sean again after the others left. “Are you going to be okay when you go away to school?” She was worried about him, more than she was willing to admit. His parents looked terrible, but in some ways Sean looked worse. He had dark circles under his eyes and said he couldn’t sleep. He kept thinking about his brother and what must have happened when he died. It was driving him insane.

  “Yeah, I guess I will,” he answered Izzie, but he didn’t sound convinced.

  “You have to be now, for your parents’ sake,” she pointed out to him. “You’re all they have left.” It was a heavy burden for him. For her and Andy, as only children, it was the situation they’d been in all their lives. But their parents had had only children by choice. In Sean’s case, he was an only surviving son, which was considerably worse and more complicated. His parents would miss Kevin for the rest of their lives, and Sean knew he had to make it up to them somehow. It was all he could think of late at night. “Are you sure you still want to go east? You could transfer to UCLA, and then you’d be closer to them.” But he just shook his head. Now he really wanted to leave. He couldn’t stand it here anymore, knowing that Kevin wasn’t in his room and never would be again, and hearing his parents cry all the time. All he wanted to do now was get out. Izzie understood. It was hard even for her now being in his house, and she wasn’t living there.