by Claire Adams
“He had a good time. We made sure he stayed hydrated,” my mother said. She set her glass down. “Declan said his teacher stayed over here the other night?”
“His teacher, our neighbor,” I said. I nodded in the direction of Allie’s house. “There was a bit of an incident at the fundraiser, and I thought she should stay over, just to be on the safe side.”
“Is everything all right?”
“They let someone ride one of the jet skis who shouldn’t have been on it, and she ended up colliding with Allie, and she hit her head. But she’s fine.”
“Oh, my.” My mother shook her head. “Those things can be very dangerous.”
“Not if you know how to use them properly, which this person didn’t. Everyone is lucky that nothing more serious happened.”
“That was nice of you to let her stay here like that.” My mother sighed and rubbed her eyes.
“Everything okay?” I asked. “You’ve seemed kind of... I don’t know, like something’s been bothering you.”
My mother pursed her lips and frowned, a sure sign that something was not actually okay.
“We saw Sam today,” she said softly. “At the grocery store. He works there now. The one over in Wakeby. We had just stopped on our way over to get some of those cookies that Declan likes.”
I nodded. “How’s he doing?”
“I didn’t talk to him,” she said, shaking her head. “No, we didn’t talk to him. He was bagging groceries in another line, and I happened to see him so we just went and did the self-checkout. I think your father wanted to talk to him, but I didn’t. Couldn’t.” She shook her head again. “I didn’t think he’d be able to work. Even something like bagging groceries. That surprised me.”
Sam Powell had been my little sister Marissa’s boyfriend, a kid from the wrong side of the tracks if there ever was one. He’d gotten the shit kicked out of him not long before my sister got sent away, effectively ending their relationship. The beating he took had caused him permanent brain damage, though I had a feeling that if she were alive today, none of that would have mattered to Marissa, and she’d still be with him.
“Do you think I should have talked with him?”
“Only if you wanted to,” I said.
She gave a short, strangled-sounding laugh. “Wanted to? What would I have said to him? That’s what I said to your father when we were finally out in the car—what exactly was it that he was planning to say?”
“I don’t know, Mom,” I said. I rubbed a hand over my eyes. This wasn’t the conversation I wanted to be having right now. Or ever, really.
I was saved, though, when my father asked me how the practice was going, and we started to talk about that, instead. The conversation then moved on to the weather, to sports, to how Declan was doing in school. And then Declan was up from his nap, a little bleary-eyed at first, his hair sticking up on one side of his head.
“What do you feel like doing for the rest of the day, buddy?” I asked.
“Can we get ice cream?”
“I did promise him we could get ice cream,” my mother said. “We were going to stop on the way home, but I could tell that he was too tired.”
“Too tired for ice cream?” I raised my eyebrows.
“I’m not too tired anymore! Look how much energy I have!”
And Declan shot off my father’s lap and started racing around the backyard like a pinball.
“Must be nice to have all that energy,” my dad said, laughing.
I was about to tell Declan that we could go get ice cream then, but then he must’ve spied Allie, because he shot across the yard and into her backyard, yelling her name.
“Where’s he going?” my mother asked. I stood up.
“Why don’t you come meet Declan’s teacher,” I said.
My mother brightened. “The woman you saved?”
“Yes, Mom, though we don’t need to refer to her as that, okay? Her name’s Allie.”
Allie must’ve been working in the garden, because that’s where we found the two of them when we got over there. She stood up and brushed her hands off when she saw that my parents were with me.
“Nice to meet you,” she said after they introduced themselves.
“We’re going to get ice cream!” Declan said.
Allie wiped at her forehead. “Are you?” she asked. “It’s certainly a good day for it.”
“Why don’t you join us?” my mother asked. “We were just going to go into town and get this boy here an ice cream—it’d be lovely if you joined us. That is, if you feel up to it, of course—I heard about what happened at the fundraiser. I hope you’re all right.”
“I’m fine,” Allie said. “Just a little banged up, but luckily, Cole was there. And I feel much better now.”
“We’re so glad to hear that,” my mother said.
We all packed into the Range Rover, my mother insisting that I sit in the front and she, Allie, and Declan in the back. It felt a little bit awkward at first, like I was on a date with my parents with my son in tow, but I could tell that it was definitely helping my mother’s mood to be around Allie, which was good. I didn’t want my mother to think about running into Sam because I knew all the guilt that would bring up for her.
Chapter Thirteen
Allie
After we got back from getting ice cream, I said goodbye to Cole’s parents and did a few errands. Amy had texted and asked if I wanted to do dinner and said she would come by with takeout food.
“My mother would be very impressed,” I said. We were sitting at the kitchen table surrounded by containers of Chinese food.
“What do you mean?”
“She’s just under the impression that a place like this wouldn’t have something like takeout.”
“I did have to drive into Gardner for this,” Amy admitted. “I haven’t had Chinese food in forever, but every once in a while, I get a wicked bad craving for it, and this place has the best crab rangoons.”
“They are very good.”
“So you’re feeling fine? I still can’t believe that happened at the fundraiser.”
“Yeah, I feel fine. No aftereffects.”
“I know I keep talking about it, but it was so romantic,” Amy gushed. “Well, it was actually really scary when it was happening, but now that it’s over with and we know that you’re okay, it seemed very romantic!” She grinned. “He just jumped into the water after you with all his clothes on, and he swam out to you so fast. It was incredible. And Lily was in the water, too, thrashing around, but he completely went right by her. Maybe he could tell that she was okay, I don’t know, but it’s like he didn’t even see her.”
“He probably knew she was fine,” I said.
“Who knows? You were his main concern. And he got you out and carried you out of the water—”
“Okay, that’s enough,” I said, cringing, hating to think of me being carried, unconscious, onto the beach in front of all the students and their parents. “Shit, I hope it wasn’t completely traumatizing for the kids.”
“It was really scary,” she said. “I was scared for you. But Cole was so calm the whole time, and I think it made everyone else feel really calm, too, like he had it under control. Which makes sense, considering he’s a doctor and all, but still. One of the other dads helped Lily out of the water—her husband wasn’t even there when it happened; he was up at the parking lot on some business call or something.”
I shook my head. “I really wish the whole thing hadn’t happened. I was having a perfectly good time before that.”
“We’re glad you’re okay.”
“I met Cole’s parents today,” I said. “We went out for ice cream.”
Amy made a face. “I met them once.”
“You did?”
“Well, they came to orientation, before Declan was officially enrolled here. I only talked to them a little bit. They seemed okay and everything, but sort of... I don’t know...pretentious? I know they’re really well-off, but it
felt like they were looking down on everyone else. Like they were trying really hard not to be that way, but they just couldn’t help it.”
“Oh,” I said. “Huh. I didn’t really get that impression.”
“Maybe they’ve changed, I don’t know.”
“If anything, his mother seemed kind of...melancholy.”
“I guess rich people can get sad, too.” She shook her head. “That was mean, I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sure they’re very nice; it’s just hard sometimes to shake someone’s first impression, you know?”
“Yeah,” I said. “There was definitely something going on there, but I’m not sure what.”
After we pretty much finished all of the food, Amy hung out for a while longer. When she was ready to leave, I walked her out to her car. As I was walking back in, I saw that Cole’s garage door was open, the light on. I went over, thinking I’d say goodnight and tell him that I’d had a good time earlier with his parents.
“Knock knock,” I said.
He had a work bench set up at the back of the garage, and his bike was in the stand. He was standing at the work bench, his back to me, but he turned when he heard me.
“Oh, hey,” he said.
“Hey. I saw that the light was on.”
“Yeah, just tuning this thing up a little bit. How are you doing?”
“Good. Amy stopped by with dinner; I think we polished off about four containers of Chinese food.”
“Impressive.”
I laughed. “Yeah, sort of. Hey, it was nice getting to meet your parents,” I said.
Cole smiled. “Yeah, they really liked you. In case you couldn’t tell.”
“Your mom seemed kind of sad.”
“It’s this time of year. My sister died on the 17th, and that anniversary is coming up, so it’s always a hard time for my mother.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry, I had no idea.”
“We don’t talk about it that much.”
“What happened?”
He paused. “She died of a drug overdose. It happened just a few days after she got out of rehab, actually. My parents had sent her away up north to this recovery program. She was up there for a while, actually, and we went up to get her, but instead of driving straight home, my mom wanted to make it a bit of a celebration, so we were staying at this bed and breakfast a few towns over. It was about a five-hour drive from my parents’ place, so almost in Canada. And that’s when Marissa decided to do it. We don’t know where she got the drugs from; as far as any of us knew, she’d been clean.”
I touched his shoulder. He had a pained expression on his face. “I’m so sorry. I can’t even begin to imagine what that must’ve been like.”
“I was the one to find her. Which was incredibly fucked up, but in a way, I’m glad it was me and not my mother, because I don’t think she would have been able to handle that. I think that would have sent her over the fucking edge.”
“Wow,” I said. “Cole, I’m so sorry.”
I wanted to kiss him, but I knew that wouldn’t be the right thing to do right now, not when he was telling me this.
“There’s some things you just can’t take back, can’t change,” he said. “No matter how badly you want to.”
It seemed like there was something more he wanted to say, but when I waited for him to elaborate, he didn’t, so I didn’t push it. If there was something else, though, I hoped that he’d feel like he could talk to me about it. Because sometimes talking about it really did help, even if there was nothing you could do to change it.
Chapter Fourteen
Cole
June 17th.
The day my sister died.
I’d need to call my mother later and let her cry on the phone, as she’d done every year since Marissa’s death. They’d sent her up north to a rehab in the hopes of getting her off of the opioids that Sam had gotten her hooked on, and the few times we’d gone up to visit her, she’d seemed better, like she was on the road to recovery.
We’d all felt as though things were getting better, that life was getting back on the track that it was supposed to be on.
Sometimes, I replayed the scene in my head, going into my sister’s room to find her, slumped on the floor, the needle still sticking out of her arm. How long had she been there? Where had she gotten the drugs? Her skin was lukewarm, her lips tinged blue; there was nothing anyone could have done. But I still couldn’t help but wonder if I’d gone in sooner, if we hadn’t stayed at the bed and breakfast, if my parents hadn’t sent her away to that place to begin with, if maybe things would’ve gone differently.
My 1:30 appointment had canceled, so I shut myself in my office and called my parents’ house. My father picked up.
“Hi, Dad,” I said. “How are you?”
He sighed heavily. “We’re doing the best we can,” he said. “Today is always a hard day.”
“I know. That’s why I’m calling.”
“You aren’t at work right now?”
“No, I am, but there’s a break between patients.”
“Oh, okay. Well, we appreciate you calling. We went to your sister’s grave earlier this morning.” There was a pause. “I wonder what she would’ve been like today if she was still alive,” he said.
My father didn’t talk about Marissa much; I knew that he wanted to come across as strong, especially for my mother, but I knew how much it bothered him. He and I were alike in many ways, we both wanted to think that we could fix things, that we could take care of things. But the whole thing with Marissa had shown us, if nothing else, how little control we really had over anything.
“I think about that sometimes, too,” I said. “How’s Mom doing?”
“About as well as you’d expect. Would you like to speak to her? Here she is.”
He got off the phone before I could object; I could tell from the slight quiver in his voice that he was doing his best to hold his tears back. The only time I had ever seen my father cry had been at Marissa’s funeral.
“I’m so glad you called,” my mother said when she got on the phone. “Thank you.”
“Of course,” I said. “How are you?”
“I’m trying to hold it together. Today is always hard. I planted some pansies at your sister’s gravesite. It looks very nice. There was some moss growing on the headstone, but I scraped that off.”
“I’m sure it looks nice there, Mom,” I said.
“We were there for a while. I know your father wanted to leave, but I just couldn’t. I know that doesn’t entirely make sense, since she’s not really there, but I always feel like I’m leaving her behind.”
“I just don’t understand why this had to happen,” my mother sobbed. “Still, all these years later, and it hurts as much as it did when we first found out. She’d been clean for so long—why would she use again? She had such a bright future ahead of her. She’d turned a corner—the hard stuff was in the past. Wasn’t it?”
“That’s what everyone thought, Mom. But obviously it wasn’t, at least not in her mind.”
“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to understand it.”
“You might not,” I said. “We’re all trying to do the best we can. I know it doesn’t always seem perfect, and things haven’t gone how anyone thought they would, but we’re all trying, Mom.”
“You are more than anyone. I feel so guilty—”
“Don’t.”
“But I do. Everything that you’ve taken on, that you’ve had to deal with, it hasn’t been fair to you, and—”
“Mom, I’m not doing anything I don’t want to, okay? We’re a family, right? Remember you were always telling us that? That we’re a family, we’re all on the same team, and sometimes that means stepping up and doing things for the team. That’s just how it goes.”
“I just wonder sometimes how things might have been different if I hadn’t asked you to—” Abruptly, she stopped talking. My father must have come back into the room. “Thank you again for calling,” she said. �
�You know it means so much to me.”
“I love you, Mom,” I said. “I better get going; I’ve got another patient to see in a few minutes. I’ll see you guys on Sunday, okay?”
“Okay, sweetie,” she said. “I love you, too.”
I got off the phone and then leaned forward, putting my arms on my desk, then resting my forehead on top of my arms.
That evening, after Declan had a bath and I got him to bed, I went into my bedroom and opened the closet. It was a walk-in closet, with a shelf running along one of the walls, about eye level. Toward the back was a shoe box with things like my birth certificate, my passport, and a life insurance policy. I took the box down and opened it. Inside, underneath all my own personal belongings, was a folded piece of notebook paper. I took it out and unfolded it, the creases soft, the paper starting to yellow. My sister’s loopy handwriting in blue ink still seemed just as bright as it had been the day I’d found the note next to her already-cooling body.
I just don’t want to live anymore. I know that’s not the right thing
to say, the right way to feel, but it’s the truth. I’ve caused other
people so much pain, and I’m so tired. I hope you can forgive me
and not blame yourselves because there is nothing anyone could
say that would change my mind. All I ever wanted was to be happy,
but for some reason, despite all the privilege I was born into,
I am unable to feeling anything but this overwhelming sadness.
I forgive you, Cole, for what you did—
I stopped reading. The letter continued for several more lines, and sometimes I was able to make it to the end, sometimes I was only able to read the first couple of words.
I forgive you, Cole.
As if she knew I’d be the one to find her.
What she probably did not realize, though, was that I would take that letter and slip it into my pocket and never speak to anyone about it. Everything that had already been going on with Marissa had really taken its toll on my mother. Well, both my parents, but especially my mother. She had cultivated such a truly wonderful upbringing for the two of us, that something happening like this just would not be something she could cope with. Especially not my sister choosing to take her own life. My mother would take that personally.