“So now we just wait,” she says. “For the end.”
“Yeah.”
I get up and help her pack away the garbage. She tells me she’s going to sit for a while and enjoy the sun and the quiet and the sweet little high she’s riding. I put on my helmet and take hold of the spike, but as I’m about to walk away, the sounds of hard laughter and bikes being bashed over rough pathways clatter through the trees beyond the aviary. Three boys burst out of the trailhead and skid to a stop in a cloud of their own dust a few dozen feet away.
As the air clears, I recognize them. It’s Pat and a couple of friends who move around the school in a rough, awkward pack. Nameless drones. When Pat sees me and my mom, his eyes widen. He turns to his friends and tells them to head over to the basketball court, that he’ll catch up. They snicker and give him a hard time about it, but roll away, laughing, when he threatens them in a voice too low for me to hear. When they’re safely away, Pat pedals over, dismounts, and leans his bike against its kickstand. The canteen sling is a diagonal, insulting slash across his chest. My hand clenches tighter around the spike. Only he can ruin a moment so perfectly.
“Hey,” he says. And that’s it.
“I recognize you,” Mom says. “You’re Patrick.”
“Yes, ma’am. From Wendell’s school.”
Well, if that word doesn’t threaten to knock me out cold. Ma’am. That he used it. That he knows it at all. “One, always be polite to your elders, no matter what. Two, always introduce yourself and say sir and ma’am. Clear as mud?” Jesse’s voice — the one I hear in my memories — arrives untouched from the past, so pure I almost respond out loud. But, no. Not in front of Pat. Not again. No more material for him.
“What do you want?” I ask, hard.
Ordinarily Mom would snap at me to try again, to remember my manners. But she doesn’t. She understands what fed my stupid, misguided need to go after him with the knife. My actions not justified, of course, but there’s no need to paint things gold when they’re already stained red.
“Hey, uh, I saw the news. I had no idea.”
“So?”
“What happened to you … with your dad … it …” He stops. Looks down at his feet. Kicks the grass. “Well, it sucks.”
On a scale you can’t imagine, Pat. But there’s no way I’m talking to you about it. You look like you want to say more but I’ll stand here, spike in hand, if you don’t mind. Waiting for you to rip something open again.
He looks almost ready to say something else, but instead he shakes his head, quick, like he’s flinging away an unpleasant bit of business. He unslings the canteen and holds it out, the pouch dangling in the chasm between us. I reach out and take it back. There is the faintest smell of bleach. Like he washed and disinfected it. Must be my imagination.
It’s not enough. Not even close. But Mom isn’t feeling any of that. She’s looking at him with a sad smile and nodding. An appreciative, half smile you allow to burn through your grief. Momentary. Maybe because of the weed. Maybe something else. Pat looks up and sees her face and puffs out a breath. Embarrassed but relieved. Then he turns his attention back to the ground, kicking some poor bunch of grass free from its roots.
“So, yeah,” he says. “Okay.”
And with that he turns back to his bike, mounts it, and rides away across the grass. No goodbye. Mom and I share a look. Learning to accept what’s been offered. Whenever we can.
YOUR STORY
On my way home that evening, when I head back to the field house to store my stuff, I see a familiar blue car parked on the street nearby. Walters comes out of the building, cellphone in hand. Escorted by Gal, who shakes his head and turns back into the gloom. Looks like he’s not co-operating. Good. She leans against the wall and raises the phone, closes her eyes, and talks to it. Recording details. I change direction slightly, hoping she won’t open her eyes and see me. I can keep my garbage-collecting gear at home for one night. I’ll explain it to Gal in the morning. He’ll understand.
Wishful thinking. Not a millisecond after I make my decision, Walters opens her eyes and zeroes in on my safety vest. Smiles. Steps away from the building and walks, fast, toward me.
I stop and wait for her. In that same millisecond, what her presence means has become clear. Talking to Gal means she found out the specifics of my sentencing. And if she was able to find out about that, well, everything has been laid bare.
“So now you know,” I say when she draws close enough.
A momentary look of surprise. She nods. “I do.”
“Are the other reporters camped out at our place?”
“Probably. Or at least some of them.”
“What do you want?”
“I want to tell your story.”
“You and everyone else.”
“Not everyone wants to tell this part.”
“Isn’t that what every reporter says?”
“I was in court, remember? No one else is trying to go this deep, to look beyond your trip and the shooting. I think you have a lot more to say. As a survivor, sure. But about moving here, too. About your stepdad, if you want. And obviously with your mom’s permission.”
Stepdad. It’s not a passcode or anything, but no one else has had the sensitivity to use the proper term. And because the shooting happened in a school, to kids, there’s been a lack of survivor perspective. I get that. Kids are vulnerable. They need space to heal. But part of me thinks it would be good if other people could understand more about what happened. From those who were there. In our own words. Reconstructions and interviews with first responders and hospital staff only go so far. How can we get better unless we prevent the tragedy of children knowing how black and surprisingly small the muzzles of assault rifles are? Of children seeing friends butchered in front of them. The sights, the sounds, the smells. The voids that are left when friends and teachers are snatched away.
“I guess that makes sense,” I say.
“I’m glad.”
“Mom grew up here.”
“I know.”
“You went to school together.”
“Yeah.”
“She brought me back here after the shooting. Home, for her. Not for me. It’s hard to think about, much less talk about.”
“I get that. I’m sorry.”
“A lot of people say they’re sorry.”
“Please don’t misunderstand. Obviously, I hate that you or anyone went through what you went through. But I’m more sorry that we can be so awful to survivors. The media, I mean. I think we can do better.”
Uh huh. My head tilts, skeptical.
But she beats me there. She winces, as though she’s only then heard herself. “God, I sound like such a cliché. Anyhow, take this.”
Walters reaches into her satchel — which is identical to one Mom carries, only hers is a deep maroon, while Walters’s is a coyote brown — and pulls out a stack of business cards held together by a stained rubber band. I like that. Functional. Plain. She slides a card out and holds it out to me. Blue newspaper logo. Her name and contact info in raised black ink. White cardstock.
“Call any time. Day, night, whenever.”
“Okay.”
“And don’t worry. We have fickle appetites. Things will quiet down quickly after everyone files their stories about your most recent adventures.”
“Which you’ll do, too.”
“True. I have bills to pay, after all. But there’s no deadline for the bigger story. Take your time. When you’re ready.”
“If I’m ready.”
“Right. And make sure you tell your mom.”
“I will.”
She says a quiet goodbye and walks to her car. Drives off. I stuff the card into my pocket and go home, ducking my head and saying nothing to the full-auto questions from the reporters. There are fewer of them now, but those who remain make up for it with increased repetition and intensity.
GOODBYE, PART II
Mom’s in the kitchen chopping
vegetables. The smells of heat and chopped things fill the air. She smiles when I walk in and puts a finger to her lips. Gramma Jan’s dozing in the living room easy chair, head back and mouth open, a hardcover open on her lap. Mom comes over and gives me a hug.
“Smells good,” I say, my voice low.
“Thanks. I’m hungry today.” She winks.
“I can tell.”
There is a faint skunkiness wafting from her hair and clothes. She releases me and goes back to the cutting board and her ingredients laid out on the counter. Carrots. Celery. Onion. Zucchini. Brown rice measured out in a cup. All for the pot of gently boiling water on the stove. I can’t remember the last time she made homemade soup. Homemade anything, really.
“Did Cathy find you? She stopped by right after I got back from our lunch.”
“Cathy?”
“Walters. Sorry.”
I nod.
“What do you think of her?” she asks, lifting the cutting board above the hot water and scraping in the chopped veggies. She wipes her hands on a dishtowel. “Did she tell you what she wants to write?”
“Yes.”
Mom pours the rice into the pot. “Me, too.”
“Part of me wants to trust her.”
“I don’t. I’m not sure what good it would do. Talking to her made me want to pack us up again and find somewhere else to start over.”
“I don’t want to run away again.”
“Me neither, Dills. But —”
Mom’s cellphone rings. The chimey bells and vibration are nauseatingly sudden and loud in the stillness of the house. She reaches over as quickly as she can, but the damage has been done.
Gramma Jan stirs, her eyes fluttering open. “Answer the damn thing, Victoria.” Her voice like river stone dumped from a truck.
“Sorry. I thought I had the ringer off.” Mom taps the green button. “Hello?”
She listens, frowns, and looks at me. She places a hand over the microphone. “Reduce the heat when the soup boils, okay?”
“Sure.”
“Thanks,” she says over her shoulder as she heads into the family room. I try to hear what she’s saying, but she’s keeping her voice down.
Gramma Jan groans as she gets up from the chair behind me. She’s paler now, almost transparent. Beads of sweat appear on her lip, despite the coolness of the house. Only huge, deep pain can do that. She shuffles into the kitchen, leaning on a new cane. High tech. Like you could build an airplane out of it.
She sees me looking. “Stupid thing. Made the mistake of falling in front of the doctor.”
“Can I get you anything? Your meds?”
“Hell, no. They got me on the strong stuff now. Bottles and bottles of it. Makes it hard to think. And go to the bathroom. God, painkillers bung you up something good.”
“Gross. TMI, Gramma.”
“TMI?”
“Too much information.”
She snorts, but it brings a fresh flash of pain. Her features twist and she has to exhale long and slow to manage it. She sits down on one of the kitchen chairs, rests the cane across her thighs.
“Gramma —?”
“NEI, you mean. Not enough information. If telling you about my inability to take a shit keeps you from making the same mistakes I did, so be it.”
“Mistakes?”
“Mistakes, regrets. They pile up.”
We hear the beeping of the keypad on the side door and a clunk as the door is closed hard on the frame. Enough to rattle the other doors in the house, old things on old hinges. Aunt Viv comes in, shaking her head, her mouth set. She drops a loud, long, acidic F-bomb. When she sees Gramma Jan and me standing there, she hooks a thumb over her shoulder toward the reporters outside. “Leeches,” she says. “Every damn one of them.”
“Language, Vivian. In this house —”
Aunt Viv rolls her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, purity of word and thought and all that. Wonder where I get it from.”
“Don’t be sarcastic with me, young lady.”
Aunt Viv moves beside Gramma Jan and leans over for a side hug. “How are you feeling?”
“Oh, I’m super, dear.” Her voice is exaggerated, that of an old woman in a classic movie. She holds up the cane. “I’m bionic, don’t you know!”
I’m watching this in real time and yet I can’t believe it. Half apologies and hugs and witty repartee. Makes me feel like I’m witnessing the interactions of some alien family in a parallel universe.
Aunt Viv lifts her chin in greeting to me. I give her a low wave. No words right now. All this bizarrely comforting strangeness is leaving me without much to say. She holds up and shakes her keys, declaring that her car is fixed and humming along, which you’d expect given how much coin she just dropped on the dealership. Her phone beeps and she glances at the screen. Frowns.
“Bad news?” Gramma Jan asks.
“No,” Aunt Viv says, distracted. “I was expecting that by now he’d …” She stops.
“He?” Gramma Jan asks.
Aunt Viv shakes her head, embarrassed to have revealed as much as she did.
“She’s talking about Sean,” I say to Gramma Jan.
“You’re too good for him, Vivian.”
Aunt Viv squirms. Visibly.
I ask, “He hasn’t come around?”
“I wasn’t expecting a full pardon or anything, but still.”
“He was pretty pissed.”
“Still is, apparently,” Aunt Viv says, looking perplexed. An unfamiliar emotion for her. Usually it’s all confidence and brashness. As though she fully expected that Sean’s emotions should be as hackable as the tech she deals with. But apparently his anger is offline. And all his own.
Mom comes back into the kitchen, looking like someone has punched her somewhere tender. The three of us watch her put the phone down and move to the stove. She stirs the soup without looking at it. She isn’t seeing us either, even as she starts talking.
“That was the lawyer. Jesse’s and my lawyer, I mean. From Windsor.”
She pauses. Gramma Jan, Aunt Viv, and I exchange looks but wait for her to continue.
“You know that the lawyer has power of attorney. But the hospital also has her as Jesse’s first emergency contact. Not me. God, what a fight that was. Me, trying to build space between what happened and our family, and the hospital administrator needing to fill in his forms —”
“What did she say?” I hear myself asking.
“I was worried that someone might access the records. I didn’t want our names to —”
“Victoria Sims,” Gramma Jan says, her voice as firm as I’ve ever heard it. “Tell us.”
Mom takes a deep breath. Exhales. “Jesse’s dying.”
“And?” says Aunt Viv.
“He’s dying, Viv.”
“He’s been dying for months.”
Mom’s mouth opens and closes. Aunt Viv’s words true but as blunt as ever.
“He never woke up,” I say. “We’ve kind of known this was coming, right?”
“I guess that’s true,” Mom says, her hand coming up to rub her right temple. Hard. “But the lawyer said that his organs have begun failing. That it’s just a matter of time.”
“I don’t know what that means,” I say.
“No one does, kiddo. It’s just what they say.”
Aunt Viv and Gramma Jan offer advice, weigh in on next steps, on what it could mean. I can hear the attempt at comfort in there, the need to help shore up what might crumble. Well meant, all of it. But it basically centres on getting ready to move on from this. To let him die while we carry on here. Embark on the next phase of our involuntarily shifted life. Like the ground has become permanently uneven but we can work and learn to get our balance back. They’re eclipsing Jesse, though. And not seeing a mother, either. Not seeing a wife.
There are lots of words but Mom isn’t hearing any of them. She’s moved herself into that hazy place you go when you understand that grief is on the way but you can’t quite see its
shape.
It feels like a long time before Mom does anything, but finally she moves. She turns off the stove and slides the soup to the cool space between the elements. She picks up her cellphone. Unlocks it. Dials. Gramma Jan and Aunt Viv seem to notice that Mom is moving independently of their ideas, and they fall silent as she makes the call.
“Hello? Are you still open? … Good … I know it’s late notice, but do you have anything available for tonight? … Windsor … A large sedan would be fine … Yes, I need a pickup.”
She rattles off our address, thanks the faceless person on the other end of the line, and disconnects the call. Looks around the room.
“I need to pack,” she says. “He’ll be here in fifteen minutes.”
“I want to come with you,” I say.
She shakes her head and points down at my ankle monitor. “You literally can’t, Dills.”
“This doesn’t feel finished.”
“It’s not. Not yet.”
Mom lays a hand on my shoulder as she passes me. She tells me that I’m first on her list of people to call when there’s anything to update. Then she’s gone upstairs to her room to pack.
Gramma Jan and Aunt Viv resume their conversation, quieter now, as though they’re afraid Mom will hear them through the ceiling. They talk for a few minutes. Aunt Viv’s phone chimes a few times with new texts but she ignores it. They fall silent. All talked out, thank God, Jesse would say. He hates small talk.
Gramma Jan stands, slow and fragile and shaking, leaning on her space-age cane. “I’m taking my old bones to bed, kids.”
“But Vicky’s still —”
“Tell me in the morning, Vivian. I’m done in.”
Aunt Viv nods, moves to Gramma Jan’s side, and takes her arm, which sparks a round of weak but flinty swearing. She doesn’t refuse the help, though.
Nothing but Life Page 20