by S. R. Grey
Chase leaves and I actually feel much better, definitely distracted. As usual, my boy has done a good job of making me forget the worries of the day. But, as time passes, one by one, the worries plaguing me earlier seep back into my consciousness.
How can I forget Doug Wilson is in town, or that his mother is in the hospital and in serious condition? But what brings a lump to my throat is the thought that it’s almost time to go to the cemetery behind the church and visit with my dead little sister, the little girl who died four years ago today.
Work ends and I start my journey. I leave my purse behind in the rectory. I don’t bring Peetie either. Today it’s just me, for better or worse. The sun burns low in the sky as I walk past the iron gate and make my way to the back of the graveyard.
But when Sarah’s grave comes into view, I falter. There’s someone standing there—a woman—right in front of her marker.
I creep closer. This lady doesn’t hear my approach. Her head is down, and her hair, the color of mine, shields her face.
Oh, my God.
I know this woman. I don’t need to see her face. I’m not even close enough for her to hear a word I say, but my mouth opens of its own accord and one word tumbles forth, “Mom?”
I don’t know how she hears me—maybe there’s some unbreakable mother-daughter bond that is still there, alerting her to my presence—but my mother turns to me and our eyes meet, caramel-on-caramel. I release a breath I didn’t realize I was holding and sway unsteadily on my feet.
My body is torn. Do I run to this woman or crumple to the ground. I kind of do both, I take a few steps in my mother’s direction, and then pitch forward. I land on my bare knees, the skirt of my dress puddling around me as my fingers dig into the cool blades of grass.
My mother turns and comes to me, and for the first time in a very long time I see compassion in her eyes.
“Kay,” she whispers when she reaches me. “I had a feeling I’d find you here tonight.”
This woman… This woman, who has rejected me for four years, has apparently sought me out. But why? Why tonight? Why this anniversary and none of the others? Are four years of no communication sufficient penance in her eyes?
Tears blur my vision and I rock back on my heels. I look away. But my mother is not deterred—she kneels down right beside me. She says my name again and reaches for my hand. I don’t want her to touch me, so I resist. But I ultimately let her wrap her cool fingers around my hand. She’s always had this hold over me. I am powerless around her.
My mind wars with itself to take some sort of a stand, one way or the other. Part of me fears this woman, and that part urges me to twist my hand from hers and run away, fast as I can. But another part of me is drawn to this person who gave me life. And that part wants nothing more than for my mother to grab me up, hold me, and tell me I am forgiven.
I can’t make up my mind; I don’t know what to do. Hell, I can’t even move. But I don’t have to decide anything as my mother pulls me into her arms.
I resist a little, out of fear she’ll end up re-breaking my just-now-mending heart. But there’s something in me—some bond forged by shared DNA, perhaps—that’s stronger than reason or emotion. Deep in my heart I long for what we all desire, I want my mother to accept me, love me, for who I am. And that need for acceptance, that craving to feel loved, makes me relax into this woman whose arms I’ve not felt around me for almost half a decade.
She holds me and I am transported back in time. In her arms, I sob like a child, “Mom, Mom…Mommy.”
I am no longer a woman of twenty-three—I’m a little girl who wants her mother. My cheek presses to her bosom, my body shakes. I am wracked with grief.
My mom grips me tighter, but I am inconsolable. “Kay, oh, honey, what have I done? God forgive me. I am so sorry. I’ve missed you every single day, I have. I denied it to myself for so long, and why?” She pauses, choking up. “I was wrong about so many things. I’ve spent years believing something I found out today isn’t even true. Can you ever forgive me, Kay?”
I pull away and swipe and swipe at tears that keep coming and coming. I stare at my mother. I don’t understand what she’s talking about. Is she asking me to forgive her for disowning me? Does she seek absolution for not speaking to me for four years? Has she finally realized what Chase has been helping me to believe is true—that it doesn’t matter I left Sarah alone? That if anyone carries a modicum of blame, then that person is Doug? And what did she find out today that changed her thinking? I am so confused.
My mother touches my cheek. Her eyes assess mine. She must see my uncertainty, as she takes a deep breath and begins her explanation.
She tells me she came into town early this morning, after she found out about Doug’s mother’s accident. I should have considered my mother might show up in Harmony Creek; she and Mrs. Wilson are still great friends, after all.
“Doug was at the hospital,” she says, and I tense at the mention of his name. “Kay, he told me the truth. He told me what really happened that night.”
I scoot back. “What are you talking about?” I ask, more confused than ever. “I told you the whole story after Sarah’s funeral. You know everything.”
My mother’s face fills with guilt. “That’s not what happened. Well, not exactly. There was a detail you were unaware of. We all were. That’s the blank Doug filled in this morning.”
My mouth is agape, I am unsettled and lost. I stare at my mother. I can’t shake this feeling that my world is shifting on its axis. “What did he say happened?” I nervously ask.
What does Doug Wilson know that I don’t? What has he been keeping a secret for all these years? Obviously it’s something big if it’s enough to have turned my hard-line mother around. I close my eyes and wait to hear what she has to say.
“Kay, Doug’s broken up about his mother…I think that’s why he told me. He wants to make things right. He said he can’t bear the guilt of keeping his role in Sarah’s death silent any longer.”
His role? He already bears some responsibility, but is there more? I open my eyes and stare at where my knee is touching my mother’s. Mine is bare, my mother’s is clad in expensive linen.
“What did he tell you?” I prod.
She takes a breath. “Kay, Doug was the one who unlocked the patio door.” What? “He said he went outside to put something in the recycle bin out near the pool.” His empty beer can. “He said he forgot to relock the door when he went back inside.”
Yeah, forgot because he was too busy hurrying to get to the stairs, to trap me there, to back me into my bedroom. Fucking asshole. He’s kept this secret for all these years. If he’d only come clean right away, this rift between me and my mother might never have taken hold.
Doug confesses his secret now because his mother’s been in an accident? Does he think he can bargain with God? He’s so arrogant he probably does.
I am seething. All the rage I’ve kept bottled up for four years—rage at myself, rage at my mother for abandoning me, rage at God for taking Sarah—it all redirects to Doug Wilson. He better hope he doesn’t run into me.
I swear and my mother frowns. “What?” I hiss, scooting farther away. “So, you think everything is okay now?”
She shakes her head. “No, no, I don’t. I know it will take time for us to heal. I know I reacted too harshly—”
“Harshly?” I interrupt, not wanting to hear her excuses.
I yell, “Fucking Doug kept what he did a secret for four years.” My mom winces but stays quiet. “He allowed me to believe it was my fault, he allowed you to believe it was my fault. I’ve thought for so long that I was the one who neglected to lock that door, and all this time…”
One desperate sob escapes me.
“Doug is a fucking bastard,” I whisper.
I try to stand, but I can’t. My strength has abandoned me, I have no more fight. The truth should be setting me free, yet I feel no lighter.
I start to cry, and my mother closes th
e gap between us and enfolds me in her arms. “It’s nobody’s fault, Kay. It’s taken me a long time to accept this, but Sarah’s drowning was an accident.”
I cry harder as I cling to the back of her blouse. “You hated me for four years, Mom. How could you do that? You missed my graduation. You missed my first day as a teacher. I’m good at what I do, but you wouldn’t even know that—you know nothing of my life.”
“I never hated you, Kay—”
“Liar,” I weep. I try to pull away, but she’s so much stronger.
My mother expects me to be angry with her, she tells me this. But she also says she’s tired of holding on to her own anger, anger she’s taken out on me for far too long. I ask her if she plans to excommunicate Doug Wilson like she did to me, but she just shrugs her shoulders. And it’s then that I notice how much older my mother appears.
There’s gray streaked through her hair and deep lines on her face. Maybe being apart from me has hurt her too. She may be stubborn and hard, but I am bound to her. I don’t want to do the same thing to her that she did to me. I’ve tasted revenge, and it’s not always sweet. The time we have on this planet is too short for playing games. Anything can happen, at any time. I think of how suddenly I lost Sarah, how suddenly Chase lost his dad. Death makes permanent decisions without our consent all the time, why hasten the inevitable?
Besides, I’m tired of not being on speaking terms with my mother. Maybe she and I can start anew. Things will never be as they should—there’s too much water under the bridge—but surely we can scrape together something to make up for all this wasted time.
So I stay where I am.
I sit with my mother for a while, right there on the evening-dew-coated grass. I talk with her in a way we haven’t spoken in years. And she actually listens. I even tell her a little about Chase. My mom smiles and says he sounds like a special guy. She has no idea of what an understatement that is.
Eventually, my mom and I stand to stretch our legs. She gives me a look, a sad smile, and I know what she’s thinking. She wants us to go over to Sarah’s grave, together.
I nod, and we walk arm in arm to my sister’s granite marker. My mother and I kneel in the shadow of the old oak and hold tightly to one another as we reminisce about a little girl we both loved and lost.
My mother does most of the talking, and that’s fine with me. I listen as she shares some of her earliest memories of my sister—Sarah being born, her holding her new child for the first time, her handing Sarah to me so I could hold a baby sister for the first time.
“Remember that day at the hospital?” my mother asks, tears in her eyes.
How could I forget? I think of how tiny and pink my baby sister was. “I loved her already, then,” I croak out.
Mom squeezes me near. “I did, too,” she whispers as she kisses the top of my head. “I did, too.”
I share one memory of my own—that autumn day in the apple orchard—but I keep the rest to myself. I also don’t mention the journals I write in, nor do I share how I recite three precious memories to Sarah every week right here at this grave. These are pieces of my life I share with only one person, the man I love and trust—Chase.
I’ll give my mother a chance, sure. I mean, I can’t deny I still love her. But forgiving her completely for what she’s done to me may take a little longer.
My mother grabs up my hand and our eyes meet. She smiles at me, in a way I used to see her smile only at Sarah. Maybe she really does love me. I squeeze her hand a little, and it seems we reach an unspoken understanding, to take things one day at a time.
We’ve got a long haul ahead, but this is a start, a new beginning.
My mother leaves the cemetery before I do. I stay at Sarah’s grave, kneeling in the grass.
Ten minute pass, then fifteen. I think about leaving, heading home, but I can’t seem to move quite yet. Now that I’m alone, I am overwhelmed with emotion.
Tears stream down my cheeks. Out of sorrow, out of relief—I don’t know which. My guilt over Sarah’s death began to diminish when Chase heard my admission and didn’t turn away, but finding out it was Doug Wilson who unlocked that door—not that I had forgotten to lock it in the first place—has allowed the last remnants of guilt to lift and leave me forever. I feel freer than I ever felt before. However, I can’t stop crying.
Losing my guilt doesn’t make grief disappear. In some ways it heightens my sorrow, since sorrow is all I have left. I will always miss my Sarah—this is a fact—and nothing will ever lessen the ache that resides in the deepest recesses of my heart.
I lie down and place my cheek against the grass. It’s cool to the touch and smells of life. I inhale deeply, and eventually the tears begin to slow.
Life…
I think about how I have been living lately, really living. Mostly due to one man, my blue-eyed boy, the one person in this world who teaches me more about life and living on a daily basis than anyone ever has in the past.
Chase. Finding him has made all this loss so much more bearable.
I sit up and brush myself off. It’s almost dark. Chase should be on his way back with his brother by now. I long to hear his voice, and I want to tell him all that has happened this evening. Also, I can’t wait to meet this brother he loves so dearly.
When I get to the car I call Chase’s cell, but it goes directly to voicemail. I find it odd he’s not answering, but I don’t think too heavily on it. Even as I leave the church parking lot and turn right. I don’t dwell on why my boy may have shut off his phone.
But something in the back of my mind tells me perhaps I should.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHASE
I am supposed to pick my brother up in the baggage claim area, but when I get there Will is nowhere to be found. It’s after seven. I check the monitors, the flight from Vegas landed fifteen minutes ago. My brother should be here by now.
I watch a few bags go by on the carousel, then read a couple of the tags. Yep, definitely luggage from the Vegas-to-Pittsburgh flight.
Stepping back, I watch passengers from Will’s flight retrieve their belongings. Soon, the bags and people are all gone, but still there’s no sign of my brother.
What the fuck?
I call Will, but there’s no answer. Next I dial Mom. She answers and when I tell her Will wasn’t on the flight, she—of course—panics.
“What? I dropped him off at the airport, Chase. He had his bag, his boarding pass, he was ready to go.” She sucks in a breath. “Oh my God, do you think something happened? Maybe he’s been kidnapped. Oh, Chase.” Mom’s voice has progressed from worried to shrill, and now she’s just flat-out crying.
I calm my mother as best as I can, I tell her Will probably just missed his flight. But the truth is I’m worried too. Shit, this fucking sucks.
Just as I am about to panic myself, someone beeps through. I pull the phone away from my ear and check the screen. It’s Will. Thank God.
Mom breathes out an audible sigh of relief when I inform her that her youngest son is alive and apparently well. Before I switch over to my brother’s call she asks me to have Will call her as soon as he and I are done talking.
“Will do,” I say in what I hope is a comforting tone.
Then, when I switch over to Will, I become all, “Where the fuck are you? The flight you were supposed to be on came in half an hour ago. Mom’s about ready to have a heart attack, you know.”
Will kind of groans, “Dude, I’m sorry, but something came up, my plans changed.” He pauses, sighs. “Did you really have to call Mom, though?”
“Yes, Will, I really did,” I snap back.
Truth be told, I am trying to keep my anger in check, but this kid is getting on my last fucking nerve.
“She is your mother,” I continue, “and when you didn’t show up what did you expect me to do? Just go home? We thought something happened to you. What the fuck went wrong anyway? Where are you?”
Will is quiet for a beat and then he says so
ftly, “I’m still in Vegas. I’m with Cassie. Something happened at her house and she needed me.”
I sense this probably has something to do with her pervert stepdad, but I don’t press. My little brother’s compassionate heart does serve to lessen my anger though.
“Will, isn’t this something her mother should handle?” I say with care.
Will huffs, “She’s never around, Chase. She works all the time. She left unexpectedly today for some work thing.” Exasperation shades my brother’s tone. “I couldn’t leave Cassie alone all weekend, not with that dick. The things he says to her… Chase, you’d fucking kill him. At least I keep my temper under control.”
I let that one pass, Will does have a point.
“Anyway, this time he really scared Cassie with the fucked up shit he was spewing. She had to lock herself in her room. She called me just as the flight was boarding and told me what was going on. I told you her stepdad leaves her alone when I’m there, so I really had no choice, bro. I took a cab from the airport to her house. I’m sorry, Chase, I…” Will trails off and sniffles.
He’s been acting all tough, but I know my brother and I can tell he’s crying a little now.
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “It’s okay, Will, I get it. But you have to call Mom. She needs to know where you are and everything that happened.”
Will promises to do so, but then throws me for a loop when he blurts out, “Hey, maybe I can still come out to Ohio. My ticket is one of those types you can change, so it’s still good. Cassie could come too. She has lots of money in her savings. She can buy her own ticket and—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I interrupt. “You can’t bring your sixteen-year-old girlfriend with you. What the hell do you think her mother would say?”
Will is quiet, but then offers, “What if Cassie gets permission? Would you care, then?”
I’m thinking my brother will say anything to get me to say yes to Cassie coming to Ohio with him. I can’t fully trust the kid—he’s already duped me with the borrowed money—so I say as gently as I can, “I don’t know about that, Will. You’re welcome to still fly out, but I think Cassie needs to stay in Nevada.”