Monday, April 22 – 2:45 PM
Owen
I can barely keep my eyes open as I struggle through my population modeling class. I’m so tired. Oh God, I’m so tired. I haven’t slept a full night since I came back from Long Island.
I know why, too. It’s because of what I did. It’s because I killed my mother.
I’ve dreamed about her every single night since it happened. I’ve dreamed about her hand going cold, her chest slowly sinking and deflating, and worst of all, the horrible, sickening, phlegmatic sound of her final seconds.
The feeling of guilt last night crushed me. At least when I feel guilty about Samantha, I can blame it on my father. I killed my mother—there’s nobody else to blame.
“No, I didn’t. She was brain-dead already.”
Yes, I did. I signed the form. I sat there as they turned off her respirator. I killed her, no matter how much I want to rationalize my actions.
The voice in my head doesn’t bother fighting back anymore but instead gives up, and the unbearable guilt returns, weighing down on me and squeezing the air from my lungs. Why did I even come to class feeling like this? I’m a mental wreck right now and I’m not paying attention to a damned thing.
“Alright class,” says Professor Daniels, “my teaching assistants will hand back your tests while I write up the score distribution.”
My hand shoots up as he starts to write test scores on the board. I’ve emailed him every day since I got back from Long Island and also left him two voice messages, but he still hasn’t gotten back to me about when I can take the exam. This may not be my best class but that doesn’t mean I want to be given an unfair advantage by seeing what everyone else’s grades were.
“I’ll get to you in just a moment, Mr. Maxwell,” he calls out flatly, acknowledging my hand, and he continues to write out test scores. Most students scored in the seventies, but a chill runs through me as he draws a solitary zero at the end.
“As a whole, the class did remarkably well on the midterm this year. The mean and median overlap, indicating...”
Professor Daniels loves to analyze test results and treats them like statistical puzzles. He does this in every class he teaches. Normally I’d find it interesting, but I’d normally have actually taken the test. He’s been ignoring my requests for a week now.
“... and we can conclude that, with the exception of one student, all grades received on this test fall within the limits of the expected population model. That one student,” he says, staring directly at me, “should really come talk to me after class, because he or she missed the test and wasn’t in compliance with the university’s academic leave policy.”
Panic rises inside me. He can’t be serious! He can’t really be giving me a zero for going to see my mother in the hospital, can he? That’s got to be covered by the academic leave policy—I’m almost certain it is.
When class finally ends, I wait behind as everyone else funnels out of the classroom. Professor Daniels leans on his podium, looking very unimpressed as I approach him.
“Excuse me, professor, but I’d like to know why I wasn’t permitted to...”
“You were permitted to take the exam,” he interrupts. “You had a chance on Monday last week, just like everyone else in the class.”
“I was with my mother in the hospital.”
“I know,” he answers. “I saw your e-mails.”
“Then why can’t I take the test?” I ask.
“Did you have an illness covered by the university sick-leave policy?” he asks.
“No, my mother was...”
“Was there a funeral?” he interrupts again.
“Three days later,” I answer. “I didn’t even get to go to it because I had to come back here for class.”
“Owen, here’s the problem,” he tells me. “I have to schedule my exams with the university and I have to stick to their rules. The university’s leave policy requires either a doctor’s note for the student, a funeral on the day of absence, or three days advance request to the professor. You provided none of these and therefore I can’t give you a separate test date.”
“But...”
“There is nothing I can do, Owen,” he tells me with a shrug. “I didn’t write the policy. The grade stands.”
“Are you saying that you’d stay here for a test and not go to see your mother before she died?” I ask him.
“No, I’d have given the required three days notice and done it correctly.”
“I didn’t have three days!”
My mind screams in panic. He’s seriously going to flunk me for going to see my mother. He’s going to wreck my chances at grad school over nothing.
“Professor, that’s forty percent of my grade,” I plead. There’s no way I can pass the course without taking that test.
“Take it up with your department head if you’d like,” says Professor Daniels. “Maybe he can do something, but I don’t have that power. Blame the bureaucracy, not me.”
I watch in stunned to silence as he heads for the door, flicks off the lights and leaves me alone in the dark, empty classroom.
I... I’ve just failed the course. There is absolutely no way I'm coming back from a zero percent midterm grade. I race out the door and up the nearest stairwell toward the graduate student administrative office. I have another class in ten minutes but that doesn’t matter right now. I need to find Professor Meador, my grad advisor, and explain to him what happened.
I can kiss my PhD program goodbye if that grade goes through.
––––––––
“There has to be an exception in here somewhere,” mutters Professor Meador, adjusting his glasses and then stroking his graying beard as he rifles through the university’s leave policy. “This is preposterous.”
My graduate advisor is just as confused as I am about the failed test, but as glad as I am to have someone on my side, I’m nervous that he hasn’t found a way around it yet. We’ve been reading through the university’s policies for almost two hours and we can’t find anything about my particular circumstances.
“Okay, here’s what I’ll do,” he says, sighing and pushing aside the stack of papers. “It’s late now, but first thing in the morning, I’ll stop by the program director’s office and see what he says about it.”
“Do you think he’ll help me?” I ask anxiously, trying to control my panic. There’s a lot riding on the director’s reaction to my appeal. If my application gets rejected, I have nothing. What would I do then? I can’t go home. I haven’t found a job yet and I can’t imagine anyone is going to hire a theoretical mathematician without a PhD. Once upon a time, you could get a job at an investment bank with only a bachelor’s degree, but that just doesn’t happen anymore. It’s PhD or nothing now.
“I can’t imagine they’ll give you the boot over going to be with your mother,” he answers comfortingly. “Just keep focused, and I’ll get back to you as soon as it’s resolved. Come find me next week if you don’t hear back from me before then, okay?”
“Thanks so much.”
He shakes his head and sighs as he packs his briefcase, and then we call it a night and head for the stairs.
“You don’t need to thank me,” he responds and then, with a grumble, adds, “I ought to be apologizing to you for having to go through this in the first place. This school’s getting too stuffy for its own good, if you ask me. You don’t need rules for every damned little thing.”
I follow him down to the parking lot, talking about projects and classes the entire way. For the first time in forever, he doesn’t have homework for me to grade. I’d be ecstatic about it if I wasn’t so nervous about the test score. I wave goodbye to him and start walking, but he calls after me before I get very far.
“You’re still walking home after all these years?” he asks incredulously.
“I can’t afford a car, sir.”
“Oh get in already,” he groans, pointing to the passenger-side door. “I’ll drive y
ou home.”
I grin at him and then hop in. I stare out the window, lost in my thoughts as the university flies past, until he finally breaks the silence.
“I would’ve thought you’d have a car by now. Aren’t we paying you a stipend?” he asks.
“I get just enough to pay for rent and food,” I answer. “Though for the last few weeks, the food money’s been going to medical bills.”
“Your parents really weren’t helping you at all, were they?”
I shake my head, and he sighs and goes silent for the rest of the drive.
He pulls into my apartment complex about ten minutes later and I hop out of the car.
“Thanks for the ride, professor.”
“Any time,” he says. “Oh, before you go...”
“Yes?” I turn and look back at him expectantly.
“Whatever comes out of this mess, I don’t want you to worry about it one bit, you hear me?” he tells me, his expression stark and serious. “At the end of the day, I don’t care what the university says. I take care of my students.”
I give him a half-hearted smile and wave goodbye before heading down the stairs toward my apartment. I appreciate his reassurance but I know he’s just trying to make me feel better. He has no more power over the university’s rules than I do. What could he possibly do to take care of me? I’ll just have to hold onto hope that the program director is reasonable and accepts me.
“Or he could be an asshole rule-stickler and reject me for visiting my dying mother.”
I shake my head as my thoughts immediately turn to negativity. After a lifetime of broken dreams, I’m not very good at hoping.
––––––––
The doctor leaves me alone with my mother, and I sit silently by her side, holding her hand as it slowly goes cold. This is all my fault. Dad hurt her, but I killed her.
I gasp and wake up back in Ithaca. It is my fault. She’d still be alive if I hadn’t signed those forms. She’d be alive if it wasn’t for me. Even though the nightmare is fading, the guilt only intensifies as I lie in bed and stare at glowing green digits of the clock. It’s three in the morning.
Every night is going to be like this, isn’t it? Every time I go to sleep, I’m back at my mother’s side, watching her die. I’ve relived it in my dreams almost every goddamned night for a week, and the one time I didn’t, I dreamed about Samantha instead. I’m going insane—there’s no way I’m going to be able to sleep if this keeps happening to me.
If I’m not going to sleep, I might as well get out of bed. I tiptoe downstairs, turn on the television to distract myself and then head straight for the fridge. I rummage through the drawers and behind the leftovers in the back, check the door and even the freezer. There’s no beer.
Maybe it’s in the kitchen cabinets. I rifle through them one by one. Bread... dishes... cereal... wait, there we go—Craig’s mixers. He has a tall bottle of vodka, and while it’s not beer, it’ll work just as well. I yank it out and pour myself a double shot. He won’t notice that it’s missing.
The vodka burns as it goes down my throat and hits my stomach like a fiery brick. It’s not enough, and another double quickly chases the first down my throat. I lie on the couch and start flipping channel, and the alcohol starts taking effect well before I’ve found anything worth watching. My brain starts to spin pleasantly and then I’m numb to everything. Nothing matters and nothing hurts. I don’t care that my mother is dead anymore. I barely even care that I’m the one who killed her.
The alcoholic haze silences my nagging doubts and my eyelids flutter shut.
Monday, April 29 – 7:30 PM
Maria
“So, you heard anything back yet about your application?” I ask Owen in between bites of spaghetti. He made an unbelievable sauce tonight.
“No,” he answers, pushing his food around on his plate. “It’s been a week now and not a damned thing from him. Even my advisor’s in the dark about it.”
I wish I could say something to make him feel better, but I’m at a loss for words. His application was rejected two days after that jerk gave him a failing grade for going to see his mother, and now he’s waiting for his appeal to be processed. I can’t believe they’re doing this to him!
“I’m sorry,” I tell him, squeezing his hand across the table.
He smiles weakly back at me. I feel so bad for him. The world really needs to give him a break already—first his father, then his mother, and now losing his future as well? It’s just not fair.
“I’m ready whenever you two are done stuffing your face,” Tina calls out from the living room, and I roll my eyes and put down my fork. Owen and I have been eating dinner for well over an hour now, mostly to delay what Tina wants me to do afterward.
She wants me to work on my acting—to practice pretending Darren didn’t hurt me. She thinks it’ll help me stay in control when I see him at graduation.
“Okay, fine... I’m coming,” I answer, and I begrudgingly join her in the living room. She sits on the couch while I stand awkwardly in the middle of the room. I feel as if I’m in the spotlight and she’s judging me based on criteria she’s keeping secret from me.
“Posture, Maria,” she says, suddenly leaping up and hurrying to my side. “Posture, poise, and confidence. I know those are like dirty words to you, but come on. Stand up straight already.”
“I’m in for a long night, aren’t I?”
“Only as long it takes to make you feel like you’re the queen of the world. Just pretend you’re me, if you have to.”
“Tina, do you ever have problems fitting your ego through doors?”
“All the time, sweetie,” she answers with a grin, and I roll my eyes at her.
She walks around me in a circle as I try to pretend I have even a shred of confidence in myself, and then she shakes her head.
“Okay, look... the point is to pretend he didn’t hurt you,” she tells me. “You’re healthy and happy, and nothing he did bothers you anymore.”
“You know that’s not...”
“Of course I know that,” she interrupts. “You’re pretending, Maria. You’re going to make him feel like he has no power over you, like nothing he did means a damned thing to you anymore.”
“But why?”
She stares at me as if she can’t believe I’m asking the question.
“Because then when you believe you’re okay, you can make him fucking miserable the whole time he’s here,” she says. “You’re going to fool yourself into feeling like you can stand up to him.”
“Are you sure this’ll work?” I ask nervously. It’s not like I have any better ideas, but I’m pretty sure I’m just going to panic the second I see him, no matter how much practicing I do.
She ignores my question, spins around and waves to Owen.
“Hey, drop the fork and get in here, will you?” orders Tina, and then when he quickly complies, she adds, “Now put your arm around her. Good. Just like that.”
Owen puts his arm comfortingly around my waist and I smile lean into him, enjoying his touch. I love the way he makes me feel. Just standing with him makes me feel more confident already.
“Look at that. See what you just did there?” exclaims Tina. “I want you to be like that the whole time Darren’s here. I know you two aren’t big on touchy-feely shit in public, but make an exception for graduation day, okay?”
Owen kisses me on the cheek and looks at me worriedly. I know what he’s thinking and I agree with him. Tina’s plan isn’t going to work. It’s not going to work because the second I see Darren, I’m going to have a nervous breakdown. I’m not strong like she is, and I’m terrified of what’s going to happen when I see him.
“I won’t let him hurt you,” whispers Owen. “I promised I’d keep you safe, and I meant it. I’ll stay with you the entire time.”
I hug him again, swaying softly in place as I breathe in his comforting scent, until Tina clears her throat behind us.
“Owen, could you
leave us for a little bit?” she asks. “No offense or anything, I just want to talk her through some stuff alone. Just a little girl-time for like ten minutes.”
“Sure. I’ll be upstairs if you need me,” he agrees, and then he hugs me once more and hurries up to my room. Tina waits patiently until he’s out of sight.
“You have no idea how scared I am, Tina,” I tell her as she turns back to me. “It’s going to be really hard for me to put on an act like you want.”
“Maria... you’re going to be okay,” she whispers. “Even if acting doesn’t help you be strong, we’re not going to let Darren hurt you again. If he so much as looks at you the wrong way, I’m going to kill him.”
She hugs me tightly, and when she finally lets go again, her eyes are burning with a terrible, fiery anger that I haven’t seen in her before. I’m seeing a side of my best friend that I’ve never seen before and it makes me nervous.
“Are you sure you don’t want us to call him out on what he did to you?” she asks. “You know the statute of limitation for rape was eliminated a few years ago, right?”
“With what evidence? It’s been seven years, Tina,” I tell her. “It’s my word against his, no witnesses, after seven years.”
I shake my head and Tina looks disappointed.
“Okay, but I meant what I said about him touching you,” she says, fury igniting in her eyes again. “If he touches you, I’ll fucking kill him.”
“Tina, you’re scaring me,” I whisper.
“Nobody hurts my family,” she tells me, “and you’re the sister I never had, Maria. I’m going to take care of you.”
She’s serious. My diminutive guardian angel is seriously considering killing Darren. I hate him but I’m not a murderer, and my bloodlust always fades along with the nightmares.
“I... I’m going to go check up on Owen,” I tell her nervously, and I race up the stairs.
Monday, April 29 – 7:50 PM
Owen
“Owen, could you leave us for a little bit?” asks Tina. “No offense or anything, I just want to talk her through some stuff alone. Just a little girl-time for like ten minutes.”
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