by K Carr
“Hello?”
“Hey, Rose,” he said. It was his mother-in-law who answered instead of his wife. “Is Jen there?”
“She forgot her phone.” she advised.
Connor cleared his throat, unsure of what to say next. He used to enjoy a warm relationship with his mother-in-law, but now it was strained. He understood. She had to stand by her daughter’s side, she was 100% loyal to Jen.
“How are you?” he asked.
“Good, good,” Rose confirmed. “And you? Are you taking care of yourself?”
A lump formed in his throat when he picked up on the genuine concern in her voice. “Trying to.”
“That’s good.” she said. “Ok then, I’ll let Jennifer know you called-”
“Rose,” he interrupted her. “Can you talk to her? Please. She wants sole custody. I can’t let her- please, she won’t talk to me. She won’t listen. I’m at my wit’s end here. I’ve lost everything else, I can’t lose Megan too.”
“Connor,”
“I don’t want this divorce.” he blurted out, frustrated beyond measure it had come to this. “I just want them back home. I just want,” he stopped speaking because the thing he truly longed for was impossible. He wanted things to be like they were, but that was never going to happen. They could never go back.
“I know.” Rose said with understanding. “I know you do, but she’s hurting. We all are and I don’t know if there’s anything I can say to make her change her mind.”
“How is she doing?” he asked quietly. “Is she – how is she?”
“Surviving.” Rose answered.
“Surviving? Is that what this is?” Connor forced out past the ever-growing ball of emotions in his throat. “Do you blame me too? Does Meggie blame me now?” His voice cracked. “I know Jen does, but do you-”
“It was an accident.” Rose said firmly. Then her voice got desperately sad as she said, “A terrible accident, but an accident nonetheless.”
“She doesn’t think so.” came Connor’s morose statement. “She blames me, and she’s right to. She hates me, I don’t blame her. Hell, I hate myself.”
“Now you listen here,” Rose’s no-nonsense tone was sharp. “That sort of talk isn’t going to help anyone.”
“Sorry, you’re right.” Connor tried to get a grip on his emotions. His attorney had warned him to be careful about contacting his wife or any members of her family and friends, but Rose was his family too. “I just want to fix it all and I can’t, she won’t even let me try.”
“What do you want to fix?” Rose asked bluntly.
“Everything.” Connor explained. “I want my girls back home. I want us to be a family once more.”
“Well, she doesn’t want that right now,” Rose told him. “So what are you going to do? Hmm? Are you going to drag her kicking and screaming back to the house? Are you going to take Megan?”
“That’s exactly what your daughter wants to do.” Connor spat. “To take Megan away from me.”
“Because she doesn’t trust you anymore.” Rose delivered her comment without pulling any punches. Connor knew his mother-in-law wasn’t one to beat around the bush, not with the people she loved. “Yes, I know it’s irrational, but she feels how she feels. So what are you going to do about it?”
Connor paused for a moment. What was he going to do about it? “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But I’ll think of something.”
“Good.” Rose said. “Because they miss you and I hate seeing my baby and grandbaby like this. I’ll tell her you called. Take care of yourself now. Bye.”
Connor brought the phone down from his ear and bit his lower lip. Dare he let himself hope? Rose said they missed him. He walked out the kitchen, aimlessly wandering around the empty house and trying to think up ways to get what was left of his family back. He ended up in front Cory’s bedroom. The wooden choo-choo train attached to the door with the letters of his son’s name brightly spelt out in wooden clouds brought a sting of moisture to his eyes. He opened the bedroom door and felt the familiar swell of agony as he stepped into Cory’s room. The doll on the bed amidst all Cory’s favourite stuffed toys was placed there by Megan. It was her best doll, the one she had begged and begged for two Christmases ago. The one she loved more than any of her other toys. Connor remembered the day after the funeral when Meggie took her doll and put it between those stuff toys. She said that the doll would keep his toys from getting lonely. She said he would know she would look after his stuff until he came back from his long nap. Jen had to explain once again that Cory wasn’t coming back.
He walked over to the wardrobe and opened it up. A tiny smile ghosted across his lips as he took in the neatly folded clothes on the shelves and the t-shirts and jackets on the hangers. Jen always kept the children’s clothes neatly put away. Connor fingered the long sleeve of one of Cory’s t-shirt. It had dinosaurs printed all the way down it. Lifting it to his nose, Connor inhaled deeply.
“I miss you, little buddy.” he muttered. “We all miss you so much.”
As much as it hurt knowing his son was gone, Connor liked being in here. He could pretend sometimes that Cory was at day-care, and would be home later. He would run into his room and jump on the bed, loud enough that Jen would yell a warning of it breaking. He would pull out his toys and make a mess before running across the hallway to pester his big sister.
Connor could close his eyes and remember the loud laughter, the gleeful shouts, the tantrums. In Cory’s room, with all his things around, Connor could trick himself into believing his son was still alive…just away for the moment. But he had to open his eyes eventually, the fantasy never lasted. Cold, harsh reality always seeped in.
Jen didn’t come in here. After Cory’s death, she wouldn’t step a foot into his bedroom. Connor used to make sure the door was closed so she wouldn’t be subjected to inadvertent glimpses whenever she walked by. Meggie used to go in Cory’s room at least once every couple of days. ‘Just to see if he visited.’ she used to say. Bless her little heart. Connor knew if it wasn’t for Megan he probably would’ve done something terrible to himself after Cory’s death.
He remembered the day Jen left him and took their daughter with her. It was around seven months after the accident, it was two days after Cory’s birthday. A birthday he would never celebrate. He would’ve been four – Connor took a deep steadying breath as he closed the wardrobe and moved around the room, tenderly touching things, wishing things were different.
Jen had tried to put on a good show for Meggie, who wanted to do something special for Cory. The gravestone had been placed only two days before his birthday, something Jen couldn’t bear to attend. Connor had been the one to go and watch it being sorted it out; and it had been a terrible ordeal. Meggie, his darling Meggie, had been so insistent about them celebrating Cory’s birthday. She made them buy a cake to take to his graveside. They sang happy birthday and Meggie blew out the candles for her little brother. There was a moment over Cory’s grave when Jen had looked at him, the visceral hate on her face was one he had never seen before...on anyone. Connor thought because of his crushing grief and guilt, he had imagined it, but the next day she was gone with their daughter. A text was all he had gotten to inform him she would be staying with her mom for a few days. Days that turned into weeks, that turned into months. Five months now. Damn it! They had tried though. They had spoken to grief counsellors after Cory’s death, all of them, especially Megan. They were so worried about how her brother’s death would affect her at such a young age. Connor thought about that time, how easy it was for him to slip into the numbing haze of alcohol after those first few months. The guilt…if Connor could have swapped places, if there was some way for him to have died instead of Cory…the guilt would always be a part of him now. They had tried. The separate marriage counselling had been his last ditch attempt at holding them together.
And now she wanted a divorce. He fought the urge to beg, to plead out loud: Please, God, if you’re there, help me f
ix this. He fought the familiarity of seeking comfort in his faith and won. He was furious with God.
It had been a while since he had prayed. Having grown up in a Christian household, Connor had believed in the power of prayer and took comfort in the knowledge of the existence of an omnipotent being looking out for them all. Until Jen blew into his life. His wife wasn’t a complete atheist, but she definitely didn’t subscribe to organized religion. It had almost become a deal-breaker when they were dating. She despised the hypocrisy, the manipulation, the very visible negative effects of what religions can and have caused. Jen never tried to discourage him from his faith, she just made it clear she wouldn’t let him try to convince her to become a believer.
Connor smiled to himself. He had never been a mindless follower, but Jen’s stance on religion made him question the foundations of his belief. Rose hadn’t raised her daughter to hold out for what they joked was ‘Sky-daddy’s help’, which was funny considering Rose herself came from a deeply religious black American family. A soft chuckle slipped out as he remembered one particular family function where Jen and her mom completely eviscerated his uncle’s religious indoctrination with cold, irrefutable facts. His uncle had called Jen a heathen, and Rose a traitor to her upbringing when she quoted enough scripture to put his uncle’s supposed grasp of the bible to shame.
Connor’s parents had tried to smooth over the ruffled feathers on their side of the family. Jen had exchanged a knowing stare with her mother while loudly denouncing the patriarchal tones of most religious texts whose sole purpose was to control women and children while men raped, pillaged and killed all in the name of a being, who if it did exist, was painfully detached from the sufferings of its creations.
Connor laughed a bit louder as he remembered her final coup de grâce as she had sipped some wine, that the fallacy of it all could be seen directly from the Adam and Eve story. How on earth could Eve have come from Adam’s rib when women had been birthing men since the dawn of time? His uncle had almost choked when Jen told him the womb and vagina was god and men should know their places.
“Your mom was so bad that day.” Connor said out loud. His belief had taken a fatal blow after the death of his son. What sort of God would allow a three year old to die? But a part of him still hoped Cory was looking down on them from somewhere. “I’ve really messed things up, haven’t I, son? I wish you were here.”
He walked over to the window and stared out over the back garden. He needed to fix his family. Was it possible? Could they ever be a family again after losing Cory? Connor leaned his head against the closed window pane and sighed. How could he possibly fix this?
Chapter 3
Today made it a full calendar year since our world had changed. I glanced up at Megan. She was happily blowing bubbles with my mom, all for Cory. He used to love bubbles. I returned to tending the grave. We paid for a monthly grave maintenance service, but there were a few stubborn weeds growing around the edge of the burial plot. I would speak to them about it, and the fact the headstone was a touch dirty. Was Connor still paying for the service? Shit. I would definitely need to speak to the cemetery caretakers.
“Mommy! Look at that one.” Megan shrieked as a huge soap bubble rose up into the air and hung suspended there for a few seconds before popping. She jumped in excitement while my mom blew some more bubbles for her to twirl amongst.
I stared at the spot where the bubble had popped. One moment it was there, glistening with a myriad of colours in the sunlight and so treacherously fragile; the next moment it was gone. What symbolic simplicity. Life was that soap bubble. Beautiful until that pop. Then it was nothing more than a few wet droplets already being absorbed into the ground as if it had never truly existed.
“Look at this one, Mom.” Megan yelled in delight.
“It’s another big one.” I forced some lightness into my voice.
“Watch your feet, Meg.” My mom called out as we watched her stumble around trying to catch the bubbles.
“More, Grandma,” she urged on. “Do some more. Yours are totally bigger than mine.”
I did smile at her earnest demand. She was so cheerful, sometimes I worried it was an act. She was only seven. Was she capable of such complex emotional artifice?
My gaze wandered around the almost deserted cemetery. I preferred it like this. Quiet and peaceful. The leaves and branches of the large trees interspersed around the grounds swayed with the breeze which was now picking up a bit more. It was another sunny day. Even though it was early June it felt as if summer was well and truly here.
“You ok, Jennifer?” Mom asked in-between the blowing of bubbles.
I nodded before staring at the weeds in my gloved hands. There were rules about planting anything but grass seeds on the graves. Megan had wanted to plant yellow tulips all around Cody’s grave. I raised my gaze to the flower holders on either side of the gravestone. They were filled with fresh flowers, mainly tulips of varying shades. Mom had tried to convince Megan to get another type of flower, had even explained the tulips had obviously been forced to bloom out of season and we should really try to work within nature’s framework. Megan’s mouth had turned down at the corners and my mom caved and rushed to buy as many tulips as her granddaughter wanted. Megan was spoilt, they had both been spoilt by my mom. Perhaps to make up for the things she thought she hadn’t been able to give me as a child, but I hadn’t ever wanted for anything.
“That one is going up to Cory.” Megan clapped as the bubble kept drifting upwards.
A part of me wanted to tell her that Cory wasn’t up there. He was right here, under the grass and earth, in that little wooden coffin –
“Jen,” Mom called again. Her eyes were focused on my face. “Are you ok, baby girl?”
I nodded and tried to smile so she would stop worrying.
“He’ll like these bubbles. Won’t he, Grandma?” Megan skipped over to my mom and leaned against the side of her leg.
“Yes he will, sugar plum.”
I watched my mom run her hand over Megan’s brown curls and reminded myself it was ok for Megan to believe her brother was up in the sky somewhere looking down on us. That was the direct result of my in-laws filling her head with all sorts of things immediately after Cory’s death. I scoffed in bemusement. Even the funeral had been turned into a religious debacle which I wouldn’t have allowed if I had been in the right frame of mind. It had happened so fast, Cory’s death then his funeral, I had been in a state of disbelief. Unable to reconcile myself with the fact my son was dead. And my mom was too caught up in keeping me from falling apart to be worried about the funeral arrangements. Connor and his parents had handled it all.
“But this is nice though.” I murmured under my breath and put the weeds into the small disposal bag I had brought along. I tugged the gardening gloves off and ran my hand over the blades of grass covering his grave. “Mommy’s right here.”
It was nice having a place to visit him, to talk to him even though the logical part of my brain insisted my son was no longer capable of hearing my words. I knew graves weren’t for the dead, graves were for the families of the dead. Somewhere to cling to their departed loved one, something – some physical marker to make it known that they had lived, that they had existed. Graves were for the living, and I was secretly glad Connor and his family had followed the Christian rites of a burial. If it had been me I would’ve chosen a cremation, to have my ashes scattered into the wind, to be part of the atmosphere. We were all just energy anyway, weren’t we? Energy changed forms all the time. Maybe what made Cory who he was, his presence, maybe it was in the wind or the sunshine, or the rain. That crack of electricity in the air when a storm was brewing, or the force of water rushing through the underground crevices of the earth. I dug my fingers into the earth and swallowed the sob building in my throat. I missed him so much.
“Daddy!” Megan shouted before running from my mom’s side and straight past me.
I looked over my shoulder. Sure enough
Connor was slowly making his way over. He stopped when Megan was almost in front of him and bent down with his arms wide open. I turned my head back to the front, reluctant to witness their hugs of joy. Bastard. He knew we would be here, and he definitely knew I didn’t want to see him. How like him to turn up during the time I warned him we would be here. My eyes drifted to my watch and the embarrassment warmed my cheek. Time had gotten away from me. I had texted Connor last night to let him know we would be at the cemetery between 10 and 11am, and with that knowledge he could plan his own visit to our son’s grave. It was now 12:30. Damn it. I didn’t want to see him today of all days. Focusing my attention on anything but his presence, I quickly packed up the gloves and knotted the bags of weeds.
“Hello, Rose.” Connor walked up to my mom with Megan in his arms and planted a respectful kiss on her cheek.
Megan was chatting a mile a minute, telling him about the bubbles and how I kept her off school today but that it was ok because the principal said so. Her words washed over me as Connor turned his gaze to mine. He looked how I felt. Terrible. In fact, I knew I looked terrible also. Dark circles around his blue eyes made him look ill. His skin was an unhealthy shade of pale. Was he eating properly? Oh no. Had he started back his daily drinking?
“Hello.” he said. It was an uncertain greeting. One which I knew he expected me to respond to with vitriol.
“Hi,” I murmured. “Sorry. The time got away from me.” I stood up and dusted the small bit of grass that had stuck to the front of my jeans. Straightening up, I flashed him a neutral smile. Megan was around, I needed to be amicable. “We’ll be out of your hair in a minute.”
“No,” Megan’s wail came with her tightening her arms around Connor’s neck. “I want to stay with Daddy.”