by Laila Blake
“No more letters...” she said quietly, then swallowed hard and exhaled a breath. “He was a hero, you know? He didn't want us to get hurt, he saved our lives. Your dad.”
Song nodded as though he understood. To Aaron, he still looked thoughtful, and some part of him remembered how his father dying didn’t seem real for a very long time, not until his mother started packing the boxes to move. Song hadn’t had much in the way of transition, or any space to just sit and think about it.
“He loved you. He loved you so much,” she whispered, kissed Song’s temple and then, because she couldn't not, she pulled out the mp3 player and handed it to Song. It was his father's voice, the only legacy Sullivan had left to pass on to his son; he had more right to it than she did.
“Um... his songs are on there. There’s still about half the battery.”
Song looked at the little player in his hand, and back at the papers.
“Maybe we can listen later,” he suggested, and Aaron couldn’t blame him: the idea of hearing your dead dad's voice was a bit of a mind-warp.
“Yeah, anytime Duck,” she whispered and closed her eyes for a moment, then took the player back from his offering hands and leaned against the sofa. She had never felt quite this helpless in her life, quite so overwhelmed with the challenge of parenting.
“Um...” she finally pressed out again. “Do you... want to talk about him?”
A silence hung in the air, and even Aaron stilled, so that he wouldn’t be the one breaking it. After a moment, Song sat on his rump. “Do you miss him?”
Aaron exhaled and stacked the dishes, carefully, trying to decide how bad it would look to do a round of the obviously empty property just then.
Emily blinked, she managed to look up at Aaron’s arm but no higher and then focused on Song again.
“Yeah, of course I do, baby. How about you—how bad is it?”
The little boy tipped his head back and forth.
“I dunno,” he said, finally, voice rising at the end almost in a question, as if he wasn’t sure how he was supposed to feel.
Aaron rolled his lips over his teeth and willed himself quiet, restacking the bowls again, and then the spoons, unable to keep his hands still. It was beginning to get to Emily: the movement, the clatter, the listener in the room who’d never met Sullivan.
“That’s okay,” she whispered, trying to smile. “Anything you feel is okay.”
He nodded with a little hum, opened his mouth, closed it, and then opened it again. “Do you think he was scared when he died?”
For a long moment, Emily looked back at him. All effort to will her eyes to stay dry failed, but she managed a small smile through the sheen of water.
“I... I don’t know, Duck. I think most people are—but your dad was very special and...” She swallowed, sniffed and took Song's hand. “I... I want to think he thought of you and how much he loved you, and I think he did.”
He looked down at their hands, squeezed hers.
“Okay.” It was a tone Aaron recognized and, with his chest tight, he straightened up, stretched, and gave them both a small smile.
“Just gonna’ do a round outside, no big.” He was still wearing his boots, and he pulled his coat back on; now it was his turn to avoid Emily's eyes as she avoided his and nodded.
Emily felt a flash of guilt at the relief that flooded her, not having to worry about what Aaron thought of her failing parenting. Taking several deep breaths, she wiped at her eyes, then resettled herself on the sofa and gave Song her best loving smile.
“I’m sorry about the crying—it’s not a bad thing. It just, it just happens sometimes. Okay? It's not your fault...?”
Song shrugged.
“It’s sad.” He still looked confused, and a little bored, and his little fingers picked at the blanket under him. “I just... I kinda never thought he was coming. Just, you know. He left and it wasn’t like before.”
“Yeah,” she agreed with a slow nod, breathing in through her nose. Her nostrils quivered like butterfly wings. “But we still have each other? I still have you—and I know he would be happy knowing that we are okay. Hm? Do you want to go to the car and get his guitar or... do you want to play a game?”
He twisted his mouth and nodded.
“Can I play his guitar? I... you promised,” he added, quickly, in an obvious attempt to make sure she couldn’t take it back.
“I did,” she said and nodded. “Yeah, sure you can play. Maybe, maybe we can start looking around for a book to learn more from. I think you remember more chords than I do now.”
His smile was proud and he straightened up, eyes going to the window, then to her, still not dressed for outside; his shoulders sagged.
“Now?” he asked, though he clearly doubted her answer.
“Yeah, sure,” she smiled if a little hesitantly. She didn’t have the heart to say no to him—maybe not ever again. Pushing herself off the sofa, she yawned and stepped into a pair of boots, a blanket still around her shoulders.
“I’ll be right back okay?”
Picking up the key where Aaron had left it, she made her way outside. It was cold and she shivered, wrapping the blanket closer around her. She saw his footsteps in the snow, curving away from the house but not Aaron. For one of two steps, she could walk in his, then her path meandered off towards the car.
The guitar was cold and likely terribly out of tune but she’d deal with that later. She brushed the snow off her boots and hurried back inside, shivering and huddling down by the fire before she handed the case over to Song.
He didn’t open it right away; the case was smooth and black, and free of stickers—Sullivan had never been the type—but had that same handwriting curving over the side, under the handle with his name, and a sloppy smiley face drawn by Song years ago.
“What’s your favorite song?” he asked, after a moment, fingers toying with the latches.
“You,” she grinned—it was an old joke and it felt hollow and misplaced until she sat down next to him, shrugging. He scowled: there were times when he could turn almost alarmingly serious and, again, it reminded Emily of Sullivan, who had been just the same way.
“I mean on guitar,” he said, voice almost husky, obviously a struggle to keep himself from whining.
“Do you mean of all the songs or your dad’s songs?” she asked then taking him more seriously.
That gave him pause, and he fiddled with the latches again.
“All of them.” He knew that Sullivan had played her Beatles songs when they first met, it was a story they’d both told him numerous times, and that she liked some bands from England that she had to special order and squealed over when they came in the mail, old-fashioned, on vinyl, but he didn’t know the names of a lot of them.
“Hm...” she said and pulled Song a little closer. “Your dad, he wrote this song about when we met and...” she swallowed and shrugged, “it’s almost sad, like he doesn’t know how to make things into a happy ending but that’s my favorite song, I think.”
Of course it was just as true to say that she hardly remembered any other music from the insane collection they had assembled together, that they seemed to be part of a different world, painful to recall.
“The one with snow,” Song said, promptly; it was strange sometimes to remember he was only seven, but Song had always had a memory that extended much further back than she realized.
She nodded and gave him a careful, pained smile. It was almost possible to distance herself from her own feelings of loss and longing in order to talk to Song about his father, but she was already feeling exhausted with the effort it took.
“What’s your favorite song?”
He thought for a moment, but only a moment. “Hey, Jude.”
That was not surprising: Sullivan had sung it to him when he was a baby, changing nearly all the lyrics, and affecting a British accent. Song could pick out a few of the opening notes of the song on the piano, even. Emily smiled sadly, memories rushing back
as she nodded. Sullivan’s versions, sung in his voice, had almost banished the original ones from her mind and there it was again, that keening pain that made her want to scream and kick. As she could do neither, she stayed where she was, smiling that strange smile.
“I like that, too.”
“Can that go on the guitar?” he asked then, finally flicking the latches into their open position. “Like, can you play something from piano on a guitar?”
“Oh yeah,” she answered, watching his fingers. “It might sound a bit different, a different style but the melody, the notes are the same. But... I'm not that good.” It hurt that she couldn’t help him with this. “Sullivan told me once how he'd learned—he’d just played, and heard the notes and put it together... but we can try to find a book, too.”
Song opened the case finally, revealing the guitar that had belonged to his father since he was a teenager. Sullivan had others, in the end, but that was the one that he loved, and carried everywhere, and now that was the one they carried, too.
“I bet I can do it like him,” Song said, chin jutting out in that characteristic, determined expression.
“I think so, it just takes time and wanting it.” She swallowed and then gently lifted the guitar out for him. “And we have lots and lots of time, huh?”
“I guess so.” Again, he sounded old, but his eyes lit up like the child he was, once he had the instrument in his hands. It did need tuning, but she had taken good care of it, in spite of everything.
The guitar dwarfed Song, yet still looked natural settled in his lap. He couldn’t quite wrap his fingers around the neck, but he held it confidently and smiled at her. It was beautiful and painful and she nodded at him, smiling back, encouraging him to just try, just try and they'd figure it out later.
Letters From Abandoned Places
Winter 2016, March
Waverly, Ohio
Dear Sullivan,
It was your fault.
You died because you had to be a hero. But because you saved us, I’m not allowed to say that, especially not out loud. I have to be grateful and live the life you gave us. Our surviving means that you were right, it means, somehow, that fate justified what you did, because you saved your child and your girl and you died a manly death, a hero’s death, the kind of death old men apparently dream about, when they lie in their beds pissing themselves.
And you know what? That’s sexist bullshit, Sully. Because I could have helped you, but you wouldn’t let me. You chose to waste those valuable seconds in which we both could have reached for weapons to push me out of sight. Not even to tell me to get Song into safety—you didn’t even trust me to do that. Not even that.
I keep going over this and over this, not just in those endless hours in the car, but almost every night in my dreams, as well. And I blamed myself because I wasn’t fast enough—but that’s not what the problem was.
We were in the sewers, everybody cranky and on edge and feeling like that year-old shit had soaked us to the bone. Song was crying and we were running out of ways to keep him quiet. We just needed a break. And so we climbed out of that man-hole cover. The air was rotten like everything, but I remember how fresh and perfect it felt to me. We hugged and for a moment, it seemed we’d be okay. We’d make it out of the city, all three of us. And then you froze and suddenly ushered us away and then a door slammed and it was dark.
I thought you were in there with us. Why weren’t you with us? I called out for Song and reached for him—but when I called you, you weren’t there. Do you have any idea how hard it was to find that door again? So much time passed for nothing!
And by the time I got to you… you were on the ground. I’d found some piece of wood and pushed one off you; you finally loosened a shot at the other and I grabbed the axe in your backpack. They were three and we were two but we killed them all. Only, it was too late by then.
It was your fault.
And I know, it’s not what a nice person would say, because you are dead and I love you. But I’m just so angry at you and I can't stop. I’m angry at you, and I’m angry at Aaron because you are so different and you’re still so the same! With that stupid idea that it’s better to die for someone than to let them help you. What was wrong with you?
And you know—I know that it was my fault, too—because I let you. All that time, I let you be the strong one because it was just easier and because I don't know, maybe because all those years with you, I kind of hoped, dreamed you’d become that person. The one who’d finally just be there. And maybe I never gave you reason to think I could have been of help but… do you think maybe you just didn’t look for it? Because you wanted me to be your baby doll, the one in your songs. I’m not and I never was, Sullivan.
I hate being so angry at you. And so I feel like I just fling it around. But you—I’m even angry that I know you went to your death thinking that you did right by your family. But you didn’t! Do you hear me? You didn’t! And now I feel like I felt so many times before, when you were on tour and always forgot to charge your phone after another letter arrived. You know, the ones that you sent because you didn’t want to tell me in person? More girls, more gigs, more drinking and drugs, always more girls. And then somehow, conveniently, you always called again when I had fought down all my anger, and you always evaded it. And even then, I hated being angry because it made me forget how much I love you. It makes me forget, Sullivan, and I don’t want to forget. And I don’t want to carry this anger around with me anymore. It’s exhausting, okay?
So this is what I’m trying here. Not to swallow it down again and to carry it with me everywhere. I am angry at you, today, Sullivan. That’s all. Because you didn't have to die. And I don’t know what do or what to feel anymore, and you took the one person from me who I could always talk to, my best friend, the one who always understood me.
Love,
Chapter Sixteen
Shrieks sounded from outside and Emily flinched with each one. She sat perfectly still waiting for the laughter to follow instead of panic and running. She huddled on the floor, a large book on her knees that served as drawing board onto which she had stuck a white sheet with carefully placed strips of sticky tape. After nights and nights dreaming of atrophied hands and broken sculptures, or blocks of clay and wood she couldn't shape into anything, there was a certain relief in the mere sensation of seeing her hand move across the paper. She couldn’t draw in the car without becoming violently sick—and the movement of the car prevented it in any case—and nights rarely provided the light, nor was she ever alone.
When Song had insisted on playing outside in the snow however, Aaron had immediately offered to go with him. He seemed to have an innate sense that she desperately needed a little time to herself, and Emily was more grateful than he could know.
She hadn’t cried anymore. She had a pencil and a piece of paper and that felt like momentary relief enough—providing a similar outlet to the desperate pressure of her chest that tears tended to give. She let her fingers glide across the page: an eye, warm and deep, the line of a nose she knew all too well, full lips she'd kissed a million times. She stared at it, then almost violently shaded the other side in darkness, one line deftly underneath the other. Putting the pencil away, she touched Sullivan’s nose, his dimpled chin, then finally his lips. But all she felt was cold paper and she flung the book, taped-on drawing and all, under a pile of clothes. She got up, pacing the house under the vague pretense of trying to find anything they might need later and she found herself in the small room of the night before.
The table was still ever so slightly out of place, and Emily brushed a finger over the wood, then returned it to its exact position against the wall. She cried—not for long, just until she could get a hold of herself and became aware that the shrieking had stopped. A moment later there was the sound of an opening door and she took a deep, quick breath. She didn’t want to come out yet, but neither did she want to be found in this of all places and so wiped at her eyes and put o
n a big smile.
Song was covered in snow, peeling himself out of his wet jacket with gleaming eyes.
“I built a snowman, Emmy!” he called the moment she entered the room in her overlong sweater. “He was soooooo big! Bigger'n Aaron, right Aaron? Bigger than you! A giant giant snow man.”
Emily rubbed his wet hair, praised him and felt Aaron’s eyes heavily upon her. The room had gotten much smaller all of a sudden.
“Definitely bigger than me,” he agreed, finally looking away, down at the pile of blankets that Song was about to launch himself onto. If the house hadn’t been in such a state of disrepair, the living room would have appeared normal, cozy and filled with piles of books and blankets, the guitar propped to the side and Song’s stuffed bunny taking up residence on the couch.
“You can see it from the window,” Aaron told her, looking down at his boots as he kicked off the snow; he didn’t take them off like Song did. “It’s like a giant protectin’ the house.”
Emily eased past them to see, a smile crossing her cheeks, still red and heated from crying and guilt.
“I wouldn’t want to go up against that,” she admitted with an impressed tone, and then handed Song his dry pajama pants. It was already growing darker outside and even without a clock, she was sure that dinner and bedtime were not far away.
“I know,” Song replied, proudly, beaming up at her from the floor. His cheeks were as flushed as hers, but from cold and wind and happiness, instead.
“Ain’t nothin’ out there,” Aaron said, almost as an afterthought, looking at the jugs of water before pouring one into the pan to heat it. “No tracks. We’re all alone.”
Their eyes met for a long moment, but soon they slipped into the comfortable camaraderie of preparing dinner and more tea, of reading a story and getting comfortable by the fire. However heavy Emily’s mind still hung, she could put on an act. She had done so for years, and she loved Song's smile and his genuine exhaustion that came from running around rather than sitting in a car all day. It made her all too conscious of the fact that he needed a childhood, a real one, and he was missing out.