The Whys Have It

by Amy Matayo

  Would he be in trouble? Would Kyle be in trouble? Would Nashville lose interest? Would Kyle get kicked out of school? Would they go to jail? Could they go to jail for something like this?

  Definitely yes.

  Definitely no.

  Slowly a thought worked its way through his mind, chased by an oppressing amount of shame. It’s a funny thing, the dangerous cocktail of guilt and panic and disgrace. When mixed together, they always make room for rationalizing, and one of them always looks for a way out.

  Cory looked behind him. Scanned the park. And slowly exhaled, feeling the erratic rate of his pulse gradually subside.

  They were the only two people here.

  In the solid hour he’d been here with Angela, the only thing he’d seen was a pinprick stream of a flashlight shining in the distance. But that was in the beginning. The light went out right away. He was sure of it.

  He stood on shaky legs and brushed himself off, bits of grass and mud and sludge clinging to him like remorse in a wearable layer. Sand and grit packed tight under his fingernails. They hurt, but he didn’t try to dig any out. Sometimes physical discomfort serves as punishment, sometimes as a reminder.

  His old Honda Civic seemed a million miles away as he walked toward it. He wore iron shoes, lead pants, a metal chain-link heart. With one last look over his shoulder, Cory climbed inside the car and started the engine, not even bothering to protect the seats from his wet body. A shiver that had nothing to do with the temperature worked its way up his spine, shaking him with a violence reserved for babies with horrible parents.

  Babies.

  He shook his head to clear it, then followed his brother as each drove east on autopilot. A tug of war ensued between remembering and forgetting…guilt and oppressive guilt…fault and mental death sentencing. Still, he drove, looking neither right nor left the entire way home. Angela’s image played through his mind—the drinking, the sad confession, the teasing sound of her voice when she asked him to swim. He could have stopped her. He was distracted by her nakedness. Hormones trumped logic and look what happened.

  What kind of person was he?

  Somehow he made it home and with Kyle’s help slipped inside the laundry room unnoticed. He peeled off his clothes and tossed them into the washing machine. His mother would question him in the morning; he’d never done a load of laundry in his life. Grabbing a fresh muscle tee and gym shorts, he balled them in a fist and tiptoed into the bathroom. The shock of the overhead lights stung his eyes, but not as much as the sight of himself. His face was streaked with dried tears, pond filth, and algae. Mud caked his hair, blood had dried in vein-like streaks down his right arm.

  “Get in the shower, and scrub yourself completely clean. Under your fingernails, between your toes, all of it,” Kyle whispered. “Hurry up, but be thorough about it.”

  Kyle exited the room, and after waiting a minute for the water to heat, Cory climbed into the shower to remove the evidence. He scrubbed his face and hair, stifling a scream when soap ran into the cut. The gash was deeper than he’d imagined, but he wouldn’t ask for stitches. Blood flowed from the wound again, but still he kept scrubbing. The mud, the scum, the filth slid down the drain; the memory didn’t go with them, not in the way he had hoped.

  Cory flipped off the water and reached for a towel, taking another second to examine the cut. It dripped with blood, one drop landed on the floor. Pulling open a drawer, he peeled the backing off a large bandage and slapped it over the wound. Breathing a little easier, he walked to his bedroom and buried himself under his blankets.

  By the next afternoon, the secret was out. The five o’clock news blew his cover, announcing that a teenage girl had drowned the night before in a local pond. Earlier that morning, her lifeless body was pulled from the water. Her parents were grief-stricken, yet no witnesses had come forward to assuage their sorrow. Alcohol was the main suspect of death. Drowning under the influence, it happened all the time.

  By that night, Kyle was barely speaking to him.

  Cory was bent over the sink, vomiting into the garbage disposal when his brother walked in and found him. Fitting. He’d disposed of everything else, at least this time things would be convenient.

  “Get a hold of yourself. None of this ever happened, do you understand me?”

  Cory nodded, quick and obedient.

  “I’m going to be a freaking police officer, for God sakes. If this gets out…”

  “It won’t,” Cory vowed.

  And it didn’t.

  Nothing was ever discovered. Nothing about their lives ever changed.

  Except for their relationship.

  One month after the accident and with permission from his parents, Cory stood in a tattoo parlor, choosing a large chain pattern that wrapped around his arm. The cut had healed, replaced by a jagged scar. The ink was a relief over a sin that needed camouflaging.

  Six months later—two days after his eighteenth birthday—Cory left home. The decision was an easy one. The music world was calling.

  He answered and never looked back.

  But the fame thing only made it worse. While Kyle struggled as a single father to raise a daughter on an officer’s salary, Cory shot to stardom and never had to worry about anything. Not money, not women, not time.

  It all came easy.

  Everything but the self-respect.

  That was as elusive as peace.

  In the years since the accident, Cory had become quite skilled at burying the memories in that murky hometown pond.

  If only they wouldn’t keeping coming back to life.

  CHAPTER 28

  Sam

  I roll over and tuck my face between two bed pillows, unwilling to invite the light in and risk fully waking up. I’d been dreaming of Kassie—of the time we’d been standing side by side in the bathroom, our mother taking turns brushing our hair.

  * * *

  “Make mine longer, Momma!” nine-year-old Sam squealed into the tiny bathroom. With a laugh, her mother obliged.

  She had this odd way of trailing the brush slowly down Sam’s back toward the curve of her spine, giving her the sensation of a lush crown of long, flowing hair. Sam always wanted straight hair long enough to sit on, but it never grew past her collarbone—partly because she was split-end prone, but mostly because her curly hair tangled easily and was more manageable when cut shorter. Her mother made up for Sam’s misfortune by playing Rapunzel on a frequent basis—if the make-believe princess had long, luxurious hair, Sam would also. Even if they had to fake it.

  Finished, her mother snapped a clip in Sam’s hair and moved on to two-year-old Kassie. She managed to get in one stroke before Kassie protested.

  “Ow! I don’t wike it when you do dat!” Kassie planted both hands on top of her head, refusing to move them so her mother could work.

  “Kassie, put your arms down. We are leaving in ten minutes, and your hair is a tangled mess. You look like Little Orphan Annie, and that isn’t a compliment.” Kassie shook her head back and forth; her arms tightened around her head. Her mother tried to brush around it.

  “I wike Annie,” Kassie said in her baby girl voice.

  Her mother flashed a look at Sam, one that hid a smile only the two of them noticed. “That isn’t the point. Now drop your hands.”

  “I wanna be Annie!” Kassie whined. Her elbows pointed upward. She shielded her head with all the strength she possessed.

  “Young lady, put your arms down.” Her mother sighed.

  “I wanna be Annie! I wanna be Annie!” Kassie turned the chant into a full-fledged cry, tears the size of fat rain drops rolling down her cheeks and dripping onto the countertop.

  Sam rolled her eyes and covered her ears. This was stupid and so was her sister. “Will she ever stop doing this? It happens every morning and I’m getting tired of it!” She bent to yell that last part to Kassie, which only made her sister cry harder.

  Too bad.

  Her mother shook her head at both of them, wear
ing the exasperated look of an exhausted and overworked woman. Sam couldn’t decide if she was angry or tired, but she finally gave both of them a wistful smile.

  “She’ll stop someday.” She locked eyes with Sam. “Trust me, nothing lasts forever.”

  * * *

  A fly buzzes around my ear. I swat at it, but it keeps buzzing. Keeps flapping. Keeps vibrating.

  Except flies don’t vibrate.

  I squint and look around, feeling disjointed and out of sorts. I’m in my bedroom. No, I’m in Kassie’s bedroom. No, I’m in the living room. I fell asleep on the sofa with my phone beside my shoulder and everything about this scene feels entirely too familiar.

  I jerk awake and swing my feet to the floor, heart pounding, pulse racing, mind tossing around every possible reason the phone might be ringing right now. Everything I come up with brings me back to one conclusion: I don’t want to answer it.

  I refuse to answer it.

  Phones ring when people are asleep for one reason only.

  That reason is never a good one.

  I reach for it, hold it in my hands, and stare. It could be Cory, not the police, but I haven’t heard from him in almost two weeks. It makes no sense, and for the thousandth time in thirteen days, I relive that last afternoon.

  The park. Kissing. Feeding ducks. Talking about the past. The future. Everything seemed perfect, storybook-worthy even. But I’m a writer and tend to romanticize things. It wasn’t until I relayed the story of my childhood friend that the plot twisted and went a direction I couldn’t have predicted. Cory’s expression went from concerned and involved to lifeless. He shifted his gaze away from me and to the water as though searching for something, not breaking the faraway trance even when my story ended. Sure the story had a sad finale, but I didn’t expect that look…that reaction.

  Even when I waved my fingers in front of his face, he didn’t snap out of it. Just looked at me with downturned eyes and a troubled expression that’s haunted me since.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I was just thinking how awful that must have been for you back then. To lose someone so close to you when…” His words trailed off. He wouldn’t look at me when he said the next words. “You’ve lost an awful lot, Sam. Do you ever wonder why?”

  Something in his words. He seemed to take my circumstances personally, like he wanted to deflect my hits but kept failing. It’s true I’m battered and bruised, but I’m not down yet. At least I don’t think so, but then this is my life. If there’s another, easier way to live—I haven’t been granted that privilege.

  I smiled, but it felt like a tired one. “It was the beginning of a pattern with me. Sometimes I feel like a jinx. You might not want to stand too close.” I’d meant it as a joke; a tasteless one, but if I didn’t laugh at life, how would I get through it?

  Cory didn’t crack a smile.

  We left the park in silence and he drove me home. When I asked if he wanted to come inside, he claimed exhaustion and watched me walk to the door. For the first time since I’d met him, he didn’t offer to walk me to it.

  The next morning, he left me a voicemail message…something about needing to get back to the studio, his next album being pushed up a month, his band ready to record. Something about the story seemed off. The timing? The shaky, distracted delivery? But I didn’t question him, it wasn’t my place. He said he would call soon.

  I haven’t heard from him since.

  I answer the buzzing phone still clutched in my fists and bring it to my ear. “Hello?”

  “Sam, it’s Phyllis.” She’s breathing heavy, excited. My heart falls, disappointed at the female voice, but then races again because…my dad. It’s six thirty on a Saturday morning. Nothing good happens after midnight…but no one told me when the clock starts up again. Maybe at sunrise? Maybe later? Nothing about this feels good.

  “What’s wrong?” Out of instinct, I’m off the sofa and frantically looking for my car keys. The road of panic is a familiar one, and I’ve traveled it often enough to know the route by heart. Find keys, get shoes, grab hairbrush, have mental breakdown at exit twenty.

  “Everything’s okay, I think. It’s just…it’s your father. He’s awake.”

  I stop walking, stop looking, stop twirling keys between my fingers. He’s awake? How does this news warrant an early morning phone call? I slump on my bed and force myself to calm down. My father isn’t sick, isn’t comatose, isn’t dead; he wakes up every day. My shoes are next to the bed, left there last night; I nudge them away, thankful I don’t need to bother slipping them on.

  “Phyllis, why would you call me and scare me half to death when—”

  “He’s asking for you.”

  At those words, my world stops. The world of worry and loss and wondering if I can possibly take any more bad news. The world of routine and living on autopilot and feeling the mundaneness of it all from sunup to sundown and all the leftover hours in between. It stops. My father hasn’t asked for me in years. Why would you inquire about someone you don’t remember? Something scratches the back of my mind, a nugget of hope that won’t go away—not even at my mental command. Hope is a precarious thing, something I’m not ready to cling to. I need it to vanish before it leaves a scar. My mind is so damaged at this point, one more wound might change me into a different version of myself. One that no longer feels or trusts or hopes at all. Even with all my hurts, I wouldn’t like that new me at all.

  “What do you mean, asking for me? He doesn’t know who I am.”

  “You’re right, baby. You’re right. But sometimes…”

  “Phyllis, what are you not telling me? He can’t be asking for me. He can’t.” Those last words are a question. The scratch grows into a pounding fist, and there it is. Hope stands in front me and refuses to be ignored.

  Phyllis clears her throat. “Well, we’ve seen this happen before. Just not with your father.”

  “You’ve seen what happen before?” My head throbs with possibility, and now hope has a partner. I resent both.

  “Sometimes a patient in your father’s condition will have moments of lucidity. Those moments don’t happen often, usually only once or twice, and almost always when…” Phyllis trails off. I can’t take much more of this conversation.

  “Spit it out. Almost always when what?”

  “When they are nearing the end.”

  I knew she would say it, and now I can’t breathe. Hope and possibility both die with a single gunshot, and there you have it. Another end. Another finality. Wetness blurs my vision, and I press my eyes with shaking fingertips. All kinds of awful thoughts run through my mind, though they come in the form of two words. The end. It’s all so awful, the script of my life. When my father is gone, I’ll be left with no one. Everyone I know comes with a readily available tribe, a wide array of family members to both get along with and ignore. Most of my friends complain about long Christmas lists and endless birthday celebrations—all required, all expected, don’t even think about skipping out.

  I have no one but myself.

  What kind of life is that?

  I reach for my shoes.

  This might be the end for my dad, or it might not. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the past decade: no one knows when the end will come. We aren’t promised a long life, or to hit every milestone, or to have endless opportunities to gather up and appreciate all the seconds we’re given with those we love most. Sometimes those seconds go on and on, and sometimes they stop abruptly. In life, we’re only promised today, and today my father is asking for me. In ten short minutes, he’ll get his wish.

  “I need to throw on some clothes. Tell him I’m on my way.”

  * * *

  By the time I make it to my father’s room, he’s asleep and I’m convinced I should have put up that shield. Hope is too hard; love is even harder. As always, antiseptic and urine are a third person in the room as I sit at the edge of his bed and nervously try to coax him awake.

  “Dad? Dad, wake up.” He stirs—t
he flutter of a fingertip, the jerk of an eyelid—but he remains asleep. “It’s me, Sam. Can you please wake up for a minute?” I want him to. With everything in me I do. And I don’t. What happens if everything changes, if he recognizes me and asks for Kassie and wonders where we’ve been all this time?

  Worse, what happens if nothing changes at all?

  “Dad, wake up!” Louder this time, but some things just need to be faced.

  He jerks awake, visibly annoyed and disoriented. Slowly his eyes focus on me. Really focus. I haven’t seen him this lucid in years. Maybe centuries. Time has a weird way of dissolving when you’re unable to comprehend what’s happening.

  “Kassie died. She is buried by your mother. I went there to see them.”

  I don’t know what I expected him to say, but this wasn’t it and it wouldn’t matter anyway. His voice alone is my undoing. Rich and deep and as fatherly as I remember. All the internal pieces I’ve been holding together crack and break with the sound. Tears escape and slide down my chin. I don’t bother to brush them away. Right now I want to feel it all. Brandishing that sword was worth the risk.

  “I know, Dad. I saw you at the cemetery. Kassie had an accident. Do you remember me telling you about it?” I’m crumbling, coming apart on this bed, and I need something to hold onto. I grab onto his hand, something I haven’t done in a long time. Instead of slapping me in his usual way, he squeezes back. I’m clasping my father’s hand. It’s been years since we’ve met like this.

  He nods, his gaze drifting toward the dirty hospital window.

  “I love you,” he whispers, startling me. My eyes cut to his, and for the first time in years he’s looking right at me. Not through me or past me or around me while trying to make sense of a stranger’s presence in his room—but at me. I can’t breathe and I can’t feel and I can’t think. Numb. I’m numb and wrapped inside a cocoon of unbelief and tremendous relief. More tears threaten to fall, but I hold them back. I need to see everything with clear vision, not through blurred and hazy lenses. Later I’ll give myself permission to feel more of the moment, to grieve it if I must. But for now, joy wins out. My father is looking at me, and all I’m able to do is stare back and file away the moment.