by Amanda Heath
They look at us with grief and I try to move away from Max but he won’t let me go. He throws his arm around my shoulder and holds me against him. “You can’t leave again. I can’t do this without you, Farah.”
I look up at him but his eyes are on his parents. “You don’t even like me,” I say, even though I shouldn’t say things like that.
“You’re the only one who knows how I feel right now. My parents hurt for me. For you. Your parents lost a child.” He finally looks down at me, his eyes glossy and dull. “You and I lost the better part of both of us.”
He watches the emotions flit across my face. Sorrow, grief, rage, hate, and love. All those emotions belong to different things, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t all locked into my body right now, trying to fight their way out. It hurts. God it hurts so badly.
I snuggle against him. He smells like chocolate and peppermint with a trace of lilies. The lilies are Sarah. “As long as you don’t start calling me Sarah.”
“I could never confuse the two of you. You might have been identical but there were always differences. Big ones.” He clears his throat and lets out a breath. “She could never be replaced.”
Vivien goes to her knees in front of Max and puts her hands on his cheeks. I’ve seen her do that to both boys. I guess that’s where Max gets it. Tate never touched me like that; he always got right in my face when he had to have my attention. It drove me crazy.
“Mom,” Max whispers, his eyes locked with hers.
“You hang in there. You hang in there for that little boy we all love. He’s going to need you more than ever.” Tears fill her eyes as she looks away from him and her eyes meet mine. “You too beautiful girl. You stay strong.” What she doesn’t add is that I have it bad both ways. The love of my life and my other half both left me, within weeks of each other.
It’s a wonder I haven’t snapped yet.
Oh yeah, I keep seeing my dead sister around.
She turns her attention back to Max when I don’t say anything in return. I pull my phone out of my back pocket because it won’t stop vibrating against my butt. I try to pull away from Max again but he doesn’t budge. This would have irritated me before today but since his touch is keeping me from going crazy, I only feel grateful.
I never would have thought I’d be comforted by Maxwell Spears.
I have three missed calls. All from Tate.
I have four text messages. All from Tate.
Luckily, he didn’t leave any voicemails. I couldn’t handle hearing his voice right now.
Doll face please call me back
How is Max? I couldn’t get through to his phone
I’m sorry, Farah. God I’m sorry.
Take care of Max
It all comes back whenever I communicate with him. I feel my heart ripping out of my chest the day he left. The day he packed a bag and didn’t even say goodbye. I went insane; I thought something bad had happened to him. Then he left me a voicemail while I was at work.
“I can’t do it anymore, doll face.”
That’s all I got. He’s a piece of shit, a heart breaker and a sorry excuse for a man. I gave my time, my heart, my love and my soul and that’s the thanks I got. I opened my veins for that man. I took every bad thing inside of me and I told him about them. I relived them so he could understand why I am the way I am. He threw it back in my face. I harbor his secrets, the pain he feels and the regret. Now I have to live with all of that. It’s a wonder I haven’t combusted with all the shit I’m keeping inside.
“Where is Blake?” Vivien asks my mother and I start to pay attention to the things going on around me.
“A few of the nurses took him down to the caf for cookies,” my mother answers.
I become aware that Max is looking down at my phone. I quickly lock it and put it back in my pocket.
He lifts a hand and tucks a lock of hair behind my ear. That’s new…and strange. I’ve never seen him do that for my sister. “You gotta know he’s coming here.”
I shake off the weird feeling about him and his tucking hair shit. “Yeah. He doesn’t need to become a complete douche bag. Just half of one.” If he doesn’t show his face now, he’s basically saying he doesn’t give any fucks.
Max squints his eyes at me like he doesn’t understand what I’m saying. He should know what Tate did to me messed me up even more than I’m already messed up. It’s like two crazy people live in my body right now.
A man in a suit comes into the room. He looks kind of sleazy and I hope I don’t have to talk to him. Luckily, Bill has the grace to intercept the man and move him out into the hall. I assume he’s either here to make sure we won’t sue the hospital or he’s here about my sister and the baby’s bodies.
My phone starts vibrating in my pocket and I sigh. I let it go to voicemail, hoping against all hope that Tate doesn’t leave a voicemail this time.
I’m disappointed to realize he has left one when my phone vibrates once a few minutes later. I pull it out, shifting against Max, who doesn’t seem to notice. I unlock the phone and go to the voicemail. I hit play and put the phone up to my face.
Then I grit my teeth when I hear his deep raspy voice. “Farah…fuck. I don’t even know what to say here. I’m sorry, I’m so fucking sorry. Sarah was amazing and I don’t know how any of us are going to get through this.” He pauses and I hear a faint voice in the background. “I’m getting on a plane in about two hours…I guess I’ll see you then.” I think it’s the end of the message but then he says the one thing he shouldn’t have. “I still love you, doll face. It’ll be good to see your face.”
I throw my phone across the room, barely missing Pops’ face, and luckily the old man doesn’t notice considering he’s asleep in his chair.
Max
What I feel isn’t…right. It’s like I’m floating around in space and I can’t find a place to set my feet. I don’t feel pain. I don’t feel grief. I don’t feel a thing. I should though. I should be full of rage for the loss of life that I’ve suffered tonight. I do suffer though.
Sarah.
The one girl I never thought I could love and yet I did. I loved her more than I could ever describe to you. I woke up every morning so very thankful that she was in my life, that she was married to me, that she gave me my amazing little boy. It wasn’t always easy to be with her. We had our problems but that’s marriage. You give and you take but you should never take too much or give too much.
Maybe I did give too much. I feel like I did. I feel like this is all my fault. We had sex like normal couples. She got pregnant and that sometimes happens. What you don’t expect to be told is that children are not a good thing for my wife to have. She is prone to complications, complications she had with Blake. They both almost died and the doctor told her no more children.
I got her pregnant. I know it takes two to tango but if I hadn’t gotten her that way, then she wouldn’t be gone right now. She wouldn’t have left me alone in this godforsaken place called earth. It’s tragic but it could have all been prevented. I know it’s not a good thing to say or think or want but she should have gotten rid of it. Did I want more children? Fuck yeah I did, but I didn’t want to put my wife at risk to have them. I know she didn’t have the kind of heart that could do that, have an abortion. I just want to be clear though, there’s a difference between killing an unborn child because you didn’t mean to get pregnant and you don’t want to deal with it, and killing an unborn child to save your own life, especially when that child might not make it to begin with. It’s a horrible way to feel because there are so many couples out there that can’t have children and my heart goes out to them but I would rather have my wife right now than another child.
They are both dead anyway.
Farah sits next to me; my arm is around her. Her mom is glaring at us through her tears. That ugly, hateful bitch can go to hell. I may be numb right now, but Farah isn’t. Farah is feeling all of this, all the things I should be feeling. I want to scream in o
utrage at the woman sitting across from us, her tears faker than the lips on her face. She didn’t love her daughters. If you ask me, I think she hates them. I don’t think she wanted them and I don’t think she had any right to have kids anyway. Sarah has always told me about the shit their mother put her and Farah through.
All the verbal abuse Sarah and Farah suffered through.
All the physical abuse Farah suffered through. She couldn’t conform to the way her mom wanted her to look. I’m glad she didn’t. I’m glad she stuck her middle finger up and said, “Fuck you Mom, I’m going to be who I want to be.” Besides, Farah wouldn’t be the same without her crazy hair and band t-shirts or all her Converses.
We don’t speak; I just hold my arm around her while Blake lies in my lap with his hand on my chest. My little man is passed out and I wish I could sleep like that in this room. I wish I could do a lot of things right now. Mostly I want my wife to walk into the room and smile at me. I want her to tell me everything is going to be okay. I can’t even get the thought into my head that she won’t do it. I know she’s dead but I can’t comprehend it yet. It’s like I want to scream, “What are you all sad about? She’s fine, off somewhere having my kid.”
Farah’s shoulders shake and I pull her closer. I need to be touching her and that’s wrong. I’ve never had the urge to comfort her before. I’ve never had the urge to be there for her, even after everything my brother did to her. I watched her cry, I heard her cry through the nights in her room, but I never once got up to do anything about it. Probably because it wasn’t my place. I wasn’t her brother, her boyfriend or even her friend either. We hung out sometimes because she and I like the same music, the same movies. Sarah refused to watch Harry Potter or anything to do with Zombies. And for the past five years, Farah has been on my couch sitting next to me on Sunday nights when The Walking Dead comes on. Plus, the Sundays Mad Men came on.
It’s strange in a way. I was married to one twin and got what I needed from her, and the stuff I needed from her that I couldn’t get, I got it with the other one. Does that make me a fucked up individual? That I used them that way? Probably.
Farah’s tears soak my shirt and I get chills down my spine. I have this urgency to ask her why she’s crying but that would be the stupidest question ever. I know why she’s crying; I know why I should be crying. I know why my mom keeps giving me these crazy looks. Vivien Spears can’t figure out why her only child isn’t totally devastated and crying because his wife just died. I want to scream at her for the first time in my life. I want to ask her to make me feel something. She made me; she has to be the one that can fix this. Fix this stupid broken mind.
My dad, who I look so much like, with his dark hair and strong features. Though I didn’t get his green eyes, it’s still like looking at me when I’m fifty years old. Tate looks even more like him. He never should have needed to have a paternity test to tell him Tate was his child. Not that I was supposed to know he needed to get one, that Tate’s mom is kind of a whore. I don’t even think Tate knows that.
My brother has been through enough in life, no need to bring that one on his head. Plus, he’s screwed up his own life enough, no need to make him do something else stupid as fuck.
I close my eyes as my fingers tighten around Farah’s arm. She doesn’t make a noise while she cries, she’s so fucking quiet I’m not sure if she’s breathing. I just know she’s not okay. Dwight stares at us. He’s affectionately known as Pops to the twins. I asked him shortly after meeting him if it was okay if I called him by his first name. He weirdly answered, “Yeah, boy. You got your heart full of my girls, it’d be an honor.” Of course I knew what he meant.
I’m in love with both of them.
Yeah, you read that right; I’m in love with both twins. I love them in completely different ways and it doesn’t really even matter. Sarah was the only one I could ever see making a future with. Farah was always that star in the sky I couldn’t reach no matter how hard I stretched. Plus, she was with my brother for a long time and I’m married to Sarah.
I never once acted on my feelings. Never once gave them away to anyone. I held them close to my heart where they belonged. She was never for me, no matter how hard I wished it wasn’t true. Well, back before I met Sarah, when Farah was just a waitress and I was just a guy with a hardcore crush. And my brother was talking his way into her pants behind my back.
I screwed that first meeting up though and she never took me seriously after that. I opened my big mouth and let something stupid and cocky come out. I’ve always been a cocky asshole and some girls like that. I had no idea the real reason she was looking at me like that. If I had known, I probably wouldn’t be sitting here right now.
I don’t know why we’re sitting here, in this hospital. Apparently my wife is dead, my baby daughter is dead, there doesn’t seem to be a reason for us to be here. Maybe they are sending grief counselors in or something. Like I really want to talk to anyone about my wife right now. I only want her to come back to me. I want her to so fucking bad I think it’s keeping me from dealing with her death.
Blake shifts on my chest and I look down at him. His little brown eyes are looking up at me, so I lift my hand up from my leg and run it over his tiny little head. He’s so small and fragile I don’t know how he’s going to deal with this. My little man; God he looks so much like his mother. But then again he looks like me too; he’s the perfect mix of us.
“Daddy, I wanna see Momma,” he tells me quietly. Farah finally makes a noise and my hand tightens even more on her arm. “Please, I really wanna see her.”
Then it happens. It hits me all at once and my eyes erupt into tears. I haven’t cried since the day Blake was born, and those were happy tears. I have no idea what to even say to him right now. My little man, would he even understand? He’s three; he doesn’t know what death is. “I know, buddy. I wanna see her too,” I choke out while all the pain and grief and devastation ravishes my body.
Farah reaches up and wraps her hand around mine on her arm. I loosen it from her shirt and weave my fingers with hers. It’s the most contact we’ve ever had. And I wish to God it wasn’t because of this.
Two
Farah
Tate Spears.
That name used to bring me all the happiness in the world. Now I want to kill something every time they are uttered.
Do I have a right to be pissed? Maybe, maybe not.
I know my heart was broken in two and I couldn’t stand the way that hurt. I hate pain of any kind. My life has been full of so much pain, I think the next time it will break me.
When my sister died, it did break me. Add in the fact that Tate is on his way from wherever the fuck he was, I’m probably insane now. There’s no coming back from that, I think. You can only take so much before you snap and you change for the rest of your life.
Let’s take a break from all the death and sorrow. Let’s talk about happier times. Okay maybe not happier, but I still need to get away from the loss of my sister for a moment. Her house is full of our family and friends. People are crying everywhere. Max just stares at the doorway that leads out into the hall like Sarah will come through there any moment with a huge smile on her face and her big pregnant belly.
Fuck does it hurt.
***
I met Tatum Lucas Spears six years ago when I was the happy age of twenty. I was still in college going for my master’s in business. I was only a freshman, but that’s because I had completed two years of cosmetology school. I wanted to own my own salon when I grew up.
My family and I have lived in this little redneck town of Foreman, Arkansas my whole life. It has about one thousand people and no red lights. Just a greasy EZmart, a Dollar General, a few mom and pop stores plus a nice post office. Not to mention all the freaking churches. People come from all the other little communities around to go to church in Foreman. I hope that gives you a picture of what Foreman is like.
Texarkana is about an hour away, the town that’s ni
cknamed, Little Dallas. They have everything there, so yeah I spent most of my weekends in Texarkana. I also worked there through my college years at Texas Roadhouse. It is one of the busiest restaurants in the city. I loved it. People were friendly, but they also threw their peanut shells on the floor.
Roadhouse is where I met Tate and Max. I was their waitress that first night and then every night after that they came in and I was working. You might take that statement and think it was love at first sight, when, in fact, it wasn’t. My first impression of Tate and Max is totally different than what it is now. I thought Tate wasn’t for me. I didn’t even lust after him. He was hot and sexy and everything, but he’s preppy.
At that time I had my hair long with my natural blonde on top and black underneath. I wore heavy eye makeup and had about four tattoos at the time. I have way more now because they are seriously addictive. My tongue was pierced at the time but I’ve since let it close up. I had six holes in each ear, and still do. Plus I had snakebites, which are two piercings in the lip. I still have those. My music tastes run along the lines of metal and rock. I don’t like pop at all or country.
Now Tate on the other hand has no tattoos, no piercings and listens to country music. His clothes are expensive. Polo’s, khaki’s, slacks, never any jeans. In fact, I don’t think he’s owned a pair of jeans in his entire life. We had nothing in common and you can see why I didn’t bark up that tree.
Though his face was so beautiful. Wide square jaw, upper lip smaller than the bottom, fathomless green eyes with sparks of brown and gold, sharp cheekbones adding just the right amount of shadow to his face. It’s easy to see how any girl could fall at his feet, but I like my guys to have something in common with me. Plus, I thought at the time, he was a tool.