by LP Tvorik
After coffee I walked to the library and picked up two new books about string theory. At the time I was fascinated with a scientific explanation for the origin of the universe. If my dad had found those books it would’ve started a fight, so I only checked out two at a time and kept them hidden between my mattress and box spring.
My house was a mile from the library, and I walked home by the same route as always. I greeted neighbors and smiled at kids running through sprinklers in verdant green lawns. It wasn’t yet evening and the sun beat down on my head, but I didn’t mind the heat. Sweat trickled down my back and my pants clung uncomfortably to my legs, but I was impervious.
Nothing could bring me down. Nate loved me. I didn’t have to lie to Gemma anymore. I’d talked to my father about Momma. I was smart and happy and carefree and everything was fine. I was immune to the universe’s cruelty.
The house was silent when I pushed the front door open, as usual. Momma had taken to watching the TV on mute.
“I’m home!” I yelled, kicking off my work sneakers and lining them up by the door. I dropped my bag as well, breathing a sigh of relief as the cold, conditioned air hit the sweat on the back of my neck, cooling me instantly. “Momma?”
She didn’t respond, so I padded to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator, staring at the contents. I pulled an apple out of the drawer, polishing it on my shirt before taking a large bite. It was crisp and perfect, and to this day the taste of apples makes my stomach heave.
Momma wasn’t in the living room, so I slouched into her chair and flipped the TV on. She was probably out getting groceries or something, and between my parents and Tom I never got to pick the channel.
I lazed away the afternoon, half-dozing to a documentary about the space race. When five o’clock rolled around and Momma still hadn’t returned from the grocery store, I decided to give her a call.
I used the kitchen phone to dial the Nokia daddy bought her for Christmas. Just as it rang through the headset, I heard a chime from upstairs.
“Momma?” I called, hanging up the phone and jogging up the stairs. “Are you home?”
She didn’t answer. Nor did she respond when I rapped three times on her bedroom door. Cautiously, I jiggled the handle and found it unlocked.
“Momma?” I pushed the door open, bracing myself for a lecture on privacy as I stepped into my parents’ bedroom.
The master suite of our home had a west-facing window, with the door set into the southern wall. The walk-in closet and bathroom were set against the northern wall. On July 26th, evening sunlight pierced through the gauzy curtains on the window, casting a bright red glow over beige carpet and my parents’ perfectly-made king-size bed.
The closet door was shut, but the bathroom door was open. In retrospect, I think part of her actually wanted someone to walk in before it was done. Otherwise I suppose she’d have shut both doors and locked them behind her.
My feet pulled me toward the bathroom, even while my heart clung to the doorframe, screaming at my body to stop. At first all I could see was her head, tipped back against the rim of the tub. She’d done up her hair. That’s crazy, right? She had it piled on top of her head just so, hair sprayed into perfection. She was even wearing make-up and jewelry.
All dressed up with nowhere left to go.
As my feet carried me into the bathroom, my mind clung to little details, frantically distracting itself from the horrifying truth of the big picture. I noticed that she was wearing a dress— not her usual white button up and slacks. I’d never seen the dress before. It was black and sleeveless, the skirt floating peacefully in the pink-tinged water around her legs. I noticed that she’d removed her wedding ring, and it sat on the edge of the tub, next to a bloodied razor and an empty glass of wine. I noticed that she was wearing the necklace Tom and I got her for Christmas when I was just ten. It was a heart-shaped locket that had both our pictures glued sloppily to the inside.
I stood there, staring down at her motionless form, and noticed little details. Then, all at once, those details came together and my world fell apart.
“Momma,” I said, staring at her pale face. Beneath the painted-on blush of her cheeks, her face was worse than pale. It was gray, the skin waxen, lips and eyelids tinged blue. Her eyes were half-closed, rolled back in her head so what sliver I could see was just blank white and lifeless. “Momma!” I yelled uselessly, fists clenched at my sides.
Of course, she didn’t respond, and instinct took over for me. I didn’t even think as I bent, plunging my hands into bloody water and grabbing the front of my mother’s dress. I just screamed for her, over and over again. Her body was completely stiff, which made it easier to leverage her up over the edge of the tub. I looked it up later and learned that rigor mortis doesn’t set in until at least four hours after a person dies. I didn’t know that at the time. I didn’t know my efforts were more than four hours too late.
“Momma, wake up!” I cried, heaving with all my might and dragging her waterlogged form onto the bathroom floor. Her skull cracked against the tile as I set her down, and bloodstained water poured over the edge of the tub and dripped off her body, staining the grout between the tiles.
I’d taken a CPR class in middle school, but for some reason the details wouldn’t come to me. All I could remember was chest compressions and rescue breaths. I couldn’t remember the ratio. I couldn’t remember if they’d taught us what to do with all the blood. I couldn’t remember how fast to do the compressions, or where I was supposed to put my hands, or how to call 911 when I was busy breathing for her and pumping her heart.
I rose up over my mother’s body and clasped my fists over the center of her chest, dropping my body weight into compressions and holding my own breath. When my lungs began to burn for air I sucked in a huge breath and bent, covering her cold mouth with mine. Her jaw was completely rigid, but her mouth was parted just slightly, allowing me to push air into her lungs.
That’s when I started crying. She tasted like death. Don’t ask me how I knew what death tastes like. It’s one of those things you can’t describe or explain but the second it touches your lips you just know.
It didn’t stop me, though. All totaled up, I performed shoddy, pointless CPR on my mother’s long-dead corpse for an hour and a half. To me, it felt like years. A lifetime.
To this day, I don’t know what my father’s reaction was when he found his daughter bent over his wife’s body on his bathroom floor. I don’t know if he screamed or gasped or cried. I don’t know if he called 911 before or after pulling me off her.
I do know that, when he grabbed my shoulders and pulled me back, I lashed out with an elbow and socked him in the stomach before returning to my task. I know black spots danced in my vision and sweat rolled off my face and down my neck as I continued the chest compressions. I’d settled on ten. Ten compressions and three breaths. In case you’re wondering, that’s the wrong ratio. It was supposed to be thirty to two. Fortunately, I guess, it didn’t really matter.
I didn’t stop until the first responders arrived. Someone big— a cop— wrapped his arms around me and dragged me off her, letting the paramedics swoop in. I collapsed against the stranger, sobbing breathlessly. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t even look up. I just clung to my anonymous captor and sobbed.
He wasn’t very nice to hug. His uniform shirt was stiff and scratchy and he had a pen in his breast pocket that dug into my cheek. He patted my back, but it was awkward and mechanical, and all he said was ‘it’s okay’ over and over, which didn’t make a lot of sense to me because nothing was okay.
I didn’t see the paramedics load my mother’s body onto a gurney and take it away, but I wish I’d watched it happen. Maybe if I’d seen her go I’d still have the piece of me I left on the bathroom floor that night. That little fraction of me will always be there, sobbing through CPR and begging my mother to live.
My father t
ried to hug me at some point, but I shoved him away and clung to the cop. Then a female officer came and I let her lead me out of my parents’ bedroom to my own. She dried me off and helped me into clean clothes and then walked with me to the bathroom and stood by while I rinsed the taste of death from my mouth.
“We’d like to ask you some questions, Alexandra,” she said gently, when I finally finished. “Your father said it was okay, but if you don’t want to talk to me you don’t have to. Ms. Watterson, here, will sit with us. Is that okay?” She gestured at the gray-haired woman in the polo shirt who stood beside her. I hadn’t even noticed her arrival.
“Sure,” I mumbled, and let her follow me to my bedroom.
With Ms. Watterson, whoever she was, as a silent witness, I sat on my bed and answered the cop’s questions, hands clasped in my lap, eyes fixed on the carpet by her feet. I never looked her in the eye. I can’t even recall what she looked like. The questions were brief and fact-based.
“What time did you get home?”
“What time did you find your mother?”
“When was the last time you saw your mother alive?”
“Has your mother exhibited signs of depression?”
“Do your parents get along?”
On and on, and never once did she ask the questions I wanted to answer.
When did you realize your mother was dead?
Why do you think she wanted to die in that dress?
How could your mother leave you all alone?
How did it feel, breathing air into dead lungs?
When you close your eyes, do you see her floating in the water?
It was dark outside when the police officer left. My father tried to talk to me again after that. He knocked on my door and took my silence as invitation. Then he sat next to me on my bed and put his arm around me and I took no comfort in it whatsoever. I’d have rather been hugging the cop with the scratchy shirt and the pen in his breast pocket.
“I asked you to talk to her,” I whispered around the tears that hadn’t stopped falling. I didn’t need to ask if she was dead. I think I’d known the whole time.
“I know, Aly,” my father said, tightening his arm around me. “I’m so sorry.”
“She killed herself.”
“I know, sugar.” He tried to hug me against his chest, but I held my body stiff as a board, unyielding.
“You didn’t even notice. Did you even ask if she was okay? Even once?”
“You’re right to be angry.”
“You’re goddamn right I’m angry!” I yelled, shooting off the bed and rounding on him, red-faced and furious. My father’s face blanched. I never got angry at anyone but Nate, and I damn sure never cursed. “Get out of my room.”
“Alexandra, please,” he said. “Your language… please don’t shut me out.”
“Get the fuck out of my goddamned room!” I screamed, heedless of the police who were no doubt lingering in the crime scene that was now my home.
“Aly—”
“Out!” I planted two hands in the center of his chest and shoved him backwards. His face twisted in a strange combination of frustration and despair. I suppose a better daughter would have noticed that his own eyes were red and puffy from tears, and that he was likely blaming himself plenty without my help. I wasn’t fit to be a good daughter that night, though. I had my own problems.
“Get some sleep,” my father said, shoulders slumping in defeat. “I’ll be downstairs with the officers if you need me. We’ll talk tomorrow morning.”
Then he left, pulling the door shut behind him, and I was alone.
Alone.
I collapsed sideways on my bed, praying for sleep to drag me under, but every time I closed my eyes all I could see was my mother’s waxy gray skin and the whites of her rolled-back eyes. I’d brushed my teeth five times and gargled for two minutes with sharp, alcoholic mouthwash, but the metallic tinge of death still lingered on my tongue.
Stifling a cry of despair, I scrambled off my bed, snatched my CD-player off my desk, and ran to the door. I flipped on the overheads, flooding the room with yellow-white light, and slid down the wall by the door, sliding the headphones over my ears and cranking up the volume on the music. Drowning my senses, I wrapped my arms around my knees and stared with wide eyes at my room. My eyes burned from exhaustion and tears, but I couldn’t blink. I was afraid to.
I stayed that way for hours. I couldn’t have told you what CD I listened to. The songs were just noise, screaming in my ear and drowning out the echoes of my own gasping breath and pleas for my mother to please, please wake up. My tired eyes darted around the room, absorbing every detail, jerking open every time they drifted closed into another iteration of my nightmare.
I didn’t hear the knock at my window, but I saw the silhouette through my curtains. Since the light was on and reflecting off the glassy surface of the window, all I could make out was the shape of a man, hovering outside. I ripped the headphones from my ears and shot to my feet.
Nate clung perilously to the branch outside my window, hand outstretched and braced on my windowsill. His face, already twisted in concern, seemed to drain of blood when I pulled back the curtains and slid the window open.
“Alex what the hell?” he hissed, leaning forward and poking his head into my room as I stepped back. “Are you okay? What’s going on?”
“You shouldn’t be here,” I said numbly, looking at my feet. “My dad will—”
“Fuck your dad!” he grumbled dismissively, clambering through the window with considerably less grace than I usually managed. “I had a damn heart attack when I saw the police cars parked outside, Al. Please just tell me you’re okay.”
“I’m okay,” I said obediently. It was a lie, but if he needed to hear it I’d say it.
“No you’re not. What happened? What’s going on?”
He stepped forward, reaching for me, and I stepped back. I don’t know why. I think part of me knew that saying the words out loud and letting him hold me would be the final nail in the proverbial coffin. As long as Nate didn’t know, I had somewhere I could go that wasn’t stained by reality. Once I brought him into it, it’d be real. My mother would be dead. Everywhere and forever.
“Alex, if you really don’t want me here I’ll leave,” Nate said evenly, letting his hands drop to his sides. “But I’m not gonna go until I know you’re okay, so just tell me what’s going on.”
“I don’t want you to leave,” I blurted, stepping forward and wrapping my arms tight around his waist. His wound around my shoulders, holding me against him as a fresh crop of tears broke loose and rolled down my face. It took me three tries to get the words out, and when I finally said them they were muffled in the fabric of his shirt. “My mom killed herself.”
Every muscle in his body locked up and I swear I heard his heart skip a beat. “Shit,” he murmured into my hair. “Al…”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I said, pulling my head away from his chest and looking up into his eyes so he could see I was telling the truth. He frowned but nodded.
“Okay. You’re not hurt though?”
“No.” Not physically, anyway.
“Okay. Do you wanna stay here or do you wanna go outside?”
I wanted to go outside, but I didn’t think I could handle the climb. My knees were weak and wobbly and my eyes were so sore I could barely see.
“Stay here,” I mumbled, tightening my grip and burying my face in his shoulder.
“You got it.”
Before I realized what was happening, Nate stooped and hefted me into his arms, walking to the bed and settling against the headboard. He didn’t say another word for the rest of the night.
I know I ought to say he took the nightmare away. That’s how love is supposed to work, right? You find your soulmate and that person’s mere presence eases e
very trouble you face and soothes every pain?
That wasn’t how it worked that night, though. Nate didn’t take any of it away. I still saw my mother’s body every time I closed my eyes, and I still heard my own desperate pleas in the silence. My stomach still churned and my chest still felt like someone had driven a spike through it. I shattered to pieces that night, and even Nate couldn’t hold me together. I cracked and crumbled into a thousand jagged shards, and all he could do was gather them up in his arms and hold them together until the storm blew through.
Chapter nine
nate
Alex’s mom killed herself on Thursday.
On Thursday night, I sat with her until dawn pinked the horizon. She cried at first, but she wasn’t hysterical. I think she was too tired for that. She just clung to me, trembling, while silent tears dampened my shirt. At around three in the morning, she finally dozed off, but it was a tense, fretful sleep. She mumbled and cried out and jerked awake periodically, despite my efforts to comfort her. It broke me to leave her in the morning, but I didn’t have a choice. She said she understood, and curled on her side, watching through puffy eyes while I climbed gracelessly out the window. She looked so alone that I almost stayed— work and siblings and her reputation be damned.
On Friday night, I returned and found her in the same spot I had left her. She hadn’t even changed clothes. I don’t know what worried me more— the fact that she didn’t even twitch as I climbed into her room or the fact that she’d stopped crying.
“Hey, Alex,” I said. She was facing away from me and didn’t roll over or sit up as I stretched out on the bed beside her without invitation.
“Hi,” she said, her voice a strange, gritty monotone.
“How are you feeling?” I knew it was a stupid question, but I didn’t know what else to ask.
“Fine.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“No.”
So I held her in silence for the rest of the night. I was beyond tired and she must have been too, but neither of us slept. Her lights were still on, so I stared at the ceiling, listening to her breathe in a tense, staccato rhythm. At dawn, I left with a promise to come back. She didn’t respond.