Chapter 28 Survivor’s Guilt Is an Ongoing Theme
28
Survivor’s Guilt Is an Ongoing Theme
When the movie—one of the many Hallmark Christmas movies that poses the unanswerable question What if Santa’s son could get it? —ends, my mom yawns strategically, signaling the official end of the holiday season. When I turn in for the night, I spy light glowing from under the office door—the room formerly known as emma’s room—keep out under threat of death . I knock lightly, and my dad beckons me in.
“I thought you were asleep,” I whisper, closing the door behind me.
My dad chuckles gently from his roller chair. “I don’t sleep anymore. But I’m glad you knocked.” He opens the bottom drawer of his heavy wood desk. “I found this for the Christmas train. I’m sorry I was so busy this year with schoolwork.”
I sit cross-legged on the floor at the foot of his desk, shaking my head with a smile. “It’s fine, Dad. There’s always next year. I wasn’t here long anyway.”
He reveals a miniature tunnel portal. It reads cascade tunnel in chipped painted print. “I found it at that flea market in Ohio your mom likes. It’s the tunnel from our road trip to Washington, remember?”
I take the small piece of plastic in hand. “Of course. I made Emma read my book on its construction in the car, and she threw up right as we entered it.”
He chuckles, his eyes lost in the memory. “I didn’t think that tunnel would ever end.”
I reach up, placing the piece back on his desk. “It’s the longest railroad tunnel in the United States. Maybe we could paint it when you’re done with classes this summer.”
“That would be great, sweetie.”
“I couldn’t help but notice I didn’t get a train car this year.” I poke the armrest of his swivel chair.
“Yes. It was a big year for Target gift cards.” He cleans the lenses of his glasses with his shirt. “I didn’t think you liked getting those old cars anymore.”
I chew on the corner of my mouth. “I’ve decided to embrace my rail enthusiasm. Year-round. Wear it on my sleeve from now on.”
Adam was right. I’m sick of hiding the things that make me happy under my bed.
I shut the door after we wish each other good night and make my way down the wallpapered hallway to my old room. The space has functioned as a guest room ever since my mom swapped my twin bed for a double, but the walls remain a light periwinkle adorned with the same sheer black butterfly curtains that fluttered over the heating vent in a way that delighted my teenage self.
My homework desk is missing, but a flimsy Robert Pattinson poster still marks its old home. What can I say? Teenage Alison Mullally had a thing for the strong, quiet type.
I’m nearly tucked into the guest bed when a name lights up my screen.
Adam’s calling me.
For the first time in weeks, Adam wants to talk to me. What could this mean? It has to at least be a courteous, Good evening, Alison. In the New Year, expect me to be blocking your number. Have a lovely holiday.
In danger of the call going to voicemail and missing this moment altogether, I frantically swipe at my screen. The phone jumps out of my hand, and I fumble with it twice before it lands on the bed with a thud.
“Hello?” I shout at my phone on the comforter. “Hello?” I answer again when the phone is on my ear.
I hear nothing but silence.
I sit on my bed, one hand on my phone and the other pressed into the stress crease forming on my forehead. “If this is a misdial, I’ll kill you.”
“Suddenly, I’m wondering why I was so nervous to call you.” His familiar voice swims against my ear. It’s warm and gravelly and as lovely as I remember. I resist melting at the sound of it.
“No need to be nervous.” I try to pitch my voice sweet with a hint of sultry, but I don’t think I nail it.
There’s the briefest awkward silence before Adam speaks again. “Merry Christmas, Ali.”
The nickname hits me in my chest. I reach for my headphones and place my pillow on my lap, worried lying down might jinx this. “Merry Christmas, Adam.” I wait for what he might say next but hear only muffled voices in the background. “Where are you?”
“I’m at June’s. I’ve been here a few days.”
“How was Otis’s Christmas?”
“Perfect. He’s at that age where he still wants to believe in Santa but is questioning the logic. We had to work a bit harder to sell it. After he fell asleep last night, I walked on the garage roof so we could show him Santa’s boot prints in the morning.”
“Adam! That’s stupid dangerous.”
“No way. It was smart.” His voice sparkles with the beginning of a laugh.
“You thought it was smart to reenact the dad’s death in Gremlins ?”
“I’m impressed you’ve seen Gremlins . That’s nearly a scary movie.”
“First, how dare you? Second, Gremlins is terrifying. I can’t watch Snow White without picturing those little goblin thingies singing along.”
“They’re gremlins, Mullally. It’s in the name.” His voice widens the way it always does when he’s pretending he’s not amused by me. “How was your Christmas?”
“Good. Really good, actually. The best one in a while.”
“I’m glad.”
The silence grows until I can’t help but squash it. “Did you call just to say Merry Christmas?”
“No. I wanted to talk. I just needed to get some privacy.”
I hear a car door shut on his side of the line. I imagine him in his truck in his sister’s driveway and the way he looked at me from the bench seat the last time I was there with him—like he was drinking me in.
“Okay.” I reshuffle the pillows to lie down. I’ve talked to a few boys while staring up at this popcorn ceiling, but I’ve never felt as on edge as I do right now talking to Adam.
“Where are you?” he asks.
“My childhood bedroom. It’s weird being back here. The whole house is a 2000s time warp. This morning, I stepped on a butterfly clip that’s been caught in my rug since elementary school.”
“I hate butterflies,” he says easily, like he hates Mondays or anchovies and not a majestic creature of the natural world.
Pleasure creeps into my voice. “How can you hate butterflies?”
“Okay, I don’t hate butterflies. But I don’t understand why people treat them differently than other bugs because they’re colorful.”
I snort.
“What?”
“Nothing, I just love that. It’s such a you opinion.”
“Delightfully misanthropic?”
“Grumpy,” I answer. “And something I might agree with but would never say out loud.” I can hear him thinking, smiling maybe.
“I’m seeing a therapist.” The confession bursts out of him. “Maybe I should start there.” He laughs nervously. It’s deep and rumbly, just like I remember.
“Me too. I’ve seen her on and off for years, but I’m on again.”
“I’m newer to it than you are. Things kind of fell apart for me after Sam’s birthday. June begged me to see someone.”
“I’m so sorry, Adam.” I count his breaths as the silence stretches. “I got your text.” The word No flashes above my head.
“That’s why I called.” He exhales. “I didn’t know how to say it over text. When you reached out, you said I was right, but I wasn’t right about anything. I volunteered to help with the condo because it was something to do. A way to put off processing everything I was feeling after Sam’s death. We weren’t growing apart. I pushed him away.
“Sam was the one who I made all these life goals with—go up north for the apprenticeship, make it back to the Cities, and strike out on my own. He made it sound simple. It was simple at first. When I finished the apprenticeship, he talked me up to his parents’ friends, looking for investors. Paul, that guy at Thanksgiving with the She Shed, he went back and forth with me for almost a year on investing. He had me redesign the same dining set countless times, wanting something more ‘marketable.’ By the end of it, I had a garage full of furniture I hated, and he had a vegan juice company that was a better fit for his Shark Tank fantasies.” He chuckles bitterly.
“I never got over that, what felt like the dismissal of everything I worked for. I lost who I was to create something someone else might deem worthy of their investment. For years, I’ve been sort of…hiding, I guess? So stuck in my life and so afraid to try again and fail. Sam was always pushing me to take another chance, and I pushed him away rather than risk taking a single step forward.”
He swallows audibly, and in my mind, I can see the way his throat moves. “When he died,” he continues, “instead of allowing myself to feel sad he was gone, I felt so guilty for pushing him away by choice. I was still sad, but I wasn’t letting myself feel it. I didn’t think I deserved to feel the loss, like there was only so much of Sam’s memory to go around and I hadn’t earned my piece.”
I finish his thought for him. “And I only made everything worse.”
“No, that’s the thing. I blamed you for that guilt, but it was there before Mrs.Lewis introduced us. Don’t get me wrong, thinking I was falling for his girlfriend didn’t help, but what I was feeling wasn’t your fault.”
For a moment, I let his words— I was falling —float deliciously around my insides before I force myself to hear the past tense of it.
“But you also made me feel like things could be better, like it wouldn’t always feel so lonely,” he says, his voice cracking with emotion. It makes me wish I could hold his hand. “I’m sorry I put all of those feelings of anger and shame on you. It wasn’t fair.”
“I’m still sorry I complicated those feelings further. I’m no stranger to guilt. It’s my favorite feeling.”
“How’s that?”
Finally getting comfortable, I snuggle deeper into my pillow. “Not my favorite as in ‘most enjoyed,’ but I seem to prefer it over feeling anything else. I don’t know. Maybe I enjoy it a little. So many emotions want you to just sit and feel them until they go away. Guilt demands action. You have to atone for it. It tells you exactly what it wants from you. Sadness doesn’t do that. At least it doesn’t for me.”
“You sound like my therapist.” He chuckles lightly, and the sound makes my insides fizzy.
“I sound like my therapist. Survivor’s guilt is an ongoing theme for me. After my mastectomy, I was kind of…depressed. Mara and Chelsea were amazing, but the recovery was more than I anticipated. And I wouldn’t let myself be sad because what kind of asshole feels sad after escaping cancer? Deserving people feel grateful. Deserving people survive and go climb mountains and live life to the fullest. I grabbed on to that last one and ran with it.”
I clear my throat. “Rather than figuring out how my new body fit into who I was before the surgery, I created a new personality: someone worthy of a second chance. Because an introverted couch potato couldn’t possibly deserve it. When I met Sam, I thought he was living exactly the right life. He was colorful and alive. I thought being the person he chose proved I was too, and being the person he dumped proved I wasn’t. Now I’ve come around to the idea that I might not be cut out for sucking the marrow out of life, and it might be okay to just be myself.”
“There’s no one else like you,” he responds, his voice a secretive hush. “I don’t want to torment myself anymore. And I don’t want to feel sad, but I am. Whether I like it or not.”
I want to ask if he feels my shadow in his life, the way I feel his—but I’m not brave enough to hear the answer. “Are you in the bunk bed tonight or driving home?”
“Air mattress, actually. For Christmas, I built Otis this lofted bed thing he wanted. I’ve been down here a lot the last couple weeks. Figuring some things out.”
“Wow. No more bunk beds. It’s the end of an era.” I hear his laugh, which transforms into a yawn. “Should I let you go?”
“Probably. I should go inside and head to bed.”
“It was nice to hear from you,” I say, forcing a formal distance into my tone. “Good luck, Adam.”
“Good luck?” I almost feel his light chuckle on my cheek. “Is that better or worse than wishing me well?”
“Better, I think.”
“Okay. Good luck to you too. Night, Ali.” He starts to say something else but stops himself. “Night.”
“Night,” I say, and hang up the phone, already impatient for our next late-night call.