Fourteen
Fourteen
SEPTEMBER 1996
My bags were by the front door, ready for the drive to Princeton. I wasn’t sure whether my sense of dread was over leaving Tess or spending six hours in a car with two people who hated each other. The night before, I heard my parents arguing, insisting that they could each take me alone, fighting about who was the better parent. I fell asleep to my Walkman at full volume, drowning out their voices.
I woke up as the sun was rising and looked out back, sure I was going to see my mother in her garden, pruning flowers before the trip away. But the garden was empty.
I shuffled down the hallway, past my father’s shut door. He must have been asleep, which wasn’t like him. He was usually up all hours of the day.
My mother’s room was on the opposite end of the house. My parents had slept alone in separate wings of the house for the last few years, their physical distance mimicking the emotional wall building between them. Her door was cracked open, so I stepped inside, finding an empty bed.
I glanced at my watch. It was a few hours before we were supposed to get on the road. I wanted to see Tess. To hold her and tell her for the thousandth time that I would see her soon. That I would talk to her that night. That even though everything was changing, nothing was going to change about how much I loved her.
Before I left my mother’s room, I noticed her bathroom light was on. I called out softly, “Mom, you up?”
No response.
I knocked on the slightly ajar bathroom door. “Mom?”
When I stuck my head inside, I saw her, lying in the bathtub, naked. Embarrassed, I whipped around and stood immobile in her bedroom.
“Sorry, Mom,” I stuttered. “See you downstairs?”
But she didn’t answer. There wasn’t a sound coming out of the bathroom.
There should have been a warning sign that my life was about to shatter. Instead, there was a deafening silence.
I turned around and pushed the door fully open, stepping onto the cool, marble floor of the bathroom, expecting to wake my mother out of a stupor. To move through the motions like any other morning, my mother hungover, our mutual awkwardness resulting in stifled conversations ignoring any acknowledgment of reality. I reached for one of her obscenely expensive ivory towels, my fingers sinking into the lush fibers. I couldn’t believe this was how I was going to spend my last morning at home. Pretending I didn’t see my mother drunk in the bathtub, shielding her nakedness so that my teenage-boy eyes didn’t wither into my skull, hoping that things would get better once my father and I weren’t such a daily bother.
I held up the towel, squeezing my eyes shut. “Here you go.” I waited for her reply, but it never came.
“Mom, you need to get dressed. We’ll be leaving soon,” I said, hiding behind the towel and hoping that this momentary embarrassment would be a memory easy to erase.
I waited too long, too many moments of silence with no response before I slowly lowered the towel and looked into the tub.
Her face was unnaturally pale. I said her name again and she didn’t move, not even when my voice turned to shouts, panic rising into my throat. I lunged forward, my arms diving into the water as the tepid temperature sent alarm bells ringing. She didn’t just get in the bath. She’d been there for hours.
I held on to hope, a chance she’d be okay as I heaved her out of the bathtub, streams of water soaking my clothes. Her limp body slid out of my arms and onto the bathmat. It was the open eyes that would haunt me the most. I was used to vacant stares from my mother, but this was different. Bold, black pupils overtaking any trace of her blue irises, her lips slightly parted but no breath escaping.
I jumped back, drops of water spilling off my shirt. My heart raced from the terror and tragedy in front of me.
I ran down the hallway, bursting open the door to my father’s room, because I needed help and had no idea what to do.
“Dad,” I stammered. My voice sounded unfamiliar, like a child creeping into his parents’ bed after a nightmare.
My father rolled over and groaned. “Grant, get out of here. I need to get some sleep.”
My whole body was shaking, my voice cracking as I said, “Dad. It’s Mom. Come. Now.” Each word was an instruction, a plea.
I ran back down the hall, gasping for breath as I heard his footsteps behind mine.
I stood outside the bathroom door, my face soaked with tears I had no control over.
My father walked into the bathroom and I watched his body still, his eyes close briefly, and then open as he stared at the ceiling. “Shit,” he whispered.
He bent down, checking for a pulse, and then straightened. He walked out of the bathroom without even a gesture toward me and headed down the hall to the phone. I heard him pick it up calmly, methodically, taking a deep breath before dialing.
“I need a favor,” he said.
I had no idea why he wasn’t calling for an ambulance or who was on the other end of that phone call. The calmness of his voice unsettled me almost more than my mother’s body had.
I stumbled into her bathroom, not knowing where else to go or what do to. Her skin was white, blue undertones seeping through. Her open eyes almost seemed like she was pleading for help. And if I could, I would have done anything to help my mother. But I couldn’t.
I stared at my mother and knew she was dead.
Suffocating my fear, I gently brushed my hands against her eyelids to close them and give her some deserved peace.
My father walked back into the bathroom and put one hand on my shoulder. “You shouldn’t see this. Let’s wait outside.” He said it like we were waiting for a movie to start.
I lunged at him, fists swinging wildly. “Did you do this?” I screamed. “Did you kill my mother?”
He pulled me tight, holding my arms against my sides as he rocked my body back and forth. He shushed me like I was a baby, which was probably the last time he’d held me that close.
“Your mother was sick, Grant. I’m so sorry. I’m going to take care of this. I’m going to take care of you.”
“You have never taken care of me!” I shouted.
“You have no idea how much I have done for you. Let me deal with this situation and then we’ll have a talk.” He sighed, like he was exasperated by my display of emotion.
“ This situation ?” I screamed. “She’s dead. Your wife is dead. And you’re treating it like some corporate takeover. You’re disgusting.”
“No, I’m doing what must be done. I take care of the problems and messes that others leave behind.” He gestured around the room, finally pointing at my mother.
“If she was a mess, it was because of you,” I accused.
For the first time that morning, I saw emotion streak across my father’s face. He was wearing a matching set of plaid pajamas and looked vulnerable in a way I thought impossible. I rarely saw my father out of his suit.
His voice was low as he said, “We loved each other once, you know. Then we didn’t. We came to an arrangement that worked for us both. But your mother was unhappy. I never thought it would go this far.”
It was the only time he ever acknowledged responsibility for my mother’s pain.
Tears flooded my eyes and I shoved him away, racing downstairs and out the front door. I kept running. I ran away from him and the icy coldness that surrounded his lack of emotion. My lungs burned as I thought about my mother and how long she must have been lying in that frigid tub. Was she waiting for him? Did she slip and hurt herself? Did she drink too much and find her body easing under the water? Or was it possible that he did something to her? He was the coldest, most calculating person I’d ever known, but would he hurt his wife while his son slept down the hall?
I kept running, thoughts spiraling through my head, unsure whether I would ever know the truth. Whoever my father called on the phone would help him put a tidy bow on the unfortunate situation of his wife’s death.
My mother may not have been perfect, but she was the only love I had known. As a boy, when my father’s sharp words sliced me to the core, she swooped in with tight hugs and assurances. As I got older and more hardened to his demeanor, she still tried to smooth the rough edges of our life, justifying my father’s outbursts by explaining that his work was stressful. Every bruise on her face, her arms, came with a story about an accident or delicate skin. I saw past these excuses, knowing my father’s true nature, finding her complicity unsettling. Now I wondered if it led to her death.
My mother was the only love I knew, before Tess. Maybe that’s why I found myself dripping in sweat, panting at her front door. When it opened, Tess’s mother was standing there. She opened her mouth to speak, but something about my face must have stopped whatever she meant to say.
“Tess,” she called quietly.
A sleepy Tess walked toward me. Her eyes were red-rimmed and puffy. Did she know?
“Grant, I can’t say goodbye again. It’s too hard,” Tess said.
I shook my head and choked out the words. “She’s gone. My mother is gone. She’s … dead.”
Her arms wrapped around my body as I slowly slid to the hard floor. I heard unfamiliar screams, and it wasn’t until Tess’s voice intertwined with those sounds, repeating, “I’m here, I’m here,” that I realized the sounds were coming from me.
“Don’t leave me,” I whispered.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she said, and I believed her.
We sat like that, clutching each other, for much of the morning. At some point, her mother left for work. But Tess stayed. Her small, warm frame clung to my side as my body shook. I barely spoke. Maybe I thought if I acted like time was frozen, I could undo this morning. But that wasn’t possible.
Eventually, Tess’s mother came back to the cottage. She said Ms. Milton got a call from my father. I’d been gone long enough that even Richard Alexander felt the need to express some concern.
Tess hadn’t asked a single question, seemingly knowing that there was nothing about this morning I was able to explain. She sat beside me, providing the support I needed without even asking.
But Tess’s mother was different. Her voice was gentle, but her eyes were full of concern as she said, “Ms. Milton said your mother fell, Grant.”
“She’s lying. My father is a liar,” I said, nostrils flaring. “Don’t believe anything he says.”
Tess’s mother reached for my hand. “They’re worried about you. Your father is going to send out a search party if you don’t go back soon.”
I stood and nodded. “I’ll get out of your way. I don’t want to cause you any problems.”
“Mom, what’s wrong with you?” Tess asked. “Grant, stay. You don’t have to go back there.”
“Yes, he does. He needs to be with his family. And I don’t need to explain to Ms. Milton why he is here,” Tess’s mother said.
“His mother died,” Tess whispered harshly. “There are more important things than your stupid job.”
I watched the unspoken conversation unfold between Tess and her mother as their eyes narrowed and the room filled with tension. Last week, Tess’s mother had been offered full-time employment at the Milton estate. Tess had enrolled in the local high school. It was everything they had worked for all summer. It was too much for them to lose.
I placed a hand on Tess’s shoulder as I said, “It’s okay. She’s right. I have to go home.” My voice cracked and Tess wove her fingers into mine.
“I’ll go with you.” Tess squeezed my hand tighter.
“No, Tess. You stay here,” her mother said. “You are not family.”
“Yes, she is.” I stared at Tess, our eyes locked. “Tess is my family.” At that moment, I never doubted the truth of that statement.
She wrapped her arms around my waist, melting into my body. We were a unified force, oblivious to everything around us, including our mounting differences.
“I’m not leaving him,” Tess said. “He needs me.”
Tess’s mother looked away, her eyebrows drawn together as she said, “I have to get back to work.” She walked toward the door and said, “I’m sorry for your loss, Grant.” As she left, she mouthed, “Be careful.” I assumed it was directed at Tess, but it felt like a warning we all needed.
Tess and I walked slowly back to my mother’s house. The sun was shining brightly, like peak summer, but the air was crisper, hinting at the fall to come. Everything was green and lush, rolling fields melting into the hills. It was a beautiful day, the landscape coming to life, and I was dead inside.
Tess was gentle, asking me simple questions. But I couldn’t respond. I didn’t know how my mother died. Even when she died. As we walked up to the house, I knew I needed answers. The shock of that morning hadn’t worn off, but I felt more prepared to confront my father with Tess at my side.
I expected to see a swarm of emergency vehicles, but instead, there was a single sheriff’s cruiser parked in the driveway next to my father’s green Jaguar. We found the sheriff and my father sitting at the kitchen table, chatting casually.
“Where is she? Where is my mother?” I demanded.
Richard looked up and sighed as he said, “Your mother’s body is at the morgue.” His eyes narrowed in on Tess. “Where have you been? With the gardener? Please send her home.”
I felt Tess’s body stiffen next to mine, Richard’s cold voice creating even more tension in this tight corner of the room.
“She stays.” I stared at my father, a silent standoff that he eventually ended by looking away.
“Why aren’t there more police officers here?” I insisted. I forced my voice to be as steady as my father’s, even though my insides were churning. “There should be an investigation. You need to figure out how my mother died,” I said to the sheriff.
“There will be no investigation.” Richard’s tone was as dismissive as it was confident.
“Why not?” I screamed. “What did you do to her? She was fine last night. And now this morning she’s dead in her bathtub. What happened?” I pleaded.
“Your mother hasn’t been fine for a long time, son.” It should have been a term of endearment, but the way my father said “son” seemed more like a warning. “Your mother’s death was a long time coming.”
I lunged for my father, shocked by his callousness. Even by Richard’s low standards, his lack of emotion over my mother’s death compounded my pain.
The sheriff quickly set down his coffee cup and jumped up, inserting himself between me and my father. “Are you arresting him?” I asked, jabbing my finger toward my father’s chest.
“Of course not, Grant.” Richard turned away as he said, “It was an accident. Your mother fell and hit her head on the bathtub. It’s a tragedy. That’s what we will say.”
Tess shifted from side to side. I could only imagine how uncomfortable she felt, being in this room, hearing these bizarre reactions.
The sheriff placed a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
Those were the same words Tess’s mother had said. It was the phrase any decent human being would say, but it only highlighted the lack of emotion Richard displayed.
I stared him down. “I don’t believe you.”
Richard slammed a pill bottle on the counter. “This was empty. She took sleeping pills and then chased them down with a bottle of wine. She was reckless and now she’s gone.”
I couldn’t speak, but my head shook back and forth. My father was an asshole, but was he right? I tried to remember my mother’s actions leading up to that night. She was sad and drinking more and my mind spun with all the times I should have tried harder to slow her spiral.
“Neither of us deserve the disgrace of your mother’s addiction,” Richard said. “The sheriff has kindly agreed to keep the circumstances of her death confidential. As will everyone else in this room.” I watched as my father glared at Tess. He raised his eyebrows as he said, “Understood?” He said it like a command.
“She didn’t always drink this much,” I said, my voice small. “What happened this summer?”
The muscles in Richard’s jaw tightened. He hesitated, shifting from one foot to another. His eyes darted over to the sheriff, who took a step closer, clearly interested in his answer. “It’s obvious, Grant.” Richard sighed before continuing, “You’re the reason.”
I shook my head back and forth, feeling Tess’s hand grip mine tighter.
Richard continued. “Your mother got to spend the summer with you, her only child, right before you left for college. It should have been the happiest time of her life. But the longer you were here, the more depressed she got. She saw your laziness—sleeping most of the day and, apparently, sneaking off with this common girl. Your admission to Princeton was almost rescinded because of that stupid prank. I told her that you were a spoiled child who wouldn’t amount to much. She started the summer hopeful that you would show some worth, but we all know how she felt by the end of the summer.”
I knew about his cruel tactics. I knew how he manipulated me. But the devastation of his words choked the air out of my throat. “That’s not true.”
He leaned forward, harsh whispers coming out through gritted teeth. “Covering up your mother’s addiction is more for you than me. What kind of mother drinks and drugs herself into oblivion while spending the summer with her only child? What does that say about the mother? Or worse, the child?”
Once my father had finished, he gestured toward the door. “I’ll walk you out, Sheriff.” The conversation was over, and knowing my father, so were any future discussions of my mother’s death.
I turned toward Tess, tears streaking down her face. A part of me was embarrassed that Tess saw this side of my life. Another part knew I wouldn’t be able to stand if she weren’t at my side.
My mother’s behavior had become more erratic, and I knew she was drinking more. Something happened that summer that seemed to send her over whatever edge she’d teetered on before. Maybe it was my fault. I watched her decline but was too consumed with Tess to ask what was bothering her. I was too focused on myself and let my mother die. Or worse, my father was right.
“I need to lie down,” I murmured.
“Nothing he said is true,” Tess stated. “She loved you.” Tess cupped her hands around my face as she continued, “Grant, you did not cause your mother’s death. You know that, right? This was an accident.”
Tess kept repeating, “It was an accident, Grant. Tell me you understand that.” But it sounded so distant.
I nodded, but clearly it wasn’t convincing, because Tess vehemently continued. “Her bag was packed for Princeton. She was so excited to take you up to college. She told me she had a stack of gifts in her closet for the care packages she planned on mailing you this fall.”
I didn’t want to be the disappointment my father described. I wanted to believe Tess. But unfortunately, Richard Alexander was right about almost everything.
Tess followed me upstairs, where I collapsed onto my bed. I tried not to think about the empty room on the other side of the house or my father’s words or the loneliness seeping into my bones. Instead, I focused on Tess’s warm body wrapped around mine, the rhythm of our breathing falling into sync as the sky turned dark.
In the days following my mother’s death, time moved forward, yet I remained immobile. I spent too much time lying between the rows of rosebushes, avoiding my father and staring at the sky. Tess had started school, but as soon as classes ended, she dropped her backpack and came running across the fields to meet me in my mother’s gardens.
Princeton told me to take as long as I needed. A part of me didn’t want to leave my mother’s house, but I knew that staying here, surrounded by her memories, was making every day more difficult.
Tess was the only break from the darkness. I should have been excited about the extra time we had together, but I couldn’t let myself enjoy it. The pain of my mother’s death was still too raw, my guilt too powerful.
I needed to get away from this place; I just wish it didn’t also mean getting away from Tess.
I bent over my mother’s prize rosebushes, trying to take care of them when Tess was at school, but I had no idea what I was doing.
Tess suddenly appeared in the bright sun. “Am I doing it wrong?” I asked, staring at the rosebush.
“Ummm …”
“She would have told me. She would have said, ‘Drop those clippers, Grant Alexander. That’s flower butchery.’”
“You’re right. That’s exactly what she would have said. Let me help.” Tess reached for the clippers, letting our hands linger, before she showed me how to prune back the dead growth.
“What size ice cream today?” Tess asked.
“Single scoop,” I said, and turned back to the roses.
The day of my mother’s funeral, I told Tess that I was tired of everyone asking how I was doing. No one wanted to hear the honest answer—that my mother dying was a pain that could never be healed and every tiny step felt like climbing a mountain.
Tess and I decided to create our own code. When I worked in the ice-cream shop, I could tell what kind of day a person was having based on their ice-cream order. A single-scoop day was pretty good: It meant that my mother was still gone, but I was able to get dressed. There weren’t going to be any banana splits. Nothing about life felt celebratory.
“How about you?” I asked.
“Not bad. The teachers are acceptable and the other kids in my class mostly leave me alone. It seems like a lot of work to make new friends.” Tess stared off across the field.
I elbowed her side. “Make friends. You are very likable. Trust me. I know.”
“I’m new. And I say the wrong thing. You are an outlier in the ‘Tess is likable’ club.”
“I am the president of that club,” I said.
Tess flashed me a quick smile but then returned to pruning the flowers. She was quiet, and Tess was never quiet after school. When she fumbled the clippers and they fell to the ground, I knew something was wrong.
“What’s bothering you, Tess?”
Tess winced. “It doesn’t matter. We can talk later.”
I pulled Tess down onto the grass next to me. “You’re worried about something. Talk to me.”
Tess shook her head. “I refuse to pile on to the Grant sadness sundae.” Tess fidgeted with the garden shears, her eyes refusing to meet mine. I saw a nervous shake to her hand.
“Spill it,” I ordered.
Tess sighed. On her exhale, she blurted, “I don’t want to push, but I need to know what you’re planning. I need to know how long you’re going to be here and when you’re going to leave me and how I’m going to do this alone.”
I swallowed, clueless about how to respond. Because I didn’t have those answers. And I’d never heard Tess so worked up. My voice was timid as I asked, “You feel all of this because you have to make new friends at school?”
“No,” Tess quickly said, and then seemed to correct herself. “Kind of.” Tess’s face was pale when she turned toward me. “I need to talk to you. It’s not a good time, I know that. I’m just not sure how much longer I can wait.”
“Tess, whatever you have to say, I’m listening. You’re scaring me.”
“I think you should be scared. I’m terrified.”
“Tell me.” I tried to slow my racing heart.
Tess took a deep breath. Yet somehow, I knew whatever she was about to say was going to break up this bubble we’d been living in.
“I’m pregnant.”
I should have tried harder, but I couldn’t hide the shock on my face.
She started rambling about how she took a drugstore test in the high school bathroom stall. About how her periods had always been erratic. Tess kept apologizing and then she begged me to say something, anything.
“But we use condoms,” I stuttered.
“Not the first time,” Tess said softly.
“But that was your very first time.”
Tess swallowed. “The irony is not lost on me.”
“You’re really pregnant?”
“Yes.” Tess’s voice hitched as she gasped for air before crumbling into tears.
I wrapped my arms around her and repeated, “It’ll be okay.”
“I’m sorry, Grant.”
“Don’t apologize. We did this together.”
Tess’s voice sounded jagged and erratic. “I know you miss your mom and this is the last thing you need right now.”
“I miss her. Life feels like a tornado without her.”
“I’m making it worse.” Tess’s sobs intensified.
“You’re not making it worse. You’re the only normal thing in my life right now.”
“This is so messed up,” Tess said, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. “I’m pretty sure a pregnant teenage girlfriend should never feel normal.”
“It’s okay. We will be okay.” I couldn’t tell if I was reassuring Tess or myself.
“I’m shocked and scared and so mad at myself for being so stupid. I got an A in biology. I know how this works.”
“Tess, you’ve gotten an A in every class you’ve taken.”
“So why did I make such a stupid mistake?”
“We were stupid, Tess. Together.” I took a deep breath, an eerie calm coming over me. “Maybe this was meant to be.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“We’ve known each other only a few months, but you feel more like family than I’ve ever known.” Images of Tess filled my head. Every moment with her was better than the last. “It will be hard, but we can do this.” I felt a glimmer of hope that had been missing for weeks. I spoke faster and faster, fitting in pieces of an imaginary puzzle. “I’ll transfer to UVA. We’ll get married, we’ll have this baby.”
“We can’t afford a baby,” Tess said, her voice measured and clear.
I nodded slowly. “My father will probably cut me off. But that’s for the best. I don’t want to have anything to do with him anyway. I’ll get a job. I’ll find a way to support us.”
“No offense, Grant. But it takes a lot of scoops of ice cream to pay for diapers.”
I flexed my arm and said, “I’m a very talented scooper.”
Tess smiled out of obligation, because her face quickly fell as she said, “We can’t do this.”
I reached for Tess’s hand. “It’ll be hard, but we have each other.”
“Grant, you’re saying all the things that you’re supposed to say. But you can stop pretending. There is no way we can have this baby. This isn’t a hard situation, it’s an impossible one.”
“We don’t have a choice, Tess. I didn’t plan on starting a family now, but the best things in my life have been surprises.” I kissed Tess on the cheek, indicating that she was one of the best things. I thought I’d always feel that way.
“We have a choice. I have a choice.” Tess’s words came out clearly and with conviction.
I immediately understood what she meant, and pain washed over me. My jaw clenched as I searched her face, trying to find the person I knew.
Tess scrambled to explain. “Grant, I’m a high school senior. If I have a baby, that’s all I’ll have in life. I can forget my plans to travel and see the world, to get an education and a job. I will have a child and I will struggle the rest of my life just like I’ve watched my mother struggle.”
“You have a mother who loves you. Seems like a pretty lucky life to me.” My voice teetered between bitter and broken, unsure which way to fall.
“Says the guy who has never struggled for a second of his life,” Tess said, widening our divide.
“Struggle isn’t only financial, Tess.” My head fell into my hands. Everyone was slipping away. My mother. My Tess.
“I’m sorry,” Tess said, inching closer to my side. “I don’t want to fight with you.”
“I know. We’ll figure it out,” I said with a stoic expression. We sat in uncomfortable silence.
“I don’t want to have the baby,” Tess whispered.
“What are you saying, Tess?”
“I think I should have an abortion.”
My eyes narrowed. “But it’s our child.”
“We can’t take care of a child.”
“You won’t even consider keeping the baby?”
“I don’t know,” Tess said. “I’m seventeen. It would change everything.”
“Not all change is bad.”
“Grant, my life is just starting. I don’t want to give up everything.”
“Please, Tess. I’m begging you. Don’t make any decisions right now. I love you.” I placed my hand gently on Tess’s stomach. “We can be a family.”
Tears flooded Tess’s eyes. Her shoulders shook as choked cries escaped her lips. My eyes scanned back and forth, searching for something, anything, to comfort her.
It was then that I noticed we weren’t alone.
My father stood at the edge of the garden. His eyes narrowed in on Tess and my hand on her abdomen, shaking his head in disgust. Tess buried her sobs in my chest as I instinctively clung to her tighter. At that moment, I foolishly thought holding the person I loved could keep us together. I should have known my father would find a way to break us apart.