Chapter 15
Now
iris
I pick up my glass of red wine. At the other end of the custom-made tiger birch dining table, Jesse puts down his knife and fork and watches me, as if daring me to drink. I lock eyes with him over the rim of my glass, and then drain it in one swallow.
‘Don’t you think you’ve had enough?’ Jesse says.
‘I’m still conscious, so no.’
He throws his napkin onto his empty plate. ‘Jesus! Tonight of all nights?’
‘It’s not as if I have to drive,’ I say. ‘I don’t need to stay sober to collect our son from a swim meet.’ My hand shakes slightly as I reach once more for the near-empty bottle. ‘Or from anything else, ever again, thanks to you.’
I stare at the empty chair on my right as I fill my wine glass, my vision blurring with tears. Even after fifteen months, I still find myself automatically setting out four plates, four knives and forks. Putting four steaks under the grill.
Sometimes I’ll leave the extra place setting on the table, allowing myself to imagine Finn’s just out on a date with Ashley, or hanging out with Raylan and his buddies over at the cabin.
Any minute now he’ll walk back through the door, starving hungry.
He’ll throw open the double fridge doors and complain there’s nothing to eat and chug milk straight from the gallon jug and I’ll scold him, Finn, use a glass!
And he’ll throw me that lazy, charming, can-get-away-with-anything smile, and I’ll sigh, not really cross at all, and nudge him out of the way so I can get to the fridge myself and pull out some hamburgers and turn on the grill.
Just out for the night.
Home any minute.
Finn’s untouched birthday cake – lemon sponge, his favourite – sits in the centre of the table, a macabre reminder of everything we’ve lost.
Jesse moves the salad bowl, so he doesn’t have to see it.
‘I hope that seat in the mayor’s office is comfortable,’ I say bitterly. ‘It’d fucking better be, given what it’s cost us to keep you in it.’
Jesse blenches. I know I’m being unfair; Jesse loved Finn as if he were his own son, and his pain measures the depth of my own. But grief is cruel, and anger and guilt have curdled our relationship so that it’s unrecognisable.
‘Don’t start,’ Jesse says tightly.
‘You should have gone back for them,’ I say.
‘It wasn’t my decision!’
‘It’s never your fault, is it, Jesse?’
Jesse shoves back his chair, the legs screeching against the floor. ‘You were the one who was with him that night.’
I flinch, spilling blood-red wine onto my white jeans. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘You made your choice,’ he says. ‘And now we both have to live with it.’
‘It wasn’t a choice,’ I say, my voice rising. ‘You don’t think I’d have given my life to save our son if I could?’
‘If I thought otherwise, I’d kill you myself.’
We glare at each other, the hatred between us a tangible presence, a crackling ball of energy in the room.
‘Please!’ Rose cries. ‘Please, stop! Both of you, just stop!’
I jump. I’d forgotten my daughter was even here.
‘You said we were going to have a nice family dinner!’ Rose shouts, shoving back her own chair. ‘You said we’d remember his birthday properly this year. Why do you have to spoil everything by fighting?’
I’m instantly stricken. ‘Rosie, honey, I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘We didn’t mean—’
‘Yes, you did! You’re always fighting! If you hate each other so much, why don’t you just get divorced? At least then it would be over!’
Because that would be too easy, I think. We stay to punish each other as we deserve.
‘Rose,’ I say, as my daughter flees the dining room. ‘Rosie, come back—’
‘Let her go,’ Jesse says.
I push past my husband. ‘Was it worth it?’ I say. ‘Whatever Colt Smith promised you, was it worth it?’
His jaw tightens. The only person he hates more than Colt Smith is himself. I have no sympathy. He sold his soul to the devil, and now he has to pay the price. He can’t bring Colt down without destroying himself.
And I can’t tell the truth about either of them without devastating my daughter.
Upstairs, Rose is face down on her bed. I can tell from the way her shoulders stiffen as I enter the room that Rose knows I’m there, but she doesn’t respond when I say her name.
I sit on the bed next to my daughter.
‘Whatever you’ve come to say, I don’t want to hear it,’ Rose says, her voice muffled.
‘I know you’re—’
‘You act like you’ve lost both of us,’ Rose says, sitting up suddenly. Her face is red and tear-stained. ‘But I’m still here, Mom. I’m still here!’
My guilt is suffocating. Jesse and I have paid dearly for our sins, but no one has suffered more than Rose.
She’s not just grieving for her brother; the whole landscape of her life has changed.
She inhabits a town in mourning. Everywhere she turns, she’s reminded of the loss that blights us all, from the photographs and plaques in the high school auditorium to the twenty-one memorial crosses in the park outside City Hall.
The school held senior prom this summer for the sake of the new graduating class, but it was more of a wake than a celebration – how could it not be?
In a year’s time, when Rose herself graduates, how will she experience her own prom as anything other than a memorial to the dead?
I know I’m a poor facsimile of the mother I used to be, absent from my daughter’s life even when I’m physically present. Which in itself is rare – the only place I find escape from my relentless sorrow and remorse is in the solace of my art studio.
But my daughter is grieving too. Jesse and I have been lousy parents for the last fifteen months, both too eaten up with guilt and mutual recrimination to give Rose what she needs. Somehow I have to find a way to stop mourning my dead child, for the sake of the one who lives.
‘Is it true?’ Rose asks abruptly.
‘Is what true?’ I say, thrown.
‘About Ashley. She woke up?’
I hesitate. ‘Yes.’
‘Did you talk to her? I know you went to the hospital.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘My friend CJ’s mom’s a nurse. She saw you there.’
I shouldn’t have gone. I made a promise – I swore on Rose’s life – and I broke it. All I’ve done is draw attention to myself.
‘Mom? Did you talk to her?’
‘Ashley’s not well enough to talk to anyone,’ I say.
‘She won’t be for quite a while, Rose. It’s not like in the movies when someone wakes up from a coma.
She’s opened her eyes, which is good news, but she can’t talk, honey.
She still isn’t really responding to anyone.
She’s in what they call a minimally conscious state. ’
‘Will she get better?’
‘The doctors don’t know yet. Even if she does, it’s going to be a long haul. She might never get better, not properly.’
‘Will she remember what happened?’
I hope not. I’ve been living on borrowed time since the accident. I’ve always known that, sooner or later, the truth might catch up to me. And if it does, I’ll lose Rose forever.
I can’t let that happen. I’ve lost my son; I can’t lose my daughter, too.
Which means I have to do something that would once have been unthinkable.
It really isn’t anymore.