Page 15 of The River Is Waiting

We’re at the hospital until midafternoon, signing paperwork, listening to both grief counselors’ spiels, making decisions about what we will or won’t let the hospital do with Niko’s body. Some social worker whose office we’ve been sent to asks which funeral home should be notified once the body is ready for release. We have no idea. Niko isn’t Niko anymore; he’s just Niko’s body.

Along with having to put up with all the hospital’s procedures and permissions, there’s a lot of sitting and waiting in uncomfortable silence, just Emily and me. We make Betsy a list of tasks neither Em nor I feel strong enough to handle: finding a funeral home, calling my mom to let her know what happened, picking up Maisie from Mary Louise’s. “She’s going to wonder where her brother is. What should I tell her?” Betsy wants to know. Emily and I look blankly at each other. One of the grief counselors addressed this but neither of us could focus on what she said. “Well, I read Dr. Rosemond’s column in the paper faithfully,” Betsy says. “He always has commonsense advice. I’ll Google him and send you a link if I find something.” Emily reads that column, too, usually taking exception to the doctor’s advice about spanking and toilet training. Now she just nods and says, “Thanks, Mom.”

In the midst of all the waiting, Emily and I don’t say much to each other. We’re both too numb, I guess, or maybe too bewildered and afraid of what’s in store. I turn to her at one point and say I can’t wrap my headaround his not being here anymore. She looks at me without speaking, her expression unreadable. We’ve been brought to two or three offices by then and it hasn’t escaped me that in each, she’s put an empty chair between us.

All of this silence and separation frees my mind to wander. It’s going to be on the news and in the papers. On social media, too—everyone giving their anonymous bullshit opinions. The circumstances around Niko’s death are going to define who we are now. We’ll bethatfamily. I imagine wheeling my cart past shoppers in the grocery store.That’s the guy. Did you hear how it happened?

Maybe we should move someplace where people wouldn’t know us—where we wouldn’t represent every parent’s worst fear. Where Maisie won’t have to be theothertwin, the one whodidn’tdie.… That detective is clearly out to get me. They can make those blood test results say whatever they want them to. I should probably get a lawyer—one that specializes in DUI arrests. What’s the name of the attorney on that billboard I used to pass on my way to work? The one who boasts she can help clientsBEAT DUI! But how many thousands will that cost? And Iwasn’timpaired, no matter what conclusion Sparks wants to jump to. I had a little bit of a buzz going on when I was making breakfast, but I’d come down from that by the time it happened.

When Betsy called my mother to give her the grim news, the two grandmothers coordinated their efforts, something that rarely happens. Mom watched Maisie while Betsy called around to a few funeral homes and got an appointment for the next morning. Now she’s driven back to the hospital to pick us up and bring us home. Emily sits in the front seat, me in the back. Mid-ride, Betsy asks how she’s feeling. “I have no idea,” Emily says. “I’m just… blank.”

“Well, I can’t imagine a worse shock to the system, sweetheart,” her mother notes. “At least it will be a relief to get home after that long ordeal at the hospital.”

Emily shakes her head. “Home is thelastplace I want to be right now.Whatever room I go into, he’s going to be there. Whenever I see Maisie, I’ll look around to see where he is.”

“We’ll figure it out,” I promise. Neither woman responds. I’m the back-seat pariah—the guy who caused all this pain and loss.

When Betsy takes the left onto our street, I dread what I imagine we’re about to see: yellow crime scene tape, reporters and cameramen waiting to ambush us. I dread the possibility that Niko’s blood might still be there, something I’ll need to shield Emily from having to see. But I’m relieved that our driveway has gone back to just being our driveway. Who scrubbed it clean of Niko’s blood? The police? A neighbor—maybe Shawn McNally? I’m grateful to whoever it was.

My mom meets us at the door. She holds out her arms and wraps Emily in a long, silent embrace. Does the same with Betsy. Then she turns to me. Takes my hands in hers and squeezes. “Hey,” she says, pulling me in closer. I fall against her, releasing the sobs I’ve been trying to hold in all afternoon. Trying to be the strong one for Emily. When I can finally speak, what comes out is, “Mom, how am I supposed to live with myself?”

“I know this is overwhelming right now, but once the initial shock—”

Emily cuts her off. “Where’s Maisie? Is she asleep?”

“The poor kid was exhausted,” Mom says. “She kept trying to fight it, but she couldn’t keep her eyes open.”

“The sitter said she wouldn’t go down for a nap,” Betsy says. “I wasn’t sure if you wanted me to pay the girl or her mother and I had no idea what the going rate is these days. I tried to give them a twenty-dollar bill, but the mother kept saying no.”

“You didn’t put her in their crib, did you?” Emily asks Mom. The question sounds like an accusation.

Looking confused, my mother apologizes. “I just assumed that—”

“It’s okay, Mom,” I tell her. “Emily’s probably thinking that, when she wakes up and her brother’s not there—”

Emily cuts me off. “For Christ’s sake, Corby. I’m standing right here. I can speak for myself.” Addressing her own mother, she says, “I’m notgoing into that room right now. Ican’t.From now on, Maisie can sleep with me.” Turning back to me, she says, “You’ll need to sleep somewhere else. I don’t want you rolling on top of her in your sleep, Corby. You’re always so goddamned restless.”

“Yeah, all right. I’ll set up the sleeper sofa.”

The kids curling up in our bed with us has never been an issue. But the message comes through loud and clear: she’s going to keep Maisie safe from me.

Betsy says, “I’ll get Maisie and put her on your bed.”

Mom must sense the tension, because she changes the subject to the food neighbors have dropped off: a green salad, a fruit salad, a roast chicken, meatballs, brownies. “I took down all the names,” she says. “Someone brought a lasagna and I’ve got that warming in the oven. Is anyone hungry?”

Emily shakes her head. “I just want to go lie down. I need to be there with Maisie when she wakes up.” Betsy thinks she’ll just go home. That leaves Mom and me. She suggests I pull out the sofa and grab some sheets so she can make up my bed for me; I tell her I’ll get it later. “Okay,” she says. “Come on then. You need to eat.”

I tell her what I need is a drink. “How about you? You want a beer?”

“No thanks,” she says. I can feel her watching me as I go over to the fridge. But instead of opening it and grabbing a beer, I take the soup pot out of the cabinet above, pull out the bottle, grab my mug, and pour myself a couple of inches. Drink half in one gulp and sit down to eat. Mom says nothing.

I eat a few bites of the lasagna and move the salad around on my plate. Then I ask her the question I’m not sure I want her to answer. “Did you call Dad?”

She shakes her head. Says she meant to, but the day got away from her. “I’ll let him know tonight, unless you’d rather it came from you.”

“So he can congratulate himself about having called it a long time ago: that his son’s a loser? No thanks. I don’t think I’m up for that right now.”

“Oh, honey,” she says. “I can’t defend the way he treated you back then, but—”

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