Page 11 of The Last to Let Go
Just in case.I think of the scrap of paper tucked away in my change purse, sliding around the bottom of my backpack. And now the thought that, every morning, inevitably comes next:In case of what? What more can possibly go wrong?
I pull the pillow over my head and will myself to fall back asleep. I try to tell myself it’s only the heat zapping all my energy, evaporating the life force right out of me. It’s the kind of weather that makes me long for the slow, cold seasons, for wind and snow. Right as I’m at the edge of dreamland, something jolts me back: a knock on the door.
Three dull, soft taps, a sound you could almost ignore.
I pull the pillow away from my ears and listen.
“Is someone there?” I call, my voice scratchy as I utter my first words of the day. “Come in.”
The door pushes open. Callie stands there. A doughnut wrapped in a napkin in one hand, Jackie’s cordless phone in the other.
“Hey.” I clear my throat. “What’s up?” I ask, even though I don’t expect an answer.
She steps inside the room and sets the doughnut down on the nightstand. She holds the phone out at arm’s length. It’s become like this massive game of charades trying to communicate with her. I try to keep my patience, but it gets harder every day.
I take the phone and bring it to my ear. Callie walks away.
“Hello?”
“Brooke, is that you?”
Something inside me releases like a pressure valve with the sound of her voice. “Mom!” I shout, suddenly completely awake.
“I don’t have long. Please, tell me. Tell me everything. What’s happening? How are you? What about your brother? And Callie? We have a lot to talk about, I know. How are things at Jackie’s? Tell me the truth. Please believe me, I think of nothing else but you kids. Brooke, hello?” she asks frantically, as if she thinks maybe she’s lost me, though she hasn’t given me a chance to respond to her series of rapid-fire questions.
“I’m here.” My own voice echoes back at me, a delay on the line that I once heard somewhere means your call is being recorded.
“I love you, do you know that?” she says.
“I love you, too. How are you? Do you have any news?”
Silence.
“Mom? Are you there?” I ask, feeling my blood begin to pump faster through my veins.
“Just tell me you’re okay,” she says, not answering my questions.
“I’m okay,” I lie. “We’re all okay. But no one’s telling us anything.”
“I know, I know and I’m sorry.” She stops, and I can feel this vibration in her voice, weaving its path through the air and space, through the telephone lines, coiling its way around the inside of my ear—she’s about to start crying.
“When can we see you?” I ask, feeling her desperation quickly becoming mine.
“I don’t want you to see me here,” she says quietly. “It will only make me feel worse.”
“But I miss you.” I wait, but she doesn’t say anything. “Mom, I...” I want to tell her just how hard all this has been on me. But I don’t. Because this isn’t how things work between us. Sometimes I wish it were, but I know now is not the time to try to make it about me.
“You have every right to hate me,” she gasps, and I hear the tears fully emerging now, distorting her voice, making it high, then low, then whispery, then loud, the words being pulled under by an ocean churning up from the deepest part of her. “It’s—it’s so hard to explain. I can barely get my head around it myself, I just...” Unable to catch her breath, she pauses midsentence.
I know what I need to do, what I need to say. “Mom, stop, it’s okay.” I take a breath and set my own murky ocean of needs and fears aside. “Look, everything is going to get straightened out and you’ll be home in no time.” Though I have no way of knowing whether or not that’s even possible, I try to reassure her, and myself. “Stop talking like that. Everyone knows it was an accident, okay?” I lie again.
“Brooke,” she whispers. “I don’t even know that.”
I feel this sharp piercing in my chest, like someone has just stuck me in the heart with a tiny hypodermic needle, and now a small but steady stream of blood is leaking out with every beat, every pulse.
“Mom,” I say firmly, trying to snap her out of it, “I think you just need to take a breath, okay? You’ll be back home with us soon enough. Hold out a little longer, and it will all be over.”
“No, no, no,” she whines over me, like she’s the child and I’m the parent. “No, you don’t—you don’t understand.”
