The Last Good Day of the Year

by Jessica Warman

  “Nobody could understand why I was so upset,” Darlene says. “Well—you all understood, I think. But my friends thought I’d finally lost my mind, because I couldn’t even get out of bed after the show, not for weeks. I knew Mary was wrong. I guess I knew she was lying to me, trying to make me feel better or give me some hope, but she did just the opposite.” Darlene looks around the room, trying to make eye contact with every single person, desperate for confirmation that we understand. “After so long, you just want to know that your child isn’t hurting. It can never be over for us, but it can be over for her. That was all I wanted, but instead I found myself imagining my little girl out there, wondering why I hadn’t found her yet.”

  “I like what you just said, Dar.” My mom and Darlene have always gotten along well; they’re both around the same age, both beautiful. “But I think it can be over for survivors, too. Maybe not completely, but at least a little bit. You know, we have only a few more months to go before Steven’s time runs out.” What she means is that she and my dad are hoping he’ll tell people what he did with Turtle. It wouldn’t be that unusual, since he’s trying to avoid the death sentence hanging over his head.

  Noah has been quiet throughout the meeting. He hasn’t made eye contact with me once tonight, and I’m surprised he’s here at all. When she found out we were moving, Darlene offered to let me stay with her and Noah for my last year of high school. At first my parents said yes, even though they knew by then that something was going on between the two of us. My father had walked in on us kissing in my bedroom one afternoon. Noah’s hand was up my shirt. It would have been easier if my dad had yelled at me or punched Noah in the face before dragging him from the room, or done something. But he didn’t do anything like that; all he did was stare at me for a second with a look of complete heartbreak before walking away. He even quietly pulled the door shut on his way out.

  Maybe my parents weren’t concerned about letting me live with Darlene because they knew Noah was in college already; he only came home on the weekends, so how much would we really have even seen each other? Or maybe they knew I wasn’t the kind of girl to lose her mind over a boy, and they trusted Darlene to watch out for me.

  That all changed a few weeks after my father walked in on us. If I’d been smart about things, I would have known to stay away from Noah after the incident, at least for a little while. But I guess I wasn’t thinking straight, because instead I did the opposite. That’s how we ended up spending the night together at a Holiday Inn, although it wasn’t for the reasons everyone assumed. When I realized what a mistake I was making the next day—although I guess I’d already made it by then—Noah took me home, but the damage was done. Our parents were waiting for us when Noah pulled into his driveway. That was in April. We haven’t seen each other since, until now.

  Noah sits up straight in his chair and laughs too loudly, saying, “Some asshole on death row is gonna say whatever he can to stay away from that needle. I bet he’d tell you he kidnapped the Lindbergh baby if it meant the death penalty got taken off the table. It’s basic evolution; we’re all wired to do whatever we can to stay alive. That doesn’t change when somebody goes to prison.”

  Nobody reacts in any noticeable way; we all look at Darlene, who seems mortified by her son’s outburst, for guidance. “Noah has some strong feelings about the, um, darker side of human nature.” She pauses. “I don’t think he’s getting enough sleep, either. You know … college.”

  It was supposed to be funny. Nobody laughs.

  Noah has never acted this way in front of the group before. And the last I knew, he was doing fine at school. “I’m getting plenty of rest.” He stares across the circle at me and my parents. He doesn’t look so hot, actually. The whites of his eyes are glassy and bloodshot. His clothing has the dingy, wrinkled look of an outfit that’s been slept in. His intensity is just a hair past a comfortable level. There’s the slightest tremor to his hands. He grips his knees, struggling to hold them steady. “What if the guy who took your daughter never tells you anything, and then he dies? What does that accomplish? Once he’s gone, you’ll never know what happened to Turtle.” He pauses. “That’s if Steven is even guilty. Lots of people think he might not be.”

  My mother’s body stiffens. “Excuse me?”

  “Noah. I thought we talked about this.” Darlene tries to put a hand on his shoulder, but he flinches away from her. When the legs of his chair scrape against the floor, I swear I can almost taste the metal in my mouth.

  “It shouldn’t make you happy when he dies. And it won’t. You don’t know it yet, but it won’t make things any better.”

  My mother looks as lovely as can be as she takes another stab at maintaining diplomacy. Her voice is flat and only a little shaky. “I understand why you might say that,” she manages, “but if that’s what you believe, Noah, then you have been grossly misinformed. Steven was convicted by a jury, and that’s all I’m going to say about the matter. And who are you to say how we’ll feel when he dies? The day they kill him will be a good day for our family. He doesn’t deserve the life he’s been living for the past decade. He gets a warm bed, three meals a day, plenty of rest. No. No. He doesn’t deserve that. He gave up the right to be treated with even a hint of compassion or mercy when he decided to kill my child.”

  It’s the word “child” that sends her controlled response veering all the way off course into rage. “This isn’t your intro to philosophy class, Noah. It’s very simple, you see? I have a problem. My problem is that my daughter is dead, and the man who murdered her is still alive. I want that problem to be resolved, Noah. Do you understand?”

  I expect him to back down, but he is unfazed. “I understand that’s how you’re hoping to feel, Sharon, but I think you’re going to be disappointed. Steven will die, and it won’t change anything. It won’t bring your daughter back. He’ll just be dead.”

  “I know it won’t bring her back. I know that.” My mom’s voice is shrill and singsong. It’s the voice of someone else altogether, some nightmare facsimile of my mother, her vocal cords warped and dripping with hot tar, the surrounding muscles bruised.

  “You think you know. You think you’ll have a sense of closure anyway, because at least he’s dead. I just wouldn’t bet the farm that it’s going to work out like that. What if it doesn’t make any difference? What if it makes you feel worse, because now somebody else’s kid is gone? He has a mother just like everyone else, you know, and her heart will be as broken as yours is. Is that going to make you happy? Breaking his mother’s heart? Taking her baby away? Everybody was somebody’s baby once, Sharon. Even him.”

  My mother opens her mouth to respond, closes it, then opens it again, but says nothing. Noah appears almost breathless, his face flushed. Beside him, Darlene stares at a plate of half-eaten lemon torte in her lap. The pastry seems out of place here, like red balloons at a funeral.

  “Maybe we should give this topic some breathing room,” Sheila says, nudging her way into the conversation.

  But my father has had enough. “You cocky little shit.” He says the words quietly. Beside him, my mom is crying without making any sound, which she’s really good at.

  Noah isn’t this tough. I know it. He knows it. Everybody in the room knows it. He pauses for a beat too long to keep the momentum of his aggression going.

  “You stupid boy,” my dad says. “You stupid goddamn infant. How old were you when Bethany died?”

  Noah doesn’t blink as he responds. “Why does that matter?”

  “You don’t remember a thing, do you?”

  “I remember plenty.”

  “But what do you remember, specifically? Can you tell me one story about her? Do you remember the sound of her voice?”

  “Yes. We have lots of old home movies of her. I’ve seen them all, plenty of times.”

  “That doesn’t count. I’m talking about the way she was in real life. For example, do you remember what she smelled like? Here’s a memory for you:
Turtle, my daughter, smelled like peppermint. I don’t even know why.”

  I do. Ed Tickle was an Altoids addict. Anytime Turtle saw him, she’d beg him for a handful of mints. She’d eat one or two and stash the rest of them in her pocket. “I’m savoring them,” she’d tell us. That was the actual word she’d use: “savoring.” Our mom used to keep a list of all the big words Turtle used. She was such a clever kid. She would hoard the mints in little hiding places around the house to make sure they lasted until the next time she saw Ed. That’s why she always smelled like peppermint.

  My dad rubs his eyes with balled-up fists as his breath stutters and catches in his throat, eventually erupting into sobs. He looks weak, like a frightened coward, when he cries. I’ll never get used to it. It’s another one of those unwritten universal rules: a father doesn’t let his kids see him cry. Fathers are supposed to be able to keep their shit together, even when things aren’t looking good. It’s in their job description, sort of how flight attendants are trained to stay calm even in the worst turbulence. They know the passengers are watching them for reassurance that everything will be okay.

  I guess the rule applies no matter whose father is doing the crying. Noah can’t stand it, either. He slumps in his seat and stares at the floor in a posture of surrender. He rubs a threadbare spot on his jeans as the circle waits for him to summon a response. It doesn’t come. Even though I’m not looking at her, I can discern the wavelengths of my mother’s gaze, her uneven breath rippling across the circle. She’s still crying without sound. Now that it’s started, she won’t be able to stop it for hours.

  Noah’s chair scrapes against the floor again. “I need air.”

  “Noah, stay here.” Darlene reaches for one of his belt loops but misses by inches.

  “I need air,” he repeats. Before he leaves the room, he tosses her the car keys. “Don’t worry, Mom. I’ll come back.”

  The moment the heavy metal doors close behind Noah, Sheila suggests a five-minute break. She spends most of it in a corner of the room with her hands on Darlene’s shoulders. Even though I can’t hear them, I can tell from their body language that Darlene is apologizing for Noah, and Sheila is telling her not to worry about it. I’m sure she’s giving her some version of the whole “boys will be boys” line of reasoning, with a twist for the unique circumstances: something like, “boys who lost a loved one to a senseless and violent death at a young age will be boys who have some issues.”

  Sheila wants to move on with the meeting. The break is over; Noah is still outside; Darlene has managed a quick trip to the ladies’ room to reapply her lipstick.

  “Can I ask you something, Paul?” Mary Shaw’s ex-husband killed their son before turning his gun on her and then himself. She was the only survivor. Because of her injuries, her mouth barely moves when she speaks, even though there is otherwise no physical damage to her face. Her brain didn’t make a full recovery; somehow it wiped out the filter between her thoughts and her mouth. She’ll mention how fat someone has gotten right in front of them, with zero awareness of how insensitive she’s being. It’s not her fault. At many of these meetings, she flatly states her wish to have not survived the gunshot. She talks about it with the same level of emotion as someone expressing a preference for chocolate ice cream instead of vanilla. “How do you think you’ll feel? I’m talking about before he dies, when you get to look at him.”

  It comes off sounding like pure curiosity, as if she were asking “Does this dress come in any other sizes?” instead of “How will you feel when your daughter’s killer meets his maker?”

  He answers right away, and it seems as though he’s given the question plenty of thought before this moment. “Like my body is a cyst full of pus that’s finally bursting open.”

  Mary’s eyes and mouth do not move. Her voice seems to come from the air. “That sounds wonderful.”

  “Sam?” Sheila ventures. “Let’s give your dad a break. Do you want to talk about your feelings?” She catches me with a mouthful of lemon torte, and it occurs to me how morbid it would seem to an outsider: all these people sitting around eating cake while discussing dead children and the pros and cons of state-sanctioned murder. But that’s why everyone is in this room tonight: we’re the only ones who can understand how it feels. When you’ve lived with this kind of thing for as long as most of us have, you get used to talking about it. It never gets better or easier, but it does get different. It has to—otherwise most of the people here would be long dead. After a while, the simple act of living would get to be too much.

  I don’t think anybody has ever asked me how I’ll feel once Steven is dead, at least not directly. I try not to think about it. Even though it has been helpful to listen, I’ve never felt like I wanted to talk about these things as much as most of the people in the group. “I’m okay for now, thanks.”

  Mary Shaw leans across the bodies that separate us and speaks loud enough for the janitor mopping the hall outside to hear her: “Samantha, your breasts have gotten huge.” It’s off to the bathroom for me.

  And there’s Noah on the stairs outside the bathroom, playing Tetris on his Nintendo Game Boy with unnecessary intensity, his thumbs moving as though the future of humanity depends on his score. He doesn’t look up from the screen. “Making a run for it, are we?”

  “And where would I go, exactly? Somewhere with you?”

  He smiles, still playing the game. “That didn’t go so well the last time, Sam.”

  “So? Did you expect it to?”

  “I didn’t expect to be your chauffeur. At least, that wasn’t all I expected to be for you.”

  “You weren’t my chauffeur.”

  He rolls his eyes. “Whatever you say, Sam.”

  “This isn’t cute, Noah. Would you wipe that stupid smile off your face?”

  He beams at me. “Your breasts have gotten awfully large. One thing about Mary, she calls ’em like she sees ’em.”

  “Thanks. You’re a real gentleman.”

  “And they say chivalry is dead.” He sets the Game Boy aside and promptly loses. The tinny, computer-generated sound of breaking glass builds and then fades away before the screen goes blank and resets.

  The fading afternoon sunlight streams through the stained glass window in front of Noah, projecting a mosaic of color onto the beige wall behind him. Each time a car goes by outside, it blocks enough light that all the colors shift and fade momentarily, as if we’re inside a kaleidoscope.

  “Why are you acting like this?”

  “Don’t play dumb, Sam.”

  “I’m not playing. You’re being an asshole.”

  “I’m not trying to be an asshole.”

  “Well, you’re making it seem pretty effortless.”

  “You think I’m an asshole because I don’t believe we should go around killing people because we think it might make us feel better?”

  “You made my parents cry. You made my dad cry, Noah.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “Your mom is in there crying, too, now. Are you happy?”

  He smirks at me. “That doesn’t strengthen your argument, Sam. I’ve seen my mother cry over expired yogurt. She’s not, like, a pillar of emotional fortitude, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

  “Can you blame her?”

  “No. I don’t blame her. But Sam—be honest with me for a minute, okay? Don’t you get a little bit sick of all this? And don’t pretend you don’t know what I mean, because I know you’ve been through the same things I have, more or less. My mother has spent my whole life holding a perpetual wake. You know that. You’ve seen the shrine in our house. It got to the point where even my dad couldn’t take it.”

  “Your father died of cancer, Noah.”

  He laughs. “Right. It was some kind of cancer, I guess. They said it was his pancreas, but you know what I think? He just sort of rotted away. By the end, he couldn’t wait to get the hell away from her. She’s so fucking sad all the time, and it’s not because she doesn�
��t have a choice, Sam: it’s because she doesn’t want to be happy. It’s easier for her to be miserable, and she doesn’t care what it does to the rest of us. My dad didn’t even get out of bed for a whole month before he died, but in the last few days he had all this energy; he was so excited, like a kid on Christmas Eve. He practically leaped into the grave.”

  “Stop going home, then. You have a dorm room. Stay at college.”

  “I’m home for the summer.” He gives me a loaded stare. “You know that.”

  “You could still move out. You’re nineteen. Get your own apartment.”

  He shakes his head. “I can’t do that. My mom doesn’t have anybody else, Sam.”

  “She has the group.”

  “Screw the group. I hate coming to these things.”

  “Then why did you bother? You drove three hours to get here today, and for what? So you could show up and put all of us in our place? So you could enlighten us about how we’re grieving all wrong?”

  “That’s not why I’m here.”

  “Then why did you come? For the lemon torte?”

  “No, Samantha. I came to see you.” He reaches out to snatch my hand, and I don’t have a chance to pull it away in time. “Meet me somewhere. We need to talk.”

  “Now? Where are we supposed to go?”

  “Not now. Soon, though.” Noah yanks me a little bit closer. He smells like rotten chicken broth. It’s the smell of someone who hasn’t showered or changed his clothes in days. His pupils are so dilated that, aside from a slim thread of color around their edges, I can barely make out his green irises. “My mom is going to visit my aunt Laurie in Florida at the end of the month. I’m driving her to the airport. I’ll have her car for a whole week.”