by Rea Frey
“Let’s give him a minute.”
Grace lifts her head and glares at Noah. “Was that really necessary?”
He blinks at her. “Was what necessary?”
“Talking about where he would live at the very moment he’s trying to process? That seemed so heartless.”
Noah’s jaw clenches, and it’s the first time she’s seen anything other than the easygoing side of him. “I understand how it seems, Grace, but he needs all the information. He needs to understand that his mother isn’t coming back, but he also needs to realize that he will no longer live with her. He needs to know that at once, so he can work through both the grief and the actual logistics of the situation.”
Grace doesn’t agree. Something thuds in Mason’s room, and she turns toward the hall. “Should we get him?”
“Trust me,” Noah says, scooping up their plates. “He needs to work through the full emotions first. If we try to talk to him right this second, we won’t get anywhere.”
The mother in her aches to give him comfort. It’s not about getting somewhere, it’s about being there for him. Even if she can’t hold him against her chest, she can still let him know that she’s here. No child should have to process something like this alone. She stalks down the hall, against Noah’s suggestion, and knocks on the door.
When he doesn’t answer, she twists, expecting to find it locked, but the knob gives in her hand. She’s careful to stand on the threshold. She knows he does not like people invading his personal space. “Mason?”
He rocks beside his bed, curled in a ball.
She crouches down and gently lays a palm on his back. “Hey, buddy. You did not do this. I need you to really hear that. Above anything else. You did not make this happen.”
“But I did want to live with you!” He pops his head up, his curls frizzed. “I used to write it down: that I wished I could come live with you and Luca. That I wished you were my mother. And now it’s true. I made this happen.”
Grace knows there’s no use arguing. If Mason believes it, then it’s true. She eases into a cross-legged position beside him. “You know, years ago, my sister died. I know it’s not the same thing as losing your mom, but it was very, very hard. I was extremely close to her, and when she died, I didn’t know what I would do. I kind of felt like that was my fault.” Grace almost seizes as she says it, the memory shuttling back into focus. How she couldn’t believe it. How denial became her best friend. She doesn’t ever talk about her sister’s death; not with Noah, not with Lee, not with anyone.
Mason sniffs and stops rocking. “Why?”
Grace hesitates as a thousand memories float to the surface. The two of them creating obstacle courses out of pillows and furniture, fighting over boys, sneaking out of their windows, long nights of pillow talk, and then the painful separation of their lives as adults. “We grew apart,” she finally says. “She moved away, so I didn’t really see her as much. Sometimes, when family lives in different places, you aren’t as close. When she died, I felt guilty I wasn’t with her. That I hadn’t been paying close enough attention to her life.”
“What was she like?”
What a loaded question. “She was interesting. Hardheaded. Beautiful. Impressionable. Smart.” Her heart catches, and she feels like she can’t breathe. “I think you would have liked her.”
Mason swipes his nose. “That’s a weird thing to say.”
“Is it?” She knocks away the memories of her sister and tries to stay present. “The point I’m trying to make is that it’s never easy to lose someone, but it is not your fault. It’s never your fault. Even if it feels like it.” Do I really believe that?
Mason leans against her shoulder. Though Mason does not like physical affection, he is initiating this contact—needs it even—and she welcomes it. He has never minded her touching him, helping him, occasionally brushing a shoulder or his head.
“What am I going to do now?”
It is such a weighted question, and she wants to assuage all of his fears. But she knows only time will do that—not anything that she says in this moment.
“I’m going to be here to help you figure that out, okay?”
He nods. “Can I be alone?”
“Of course.” Grace stands. “Noah and I are in the kitchen if you want to talk or need anything. We’re here.” She closes his door and returns to the kitchen. Noah has poured them both fresh cups of coffee.
Something buzzes from the living room office, and they turn. The fax machine. Grace constantly teased Lee about having a fax machine, but it was combined with her printer and scanner, and she couldn’t afford to replace it with a newer model.
“Who would be sending a fax?” Noah asks.
Grace remembers she gave the station Lee’s number for the toxicology report. “The police,” she says. She is shocked there hasn’t been more of an investigation, but really, what is there to investigate?
She can hardly think about that night, imagining Lee falling to the bottom. Her body intact and then not. Her heart beating and then the moment it stopped. She clenches her fists in an effort to erase the images that bombard her and impatiently waits. This will give them proof. Two sheets come through. The machine quiets. She plucks both papers from the bed and reads the results.
39
grace
Instead of the toxicology report, it’s the bill for the cremation and urn. She exhales and scans the receipt. “Not the report.” She folds both papers and shoves them into her back pocket. She is desperate for the report—desperate to know the truth. The autopsy will answer the question of whether Lee had been sober or drunk when she fell.
Mason’s door opens. He shuffles into the room. Tiny red scratches streak both arms.
“Are you okay?” Grace knows it is a dumb question to ask, and Mason calls her on it.
“My mother is dead. I am not okay. I will never be okay again.”
“Let’s sit for a second,” Noah suggests. He leads them all to the table. Mason glares at the floor, his cheeks sucking in and out with every breath.
“I know how hard this is,” Grace offers. “And we want you to take some time to sit with this and ask any questions you need to. But we do have to talk about the next steps, okay?”
“Like what?” He kicks the chair across from him and it topples to the floor. “Sorry,” he says.
Grace gestures to Noah to leave it. “Mason, your mom didn’t own this house unfortunately, so that means that you will, in fact, have to move. But you will live with me and Luca, and you will have your own room.”
“When?” he asks.
“Probably soon,” Noah says. “But we have a little time.”
“I don’t want to move.”
Grace can see the wheels turning—all the ways his daily life will change. Getting used to new sounds, a new room, a new routine.
“I am never leaving my room, and you can’t make me.” Mason balls his fingers into fists and opens and closes them on the table. He finally flattens his palms and digs his fingernails into the wood and bears down until his face darkens.
“Mason, stop that. Do not hold your breath.” Noah’s voice is calm, but Grace recognizes the hint of fear at the edges. She watches Mason’s face morph from red to purple and motions to Noah to do something.
“Look, Mason. Listen to me for a second. What do you think about me staying here with you until Grace gets everything ready at her house, and then we will move you and your things into your new room? Does that sound good? Hey buddy, does that sound good? Can you breathe for me, please?”
Just when Grace thinks he’s going to pass out, he releases his breath in a loud whoosh and all the color starts to drain. He nods his head over and over. “Yes, I want to stay here. I want to stay in my room.”
Grace balks at the suggestion. She knows Noah just said it to get him to breathe, but still. “Well, you can’t stay here long, Mason. Just until we get your room ready, okay?”
“No, I want to stay here. I
want to stay in my room. Noah just said I could stay in my room.”
“No, that’s not what I said,” Noah interjects. “You can stay here temporarily until your room is ready at Grace’s house, okay? Your mom does not own this house. We cannot live here after this month. They will rent it to someone else.”
Mason keeps his arms crossed, eyes glued to the table. She doesn’t blame him. She knows how unfair this is.
“Alright,” Noah says, “I think we should give you some time to process everything. Then we can talk about your room, okay?”
Grace notes the time. Chad is dropping Luca off soon. She’s dying to see him. It’s been days. The possessive tug keeps her rooted to the spot, but isn’t that why Noah is here? To help?
“I should go. I need to grab Luca.” She walks around the table to Mason and deposits a quick kiss on his head. “I’ll be back soon.” He pulls away.
She is usually so good about keeping their personal space intact—he touches her only if he initiates—but she just kissed Mason like she kisses Luca. She will have to make a mental note of the differences—to bury her own natural impulses and find an appropriate response for Mason in times of peril.
Noah meets her at the back door. “So, listen. I have an idea. It might be crazy.”
She grabs her purse and keys. “What?”
He rubs her arms as if trying to generate heat. “Don’t freak out, okay?”
“Why would I freak out?” Grace prepares herself to not react.
“What if I sell my place and move in here? Take over the lease? That way, he can still come over and we can do sessions where he’s comfortable.”
Grace lowers her keys. “What? You’d give up your place to live … here? That’s crazy.”
He shrugs and gives her an easy smile. “Maybe. But I think it could really benefit him, especially in the short term.”
“How so?” Tension stiffens her fingers around the keys. “He’d never want to come to my house if he has his house as an option. You know that. That seems confusing, even to me.”
“I know, but…” He looks behind him. Mason sits still, staring at the table. “I was thinking we could split responsibility so it’s not so much for you in the beginning. I don’t know. We could figure it out.”
“Split responsibility?” Her heart stutters in her chest. She tries to grasp his words, loses them. She looks into his eyes, searching. “You mean like split custody?”
“Hey, calm down.” He reaches out to touch her arm, but she sidesteps. “It’s just a suggestion.”
She deflates. He’s only thinking of Mason. She needs to figure out what would be best for him, not what would be best for her conscience. “I’m sorry. I’m just overloaded.” Grace fidgets with her keys. “Let’s just talk about it later, okay? Luca and I will come over in a few hours. I can bring food, or…”
“Sure. That sounds good. I’ll text you.”
She memorizes Mason’s tiny, heaving shoulders, his unruly hair, his bewildered eyes. She doesn’t want to leave and thinks about canceling on Luca, but she knows she needs to see her son and explain all the myriad ways his life is about to change too. But Mason … his entire existence has been burgled. Life just isn’t the same after familial loss. She should know.
Before she leaves, she reaches into her bag and extracts the wooden airplane. She places it on the table. “Your mother bought you this.”
The lie slips from her lips, but she needs Mason to experience some comfort—even if it’s as trivial as a toy airplane.
He greedily pulls it toward his chest. Satisfied, Grace leaves.
As she treads down the stone steps, Noah’s offer brims to the surface. Though she appreciates the sentiment, Lee left Mason in her care, not anyone else’s. She has to do what’s right, not what’s easy.
If Mason can’t be with his mother, then she will make sure he is happy and loved by her. She revs the car. Snapshots plague her mind. The mountain. The loss. The body. The recollection of the party. Mason’s world cracked apart by a single phrase.
She worries about Luca, her house, the move, the explanation. Only time will tell how this will all work out. She cranks the music, lowers the windows, and presses harder on the gas pedal to get home to her son.
synonyms for GUILT:
culpable
disgrace
remorse
shame
sin
crime
infamy
iniquity
offense
wickedness
wrong
BLAH
BLAH
BLAH
I used to think guilt was such a stupid emotion.
You either do things with conviction or you don’t do them at all.
Why would anyone ever waste time feeling guilty?
Now I know.
I know what guilt does to you.
I know all the ways it can change a life—or a moment.
I know the way it festers and keeps you bound.
There’s power in guilt.
There’s advantage.
I know how to make other people feel guilty.
I know what guilt can do to a person.
What guilt can do for me.
40
grace
Grace is responsible for the body. She only gets to see Luca for one day before she is back on the road, headed to Black Mountain. The girls insist one of them should join her, but Grace wants to do this alone. She needs the head space.
She tells Mason where she is going—she’s decided that no matter what he asks about his mother, she will tell the truth—and he hesitates before she goes, the fear of her not returning registering in his eyes.
On the way, she thinks about Noah’s offer. Yes, he’s a strong male figure in Mason’s life. He understands him. He can provide a wonderful education and give him necessary coping tools they don’t possess. He’s just trying to help. Grace knows all of this, but something in her gut says no to him moving into Lee’s house. Mason needs a permanent mother, not a part-time one.
Grace thinks of the process of cremation and hopes Lee would approve of the simple, silver urn. Grace combs through the details of her many conversations with Lee, shaking loose the inner lining of their friendship to reveal somewhere meaningful to scatter a few ashes. She loved all the parks: Shelby Park, Radnor, and Percy Warner. There are also the knotted, aged trees in Centennial Park. Her garden. That spot on the Harpeth where they’d gone kayaking with the boys.
She has hours to ponder as she drives, sorting through lists of possible locations, until she arrives in Black Mountain. She’s already contacted Lee’s clients, her therapist, and Mason’s therapist, thanks to her address book. She’d traced her fingers over each of the numbers, all of the people in Lee’s life contained within a few creased pages.
She is picking up the urn at the police station. She could have had it shipped, but she couldn’t imagine Lee wedged in the back of a UPS truck like an Amazon package. No. She wonders why the urn isn’t at the mortuary, but theirs is a small community, and she supposes they are improvising. She has to pick up the rest of Lee’s personal effects, so they instruct her to come directly to the station.
Grace isn’t good with death. Though her sister was the hardest loss of her life, most of her other relatives are alive and well. She has little experience being comforted, because she is always the one providing it. Every time she realizes this is happening to her—and specifically to Mason—brings with it a fresh new wave of grief.
She parks in front of the nondescript building and opens the police station door to find Jerry, the officer who had been their point person for the case. He sits at his desk and rubs a hand over his bald spot.
“Jerry?” Grace knocks on the door.
He pushes back from his desk when he sees her, a look of sympathy on his face. “Hey. Come in. Thanks for coming…”
“Grace. I’m Grace.” She eyes his office. “I just didn’t want it—her—to be
shipped.”
“I understand.” He fumbles with the keys on his hip and unlocks a large filing cabinet behind him. His arms disappear then reappear with a plastic bag containing a few recovered items: a ring, Lee’s necklace, her striped socks, dirt-stained and freshly folded, and four silver bobby pins. She opens the necklace and runs her fingers over the photo of Mason. He clears his throat and she looks up to find the urn in his hands. The silver catches the light as he cradles the vase.
She takes it with caution, as though it’s a bomb that might detonate. Lee is in here. Lee was a human—a talking, feeling human with arms, legs, and a heart. And now she is ash in an urn in her hands.
“Strange, isn’t it?”
She blinks. Does he mean it’s strange that he’s stored an urn in his filing cabinet or that the process of cremation itself is strange? She only nods and tucks the plastic bag of belongings under her free arm.
“Life is a very precarious thing.”
His words blow through her as she clenches the icy vase to her chest. “That it is,” she responds.
She signs a few papers, thanks the officer, and walks back the way she came. Four and a half hours in the car, five minutes in the station, and she’s free to head back to Nashville and all that awaits. As the sun blasts into a clear sky, she inhales the clean air, air they had been raving about only a week ago.
She starts toward the lake, the urn wedged under her arm like a football. She sits at the edge of the glittering water. How can a place so calm bring so much turmoil? She tosses a couple of pebbles into the water and situates the urn closer to her side. God forbid it tip over and drift along the walkway.
The court date looms. She and her lawyer have already met to go over any last lingering questions or logistics over the guardianship arrangement. She imagines standing in front of a judge, offering herself as a fill-in parent. Grace takes some deep breaths and closes her eyes. She tries to conjure what their new lives will look like, how swiftly it’s all about to change.
She finally stands, grips the urn in her hands, and walks back to the car. She opens the door and sorts through all of the various contents from her and Luca’s lives: untied shoes, water bottles, crayons, toy cars, crumpled pictures, food wrappers. She spots a baggie with a few spare Cheerios and empties them onto the pavement. Carefully, she removes the top of the urn and sprinkles some ashes into the bag. She lifts the vase into the padded box she brought, wedges it in the floorboard, and locks the car. She trots over to the trail, alone with her thoughts. With the baggie. With Lee.
