Landslide

by Jenn Cooksey

  “You mean you don’t love yourself enough. Because either way, kids or not, we wouldn’t be living a lie. Love means no holds barred sacrifice and putting others before yourself. I would happily sacrifice not having my own kids because I want to spend my entire life making you happy…that’s what my deepest desire is and I love myself enough to make sacrifices so that I can. The thing is though, if you loved yourself enough, I wouldn’t have to. You’d let me give you everything you’ve ever wanted.”

  “Cole… I—I understand you believe that but even if you’re right, it’s just…Lola. How am I supposed to do what you’re asking of me with her?”

  “You just do it. I did.”

  She let’s go a deep sigh. “I honestly don’t think I can. I look around this room and see the beauty it holds and then I see him and I wanna throw up. Violently,” she sighs again, her eyes traversing the walls once more, “I don’t know. Maybe if I had some time to think about it all.”

  She moves towards the door and I let her go, closing it after us and heading upstairs, leaving behind my heart in pieces scattered about a land of make-believe; a place where everything is supposed to have a happy ending. “You don’t need time. You’ve already made up your mind. This is the end we’re gonna be left with.”

  “You don’t know that. I don’t. You’ve had like four years to get used to everything and I just found out not even an hour ago. Just…give me some time to think.”

  “Uh-huh. And what are we gonna do, Erica?” I ask her, watching her pluck her purse off the hook by the front door, “Tell me. How are we gonna live once you drum up the courage to tell me what you won’t tell me right now? Because that’ll be when we start living the lie. Are we gonna pretend we don’t love each other? Or worse, pretend we don’t even know each other? And what happens when I see you with another guy? Or the other way around? Because I don’t know about you, but that would eviscerate me. Even worse than knowing with absolute certainty that if you walk out my door right now, I will never see you again.”

  “Cole,” she says and cups my cheek in her hand before kissing me once softly, “I love you. You’ll see me again. I promise.”

  She sounds sincere and I think she even believes what she’s trying to convince me of too; however, I know her. Not quite as well as her inner voice, but, I know her.

  “No. I won’t. You’re gonna leave. You’re gonna go home, take maybe a day to think, and then you’re gonna disappear.”

  “I’m not gonna disappear. I am gonna go spend this week and Christmas with my grandma though.”

  “Yeah, but…you won’t come back. Because it’ll be easier. And you know I won’t chase after you. For the same reason.”

  She doesn’t deny it. She just looks at me with a saddened smile and a tear left glistening on her cheek before digging in her purse for her keys.

  My heart is pounding so fucking hard and I’m paralyzed, like I’m about to watch a piece of my soul walk away forever and I can’t do a goddamned thing to make it stay with me where it belongs; I can’t do what I must to keep myself whole. I can feel myself shattering like the most delicate bone china ever made, tears running rampant down my face. I want to crumple to the floor and plead on my hands and knees, but I don’t. I just stand here and cry, and watch her open my front door.

  “Oh God, Erica. Please. I am begging you. Don’t go. Don’t walk away from this. Don’t walk away from me.”

  She raises up on her tiptoes and puts her lips to mine. The kiss cuts deeper than any knife. Then she’s gone, and I do fall to my knees, wracked and ruined. I don’t even recognize myself…my hands hold the weight of my face as agonized, grief-stricken sobs are torn from my aching, bleeding heart and I begin hyperventilating, virulently cursing every fairytale ever written and myself for ever believing in happily ever after.

  45

  “Be Still”

  —Erica—

  “Is the lady dead, Dad?!”

  “Travis! Get your brother and get out of the way!”

  “Dad, look…blood.”

  “I see it! Get back!! Can you hear me, honey? C’mon…answer me!”

  “She said her name’s Erica, Dad. Try that.”

  “Shit! Oh my God!! Did I hit her?!”

  “No, she pushed my boy out of the way and slipped. She hit her head on the rocks and then snow from the mountain came down on her.”

  “What do we do? Do we move her?”

  “I called 911 again! Is she…?”

  “She’s still breathing…she just…look at her eyes. She’s just…not home in there.”

  They say when you die, your life flashes before your eyes.

  It’s true.

  Except all I can see is Cole.

  Because he was my life.

  Reel by reel, every moment of time I spent with him plays before my eyes on a movie screen plastered on the side of a snow-covered mountain.

  I was doing exactly what he said I would do. Because it was easier. Because I thought about what simply seeing him with another woman would be like. Even if it weren’t for ten years—or fifty, I wouldn’t be able to see that and survive it. I know I can’t do what he believes I can though. I can’t love or even care for her when just the thought of her makes me wish the world would burn so that everyone can feel my pain.

  He didn’t technically lie to me, but it felt like he had. That alone had me, for what seemed like an infinite moment, question my trust in him. It was excruciating. I understand everything, his motives and reasons, and I can’t honestly say that I wouldn’t have handled it the same way if I were him, but that infinitesimal doubt in that one single second shook me to the core. I could get over it, and I did, easily, until I was reminded by a picture. Just a picture. Added to what is, in truth, a trivial doubt, though, a lie of enormous, crippling substance is held within the same frame. And it’s just a picture; not a living, breathing, walking around and talking person.

  In thinking of who I would become—who I would turn into—having to live every day with Lola, a sweet and innocent child…well, I wouldn’t be me anymore; not with resentment and bitterness charring who I am on the inside day after day. Cole wouldn’t love the person I would become. So I admitted to myself that because we love each other so much, and therefore wouldn’t ever even think of asking the other to make sacrifices that would change who we are, there isn’t a way for either of us to be happy…to be in love—together.

  I had to give him up.

  Forever.

  When I was making my first trip to the car, I learned he wasn’t going to make it easy for me. I opened the door and almost tripped over a box—a present—left on my doorstep. It was the Christmas gift he didn’t buy or make me. I was crying before I even sat down right there on the doormat to open it. There was an envelope attached and I started with that. Inside was an ancient and tattered picture of me from when I was a little girl. I had on a Winnie the Pooh dress and had daisies in my pigtails. My grandpa had put them there. From the looks of it, the picture had been unfolded and refolded countless times and seen sights that I couldn’t even possibly imagine for myself. On the back of the picture he’d written at some point in the long ago past the same A.A. Milne quote that’s now on Lola’s wall; “You are braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.” He’d only scribbled a short note to go with it, simply explaining that he’d carried it with him for seven years and it was the last picture he had of me, although because Lola was coming home on Wednesday, he needed me to take it with me. So that he could be strong for her. He didn’t want to give it up, but he felt he had to and he made one request; to keep it safe for him and if he was the first of us to go, that I would give it back to him then.

  I cried for over an hour after reading that; that when he dies, he wants his picture of me back so he can have it in eternity with him.

  After that, I was terrified of opening the present. I forced myself though. Once I did, I couldn’t… I just couldn’t take anymor
e. It was like he’d somehow managed to give me my life back. He’d put it in a box and wrapped it, and gave it back to me in the form of his copy of the picture quilt my grandma had made for each of us. I’d lost mine in the fire and he never said a word about having even received his, and there it was, sitting in a box on my lap.

  I threw it in the car along with what I’d packed for my stay down the hill, not even bothering yet to get myself a new phone, or contact the hospital or my landlord, and I headed out. Through my tears and tumultuous emotions, I fought to remain cognizant of the light snow flurries and drive accordingly. About once every three minutes it seemed, I would catch myself glancing at the quilt lying on the passenger seat. I had to force my eyes back to the road and desperately tried to ignore Cole riding shotgun with me. I was taking him with me, and I was relieved to have him, but he wasn’t with me. Not really. The quilt was just a symbol; it was wonderfully comforting and at the same time, it was devastating.

  I turned onto the highway and had to slow my escape even further due to the fog just beginning to play a dicey game of hide and seek with the winding road that wraps around the mountain. Disobedient and negligent, my eyes slid down and to the right again—just for the quickest of seconds. Long enough though for me to see myself when life was right; it was easy and perfect…uncomplicated. I was maybe five or six, and Cole was probably seven, almost eight. It was spring and we were in my backyard sitting next to each other on the diving board fully dressed, our legs swinging over the side and dangling above the pool. We were eating pudding cups. The picture was taken just as we each took a big, smiling spoonful.

  I looked back to the road just as I finished going through the bend and immediately I had to slam on my brakes so that I didn’t end up the third car in the fender-bender in front of me. The Grenada fishtailed and skidded on the snowy pavement, coming to an angled halt close to the side of the road and mere feet from the back fender of a Dodge extra-cab pickup truck. Its passengers and the driver of the vehicle in front of it were out in the open and sort of standing around. I got out of my car and hurried over to make sure everyone was alright.

  Walking along the side of the road to the Dodge, I could see some smallish boulders and large chunks of compacted snow broken and spilled onto the highway further ahead. I assumed that’s what caused the accident; the sudden stopping due to the road being impeded without warning.

  “Is everyone okay?” I asked a young boy, maybe nine-years-old or ten. He was sitting in the passenger seat of the truck with the door open, looking scared but unharmed.

  He nodded and looked down at the dampened inseam of his jeans. “I didn’t pee myself. It was a juice-box.”

  I gave him an understanding smile and ruffled his hair when his brother taunted him from the hood of the truck. “You’re such a little liar. You totally pissed your pants.”

  “I did not, Travis!” he yelled and reached down to grab his proof—a dripping wet juice-box—and hurled it out the door at his brother. “See! You think I’m a baby and I’m not! I wasn’t scared!”

  “Boys! Keep it down, I’m trying to talk to Mom!” Their father shouted from where he was standing on the other side of the truck and leaning against the driver’s side door with his cell phone to his ear.

  Travis hopped down off the hood, ambled over and put his hand on his little brother’s shoulder. “You totally were, Nate, but it’s cool…I about had the shit scared outta me, so a little pee…not a big deal.”

  “Travis,” their father rebuked, “Language.”

  “Sorry, Dad,” he said aloud; however to his brother and me, he shook his head and mouthed, “Not sorry.”

  “So, what happened here?”

  “We came around the bend and they were stopped in the middle of the road. I guess that big rock came loose from right there,” Travis explained and pointed to a spot sort of low to midway on the mountainside next to us. I could see where the rock had been from the void in the snow it had left when it fell. “My dad couldn’t stop all the way in time and we rear-ended them a little. We hardly even dented their bumper, but the women got out and started screaming at my dad. I feel really bad…I think it was my fault.”

  “Why?”

  “I was messing with the radio and hit a button that I shouldn’t have and there was all this static, so my dad was trying to get it back to regular music. He was looking at the radio and didn’t see the minivan in front of us until me and Nate were screaming.”

  “Don’t blame yourself for that. Accidents happen, Travis. They’re no one’s fault. That’s why they’re called accidents.”

  “Hey! How do you know my name?”

  “Duh. Dad said it, like, a minute ago, dummy-head. When he told you to not say the S-H word, like you always do.”

  I chuckled and nodded, agreeing with Nate. Not to mention that Nate had used Travis’ name when he was yelling at him earlier too.

  “Oh. Well, anyway…those whiners’ van won’t start and my dad said now we’re all kind of stuck here until it does and the road can get cleared.

  I nodded and looked ahead. Aside from the minivan, the road didn’t look too badly blocked, but we were right at a section of the highway where it’s down to one lane going in either direction, so trying to pass with the chance of oncoming traffic was more risky than the boys’ father and I would’ve felt comfortable attempting right then.

  “Travis, I’m cold. Can I wear your jacket?”

  “Dude, you have your own on!”

  “I know, but I didn’t wear layers like Mom told me to.”

  Travis rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Yeah, too bad. I didn’t either so we’re both dumb-asses.”

  Initially, I didn’t even think about it… “Oh, I have a blanket in my car…I’ll go get it.”

  “Hey, wait a minute…I know you! You’re that wom—” Travis’ words stopped suddenly and his eyes widened, like he almost gave away the biggest secret in the world. It took me a minute to put it together, but when Travis’ eyes flashed to his brother’s disinterested face, it clicked. Travis is the boy who was trying to buy a Christmas skateboard for his little brother with his own money.

  “Oh…that’s why you’re familiar,” I started, while Travis panicked and shook his head at me quickly. Then I winked at him. “You’re the kid who picked my keys up for me the other day when I dropped them at the store, right?”

  His eyes rolled back in his head and he heaved a sigh of relief. “Yeah. That was me alright.”

  “Thought so. I’m gonna go get that blanket for your brother…be right back.”

  I didn’t take more than three steps away before I heard Travis calling after me. “Hey, wait up! What’s your name?” he asked, jogging in the snow to catch up to me.

  “I’m Erica.”

  “I never got to really thank you, Erica. That was really cool of you. I can’t wait to see his face when he opens it! He’s gonna totally flip his shit!”

  I gave him a look out of the corner of my eye and tried to hide my grin. “You’re welcome,” I said and opened the passenger door of the Grenada, and grabbing the quilt, I spied a folded memory of when I got overly frustrated and gave up trying to ride a skateboard on my own. The picture is of Cole towing me down the sidewalk behind his bike while I was sitting on his skateboard. I never did learn how to ride one… “You’re gonna teach him how to ride it, though, right?”

  “Oh, yeah. I guess so. If he wants me to that is.”

  I handed him the quilt and closed the car door. “He will. Trust me. And it might take him a while to get the hang of it and he even might wanna give up, so try to not lose your patience and keep encouraging him, okay?”

  Travis opened his mouth to respond and that’s when we heard the ear-splitting screech of tires. I shoved him ahead of me and we were both moving before either of us even whipped our heads around towards the sound of the oncoming semi-truck that was struggling to come to a stop before it swung sideways and essentially body-checked the side of the
mountain. I don’t exactly know how I ended up on my back, but it didn’t hurt. For a still moment, it was quiet. Too quiet. Ominous. Then the eerie almost distant thunder and crack from above, below and all around me began reverberating through my body, gradually until it was booming and pounding down on me.

  Then Cole was with me. Right next to me; comforting me…holding my hand in one of his and combing my hair with the fingers of the other one, silently watching a playback of our lives with me.

  “I think she’s going into shock.”

  “I don’t think we should move her, man.”

  “Me neither but, we gotta do something. Like, give supportive care or whatever it’s called. Travis, gimme that blanket… Anyone else got blankets or coats we can put on her until the ambulance gets here?”

  Cole turns his head from the slideshow to smile at me and lies down in the snow, snuggling up with me. I lie still and close my eyes, shadows of the brightest white hovering ever closer, he whispers in my ear, “It’s okay, beautiful. I’m here.”

  I always thought dying would be scary or would hurt, but it hasn’t been like that. I’m not afraid. I’m not in pain. I’m not even cold. I feel warm. I feel peace. Because he loves me. And I know he does.

  Because he’s with me.

  46

  “Hard Times (Come Again No More)”

  —Erica—

  I haven’t had the easiest life. I haven’t complained much, but rather, I’ve chosen to focus on what I do have and count every blessing. Maybe that was easy to do because aside from a very short time—after the fire—I’ve never felt like a true victim. I’ve been hurt and heartbroken—many times, undoubtedly, and I let myself feel it, although I did my absolute best to not dwell on that truth. But knowing me as absolutely as he does, Cole was right. While not endlessly lamenting all that’s gone wrong or been taken from me, I still denied myself. I refused to acknowledge wanting anything just on the off-chance my title belt for loss would continue to remain uncontested. So, I have actually been afraid and wallowing—I just wasn’t aware that I was.