The Best of Friends

by Berry, Lucinda

  Andrew nods in eager agreement with me. We’ve been through so many different scenarios during the long hours we’ve hovered at Jacob’s bedside. Our ideas range from the relatively mundane, like a truth-or-dare game gone terribly wrong, to things that are more ridiculous, like they were on a whacked-out acid trip that made them think they were in one of their violent video games. But none of them include a suicidal version of Jacob. Something else happened that night, but I don’t have time to figure it out. My job is taking care of Jacob. Detective Locke’s job is figuring things out. I wish he’d let me get back to mine and start doing a better job at his.

  FIVE

  KENDRA

  I was always on Sawyer about cleaning his room. He was such a slob, and the mess drove me crazy. Not to mention the smell from his sweaty jerseys and socks that he left strewed everywhere. We had some of our biggest fights over it. Now I’m glad he never listened. It’s a new house rule to keep his door shut so I can trap his smell in here for as long as it’ll stay. His personality fills the space, from the punk band posters taped above his desk to the wadded-up papers in the corner from abandoned homework projects. I try to inhale him as I sit in the middle of his floor, clutching one of his favorite T-shirts against my chest.

  Becoming a mom birthed my biggest fear—losing him. Sawyer marked my entrance into motherhood. Pregnancy riddled me with anxiety because his survival depended on me, and I expected immense relief from that burden once I’d successfully brought him into the world. I assumed sharing the responsibility with Paul would give me a much-needed reprieve from my obsessive worrying. My insides expanded with unbelievable love when they placed Sawyer in my arms after a long and difficult labor, and in that same instant, I was filled with the knowledge that the loss of him would wreck me to my core, which brought my anxiety to new heights.

  Every fear I’ve had over the years—each terrorizing thought, every agonizing image of something awful happening to one of my kids—doesn’t even touch the utter devastation in my being. And life will go on without him. That’s the part I hate the most. It can’t. It must stop. Waves of grief strip all concept of time as I disappear into their swirling abyss.

  And then I’m returned.

  Depleted and empty.

  Spent.

  My eyes burn. Red fills my left one. My doctor said I popped multiple blood vessels from all the crying. The blood pools in the corner and works its way around my iris throughout the day. That’s not the only place seeping blood. My stools are filled with it and with the putrid smell of the pain rotting my insides.

  People say they survive this. Millions of children died last year. All of them with parents who somehow managed to go on. Not me.

  “Mom?” Reese’s voice calls from behind the door. My other son, two years younger than Sawyer.

  A flash of annoyance. I don’t want to be bothered, but he knows I’m in here. He won’t go away if I don’t say something.

  “Yes?” My throat is raw. Talking hurts. Maybe my throat is bleeding too. Red. Black seeps into the edge of my vision. Did Paul give me another sleeping pill in my tea?

  “Mom?”

  My head swirls.

  Sawyer?

  Did I say that out loud?

  “No, Mom. It’s me, Reese.”

  Is he reading my mind? Dear God, don’t let Reese be reading my mind.

  His words are bubbles floating past me. They dance around my head before floating above Sawyer’s headboard. I’m on his bed. Wasn’t I on the floor? There’s another bubble. I stick my pointer finger through it. Pop. It doesn’t make a sound as it disintegrates. I want to pop another one, but I’m tired. So exhausted.

  My lids are heavy.

  Stop fighting.

  SIX

  DANI

  I clasp my purse in front of me and hurry into the hospital, pushing through the heavy glass doors and flashing my license at the security officer standing in the lobby. Guards have been posted up at every entrance and lobby of the hospital for weeks. Everyone wants to catch a glimpse of Jacob, but Lindsey and Andrew are determined to keep them away. They hate being the center of attention and are sickened by the way the media has tried to exploit their tragedy. It’s ignited both sides of the gun control debate, but they don’t want any part of it.

  People’s obsession with our story has grown to epic proportions since detectives started crawling all over the school. Kids who barely know the boys are making ridiculous claims just to get their twenty seconds in the spotlight. They’re saying things like that the boys planned to blow up the school, that they had a hit list, or my personal favorite—that Bryan and I knew about their plans and didn’t stop them. The media has done nothing but crucify us for having a gun in the house. We took Luna’s phone away from her yesterday after Bryan found out she’d been on Instagram. She threw a fit over it, screaming that he was treating her like she was still a child even though she’s been away at college for almost a year, but it’s not our rule. That one came from Detective Locke—no social media.

  My footsteps echo behind me as I reach the end of the empty corridor and make a right at the second nurse’s station. I scan for REHABILITATION signs. Jacob’s medical team moved him out of the ICU last week. They consider him medically stable even though machines keep him alive and do everything for him. I assumed visiting him in the new ward would be easier, but it’s not because things feel more permanent. Unlike in the ICU, everything is still. Nothing moves fast. People’s doors are always closed, and I don’t ever look in the ones accidentally left open. I made that mistake once, and I won’t do it again.

  I tap lightly on room 110’s door and wait for Lindsey to respond before going in. She rises from her position in the chair beside Jacob’s bed, and I motion for her to sit down. Her jaw is set and she’s pasty white, making the dark rings underneath her eyes all the more apparent. She came straight to the hospital after the police interviews this morning, and I bet she’ll stay all night.

  “Jacob, Dani’s here to visit,” she says and smiles down at him, reaching to brush the hair off his forehead, but his black curls are gone—shaved before his second surgery. Thirty-two staples form a U shape on the left side of his head. His face is swollen to unrecognizable from all the steroids they pump into him. It was easier to look at him when the bandages covered his head, but there’s no need for them anymore. Still.

  “Hi, Jacob,” I say, averting my eyes and trying to sound upbeat. I understand why Wyatt refuses to visit. He doesn’t agree with his parents’ decision to keep Jacob alive after the doctors have declared him brain dead. He’s not the only one who doesn’t agree with them.

  Lindsey insists everyone address Jacob when entering and leaving his room. During his first three days in the ICU, she found stories from coma survivors who claimed they felt their loved ones’ presence and were comforted by it while they were unconscious. She’s been obsessed with their stories ever since and demands we include Jacob in all our conversations. Yesterday she asked one of the nurses to leave because they spoke around Jacob like he wasn’t there.

  I hand her the grande macchiato I picked up from Starbucks on the way over and take a seat in the tan vinyl chair on the other side of Jacob’s bed, marveling at how quickly these visits have become routine. Unlike the general hospital, the psychiatric ward has very strict visiting hours, so I wasn’t allowed to stay with Caleb twenty-four seven even though I wanted to. I spent lots of time sitting down here with Lindsey in between my visits with Caleb. I’ve kept them up since he got discharged because I don’t want her to feel like I abandoned her now that he’s out.

  I search the mural of cards taped on the wall in front of us, trying to spot any new ones since my visit yesterday. There are hundreds of cards, and more arrive every day, each filled with well-wishes and prayers for recovery. Lindsey and Andrew take turns reading them to Jacob, showing him the pictures on the inside like they’re reading him his favorite children’s book.

  #22 is painted in bold red s
trokes in the center of the mural. Lindsey said it took Sutton two hours to complete it, but she was determined to do it herself. It turned out great.

  Jacob has been number twenty-two since the boys started playing Soccer Shots in preschool. They all wanted number twenty-three, but Sawyer got to pick first that day, and he snatched it up before they could. They were left with second best, so Jacob settled for one below and Caleb one above.

  #22, #23, and #24.

  These past few years we’ve had to watch Jacob and Sawyer get more and more attention on the field while Caleb is slowly edged out of the equation, but that’s how it is when you’re the goalie, and they’re the leading scorers in the tricounty area. Bryan and I have always told Caleb that, but it doesn’t matter anymore. Now it’s just him, and something tells me his soccer days are over.

  “Did the kids go down easy?” she asks like she used to when our kids were little and getting them to sleep was our biggest worry.

  She’s really asking about Caleb. Luna has been staying with us since Caleb got out of the hospital, but she’s never had a problem falling asleep even when she was a baby. She’s one of those people who can fall asleep anywhere and at any time just by laying their head down. Caleb used to be the same way.

  “Caleb was still awake when I left. Bryan is sitting in there with him.” It isn’t exactly a lie. I turned on the baby monitor that I overnighted from Amazon last week before I left and made Bryan promise to check on him. He swore he would, but I’m not sure I trust him, since his expression said differently.

  “You’ve got to give the boy some room to breathe,” he said when I set it in front of him on the coffee table. “Maybe all he needs is a little space.”

  That’s not going to happen, because the psychologist’s words from the hospital follow me everywhere:

  Suicide contagion is a real thing in teenagers. Having someone close to you attempt suicide increases your risk.

  It’s such an awful term. Suicide contagion. Makes it sound like an infectious disease. One that’s already contaminated us.

  “How about yours?” I ask. Sometimes she goes home at night to put them to bed and leaves once they’re asleep to spend the night with Jacob.

  She rolls her eyes. “You know Sutton.”

  Sutton is every bit as spoiled as the name implies, except Lindsey and Andrew call it being spirited. She’s their indigo child or something like that. I can’t imagine being part of that parenting generation. Everything is so different from when my kids were Sutton’s age, and I couldn’t handle it. Kendra and I stopped having kids after we had two, and we loved that the three of us each had two kids so close together. It was perfect, but Lindsey was determined to have a girl, and she doesn’t give up when she’s set her sights on something. It took her ten years to get pregnant again, and I’ve always secretly wondered what would’ve happened if she’d had a boy.

  “How’s Wyatt?”

  “Running around trying to take care of everybody else like a good middle child.” She smiles at me, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. Those are filled with exhaustion and questions she won’t allow herself to answer.

  That’s not what I meant, and she knows it. Wyatt has been as opposed to keeping Jacob on life support as the protestors outside the hospital are. She gives me another smile.

  She was obviously mad at me earlier today about the lawyer, but it’s impossible to tell if she still is because she acts so differently at the hospital. She keeps a smile plastered on her face like some strange Stepford wife and talks in a high-pitched voice like everything has to be positive. I totally understand why, and I’d be the same way, but it doesn’t make it any less disturbing.

  “Listen, I just want you to know that we only got a lawyer so we’d have someone to help all of us through this. That’s all. We don’t want you to think of Ted as just our lawyer. He’s here for everybody. Anyone can ask him questions or run things by him.” I’m talking too fast, but I can’t help it. I fix my gaze on her, and she returns my stare with a strange expression that I can’t read despite thirty years of friendship. Our eyes hover above Jacob’s body, which is covered with a crisp white sheet. She changes it daily even though the nurses could do it for her and tucks the corners underneath the mattress military style. The beds in her house are the same way. “I wasn’t trying to go behind anyone’s back or do anything without letting you know. We’re in this together.”

  Those were her words—not mine.

  “We’re in this together, Dani. We’re in this together,” she repeated over and over again as her nails dug into my arm while we waited to hear which one of our boys had been shot and was in surgery. Sawyer’s death shook us to our core, and not knowing if Caleb or Jacob would be next was a nightmare no parent should have to go through. Just thinking about those moments of sheer terror and powerlessness makes me want to throw up on the tiled floor.

  “No worries.” Her left eyebrow twitches—her tell since seventh grade. Her light-brown hair is pulled back from her face in a tight ponytail. “We’ve all got to do whatever we’ve got to do to take care of our families. I’m over it.”

  “Please, Lindsey, I really don’t want you to be mad at me. I couldn’t take it if you were mad at me on top of everything else.” I sound desperate. I can’t help it.

  “I’m not mad at you,” she says, but we both know she’s lying. I can’t count the number of times she’s screamed me into tears over a perceived betrayal on my part. Her parents’ divorce shattered her childhood innocence, so trust is her most important quality in any relationship. Also her biggest trigger. If we weren’t in Jacob’s room, she’d be yelling about how I’d gone back on what we said that night in the emergency room when Detective Locke asked us if we wanted a lawyer before questioning.

  We all quickly agreed it wasn’t necessary and wanted to get started with the questions as soon as possible so we could get back to our kids. None of us were in our right minds. We were stunned. Clueless. Bryan would’ve answered differently if we’d known how bad things were or that Caleb would be too traumatized to speak about what he’d seen.

  “Did Detective Locke tell you that he wants to interview our other kids?” She takes a sip of her macchiato.

  I nod. Luna’s interview is tomorrow at one. Detective Locke doesn’t care that she hasn’t lived with us in over a year and has little to do with Caleb anymore. He insisted siblings tell each other things that they don’t tell their parents even if they aren’t close.

  “Did he ask if he could talk to Luna without you guys present?”

  I nod again.

  Careful, Dani. Don’t set her off.

  “And?”

  I shrug so I don’t have to speak the lie. She doesn’t have to know. Maybe we haven’t decided yet. She can’t read my mind. She cocks her head to the side and studies my expression. I force myself to maintain eye contact and smile back at her, doing my best to portray the right amount of compassion and uncertainty.

  Lindsey’s face mirrors my indecision. “Yeah, we don’t know what to do about it either. I can’t imagine he’ll interview Sutton. Although he’ll probably get more from her than he will from Wyatt. He’s not much of a talker these days, is he, Jacob?” She pauses to glance down at him. He lies motionless, and she strokes his arm before continuing. “It’s a no-win situation. If we say that he can’t interview them without a lawyer, then it looks like we have something to hide, but if we say yes, what if Wyatt . . .”

  Her unfinished question hangs in the air, but she doesn’t need to fill in the what-if. We both know what she’s referring to, and we aren’t leaving any room for the what-if in our household. Bryan won’t allow it. He gripped my arm as we walked out of the police station this afternoon and hissed, “Do not under any circumstances allow Caleb or Luna to talk to the police or anyone else without a lawyer present. Do you understand me?”

  SEVEN

  LINDSEY

  So glad Dani’s gone. Being around Jacob makes her uncomfortable, but s
he’s not alone. Lots of people have a tough time being around him. It doesn’t help that he looks like a complete stranger. They removed a third of his skull to make room for the swelling in his brain, which adds a nightmarish quality to his already-swollen face. Visitors are tough. It’s easier when it’s the two of us.

  I bring his left leg up and press his foot up against my chest, cradling his calf with my other hand while I slowly count to twelve. I don’t even need to look at my cheat sheet anymore for his mobility exercises.

  “I don’t want you to be nervous about tomorrow,” I say, stepping back and extending his leg all the way out once I’ve finished my count. His ankle is so swollen it rolls over his sock. His day nurse always forgets to remove his compression socks for at least an hour in the afternoon. “It’s a really simple procedure, and it’ll be over before you know it.” I twist his ankles around. First clockwise, then counter. Back again.

  A surgeon performs his tracheostomy surgery at seven. I was surprised to learn they can perform it bedside. Andrew will be here by six because he’s a nervous wreck about it even though Jacob’s lead doctor, Dr. Merck, assured him it was a relatively simple and easy procedure that they performed all the time.

  “You’re all done with this leg.” I return it to the bed and pick up his right leg, beginning the same exercises on the other side of his body. His well-contoured muscles from years of soccer are losing their definition. His skin has developed a weird shine and is velvety to the touch.

  I stare at his face, imagining what he’ll look like with a tube coming out of his throat. His medical team swears he’ll be more comfortable this way and less susceptible to infections. I hope they’re right. It’s the only reason we agreed to do it. We’ll do anything to make him more comfortable. Angry bedsores line his backside no matter how diligent I am about turning him. He deserves some kind of relief. Maybe this will help.

  I set his leg down next to the other and move to the top of his bed so I can dim the lights above him. I plant a gentle kiss on his forehead. He smells like stale sweat and rubbing alcohol.