The Last to Let Go

by Amber Smith

  “Oh,” Aaron finally says, his face softening. He stands up and walks toward her. “No, we do. We remember you,” he says, speaking for us both.

  “Your mom wanted me to meet you here.” She starts rubbing her hands together nervously. “To check on Callie. Make sure you were okay,” she says, tears filling her eyes as she reaches out for Aaron’s hand, maybe to stop herself from fidgeting.

  Okay, my brain echoes. How can we be okay? How could we possibly be okay?

  “Thanks for coming,” Aaron tells her solemnly, taking the hand she offers.

  It’s beyond annoying how one moment Aaron can be on the verge of raging out of his mind and in the next he’s like some kind of patron saint of compassion and gentleness. I’ve always felt like he had the potential to be either a ruthless dictator or a sequestered monk, have a life of chaotic tyranny or peaceful contemplation. Nothing in between. The main problem with that is I never know which Aaron is going to show up. Just when I need him to be skeptical and cynical and tough, he goes soft on me.

  I roll my eyes. Look around. Am I the only one who’s suspicious of Jackie? Even Carmen—levelheaded, calm, wise-beyond-her-years Carmen—greets this woman, this supposed friend who dropped out of our mom’s life years ago for no apparent reason.

  “You’ll stay at my house,” Jackie continues. “Until everything gets sorted out.”

  I have to say something. “Wait. Hold on, how did you even know we were here?”

  “Allison, your mom, I mean. She had her police officer friend call me. I’m—I’m so sorry, kids. I’m so sorry this happened,” she says, her voice caving into her throat. “I can’t express to you how sorry I am. Really.” She blinks back the tears that are getting caught in her spider-leg eyelashes.

  No one knows what to say. Thankfully, we don’t have to, because the doctor comes out right then. “Callie’s family?” she asks softly.

  “Yes,” I answer, standing up and pushing my way past the others to meet her in the doorway.

  “Let’s sit.” She directs me back to the seating area. “We’re all together here?” she asks as we huddle around her.

  I look at Carmen, then Jackie, and reluctantly answer, “Yes.”

  “All right. So, I’ve had a chance to examine Callie and run some preliminary tests. She’s doing okay, she’s stable. But I would like to keep her here for a few days, just basic evaluation—a chance to figure out how to best help her.”

  “What’s wrong with her?” Aaron asks.

  “Well, she’s been traumatized. It’s expected that she would have some symptoms of posttraumatic stress. Witnessing a death, particularly the death of a parent, particularly when it’s a violent death, is a tremendous experience for anyone to process, let alone a twelve-year-old girl. She is alert and responsive, but she’s not speaking—at least, I haven’t been able to get her to speak yet. This kind of mutism is not entirely unusual in situations like this.”

  “But why? What does this mean?” I ask her.

  “It’s like shutting down—it’s all too much for her to process right now. She doesn’t feel safe, which is understandable after what’s happened. This is her mind’s way of saying, I need a break. It means that she’s going to need time and space to recover. It could be a long process. Or not. It’s hard to tell at this point.”

  “Can we see her?” Aaron asks.

  “Not yet. We’re admitting her. And what we like to do is keep the patient for seventy-two hours. It’s only so we can get a clear picture of what’s actually going on.”

  I laugh, and everyone looks at me like I’m the crazy one. “Sorry, but we can’t just not see her. I mean, that’s out of the question. She’s going to be scared. I don’t want her to think she’s alone. What if she doesn’t understand what’s going on?” I say, the words tumbling out of my mouth, too fast.

  “It will be okay. She knows why she’s here—she understands what’s going on. She knows you’re here. What she really needs right now is rest.”

  This is all wrong. I feel my pulse racing, my thoughts spiraling. “Well, so she’ll come home in a few days?” I try. “Right?”

  “Maybe. We may need to keep her longer. Could be a week. We need to see how she does. That’s all. Really, the main idea is to ensure that she’s not a threat to herself or anyone else.”

  That makes us all go mute.

  The doctor allows the moment of silence to wash over us, and then continues, gently. “There’s honestly nothing left for you to do here. Not right now. And I’m sure you’re all exhausted after . . . the ordeal. I will certainly give you an update tomorrow.”

  She stands and leaves. And eventually we do the same.

  SALT

  JACKIE’S HOUSE WAS NOT even fifteen minutes away, across the river that divides our town in half. Carmen went back to her apartment, but Aaron, thankfully, agreed to come to Jackie’s with me, although I suspected he would rather have gone home with Carmen. As Jackie drove us in, her neighborhood came up suddenly after we crossed the bridge, a shiny little village that dropped from the sky, out of place, out of time.

  I take inventory of Jackie’s living room: her pretty photo frames on the mantel, our glasses of lemonade collecting condensation on the ceramic coasters that have a special wooden holder and a special place on her special, perfect little coffee table. There are nice curtains in the windows, the furniture crisp and unworn. There’s a gentle rumble through the walls as the central air kicks on.

  I keep thinking someone is about to bust through the door, or something, and tell us it’s all been a big mistake and everything’s fine and we can all go back home. But the only person who comes is Jackie’s husband, Ray, who wanders aimlessly into the room for about the hundredth time, asking us if we need anything, giving us pitiful charity smiles each time.

  Aaron watches Jackie with wide eyes as she paces between the rooms, while we hear only one side of multiple phone calls. He chews on his fingernails and jiggles his leg and keeps clearing his throat. I can feel the anxiety vibrating off him, and it makes me feel like I’m going to burst out of my skin.

  “She needs a criminal attorney?” Jackie shouts, enunciating the words like they’re in a foreign language. She’s talking to her cousin who’s a lawyer, but not the right kind, I gather. “You know someone? Great. Okay, spell that again?” she asks, hunched over a pad of paper, pen furiously scribbling out names and numbers.

  One of the ice cubes in my glass cracks, except it feels like something in my skull cracking instead, splintering. The tiny hammer I know so well, smacking into that tender spot, the one right near the temple. Another headache coming on. I close my eyes, yank the couch pillow out from behind my back, and pull it over my face, blocking out the light, muffling the sound of Jackie’s voice.

  I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be feeling. How can I feel anything about something that I don’t even understand? I don’t need feelings right now. I need facts. I need information. But the facts are these: My mom is locked up and no one has a clue what happened. Callie is zombified in some padded room across town. And my dad—a man I’ve never had much use for, a man I’ve hated the majority of my life, a man, I realize only now, right at this moment, I must also love somehow—is dead.

  “My birthday,” Aaron suddenly says quietly, as if he’s answering a silent question he posed to himself.

  I pull the pillow away from my face and open my eyes. “What?”

  “My wish,” he whispers, looking at me like I’m supposed to understand.

  “What are you talking about?”

  He stretches his arms out and leans forward, gripping on to his knees to steady himself, bracing for whatever he’s about to tell me. “The last time I saw Dad was for my birthday last month.” He stops and leans in closer like he doesn’t want anyone else to hear. “And as usual, he started on me the second I walked through the door. You remember? How I’m wasting my life away. How nineteen is too old to not have my shit together. How when he was my age . . .
blah, blah, you know?”

  “Yeah, I remember.”

  “And I sat there through dinner and candles and cake while he railed on me, like always.” He hesitates, the beginning of a small, sad smile taking shape at the corner of his mouth. “Know what I wished for?” He looks at me, waiting for me to guess, before he continues. “That I’d never have to see him again,” he admits, his voice barely audible.

  I hold my breath. There’s this giant pause between us, an intermission. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to say. I’m not exactly sure what he’s even saying.

  “I was only wishing that I could finally stand up to him once and for all. By not coming back. Like, if I could not give him the satisfaction, the opportunity. I was just thinking . . .” He trails off, shaking his head. “I don’t know, how much more am I expected to give? How much more am I expected to take?” he asks, like there are answers to these questions.

  “Yeah,” I whisper. “I know.”

  He nods, and then we’re left in our silence again. I let my head fall back against the couch and stare at Jackie’s popcorn-textured ceiling.

  I don’t tell him about any of my wishes, any of my secrets.

  Like how often I imagined what it would be like if Dad weren’t around. Not necessarily if he died, but if he’d never even existed. Mom would be safe. Callie could have sleepovers like a normal twelve-year-old, without worrying if that would be a night Dad would start some explosive fight and go batshit on us. Maybe Aaron would be graduating high school in just a few days like he was supposed to have been. Maybe he’d still live at home with us. And me, maybe I’d finally have some time to worry about myself instead of everyone else, and maybe I’d actually have a life—friends instead of a GPA.

  Dad was the problem, his absence the solution to everything that was wrong with our whole world. If he were gone, things would finally be the way they were always supposed to be. But I was wrong. This is not the way things are supposed to be at all. This was never my wish, either. I don’t tell Aaron any of these things, though.

  At last Jackie hangs up the phone. She shuffles into the room, looking as if there’s a hundred-pound weight on her shoulders, and then she falls down onto the couch next to Aaron with an enormous sigh. Placing her hand on his knee, she gives us both a weak smile. “How you guys holding up?”

  Aaron shrugs.

  I don’t offer a response.

  “All right. So . . .” She rubs her forehead for a moment before continuing. “My cousin gave me the name of a colleague of his who’s going to work with us. Apparently, he’s very good and this is exactly the sort of thing he specializes in. Criminal law.”

  “She’s not a criminal,” I mutter, but no one hears me.

  “Okay,” Aaron says, leaning forward. “That’s good news, right?”

  “Right,” she answers. “But the bad news is it looks like your mom has to wait until Monday, until the arraignment.”

  “What?” I hear myself shout. I turn to Aaron, wanting him to share in my outrage.

  But he just sits there quietly next to Jackie, shaking his head. As he drags his hands across his face, letting the heels of his palms dig into his eye sockets, he murmurs, “Shit.”

  Jackie stares at me for a moment, opens her mouth, but then closes it, averting her eyes like she’s trying not to say something. “Look, it’s been a long day for everyone. It’s going to be okay,” she attempts to reassure us. “Let’s all try to get some rest.”

  “Right,” Aaron agrees, letting his hands fall to his lap. “I’m gonna take off. Brooke—you’re okay here? For tonight.”

  I look at him as he stands, and I open my mouth to answer, this sickening panic sinking its familiar roots deep inside of me, stealing all the words I need to be able to tell him how much I’m not okay here by myself. Jackie meets my eyes, seeming to understand, which I both appreciate and despise somehow.

  “Aaron, you know you’re welcome to stay. I mean, if you don’t feel like schlepping back into town at this hour.”

  “Uh, I don’t know,” he says uncertainly, blinking his eyes tightly, like he’s only just now letting himself feel how tired he is. “You sure?”

  “Of course. Let’s regroup in the morning.” She turns to me. “Sound good?”

  I hate the way she’s looking at me. Like she has X-ray vision and can detect all the terrible stuff that was never supposed to see the light of day, like she can see all the secret places it lives inside of me. It’s like having a thousand bandages ripped off simultaneously, exposing a thousand open wounds. Her pity and her charity and her gentleness are the salt that only makes it all hurt a million times worse than I ever thought it could.

  “Sounds good,” I lie.

  I raid Jackie’s bathroom for some ibuprofen, aspirin, Tylenol . . . anything. But her medicine cabinet is filled with things like Saint-John’s-wort and vitamin C and valerian root. As I lie down in one of the spare rooms, which Jackie made up for me, in this bed that should be really comfortable because it feels nice and new and clean and safe, I am awake.

  It’s too quiet here. I’m used to the gentle hum of traffic or voices drifting in through open windows, or muffled television sounds traveling through the walls and floors and ceilings of our building, or, on an extra-quiet night, the lapping sounds of the river that runs alongside the park across the street. This kind of quiet doesn’t feel peaceful at all. It makes me focus on my thoughts instead, which is the last thing I want right now. I hear them mobilizing, feel them lining up one after the other into formation, building a loop, a reel that begins playing in my head before I can stop it. Frames of Mom in handcuffs, Dad on the floor, Callie in the ambulance, Aaron running, Jackie, Tony, the doctor, police car, ambulance, fire truck. Going over everything, repeating, repeating, repeating, again, again, again.

  I pull the pillow over my face and hold it there, hearing my own pulse thumping in my ears. I try to think about something else. Anything else. I think about my exam, all those right answers I knew by heart. I think about Darwin and evolution. Survival of the fittest and natural selection. I think about cellular processes. And genetics. Chromosomes. Kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species. I think about this time next week, this time next month, this time next year, five years, ten years from now, measuring out the distance to a time when things will be normal, when things will make sense, when things will be right again.

  LOCAL WOMAN

  STUPID. PATHETIC. WEAK. LOSER. I think I’ve heard my mom called every name imaginable. From cops to ER nurses to grocery store cashiers to waitresses and bus drivers—all strangers who could see through her lies and her constant cover-ups and outlandish excuses. They shook their heads and silently cursed her, dismissing her as someone who deserved what she got. Whispers from people who thought they knew, thought they understood something even though they didn’t have the slightest clue what it was really like, their words always some variation of “Why doesn’t she just leave him?” or “Ever hear of a restraining order?” or “What kind of a mother would let her kids witness X, Y, Z?”

  This is the first time she’s been called a killer.

  Last night’s news: “Local woman awaits arraignment after being arrested for allegedly stabbing her police officer husband to death.” Jackie immediately grabbed the remote, pressing a few wrong buttons before the TV went black. “We don’t need to hear this,” she said.

  But that was yesterday and now it’s Monday. Aaron and I sit next to each other on the couch in Jackie’s living room, waiting for dinner to be ready. I’m thankful that Aaron is here, even if there is this awkward silence hanging between us. If I had to be alone with Jackie and Ray for another second, having Jackie ask if I needed anything, if I was okay, if I wanted to talk, and did I like salmon, was I allergic to anything, I would implode. All weekend long she and Ray were trying so hard to make me feel welcome, but it was only making me feel like more of an outsider, more of a burden.

  I pull my phone out, checking
for the latest updates on final exam grades. No news yet. I close out my e-mail and return my phone to my back pocket. But I pull it out again to check one last time. Aaron sighs loudly and gives my phone the dirty look he really wants to be giving me.

  “Will you stop that?” he finally mumbles, nudging me in the arm. “Making me nervous.”

  I want to ask if he saw the news last night, if he knows what they’re saying about Mom, but I don’t. Just then Ray appears in the entryway of the living room, clapping his hands together once. “All right,” he announces, “I think we’re about ready in here.”

  Aaron and I sit across from each other, with Jackie and Ray at either end of the table. When I set my phone facedown next to me, Jackie clears her throat and says, “Brooke, one of our house rules is we always unplug at the dinner table. This is pretty much the one and only time we get to really be together and catch up, so that’s what we do.”

  “Oh. Right. No, I wasn’t—” I begin, but stop because we’re talking over each other.

  “No, I know you weren’t using it right now,” she says, her voice higher than usual. “I’m just taking the opportunity to let you know, that’s all.”

  “There aren’t many rules,” Ray chimes in, shaking his head slowly. “But boy, is she serious about that one. I was in the doghouse for a week over one text message.”

  “Stop it, you were not!” Jackie swats at him, showing all her teeth. Ray laughs on mute: no sound, with his face scrunched up and his shoulders bobbing up and down. “He’s teasing,” Jackie says, looking at him like they’re the teenagers, in goofy sappy-sick love.

  I glance over at Aaron. He offers a tight smile, but his eyes are glaring at me. We rarely ever made it through a meal with a conversation that didn’t end in a major blowout. So we’d learned simply to be quiet. His eyes are telling me, Put the damn phone away now. I do. I slide it into my back pocket despite the fact that it’s now digging into my flesh as I sit. I try not to move too much.