The Last to Let Go

by Amber Smith

  When Aaron opens the door, I’m almost expecting to see a small thirteen-year-old version of him. He looks down at my stuff sitting in the doorway but doesn’t say anything. He closes the door behind him, pulls his arms out of his coat, and drops it on the floor next to mine, another silent nod to our solidarity, I guess.

  “Hey,” he says, his tone not so much casual as it is exhausted. I feel the cold coming off him in waves as he plops himself down on the couch next to me. He yawns through the word “Jesus,” sighing as he rubs his eyes. Then he turns to look at me, surprised, as if he didn’t fully realize I was here.

  “What?” I ask, wondering if there’s any way he can tell where my mind has just been, where my body was earlier. “How did it go today?”

  “Wait, should you be here right now?”

  “Oh. Um, I came home—I have a headache.” Not a total lie. “So how did it go?”

  “Fucking sucked.”

  “Why, what happened?” I ask, pretending I wasn’t there for at least part of that torture.

  He shakes his head, opens his mouth, but nothing comes out at first. “It’s not going well, Brooke. It was like every person who got up there to testify—the other lawyer twisted everything they were saying, made Mom look . . .” But he stops himself from finishing.

  “Look . . . what?” I ask. “Guilty? Crazy? Stupid?”

  “Yeah,” he says quietly. “All of the above.”

  We both look away. I turn the TV back off and set the remote down on the table.

  “Sorry, I’m just trying to tell you the truth,” he adds. “I don’t want you to be scared.”

  And in the forbidden part of my brain I hear the sentence that followed: I don’t want anybody to be scared anymore. I wish I couldn’t remember so clearly now—I wish I’d kept that memory locked up tight and safe. “Are you?” I ask, some new surge of bravery stirring in my gut, daring me to trespass once more. “Are you scared?”

  His gaze travels across the room, and I think maybe his eyes set on that goddamn stain for a second before he lets his head fall back against the couch and closes his eyes. He doesn’t have to say yes.

  I watch him in profile, and suddenly the entire puzzle of him clicks into place. He couldn’t keep pretending anymore—he told me as much, but I don’t think I really knew what he meant until now. Because I think for the first time in my whole life I’m beginning to see things clearly, feel the way things really are, the way things have always been.

  I’ve been pretending along with Mom for years, scrubbing out all the stains alongside her, trying to erase all the ugly things as if they never existed.

  TRESPASSING

  WHEN I ARRIVE AT the courthouse the next morning, Caroline is waiting for me outside. “Still no snow,” she says. In her gloved hands she holds out a book. “Here, I brought this for you.”

  I look at the cover as I take it from her; it has shades of sky blue with a series of white snowflakes printed in rows: Snow Crystals. “You brought this for me? To keep?”

  She nods. “To keep, yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, your birthday’s coming up, isn’t it?”

  I nod, wondering how much she really knows about us all—clearly more than we know about her.

  “There you go. My father gave it to me for my tenth birthday. That edition’s from the sixties, but it was first published in 1931. Bentley,” she says, pointing to the name on the cover. “Snowflake Bentley, you ever heard of him?”

  I shake my head and open the book—in the upper right-hand corner of the first page, in the kind of precise, neat, loopy cursive they used back then, blurred blue ink spells out: This book belongs to Caroline.

  “He was a strange person—dedicated his whole life to photographing snowflakes. They’re in there, thousands of them. When I was ten, I wanted to grow up to be just like him. Life doesn’t always go as planned, though, does it?” she asks, but before I’ve had a chance to respond, she adds, “Well, shall we?”

  We take our seats in the back row; this time we sit next to each other. We wait, our own silence drowning in the chatter that surrounds us. The air feels thicker today, denser, less open space for hope to breathe.

  “Thank you,” I finally say, holding the book on my lap.

  “You’re welcome.” It scares me that I’m starting to get used to the sound of her voice, her different facial expressions, that I could close my eyes right now and clearly picture what her face looks like when it’s smiling. Or maybe the scariest part is that I already can’t do that with Dad. It gets harder to remember his face every day.

  Like yesterday, the guards bring Mom into the courtroom. She gives Aaron a small, sad smile. Mr. Clarence pulls out her chair again. But as she moves around to the other side of the table, she raises her head. She looks directly at me, then to my right, at Caroline. She freezes. Her face blanches. Her jaw drops open for a moment, then clenches tight. She feels her way into the chair, not taking her eyes off me until she’s seated.

  She leans in toward Mr. Clarence. I see her mouth move—what the words are, I can’t tell—but she’s talking fast and gesturing with her hands. He turns and looks in my direction. Followed by Aaron and Jackie and Ray and Tony. They all stare at me—I’m not supposed to be here. I’m trespassing again. I’m tempted to stand up and shout out, I’m sorry. Only I’m not sorry. Not this time.

  Mr. Clarence turns back toward her and talks with his mouth close to her ear. She’s shaking her head no, no, no. He whispers something to his assistant. Now Mom spins around and reaches out across the bar that separates the courtroom—the lawyers and my mom and the judge—from the regular people. She grabs Aaron’s hand, holding on so tight; she doesn’t say anything to him—she only nods. Then she looks at me once more, and even though her chin trembles and her mouth collapses, there’s something in her eyes—some new strength. Resolve, maybe. The guard is walking over to stop her from touching Aaron. But just then the judge comes in and everyone has to stand, then sit back down.

  I hear Mr. Clarence’s voice: “Your Honor,” he says, “permission to approach the bench?”

  Both Mr. Clarence and the prosecutor walk across the room to where the judge sits. The three of them talk in hushed tones. Then the judge steps down from behind the platform and enters a door in the back wall, Mr. Clarence and the other lawyer buttoning their jackets and following behind.

  “What’s happening?” I say to no one in particular.

  “I don’t know,” Caroline whispers back.

  Aaron looks over his shoulder at me, an expression on his face I cannot name. I hold my hands up, palms facing the ceiling. What? I silently ask. He shakes his head: Don’t know. Next to me, Caroline fidgets, tapping the tip of her thumb against the tip of her ring finger, over and over.

  “What’s happening?” I ask again. Except she doesn’t answer this time.

  The buzz of whispers—of everyone asking everyone else what’s going on, why they went into the judge’s chambers—is deafening. I keep thinking the door is opening, but it isn’t. It’s my mind playing tricks. I close my eyes, trying to keep the hammers in my head from taking over completely. In my mind I try to recite things. True things. Facts that can’t be distorted the way my mind likes to distort things sometimes, especially things that shouldn’t change, like memories, like the truth, like time.

  The state capitals—I go in geographic order, starting in the northeast and fanning out from there, but I get lost somewhere in the Midwest. Next I try the elements of the periodic table; I remember a song we learned in middle school: There’s hydrogen and helium . . . then lithium, beryllium . . . boron, carbon everywhere, nitrogen all through the air. But all that comes to a screeching halt because my eyes open. Caroline has her hand on my shoulder. Everyone is standing all around me.

  “What—what’s happening? Is it over?” I ask.

  “They’re clearing the courtroom. They’re asking everyone to leave. We have to go,” she tells me, standing and fold
ing her big coat over her arm.

  “But—” I begin.

  “I know, but we have to do what they say right now.”

  We file out of the room. I look back and I see Aaron and Jackie and Ray standing up as well. I try to see my mom, but everyone’s in the way. I struggle to find her face. I can only catch glimpses. It feels like she’s slipping away, being carried out by a high tide, only I’m the one who’s moving.

  The hallway is packed with people, both sides of the room suddenly all mixed together, but then they disperse, thinning out gradually, breaking off into smaller groups. It reminds me of fire drills at school—there’s this panic and excitement and confusion in the air. I stand here with Caroline and wait for Aaron to find me. Finally I see him, walking toward me, finding breaks in the wall of bodies standing around, wagering guesses.

  “Aaron, what’s happening?”

  He shakes his head. “I’m not sure. I couldn’t hear everything she said.” He pauses and nods, an acknowledgment of Caroline’s presence.

  Jackie and Ray find their way to us now. And suddenly it feels like it’s me and Caroline against the three of them. I feel like I’ve been caught consorting with the enemy. I take a small step away from her and she notices.

  “I think . . .” Aaron stops himself, as if saying it will make it true. “I think she wants to change her plea.”

  “Oh Lord.” Caroline breathes through the words, and I start to worry she might pass out, because she wobbles and puts her hand to her forehead. Jackie helps her over to one of the marble benches that line the hallway. As they sit there next to each other, Jackie puts her arm around Caroline, and though I can’t hear what she says, it seems like she’s trying to comfort her, like she’s forgiven whatever transgressions Caroline might have committed in the past.

  We stand there in the middle of the hallway, me and Aaron, staring at our shoes. I would say something, but there are no words left, no more questions to ask, nothing else to know.

  GLACIERS

  THE DEEP, METALLIC CHILL of winter seeps into my skin, settles into my bones—the cold cuts like a knife, but I don’t care. I’ve been walking around the park for hours.

  Along the bank of the river, the water looks clearer than usual, flowing violently, as if it’s fighting so hard to keep moving, to avoid freezing. The sky is getting darker—the days are shorter all the time. In the distance the clouds churn slowly, deliberately, gradually turning from white to gray to black.

  She did it. She changed her plea to guilty. Guilty of voluntary manslaughter. Ten years. State prison. She’ll be eligible for parole after five years—that was supposed to be a consolation. “It could’ve been worse,” Mr. Clarence told us. “Much worse.”

  But how?

  How could she do this?

  Doesn’t she care about what happens to us?

  Does she even care what happens to herself?

  These answerless questions run on a loop in my head as I complete lap after lap around the park, my feet pounding against the frozen ground, getting nowhere, hating her. Hating her so much I don’t think I’ll ever be able to feel or think anything else for the rest of my life. I don’t remember leaving the courthouse. I don’t remember how we got home. I don’t remember if I said good-bye to Caroline. I remember I was still clutching that snowflake book when we sat Callie down in the living room. And when we told her, she didn’t say anything at first. I thought maybe all the progress we’d been making would be reversed and she’d stop talking altogether again.

  But that’s not what happened.

  She sniffed and tucked her hair behind her ears and said simply, “Okay,” as if we’d just told her we’d be ordering out for pizza, or something. Then she stood and walked into the kitchen. We heard some dishes clanging and the refrigerator door opening and closing. Water running. I looked at Aaron, as if to say, What the hell is she doing? And he shrugged and shook his head in that way he always does when he doesn’t give a shit. I set the snowflake book down on the coffee table, stood, and walked into the kitchen to find her ripping open a packet of hot chocolate and pouring it into a big mug—one with penguins, her favorite—the half-full bag of mini marshmallows open on the counter next to her. She turned to look at me. “Want some?”

  I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. I backed out of the kitchen and into the living room. I put on my coat and scarf and gloves and walked out the door. Aaron didn’t ask where I was going and I didn’t tell him either. I came to the park. Dani texted me about a million times. But I turned my phone off.

  I keep circling this giant boulder in the very center of the park. I examine it from all angles and it brings back all these memories of Aaron and me when we were kids—the boulder seemed even bigger then. We’d convince each other that we’d found fossils of baby dinosaurs embedded within the surface, or we’d jump off it, pretending we could fly. There’s a little ledge carved out of the side that used to be a good foothold for climbing, but now it’s the perfect height to take a seat.

  I walk over and sit on that timeworn shelf. I pull my knees into my chest and let my back rest against the solid wall of ancient rock—no doubt deposited here by some glacier during the Ice Age, though I’m sure it doesn’t contain any baby dinosaur fossils. As the cold mass cradles me, shielding me from the wind, it makes me wonder if there was a moment when all of this could’ve gone another way. Maybe that moment was two million years ago—that glacier could’ve veered slightly and set a whole different path for the river our ridiculous town was built up around. It could’ve curved in the direction of the coast and turned this whole city into a wide, deep cut in the earth, with this boulder sitting at the very bottom of a lake, miles below, no one ever knowing it even existed. And then my parents wouldn’t have lived here, their parents wouldn’t have lived here, and all the ancestors before them, all the people who found this place, would never have lived here, and Allison and Paul would never have met, maybe never even existed. I wouldn’t exist either. And maybe that’s a reasonable price to pay not to be here in this mess, feeling the way I feel, right now.

  Then again, maybe that moment was the day he left her stranded without her shoes at that restaurant when they were our age. Maybe if Mom hadn’t given him another chance. Maybe that was the day it all could’ve changed. Or maybe it was the fight between Dad and Aaron, the one that caused the grape juice stain. What if Dad had seen me standing there, scared, in the hall and realized how wrong he’d been? Maybe it was the day I found Aaron on the roof. Or maybe if Mom had left. Moved in with Jackie when Aaron was a baby.

  It seems like there should be a specific moment in time. A clear event. A point in our history when they could’ve chosen another path. Something we could look back on now and know for sure, Yes, this is where it all went wrong. Or maybe it was all like a slow-moving glacier, the escalation, the damage it was causing underneath indiscernible to the naked eye. Maybe Caroline was right about people being like water—it does what it does and there’s no stopping it.

  HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LIAR

  I STAY HOME FROM SCHOOL the rest of the week. I lie. I tell Dani I’m still sick. She asks if I need anything. She offers to make me soup. She wants to bring me my missed assignments, share her notes. But I tell her no. No thank you. That’s okay.

  On Friday she texts again: r u sure? I don’t mind . . .

  I’m fine, really. Thank u tho <3

  *sighs* well . . . i’m sitting outside of your building right now

  “Shit,” I whisper. I look around. It’s not too crowded at Jackie’s today. “Hey, Owen?” I call into the kitchen.

  “Wassup?” he answers, not looking up from the counter where he’s dividing a pie into eight perfect slices.

  “Could you cover for me? Five minutes. I need to make a quick phone call.”

  “Uh-huh,” he mumbles, still not looking up from his work.

  I grab my coat and go outside into the cold to call Dani.

  She picks up on the first ring. “Hey.”
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  “Hi, so listen . . . I’m not actually at home. I’m at work.”

  “I know, your brother told me.”

  “My brother?”

  “Yeah. I just met him. We ran into each other. He was coming in. I was looking at the names on the mailboxes, trying to figure out which apartment was yours.”

  I feel my heart pounding, the sensation in my fingers retreating, a tiny panic attack coming on. I can’t speak. I can’t hide. I’m caught. She’s going to know everything about everything. What did Aaron say to her?

  “I thought you were sick?” she asks.

  “I—I am. I mean, I’m not. I was. But I’m not now. It’s just—it’s been a weird week.”

  “Why are you lying to me?” she asks, except she doesn’t sound mad. She sounds like she’s asking a rational question, but it’s not one that I’m prepared to answer. Thankfully, she keeps talking. “You don’t have to do that. I would always rather know the truth. If you’re having a weird week and you need some space, just say that. Don’t lie to me. Don’t push me away like that. Not when we’re finally getting somewhere.”

  “Okay,” I whisper, unable to understand how she always makes honesty look so easy. “I am having a weird week,” I tell her. “But I don’t need space. Not from you, anyway. I couldn’t really bring myself to go to school. It’s complicated family stuff. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. Hey, go back to work. We’ll see each other later, all right?”

  “Okay.”

  “I love you.”

  I almost hang up. I’ll pretend I didn’t hear, that I hung up before she said it. Silence.

  “Fuck,” she finally says. “Okay . . . that was totally idiotic.”

  “No, it’s—it’s okay.”

  “I shouldn’t have blurted it out over the phone like that.”

  “No, it’s okay,” I repeat.