by Jessica Pack
Steve. She’d found him!
The satisfaction of discovery brought a smile to her face and wavy anticipation to her stomach. She went back to the index and looked up the name Stephen Mathis, then turned to the first page listed, which happened to be his school photo printed in full color. He had a nice toothy smile and brown eyes that might be a little too close together beneath his very thick eyebrows. His jaw was square, his nose wide. She went to each page number listed next to his name in the index, building a more three-dimensional understanding of him in the process. There were pictures of him in the weight room—he was certainly built like a football player, thick and stocky but not exceptionally tall. Another photo showed him at a school dance standing arm in arm with a big-haired girl Amanda suspected had on green eye shadow and navy blue mascara. The girl had chosen heels and stood almost two inches taller than Steve. I bet he hated that, she thought.
Steve was in a few action shots, which made her think he was a star player, but the team didn’t place in any state competitions that year as far as she could tell. There was another Mathis listed in the yearbook too. Jeremy was a sophomore, and she looked him up as well and compared the photos. They had the same nose and eyebrows, though Jeremy was a freshman in the photo so he wasn’t filled out like his older brother.
“Can I help you?”
Amanda fumbled the book before clasping it to her chest and looking up to see the woman she’d noticed when she entered—the librarian. The woman’s smile gave a commanding impression that clearly stated Amanda was not supposed to be here. The woman glanced at the yearbook pressed against Amanda’s chest and then back at Amanda’s face, raising one thin, well-penciled brow, which was full black upon her dark brown skin.
“Oh, um, I was just looking through a yearbook.”
“I can see that. Can I ask why you’re lookin’ through the yearbook?”
She decided to be as honest as she could. “I’m looking for someone, a former student.”
“Who are you lookin’ for?”
“Steve Mathis.”
Here’s where the librarian might say she knew Steve Mathis—he lived a few blocks west, across the street from the First Baptist church. Instead, the woman’s well-shaped eyebrows pulled together. “Who?”
Amanda released the book from her death grip and turned the cover so that the woman could see it. “Steve or, well, Stephen Mathis. He graduated in 1989 and I recently found his high school ring. I’m trying to return it to him.” It was rather remarkable how normal it sounded.
The woman’s eyebrows remained clenched, a furrow etched between them. “Where’s your visitor pass?”
Whatever reprieve she’d felt from her continual anxiety closed with a silent snap. “Oh, um, I didn’t get one—was I supposed to?” Amanda knew full well she was supposed to have checked in at the office. She blinked innocently, however, and held the other woman’s eyes as though she was ignorant of such protocol. As if she hadn’t sat through hours of policy meetings in which the importance of every person in the school being accounted for was repeated and repeated and repeated yet again.
“If you’re not a student or a teacher, you need a visitor pass from the front office,” the librarian explained. “We can’t be too careful.”
How many times had she heard those words said in the wake of Robbie’s crimes? Whether it was about assault weapons bans or security at public places or early intervention for the mentally ill. We can’t be too careful, they would say, and to her it always sounded as though they meant that she should have been more careful. When Robbie had made that threat against the university, she should have kept him locked up at home so the world would be safe. She should have known he could never be normal or live a normal life. When he’d dropped out of college the next year and said he just wanted to work for a while, she should have . . . what . . . forced him to go back? He was twenty-one years old. Or maybe when he’d stopped returning her calls, she should have stalked him at his work and apartment complex, forcing them to spend time together. Maybe she should have done those things, maybe everyone was right about her and she’d unleashed a time bomb that only she could have stopped. Maybe she’d done everything wrong.
The thought fell heavy on her shoulders, instantly reminding her of the past days’ events and her exhaustion, not remedied by a fitful night’s sleep in an unfamiliar bed. She’d woken this morning eager to tackle this task ahead of her, on the verge of . . . excited to find Steve Mathis. And she had found him, or at least his name. Amanda looked away from the woman and slid the book back into the shelf she’d taken it from, feeling wrong. Out of place. “I’m sorry,” Amanda said, her anxiety creeping up on her slow but steady. “I’ll go.”
“Now wait right there,” the woman said after Amanda had taken just one step. Her tone struck a chord of fear in Amanda’s chest, but she did her best to keep her expression from showing how jumpy she felt. “I’m not kicking you out, just explainin’ the protocol. Now, you’re lookin’ for a former student, is that it?”
Amanda remained cautious, but she nodded.
“A Steve Mathis?” the librarian asked.
“Right. His full name is Stephen Mathis. He graduated in 1989.”
“And you have his class ring?”
Amanda pulled the ring out of her pocket and handed it to the other woman, who took it carefully and then turned it to inspect it much as Amanda had. “It’s from Skyline all right,” the woman confirmed. She looked up and met Amanda’s eyes again. “And you’re lookin’ to return the ring to him?”
“I am.” Was this woman going to help her or somehow hold her back? Could Amanda trust this woman’s help if she offered it? Could anything Amanda did or said be used against her somehow?
“Where’d you get it?”
Amanda looked at the ring and thought of the last two days, shaping and forming what “was” into what could be explained. “My son . . . died and I found the ring amid his possessions. I wanted to return it to its owner and perhaps find out why my son had it in the first place. I’d never seen it before.”
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” the woman said with compassion as the last of her hardness disappeared. Her big brown eyes became sudden pools of sympathy.
Instant tears pricked Amanda’s eyes, taking her off guard. She thought of what Melissa had said about their not getting the typical compassion other people received when someone they loved died. Even though the woman’s sympathy was based on Amanda’s misrepresentation of Robbie’s death, she gathered the commiseration as though it were gold and held it tight. “Thank you,” she said softly.
“When did he pass away?” the woman said.
Amanda paused. “Pass away” was such a gentle phrase. It made Amanda think of dandelion seeds on the wind, of someone closing their eyes and peacefully letting out their final breath, like when her dad had died. Robbie had been lying on a table when he “passed away”—did it have a thin mattress or was it cold metal?—with tubes in his arm and a strap around his chest as poison was dripped into his veins. He’d stared up into fluorescent lights while people on the other side of the glass cheered silently that the world was nearly rid of him. “Yesterday.”
The woman’s eyebrows pinched, alerting Amanda to her mistake. Under normal circumstances a bereaved mother wouldn’t be tracking down the owner of an anonymous ring the day after her son’s death. “He’d been ill for a long time,” Amanda said in another misrepresentation. Robbie had been ill—mentally ill—and in a sense his illness had caused his death, but it wasn’t from some random and undeserved disease besieging him. Or maybe it was, only his disease had taken nine innocent people’s lives along with his own because he hadn’t chosen to manage his illness the way he should have. Could have. Ten victims counting Valerie. Was Robbie as much a victim as they were? Amanda gave herself a mental shake—he was a victim, yes, but not like they were. Not anything like they were. He was the only one of the dead who could have prevented each death, including his
own. If he’d stayed on his meds, if he’d kept seeing his therapist and not turned to self-medicating in ways that further unbalanced his mind, all of them would be alive today. As fatal as whatever switch had been flipped at two o’clock yesterday morning, Robbie’s deciding not to take that daily pill had changed everything.
The woman nodded slowly but wasn’t fully relieved of her confusion.
“I’d better go,” Amanda said, straightening the strap of her purse on her shoulder. This was why she didn’t talk to people. This was why she always reminded herself that people were watching her, whispering about her, wondering about her. So that she would keep her guard up. Protect herself. “I’m sorry about not getting that visitor badge.”
“Wait,” the woman said, pivoting to keep watching Amanda as she headed toward the doors. “Don’t you want help findin’ him? All you’ve got is a name—that won’t get you very far.”
Amanda stopped and turned, something in the woman’s voice pulling at her flight reflexes. “You’ll help me?”
The woman shrugged, the confusion dropped from her expression as though she’d made peace with Amanda’s story in the space of three seconds. “I can try.”
Amanda had to consider the woman’s offer for a few moments to feel assured there was no trick involved; then she nodded and followed the librarian to the desk. “I’m Margo,” the woman said as she moved to the interior of the U-shaped desk and woke up the computer, which was showing a slide show of dark-faced children—Margo’s children? An older teenage girl and two younger boys. Three kids with futures as wide as the sky.
“I’m Amanda.” Margo wouldn’t ask to see ID, would she? And if she did, would she realize who Amanda was and withdraw her help? Amanda rolled her shoulders, trying to fend off the increasing tension. She glanced through the glass doors and reminded herself of the way out of the building should she need to make a run for it.
Margo tapped at the computer, then called someone in the front office, then called one of the teachers, and then called another number that teacher had given her. “Old football coach,” Margo said after punching the final number into the phone. Amanda watched the events unfold as though she were starving and Margo’s calls were for food. That tingly feeling was bigger and stronger, almost frightening. She’d felt so dead inside for so long that this new play of emotions left her dizzy. She realized she was clenching her hands tightly into fists and pressing them against her thighs. Margo couldn’t see from the other side of the desk, thank goodness, but Amanda tried to relax anyway. She’s helping you, she told herself as part of the talking-down process. She doesn’t have to, but she is.
Amanda could hear the slight burring sound as the phone rang on the other end of the line. Five, six, seven. Margo frowned and hung up. “He didn’t answer,” she said. “And no voice mail.”
Amanda trapped her disappointment into a bubble and set it aside. She’d come in with very few expectations and already had learned more than she’d have ever guessed. “Thank you for trying.”
“If it weren’t the weekend, I’d tell you to come back tomorrow.”
Amanda nodded, feeling an odd sense of embarrassment, though she was unsure what it was for. Wasting this woman’s time, perhaps, but more likely that she’d dared hope this old football coach would answer the phone. Now what?
“You feel okay callin’ him yourself?”
Amanda looked up at a note the woman extended toward her.
“It’s not like his number is unlisted or anything.”
Amanda reached for it slowly, as though afraid Margo might pull it away at the last moment. She didn’t, though. For a brief moment, they both held one side of the paper, Margo’s dark fingers with purple acrylic nails contrasting with Amanda’s thin white, unpolished fingers. Amanda used to paint her fingernails, which grew out rather well when she let them. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d done it, though. It would have been years before Robbie’s sentence; maybe even fifteen years ago. Melissa used to paint them for her on Sunday afternoons at the table in the kitchen. They would talk about normal things like boys and school and makeup. How long had it been since Amanda had remembered that?
Margo let go of her side of the note and the paper was all Amanda’s.
“Thank you,” Amanda said, looking up and forcing herself to make eye contact with this woman. “I really appreciate your help.”
Margo’s look was searching.
“I better go.” Amanda folded the paper and put it in her purse.
“Y’all call me if you need anything else, okay? Mrs. Hovely. I’m here in the library every day school’s in.”
“I will, Mrs. Hovely. Thank you very much.”
The librarian gave a final nod; then Amanda pushed through the glass doors, trying not to walk so fast that she might look suspicious. She couldn’t shake the feeling that Mrs. Hovely was following her. When she reached the stairs, she finally dared glance over her shoulder. The woman wasn’t there; she’d likely gone back to work as soon as Amanda left the library. Amanda sent a silent “thank you” and continued down the stairs and out the front doors.
Once in her car she locked the doors and looked at the paper in her hands. Coach Chris Miller it said before the number, which must be local since Mrs. Hovely hadn’t written down an area code. What if the coach was out of town? Was Amanda willing to wait all weekend for him? How would she explain that to Melissa?
She bit her lip and took a breath, not knowing what to do. She had wanted the yearbook to give her everything she needed, and even though she knew that was a silly expectation, she lacked the ability to think of her next course of action. There was no one she could talk it through with, the way she would have years earlier when she’d had friends. She’d even had a best friend, Brenda. They’d called each other all the time about what they should make for dinner or how they should handle something at work. Brenda had been the receptionist for a financial planning office. Like Amanda, she was a single mom, though her kids were younger. They went to lunch once a month and made promises to each other about getting into shape. After Robbie, well, things changed. They weren’t equal anymore. Amanda’s problems were so much bigger than diet plans and that power bill that didn’t get paid the month before. Confiding in Brenda felt like opening a jar of honey over her friend’s head, getting Amanda’s problems all over her and leaving a mess almost impossible to clean up. And how could Brenda possibly have any advice to give Amanda?
Over the course of those first nine months their friendship went from texts and lunches, to awkward conversations when Amanda would finally answer Brenda’s call after five or six tries. Brenda offered help that Amanda turned down over and over. Finally, Brenda stopped calling. Amanda had seen her at the grocery store a few months ago. Amanda was checking out at the self-service register when Brenda walked past with her bagged groceries already in her cart. Her daughter Lilly, who must be fifteen now, was with her.
“Amanda,” Brenda had said, her face lighting up as though they were still friends even though they hadn’t talked for almost two years.
Amanda had looked up, a box of pasta in her hand ready to be scanned. They’d held each other’s eyes for a moment. “Hi, Brenda.”
“Hi.” They’d stood there a few more seconds and Brenda’s expression went from excited to cautiously polite. “It’s been forever. We should . . . we should go to lunch or something.”
“Oh, that would be great.” Amanda was lying, but then so was Brenda. They wouldn’t go to lunch. Couldn’t go to lunch. Mothers of mass shooters didn’t do lunch; it was one of the rules in the book that no one had ever written.
16
Margo
One year, eight months, thirteen days
Margo Hovely pulled into the carport and shut off the engine. She brought her purse with her from the car and opened the side door to the sound of boisterous boy noises. She smiled despite the fatigue their energy brought on. “I’m home!” she called out. A hundred feet came scamp
ering around the kitchen wall, or, well, six.
Hugs and kisses and “How was your day?” and “Where’s your homework?” abounded for a few minutes, until twelve-year-old Damon and ten-year-old Mario were at the kitchen table doing worksheets. Cambian had disappeared back into the living room and Margo went to find him. When she sat on the couch, he climbed up into her lap and molded himself to her as though he belonged there—all without taking his eyes off the TV. He put two fingers in his mouth like his mother used to do when she was little. Margo knew she should make him take them out, but she didn’t. Instead she stroked his fluffy hair and let their bones settle in together for a minute. In moments like this he felt as much her son as the two in the kitchen were, but she was not his mother and should not be pretending that she was. Not a day went by that she didn’t think about her Cherie and wonder where she’d gone wrong.
After Margo’s own mistakes, she’d been determined to do better by her little girl. She’d gone to college, she’d worked hard, she’d taken her baby to church every Sunday. Russell had been an answer to her prayers—a daddy for Cherie and a husband for Margo. He was fifteen years older than Margo and a diabetic, but he’d wanted more children just like she did and so they’d had the boys and made themselves a real family. Cherie had brothers and everything seemed perfect . . . for a while. Then Russell’s foot got infected. Three sectional amputations followed. The medications ruined his kidneys. Looking after her husband took Margo’s attention off Cherie, and the girl-child ran with it. By the time Margo tried to pull in the reins, Cherie was three months’ pregnant. Russell was dying.
