Push

by Claire Wallis

  The minister is reading a verse from the Bible, and as his words tumble out, I look up at the colored window behind him. I hated the sight of that window when I was a girl because it reminded me of my father’s funeral. And now it will remind me of my mother’s, too. It is the same church. The same minister. The same service. Michael doesn’t know it, but I do. I know that when my mother picked out my father’s casket, she said it had to be lined with dark gray satin. She chose the Bible verses and the songs and the poetry for his ceremony. She buried my father in his favorite red tie, the one I picked out for him on his birthday. I wonder if Ricky and Evan remember. It doesn’t matter, though, because I do. And when Michael set me the task of arranging my mother’s funeral because he “had a business to run,” I picked a casket lined with dark gray satin. I picked the exact same Bible verses and songs and poetry that we heard twelve years ago. I am burying my mother in the red shawl my father gave her, and she is wearing the small gold band he slid on to her finger on their wedding day. I put the gaudy diamond ring she got from Michael in a homeless man’s collection cup.

  Her casket is closed because of the accident. Because Michael sent her to the airport in the middle of the night to pick up his colleague. Because Michael forgot to arrange for a town car to pick the man up, and when he got a call from the airport about the lack of transportation, Michael was three sheets to the wind in someone else’s house. In some other woman’s house. So Michael called my mother. He woke her up and screamed at her until she agreed to go get the man and take him to his hotel in the city. She fell asleep, and the truck driver didn’t see her car slip into his lane. It was three o’clock in the morning when she died.

  My brothers flank Michael in the pew, and I can’t help but wonder why they aren’t angry with him for sending my mother to her death. They don’t even seem sad. At my father’s funeral, they cried until their eyes were rimmed in red. They held my hand and told me how brave I was and how much my daddy loved me. But now, now that Michael has formed them into these “other” people, it’s as if they don’t remember any of that. They don’t remember having been loved.

  I am staying with my friend Susan and her parents because there is no fucking way I am ever going back to Michael’s. Susan came home from college for a few days to attend the funeral, and her parents were nice enough to give me a place to camp out for as long as I need to. Case Western gave me three weeks leave, but they would also allow me to opt out for the entire semester if that’s what I preferred. I don’t want that, though. I want to get back to school as soon as possible. I want to get away from here. I already have my bus ticket. I’m leaving tomorrow afternoon.

  The pipe organ starts playing from the balcony above us, and I watch Michael and my brothers stand up. After I rise to my feet, the minister asks us to open up our hymnals and everyone begins to sing. Everyone but me. My voice is stuck in my throat, trapped there like smoke. I move my mouth to the words of the hymn, but no sound comes out. I’m on the verge of tears. I’m glad when the song is over.

  At the end of the service, the minister thanks us all for coming and invites everyone to join the family in the fellowship hall to share some good food and fond memories. There are so many of my mother’s relatives here. So many that I don’t recognize. I haven’t seen them in years because we stopped going to family reunions when my mom married Michael. As I walk up the center aisle of the church a few paces behind Michael and my brothers, I look at everyone’s faces. There aren’t many tears, not compared to all that were shed at my father’s funeral. It makes me feel sad for my mother. Sad that people forgot what an amazing person she once was. Sad that she lost herself twice—first to my father’s death and then to Michael. Sad that she spent so many years punishing herself for losing her first love in such a terrible way.

  I smile a little when I pass Susan and see that her whole family is here. She is holding a Kleenex, and her puffy eyes are full of emotion. But I don’t think she cried for my mother; I think she cried for me. When I get to the back of the church, I see Peter Beckman. He is standing in the second-to-last pew, dressed in a dark suit and a blue tie. He looks beautiful. It is clear that he was crying, and he looks at me with enough warmth and compassion to fill the whole room. Besides my brothers, he is the only one here who has even an inkling about Michael’s cruelty. His sorrow for me is painted across his face, and it brings a rush of tears to my eyes. His father is here, too. Mr. Beckman’s hand is on Peter’s shoulder, and he is wearing a small, sympathetic smile. They both tighten when they see the fresh tears on my face, and Peter immediately walks toward the aisle. His arms wrap around me, and as people file past, he hugs me as I sob into his shoulder. We separate a few minutes later, and I tell him how grateful I am that he could come and how much I miss our conversations. We chat for a while about college. He tells me Northwestern is treating him well. He has a girlfriend there and is busy with soccer training and course work. He seems content, and when his father tells him it’s time to say goodbye so that I can visit with the rest of our guests, I am reluctant to walk away. I feel a twinge of regret that this gentle boy is no longer a part of my life. We trade cell numbers and promise to keep in touch. I know we won’t, though, because that’s the way life is.

  When I make my way to the fellowship hall, my eyes scan the room. Ricky and Evan are standing next to the food table chatting with a few of our relatives. Michael is sitting at a table off to my left, surrounded by a group of men neatly dressed in suits. They are all wearing big gold rings, and I think immediately that they must be somehow involved in Michael’s business because they all look as dark and twisted as he does. Michael looks up at me when I walk into the room. His eyes are blank and hollow. He stares at me for a few seconds, and when one of the men notices that Michael is looking elsewhere, he, too, turns his head toward me. The man nods in my direction, then both he and Michael turn their faces back to the other men at the table. My hands clench into fists, and I bite at my lower lip to keep from walking over there and giving Michael what he deserves—a kick in the fucking crotch. I will not lose control at my own mother’s funeral.

  The minister sees me and makes his way over to where I am standing. As soon as I see him coming, I curl my lips into a slight smile and relax my brow and hands. He offers his condolences and expresses his gratitude for the many years of service my mother gave to the church. When she wasn’t travelling with Michael, my mother was a dedicated volunteer, he says, leading the women’s Monday morning Bible study for the past eight years and coordinating and distributing the food pantry collections for the past six. I had no idea that my mother did all that. I never thought about how she spent her time after I left for school every morning. I never bothered to ask. I assumed her days were spent taking care of Michael and the house. The minister says he is grateful to see so many church members here today to pay their respects to a woman they were all very fond of. I look around the room and know now that the faces I don’t recognize are not relatives; they are members of this congregation. My mother’s other family. He smiles at me and says that he hopes I can find peace in the many wonderful memories I have of my mother. He hopes that my stepfather and my brothers can help see us all through this difficult time by offering loving support and kind words. I have to bite my lip again to keep from laughing.

  Eventually the minister leaves and heads toward Michael and the men at the table, and I am left standing alone. Within a few minutes, people begin to come over one by one and introduce themselves to me, offering handshakes and small hugs and words of support. I want to punch them all. I want to strike at them for their ignorance. I want to tell them what my house was really like. What my mother and brother and stepfather were really like. I want to tell them everything and stop this godforsaken show. But I can’t. Because I will not lose control at my own mother’s funeral.

  After an hour, people begin to filter out. Michael and my bothers are standing by the door, shaking people’s hands as they depart. I am standing with S
usan in the far corner trying hard to keep myself together when a well-dressed man comes over to introduce himself. He says is name is Edward Clark, and he is my mother’s lawyer. He hands me his business card and apologizes for not getting in touch with me as soon as he learned of my mother’s death, but he wanted to give me some time. He says that he has been working with my mother privately for a number of years. She wanted to set up a trust for me, to make sure I was taken care of if something ever happened to her. Michael doesn’t know about it, and my mother asked Mr. Clark to keep it private. She had been squirreling little bits of her own money into the account for years and asked him to redo her will to reflect her wishes regarding the trust. Mr. Clark will remain as the trustee until I reach the age of thirty when all monies will be released to me. But, because of my mother’s death, I will now begin to receive quarterly distributions from the trust via an allocation plan determined by him and my mother. If I’d like, I can use the money to pay for the remainder of my college education. There will be paperwork to sign, and when Michael finds out, he may try to fight it, but everything was done in a completely legal fashion and there shouldn’t be any real problems to overcome.

  I look over at Michael and my brothers standing by the door. I ask if my mother left anything to my brothers. Yes, he says. Her will states that they will inherit all of her jewelry. Because Michael gifted a lot of it to her over the years, each of my brothers will probably have enough for a new car or a down payment on a house. It isn’t the same as a trust fund, Mr. Clark says, but they are grown men already living on their own, and the jewelry was really all she had to leave them. Mr. Clark asks how long I’ll be staying in town, and when I tell him I plan to head back to school tomorrow afternoon, he asks if I can come to his office in the morning to sign some papers. The rest we can do over the phone in the coming weeks, he says. As executor of her will, he’ll be bearing most of the responsibility. I shake his hand and thank him and tell him I will see him in the morning.

  As he walks out the door, he shakes Ricky’s and Evan’s hands, and they both nod at him knowingly. He walks right past Michael without a second glance. When he is gone, my bothers turn their eyes toward me, and they are both wearing a small smile. They know already. They know what our mother did for us, and I hope that they feel a small amount of regret for their behavior over the past ten years. I hope they remember what an amazing person she once was. I hope they remember the family we used to be.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Emma—Present Day

  My ass is stuck to the couch because I am immobilized by dread. The knock at my door plunged my heart straight down into my stomach, and now I am frozen here, holding my wine glass, knowing that Ricky is just outside my door. A moment passes before my brain kicks in. The instant it does, I put down the glass, run to my bedroom and open the bottom drawer of my nightstand.

  It’s there. Thank-fucking-god. Sitting alone in the drawer, it looks small and powerless. It isn’t, though, that much I know. I know that this gun is far from powerless. I know exactly what this piece of metal is capable of. I pick it up, and a surge of gratitude washes over me. I’m thankful that David taught me how to use it, thankful that it is here now, in my hand. It feels smooth and heavy. I slide the safety off.

  On my way out of the bedroom, doubt washes over me. Jesus. I’m about to aim a gun at a person I once loved and adored. A person who gave me a heart-shaped gumball-machine ring for my third birthday. A person I looked up to. I’m about to stick a loaded weapon into my own bother’s face and tell him to go to hell. What the fuck is wrong with me? What am I doing? Am I even capable of shooting him if shit hits the fan?

  Standing in the living room holding the gun, I try to unravel another option, but I can’t focus. It’s only been a dozen seconds since he knocked, but I already know that he isn’t going to go away. He will wait for me. If I pretend I’m not here, he will just find another time, another place. If I don’t do this now, I’ll go back to being afraid. I’ll go back to being nothing more than an emotional hostage. It will be the same as it was with Michael. I will be trapped.

  Do this, Emma. Do this now. Stop thinking of Ricky as your bother. He’s not the sweet kid he was so many years ago.

  Do this.

  I take a breath and straighten my back.

  Fuck him. Fuck Ricky. I’m not giving him jack shit. There’s no way in hell am I going to let him blackmail me, too. I’m done thinking about this, and right now, I’m going show him just how done I am.

  I lift the gun, holding the barrel up to my line of sight. My other hand grasps the dead bolt and twists it open. I hear it click and drop my hand to the knob, turning it as quickly as possible. I whip the door open and hold the gun straight out in front of me.

  “Jesus-fucking-Christ!” I shout. My heart is pounding, and my body is shaking with rage.

  David stands outside my door wearing a hoodie and a pair of jeans and looking surprised as fuck.

  “What the hell?” I scream at him. With my finger pressing tightly against the trigger, an inhumane amount of horror soaks into my body. “You scared the living shit out of me! What the fuck is wrong with you?”

  He stares at the gun still pointed at his chest. His body braces with realization.

  I lower the gun to my side. The idea of the flicker of a single finger changing absolutely everything screams through me. I could have wiped out the world with a squeeze. Jesus. The rush of adrenaline pulsing out of me is blatant and fierce, and I can’t stop myself from lashing out at him. “Why would you do that? Why would you knock on my goddamned door at ten o’clock at night when you’re supposed to be at poker?”

  Apprehension settles into his face. “I needed to see you,” he says, his expression wide-eyed and electric. “I needed to look at your face and to hear you say that we are all right. I need to know that you to forgive me for what I did.”

  It occurs to me that even though our earlier text exchange made it clear to me that we were okay, it did not do the same for David. He is here because he is unsure of himself. Unsure of me. Unsure of us. The vulnerability in his words streaks through me.

  I take a deep breath and turn away from him, walking back into the apartment. “I thought you were Ricky. I was positive that you were Ricky. Hell, I didn’t even bother to use the peephole, I was so sure,” I say as I put the gun down on the table. My voice has changed. It’s steadier now. I hear David close the door behind him.

  “Then you were right to have the gun,” he says, “but I told you, Emma, he’s not coming back here.”

  “I almost fucking shot you, David. Don’t you see? I don’t trust him. And you shouldn’t either,” I say as I turn to face him.

  “Do you trust me when I tell you that he isn’t coming back?” he asks after a brief pause.

  I need to think for a second, because it’s a good question. Before I found out about what he did, I trusted David completely. But do I still trust him? Do I trust that he isn’t going to lie to me again?

  “I trust you as much as I can right now,” I say, “but this isn’t a matter of trusting you. It’s a matter of trusting Ricky. I know him, David. He is selfish and greedy and about as sharp as a marble. And that is anything but a good combination.”

  “It is a matter of trusting me, Emma. I am telling you that he is not coming back, and I need you to believe that. I need to know that you aren’t going to panic every time there is a knock at your door.” His face looks pained, as if my response is somehow a matter of life and death. “I need you to trust me on this.” I am left, yet again, wondering how he can be so sure that Ricky is not coming back. I sigh and rub my hands against my face.

  David sits down at the table, sucks in a gigantic gulp of air, and says, “I can’t stand the thought of you being so afraid, Emma. That’s why I did what I did. I wanted to get rid of Michael so you would never have to be afraid again. But after you opened that door and I saw the gun and the panic in your face, I know that your fear of Michael ha
s only morphed into a fear of Ricky. And that is the last thing I ever wanted to happen. So I’m going to tell you something, and you aren’t going to like it, something that I decided not to tell you last night because I thought it might be too much. But clearly it’s the only way you’re going to trust me on this—the only way you are going to stop being afraid.” My eyes narrow. “This is not a lie, Emma,” he adds emphatically, “and the fact that I didn’t tell you about it last night does not make it a lie. I left it out to protect you.” I roll my eyes at him and cross my arms over my chest. Again with the protection crap.

  “You’re right,” he continues. “Ricky is selfish and greedy. Not only did he come here to blackmail me, he was the one that convinced Evan to kill Michael.”

  I am staring at David in disbelief, shaking my head.

  “When I took the rest of the money to Ricky on Saturday night, he had been drinking, and he said some things that gave him away. He said that Evan killing Michael was the best fucking thing in the world. He and Evan had known for years that they would inherit everything when Michael died because they had a copy of his will. Michael gave it to them a few months after your mother died. He had it redone because he wanted you left out of it completely. So, now that Michael is dead and Evan’s in jail, Ricky will get it all—and, believe me, he was thrilled as shit about it.”