“I was. I just got in a few days ago,” Veronica rushed in to pad Gillian’s feelings and rescue Mark.
Mark blushed, which surprised Veronica and made her blush a little too. “You caught me. I wanted to keep her all to myself for a little bit. Can you blame me? She is pretty awesome.”
“Gosh, there is only so much gushing I can take in one day. I can’t take the two of you.” A pit formed in Veronica’s stomach. She couldn’t sit here and joke around and pretend everything was okay when there were so many things that she’d have to start lying about if she didn’t clear up a few things with Gillian. Maybe not everything but . . . something. More than this playful banter. She cleared her throat and got serious. “Uh, Mark, if you’d give us ladies a few minutes, I’d be incredibly grateful. I’ll meet you at the car?”
She gave him a look that hopefully transmitted her intentions. He seemed to read in between the lines, because he stopped laughing and gave her a look that said, “Are you sure?” She nodded, sure of two things: she wanted to talk to Gillian and she wanted to do it alone.
“All right, I know when I’m not wanted. I’ll be waiting in the car, I guess,” Mark said with a shrug and then pointed at Gillian. “I’ll see you in the office.”
“Not if I see you first,” Gillian shot back as Mark walked away waving her off. It was good to see that no matter how cheesy the interaction, Gillian was finding her place in the world. She’d been through plenty of loss, a child and a husband just like Veronica, but somehow she was working through it all. With a lingering smile on her face, Gillian faced Veronica and gave her arm a meaningful squeeze.
“How are you? You kinda disappeared on me. I know you’re a fancy illustrator and all that, but I have so many questions. How was your trip? Thanks for your text and covering the hotel; you didn’t have to do that.”
“Hey, it was the least I could do. I’m sorry I wasn’t here to give it to you in person. Mark said you sold your house and got a nice townhouse. You must be feeling like a new woman.”
“Well, I wish Mark had as much to say about you as he’s had to say about me. My life is boring, sweetie. Tell me about you! What about your mama? And I’m dying to hear about Sophie. She was so adorable, she must be so big by now.”
“Don’t blame Mark. I asked him to keep quiet. There are some things I needed to talk to you about in person. But now is probably not the time.” At Green Oaks, Veronica had learned that it was easier to face these difficult moments with preparation, so she was acutely aware that an impromptu discussion outside Lisa’s office was not the right atmosphere to delve into her toolbox and come out successful. “I’m sorry I’ve been so distant. You were an amazing friend and you didn’t deserve that.” The words stopped there, her mouth snapping shut, Veronica unsure of what to say next.
“That’s okay, hon,” she said in that sweet, caring Southern drawl that made Veronica feel like Gillian was a loving relative rather than a newish friend. She looked at Gillian’s watch, the same tarnished fake-gold one that used to cut into her skin but now hung a little loose around her wrist. “I have an appointment with Stacey in five minutes, so we don’t have to do all this now. We can grab drinks later this week or somethin’.”
“Yeah, yeah, that’s a great idea. I’m open pretty much any night.” Veronica let out a heavy breath of relief. She could plan for a meeting; this was all a little too sudden.
“How about tomorrow? We can meet at Dave’s Ale House again. Seems right to go back there where all this craziness started, don’t you think?”
“Tomorrow is great. I’ll text you later, and we can figure out the details.”
“Perfect,” Gillian said, clearly relieved. “Well, hon, I gotta run, but tell me one thing real fast—How’s little Sophie? She’s been in my prayers every night, you know.”
Gillian’s gentle brown eyes were full of a very real care and concern. There was no doubt in Veronica’s mind that she’d been praying for Veronica’s daughter every night without knowing that the real Sophie had been buried in the Millburn Cemetery for nearly three years and the fake Sophie was a one-year-old little girl named Chloe. Veronica swallowed hard and told the truth.
“Uh, there are a lot of things I haven’t told you about Sophie . . . and Nick, for that matter. I’ve been very sick and sad, and I said things that weren’t true and . . .” This is why she was supposed to prepare. The truth started to spill out in a chaotic deluge of information.
“Oh, shhhh, hon.” Gillian shushed Veronica and put her hands on Veronica’s upper arms, holding her in tight as if she were stopping a toddler from touching the red-hot stove. “We’ve all got our secrets. You don’t have to spill them out right now, out here on the lawn, like a shook-up soda pop.”
That’s exactly how she felt, like carbonation all bubbly and frothy built up like it was going to explode at any moment—yet also like exploding could be more than just messy and inconvenient but also very relieving.
“These aren’t any run-of-the-mill secrets.” Veronica stopped again, finding it harder and harder to keep it all in now that she’d started. It felt good to tell the truth to Gillian. Maybe she’d be one of the ones to stick around, to love her not just despite her faults but because of them. Mark saw her craziness firsthand and then stayed and watched her work out of the dark hole of delusion one rung at a time over the past four months. But would Gillian?
“Oh, I’ve got some doozies myself. I promise you that.” Gillian rubbed her hands together and then took one last look at her watch before gathering her purse off the ground and returning it to her shoulder. She settled back into her spot and met Veronica’s eyes. Her face went from happy and soft to lined with worry. “Christopher didn’t die of cancer.”
Veronica could tell she was sharing something she didn’t tell many people, and it was like she’d fallen off a high ledge or belly flopped into a pool. If it had been a year ago or maybe even a few months, Veronica would’ve let the shock show, but instead she tried to respond the way she’d want someone to treat her in the same situation. Like Gillian would have the opportunity to respond when Veronica was ready to tell her everything.
“You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to. I trust you; you don’t have to prove yourself to me,” Veronica said, expecting some nuanced version of Christopher’s death story, like maybe Gillian had helped him commit suicide when the treatments got too rough or perhaps he’d died of a more embarrassing illness but she’d decided to call it cancer so no one would know. When it came down to it, it was none of Veronica’s business.
“No, I’ve wanted to tell you for a long time, and now it’s good you know. To tell the truth, I need someone to know. Someone besides Stacey, who gets paid to tell me I’m not a terrible mother.” She pointed at the second-floor window where Stacey’s and Lisa’s offices were located.
Veronica put her hands in her pockets and stood silent and allowed Gillian to collect her thoughts. It was the least she could do in the face of such bravery.
“Chris did die, like I said, and he was sick but not with cancer. It’s been nearly three years now. God, that’s so long.” She paused and adjusted her purse and then started again. “So Christopher was a drug addict; that was his illness. To be fair, addiction is like a cancer, so I don’t feel so bad calling it cancer to strangers or nosy people who ask too many questions.” She shifted her weight from side to side. “It was a disease that took our boy. I took him to all kinds of specialists, but like any illness, if you don’t take the medicine, you don’t get better, and Chris refused to be cured. Didn’t think he needed to be cured.”
“He overdosed?” Veronica blurted, wanting to give Gillian an out so she didn’t have to say the words herself. But Gillian shook her head.
“No, no . . . I’ve thought about it a lot, and I can honestly say I wish he’d overdosed.” Gillian shivered as the wind blew again, this time a little harder.
“Oh” was all Veronica could say, unsure of what to expect anym
ore. She could see Mark watching them from the front seat of the car, and she longed to run there to the safety of that warm seat, his comforting personality, and distance from the scary truth that was slowly unfolding.
“He was eighteen, had been out at a friend’s house all night . . . using.” She swallowed when she said the term. “He told his friends that he was going home to sleep it off and go to work that night, but on the way home, something happened.” Gillian, who had been looking right in Veronica’s eyes, was suddenly staring at her feet. The way she swallowed and smacked her lips several times made Veronica know that she was trying not to cry. “He got in a car accident that morning.”
“Oh, Gillian, I’m so sorry,” Veronica said without a moment’s hesitation.
“His dad said it was my fault ’cause I let him have the car and I didn’t find the right doctor to help him get better and . . . I still wonder if it was.” Now there were actual tears on Gillian’s cheeks, leaving wet trails through the face powder.
“Don’t listen to Carl. I can tell you from the five minutes I spent getting to know him that he’s one of the stupidest people I’ve ever met. God, to say that to a mourning mother. That’s just evil. Accidents happen.”
Veronica said the words that well-meaning individuals had said to her after Sophie’s death. She’d hated it then, but after her time at Green Oaks, she’d started understanding that it was true—no one planned these things, not even God. Terrible things happened, and sometimes there was nothing you could do about it.
Gillian still didn’t look up, even with Veronica’s encouragements and kind words. There was so much shame there that she couldn’t even lift her own head because of the weight of it. It was easy for Veronica to spot. She still wasn’t a great hugger, but knowing how difficult that story was to hold on to, she wrapped her arms around her friend.
Gillian shook her head against Veronica’s shoulder. “But it wasn’t just Christopher. Other people died. And lots more injured.”
Veronica trembled, still holding Gillian, and a whining cry wormed its way out of her body. She stifled it, trying not to let the slowly creeping realization plummet her back into the abyss.
“How many died?” she asked simply.
“Six,” Gillian sobbed and leaned in to Veronica’s embrace and pushed her wet face into the soft crevice of Veronica’s collarbone and shoulder. “Six little babies on their way to school.”
Veronica’s mouth was dry and her throat so tight she could only whisper, already certain what the answer to her next question would be.
“The bus crash on Route Forty-Two?”
“Yes,” Gillian barely got out before silent cries muted any further explanation.
Veronica couldn’t breathe. The nausea from the day she got the call returned, and she wanted to vomit. She wanted to shove Gillian away and run as fast as she could till she couldn’t remember the sparkles. They flashed behind her eyelids every time she blinked her eyes. The mother of the devil who took her little girl’s life was here, in her arms, crying about her druggy son.
It all clicked together. Barb had gotten Lisa’s name off a list from the grief counselor at the hospital. It had been an old list, but she’d never used it till her mother’s ultimatum. Gillian must’ve gotten the same list. Veronica had been sitting by this woman in the waiting room for weeks with no idea that her child had taken Veronica’s child’s life. She’d shared stories of grief when Veronica was lonely enough to open up to the stranger from the waiting room. She’d even called this woman when she was in desperate need and leaned on her for help.
And over time Veronica had watched this woman hold a gun up to a man who had mistreated her and had felt pride at her strength, had learned that humility, time, and determination could bring healing to even the most broken heart. She’d learned from Gillian what it felt like to be accepted and loved without judgment.
Veronica’s stiff arms and complete silence must’ve registered with Gillian, because she raised her head, tears no longer flowing and just a touch of red in her eyes.
“I’m sorry. That was too much, wasn’t it?” She sniffed and broke away from Veronica. “It’s okay to be freaked out. I get it. I mean, at least you know why I lie, right?”
Yes, it was too much. It was far more than Veronica had expected and probably more than Gillian would’ve admitted if she knew who Sophie really was and her son’s part in her death.
But it also wasn’t too much, somehow.
“We all have secrets, right?” Veronica hedged. It helped seeing Gillian’s eyes again, to put a human identity to the faceless man behind the wheel she’d been imagining and bring light to the darkness that had been stalking her life and keeping her from healing. Christopher, the drug addict who drove a car into her daughter’s bus and sent it flying off the overpass on a slippery morning in November, was loved. He was a person with a mother who loved him and did her best to teach him right from wrong. Christopher wasn’t evil. Neither was Gillian.
“Oh God, I gotta go,” Gillian said, cleaning her face off with the inside of her cardigan, maybe feeling a little shy from sharing so much of her story with Veronica and getting so little feedback in return. She started to put herself back together, readjusted her bag, and sniffed loudly before checking Veronica’s expression one more time. “Can I ask you one more question?”
“Sure,” Veronica said after a slight hesitation. A shiver ran through her. She was getting colder the longer she stood in the open air and the farther away Gillian got from her embrace.
“Those kids, those little babies on the bus, do you think their parents can ever forgive me for what my Christopher did?”
It was a hard question, harder than Veronica expected. Forgiveness for taking so much joy and light out of the world? Christopher, no matter how much of a mama’s boy he was, would not get blanket forgiveness because of how great of a person his mother was in his life. But Gillian wasn’t asking if Veronica could forgive Christopher.
“You know what, Gillian . . .” Veronica glanced down at the empty spot on her left hand and then back up at her friend. “I think they can.” She squeezed Gillian’s hand with just her fingertips and then let go, but held on with her eyes. “I really think they can.”
It may have been from the chill in the air or the whipping wind making her eyes water, but Gillian seemed to flush and blink rapidly, a little hiccup giving away more about her feelings than she’d probably intended. She mouthed the words, “Thank you,” and then headed for the heavy glass door that lead to the medical complex.
“Tomorrow at Dave’s. Don’t forget!” Veronica shouted out, hoping Gillian could hear over the wind.
She waved back. “Tomorrow!”
Veronica headed to the car, where Mark was still patiently waiting, probably with the heat on to warm her up. She jumped in, and it was comfortably warm just like she’d suspected it would be. Mark liked taking care of her, and she was starting to like having someone in her life who wanted to be there for her.
“Where are we headed now?” he asked, hands on the steering wheel like he owned the car. He still made the Prius look like a toy with his long legs and broad shoulders, but she was getting used to him being there.
“Um . . .” She thought about what she wanted, what she really wanted. She wanted her heart to stop hurting every day when she saw something that reminded her of Sophie. She wanted to remember what it was like to be loved in that innocent things-will-never-fall-apart kind of way Nick had loved her before the accident. She wanted . . . Veronica stopped herself, buckled her seat belt with a click, and then tapped on the dashboard. “Home,” she said with finality. “I want to go home.”
“Your wish is my command,” Mark joked, and put the car in reverse.
As they pulled up to a stoplight after driving in a comfortable silence, a yellow glow filled the interior of the Prius. To the right was a school bus, full of kids on their way home from school. The exhaust was pulled in by the vents, filling the car with
a smell that used to make her gag. Mark looked at her nervously, like he was waiting for something drastic to happen.
Yeah, it hurt seeing that bus. And she’d learned at Green Oaks that what Nick said was true—it would likely never stop hurting. Buses would always make her think of Sophie’s last day on the earth, and sparkly boots would make her think of small, broken bodies in the sterile morgue, but birds made her think of Sophie’s laugh, and the sun made her think of Sophie’s hair blowing in the wind, and pancakes made her think of Sophie’s sticky kisses, and dogs made her think of Sophie’s big heart. Remembering would never stop hurting, but it would never stop filling her up either.
The light changed, and the car moved forward, and Mark definitely broke the speed limit as they rushed past the slowly crawling bus.
“Hey, I’m okay,” she reassured him, placing her hand on his thigh for a moment.
“I know,” he said, like he was not entirely convinced but wanted to be.
She put her hands back in her lap and watched the leaves swirling as they drove through them. Forgiveness was a funny thing—you gave it, but it also gave back to you. She’d said she could forgive Gillian, and she’d meant it. It was an ongoing process, this forgiveness thing, but she was making progress. She’d already forgiven her father for never being there when she was a child and her friends who had slowly dropped off one by one when they didn’t know how to deal with her sorrow and Nick for putting Sophie on the bus that November morning and her mother for helping Nick have her committed to Green Oaks. That left one person that she wondered if she could ever truly forgive. And really, that person was the only one who mattered—herself.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To Counselors Debra Thurston, MA, LCPC, and Elisa Woodruff, LPC, NCC, who shared their expertise and years of experience to make this book accurate and uplifting—thank you for your input, guidance, and inspiration. Thank you as well for your dedication to helping others and shining a bright light in the darkness of so many lives, including my own.
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