by Zoe Kane
And, besides, she was stalling.
But eventually her car turned – almost of its own volition – right, and then right again, and there she was. Michael’s bike was parked on the porch, but the car she’d hoped against hope to see in the driveway hadn’t arrived yet. Annie had made one call from the hospital, to the only person she trusted as backup in this situation, and if she was being honest with herself she had driven here as slow as she could in the hopes that by the time she arrived, somebody else would have taken charge and handled things for her.
But no. It was just her. It was all up to her.
The lights were out all over the house; Michael would long since have sent the kids to bed and probably turned in himself. She let herself in, enveloped in the telltale humming stillness of a house with people sleeping in it. Her steps down the hallway towards the guest room were nearly soundless, and she could hear the sounds of Michael’s still breathing on the other side of the door.
This was it.
She had held out as long as she could, but now she had arrived, she had run out of time, she could not hide any longer from the thing that she had to say. She took a deep breath, steeled herself, swallowing the Dark Thing as far back down inside her as it would go – Lists, she thought, I am crossing “Tell Michael” off the list, I am in control, I am doing my job – and knocked on the door.
* * *
“I don’t understand,” he said, running a hand through his sleep-rumpled hair. “I just . . . I don’t understand.”
Annie had already had to narrate the basic facts to him three separate times, and her nerves were beginning to fray under the strain.
“It's hardly snowing at all,” he went on, “there was like a centimeter. It's just powder. I don't understand. It isn't cold enough for ice.”
“That was here,” she said with heroic patience. “It was icy in the Gorge. It came on fast, and the roads were terrible. That’s what the paramedics told me.”
“It must have been a mistake. Danny would never –“
“Honey, I saw them,” she said gently, and Michael’s eyes widened with a look that she knew was half horror, as he pictured the scene himself, and half guilt that she had faced it alone.
"Have you told -"
"Yes, she's on her way. I called her from the hospital. Will you go downstairs and put the tea water on? I have to –“ She halted abruptly and had to take a deep breath to compose herself. “I have to go talk to the kids.”
“Oh, Jesus,” whispered Michael. “The kids.” Annie nodded. “Do you want me to – should I –“ Annie shook her head.
“No,” she said. “You go wait for the door. I’ll be down in a minute.” He fumbled around on the floor to pull a t-shirt and cardigan on over his bare chest and flannel pajama bottoms, to make himself presentable. “You look ninety years old in that sweater,” whispered Annie, unable to stop herself, and Michael almost laughed, and Annie forced herself to remember that she was not the only one this was happening to. Michael also lost his sister and brother-in-law tonight. Michael needed her to be strong for him too.
It felt like too much to ask of herself to have this conversation three separate times, so Annie first went to Lucy’s room to scoop up the sleeping four-year-old in her arms and carry her down the hall to the room Isaac and Sophia shared. The twins were seven, and shared the largest bedroom in the house, which was also the kids’ playroom. Lucy’s was smaller, and would never accommodate a bed larger than a twin, but Annie sometimes wondered whether teenage Lucy would happily accept the sacrifice of small size in exchange for her privacy – or whether by the time they hit middle school, the positions would reverse and the single room would be given over to the only boy. Annie felt a little pang of sympathy for Sophia, to whom the room would probably never belong. Teenage Annie had had this bedroom until she was in middle school, when Michael came along, and had spent the rest of her adolescence sharing the big bedroom with Grace. Grace didn’t make much noise or take up much room, but she was always there.
This train of thought stopped Annie short in the middle of the hallway so abruptly that she almost dropped the sleeping child draped over her shoulder. Because that part of her life was over.
Grace would never be there again.
The Dark Thing began to scratch and claw its way out of her chest again, and she felt a sense of pressure building up inside her, like a dam about to burst. She tried swallowing it down, but she couldn’t. She felt Lucy’s warm, drowsy weight against her shoulder and she thought about Grace covered in scars and she thought about the second metal slab with the blue sheet draped over it that she had not quite been able to go near and she thought about the sleeping twins in the other room and she was suddenly paralyzed, unable to move from the spot where she stood in the middle of the hallway. Unable to go on.
And then the window at the end of the hall lit up briefly as a pair of headlights swept down the street and into the driveway, and the Dark Thing receded back into its cave, because rescue had arrived.
You can do this, Annabel, she told herself firmly. You just have to do one more thing.
The yellow door with its painted nameplates creaked faintly as it opened, and the two sleeping children instantly bolted awake, highly-attuned powers of monster detection alerting them to the slightest unfamiliar sound.
“Aunt Annie?” whispered Isaac, eyes blinking against the hallway light.
Sophia, who took much longer to wake up in the mornings, smiled sleepily and rubbed her eyes. “Is it Christmas?”
“No, dummy, it’s not even Advent yet,” retorted her brother.
“No, Sophia, it isn’t Christmas,” said Annie, approaching the beds with some trepidation. Children made her uneasy. Michael was great with them, and had always been their favorite babysitter. He was warm and earnest and got right down to their level, neither talking down to them nor talking over their heads. He made them feel comfortable.
When they were babies, all three of them used to cry when Annie held them.
She set the sleeping Lucy down on her sister’s bed. “Lucy, wake up please.” Lucy stirred but didn’t open her eyes. Annie looked at the twins. The twins looked at Annie. “Isaac, come sit over here. Sophia, can you please wake up your sister?”
Isaac obediently got out of his bed and climbed into the other as Sophia leaned in close to Lucy’s face, her long dark braid brushing against the quilt. “Lucy, Lucy, wake up, Aunt Annie’s here!” whispered Sophia. “Wake up wake up wake uuuuuuuuuuuuup!” It worked, finally, and Lucy sat up, looking around her in bafflement, as though wondering how she’d ended up here. Annie sat down on Isaac’s bed to face them.
“There’s been an accident,” she began, her voice sounding stiff and cold even to her. The three little faces stared back at her blankly, uncomprehending. She tried again. “A car accident,” she elaborated. “They hit a patch of ice coming through the Gorge.”
The children’s expressions did not change. They had no idea what she was talking about. Just get it over with, thought Annie, who had a sudden desperate desire not to be in that room any longer, to run as far away as she could from Danny Walter’s blue eyes watching her in puzzlement from Lucy Walter’s face.
“I’m very sorry, children,” she said abruptly. “Your parents are dead.” Then she stood from the bed and walked out of the room.
Chapter Four: Aunt Vera
“You said what?” Michael exclaimed as Annie poured coffee into three mugs and carried them into the living room.
“I just told them the truth,” she explained defensively. "They were just sitting there, staring at me, all confused, they thought it was Christmas or something, and I just - I know I said I'd do it, you offered, I said no, this is my fault, but the way they were looking at me, I just -"
“Annie, they’re kids. Not patients."
"I know."
"You have to be a little more gentle with them than – "
“Michael, I swear to God,” she snapped as the front
door opened, “I am doing the best I can.”
“Of course you are,” said Aunt Vera, and instantly her arms were around them both, and for the first time since her office phone had rung what felt like a hundred years ago, Annie could breathe again.
Aunt Vera had been their father’s only sibling and was the last remaining member of the older generation of Walters. She was aunt and grandparent and parent all rolled into one; the children called her Nana. Both Annie and Michael let out quiet sighs of relief as she sailed into the room and embraced them and held them both close against her soft shoulders, and they found themselves soothed, as they always were, by her air of effortless, gentle competence. Now there was a grownup here to take care of things.
Aunt Vera had been the Annie of her generation – the fixer, the level head, the conscience. And people like Annie – people who are always the shoulder and never the one who is leaning – tend to attach themselves with a desperately grateful fervor to the scant handful of people around them who can bear their weight. Annie had too many people relying on her for her to rely on supports that wouldn’t hold, and as much as she loved her baby brother, right now Aunt Vera was the only person who could help her.
“Oh, my darlings,” she said, as she pressed kisses into the tops of both their heads. “Oh my darlings. I am so sorry.” Her eyes glistened, but her jaw was set and firm. She did not cry. Aunt Vera had buried a husband, a brother, a sister-in-law and both her parents, and she would not be broken by grief. Annie was depending on it.
“Where are the children?” she asked, and Michael could not restrain a gently reproving look in Annie’s direction.
“In the twins’ room. I was just there.”
“Do they know?”
“Yes,” said Annie hesitantly, “they know.”
“But?” prompted Vera, who could read her niece like a book.
“Annie’s bedside manner is a little rusty,” Michael offered, and Annie shot him a dark glare.
Aunt Vera sighed. “Shall I –“
“Yes,” Annie cut her off desperately. “Please. Please, go fix it.” Vera placed a comforting hand on Annie’s shoulder and turned to make her way up the stairs.
“Do you realize,” Michael said after a long silence, “that every living member of the Walter family is currently in this house?”
“Don’t,” she said wearily. “Please. Just don’t.”
* * *
Sophia and Isaac were still sitting exactly as Annie had left them, curled up together in Sophia’s bed. Their eyes were blank and unseeing. Lucy was very busy and important as she bustled about the room, and it took Aunt Vera a minute to understand what she was doing until she saw that the girl had neatly arrayed their three favorite stuffed toys – Lucy’s white kitten, Sophia’s pink dolphin, and Isaac’s grinning green Tyrannosaurus Rex – at the foot of Sophia’s bed, facing out into the room like sentries. Only after this task was finished did Lucy climb back into the bed with the twins.
When they saw Aunt Vera, all three of them seemed to relax slightly. It wasn't only on Annie and Michael that she exercised a power of reassurance and calm. “Hello, my chickadees,” she murmured quietly. “May I sit?” The twins were still unresponsive, but Lucy nodded. Aunt Vera sat down on the bed beside them, careful not to disturb the colorful stuffed guardians. The twins sat up, almost as one, and clung to her tightly.
“Nana, I want Mommy,” said Lucy, and Sophia began to cry. This puzzled Lucy very much.
“She doesn’t understand,” said Isaac helplessly. “Aunt Annie was mean.”
“She wasn’t trying to be mean, darling,” said Aunt Vera. “She’s just very, very sad.”
“She sounded mean. She said mean things,” Sophia’s muffled voice came from buried deep in Aunt Vera’s chest.
“I know it sounded that way,” said Aunt Vera, stroking her hair. “Sometimes when Aunt Annie says things that are serious, they sound mean. But she was just trying to tell you something very important. Very important and sad. She loved your mother and father so, so much and she misses them as much as you do. Different people act different ways when they feel sad. Sometimes we cry, sometimes we sound angry, sometimes we don’t want to talk at all. Everyone is different. The important thing is that your Aunt Annie and Uncle Michael and I are here for you, and we love you very, very much.”
“Are they . . . are they you-know-what, for real?” asked Sophia, lifting her face and looking at Aunt Vera tentatively, as if saying the word would somehow make things worse.
“Yes, angel, they are,” said Aunt Vera, pulling all three children tighter. “I'm so sorry. Yes, they are.”
Lucy, who had been participating very little in this conversation, piped up again. “Nana, when are Mommy and Daddy coming home?” The twins looked at her in near-panic.
“Sweetheart,” said Aunt Vera gently, “Mommy and Daddy love you all very much, but they can't come home anymore. They're in Heaven now.”
“With Jesus?” asked Lucy, who paid only intermittent attention in Sunday School unless there was coloring.
“Yes. With Jesus.”
“Like in the sky?” This was interesting. Lucy was puzzled by the logistics of this. It seemed like it might involve learning to fly, like Peter Pan and Wendy, which she wasn't sure her mother would enjoy very much.
“In a way, yes.”
“When will they be done?”
“What?”
“When will they get done with Jesus and come back here?”
“They're not coming back, sweetheart. That's not how it works.”
“Were we bad?” asked Sophia in a small voice, tears shining on her cheeks in the dim light. Aunt Vera pulled her into her lap and held her tightly.
“You are three wonderful, beautiful, perfect children, and your parents loved you more than anything on God's earth. You have done nothing wrong, do you understand that? This isn't because you were bad. This is because . . .” She thought for a moment. “Because . . . because Jesus needs them and they had to go to Heaven. But they will still be watching you every day, even if you can't see them.”
“Like, invisible?” Isaac was skeptical. He was a level-headed and literal boy, very much like his Aunt Annie, and lately he had been experiencing some grave concerns with his second-grade religion class and some of the information the teacher was providing. There were things about bread becoming flesh (which Dad had said meant meat) and people coming up and down from the sky and things turning into other things which he had a hard time crediting. Invisible parents seemed like something he would hear in religion class from Father Clifton, and not from Nana, who seemed like a very sensible person and who knew a lot about prehistoric times and outer space and other things that interested Isaac. He was torn between an implicit trust based on years of knowing that Nana was always right, and warning Nana that she might have been the victim of a scam.
“Not invisible, not like in Harry Potter, not the way you're thinking of it,” said Aunt Vera gently. “Watching you from Heaven. Like Jesus does.”
“But if they're watching us then they'll know that we're sad and then they'll be sad,” said Sophia with great concern. “Should we pretend to be happy so we don't make Mom upset?”
Aunt Vera shook her head. “Whatever you are feeling is okay. If you want to cry, you should cry." Sophia burrowed her face deeper into Aunt Vera's soft chest, and Lucy and Isaac moved in closer too. “I know, angels,” she said softly, gathering them to her. “I know. It's awful. But it won't always be awful. Someday, and you can't imagine it now, but someday, you will be able to think of them without being sad all the time. But for now, you just tell me what you need and we'll do it.”
“Do we have to go back to school tomorrow?” asked Isaac, worried.
Nana shook her head. “No, I don't think so. Not unless you want to.”
“We don't,” Sophia and Isaac said in unison. Lucy looked relieved and hugged Sophia tightly.
“Then you don't have to. But for now, I thin
k you should sleep.”
“Can we sleep in Mommy and Daddy’s bed?” said Lucy.
“Of course,” said Aunt Vera.
“Are Aunt Annie and Uncle Mike staying?” asked Isaac. Aunt Vera nodded.
“Yes,” she said, “they’ll sleep in here. And I’ll be downstairs. So if you need anything at all, you’ll know where to find us.”
Sophia climbed out of her bed and helped Lucy down, their matching flannel pajamas covered in pink rosebuds sending a fierce pang through Aunt Vera’s heart. Isaac, in his blue dinosaur pajamas, stayed behind to gather up the three important toys and then trooped down the hall after his sisters to their parents’ bedroom. They climbed into the wide, soft bed, all tangled together in a clump of arms and legs, with tiny Lucy in the middle. Aunt Vera tucked the covers around them and carefully replaced the toys at the foot of the bed, feeling the children’s soft teary sniffles ease ever so slightly. Their defenses were back up. The cat, the dolphin and the dinosaur would protect them. This little corner of their world had been safely reclaimed. Aunt Vera gave them one last look, her heart aching with ferocious love, and closed the door behind her.
* * *
“You’re meeting with the attorneys on Monday?” asked Aunt Vera, once they were seated around the dining room table, a pot of coffee and a plate of sandwiches in front of them. Annie nodded, her mouth full of ham and cheese. She had no idea how long it had been since she had eaten anything, since this day had felt a hundred hours long.
“I went over all the papers with Danny a couple years ago when he and Grace updated their wills,” she said. “It’s all in the safe-deposit box in the basement. The power of attorney stuff, the bank and house information, the kids’ birth certificates and Social Security cards and passports, everything.”
