Alyssa is my rock and I depend on her for everything. She was a business major at UCLA, with a specialty in marketing, and graduated at the top of her class. She’s wicked smart, and really very good at what she does. She had just started working at a very successful company which she loved but decided to stay at home and be a full-time mom after Alex was born, a decision I wholeheartedly support. I love that she’s been home with him. Alex is the person he is today because of the loving dedication of his amazing mother. He has a brilliant future ahead of him that I can’t wait to see and I'm so excited to be part of all the great things he’s going to experience.
I don’t usually meet clients so late in the day, but Jonathan had to be out of the area all day and pushed back our appointment. It actually works in my favor, because I’ve got some new ideas and decided to come in and fine-tune the blueprints before our meeting.
It’s a beautiful, sunny fall afternoon so I took the coast, instead of Sepulveda Boulevard, the local thoroughfare that takes you from one beach city to the next. For some reason, I was more stressed out about Alyssa driving today and I haven’t been able to shake it. She’s always very careful and safe but my gut has been in knots since I kissed her goodbye. I usually follow my intuition and my heavy gut is yelling at me for not stopping her or, better yet, going with her.
Still shoving my trepidation aside, I smile when I enter my new space. The only things in the shop right now are my drafting table, a chair, a small couch, and a mini fridge. I just finished adding the final touches to the Endicott project and turn on my phone. I don’t like the distraction when I’m working, so it’s typical for me to have it off. Everybody knows this and have accepted my quirk. Not two minutes later, my phone rings.
“I bet that’s Alyssa!” I say out loud as a smile lights up my face, imagining her giggle while she tells me the news that Alex received his yellow belt and how excited he is.
Still smiling when I see it’s my mom’s face lighting up my phone, I swipe my finger across the screen, accepting her call.
My mom is an amazing person, beautiful both inside and out, and I love her dearly. My dad is the yin to her yang. Where she’s petite, his towering presence commands attention; where she’s light, he is dark. Yet they complement each other perfectly, bringing out the best in one another. Like Alyssa and me, they’re stronger together than they are alone.
“Hi, Mom, I’m at the new shop,” I say with excitement in my voice. “Alex is in karate and my appointment with the Endicotts was pushed back so I came in to add some extra details before our meeting. What’s up?”
I always spit everything out in one fell swoop when it comes to her because I know that once my mom gets started, it could be a good five minutes before I get a word in edge-wise.
But that’s not the case today, not even close.
“Ean…”
She’s sobbing so hysterically I can barely understand her, except I do make out five words that will forever change my life.
“…Alyssa and Alex are dead.”
My gut was right; I stop breathing and collapse.
My.
World.
Goes.
Black.
Literally.
I’VE ABANDONED MY BUSINESS AND given up the Endicott job along with every other project I was working on. I don’t care about the loss of business or about any of the furniture that was made for the store. I told my dad to sell all the completed pieces and to throw the rest away. I am never doing that again. As a matter of fact, I’m never doing anything again. My family is dead. My life is over.
I’m still living in my cottage because I need to be here when Alyssa and Alex come home. I have to believe they will because if I don’t, I really have no reason to live. Ironic since I’m not living now. Everything is too painful. I’m so fucking angry and so incredibly sad.
I’ve lost contact with everybody except for my two best friends, Justin and Chance, my sister, Riley, and my parents. They all mercilessly refuse to leave me alone. They pick me up off the floor and bathe me. They keep my refrigerator stocked and attempt to feed me. They also walk and feed Po. Po…he’s so sad. He lies next to me on the floor by the door and waits with a sad expression on his face. Yes, that’s right—I live on the floor by my front door so I can be the first thing Alyssa and Alex see when they return.
These people and my dog are the only reason why I haven’t killed myself…yet.
When I do leave the house, on those rare occasions, I avoid the intersection where my family was murdered. At. All. Costs. That is the intersection where some drunken asshole ran through the intersection at full speed, never even slowing down for his red light. The cars in his path were demolished; all passengers dead on the spot.
My family was in one of those cars; D’s husband in the other. It just so happens that even though that intersection is usually very busy, they were the only two cars crossing at that exact moment. Apparently, the car D’s husband was driving was struck first, flipped and landed upside down on top of my wife’s car. Yes, I was told everyone had died instantly. No, it doesn’t help, and it doesn’t help D either. Not by a long shot.
I learned about D through my grief counselor. After the accident, I had to see a counselor, as did D. This, in part, was because the asshole who decimated our loved ones was a city employee, apparently a high-level one. Grief counseling was required as part of the settlement because yes, the murderer had lived.
The place D and I have been forced to go for grief counseling is called Our House and is about a half an hour away from my home. My mom insisted on driving me and spent the entire ride, before my first session, alternating between trying to get me to read the articles flooding the internet and trying to persuade me to attend the court proceedings. I’m not going to read what some asshole has to say about my family and I’ve made everyone promise they wouldn’t either. I’m also definitely not going to the trial. The minute I see the man who murdered my family, I’ll lose my shit and that wouldn’t be good for anyone, especially me.
Our House usually holds group sessions but because our sessions are court-mandated and high profile, D and I are able to meet separately with our counselor, Barbara Macintyre, on a one-to-one basis.
Since we’re both barely hanging on by a thread, Barbara decided to do something very extreme and very risky. She came up with the idea that connecting us with one another could help us get through the grieving process. Her thinking was, since we’re both going through the same thing, we could potentially help each other and to her that was worth the loss of her license.
She gave us each a new cell phone that contained only each other’s new phone numbers along with the first letter of our first names. She wanted us to have a dedicated line to one another and her only stipulations were that we only communicate through text message and never reveal our real names or other personal details. This I agreed to because I had absolutely no intention of ever contacting her.
Except today. Today I have to. So I turn on my phone and type:
D, this is E.
I can’t believe I’m actually doing this. I don’t see how it’s going to change anything but I can’t stand this anymore. I’m at my breaking point. I’m in constant pain. It feels like a huge band is crushing my chest and getting tighter every day. All I do is cry! Everybody has been trying really hard, I know that. I just don’t have it in me to give a shit.
I lost it with my mom yesterday. Said things no son should ever say to his mother. All she did was ask me to move in with her and I lost it. It got so bad that she ran out of the house crying with a very mad Riley on her heels. Sure she’s asked me before but that’s no excuse. My dad laid into me, took Po, and left. I’m now truly alone; being sucked into an inescapable vortex of grief. I’m so lost.
They haven’t been by yet today and I hope they don’t come by at all; this way I can die in peace. I’m falling down the rabbit hole very quickly and that’s why I need to contact D, the only other person who co
uld possibly understand what I’m going through.
So I continue.
I wasn’t planning on contacting you, but here I am. I’m sure you feel the same way since you haven’t reached out to me and I don’t blame you if you don’t respond. It’s been almost a month since my world ended and let’s just say, unfortunately, suicide isn’t an option. Even though I really wish it were.
I push aside my tears but not my pain, it refuses to leave. I take a deep breath and continue.
I’m dying! With each second that passes, I keep dying more and more. I never leave my house, I just sit by the front door waiting for their return. So yeah, I’m contacting you. Are you going through the same thing? Why does it hurt so much? How am I ever supposed to move on or whatever the hell that even means. Why did this have to happen?!
Through my agony I type the plea that just might save my life.
I really need you to text me back. I’m scared, sad, lonely, and extremely desperate.
My thumb hovers over the send button, my world has fallen apart. All the endless, empty platitudes, hollow words spouted by well-meaning people, to make them feel better, still echo in my ears.
Why do people feel the need to apologize? It’s so stupid! “I’m sorry I squirted ketchup on your shirt,” sure. “I’m sorry that your entire family was murdered,” FUCK YOU! Time heals shit and it’s not going to get better. IT NEVER WILL! One asshole actually thought that he was being clever by saying, “When you’re going through hell, keep going.” What’s that even supposed to mean? And if one more person tells me they’re in a better place…!
Every day I pray for a miracle. Every time the door opens, I hold my breath in the hope they’ve come back to me. But hope is a dangerous thing because every time I realize it’s not Alyssa and Alex, I slide even further down that dangerous hole.
I stand and go to the window. I spend a lot of time looking out the window, but instead of seeing the two people who I need to see the most, I see nothing. Nothing but yellow ribbons. Since the accident, the neighbors have rallied together. They’ve blanketed the streets, tying yellow ribbons on all the houses that line the neighborhood.
There was a ceremony by the flag pole in the front of Alex’s school. My mom and Riley went in my place. I just couldn’t bring myself to go. Many of my neighbors have also been to city hall, demanding justice. The monster is in jail, but that isn’t justice. He should have been the only one dead!
There were so many people who wanted to attend the funeral that my parents held a wake in the gym at my old high school. I was forced to go. I didn’t want to be there! It made everything more real. I went though, I went for them.
The place was packed because everybody loved Alyssa and Alex. Several people spoke, saying things they remember about them and kids even came up to talk about Alex or just hand me drawings. Alyssa’s best friend, Cami, sang Alyssa’s favorite song, the Hawaiian version of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”—and Chance made a montage of pictures set to other songs she loved. He actually used the playlist I created for her when we were eighteen.
I didn’t cry. I didn’t breathe. I was a zombie. I walked in, sat down, and walked out. I don’t remember what anyone said. The entire day was a surreal blur. I just remember hearing a lot of crying.
If I thought the wake was hard, I was wrong because the funeral was impossible! I barely made it past the gates of Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City. Watching the people I love most in this world being lowered into the ground destroyed me.
“WHYYYY?!” I bellow into the emptiness that surrounds me while I sit alone, a prisoner of grief, praying that death will also take me.
And it’s for that reason, I hit send. Not because I want to, but because I have to.
And I wait.
D, this is E.
Wow! I can’t believe E texted me. I only agreed he could because I was out of my mind with grief and had absolutely no intention of ever contacting him.
I think I’ve reread his text a hundred times. Not because I didn’t understand it; I kept reading it because I did, I do. I don’t want to, but I do. I understand it. All. Too. Well.
“He’s going through exactly the same thing I am,” I say out loud in my empty house.
Chloe’s with Scott’s parents. They take her a lot because I can’t stop crying and that both confuses her and makes her sad. In her four-year-old little mind, she still thinks her daddy is coming home. I think that too. No, I know that! So I sit, frozen, like E, by the front door whenever she isn’t home and I wait.
“Scott, where are you?” I croak out through my ever-present tears as I wonder how I’m ever supposed to live without him.
Scott is the love of my life; but unlike E, I have to move away from the door. I have to keep living for Chloe. She’s my princess, my baby girl, my reason to live. She not only has her father’s looks, she also has his personality. She lights up a room simply by being in it.
I didn’t want to reach out to E and I don’t want to respond. It makes everything even more real and I certainly don’t want to relive my nightmare or hear about his pain.
But I’m not living and he’s obviously in tremendous pain, so maybe…?
While thinking about E’s text, my wary mind wanders back to the day I buried Scott.
It was a bright, clear day, outside. Blue sky, white fluffy clouds. But inside? Inside my world was dark, gray, and so very ugly. Vicious storm clouds. Ominous echoes of thunder. Scars of lightning slashing the sky and torrential rain threatening to drown the world. It’s felt that way every minute of every day since he died and I don’t expect that to ever change.
“I can’t do this, Rodger.”
Parked in front of the hole that will become Scott’s new home at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, Rodger and I sat side-by-side in his car; imprisoned by grief, unable to move. We had just dropped Beverly off at the chapel to meet with Father Henderson before the funeral. Father Henderson is a wonderful man and an even better priest. He married Scott and me and baptized Chloe. Until today, I’ve only associated him with the best parts of my life. Now, I’ll never look at him the same.
I glanced over at Rodger and noticed the toll this has taken on him. He’s a strong and virile man, with eyes so dark you can’t tell where the pupils end and the iris begins. His full head of thick hair is streaked with threads of silver, and frames his face which is punctuated by a strong jaw that houses the most amazingly deep cleft in the center of his chin. He is the kind of man who measures his words carefully before he speaks, believing that “Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something,” but not on this day.
On this day, Rodger wasn’t the man I knew. His hair seemed dull and thin, his features less pronounced. He didn’t look strong and wise—he looked haunted, broken. On this day, Rodger wasn’t measuring his words because on this day he had none.
“Dani, sweetheart…” He gestured with his chin to where Father Henderson and Beverly were waiting to bury my husband. At my nod, he came around the car and helped me out, but the closer we got, the more my soul and body disintegrated, sending me crashing down onto the hard grass in a field littered with the souls of lost loved ones.
I’m broken beyond repair. My spirit, hollow. A vast chasm that will never be filled.
“SCOTT!” I wailed.
“Dani, my child,” Father Henderson said in a soft voice once he was by my side.
Seeing him through tear-drenched eyes, I reached out, grabbing his robe, praying for a miracle while pleading for answers. “Why, Father Henderson?” I begged. “Why did this happen?”
“I don’t have the answer for that, my child. It was God’s will.”
At hearing his response, I lost all common sense, and found myself on my feet.
“God’s will? God’s will?!” I shouted. I was out of control but didn’t care. “FUCK THAT, FATHER HENDERSON! FUCK GOD’S WILL!”
“Dani.”
“No, Father Henderson!
” I shouted while shaking my head in a vicious attempt to let him know how wrong he was. I knew what I was saying wasn’t right but I was too broken to stop. “That’s not a good enough answer!”
Rodger and Beverly rushed to my side, crying and begging me to stop. But I was too far gone.
“NO!” I bellowed.
My howls of despair were heavy and deep; mirroring the ache in my soul. Desperate and pitiful, like an animal suffering inescapable agony.
Everything is excruciating! Everything is broken!
“I won’t stop!” I wailed. “Scott was a good man! HE DIDN’T DESERVE TO DIE!”
I turned and started to run. I needed to get away from that hole! My skin felt too tight and my racing heart threatened to pound out of my chest.
This couldn’t be happening. I couldn’t possibly be burying Scott!
Suddenly I was scooped up in two strong, familiar arms that felt like Scott’s. Was I wrong? Was this all just a hideous nightmare? But all hope faded when I heard Rodger say, “Dani…I’m so incredibly sorry…”
“W-why, Ro-Rodger…? W-why?” I rasped, my throat lined with sandpaper; my voice scratchy and raw. “W-w-we were g-g-g-going to, to c-c-celebrate our w-wedding anniversary…”
“Oh, sweetheart…” Beverly cried.
I looked up, into the eyes of my beautiful mother-in-law who had just caught up to us and I noticed changes in her too. On any other day, her oval face would highlight her stunning eyes which are both expressive and inviting—Scott’s eyes—but not this day. On any other day, her personality and beauty shines bright, her smile ever-present, her dimple always coming out to play. A single dimple—Scott’s dimple—but not this day.
On this day, her smile didn’t exist and that endearing dimple was nowhere to be seen. Her brilliant blue eyes were dull and lifeless. On this day, Beverly was curled into herself. Her face hollow, her body sunken. The California beauty I knew…gone.
The three of us sat sobbing in the shadow of Scott’s casket. Huddled together; clinging to one another for dear life.
Saving Each Other (Saving Series Book 1) Page 3
