The End of Forever

by Lurlene McDaniel

  “And don’t you realize that sitting in that office all by myself and having somebody dig around inside my head stinks?”

  “Of course it’s tough, honey. But you have so much ahead of you—college, career, family—everything. Why, someday you’ll have kids of your own, and then you’ll understand how I feel.”

  Kids of her own. She was the last of the Bennett line, because her father had no brothers or sisters. “Being married and having kids doesn’t sound like such a hot idea to me.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  Erin wanted to shout, “Because yelling and fighting and leaving isn’t fair”. Instead she walked past her mother and started getting clothes together for school. “I need to get dressed.”

  Her mother took her arm. “Erin, please promise me you’ll go back to Dr. Richardson this Thursday.”

  Her face looked pinched, and her tone sounded so pleading that Erin felt fresh waves of guilt. “Okay, I’ll go.”

  “I’m counting on you to keep your promise.” Mrs. Bennett sounded relieved.

  “I’m your ‘responsible’ daughter.… Isn’t that what you always used to tell me?”

  “You still are.”

  Her mother stroked Erin’s hair, and yet it was as if a great gulf separated them, and Erin didn’t know how to get across. “Then I can’t let you down, can I?”

  “It’s for your own sake,” her mother called as Erin hurried toward the bathroom.

  Erin shut the door and leaned against the walk fighting tears and feeling as if the weight of the world were on her shoulders. She turned on the faucets, and after the bathroom had filled with steam, she breathed deeply to relax and try to ward off a recurrence of her headache. The breathing exercises worked, and soon she felt better. Before climbing into the shower, she took her finger and wrote in the steam on the mirror: “Amy doesn’t live here anymore.” Then she smeared the words away and quickly showered and dressed.

  Dr. Richardson treated her as if she’d never missed an appointment. Erin was relieved, because she couldn’t have stood another lecture. The counselor’s office seemed comfortable and homey, with framed passages of needlepoint on several of the walls. Curious, Erin thought, that she’d never noticed them before. She pointed at one. “Where’d you get these?”

  “I do them. They relax me.” It had never occurred to Erin that the therapist might have a life outside of her office. “What do you do to relax?” Dr. Richardson asked.

  “I dance. The physical exercise makes me feel good.”

  “I tried aerobics once,” Dr. Richardson said, “but there was nothing relaxing about grunting and sweating.” She wrinkled her nose to make her point.

  Erin giggled, glad that they weren’t probing into her mind right away. She studied the intricate scrollwork of one particular needlepoint and read aloud, “ ’Is there no Balm in Gilead; is there no physician there?’ What’s that mean?”

  “Gilead was a place in the Middle East where a legendary balm with miraculous healing powers was supposed to have come from. You simply smoothed it on, and all your diseases disappeared. Caravans used to bring it out of Gilead to sell to the rest of the known world.”

  “Too bad you can’t find some of it and rub it into my head.”

  Dr. Richardson tapped her desk with a pencil. “For me the balm of Gilead is what I try to apply to peoples hearts and souls, because healing begins from the inside out.”

  “Do you think I’ll ever get well?”

  “The fact that you’re here, trying, encourages me.”

  “But just talking doesn’t seem to be doing much.”

  “Aren’t there longer and longer gaps between your headaches?”

  “Yes, but I still can’t figure out what’s triggering them. I’ve been fine for a while, then the other day I was just talking to David, and bang—one hit me hard.”

  “How are you and David getting along?”

  “Better.” Erin felt her cheeks color. “I asked him to our school’s formal dance.”

  “I’d say you were doing better. What changed your mind about him?”

  Erin laced her fingers together in her lap. “We talked. I went with him to see his clown routine, and I met his kid sister. She’s deaf.”

  “But there’s still something about him that sort of gets under your skin, huh?”

  Dr. Richardson’s perception amazed Erin. “It’s like he likes being different, as if he goes out of his way to be outrageous.”

  “And that seems to bother you.”

  Erin stared at the carpet for a moment, trying to put her thoughts into words. “In the beginning he actually brought on some of my headaches, but now, in some weird way, he helps keep them away. I can’t figure out why.”

  Dr. Richardson didn’t say anything right away. When she did speak, her question seemed off the topic. “Erin, tell me what your sister Amy was like.”

  Startled, Erin looked up. “Cute. Everybody liked her, but she had some pretty annoying habits. She was never on time, and she could talk me into doing anything for her—which used to make me really mad. But I couldn’t help myself. She’d always rope me into doing whatever she wanted. She was never serious about anything, except wanting to be a great actress. Like the world was waiting for Amy to make an appearance. She didn’t take life very seriously. But then David says I take life too serious—” She stopped talking as insight swept over her.

  “You look surprised. Tell me what you’re thinking.”

  “Its Amy and David. They’re a lot alike, you know? I—I never realized that until now.”

  “How does that make you feel?”

  Erin wasn’t sure. “Strange, that’s all. Gee, I don’t see how the world could handle two Amys.”

  “But David’s David.”

  “Yes, that’s true. They’re different, but they’re alike too. He does silly, goofy things like Amy would. We had a slime fight after rehearsal one day. When Amy was in the eighth grade, she led a Jell-O war in the school cafeteria.”

  “Does it make you feel sad to remember?”

  “No,” Erin said slowly. “But it makes me want to see her and talk to her again.”

  “If you could see and talk to her, what would you share?”

  Erin shook her head. “I don’t know. And I don’t feel like talking about it right now.”

  “There are several kids your age in my support group who’ve lost a sister or brother.”

  Lost. The therapist made it sound as if the person could be found. As if death wasn’t final and irrevocable. Erin thought of Beth, who might be “losing” her mother.

  “Will you think about coming? We’d love to have you.”

  “Maybe. Look, I’ve got to get back to school for evening play practice. My dads got a meeting at school tonight too, and his car’s in the shop, so I have to give him a ride home.” Erin knew she was making an excuse to bow out of the session early but didn’t care. She wanted to leave.

  Dr. Richardson walked her to the office door, where Erin turned and gestured toward the framed needlepoint about Gilead. “If any caravans pass through selling that stuff buy some for me.”

  Dr. Richardson asked, “Do you know what ‘debridement’ is, Erin?” She shook her head. “When a person’s been badly burned, the dead skin has to be removed, or debrided. The skin is literally scrubbed off the wounds.”

  Erin grimaced. “That must hurt.”

  “It’s very painful, but unless it’s done, the burn victim can’t begin to heal.”

  “So what’s that got to do with me?”

  “There’s something inside you—something about your sister’s death—that’s trying to get out. Your headaches are an expression of that ‘something.’ These sessions with me, and meeting with the support group, is a kind of debridement for your psyche. No matter how much it hurts, it has to be done so that you can be all right again.”

  “So there is no magic balm?” Erin asked wistfully.

  “Only in the figurative sense
. And you can’t buy it either, you have to seek it on your own.”

  Erin sighed and left, unsure if she had the strength for the hunt.

  The play rehearsal went so smoothly that Ms. Thornton and Mr. Ault let everybody go home early. Not wanting to linger afterward, Erin quickly gathered her things and hurried to her father’s classroom. She approached the room cautiously. unable to forget the day she’d stopped by the school and discovered him weeping. She’d never told him, but the memory of his tears haunted her still.

  Erin stopped at the closed door, listened, then knocked.

  “Come in,” Mr. Bennett said. Erin entered to see him putting papers into his briefcase. “Hi,” he said, and smiled. “I thought I’d be the one waiting on you.”

  “We got out early. Are you finished?”

  “I sent the Lowerys home with their promise to make Pam work harder in my class. She’s bright enough, but she just doesn’t apply herself. She’s not nearly the student your teachers tell me you are, Erin.”

  She shrugged. “That’s me … little Miss Einstein.”

  “Don’t make light of it. I know it must be tough putting in time for that play and still keeping up with your schoolwork.”

  They walked to Erin’s car and got in. The night had turned cool, and the smell of rain was in the air. She turned on the engine. In the glow of the mercury lamppost, the outside world looked colorless.

  Her father asked, “Say, I’ve got an idea. How’d you like your old man to treat you to a hot fudge sundae?”

  Surprised, Erin asked, “But we’ve got school tomorrow, and it’s already after ten.” Big drops of rain splattered against the windshield. She turned on the wipers.

  “Oh. come on. It’ll be like old times. lust you and me and Amy and—” His voice stopped, and Erin’s heart squeezed. Rain pummeled the car. The headlights cut a sweeping arc through the darkness, and Amy’s ghost wedged between them in the seat.

  Chapter Eleven

  Erin was the first to recover. “I think a hot fudge sundae sounds yummy,” she said with an enthusiasm she didn’t feel.

  “Me too,” Mr. Bennett said quietly.

  Erin drove cautiously, because the rain made the road slick. At the minimali she parked, and they ran for cover into the old-fashioned ice cream parlor, where waiters were dressed in white shirts and red-striped vests.

  Once in a booth, Erin asked, “Are you gonna call Mom?”

  “She said she’d be going to bed early, so I don’t think she’ll miss us.” Mr. Bennett didn’t meet Erin’s eyes as he spoke.

  They ordered, and once the waiter had gone, Mr. Bennett asked, “Do you want to talk about what happened in the car?”

  “What happened?”

  “When I said Amy’s name. I didn’t mean to, but for a moment I forgot she wasn’t with us.”

  Erin felt panic, because she was certain she saw a mist cover his eyes. “That’s all right,” she said quickly. “Dr. Richardson says it’s good to talk about her.”

  “How’s it going with the counselor?”

  “She says I’m making progress.”

  “She wanted us to come in as a family at first.”

  The news surprised Erin. “So why didn’t we?”

  “Your mother felt it wasn’t necessary. You were the one with the headaches.”

  Erin wasn’t surprised by this information, but it still annoyed her. Why did her parents act as if she was the only one with a problem? Couldn’t they see how they were growing apart? “I’m really trying hard to get well, Dad. Honest.”

  “I know, and I’m not sure it’s something you should be going through by yourself.”

  Their ice cream arrived, and Erin ate a spoonful of whipped cream, but it was too sweet, and the taste clung to her mouth. “Dr. Richardson thinks that I’m not over Amy’s death.”

  “Who is?” he asked heavily.

  “It’s been over a year,” Erin said.

  “Is there a time limit on these things?”

  “I guess not. I miss Amy too.” For a moment Erin’s voice sounded thick. She wanted to tell him, “But Daddy, I’m still here.” Instead, she asked, “I guess no one can ever take Amy’s place, huh?”

  Mr. Bennett shoved his sundae aside. “You and Amy were always so different from one another. Maybe it was because you were the firstborn, and your mother and I wanted so many things for you. Parents go a little overboard for the firstborn, you know.”

  “You didn’t expect things of Amy?”

  “We did. but it was different.”

  Erin wanted to say, “You bet it was different. You always let Amy do anything she wanted.” Instead, she said, “Amy used to wonder why she was short and dark-haired and I was tall and blond.”

  “You take after my great-grandmother, Emily Eckloe.”

  “I do?”

  “Yes. Amy resembled your mothers side of the family—small and dark. But Emily was from Norway, and a real beauty. I think she studied classical ballet but gave up her career to marry great-granddad.”

  So she was the oddball of the family, not Amy. For some reason the information pleased her. “That sounds romantic, but I can’t imagine giving up my dancing.”

  “Not even for love?”

  Erin blushed. “Especially for love.”

  “I guess that love doesn’t have much to recommend to you.”

  She knew he was alluding to his own crumbling relationship. “Its okay for other people, but I’ve got lots of other things I want to do first. Books and movies make it seem sort of corny, like it’s nothing but butterflies in your stomach.”

  “That’s where it usually starts, and there’s no substitute for it in the world. Don’t tell me you’ve never gone through the butterfly stage.”

  She thought of how simply seeing Travis used to make her feel gooey inside. “I guess I have, but I knew it wasn’t the real thing.”

  “That’s supposed to be my line,” Mr. Bennett joked. “How did you come to that conclusion?”

  “Probably because I was always so busy with my dancing. Its always seemed more important than guys and dating.”

  “I understand that. Love starts out with such enthusiasm, but somehow it gets lost between mortgage payments and kids in the right schools and jobs that pay enough money.…”He rubbed his eyes. “I sound cynical, don’t I?”

  “Just tired.” He seemed defeated. “Would you rather have a job someplace besides Briarwood?”

  There was a long pause between her question and his answer. “Do you know what I really wanted to be when I was in college?” Erin shrugged. “A novelist,” he told her.

  “A writer?”

  “Not just any writer. I wanted to live in the East Village in New York, or maybe even Paris, and write ‘meaningful’ books about life and the universe.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  Mr. Bennett gave her a poignant smile. “It wasn’t very practical. Besides, I met your mother, we married, and then you came along, so starving in the Village became less appealing. I guess that’s why I encouraged you and Amy when you took to dancing and acting.”

  Thinking back, Erin realized that it had always been her father who had favored her dance lessons and encouraged Amy’s acting skills. Why hadn’t she seen that before? “Remember how you used to read to us when we were little?” she asked.

  “And Amy would ask a million questions about why Humpty Dumpty fell off the wall—” he said.

  “And why couldn’t they put him back together again.”

  “You used to get so exasperated, you’d clamp your hand over her mouth.”

  “I read that old book to her when she was in the hospital,” Erin confessed, sheepishly. “I knew she couldn’t hear me, because they said she was brain dead, but I read it anyway.”

  Her father studied her, then said, “Oh yeah? So did I.”

  “You did?” Goose bumps broke out on her arms. “The nurses must have thought we were crazy.”

  “She was my little princ
ess.”

  Erin felt a surge of envy. Hadn’t she always felt that Amy was ‘Daddy’s little girl,’ and that she was just the ‘responsible one’?

  “Are you sorry?” she asked. “Do you wish you could do it all again and go off and write novels instead of being a teacher?”

  “No. You can’t trade what is for what might have been. Besides, if I had, I would never have had you or Amy, would I?”

  “Sure you would have, but we would have been born in Paris.”

  He took her hand. “No. You would not have been born at all.”

  She tried to imagine nonexistence but couldn’t. “I’ll go to Paris for you,” she said. “I’ll dance and be the hit of Europe.”

  “Not for me, Erin. For you.” And for Amy, she thought, because her sister would never be able to realize her dreams either.

  Her father reached over and clasped her hand. “And don’t be so down on falling in love. Love can be very good.”

  “Not to worry,” she said, faking enthusiasm. “I’ll be on the lookout for Mr. Right.” Yet she knew deep down that falling in love was the last thing she wanted to do. “Dad,” she asked, choosing her words carefully. “Do you ever feel like leaving?”

  “Leaving? Where would I go?”

  “Off to Paris to write novels?” She said it with a smile, but her heart was hammering.

  “Those were silly dreams, long ago. No, I won’t go away.”

  She wanted desperately to believe him, because she didn’t think she could stand to lose her father too. “I’ll be going away in the fall,” she ventured.

  “You want to very much, don’t you?”

  She nodded vigorously. “But you and Mom seem against it. Mom more so than you.”

  “Letting go is hard, that’s all.”

  “But I have to go. I just want …” Words failed her. She wanted so much to be a good daughter, but she also wanted to live her own life. “Well, you know,” she finished lamely.

  He picked up the check. “You want to be out on your own. It’s natural. I guess we should discuss it with Dr. Richardson. I’ll—uh—talk to your mother about it.”

  They drove home in silence, with Erin feeling detached. She was glad she’d talked to her father. It had helped for her to see him as an individual. He’d had dreams and plans for his life too, but they got changed as surely as Amy’s had. Later that night she lay in her bed and wondered what kind of books he would have written. Through the darkness she heard muffled, but loud, words. Erin couldn’t make them out, but she recognized their angry tone. Later she heard a door slam, and she rolled over and stared at the wall, knowing that her father had gone down the hall to sleep in another room.