“Well, at first, I didn’t think it was that bad,” I told him. “I kept thinking the treatments might work. And I didn’t want to disrupt you at school.”
“But when you found out it was that bad?” He pressed his temples hard with the heels of his hands. “I could have taken a leave of absence or something. If I’d known, I would never have stayed away—God, I could just kick myself!”
“Oh, honey, don’t say that.” But I’d made a mistake; I’d heard kill myself. Then I remembered this wasn’t like him, I was the one who’d thought about doing that. “I didn’t want you to take a leave of absence. I didn’t want you to come home unless you wanted to.” I had a clear mind about this, and it felt good to be able to say what I meant. “And you didn’t want to.”
He took a long, deep breath, and I assumed he was picturing narrow streams of air moving in and out of his nostrils, the way he’d learned in tai chi. Don’t fight it and it will be easier. “I’m sorry,” he said again, sounding more like himself this time, and I smiled to let him know it was okay, even though it wasn’t.
Derek said to Will, “Your mom and I were just talking about that bomb threat at graduation. How it was me who called it in, and how I shouldn’t have done it.”
I tried not to notice as Will flushed, took a quick breath, and looked away. Beyond the grudging gratitude his eyes threw toward Derek, I recognized another expression on his face. “It’s come back, honey?” I asked, remembering only then what he had told me on the phone at Christmas. “The trouble with your tummy?”
“A little bit, sometimes.” He reached over to touch my hand. “But don’t worry, it’ll get better. Hey, guess what, I decided to take your advice. When I start to feel sick, I say to myself, I am just a biological organism; this anxiety is coming from a thought I can control; there is not really anything to be afraid of.”
“Oh, I’m so glad that works.” It had failed for me when I tried it, but he was a different person, I was glad if I’d suggested something that helped. “Listen, I’ve been wondering something. The speech you were going to give at commencement—what was it about?”
Another sharp breath in, and a further blush. “Well, it was about you. Are you surprised? Of course it was. How you helped me so much with everything, how I couldn’t have done it without you.” Now he folded my hand inside his own. He held on too tight, but of course I didn’t say so. “I’ll read it to you someday, just not right now, okay?”
I said “Okay” and tried to lift my head. It made me feel dizzy, but I didn’t mind, after what he’d just said. “You didn’t have to write a speech,” I told him. “I would have been happy just to see you walk across the stage and pick up your diploma. Hear them call your name.” I did my best impression of a deep announcer’s voice. “Will Chase.”
What will you chase, Will? You will chase what?
The three of us just sat there then, like a little family. There was a change in the air, it was as if we all understood something without it needing to be said. As if we’d all agreed not to waste any more time talking about things we should or should not have done. Will seemed not to mind anymore that Derek was there—or if he did, he didn’t show it. We reminisced, if you could call it that. Or the boys did, I just listened. They talked about the pancakes, the ones I made after sleepovers. About Lego ships, the cartoons. More than once, with my eyes closed, I thought I heard them laugh, the most perfect sound in the world. The way a singer’s voice can break glass at a high pitch, it split me in half. Phew, I remember thinking. I might even have said it out loud. “That was a phew.”
“A few what?” Derek asked. He leaned in to hear me better, but it was Will who explained it to him. Your piece is in the last row of Chutes and Ladders and you’re trying to get to the end, you can see ahead to the blue ribbon, but two or three or four spaces in front of you is the square that will plunge you all the way back down to the beginning. You want to avoid that number. But you have no control over it—you just hold your breath and spin.
Will said he’d always hated that game: it was too stressful.
“I liked it.” Derek pointed at his chest to claim the opposite. “I used to play that game all the time.”
Then I heard Grettie whispering to someone. Grettie! What was this? When had she arrived? There were other voices on the screened porch, it sounded like a party but without the cheer. Pascal appeared, then crossed the room to switch the lamp on. “Don’t worry,” she told Will, putting a hand on his shoulder. “I called them.”
Called who? I wondered. I had not seen her come in, but things were a little shadowy, it was possible I’d missed it. Pascal had not been in my house for years, but she still seemed to know where everything was. It felt familiar to have her here, now. More than familiar—it felt good.
“I’m sorry for the trouble between us,” I told her. “All those years lost, over such a silly thing.”
“It wasn’t a silly thing.” Her smile was kind, though, and I could see it was not her intention to argue. “But I’m sorry, too.” She moved out of the light again.
For a moment, I thought I might be hallucinating all these people in my house, the exact ones I would have invited at a time like this.
But no, my sister wasn’t here. That’s how I knew it was all real—I would have conjured her if I could. Turning to the window, I saw that it had gotten dark outside on the longest day of the year, which meant that a number of hours had passed, maybe three or more, since I returned from seeing the therapist. Enough time for all of these people to gather for my extenuating circumstance.
I might have dozed for a while, then. I might have dreamed. It was like a movie with a soundtrack: O Holy Night, the stars are brightly shining. In the dream I finally told Grettie the truth about my pregnancy, and asked if she would pass the information on to Will when she thought he could handle it. Not now, but someday—when he was out of school and on his way in the world, when the emetophobia was a mere speck in his rearview mirror.
When he hadn’t just lost me.
“Of course I’ll tell him,” Grettie said. “But are you sure you don’t want to do it yourself, before you—go?”
That was how I knew it was a dream, or whatever you want to call it. In real life, if I’d told her what I just had about the therapist, she would have said, “That fucker! I’ll make him pay.”
The answer I’d have given her was that I’ll protect Will as long as I can, from what I know has the power to hurt him. I hope it’s forever. Even if he does find out whose son he is, there’ll be no one to tell him the real circumstances of how he came to be.
It’s better this way, right? He won’t know the truth, but what will the truth matter, then?
I can stand the pain of this. I can stand it. The only thing I want is to know if he’ll forgive me, for all the ways I failed.
“Yes,” Sosi said, nodding, “he will.” Then I thought she added, “Whether you deserve it or not,” but I might be wrong about that, that might not have been what I heard.
She sat next to Will on the loveseat, her arm pressing into his thigh. I said, “Oh, hi, Sosh,” and I could tell that my voice was not warm—I couldn’t help it. Though it’s only fair for me to admit that I’m glad he has her, especially now. “I didn’t see you there.”
She had the oddest sense of being herself invisible, unseen; unknown …
It was time to do more than murmur, no point in codes anymore. Grettie helped me sit myself up on one elbow to find some extra breath and I said “I love you”—to Will, and to her.
Who am I kidding, I said it to them all. And, now a surprise: I said it not just to the people in the room, but to all the others outside it, too. The awful tennis coach, the pretend yoga teacher, the nurses in their parrot shirts, my friends at work. The old lady in the hospital lobby singing her old, indecipherable song. Celia and her son in his Santa shirt. The people at the dump wh
o’d yelled at me, the Arcadia Glen developer, the neighbors who hated him, and Trudy Foote with her bags of poop. My sister and the bank teller who had the same name. Happymom.
Even the therapist—because I had loved him once, before that day a long time ago, and without him, I wouldn’t have Will.
This was my life and the people in it. The world I had to leave before I was ready, before I wanted to. Why not say I loved them? It couldn’t hurt anything, it could only help.
My son’s face twisted. It was the face he used to make when he was afraid he was on the verge of being sick. “Mom, please.”
Oh! What did he mean by that? Was he asking the central question of his life one last time, thinking I was finally in no position to deny him? Or was it the beginning of an apology, because he knew he’d asked the question too many times?
Or was he begging me not to die? Mom, please. It made my chest hurt, having to wonder.
And being unsure if it was a question, I couldn’t risk saying anything that might sound like an answer. Instead of giving him a response I lay back on the cushion, because that was the easiest thing.
Grettie’s lips trembled. She reached down to hug me, so I wasn’t cold anymore. I heard a siren in the distance—or was it closer than it seemed?
Everything after that I don’t remember. But it doesn’t matter, because this is the end.
Acknowledgments
For the generous gift of their time, editorial comments, encouragement, and expertise about certain details, I am indebted to Ann Treadway, Molly Johnson, Laura Gergel (earliest readers from the earliest days), Katie Gergel, Jean Lucey, Karen Feldscher, Lauren Richman, Adam Schwartz, Lisa Breger, Julia Glass, Elisa Bronfman, Christine Primiano, and Pam Warren-Brooks. For their continuing support on behalf of my work, heartfelt appreciation to Kimberly Witherspoon, Jessica Mileo, William Callahan and the rest of the team at Inkwell, as well as my friends and colleagues at Emerson College. For publication, production, and promotion, my deep gratitude to the Delphinium crew of Lori, Joe, and Colin. And as ever my love and thanks to Philip Holland for all he does and gives to me, which is more than he knows.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this book or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2020 by Jessica Treadway
978-1-5040-6354-8
This 2020 edition distributed by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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JESSICA TREADWAY
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