by Susan Conley
“Let what go?” He looks at her.
“Let the guilt go. The blame. Let it go. Let it go. You caused these two people in this room here so much worry when you ran away. Don’t push yourself away from them.”
She looks at me and smiles.
“And so this scale, Sam?”
He meets her eyes.
“This scale is so you can weigh the guilt you have and decide whether it’s worth holding on to or not. Each time the guilt comes, you weigh it. Pretty soon I don’t think it will follow you around so much. Then you won’t feel the need to numb yourself. You just won’t need to.”
“That would be good.” He looks so tired now. “Because I’ve got other things to worry about, like getting Coach to let me back on the team.”
Nettie says that will all depend on his showing up every day at school. “That’s all up to you. But this is where we start.” She puts her hands on the tops of her thighs and stands. “We’re helping you find places to put the guilt down and to stop doing stress. Does this sound like a plan, Sam?”
He doesn’t look at any of us. But he nods at the floor.
IN THE CAR ON the way home he says, “Nettie told me my brain thought that Dad wasn’t coming back.”
“But I did come back.” Kit turns in his seat, so he’s facing him. “I told you I’d come back, and I did.”
“I didn’t really think Dad wouldn’t come back. “Nettie says it’s like my brain was tricking me.”
“I was gone a long time,” Kit says. “It was wicked scary.”
“I mean, the boat was on fire,” I say.
“But that hardly ever happens,” Kit says. “Boats don’t just catch fire. It won’t happen again.”
“Please don’t say it won’t ever happen again, Dad. Because it could happen. I mean, anything could happen. So you have to stop pretending and you have to stop assuming things about me.”
“Assuming what things?” I ask.
“You always assume things, Mom. It makes me crazy. Like really crazy when you think I’m smoking weed all the time.”
“I do not think that. Kit, have I ever said I think Sam’s smoking weed all the time?”
“You have not.”
Being a mother isn’t anything like I thought it would be. It’s harder. Better. More confusing. Shorter. Longer.
“See, Sam,” I say.
“There you go again. Doing it.”
“Doing what?”
“Judging me.”
“I can’t keep up with you. Tell me.”
“Tell you what?” He closes his eyes.
Kit says, “Tell us how to be around you.”
“Okay. Okay.” He sits up. “Number one. Don’t lie to me anymore. Only tell me the truth, like about Dad. Only the truth.”
“I can do that,” I say.
“Number two, don’t make me go to school.”
Kit says, “Let’s just get through this week, Sam. Let’s just see how this week goes. It could get better, you never know. Can we do that?”
I don’t think he’ll ever agree.
But then Sam looks at Kit, and we drive the rest of the way home in a truce.
LUCY COMES FOR DINNER that night. I try once in the middle of the afternoon to convince Charlie to change the plan, but he won’t. He’s fixated on it and says they’ve had it planned for weeks and how could I have forgotten?
She and Sam sit on the couch and try to answer the Jeopardy questions with Kit. She laughs whenever Sam gets an answer right, and somehow makes him talk. She’s direct like this and treats him as an adult.
Charlie helps me with the chili. He seems really nervous, so I try to keep things loose. My head is full of different pieces of knowledge that it didn’t have before we went to Nettie’s this morning. The scale and Sam’s guilt and where Sam’s going to be able to put the guilt down, and will any of it work and will we know if it’s working.
We bring our bowls of chili into the living room, and Charlie delivers one to Kit over on the bed, then he goes back and gets another for himself. He and Lucy sit on the couch together, while Sam sits in the recliner and stares at them.
I bring a chair in from the kitchen and put it over by Kit’s bed, and he smiles at me and I can tell he likes that I’m there, closer to him. I can feel him wanting me to give him my attention.
Lucy says, “This is yummy, Mrs. Archer. This is delicious.”
Sam tells her that Kit just got back from the hospital. “He was in Canada. A Canadian hospital.”
“Sam,” Charlie says. “Of course she already knows that.”
“My father is gone too.” Lucy pulls the neck of her sweater over her chin. “At the camp in Kenya.”
I knew about her father. I knew. But in an abstract way. Now I try to imagine it. The waiting for the visa. The separation. The feelings of such deep missing, and longing, and pain, and not knowing when it was going to end.
Her father told her that he was coming here right after her. But that was three years ago. Our government won’t let him in, even though she says he may be killed if he returns to Burundi.
Jesus.
She gets up and goes into the bathroom under the stairs.
Should Charlie go check on her?
When Lucy sits back down, Charlie tells us that she applied early decision to Smith today.
Kit says, “That’s fantastic news.”
She shakes her head. “Charlie, come on.”
Charlie says, “I bet they give her a full ride.”
“There’s no such thing as a full ride, Charlie.” Lucy looks embarrassed but also proud. “There are just different ways of spelling the word loan.”
I feel for a second like my work’s done with Charlie. That Lucy’s helped him become someone who talks about colleges and loans, and I’m sad about this. I don’t know where the sadness comes from, but I don’t want my work to be done with him. He’s only seventeen.
When the boys bring the dishes back to the kitchen, I tell her to sit because she’s the guest. But she won’t have it.
She and Charlie put their arms around each other on the couch. Then she puts one of her feet on top of his feet. I try not to stare. Sam’s able to act like it’s normal that Lucy’s here. Normal that Charlie has a girlfriend.
ON FRIDAY MORNING NETTIE has asked to see Kit and me without Sam. She places the clipboard in her lap again when we get there. It takes Kit some time to maneuver the crutches and sit down on the couch next to me. I take in the smell of him—the earthiness and something almost lemon. Nettie asks us if Sam seems calmer now.
I say, “Less stormy, maybe, I think.”
“He’s going to figure all this out,” she says. “But the first thing we want is for him to not smoke pot at school.”
“That would be a good start.” Kit laughs and puts his hand on my knee and I leave it there.
“The pot is part of the guilt,” she says. “It’s not the real problem.” She pulls her feet up under her in the chair. “Your accident set off something in him, Kit. And maybe in you too?”
“I’m sure not here to talk about myself.” He smiles.
She acts like she hasn’t heard him. “Does either of you have anything in your own lives to compare it to?”
Kit says, “Compare what to?”
“Sam’s pain. His trauma.”
“I think that word’s extreme.”
Nettie says, “Then let’s not use it, but I think you know what’s going on here, Kit. We’re talking about guilt and grief and how we carry them forward.”
He looks up at the ceiling. “I don’t really know what you’re talking about. I don’t know about carrying things forward. I’m one of those survivors you hear about. People like me don’t go over the past. I mean I think Sam gets sad and he’s partying more now, but
that’s normal. Sam will be just fine.”
Nettie doesn’t say anything for a moment. Then she says, “We’re only here today to try to help Sam.”
Kit says, “So what are you really asking me?”
Nettie smiles and looks right at him. “Maybe to try and see your son differently. One of the greatest casualties in trauma is the loss of vulnerability. I don’t want Sam to keep wanting to numb himself. I want him to dare to be vulnerable. I want to hear how you and Jill process pain and trauma. Oops. There’s that word again. And you don’t have to talk, Kit, if this is too uncomfortable. I’m not here to make you tell me your secrets. That’s not my job. That’s not why I became a therapist.”
“Jesus.” He shakes his head and smiles.
I can tell it’s still his instinct to go it alone. It’s always been his instinct. But he looks at me and I take his hand.
“Okay. My mother died when I was ten. I was with her when she had a stroke in our kitchen. Is that what you want?”
She doesn’t act like she heard any of his aggression.
I squeeze his hand.
“I don’t know what could be more extreme,” Nettie says and some of her hair slips from her braid. She moves it out of her eyes. “Than watching someone you love die.”
She lets that sit. Then she says, “Or almost dying yourself on a boat.”
Kit rubs the side of his face, but I don’t think he’s aware he’s doing it. “I don’t know why you think this is related to Sam. I just don’t follow you.”
“And you think about your mother how often now?” Nettie chews on the end of her pen.
“All the time, really.” He laughs. “You’ve got me there.” Then he rolls his eyes like Sam does when he’s cornered.
All the time? He thinks about his mother all the time?
“She’s on the boat with me. It’s hard not to think about her out there. I get this feeling that she’s coming back.” He smiles.
Nettie smiles back at him. “Sam can’t stop thinking about Liam. You take your mother on your boat. I bet Jill didn’t know that.”
I say, “I hate that I didn’t know.”
“And what about Jill?” Nettie says. “Why haven’t you told her?”
He laughs. “Well, I mean it’s crazy. Talking to my dead mother on my boat.”
“Ah,” Nettie says. “So it stays safe if you don’t talk about it? What’s the feeling you get now?”
“The feeling?”
“What does it feel like when you think about that day your mother died?”
He exhales slowly and makes a whistling sound. “Cold. Alone. I couldn’t save her. Then she left.”
Nettie nods. “She left you. I see. And do you ever have that feeling now?”
“Ha.” He smiles and puts his head back and closes his eyes. “What is this? This is like some cross-examination.” He turns and stares at me like maybe I planned this. But I just shake my head at him.
Nettie repeats the question and smiles, like she has all the time in the world. “I’m just curious, Kit. For no real reason, but do you ever have that feeling of being alone now?”
“Well, all the time in the hospital,” he says. “All the freaking time.”
“You were alone there?”
“After Jill left. She had to come back to be with the boys. I understood it, but—”
“You needed her to stay so you wouldn’t feel alone?”
He’s quiet again. Then he says, “I get it now. I get what you’re trying to do here.”
“I have no ulterior motive, Kit. None. I just want you to talk about what it felt like in the hospital after Jill was gone.”
I’m holding my breath. I hold it. Then I let it out as quietly as I can. Then I take another breath and hold it again.
“Did you ask Jill to stay?”
He’s quiet for a second. Then he rubs his eyes with his hand. “I didn’t think I needed to.”
It looks like some kind of punishment now, what I did to him.There’s the unexpectedness of it, and there’s my guilt, which I give in to. When I breathe normally the tears come, and they’re a relief after holding my breath.
WE’RE BOTH QUIET ON the ride home. I drive slowly, without the radio, and when we get to the house, I sit in the car with him and close my eyes and wait for what happens next. Maybe he knows.
He stares at the A-frame. Stares and stares at it.
Then he says, “Do you know how much I hate living here?”
“Hate what?”
“Hate this house.”
What is he saying?
“I’ve always hated it. For as long as I remember.”
“I thought you wanted to live here.”
He laughs. “I’d do anything to get out of here.”
I’m so surprised that I start laughing. “God, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to laugh.”
“I know it’s crazy.”
“Then why do we come here?”
“Because I’m messed in the head? Because I thought I could handle it? I don’t know. Because we need a place to stay? There’s so much guilt in this house. I couldn’t save her. God, I tried. I couldn’t.”
“You were ten, Kit.”
Lara has a bumper sticker on her car that says change or die. It reminds her to always be open.
“I’m so sorry you feel this way about the house. Thank you for telling me. Thank you. I’m really glad you told me.” Then I lean over and take his hand.
Marriage is long, and you have to will yourself to choose it. Change or die.
“Told you what? That I can’t get over my mother’s death?”
“I just wish you’d told me sooner. I’ve been right here.”
“I don’t want to live here anymore. That’s the first thing I want to change.” He looks at me. “There’s more.”
“I’m sure there is.”
“I wasn’t myself up there. Things got away from me, Jilly.” His skin is ruddier now, and he looks much healthier.
“Can we not do this now?” We just got back from Nettie’s. My head’s spinning.
“But I’ve been waiting to say it. You’ve got to give this to me. She didn’t know me. I propped myself up a little with it. Marsh didn’t understand my problems. She was a friend. That’s all. It’s not an excuse.”
“Could we never say her name again? Never?” I look away at the house.
“I’m here now. You know I am, Jilly. It was only ever you. Only you.”
Then he reaches around my shoulder and pulls me closer to him.
He says, “Nettie can really mess with your head.”
His eyes are glistening, and the blue in them shines because of the sunlight off the windshield.
I lean back in my seat and close my eyes and keep holding on to his hand.
JIMMY FINDS ME IN the kitchen a few hours later and says the blizzard he’s been tracking on the Weather Channel is going to hit by eight tonight. He’s bought most of the D batteries at Candy’s and puts them on the table in a big Ziploc bag. Then he gets out the four flashlights from the cupboard above the fridge. He wants me to replace all the batteries in the flashlights while he watches.
“Right now?” I’m almost done making the beef stew with red wine Kit loves. “What about Kit? He’s better at flashlights than me.”
Kit’s in the living room trying to fix the storm window next to the couch.
Jimmy says the power will be out by midnight, and he’s going to watch me put all these new batteries in right now. “Do it while you can. Don’t wait. That’s the only way we’ll know if they work.”
I unscrew the first flashlight and take out the dead batteries. Then I say, “Thank you for worrying about us.” I mean it.
He stands by the stove, hands in pockets, and acts like he hasn’t hea
rd me. He keeps his eyes on the flashlight.
I put the first batteries in.
“No, not like that. The other ends need to touch.” He takes the flashlight and reverses the batteries and screws the end on, then hands me the next one.
“Now you try. How’s your movie, by the way? You got an ending yet?”
I smile. None of my films really have endings even though they do have to end.
“I’m waiting to see what happens.”
“I don’t believe in happy endings anyway,” he says.
I stare at him. “Jimmy. Me either. I really want you in the film. Will you think about it?”
He hands me another flashlight and shakes his head. “You never give up, do you?”
Kit comes into the hallway on the crutches and says the window won’t budge. He’s wearing an old green crewneck sweater of Sam’s. It makes him look like the boy at the lodge that first summer.
He tells Jimmy that Shorty wants to sell his own boat and go in on Kit’s trawler with him and focus on flounder and haddock, because those stocks have rebounded and between the two men they have some quota.
Jimmy says that might make sense. “Just take care of your boat, son. Your boat has to bring you home safely at the end of the day.”
He walks toward the stairs. “Which window is it? Come show me. I’ll take a crack at it.”
I go upstairs and find an old crocheted dress in the closet in Kit’s room that my mother made me when I was sixteen and put it on over my jeans. It’s not my style anymore, but I have an urge to be someone else today.
* * *
—
CHARLIE COMES HOME AT six and sees me in the dress and says he’s not sure.
“Not sure about what?” I finish slicing the tomatoes and put them on top of the salad and hand him the bowl.
“The whole dress-over-pants thing.”
“Not sure in general, or on me?”
“Both,” he says. “I’m sorry to report.”
Kit comes in and says he likes the dress.
We look at each other and there’s that recognition. Oh. There you are. I’ve been waiting for you.
