“A bunch of us are going up to the reservoir tonight. Maybe you could come with Casey.”
“Really?” I ask. It would be easy to cancel on Dad. He’d understand. This is my chance. Sheila inviting me back into her good graces. Just like that. I never thought she would be my friend again, not in a million years. I wonder if it’s because of Casey or if she misses me, too.
“I don’t know. I’ve got plans with my dad.”
Sheila laughs. “Oh, C’mon, you can blow him off.”
I remember that laugh. I used to crave it. When Sheila moved to Jefferson, my life went from black and white to color. Without Sheila, I would have been consigned to the Math Olympiad after school and fishing with Dad every weekend. After the accident, sometimes it seemed like I hurt as much from the loss of Sheila as from the knowledge I’d killed Coach Mitchell. It was another aspect of my guilt.
Sheila checks her phone, waiting for me to agree to come. As if nothing happened. As if she didn’t lie. As if she didn’t ignore all my phone calls. The late day sun sparkles off her hair. She smiles up at me, raises her eyebrows—asking. I know there will not be another opportunity. This is it. I’m in or I’m not. I know Casey would be happy to take me up to the reservoir. I can almost smell the smoke from the bonfire and hear the laughter and music echoing across the water.
Sherman barks and makes a lunge for a squirrel. The leash slips from my hand. He bounds over the picket fence with more athleticism than I thought him capable of. I turn back to Sheila. She guns her motor. I take a deep breath, and then I set down the picture in my mind. I am not that person anymore. I don’t want to be.
“Thanks, but I can’t cancel. I made a promise. He’s counting on me.” For a moment, sadness flickers across Sheila’s face. But then she snorts.
“Suit yourself!” she says and squeals her tires in her rush to get away.
I retrieve Sherman and hurry back to Ms. Helen’s. She is waiting as usual.
“I can’t hang around tonight,” I tell her. “I have to meet my dad.”
She nods but looks disappointed, so I sit down on the step, anyway.
“You look different tonight,” Ms. Helen says.
I smile. “I feel different.”
“Well, it’s good. You look good, so I’m glad.”
Is it fair I get to reach for happiness when Ms. Helen is so sad? What is her life like, stuck here with her memories and Sherman?
“Well, you go on and meet your dad now. I wouldn’t want you to be late on account of me,” she says. She takes Sherman inside.
I sit unmoving on the porch step. I’m trapped between the happiness I want and the guilt I can’t let go of. Why does every step forward hurt so much?
59
LIZ
“Thanks for seeing me,” Kevin says as he gets out of his car at the park where we agreed to meet. The park is hosting some kind of dog event; dogs and Frisbees fly all around us.
“I didn’t know this was happening,” I say, indicating the pandemonium just beyond the parking lot.
“Should we go somewhere else?”
I shake my head. “It’s fine. If we stick to the path, hopefully, no one will hit us.”
He waves me in front of him as we head to the narrow gravel path that rings the park. An awkward silence ensues, but the barking dogs and yelling people are a convenient distraction. I watch a small wire-haired dog leap into the air and completely miss a Frisbee that sails past him and lands just feet from Kevin and me. Kevin picks up the Frisbee and tosses it back to its owner who has the dog under his arm like a package.
“I’ve never had a dog,” he says.
“Jake’s dogs were always a big draw for Jess to visit when she was younger. She calls them her fur-brothers.”
We walk to the far side of the park, away from the dogs. Kevin stops next to a bench. “How about if we just sit?” The dog event has started and whistles sound.
It feels good to be with Kevin; he is easy company, plus I can’t wait a moment longer to tell him. I grin as I say, “I have news!”
“You do?” His face lights up. I love that he is already excited, and he doesn’t even know what it is. Happy because I am happy.
“I’m registered for community college! I’m taking Bio 101 this summer and two more courses in the fall.”
“Oh, Liz, that’s great!”
“I’ll probably be the oldest student.”
“And the smartest.” He smiles and touches my arm.
I laugh. “Hardly!”
He turns serious, his voice choked. “These weeks without you have been awful.”
“I’ve missed you too,” I tell him because it is true.
“Before you, my life seemed fine. I wasn’t necessarily unhappy, but I didn’t realize what I was missing.” He looks at me, his eyes searching for forgiveness. “After we started seeing each other, everything changed. I changed. And now with the baby… I just want to share that with you.”
“Not Jill?”
“Look, I know it’s a weird situation, but I swear my relationship with her is strictly about this baby.”
“That’s easy to say, but Jake and I have lived that. It’s difficult to do.”
He nods. “You’re right. I have no idea what will happen. I just know you are the person I want to talk to about it. Jill sent me the ultrasound picture and all I could think was how much I wanted to show it to you.”
“How’s this going to work? Have you talked about shared custody?”
“We’re lawyers, remember?” He smiles.
I laugh. It feels so good to be with him. He takes my hand and says, “I can’t imagine this life without you. I should have told you what was happening with Jill from the beginning, but our relationship seemed so fragile. I never thought she would really get pregnant. I didn’t want to risk losing you, but now… I can’t walk away from a life I created. I promise I won’t ever keep anything from you again. I will always be honest with you.”
He has said all of this before in one way or another in his messages, but I needed to see it in his face. I believe him, but that doesn’t change how much it hurts. Really hurts. I hate that he kept it from me, but more than that, I hate the idea of him sharing the miracle of birth with someone other than me. I know it is not fair, but I am ready to start my life. Jess will graduate; my nest will be empty. I could go anywhere, be anyone. Being with Kevin would mean being a part of another child’s life. Maybe even a stepmother. I sigh. I don’t know if I want that. A baby? Another child whose life will take a piece of my heart, carry it with him through good choices and bad ones. Another being with the power to inflict devastating pain and unbelievable joy.
“Just say something, please,” Kevin begs. “Just tell me there’s still a chance here.”
I watch the dogs leaping and running. I look back at Kevin, pain etched in his face. It is hard to believe I mean this much to another person. Once upon a time, I wanted to mean this much to Jake, but Jake meant too much to Jake. Every part of me wants to go back to where we were, but I can’t. Now I understand the potential for pain. I know how much power he has to hurt me. And even as he says he never will, there is a tiny voice inside saying, “You can’t be sure.”
“I want there to be a chance,” I say. “I do. I just don’t know if I’m ready to take it. I need to focus on me.” My words are bitter on my tongue, but I steel myself because this is the right decision. This I can control.
We settle into silence. We watch the dogs. Finally, I squeeze his hand. Then I get up and walk to my car. I leave him there on the bench with my future.
— — —
; A week goes by and Kevin doesn’t call. I don’t call him. I look at the phone in my hand and every ounce of me wants to call him and let him back into my life, but this hold-out part is stronger. I will not set myself up for pain. I am tired of letting a man be in charge of my heart. I tell myself all these things and yet my heart lifts when the phone rings, hopeful it is him. Instead, it’s Kate.
“So, have you let him off the hook yet?”
“It’s not that simple.”
“I know,” she says.
“The baby changes everything. Jill will be a part of any relationship I have with him.”
“She would be anyway.”
“I hate how much this hurts. How do I know he won’t hurt me again?”
“Hate to break this to you, Sis, but he will.”
“Which is exactly why I need to end this.”
“Right,” she says. “Forgiving him and trusting him is a terrible idea.”
“So, I’m doing the right thing.”
“If you say so.”
“Kate! I hate when you do this I’m-just-humoring-you-bullshit!”
“What do you want from me?” she asks.
I sigh. “I want you to tell me what I should do.”
“That’s what you’re waiting for?”
I know what my heart wants to do; I am just afraid to trust it. But I trust Kate.
“You can figure this one out yourself,” she says.
“But what if I can’t? And what if I am making a huge mistake? I can’t think about it. Jess has her first speaking engagement next week. That’s all I can think about right now.”
“I wish I could be there, but finals week is coming up.” Kate is a sociology professor. She is beloved on her small college campus. And happy. She dates occasionally but nothing ever seems to last long. She was dating someone in Minneapolis a while back but has not mentioned her in a while.
“That’s okay.”
“I’d come, except, I’m kind of seeing someone and we made plans to go to Yellowstone as soon as I get my grades in.”
“Good for you. Is it serious?”
“I’ll tell you after Yellowstone.”
60
JESS
My speech at Elm Grove High School is only a week away. I haven’t written a single word. Every time I imagine speaking to an audience about the accident, my stomach heaves, and I break out in a sweat. So, instead, I think about Casey.
At practice, I can’t focus and Coach Fines grows frustrated warning me I won’t do well at Regionals if I don’t pull myself together.
When Casey drives me home from practice, I tell him, “I can’t talk tonight. I need to work on my speech and you’re too distracting.”
He smiles. “I like that I’m distracting you.”
I roll my eyes. “You distract me a lot.”
I don’t even know when we morphed from friends to more than friends, but we are. Nothing has happened—not kissing or anything like that. I don’t know if crossing the friendship barrier is too hard, but I’m okay with things like this. I’m okay with being pretty sure he likes me and I’m excited about going to prom with him. If it weren’t for the impending speech, I’d say that my life is better than I ever imagined it would be only a few months ago. I hear mom tell Aunt Kate that kids are resilient, but I don’t think I’ve ‘bounced back’ as she put it, I think I’m just moving forward instead of staying where I was. I’ve let go of the hope that Sheila and I will ever be friends again. I’m okay with that. And I’m still trying to let go of not knowing what happened in that car. Whatever it was, like Ms. Ellen says, my brain must be protecting me from it. Maybe that’s the problem with this entire speech—I don’t want to look back anymore. I don’t want to remember.
Casey smiles at me. “You okay?”
I nod. He smiles the whole drive home.
When we get to my house he says, “I know you can’t talk tonight, but I’ll still be thinking about talking to you.”
I laugh. “Now that’s just distracting.”
Mom pulls in next to us in the driveway. I shake my head when she starts towards the car. I know she only wants to get to know Casey, but I’m not ready for that. I don’t want her questions or her enthusiasm. I don’t want to have to define this for her. She makes a face at me but turns for the house.
“I promise I won’t call, but feel free to call me,” says Casey as I get out of the car. “You know,” he winks, “if you need a distraction.”
“Maybe,” I say.
Twenty minutes later we’re talking on the phone.
“Do you think we’ll get sick of talking to each other soon?” I ask.
“I’ll never get sick of you.”
I note that he said he’d never get sick of me, not sick of talking to me.
“I gotta go,” I tell him.
Is ‘I’ll never get sick of you,’ the same as ‘I love you?’
— — —
The next day, when I return Sherman to the house, ominous clouds have moved in and rain chases me up the walk. Ms. Helen says, “Come inside and wait out this storm. I’ll make us some tea.”
I towel off Sherman and sit at the worn kitchen table scarred from a lifetime of dinners. There is a calendar on the wall with numbers counting backward towards Thursday, May 5th. That is the day I give my speech at Elm Grove High School. Is Ms. Helen counting the days too?
She puts the kettle on and then sits down across from me.
“The day Robert died, I was in the kitchen putting up applesauce. He came in and kissed my cheek. He said, ‘We’ve made a wonderful life.’ I told him to have a nice walk and got back to my applesauce. It was odd how he told me that before he left. It was as if he knew what was about to happen.” She pauses, twisting the ring she still wears on her finger. “Sometimes I wonder if I just imagined him saying that.”
She shrugs and then asks about our walk. “Is he still pulling so much?”
“He’s getting better.”
“I don’t know what my son was thinking.” She shakes her head.
“Ms. Helen, what is your calendar counting down to?” I ask and nod towards where it hangs on the wall, the numbers counting down in bold red letters.
“Oh, that! Big day, my dear. Big change!”
The tea kettle whistles, and Ms. Helen removes it from the burner.
“Ms. Helen…” I need to tell her in person, not in a big auditorium in front of hundreds of kids. I said it once before I knew her, before I knew who Coach was and what he meant to her. “I… I need you… to know…” I want her to know how sorry I am, but pain fills my chest, stealing my words. I shake my head, frustrated with my tears.
Ms. Helen sits down next to me and takes my hand. Her own is papery and soft. She looks at me, waiting until I meet her eye. “It’s okay, Jessica. I know. And I also know that Robert would not want you to suffer because of his death.” She leans towards me, squeezes my hand. “There was so much goodness in him, and I can’t help but think now some of it is in you.”
She pats my hand as if that is that and gets up to pour water over the tea bags. She smiles as she works as if some mystery has just been solved. It cannot be that easy. You can’t just give the goodness of one person to another like an heirloom handed down through generations.
Tears stream down my cheeks, but I can’t say another word.
We drink our tea, and Ms. Helen tells me about her latest quilting project. The rain finally stops, and I walk home in the dripping silence.
— — —
“Jess, I ask
ed you a question,” says Mom, jarring me out of my thoughts. I’m struggling with my speech. Helen Mitchell’s words still echoing in my heart. I have only two days to figure out what I will say.
“What?” I ask with more annoyance than I mean.
“Can you make yourself dinner if I run back to work for a few hours?”
“Uh-huh.” I stare at my words on the page. They seem so inadequate.
She sits down across from me. I try to ignore her, but she’s staring at me. Finally, I put down my pen and look at her. “I’ll be fine.”
“How’s the speech going? Want me to look at it?”
I push what I’ve written to her side of the table and get a glass of water and drink it, leaning on the counter, watching her face. She bites her lip as she reads, then frowns.
“Maybe you need to focus more on the Coach’s life than his death,” she says. “Maybe instead of thinking about how he’s gone now, maybe you should talk about what he left, how you’re different. You are different, you know?” She gets up and walks to me. I hug her hard, nod into her shoulder, and swallow my tears.
“Maybe,” I say, but she’s right. Writing all this sadness will not inspire anyone.
Finally, she releases me. “Are you ready for tomorrow?”
Regionals are tomorrow.
“I have to be. There will be scouts there. If I don’t get out of Jefferson…” I set my glass on the counter, look out the window instead of at her. “Getting out of here is my only chance to have a normal life.”
Mom touches my arm. “Sweetie, no one has a normal life. And whether you stay in Jefferson or win a scholarship on the other side of the country, you’ll take yourself and your memories with you.”
She’s right. I know that, but I’ve put so much on this race. I need to win. I need to leave. And if I don’t win, I can’t leave.
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