But the thought won’t leave, this image of his back turned as he walked into the building.
I look up at the dark clouds stirring in the sky and see the sign for the Gas n’ Go sitting atop a giant pole. The storm is a hurricane. I am driving right into its path.
John said this was another reason I shouldn’t make the trip today. The school could cancel the game if the storm got too close, and even if they didn’t, I would surely run into it on the way home.
The storm, Evan not caring.
And Annie. He stopped short of saying it, but the words lingered between us.
Today is the anniversary of her death. Five years ago, on this day, we lost our youngest child. She was nine years old.
No.I will not think of Annie. I will not go backward. I will go forward.
Put one foot in front of the other.
I learned this in grief counseling. I used to be a middle school science teacher, where the focus is on learning to analyze problems by breaking them down into pieces and forming hypotheses—so I studied the grief this way. Objectively. Clinically. We are not wired to witness the death of a child. To endure it. To survive it. But like every other human defect, we have used science to outsmart our own biology. We can take a brain that is shredded ear to ear and we can put it back together with mantras like this one. Mantras that have been tested in clinical trials. Vetted in peer articles and TED Talks and now appear in self-help books.
You just put one foot in front of the other, Molly. Every day, just one more step.
Had I not had other children to care for, I would not have been able to take these steps. I would have died. Let myself die. Found a way to die. The pain was not survivable. And yet I survived.
Forward.
But the day continues to unravel, back now, to the morning.
Nicole was just coming in from one of her nights. I don’t know where she slept. Her skin has gone pale, her hair long and unruly. She’s become lean from running. She runs for miles and miles. She runs until she is numb, head to toe. Inside and out. Then she sleeps all day. Stays out all night. She is a lean, fierce, unruly warrior. And yet the pain still gets inside her.
Where have you been all night?I asked. The usual exchange followed, about how this was none of my business…butit was my business because she’s living in my house and what about her GED class and trying to dig herself out of this hole…butit’smy fault she’s in the hole; she’s in the hole because of Annie and her grief and because not everyone can just get over it…butwhen is she going to stop using her sister’s death as an excuse for getting expelled from her private school senior year, never going back?
She shrugged, looked me straight in the eye. When did she become like this? This soldier, ready to fight off anyone who comes too close?
What about you? When are you going back to work?she asked.
She likes to remind me that I, too, stopped living—breathing, yes, but notreallyliving.
I had no response to my daughter this morning. I had no response to my son this afternoon.
I didn’t even see Evan after the game. I waited by the door but he must have gone out a different way. I almost marched straight to his dorm to tell him what I thought of his behavior. To do what a mother does when she knows she’s right and when her child needs to learn a lesson.
The sign for the Gas n’ Go grows closer, the clouds darker as these thoughts come. I didn’t find him. I didn’t do what I now think a mother should have done. A good mother.
Suddenly, I know why.
The car slows. I step on the gas, but it doesn’t respond.
I am not a good mother.
I can’t hold them back now, the thoughts of my dead child.Annie.Not that they ever really leave me. They are always lurking, hiding, wearing disguises so I don’t see them as they sneak up.
I steer to the shoulder. The wheel is stiff. The car is dead. When it stops, I try the ignition, but it won’t turn over.
I see the message on the dashboard. I have run out of gas.
How long has the light been on? I have been preoccupied bythis day. By these thoughts. John was right. I should not have made this trip. Not today.
I look down Route 7 and see the entrance for the station. It can’t be more than thirty feet. The wind whips hard, rocking the car. I can see the rain coming on an army of clouds. A blanket closing over the sky. I can’t tell how far away they are. How much time I have.
Thoughts exploding. Heart pounding. What have I done?
