The numbness that this is breeding in me is the thing I need to hang on to. And boy, do I. I cling to it when we get to the hospital and all through patient hand off. I cling to it when I see Jaden’s pale face disappear into a bay, and I cling to it when I pass his dad in the hallway, avoiding making eye contact as the exhausted, defeated man walks toward what we both know is going to be a shitty ending.
I cling to it through every meaningless, tedious step it takes to eventually close out my shift and get back in the car, ignoring Sharon when she offers to talk about it, because I’d rather just leave.
This isn’t the first time I’ve stood outside of a liquor store waiting for it to open, because sometimes you want to pick up something on the way home and if you’re on nights, it’s the fucking morning. I’ve gone to after-shift drinks with coworkers at 8 a.m. on more than one occasion. You’re headed straight to bed after, so who cares what time it is?
Right now, this feels dirty. And not just because I’m not waiting alone—I’m standing ten feet from a guy I’ve picked up for drinking himself unconscious on more than one occasion, rubbing my arms to stay warm as that flinty morning light gets brighter and brighter without taking off any of the chill. Thank fuck the man doesn’t try to talk to me.
The liquor store is a squat, broad building with peeling paint and a weathered old sign. It’s surrounded on two sides by a gravel lot that’s barren right now, except for a rusted-out sixties-style pickup parked up on dead grass, with spiderwebs caked in the wheel rims and weeds growing through the wooden slats of the bed.
We’re at a T-junction, and there’s nothing else around within spitting distance. Just more dead grass and gravel. Some cheap clapboard houses a ways away, and a couple signs rising up onthe horizon; one for the feed store, a taller one for the Dairy Queen.
I try to take all that quiet desolation and pull it into myself. I try to be as still and flat and fucking bleak as the world surrounding me.
I’m not convinced it works.
There’s a heavy thunk as the deadbolt comes off the front door, and the owner wordlessly lets me and the other guy in. He’s dressed in woodland camo and two days of stubble, holding a styrofoam cup of coffee and showing absolutely no commitment to making eye contact, which I appreciate. I definitely should know his name—I think his nephew was a senior when I was a freshman—but it’s not coming to me right now. My brain feels like soup, but I’m still in and out in less than five minutes.
Another blessing of taking so long to get home is that by the time I do, Silas is at work and the girls have been picked up for school. I’d much rather have them here than leave them with the shitshow at the trailer, but it’s hard enough keeping a happy face on for Silas all the time. Adding them to the mix makes it even more taxing.
I know Silas doesn’t want me to keep pretending everything’s chill when it’s not. But at the end of the day, he won’t understand that the shit I have to complain about is nothing compared to the shit he deals with in his head every day, so I can’t be the kind of selfish asshole that puts that on him.
The first beer goes down like water, because I’m dehydrated on top of everything else, and it’s ice fucking cold. I feel refreshed as fuck. The second one is almost as good, and I finish it in the shower.
Once I’m clean, comfortably dressed and cradling a glass of room-temperature whiskey in my hand, I can finally relax. I know I should eat something as well, but exhaustion is dogging at my heels so I don’t have the energy for more than getting chips out of the cabinet. There’s a brief pause while I think about my choices, and I force myself to chug one of Silas’s protein shakes as well.
For posterity.
I’m trying not to think about it, but the image of Jaden’s ashen skin and vacant eyes feels like it’s etched onto my eyeballs. I normally excel at letting this shit go, but sometimes something sticks.
All I can think is what if, what if, what if…
What if I’d pushed his parents harder?
What if I hadn’t let Tristan talk me down?
What if they really did have options for getting help, but they were too lazy or defeated to try?
And of course, the question I’ve been desperate not to ask, what if it was Sky or Maddi?
I don’t need to wonder what would have happened if it had been me, because I already know. I would have been dead a long time ago.
I start off by scrolling on my phone, but eventually I boot up my clunky old Chromebook because I need a bigger screen to focus on. I set up shop at one end of the dining room table, hyper aware of how much medical neglect Silas himself has suffered right here in this room, and click through page after page.
It’s not easy to say what I’m looking for. I start by looking up services that the Hallorans might have been able to use, but justchose not to. The reality of getting them charged with abuse or neglect is practically non-existent, but I feel the need to prove it to myself. Or Tristan, maybe.
Exploring social services is a mixed bag, but it leads me down one rabbit hole after the other once I start thinking about what I would do in the same situation. I know I’d fucking care, for starters. I go through my own insurance with a fine-toothed comb, now that I have it, and then do the same for the girls’ coverage from the state.
I still don’t know what I’m looking for, but one click leads to another, which leads to another, and then another. The light in the room shifts as time passes, but it doesn’t feel real. I keep switching between beer and whiskey, sipping fast enough to keep my mounting anxiety at bay, but slow enough not to get sloppy.
Well, not too sloppy. At some point, the chips run out. I get up to root through the cabinets for something else to eat, but I keep knocking into the walls as I’m moving around.
Which doesn’t make sense, because I feel fine. I feel ass-sober, not even buzzed. Just sleepy enough and cotton-mouthed enough to not let my worst thoughts dig their claws into me, and let each tumbling emotion that attacks me shrug away one by one. I’m fine. So I don’t know why the world tilts a little when I sit down again, or why I keep accidentally banging into shit.
I know I should go to sleep. It’s probably late, but I refuse to look at the time, as if that can change it. I know I should feel tired, and I do, but I also feel so alive. Like the alcohol has burned away all the bullshit that normally clutters my brain and left the rest of me pure, fast and able to focus.
I don’t stop searching.
After the conversation I had with Silas the other day about getting custody of the girls, this is the first time I’m actually consciously looking into it. I’d felt so convicted at the time, butSilas’s hesitation really worried me. I didn’t abandon the plan, but I did decide to take a breath before I continued down that road. To make sure he and I are on the same page.
