Jules nods and gives my hand a little squeeze. “There you go with the guilt again. Tommy has some scars. But has it stopped him doing what he wants with his life? No. Did you ever think about seeing a therapist over this?”
“Hell the fuck no, I did not.”
I pull my biggest secret into the light, and now we just let it sit there for a few minutes. It makes me feel so fuckin’ vulnerable. And I hate feeling that way. It’s fuckin’ emasculating.
“Flint, you’re so stuck in the whole guilt thing that you’re not seeing the accident for what it is.”
“Yeah, but no matter what, if I hadn’t created that spark then it never would have happened.”
She says something that blows my mind. “Believe it or not, I know exactly what that feels like. For a long time I felt responsible for my mom’s death.”
“What are you saying, Jules? Your mom died of cancer. I remember it like it was yesterday. She was trying to work her way through the second bout of radiation treatment when her body just lost the fight. It wasn’t anything you did or didn’t do.”
She’s just silent.
“What in the world makes you think it was your fault?”
It takes her a second or two to get started. “It was an in-service day, you know, where the teachers spend the day in meetings and trainings?”
“Yeah, I didn’t know they still had those in California.”
“Yeah, they did back then,” she says quietly. “So, I was home from school. Tommy was starting his grown-up job. It was his first full-time day job. It was the one that came with benefits like paid time off and health insurance. He took it because Mom needed the insurance, and we needed the money to stay afloat.”
She stops talking and stares straight up, blinking her tears away.
I speak. “He’d just turned eighteen, and we were both graduating in a few months. I remember being impressed as hell that he had his life together before he even graduated.”
“Yeah, he was so proud of himself. The night before, Mom and I sat at the kitchen table watching him iron his uniform shirt as he told us about how important his security job was and how working at the mall could lead to bigger and better things. I remember how Mom told him how handsome he looked when he tried on his neatly pressed uniform for us.”
Good goddamn, her story is making me tear up as well because I remember how this day ended. She needs to talk about this fuckin’ trauma, I can tell by how she’s forcing herself to speak. So, I reach across the table and put my hand over hers.
“Just get it all out, darlin’. I’m here for you.”
She nods and then continues in the same hollow voice, “Tommy had just left for work. The minute he walked out the door, she laid back on the sofa. I know she was tired from those treatments she was getting, but this was different.”
She turns her hand in mine and grips it harder. “I made her some toast and brought her medicine. She asked me tobring her ice water, and her hands were shaking when she took the glass and swallowed her meds. I just knew something was wrong, more wrong than usual.”
She stops, tugs her hand from mine, and takes a sip of her drink before continuing. “I wanted to call Tommy, but Mom said no. She said it was his first day, and we could not afford for him to lose this job. She said she was fine and promised me everything would be okay, but it wasn’t.”
“Jules, we both know how this ends. Talk if you need to, but don’t go on for my sake.”
“I’ve never told a living soul about what happened that day.”
I nod. “Go on then. I want to understand what happened so we can put your mind at ease about it.”
“If that’s even possible,” she says. “You’ll probably feel differently by the time you hear the whole thing.” She doesn’t give me a chance to respond. Instead, she just plows ahead with her heart-wrenching tale. “I was twelve years old, and I didn’t know what to do. I was taught growing up to do what my mom told me to do. And she told me not to call.”
Glancing away, she rubs her hands nervously down the thighs of her jeans.
“I kept wiping her forehead and arms with a cold cloth, and when she woke up the next time, I begged her to let me call 911. She said absolutely not. She said that she was tired of the damned hospital and she wasn’t going back there again no matter what. I remember turning away, so she didn’t see me crying.
She reaches up and wipes her eyes. I can tell this is traumatic for her. “Don’t. If it’s too hard you don’t—”
She waves me away and continues. “By noon, her breathing didn’t sound right. I panicked and called 911. It took a bit for the ambulance to get there. They tried to clear her airway, but she had a heart attack at some point, and they couldn’t get her back. They told me there was nothing I could have done. They’d sent me out to sit on the porch while they worked on her, so I didn’t see what all they did, but I could hear every word they said.”
“Tell me they didn’t blame you.” The words slip out before I can stop them.
“Of course not. All her cancer meds were right there on the end table. I remember them saying she’s lucky she lasted as long as she did. They told me there was nothing I could have done. Tommy said the same thing. But when I watched them lower her casket into the ground, all I could think of was what if I’d called when I first realized something was wrong. Maybe they could have saved her? Who knows, she might have even rung the bell.”
