I sat in the hall with my back to the wall and my hands covering my ears, sick from the sound of his grief and rage, his hoarse tears and roars mixing with the deafening sander, all of it useless because none of it would bring her back. When the motor stopped, I crawled to the doorway and peeked inside. He knelt, crying and coughing, the hated stain fainter but still visible under the now-silent sander.
The day of her funeral, I woke to the sound of his footfalls in the hallway outside my door, trudging back and forth. My room was dark in the predawn, and I lay motionless, barely breathing, identifying the screech of hangers shoved together and the drag of drawers opened and shut before he tramped past my room and back again, over and over. An hour later, the door to their room snapped shut.
He’d moved into the small guest room downstairs. By unspoken agreement, neither of us entered their sealed and haunted bedroom after that.
Cindy stopped by a lot to check on Dad and me, bringing food or straightening up. Usually Charles came with her, or Cole – who said all the wrong things, even though they were the exact same things everyone else said.
‘Sorry about your mom,’ he’d said last night as we sat side by side on my bed, game controllers in our hands.
I’d nodded, staring at the screen where we drag-raced down some famous street – I couldn’t remember which one – mowing down trash bins, trees, other cars and the occasional hapless animated pedestrian. I tried not to hit the people. Cole seemed to aim for them, especially if his little sister Carlie was around, because she freaked whenever he did it.
‘You hit a kid! You just hit a kid on purpose!’ she’d say when his car jumped the kerb and ran over a skateboarder.
I forgave Cole for hitting the people deliberately, and for saying what everyone else said, because he was ten, and because he treated me the same as always. He was the only person I knew who did that.
Murmuring voices drew me from my room and down the stairs one Saturday morning. Cindy and Dad sat at the kitchen table, coffee mugs gripped between them. Their voices reverberated in the room and spilled into the hallway, as quiet as they were. I knew they were discussing me before I heard what they were saying.
‘Ray, he needs counselling.’
Cindy had always joked that she’d happily trade both her sisters for my mom, who was her ‘true’ sister. Like a meddling aunt who’d known me my whole life, she’d always treated me like I was partly hers to raise.
For a long moment, Dad didn’t answer, and then he said, ‘Landon is imaginative – you know that. He draws all the damned time. I don’t think a few sketches are cause for a shrink –’
‘Ray, I’ve watched your child, her child, since he first picked up a pencil. Of course I’m familiar with how he expresses himself artistically. But I’m telling you, this is … different. It’s disturbing, violent –’
‘What the hell do you expect?’ he hissed, and it was her turn to go quiet. He sighed. ‘I’m sorry, Cin. But … we’ll deal with it in our own way. We don’t want to talk about it. When I think about that night –’ His voice broke. ‘I won’t make him talk about it.’
I heard what he didn’t say. That he didn’t want to hear what I had to say about that night.
But he was right. I didn’t want to talk about it.
‘He’s withdrawing, Ray. He barely speaks any more.’ Her voice was choked with tears.
‘He’s thirteen. Reticence is normal for thirteen.’
‘If he was this way before, I’d agree. But he wasn’t. He was happy and communicative. Watching him with Rose gave me hopes of having sons who’d still talk to me and laugh with me and kiss me goodbye when they become teenagers. This isn’t normal behaviour for Landon – thirteen or not.’
My father sighed again. ‘His mother is dead. How can he ever be normal again?’
She sniffed, and I knew she’d begun crying softly.
‘I can’t discuss this any more,’ he said. ‘I appreciate your help, and Charles’s – but I just can’t –’
‘What if I find a therapist for him? What if I take him, and you don’t have to be involved, until you want to –’
‘No. Not … yet. Give him time.’
‘But –’
‘Cindy.’ That was his I’m done voice. I was all too familiar with it. When I wanted something my parents didn’t want me to have, Dad had always been the one to deliver the final no, and that was how he said it. Landon, and that scowl. No use arguing once I’d got that.
Before I was born, the Maxfields and the Hellers began celebrating Thanksgiving together. They did it every year – through postdoc assignments on opposite coasts, Charles’s acceptance of an assistant professor position at Georgetown, and my father’s decision to take his PhD and work for the government instead of some university. After I came along, they kept the tradition, settling twenty minutes from each other in Arlington and Alexandria – both inside the Beltway.
This year was supposed to be our year to host. Instead, Dad and I drove to their house, each silent, hating and enduring the stupid Christmas carols on the radio. Neither of us moved to change the station.
My mother had loved holidays – all of them. For her, none were spoiled by too much hype or commercialism. She made heart-shaped cookies in February, oohed and aahed over fireworks in July, and sang along the moment Christmas carols began playing, no matter how many weeks it was until December 25th. I would never hear her voice again. My stomach heaved and my jaw clamped tight, my body launching a protest against the meal we were about to have. Without her.
I sat in the front seat with a store-bought pumpkin pie on my lap and a can of whipped cream in a bag at my feet. We’d burned the edges of the crust, and Dad had scraped off the blackened parts, leaving the pie looking as though squirrels had broken into the house and sampled it. It had to be the most half-assed contribution the Maxfields had ever made to Thanksgiving dinner.
I was smart enough to keep this thought to myself.
The meal was bearable, but grim and pretty quiet until Caleb – who was almost four and still considered cutlery optional – stuck his finger through the whipped cream and pumpkin filling and then sucked it off.
‘Caleb – fork,’ Cindy said gently, for the fourth or fifth time since we’d begun eating. She rolled her eyes when Cole copied him. ‘Cole,’ she said less gently. I couldn’t help smiling when both brothers stuck their pie-coated fingers in their mouths. Carlie snorted a laugh.