On the Fence

I could feel Evan over my left shoulder, breathing. He was probably glad he was on his way out of my life after that.

In front of me, Linda just stared. She looked hurt and angry. I guess I wouldn’t have to quit now. Linda would ask me to leave.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, my voice quieter than I intended.

She looked to the door, where my dad had left. “You’d better go.”

I nodded, unable to find any excuse to make this better, and I followed after my dad.

He paced in front of his police car. I headed for the car I’d driven.

“No,” he said, and pointed to the passenger side.

“But . . .”

He pointed again, more forcefully, so I climbed in. The police radio was in the middle of a broadcast, and he turned it down and started the car. “We need to talk.”

“I’m sorry. She asked me about Mom, and I didn’t want to tell another person that she was dead. I didn’t want her feeling sorry for me. I wasn’t thinking. It was stupid.”

He backed out of the parking spot and started to drive.

“I didn’t know the bridal store was going to put out that ad. If I’d known, I would’ve asked you if it was okay.”

My dad pulled into a parking lot at the beach, turned off the car, and then stared through the front window at the ocean. He wasn’t talking, and that was unnerving. I waited for him to explode like he had in the store, but he just sat there, eerily calm. Probably because I was confessing everything without him having to say a word. And there was something else I needed to confess, something I’d been in denial about, something I’d been running from for years. I was done running. I heard it come out of my mouth and hang in the air before I even thought about how I was going to word it: “I want to know what happened the night Mom died.”

Chapter 34

He wasn’t expecting that request. I could tell by the way the color drained from his face. “Okay. What exactly do you want to know?”

“What happened that night? There’s something more than you’re telling me.”

“Charlie, I’ve tried to talk to you about this before. You weren’t ready. It nearly broke you.”

“I’m ready now.” I said it confidently, even though I felt everything but.

“There’s no easy way to say this.” He raked a hand through his hair as if trying to prove his statement. “Your mother . . .” He hesitated. “She was very sick.”

My ears started to buzz and my head felt fuzzy, just like it had when I was ten. I wasn’t going to let that stop me this time. “I don’t understand.”

He took my hand, his grip soft but sure. His eyes went glassy and that terrified me. I held my breath.

“It wasn’t an accident.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. What that single sentence implied was something I didn’t want to accept. “How do you know?”

“She left a note.”

Like a tidal wave, everything made sense. My mom was depressed. I knew this. It’s why I had no memories of her as a child—she wasn’t around. She didn’t want to be.

The police radio crackled in my ear and my dad flipped a switch, turning it off. The dashboard of the car pushed against my forehead, and I tried to press against it harder, hoping the pain would rid me of the thoughts.

“Charlie.”

I shook my head back and forth.

“Charlie. You knew this. Come here.” He pulled me against his chest. “You’ve known this. Breathe. It’s going to be okay.”

I nodded, but I wasn’t sure it was ever going to be okay again. My mom left me. On purpose.

My dad smelled like . . . my dad—a cross between a musky cologne and cinnamon gum. This was the smell of my entire childhood. He was my childhood. My life. I remembered him at every important event, every unimportant event. All the places she never was.

He shifted a little, his hand moving to wipe at his face. I didn’t want to look up and see if that meant he was crying. I couldn’t face seeing his pain when mine was already too unbearable. But I didn’t have to look up; I heard it in his voice when he said, “And she almost took you with her.”

That statement had me sitting up faster than I intended, blood rushing up the back of my head. “I was in the car.” I had realized that right away, but I hadn’t put the pieces together. No wonder I’d been trying to deny this my whole life. The dreams. The way I could picture that car spinning, glass flying, so perfectly. Her hand lying there limp in front of me. It wasn’t just a dream. It was a memory.

“She didn’t know,” he said quickly. “You snuck into the car. You were supposed to be in bed.”

I let out a little breath. At least she didn’t try to take me with her. That thought didn’t help at all. But it was something, and right now I felt a whole lot of nothing. I was numb.

It was a quiet drive back to the shop, where we’d left the other car. My dad kept opening his mouth to say something and then shutting it again. Eventually he spit out, “You have questions. What are they?”

I hadn’t thought about questions yet, but I knew I needed to. “Did she see someone? Try to get help?”

“She saw someone regularly. But she was constantly going on and off her medication. She would think she was better. I had you see someone too, right after she died. I had all of you see someone.”

Yes, I had memories of the gray-haired man having me draw pictures. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“I tried, Charlie. You weren’t ready. You shut down. You climbed on the roof and scared me to death. I decided to wait after that. You were doing so well, I didn’t want this to define you.”

“I feel stupid. I’m so weak.”

“Charlie. No.” His hand went to my shoulder. “No, you’re not. What child wants to think that about their mom? She was your world.”

No. She wasn’t. She was barely part of my life. “Jerom, Nathan . . . Gage?”

“They know.”

I coughed to try to get rid of the lump in my throat and then put my cheek against the passenger-side window. “I feel stupid.” No wonder my dad and brothers thought I was so breakable. Why they protected me so much. “I’m sorry I wasn’t another boy.”

“What?” We pulled up to the store and he put the car in park.

“I didn’t turn out right. I’m broken.”

“Oh, Charlie. No.”