Reminders of Him(21)
I think, Kenna—imagine you’re Grace.
Imagine you have a son.
A beautiful young man that you love more than life, more than any afterlife. And he’s handsome, and he’s accomplished. But most importantly, he’s kind. Everyone tells you this. Other parents wish their children could be more like your son. You smile because you’re proud of him.
You’re so proud of him, even when he brings home his new girlfriend, the one you heard moaning too loud in the middle of the night. The girlfriend you saw looking around the room while everyone else was praying over dinner. The girlfriend you caught smoking at eleven at night on your back patio, but you didn’t say anything; you just hoped your perfect son would outgrow her soon.
Imagine you get a phone call from your son’s roommate, asking if you know where he is. He was supposed to show up for work early that day, but for whatever reason he didn’t show.
Imagine your worry, because your son shows. He always shows.
Imagine he doesn’t answer his cell phone when you call to see why he didn’t show.
Imagine you start to panic as the hours stretch on. Normally, you can feel him, but you can’t feel him today; you feel full of fear and empty of pride.
Imagine you start to make phone calls. You call his college, you call his employer, you’d even call the girlfriend you don’t much care for, if only you knew her number.
Imagine you hear a car door slam, and you breathe a sigh of relief, only to fall to the floor when you see the police at your door.
Imagine hearing things like “I’m sorry,” and “accident,” and “car wreck,” and “didn’t make it.”
Imagine yourself not dying in that moment.
Imagine being forced to go on, to live through that awful night, to wake up the next day, to be asked to identify his body.
His lifeless body.
A body you created, breathed life into, grew inside of you, taught to walk and talk and run and be kind to others.
Imagine touching his cold, cold face, your tears falling onto the plastic bag he’s tucked into, your scream stuck in your throat, silent like the screams you’ve had in nightmares.
And yet you still live. Somehow.
Somehow you go on without the life you made. You grieve. You’re too weak to even plan his funeral. You keep wondering why your perfect son, your kind son, would be so reckless.
You are so devastated, but your heart keeps beating, over and over, reminding you of all the heartbeats your son will never feel.
Imagine it gets even worse.
Imagine that.
Imagine when you think you’re at rock bottom, you’re introduced to a whole new cliff you get to fall off when you’re told your son wasn’t even driving the car that was going way too fast on the gravel.
Imagine being told the wreck was her fault. The girl who smoked the cigarette and didn’t close her eyes during dinner prayer and moaned too loud in your quiet house.
Imagine being told she was careless and so unkind with the life you grew.
Imagine being told she left him there. “Fled,” they said.
Imagine being told they found her the next day, in her bed, hungover, covered in mud and gravel and your kind son’s blood.
Imagine being told your perfect son had a perfect pulse and might have lived a perfect life if only he could have had that wreck with a perfect girl.
Imagine finding out it didn’t have to be this way.
He wasn’t even dead. Six hours they estimated he had lived. Several feet he had crawled, searching for you. Needing your help. Bleeding. Dying.
For hours.
Imagine finding out that the girl who moaned too loud and smoked the cigarette on your patio at eleven o’clock at night could have saved him.
One phone call she didn’t make.
Three numbers she never dialed.
Five years she served for his life, like you didn’t raise him for eighteen, watch him flourish on his own for four, and maybe could have gotten fifty more years with him had she not cut them short.
Imagine having to go on after that.
Now imagine that girl . . . the one you hoped your son would grow out of . . . imagine after all the pain she’s caused you, she decides to show back up in your life.
Imagine she has the nerve to knock on your door.
Imagine she smiles in your face.
Asks about her daughter.
Expects to be a part of the tiny little beautiful life your son miraculously left behind.
Just imagine it. Imagine having to look into the eyes of the girl who left your son to crawl several feet during his death while she took a nap in her bed.
Imagine what you would say to her after all this time.
Imagine all the ways you could hurt her back.
It’s easy to see why Grace hates me.
The closer I get to their house, the more I’m starting to hate me too.
I’m not even sure why I’m here without being more prepared. This isn’t going to be easy, and even though I’ve been preparing myself for this moment every day for five years, I’ve never actually rehearsed it.
The cabdriver turns the car onto Scotty’s old street. I feel like I’m sinking into the back seat with a heaviness unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before.
When I see their house, my fear becomes audible. I make a noise in the back of my throat that surprises me, but it’s taking all the effort inside me to keep my tears at bay.