What Have You Done(16)

“Deal. I don’t want to fight either.”

“Good. How about some tea?”

“No. I really just want that shower and to go to bed.”

“You want a beer instead? I was hoping we could spend some time together. Talk and hang out. We could watch one of our shows.”

“Not tonight.”

Vanessa nodded, her lips tightening a bit. “Okay. If that’s what you want.”

“That is definitely what I want.”

“It’s just that the counselor said we should spend as much time together as possible when we’re both home.”

“I’ll do a movie or one of our shows some other night. I need to lie down right now. Seriously. I’m beat.”

“What about tomorrow? Joyce and I are having lunch in Center City at Talula’s. Will you meet me there and have something to eat with us?”

“I promise I’ll try.”

“I’d like that.” Vanessa came forward one last time. She brushed the hair out of his eyes and ran her soft hand down his cheek to his neck and shoulder. “You know, I could come lie with you. I might be able to fix that headache.”

Liam didn’t answer. He turned away and climbed the stairs to his bedroom, unbuttoning his shirt as he went. All he could see was Kerri’s face, blue and swollen. His heart ached more now that he was alone.

Where were you last night? Why can’t you remember?

Downstairs, Vanessa called to him one final time. “I love you!”

Again, he didn’t answer. Instead, he wiped away tears that began streaming down his cheeks as he made his way into the bathroom, started the shower, and used the noise of the water running to mask the uncontrollable sobs that had finally bubbled to the surface. Kerri was dead. His heart was broken.





11

“Boys? Boys, come take a look at this! Come into the kitchen!”

Sean waited a few beats as he heard the front door close and his mother’s footsteps cross the living room into the kitchen. He dropped the bright-yellow Tonka truck he was playing with and ran down the stairs as fast as he could. The sound of Liam’s tiny footsteps came up behind him, but they were slower and more deliberate as his little brother climbed down to the main floor, too slow to keep up with Sean.

His mother was standing at the far end of the table they ate at every night. She was wearing a long peach dress with a white blouse. Her dark hair was back in a ponytail, and the sun streaming in behind her from the window above the sink gave her an aura that made her look almost magical. She smiled when he ran into the kitchen, then dug into a large brown paper bag that was sitting in front of her, pulling out several items from inside it and placing them side by side on the green plastic tablecloth.

Liam came in and stopped next to his older brother, panting as if he’d just sprinted in an Olympic race. He instinctively grabbed on to the end of Sean’s sweater and pulled himself closer.

“What’s all that?” Liam asked.

“This,” his mother began as she took the last item from the bag, “is our new project. I’m going to show you how to make my paper flowers, and together we’re going to make them and sell them around the neighborhood. People will buy them, and that’ll give us a little spare change until the union calls and puts your father on a new job.”

Sean walked to the table and could feel Liam tagging along next to him. “We’re going to make paper flowers?”

His mother held up a small stack of multicolored paper. “Yup. All kinds. Roses, tulips, daisies. All different colors too. Watch.”

The boys climbed up in their chairs and looked on as their mother took a pair of scissors and cut several teardrop shapes out of the colored paper. She then took the shapes and folded them into triangles, attaching the triangles around a long wire.

“Doesn’t look like a flower to me,” Liam said.

“Be patient,” his mother replied.

Sean poked his brother in the head. “Shut up and watch.”

His mother secured the paper to the wire with tape and continued to add more paper petals to the bud, taping at the base each time. She kept going—cutting teardrop shapes of paper, folding, taping—until she had a decent bloom of what would become a paper rose. Finally, she twisted fake wire leaves onto the original long wire to create a stem and trimmed the end with their father’s wire cutters. She placed the rose on the table and looked up at her boys.

“That’s a flower!” Liam exclaimed.

“It’s pretty, Mom,” Sean said. “I like it.”

His mother smiled and grabbed more paper to start again. “We can sell them at church and at bingo and maybe even the flea market. It’ll be fun.”

“It’ll be embarrassing,” Sean replied. “All my friends go to those places. They’ll rank me out for selling flowers.”

“It’s for the family,” his mother said. “We all chip in around here when it comes to family. Don’t you ever forget that. Blood comes first. And I can guarantee if your friends were in the same situation, their parents would have them chipping in too. No matter what. Got it?”

“Yeah, I got it.”

“Good. Now come in closer, boys, and grab some of your own paper. We’ll make one together. I’ll show you.”