Before I Let You Go(14)

“First things first. Let’s get that BP back under control, and then we’ll make a plan.”





6


ANNIE


Luke,

I wonder what you’re thinking about that last entry. I know you’re looking for the key that unlocks me—did you think that was it? Did you scribble down on that notepad of yours “daddy issues” and then treat yourself to a cookie for being so clever? Did you feel sympathy for me? Did you feel pity—or maybe it was disgust—maybe you’re thinking to yourself, Christ, is that all that’s behind this life of disaster? That’s her pain? Millions of children a year lose their parents—why couldn’t Annie cope? She’s so weak. Pitiful.

Well, if that’s what you’re thinking—you’re wrong, because I did cope, Luke. Even as a child, I figured out that life would somehow go on. I knew that it would never be the same, but I understood that the days would just keep coming at me . . . one after the other . . . an inevitable tide of time that would not stop even though I felt like my world had ended.

Mom, on the other hand, never seemed to grasp this concept. That peak grief she was caught in during the early days after Dad’s death never seemed to ease off. Weeks passed—then months—and Mom never got back to living. I figured that one day she’d go back to work, but even months later, she still could barely drag herself to breakfast most mornings. And even when she did, Lexie made the breakfast, and sometimes she went as far as to feed Mom, spoonful by spoonful, as if Mom was a baby.

Our mother lived in her pajamas, and whenever something good happened—like when Lexie still somehow managed a straight-A report card at the end of the worst school year of her life—Mom would smile for a moment then hug us, but she’d immediately dissolve back into sobs. Over time, her embraces became a source of anxiety for me—if something wonderful happened that I knew Mom would celebrate, I learned to keep it to myself to avoid the inevitable breakdown afterward.

Soon Lexie was doing almost everything Mom and Dad used to do—picking me up from school, doing the laundry and the gardening, and even the groceries on our way home from school. For a while, we did the shopping over two days because we couldn’t carry all of the bags home at once. Lexie figured it out—she wrote a grocery list, and then she split it into two shorter lists to divide the weight. She’d stop to pop sweets in my mouth as we walked so I didn’t complain about my arms getting tired as I carried my half of the bags. Eventually, one of the guys at the fire station saw us walking home, and from then on, every Tuesday afternoon we were ferried to and from the grocery store by a uniformed fire department officer.

But other than the small kindnesses shown to us by Dad’s colleagues and the teachers at school, there were no adults directly involved in the day-to-day workings of our lives—certainly no relatives coming to check in on us. I knew that Mom’s and Dad’s parents were alive and even lived nearby, but we’d seen them only a handful of times in our lifetimes. I’d wondered about this, particularly when they came to the wake but then immediately disappeared again. In the past, when we’d asked Mom or Dad about their families, their answers had been vague. They said that our grandparents loved us but just couldn’t come to see us very often. You don’t miss what you’ve never had, not even when everything else goes to hell. And Lexie was at the helm, and life just went on.

I still believed in Santa Claus then, and so at Christmas that first year, Lexie made me write a letter and then told me she’d mailed it for me. She convinced Mom to get the tree out of the attic, and then we put it up with Christmas carols blaring on the CD player. Mom watched for a while, but Lexie and I finished as she rose and silently took herself back to bed.

I woke up Christmas Day to find a sea of gifts beneath the tree. Santa had come and there were gifts for all of us—Lexie had the set of Roald Dahl books she’d asked for, I had everything I’d asked for, except, of course for Dad’s return—but even in that case there was a new photo of Dad framed and sitting on the mantel beside the Christmas tree, smiling down on us as we tore open the gifts. “Santa” had even bought Mom a new nightgown.

Lexie’s cooking skills rapidly improved, but she wasn’t up to the challenge of a turkey so she made spaghetti Bolognese. Mom came to the table and said grace. She wept afterward, but even so, she stayed until the end of the meal. Lexie and I ate and chattered over the low soundtrack of Mom’s sobs. By then we were so good at drowning out that sound that we barely even noticed—it was a good day, and I remember both missing my father’s presence at that table and knowing that if he really was looking down on us, he’d be so proud of the way that Lexie and I were carrying on.

It wasn’t an orthodox way for a family to exist—but it did work. Mom’s state of mind was confusing, and from time to time I’d get nervous about it, but I still had Lexie—and she managed to compensate for most of what would otherwise have been lacking in that home. Dad’s insurance had paid off the mortgage and we had his pension trickling in, so other than a sign of life from Mom, we wanted for nothing. Lexie kept up with her academic extension classes, and I had a good group of friends at school and my stories to hide in whenever it all got to be a bit too much.

But then, Robert came into our lives. So keep your notepad close, Luke, and wait before you treat yourself to that triumphant cookie, because shit is about to get ugly.