Before I Let You Go(99)
Sam and I crouch simultaneously to stare at her.
“You picked a weird day to let out your first laugh, kid,” I say to her, and I look at Sam. “Can you believe that just happened?”
“Maybe she’s giving you a message, Lex,” he offers. I raise my eyebrows even higher.
“Seriously?”
“We have to take joy where we find it, even on the worst days. Daisy laughed, which is a perfectly normal thing for an eight-week-old to do. She’s hit a milestone—her first milestone—probably right on target. We can celebrate it later, but we need to notice it now. Daisy deserves that, doesn’t she?”
I swallow, and my eyes fill with the first of the day’s tears. I rise, and I think about Annie. I would love to be able to call her and say, “Hey, how is rehab going? Fantastic, well, you’re past halfway done now and guess what, by the time you come out, Daisy is going to be giggling—she’s already trying!”
And then Annie would say back to me. “That’s great! That makes all of this worthwhile. I’ll keep at it, okay?”
I bite my lip to try to contain my tears, but I can’t catch them. Sam embraces me, and I fight against the urge to give over to helpless sobs; God, if I start now, how am I going to get through the day? It’s just so unfair. It’s just all so unfair and it hurts so much that I can’t bear it.
“You okay?”
I nod and straighten away from him, then I reach for a Kleenex and dry my cheeks. Sam watches me closely as I pick up Daisy and cuddle her close to my face. I breathe in, then out, and then I turn toward the door.
“I’m here for you, Lex,” Sam says, and I stop and turn back to him with as much of a smile as I can muster.
“I know.”
“Don’t forget it, okay?”
More tears try to surface, and I nod and hastily leave the room. I walk down the stairs and greet both my mother and my future mother-in-law, Anita, who are in the kitchen working in silence to organize food for the wake. Anita has flown into town to help with Daisy during the service and will stay to assist with the logistics of the wake.
Sam has organized all of this directly with his mother, and I’m grateful for that. It means I have completely avoided discussing Annie with Anita so far. I do like my future mother-in-law—she’s an elegant, well-mannered woman—but I don’t really know her all that well yet, having spent only a handful of weekends and holidays with her over the course of my relationship with Sam. I’m sure that beneath the polite veneer she must at least be shocked at the chaotic family Sam is choosing to marry into. Now, though, she passes me a piece of toast and offers a sympathetic smile. I murmur my thanks and sit at the table to try to force myself to eat.
This day reminds me so much of my father’s passing that I have to steel myself against the pain of it. I remember standing on the front lawn, and Annie looking so utterly broken that morning, and racking my brain to think of a way to bring some magic back into the day. Was it right that I insisted she find some happiness that day? Did that set her on a path of seeking happiness in all of the wrong places forever? Now Sam is trying to do the same for me, but life has bruised me so much in the decades since. The last time I wanted to curl up and stop moving forward, Annie was my reason to keep moving. Now that she’s gone, do I just stop? Is this the end of me? Or do I transfer that sense of responsibility to her daughter, and repeat this godforsaken cycle all over again?
There are so few people at Annie’s service. Eliza is there, and other staff from the hospital. This is so depressing. Nobody is here for Annie. They are all here for Sam and me.
We make our way to the cemetery and I watch as they lower my sister’s coffin into the ground. The finality of this strikes me, and the crush of grief starts all over again—this time, so intense that I shake from it. Sam’s arm is around my shoulders where it’s been pretty much all day, but then Mom starts to wail and he pulls her close, too. I would be lost without Sam today. I see the way Mom leans into him just as I do, and I think about Robert. It is utterly evil that he didn’t come. He was a cruel man, but he was still effectively Annie’s father for many years—and he is Mom’s husband. What kind of person is he to be so judgmental, that he would even boycott his stepdaughter’s funeral?
We leave Annie’s graveside and drive home in silence to the wake. We eat the food Anita arranged, and people try to find ways to reminisce about Annie, but given how little of her they actually knew, it’s pointless. They didn’t know her, but I did. She was here, and she mattered, and I loved her, and now she is gone—and maybe I failed her, and maybe the system did, too. Maybe if that judge had offered Annie compassion instead of judgment, things might have been different. Maybe if she’d been able to take Daisy to rehab with her, she could have made more progress. Maybe if they’d given her support instead of an arrest warrant, or maybe if she’d been able to go onto a maintenance program instead of into inpatient rehab, or maybe . . .
If she only knew how I loved her.
All that I’m left with is memories and maybes. How can I build a better life for Daisy when I don’t even understand what went wrong with her mother?
I slip out of the stilted conversations and resort to sitting by myself in the corner of my living room. Sam sits beside me, and I turn to him and suddenly I’m in shock all over again.