Don't Look for Me(2)

I look up at the dark clouds stirring in the sky and see the sign for the Gas n’ Go sitting atop a giant pole. The storm is a hurricane. I am driving right into its path.

John said this was another reason I shouldn’t make the trip today. The school could cancel the game if the storm got too close, and even if they didn’t, I would surely run into it on the way home.

The storm, Evan not caring.

And Annie. He stopped short of saying it, but the words lingered between us.

Today is the anniversary of her death. Five years ago, on this day, we lost our youngest child. She was nine years old.

No. I will not think of Annie. I will not go backward. I will go forward.

Put one foot in front of the other.

I learned this in grief counseling. I used to be a middle school science teacher, where the focus is on learning to analyze problems by breaking them down into pieces and forming hypotheses—so I studied the grief this way. Objectively. Clinically. We are not wired to witness the death of a child. To endure it. To survive it. But like every other human defect, we have used science to outsmart our own biology. We can take a brain that is shredded ear to ear and we can put it back together with mantras like this one. Mantras that have been tested in clinical trials. Vetted in peer articles and TED Talks and now appear in self-help books.

You just put one foot in front of the other, Molly. Every day, just one more step.

Had I not had other children to care for, I would not have been able to take these steps. I would have died. Let myself die. Found a way to die. The pain was not survivable. And yet I survived.

Forward.

But the day continues to unravel, back now, to the morning.

Nicole was just coming in from one of her nights. I don’t know where she slept. Her skin has gone pale, her hair long and unruly. She’s become lean from running. She runs for miles and miles. She runs until she is numb, head to toe. Inside and out. Then she sleeps all day. Stays out all night. She is a lean, fierce, unruly warrior. And yet the pain still gets inside her.

Where have you been all night? I asked. The usual exchange followed, about how this was none of my business … but it was my business because she’s living in my house and what about her GED class and trying to dig herself out of this hole … but it’s my fault she’s in the hole; she’s in the hole because of Annie and her grief and because not everyone can just get over it … but when is she going to stop using her sister’s death as an excuse for getting expelled from her private school senior year, never going back?

She shrugged, looked me straight in the eye. When did she become like this? This soldier, ready to fight off anyone who comes too close?

What about you? When are you going back to work? she asked.

She likes to remind me that I, too, stopped living—breathing, yes, but not really living.

I had no response to my daughter this morning. I had no response to my son this afternoon.

I didn’t even see Evan after the game. I waited by the door but he must have gone out a different way. I almost marched straight to his dorm to tell him what I thought of his behavior. To do what a mother does when she knows she’s right and when her child needs to learn a lesson.

The sign for the Gas n’ Go grows closer, the clouds darker as these thoughts come. I didn’t find him. I didn’t do what I now think a mother should have done. A good mother.

Suddenly, I know why.

The car slows. I step on the gas, but it doesn’t respond.

I am not a good mother.

I can’t hold them back now, the thoughts of my dead child. Annie. Not that they ever really leave me. They are always lurking, hiding, wearing disguises so I don’t see them as they sneak up.

I steer to the shoulder. The wheel is stiff. The car is dead. When it stops, I try the ignition, but it won’t turn over.

I see the message on the dashboard. I have run out of gas.

How long has the light been on? I have been preoccupied by this day. By these thoughts. John was right. I should not have made this trip. Not today.

I look down Route 7 and see the entrance for the station. It can’t be more than thirty feet. The wind whips hard, rocking the car. I can see the rain coming on an army of clouds. A blanket closing over the sky. I can’t tell how far away they are. How much time I have.

Thoughts exploding. Heart pounding. What have I done?

Now comes the thought about the fire last night. We have four fireplaces in our house, all of them wood burning. I have been making fires and stoking fires since we moved there twelve years ago. I know what a log looks like when it’s just been placed on top of the flames.

I have no umbrella, just a flimsy jacket. I put it on anyway. I reach for my purse and tuck it inside. It’s only thirty feet.

I open the door, get out, close it behind me. And I run, clutching the purse. I run into the wind which is more powerful than I imagined.

I run and think about that log which had just been put there—last night—on the fire. John wasn’t asleep. John was pretending to be asleep so he wouldn’t have to see me, even just long enough to say good night.

It’s not the first time.

Flashes of the fight with Nicole break free as my body pushes through the wind. We fight every day now.

Open your eyes!

The fight had been so fast and furious, I had not processed each word. But I do now.

They are open. I see you clear as day, Nicole.