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“Feeling dead while your body still walks this earth is far worse than being dead.”
“It’s the not knowing that kills me. A mixture of hope and grief is toxic, like combining ammonia and bleach. On their own, you can stand it at least for a little while, but together, it’s deadly.”
I read about crying once, when I couldn’t stop after Dad left. I wanted to know why it happens or what the point of it is. What I learned is that no one knows for sure. One theory is that it tells others we’re in pain, triggering a human connection. Emotional tears are thicker, fatty sacks of protein. They fall slowly, clinging to our cheeks, declaring to those around us that we need help, that we cannot cope on our own. And I think that’s where I’m at. It’s where I’ve been for a very long time—stuck, unable to endure, to persist, to live.
I sob, my body quaking and trembling against his. And although I’m falling apart—somehow, I feel whole in his arms. That is why we cry.
You can know a person your whole life but never really know them. Because they only have to show you what they want you to see.
You don’t believe in monsters until you’re living with one . . . and even then, you don’t believe until you’re looking in the mirror, realizing you’ve become one of them.
“Things like buttons and keys go missing. People shouldn’t.”
They say the truth will set you free, but they don’t tell you it can set you free in the same way death does.
But then again, grief is like an airport. There are no rules or social norms. You just do what you gotta do to pass the time until you reach your next destination.
I always knew it was meaningful. People don’t use their last breaths on worthless words.
When you have nothing, you have everything to prove.
I don’t think I can live with a half-truth. A half-truth is just a whole lie.
“When you staged Emma Harper’s bicycle at the Dead End.” I clench my jaw and fold my arms across my chest. “Yeah, so? I wasn’t going to sit around and let an innocent man rot in prison for something he didn’t do.” Brian turns to face me. He wears a look of frustration mixed with disappointment. “Well, you won’t have to worry about that anymore . . . because Charles Gallagher is dead.”
Resentment only poisons the person who consumes it, not the one it’s intended for.
“It feels like both yesterday and a lifetime ago.” Lucas tilts his head. “It’s funny how time works. They say it’s linear but sometimes it feels like it’s happening all at once. Ya know?”
“My dad’s death wasn’t an accident,” he says. “Yes, it was. It was a hunting accident.” “No, he committed suicide.” I shake my head, but no words come out. “He did, Beth. He even left a note behind. My mom just hid it, and the sheriff helped make sure the cause of death was listed as accidental for life insurance purposes. He felt bad for her, and I think a bit guilty after never finding the person responsible for Emma’s disappearance.”
“I think my dad had something to do with Emma going missing.” “What? Why would you think that?” Lucas takes a seat on the mattress. “Because of the letter he left behind.” “What’d it say?” “It said he couldn’t forgive himself for what he’d done.”
“I worried that I was like him or could be like him.” He looks up at me again. “So, I broke it off with you. I figured I was doing you a favor. Protecting you.”
“Maybe he wasn’t referring to Emma,” I say, taking a step toward Lucas. “What else would it be about? Plus, he killed himself on the two-year anniversary of her disappearance.”
This might be a mistake, but I can’t keep this from him, knowing that he’s blamed his dad all these years and that my parents destroyed the future I should have had with Lucas.
I know what happens next. My dad appears covered in blood. But it’s just static.
“I mean he’s dead.” “How?” I ask. Apparently, I’m going to have to pull every single detail out of him. We used to never keep anything from one another, but now it seems we keep everything. He lowers his head. “Eddie killed him.”
I sit there silently listening to my husband as he tells me what happened to Emma Harper and everything that occurred as a result of what we did. By the time he’s finished speaking, I hate him and I hate myself, but I don’t blame him . . . because I would have done the exact same thing.
You’re not the child I wanted, but you’re the one I deserved. –Regretfully, your mother
Wtf?! How awful.
My eyes go to the crosses, and I realize there are more of them, six to be exact. Two rows of three sit on either side of the clearing. Timmy, Sasha, Mooch, Butterfly, Goofy, and Garfield. I inch closer to the opposite end of the clearing where the other three crosses stand. Butterfly, Goofy, and Garfield.
I drop to my knees and use my hands to scoop and scrape away the soil, unearthing whatever it is that’s been buried here. When it comes into view, I gasp for air, falling backward, choking, unable to breathe. It’s a skeleton. But it’s not an animal.
I’ve taken these secrets to the grave, but that’s as far as I can take them. Laura Thomas
I weep for Goofy. It was what Mom used to call Dad because he could never keep a straight face, even when he was mad. I know it’s him because of the gold wedding band hanging loosely from the bones of his ring finger. My mother’s warning comes back to me, but now I understand what she was saying, at least part of it. Your father. He didn’t disappear.
Lucas looks at me with wild, tearful eyes. “What is it?” “Don’t trust . . .” I say. He takes another step forward. “What? Don’t trust what?” “Not what . . . who.” I hang my head, shaking it back and forth in disbelief. “Who shouldn’t you trust, Beth?” he asks. The sound of metal hitting bone twangs with a dull thud, immediately muffled out of existence by the rain and wind. My head snaps up just as Lucas falls to the ground, blood gushing from where the shovel connected with his skull. I want to run to him but I can’t. I want to run away but I can’t do that either. Neither fight nor flight has
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“You should have just left the past in the past, Beth,” Michael says, gripping the handle of the bloody shovel.
My eyes go to the graves and the remains inside of them. “This is why you wanted the house so badly, isn’t it?” “Ding. Ding. Ding. If someone would have just let me give her a ton of money for this dumpy piece of shit house, we would all be on our merry way, but nope. You just couldn’t do that, Beth.”
“Probably opened that letter from Mom and went and got a fix. Shit, when I read it, I thought about shooting up heroin, and I don’t even do drugs, so I can’t imagine what it did to her.” He smirks. “What are you talking about?” “I may have switched mine with hers,” he says with a shrug. “Mom had much nicer things to say to Nicole than she did to me, which was surprising since one of us is a drug addict and the other is a successful tech entrepreneur.” “Yeah, and one of you is a murderer. So, I bet for Mom, that canceled out your success.”
“Did you kill Emma?” I ask. “No . . . it was an accident.” “How? If it were an accident, Mom and Dad wouldn’t have buried her. They would have called the police.” “Maybe. Maybe not.” He shrugs. “It’s hard to know what someone will do in a stressful situation.”
“We were playing down by the creek, skipping rocks, just goofing around. We climbed the hillside to the bridge, so we could skip rocks from up high. Emma leaned over the guardrail and pretended she was in that Titanic movie, arms out, declaring she was the queen of the world.” There’s a sheen to his eyes, but he speaks with no emotion like he’s reading from a cue card, a rehearsed speech. “I thought it’d be funny to scare Emma, so I ran at her like I was going to push her off. I wasn’t going to, but she turned just in time to see me running and got startled. She leapt back and fell.”
“What about Dad?” “I told him what happened later that night after everyone got back from searching for Emma. He cried and he held me and he said he would take care of it.”
The memory of Dad pushing me off my bike and out of the way of an oncoming car floods my mind. His head cracked against the windshield as he took the hit that would have probably killed me. Only my small knees were scuffed up, thanks to him. That was the kind of man he was. He would do anything to protect his children. Dad didn’t go to the police to report Emma’s death because he didn’t think he had a choice. It couldn’t have been an accident.
“Dad went off on me. Screaming, ‘How many more holes do I have to dig back here, Michael? My marriage is already buried in there, as are our souls. We are nothing because of you!’ and on and on. He had every right to be mad and yell, but he should have been doing that in a mirror. He made his own decisions. But then he lunged at me, wrapped his hands around my neck, and squeezed as hard as he could. He was trying to kill me, and . . . it was self-defense.”
“What about Mom?” His gaze meets mine. “What about her?” “Did she know what you did to Dad?” “She helped me bury him.”
Same reason I erased the tape. Same reason I tore pages out of Mom’s journals.”
It all happened so fast. But it all happened so slowly too. Moments that change us don’t play by the rules of time. They’re everywhere all at once.
“It’s the letter Mom wrote for you. Michael switched his out for yours.”
Now the other letter makes sense.
Grief makes you do things you normally wouldn’t do, the kind of things that splinter your soul.
She hadn’t fallen on her own. Michael had shoved her right off the bridge. We don’t know if Michael meant to push her so hard. You can’t tell from a picture. But he did splash water onto the blood that poured from her skull, making sure it seeped into the dirt. Then he dragged her body under the bridge, covering her with vegetation. He never even checked for a pulse or to see if she was breathing. Fifty photos captured all of it.
They say the love you have for a child is unconditional. I don’t believe that anymore. There are conditions. And the condition I had for Michael was that I would love him forever and always . . . but only at a distance from that day forward.
As I scan the room and watch my daughter smiling, delighted for her aunt, and my husband bouncing our son on his knee, I can’t help but reflect on what our parents did. They weren’t bad people. They were good, and they loved with every ounce of their being. They wanted the best for their kids. All parents want that. But they made poor decisions in an effort to protect their children. They were human, and they were flawed. Sometimes we do the wrong thing for all the right reasons. I don’t blame my parents or hate them for what they did. Because as I look at my own children, I know I would do
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I spent my whole life being nervous up until I realized that life happens in between the beats of our own heart, and if it thumps too fast, there’s no space for us to live.
“What would you say to your brother, Michael, if he was sitting right here, Nicole?” “I’d tell him I love him. I’d remind him of the times he used to sleep on my bedroom floor when we were kids because I was terrified of the monsters that lived under my bed. I’d thank him for keeping me safe and keeping the monsters at bay. But I’d also tell Michael I’m sorry for not protecting him from them too.”
“‘The best stories come from those that are flawed, broken, really. Those who have endured trials and tribulations. Those who have faced the world and come out on the bottom. Only they can tell stories worth listening to, for they have had more than one beginning, more than one middle they’ve dragged themselves through, and more than one ending . . . and despite it all, their story continues.
Thank you to my mom for capturing so much of my childhood with that hefty camcorder you lugged around on your shoulder. It was me watching those home videos when I was missing you that led to this story. I like to think it was you that brought the idea to me.
I felt this.
