Authors: Lauren Sattersby
“I don’t believe you,” she said after a moment, “and you need to leave.”
Chris grabbed Allison’s arm and hauled her to a standing position. “Tell her to stop upsetting Mom,” he growled in my direction.
“Let’s calm down,” I said to the room at large—how the hell had I become a mediator in this business?
Probably because Chris needed me to be one, which shouldn’t have been as much of an incentive as it was. Fucker turning my life upside down and then making me realize I liked it that way.
Allison frowned and yanked her arm away from Chris. “I’m sorry,” she said, more to Mrs. Raiden than to me and Chris, “I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“What happened to my son?” Mrs. Raiden said. “Not that I believe you. But what happened to Chris if what you’re saying is true?”
Allison opened her mouth but I spoke over her, “It was an accident.”
“He killed himself,” Allison said. “It wasn’t an accident.”
“Chris . . . killed himself?” Mrs. Raiden said, her eyes huge and distant, and it was exactly the same expression Chris had worn on his face in the bathroom when he thought I would forget about him, and that was a punch to the gut.
“He didn’t,” I said, glaring at Allison. “It was an accident.”
Allison frowned at me even more deeply than before. “He knew what would happen.”
“Um, just a second, Mrs. Raiden.” I gave Allison my most lethal bitch-face. “Come outside.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Stop being a child,” I snapped at her. “Stop it. Come outside for a minute.”
She stuck her nose in the air as if to say “I’m doing this because I want to and not because you’re making me” and stalked over to the door. I followed her outside into the hall.
“What the fuck was that?” I demanded.
“Don’t use that language around me,” she practically hissed.
I crossed my arms. “You just tried to tell your mother that Chris was a suicidal junkie. So I can say whatever the
fuck
I want.” I emphasized the word “fuck” even though it was a little childish. Still.
“Chris
was
a suicidal junkie,” she said, crossing her arms too. “It’s true, and you can’t tell me it isn’t.”
“He was a junkie,” I admitted, because there was no sense in denying that. “And he did the wrong thing a lot of the time. But he wasn’t suicidal, and he wasn’t a bad man.”
“You don’t know him.” She let her arms drop to her sides, and then seemed to reconsider and crossed them again. “You don’t know what he was like.”
I glared at her. “I know him pretty well by now,” I said, “and I’d be willing to bet that you don’t know him nearly as well as you think you do.”
“He’s my brother,” she argued. “I think I know him better than someone who only met him a few months ago. If you’re even for real with this ghost business.”
“He just hugged you on the couch,” I pointed out. My voice kept wanting to rise, and I kept telling it to stay cool. “I don’t know how I can prove it any better than that.”
“I don’t know how you did that.” She stared at the door to the room like she could see through it.
I sighed. “Look, I didn’t come here to stir shit up. He just wanted to show you that he cares. And you said this was the way he could show you. So here we are.”
“He needs to say good-bye to Momma too,” she said. “He needs to show her he cares. Not just me.”
I shrugged. “Not really.”
She stared at me with wide, suspicious eyes. “What do you mean? Of course he does.”
“Well, look at it from his point of view,” I said, prying my arms from their crossed position and trying to relax my tightened muscles. “Your mom doesn’t know he’s dead. She doesn’t know he was a junkie. She thinks he’s a twelve-year-old boy who hasn’t done anything really bad in his life. And I’m willing to bet that when he was the age she thinks he is, he was more open with showing her he cared.”
Allison kept frowning, but after a moment she gave a curt nod.
“So as far as she’s concerned, he’s good. Their relationship is good. He has nothing he needs to say to her.” I spread my hands in front of me. “And besides, she won’t remember. Why upset her when she won’t remember?”
“He needs to say good-bye.”
“That’s what he’s doing,” I said. “That’s what he’s trying to do, anyway. But the important thing is that he wants to show you that he loves
you
. Because it won’t matter tomorrow what she thinks about what he says and does today, but it will matter what you think.”
“And he thinks that one hug will change the years he was awful to me?” she demanded, and I was briefly concerned that the poison in her words would burn my face.
“No, he doesn’t think that,” I snapped back at her. “But he’s got to start somewhere. And besides, we don’t know how long he has. He could disappear any second and do you want
that
,” I motioned back at the room, “to be the last thing you said to him?”
She grimaced, her nose wrinkling like she’d smelled something bad, but after a moment she sighed. “No. I don’t want that.”
“He can’t make up for everything in one afternoon,” I told her, “but you have to cut him some slack and believe that he’s trying. You know?”
Allison dropped her gaze to the white tile on the floor of the hallway. “And
you
believe he’s trying.”
“Yeah, completely,” I said, nodding for emphasis. “Trust me, if you could see his face and the way it crumpled when you said you didn’t forgive him, you would believe him too.”
“And you’re . . .
with
him,” she said, curling her lip when the words were out.
I shrugged. “He said you wouldn’t be okay with it. But yes.”
“I don’t understand why he couldn’t find a nice girl,” she said, shaking her head.
I sighed again. “I’m not going to have this argument with you. Just know that we’re happy together. For however long this lasts.”
She didn’t respond to that, just kept staring at the floor with her jaw set. After a moment, I sighed deeply. “Look, it doesn’t matter right now, okay? Give him a break and assume he’s sincere. And stop talking about the drugs and claiming he killed himself, because that upsets everyone and it doesn’t help the situation at all.”
She nodded slowly. “Yeah.” She was still frowning, but at least she wasn’t arguing with me. I would take it.
“Hey, again, I’m not saying Chris is a pure innocent snowflake who hasn’t done anything wrong,” I said. “I’m just saying that you should forgive him. Just like you’d want him to forgive you.”
Another long pause. “I’ll
think
about it.”
“Well, that’s all I can ask,” I said. “Now give him a hug and don’t tell your mom anything that isn’t helpful to the situation.”
She grimaced again, but lifted her nose in the air and walked back in the room.
It wasn’t until I’d followed her inside that I realized Chris hadn’t been in the hall with us, and I had a flash of sheer blind panic before I saw him sitting beside his mother. He looked up at me and smiled and that was just fucking unfair, to make my heart skip a beat after it had stopped for a moment only a few seconds before. And it was even
more
fucking unfair to make me start thinking things like that when six months ago I would have laughed at myself so hard my spleen would have ruptured for that sort of shit.
“I was telling Mom about
The Meadow Larks
,” he said. “I think she would have liked it.”
I raised both eyebrows, and he continued: “She can’t hear me, no. But it feels nice to just . . . sit here and tell her about my day. You know?”
I nodded at him and then jerked my head toward Allison. Chris must have figured out what I meant, because he got to his feet and walked over to her. He placed his hand on her shoulder for a second and then pulled her in for a tight hug. She put her arms around him and this embrace seemed way less tense and awkward than the one they’d had on the couch a few minutes before.
I looked at Mrs. Raiden, who was watching Allison move all weird with the air and knitting her brow. “Mrs. Raiden, you’re not going to remember any of this,” I told her. “But Chris really does love you.”
“You mean my dead son?” She folded her hands primly in her lap.
I sighed. “She wasn’t supposed to say that. Just take comfort in knowing that you won’t remember any of this tomorrow.”
“So he’s really . . .” She tried again. “He’s really dead. Christopher is dead.”
“Yeah,” I admitted. “But he’s a ghost. So he’s not gone.”
“He’s here?” she asked, looking around.
“He’s hugging Allison,” I said, turning to address Chris. “Do you want to hug your mom too?”
“Yeah,” he answered, “I do.” He walked over to Mrs. Raiden’s chair and took her hands in his, then gently pulled her to her feet. She didn’t resist it, which was sort of weird, but then again she was clearly overwhelmed so maybe she was just on autopilot. He put his arms around her like he had with Allison, and she stood there stiffly for a few seconds before she gave in and sagged against his chest.
“I love you,” he whispered to her.
“He loves you,” I told Mrs. Raiden.
“I love him too,” she said. “He’s my little boy. No matter what, he’s my little boy.”
Allison sniffled behind me and Mrs. Raiden sniffled in front of me and while I was totally cool with being strong for Chris while he cried, that coolness did not extend to women I didn’t know. “Oh, come on, guys, don’t cry.”
As it turned out, that was the wrong thing to say, because it made Allison burst into tears and push her way into the hug so that the three of them were all clinging to each other in a circle.
Chris buried his face in his mother’s hair and I could hear him taking deep breaths through it, and when he looked up at me, his eyes were red and bright. His posture was sagging and his fingers were clenched in the fabric of the women’s shirts, and it tore at my heart. I remembered that I’d just promised him he wouldn’t ever have to do this alone again, so I took a step forward and slipped my arms around his waist, splaying my fingers out over his stomach and pressing my lips against the back of his neck.
“I love you,” I whispered, hoping it was soft enough that the women wouldn’t hear. “I love you and I’m here.”
When we all finally broke apart, Chris turned around and pulled me all the way into his arms, holding me tightly for a few seconds before releasing me. He still looked shattered, but now the pain seemed like something that would heal, like when doctors rebreak bones so that they can knit back up the right way. It probably still hurt like fuck, but he had peace in the depths of his eyes, and I wondered how long it had been since he’d felt at peace about anything.
When visiting hours were over, Allison drove us back to her house. I let Chris sit up front with her even though he was invisible to her, and I sat diagonally from him, but it totally wasn’t because I couldn’t deal with not being able to see his face. Not at all. And I was definitely not mapping the way his profile stood out against the city passing by outside the windows, and I was absolutely not desperately hoping that he would turn and look back at me. And when he
did
turn around in his seat and look back at me, I most certainly did not smile like an idiot and go starry-eyed at him. Because that would be dumb.
He told me a few more things to tell Allison, but nothing too life-altering. Mostly just repetitions of “I love you” and “I’m sorry” and “tell Abigail I loved her” and things like that. Allison burst into tears one more time before we got back to her house, but this one was short-lived.
She parked the car in her driveway and got out. “So . . . you’ll be going now, I guess?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Heading back to Boston.”
“Is Chris still here?”
I laughed, and it was much closer to hysterical than it had been at the nursing home. “Oh, you’d be able to tell if he wasn’t. I would have flipped out by now.”
“Okay,” she said. “Well, I should get your contact information. In case he stays around.”
We exchanged phones and typed in our respective numbers, then stood there awkwardly.
Chris cleared his throat. “Ask her if I can see Abby.”
I relayed the question, and Allison hesitated. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
“I just want to see her,” he said. “I won’t touch her or try and talk to her or anything. She doesn’t even have to know I’m there.”
After I passed that along, Allison’s shoulders sagged. “I guess that would be okay.”
“I love her,” he said, and I repeated it.
“I know. She loves her Uncle Chris too.”
She led us up to the porch and unlocked the door. “She’s probably in the living room with the babysitter.”
Chris walked inside, and I followed him at as much of a distance as I could, because I really didn’t need Abby telling her dad that Mom brought a strange man in the house one night. Chris stood in the doorway of the living room for a long time while Allison stayed beside me.
“God, she’s so pretty,” he said after a while. “She’s going to be a heartbreaker one day. Tell Allison she’s got a wonderful daughter.”
I spoke softly so Abby wouldn’t hear. “He says she’s beautiful and she’s going to break a lot of hearts one day. And that she’s wonderful.”
“Thank you, Chris,” she whispered.
“Do you think she forgives me? Allison?” Chris asked me.
I did think so, but I decided to ask anyway. “He wants to know if you forgive him.”
She paused, then nodded slowly. “If he’s sincerely sorry, then I can sincerely forgive him.”
Chris broke into a brilliant, high-octane smile that stole my breath, and by the time I caught it again, Allison was continuing.
“And I’m sorry for . . . abandoning him. For throwing him out.” She sighed. “We both should have been better to each other. I’m sorry I didn’t do my part.”
“Forgiven,” Chris said immediately. “She’s forgiven.”
“He forgives you,” I told her.
“One more hug?” she asked, her eyes getting bright.
Chris hugged her. They clung to each other for a long time before Chris finally let go and stepped back, and I let out a breath that I didn’t know I’d been holding.
“Let’s go home,” he said to me.