Those We Love Most (31 page)

Maura was determined not to let him flee this time. It was a cool night in the fickle heart of March, and while there were small patches of snow here and there, it had mostly disappeared from the lawn. Alex was under the tree out front, his head leaning against the base of the trunk. She sucked in her breath and studied him once more from the window before moving to the front foyer. Impulsively Maura yanked open the front door, and with the reflexes of a deer, the boy crouched to run.

“Stop,” she called, with more urgency than she intended. He continued to rise, headed toward the road.

“Alex, please stop.” The boy froze like a statue at the sound of his name and turned slowly toward her. She noted his broad shoulders, the streamlined musculature of an athlete. She could just make out his features in the soft light from the house, the fair hair and darker brows, the frightened eyes. In her mind, Maura had built him up to be some kind of evil force, but the person in front of her now was just a kid, scared and tentative, nervously clenching and unclenching his hands. There was barely enough of a beard to shave on his face. What, exactly, would she say to him now that she had diverted him? Was she really ready for this? Maura had acted so spontaneously and now she felt momentarily unsure.

“Hey,” she offered, coming down the front porch steps to meet him, tugging her sweater tighter around her. “It’s freezing out here. Why don’t you come in?” Alex looked up at her uncertainly and she could see the trepidation in his eyes, the look of a child on the verge of being punished. He had gotten this far and now his fortitude seemed to be deserting him. She softened her voice. “I know you’ve been out there some nights. I watch you. I … I like to think of you as protecting us. Come on in. I’ll make some hot chocolate, but you’ve got to come in.” Maura smiled warmly in the threshold of the door.

“OK,” Alex said awkwardly, looking down at the porch floorboards. She wondered if he were fighting the urge to run.

“Um … I’m uh … Alex Hulburd.” He thrust out his hand.

“I know who you are.” She propped the door with her hip and gestured him in. She was afraid to make a sudden movement, that it might startle him.

“Come on in.”

Alex shoved his hands in his parka pockets, and she caught a faint whiff of smoke mixed with a vague minty smell as he stepped past her. In the front hall foyer the warmth of the house snaked around them when she closed the door, and Alex leaned against the staircase bannister, bending to untie his sneakers.

“You can keep them on,” Maura said quickly, but he had already removed them. “Why don’t you come into the kitchen? My daughter is asleep upstairs and Ryan is at a Boy Scout event. My husband, Pete, is out. But I think you knew that.” She smiled knowingly over her shoulder as she led him down the hall.

“How about that hot chocolate?” she offered. “It’s colder out there than I thought.”

Alex nodded. He stood next to a kitchen stool at the counter, hands still shoved in his pockets. He unzipped his coat and she saw his thin T-shirt with the words
STOP GLOBAL WEIRDING
stamped on it. His hair was long in front, almost swept over his forehead like a mushroom cap, and she had the urge to reach out and brush it back into place.

“Hand me your coat and, please, sit.” She drew her bulky white cable cardigan around her middle and took the kettle off the stove, leaning against the sink as she filled it with water, and then turned on the burner, her slippers scuffling on the wood floor. Maura folded her arms across her body, leaning against the counter, and then sat down on a stool across from him. Her mind was suddenly empty.

“I imagine all of this has been very hard for you,” Maura began somewhat formally.

“Probably not like you,” he murmured. She was afraid he was about to cry.

“What have you been doing? How are your parents?”

“They’re good. I think they’re pretty disappointed in me.” Alex choked back a sarcastic laugh as he said this.

“Your parents? Why?”

Alex hesitated for a moment. “I just told them I’m not going to college next year. I’m working part-time.”

“Yeah?” She waited for him to speak.

“College isn’t for me. Not right now. I got a part-time job at Lowe’s over in Skokie.” He looked down at his hands. “I want to make some money right now.” Maura nodded.

The teakettle began to whistle softly at first and then built to a crescendo. They both turned to look at the stove, grateful for the interruption, and Maura rose. She pulled two mugs out of the cupboard and shook out the hot chocolate packets, adding the hot water and a splash of milk to cool and thicken it.

“Will you go to college eventually?” She met his eyes.

“Maybe.”

“Why don’t you want to go?” she asked simply. She sponged up a milk spill on the stone counter.

“I just can’t see it.” He wrapped his hands around the mug of hot chocolate when she pushed it forward. “I can’t see myself carrying books around on one of those tree-lined campuses. My mom keeps sticking all of these brochures in my room with pictures of these smiling, happy people who all know what they want to be when they grow up.” He flashed a quick, wry smile. “I don’t … I don’t …” He bent down to blow into the mug, swirling the hot chocolate with the force of his breath.

“Deserve it?” she finished. And when he met her eyes, she was sitting down again, looking at him hard. He flicked his gaze back down to the mug, where his finger was absentmindedly tracing a raised logo on the ceramic exterior.

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

“Look, Alex. This right now … is hard. It’s as hard for me maybe as it is for you. I don’t know exactly why you’ve been out on my lawn some nights. You scared me at first, and then I figured out who you were. I know that you wanted to talk to me after James died and I wasn’t ready for a long time. I’m … I’m impressed that you came here … that you came inside. It was a very brave thing to do. But I don’t know if you want my forgiveness or for me to say that it isn’t your fault …” Her voice trailed off. “There are so many things I feel about that day.”

“I guess I don’t exactly know why I’m here either,” he said, somewhat gruffly.

“Alex.” She paused to select what to say next. “The truth is that you were driving the car. We can’t change that. You can’t change that. But you didn’t set out to kill James. You weren’t looking away or driving too fast or …” Her voice had dropped to little more than a whisper and she stopped.

“I’m sorry,” he said simply.

“Bad things happen.” She looked up at him, and her eyes were shining, tears collecting in the corners. “It was an accident. He dashed out. And you just couldn’t stop in time. And I couldn’t save him.” One big fat tear rolled down her cheek and splashed onto the counter. She quickly wiped it with her fingertip and stood to move to the sink, running her hands under the faucet for a moment. “James’s death was the result of a series of circumstances. The wrong place at the wrong time, me turning my attention away for just a second, you being on that stretch of road, the way those cars were parked in the street.” Her voice faltered and then she steadied herself. “A day doesn’t go by, not one, when I don’t think about if I’d done something differently, just one little tweak, one moment changed. If I’d left five minutes earlier, if I hadn’t turned away, or been distracted by the baby in the stroller or …”

“I looked away for a second …,” Alex said abruptly, with knitted brows. He cut his gaze back to his mug. Maura’s head shot up suddenly at the admission. “I was reaching for an empty beer can from the night before, trying to grab it so my mom wouldn’t find it. I took my eyes off the road for a few seconds when I reached down … I haven’t told anyone else that.” A sob escaped out of Alex’s throat, low and achy.

Maura bent her head, her shoulders sagged slightly, and she looked down at her nails, picking the cuticle, looked up at him again and nodded. “You know, I looked away too, Alex. I … wasn’t watching him. Not the way I should have been.” Maura’s eyes were dry, but her voice quavered. “I was looking at a text.” She looked up with a forced smile, her own admission an olive branch.

“I didn’t know what to do. I wrote you that letter, and my family stopped by the house. It was really good that Mr. Corrigan came over that day. I think it helped me and my folks a lot. But then I didn’t know what else to do after that. I figured I would always be the last person you wanted to see.” He was quiet for a few beats. “I did something horrible, and I can’t fix it. And I guess I wanted you to know how bad that hurts.”

They passed the next few minutes in silence, neither one uncomfortable with the lack of conversation. She thought about James at Alex’s age, what it might be like to sit in this kitchen with her own son instead of a stranger. Maura had once believed she might be capable of hating Alex Hulburd forever, and yet the passage of time and her growing acceptance of loss had declawed her. In such proximity to the boy who had killed her son, she was instead drawn to his vulnerability, her maternal compass stirred. They were each nursing a hurt in similar ways, she understood, and for different reasons. A shadow flitted darkly over them both.

The constant
click
,
click
,
click
of the kitchen wall clock seemed to expand in volume as they sipped their hot chocolate. It was Alex who broke the silence.

“Do you … do you believe in God?” He looked at her directly.

Maura sat still, forming her answer. “I do. I want to believe that somebody else is in charge, that there is an order to all this chaos.” She looked up with a half laugh. “But I’m really pissed off at
HIM
right now.” Alex grinned, visibly relieved.

“I read something once,” she began. “About the Holocaust. Someone asked a rabbi how he could believe in God after what had happened to the people in the concentration camps. His answer was that God never promised that life wouldn’t bring pain or suffering. He never told us life would be fair. He just promised to love us and walk beside us during the journey. I think about that sometimes when I get angry that this happened to my family. And I guess it makes me feel a little better on some days.”

“So where do you think you go when you die?” Alex asked.

“I guess I’d like to think that a part of you sticks around. Watching. Protecting, like a guardian angel. I had a dream once that James was doing that. I’d like to believe in angels,” said Maura softly.

Alex nodded but was silent.

“But I think you go somewhere really beautiful,” offered Maura suddenly. “Somewhere very different from where we are now. I want it to be someplace so much better and easier and less weighed down than life here on earth.”

“I’d like to believe in heaven, but I’m not sure I believe in God,” said Alex in a measured voice. “I want to. But I don’t.”

“It’s a hard concept to get your head around … believing in something you can’t see.” Maura nodded. “Especially when you witness so much evil in the world. There are no good reasons why babies die and moms get cancer and people go hungry. Some folks try to tell you that things happen for a reason, but I don’t believe that.” Maura was quiet for a moment, collecting herself. “There is no good reason why people you love get taken from you. No grand plan that I can see. I don’t think anyone is up there moving the tiny chess pieces around.” Alex nodded solemnly.

“But I do think just the everyday living is easier if you believe in something bigger than yourself.” She opened her mouth and then shut it, taking a gulp of the cooled hot chocolate instead. Maura paused, considering her words, and suddenly looked up at Alex, brows furrowed.

“I’ve never really told anyone this except my family. But what I saw, what Pete and I saw, brings me the only real comfort I have. It makes it a tiny bit easier.” Maura drew in a breath, and Alex sat perfectly still.

“At the end … in the hospital, James knew we were there. At least
I
believe he did. He would sometimes open his eyes or turn his head toward our voices. I know he heard us.” Maura shot a quick look at Alex.

“And right before he passed from this world, he saw something so utterly amazing, so beautiful, that he was actually reaching toward it with his hands, like he was trying to grasp it or to catch something. And he was smiling. Even in all that pain and medication he was smiling.” Tears brimmed in Maura’s eyes as she kept speaking. Alex looked down, blinking. When his eyes surfaced, there were tears swimming in them.

“It was a pretty amazing thing to witness, but it was also sort of terrifying. A big part of me didn’t want him to go to whatever it was he saw. I wanted him to stay right here with us. But as his mother, I also could see his excitement. There was so much broken inside my little boy that I knew his life here on earth would be … different … painful. If he even recovered.” Maura shifted on her stool and studied Alex’s expression. He was completely absorbed with what she was saying.

“You know, I remember a few years ago when I was talking with James about heaven. He stopped me and told me to ‘talk about something else.’ When I asked him why, he said it made his heart sad to think that his dad and I would go someplace that he wouldn’t be able to visit. He said, ‘I don’t want to think about when you die ’cause I never want to be without you.’ Those were his exact words.” Tears distorted Maura’s vision as she smiled at Alex. “But that thing that he saw? I know it was more wonderful than any place or vision you or I can imagine. I know this because I saw it on his face. It was the very first time in his life he ever truly wanted to go somewhere without me. He had absolutely no fear at the end, almost like he knew the answer to a secret. That was where he wanted to go.” Maura stopped, and a little moan left her throat. Two teardrops fell onto the counter, and she absentmindedly blotted them with a napkin.