“D-do you own this house?” he asked.
“Yeah, I mean, it was in Sterling’s name, but it’s paid off. It’s not worth much.”
“So you just take it one day at a time then,” he said.
“How? How do I even do that?”
“Lily, stop, you’re just in shock. You’ll take it one day at a time,” Katie encouraged.
“I don’t think I have it in me to do that,” I admitted out loud, staring at the sun pouring through the blurry glass of our ancient windows.
“Yes, you do,” Ansen said.
But he didn’t know, did he? How could he? I certainly didn’t.
I did know I needed to see what burying my mom would cost, though, so I could come up with the funds somehow, get an idea of how much I needed. I picked up my phone and searched for funeral homes in Smithfield. Not knowing what to do, I chose the first one that popped up on the list and clicked their website, searching for their number. I called and a woman’s soft voice answered.
“Legacy,” she practically whispered, setting my nerves on edge.
“Hi,” I greeted, unsure how to speak, to be honest. “I, uh, I need to bury my mom and stepfather.”
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” she began, but it felt rehearsed. It made me feel ill. “We recommend coming in for a consultation. We’ll take very good care of you,” she offered quickly when I didn’t answer right away.
“Uh, I don’t have much money. I was calling to see what my cheapest options are.”
“I understand,” she said, “of course. Our cheapest options start around five thousand.”
Two tears slipped down my face. “Each?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I will never be able to come up with that, I thought.
“I see.”
“Would you like to set up an appointment?” she asked.
“No, uh, I’ll never be able to afford that. Is that standard?” I asked.
“That’s very reasonable, yes, ma’am.”
“I see,” I said, overwhelmed.
“And you don’t do anything cheaper than that?” I asked, feeling ashamed.
There was a pause. “No, ma’am.”
“So what do people do when they can’t afford to bury their family?”
She lowered her voice. “Many people look into cremation. If you work directly with the crematory, you can work out a more affordable option, usually around a thousand dollars.”
Two more tears fell. “Okay, thank you so much,” I told her.
“You’re welcome,” she said, her voice softer, kinder. “Good luck to you and, again, I’m so sorry,” she told me, but that time I thought she meant it.
“Thank you,” I choked out and hung up the phone.
“How much?” Ansen asked.
“She said I could work with a crematory directly and that it would be about a thousand dollars.”
“But that doesn’t include burial or services or anything?” Katie asked.
I shook my head, afraid if I spoke, I’d break down completely.
“I see,” Katie said, unable to offer more.
“I can’t afford any of that,” I told them.
“My great-uncle, when my great-aunt died, couldn’t afford to bury her and the county arranged something. It was a state-run cemetery, I think,” Ansen said.
I nodded, wondering what in the world I was going to do.
Someone knocked on the front door, so I carefully wedged out from underneath a sleeping Callie and cracked open the door.
Trace.
I stepped out onto the porch and closed the door.
“It’s a bad time, Trace,” I whispered.
“Listen,” he said, running a hand through his hair, “about the pictures.”
“Trace, that is so far off my radar right now. I don’t want to talk about this.”
“Listen, Lily, I didn’t really know what I was doing or whatever—” he tried to appease.
“Trace,” I said, fighting tears, “I’m barely holding it together. My mom a-and Sterling died last night and I’m trying to figure out how I’m going to keep my sisters alive and myself from falling off the deep end. I’ll talk to you later.”
All the color drained from his face. “Oh, shit. I’m sorry. I’ll, uh, yeah, I’ll catch you later then.”
He bounded off the porch and I turned back toward the door, sneaking back inside.
“Who was that?” Katie asked.
“Trace,” I answered and sat back down, placing a still-sleeping Callie back on my lap.
“Asshole,” she whispered. “What did he want?”
“Wanted to talk about the pictures. D-did you hear about them?” I asked her. She nodded once. “I sent him away.”
She nodded her head again. I laid my own on the back of the couch.
“Go to sleep,” she said. “Ansen and I will be here. We’ll take care of you guys.”
I faced her and two tears slipped down my cheeks. “Thank you,” I whispered.
***
I woke to Ansen tapping my shoulder. He held my phone toward me. “It’s the coroner,” he offered.
He took Callie off my lap and laid her to the side. I stood, my bones literally cracking; my muscles felt heavy and sore. I took the phone and went to the front porch again. It’d grown dark, which represented something different but just as awful as the light had proved.
“Hello?” I asked, my voice deep from crying.
“Yes, is this Lily Hahn?” a woman’s voice asked.
“Yes, ma’am,” I answered, already crying.
“I’m Dr. Sonia, the coroner for Smithfield,” she introduced herself. Her voice was soft and quiet. “I’ve completed the autopsies and just need you to come confirm identity.”
My heart stopped. “What? Why?” I asked her.
“It’s procedure, Miss Hahn. I’m so sorry.”
“Let me have the address?” I asked.
She told me where I needed to go and I hung up. Katie came outside to check on me and I reached my hand out to her.
“What do we need to do?” she asked.
“I have to identify my mama, Katie.”
Katie started crying and she brought me close, hugged me tight.
“She’s dead because of me,” I sobbed.
Katie shook her head against my neck. “Stop it, Lily. Stop it.”
“It’s my fault,” I insisted.
“Stop,” she said. “I refuse to listen to that. Come on,” she continued, opening the front door so I followed her inside.
“I’m taking Lily into Smithfield,” Katie said.
“Why?” Ansen whispered when Eloise stirred.
“She has to identify them,” she explained.
“Maybe I should go?” Ansen asked.
“No,” I was quick to say. “If the girls wake up, I’d rather you be here since they’ve known you forever.”
“Of course,” he said.
He hugged me and kissed Katie and we headed toward Ansen’s car. Katie drove me. It was a silent drive. Deafeningly silent. I listened to the guilt call out to me, pushing me closer and closer to insanity. It was cruel and incessant.
“I might break, Katie. Will you be there with me?”
“Right by your side. I won’t leave you.”
“Thank you,” I told her as we headed toward our exit in Smithfield.
The morgue was cold and sterile and absolutely horrifying. They had me identify Sterling first. He looked like himself but not; it was hard to explain. I confirmed that Sterling was who he was and I felt nothing for him. He meant nothing to me in that moment, absolutely nothing. I didn’t know if that made me a bad person, but it was as natural a response as it could have possibly been.
Dr. Sonia silently walked to the back of the room and gestured to another body lying on a table. I gripped Katie’s arm as we followed her over. When we reached the body, draped with a clean, crisp white sheet, I nearly vomited. I could follow the outline of my poor mama?
??s face, could see the lines of her worn shoulders. Those shoulders cared for me, cared for my sisters, endured Sterling. They carried the weight of the world.
“Are you ready?” Dr. Sonia asked softly.
“Yes, ma’am,” I lied.
As if in slow motion, she tipped the top of the sheet back. I glimpsed my mom’s hair, dark like my natural color, but shorter. When her face was exposed, my breaths came so fast and hard; I felt like I would faint again. Katie wrapped her arm around me tight.
“Is this Cathleen Byrnes?” the doctor asked.
“Yes,” I whispered.
She covered my mom’s face instantly and the nausea doubled. I took deep, short breaths through my nose and Katie steered me toward the door and into the small entry room of the morgue.
“What funeral home will you be going with?” Doctor Sonia asked.
“I-I can’t afford to have someone bury her or Sterling,” I admitted.
Dr. Sonia nodded as if she’d heard it before. “I understand. Are Sterling or your mother ex-military?” she asked, pulling out forms from a filing cabinet.
“Sterling is but Mama is not.”
The coroner nodded once more and reached for another set of papers from another cabinet.
“Take these home,” she said, her voice quiet. “Fill these out,” she said, pointing to one set, “and take them to the courthouse. The address is here,” she said, tapping the top of one of the papers. “These here,” she said, pointing to the next set, “are for past military. The VA usually handles these cases. Fill these out and mail them to the address on the form. They’ll take care of the rest.”
“I see,” I said, my stomach sinking, “thank you.”
“Of course,” she offered, curtly but kindly.
Katie and I tumbled out of the morgue and rode the elevators up to street level, practically sprinting toward Ansen’s car.
“Get me out of here,” I begged her.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I DIDN’T WASTE TIME. I did everything the coroner instructed me to do. I mailed off Sterling’s stuff and visited the county of Smithfield’s Department of Health and Human Services.
That night, I’d given Ansen half my graduation money so he could go to the store and buy instant ramen and milk and cereal and anything cheap but filling he could find.
“I saw Salinger there,” he said when he came back.
The mere mention of his name sent a pang through my chest and stomach.
“You didn’t say anything to him, did you?”
Ansen looked ill. “Was I not supposed to?”
“I guess it doesn’t matter,” I said.
“He was really worried about you,” he said. “Wanted to know if he could come by.”
“What did you say?” I asked, petrified of his answer.
“I said it was probably not a good time.”
I sighed in relief. “Good,” I replied.
“What happened?” Katie asked. “When we dropped you off?”
“I have no chance with him anymore,” I told her.
“Why?” she asked.
“I’m too dysfunctional for someone like him.”
“We all are,” she said.
We stared at the girls asleep on the couch. They’d clung to me the entire day.
“How does one become functional?” I asked them.
“You’re asking the wrong person, baby girl,” Katie answered.
I couldn’t sleep, so I stared at the stars the entire night, both girls beside me.
The next morning, Ansen and Katie went home to clean up, get a change of clothes, and promised to be back later. Since the girls were still asleep, I slipped away for a moment to take a shower myself. I turned the water on and waited for it to get hot. The tub creaked when I stepped inside it, threatening to break through the bottom, I thought. I could see the strings of the fiberglass peeking through, so it was just a matter of time, I knew it.
I wet my hair and peered down at the few soaps and bottles we had. My mom’s bottle of Suave stared back at me. I picked it up and cracked open the lid, smelling its contents.
“Oh my God,” I whispered. “I killed her. I killed Mama.”
I bawled until the water turned cold, stayed beneath its torturous spray because I felt I deserved it. I only stopped because I heard someone knock on the door. Thinking it was Ansen and Katie, I turned the water off and hastily dressed, my hair still dripping down my neck.
The girls were up, kneeling on the sofa and checking for who it was out the window.
“Who?” I asked them.
“I don’t know them,” Eloise offered, making my heart race.
“Who in the world?” I asked no one.
I opened the door to a stocky woman and a police officer. “Can I help you?” I asked her.
“Miss Hahn, may I come in?”
“I’m sorry, I wasn’t expecting anyone. Are you with the county? Is this about the burial?”
“No, ma’am. I’m with Child Protective Services.”
My gut sank to the floor. “Wait, what?”
“CPS, ma’am,” she offered again.
“Why?”
“There’s been a complaint. May I come in?”
“No,” I told her. “You may not.”
She looked up at the cop and he looked back at her. “Ma’am,” the cop offered sternly, “we can do this the easy way or we can do this the hard way.”
“The hard way,” I demanded, so sick of being blindsided; I was ready for a fight. “Where’s your warrant?”
The woman sighed, as if she’d been expecting it, as if she was above it all. She pulled a piece of paper from her bag and held it up for me.
“What do you want?” I asked, not budging from my spot, blocking their entrance.
“Let us in, please, Miss Hahn,” the cop said, stepping forward.
Going against every fiber of my being, I stepped to the side and let them walk in. The woman glanced around her surroundings then brought pen to paper.
“What is your name?” I asked her.
She looked pissed that I’d even asked but offered it anyway. “My name is Faye Briar.”
I stole a look at the girls. “Eloise, Callie,” I began, “step into your room for me for a second?”
They obeyed me, holding hands as they went. A knock came at the screen door, as I’d left the front door open, hoping they would leave soon. There was another woman there, this time in scrubs.
“This is a nurse for the county, Miss Hahn.”
“Wh-why?” I asked, my voice cracking.
Oh my God, whatever they’d laced that joint with is still in my system.
“Someone has called into CPS claiming your sisters were in danger.”
“Bull. No one called.”
The Faye woman rolled her eyes. “I’ve come to understand that your mother and father are recently deceased?” she asked.
“Very recently,” I said. “We’re still in shock.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” she offered dryly. “You are the only family of the girls?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Your parents didn’t have any extended family?” she asked again.
“Sterling is not my father.”
“Excuse me?” she asked, flipping through paperwork.
“He’s my stepfather and no, we have no other family. They’re all deceased.”
“I see,” she said, clearing her throat and looking up from her papers at me.
“Excuse me, but I’m a little confused. How are my sisters in danger?” I hedged.
“We’ve gotten word that living conditions were unsuitable and that you were addicted to a controlled substance.”
I balked at her. “I am not. Who made the accusation?”
“I’m not at liberty to say,” she offered, shifting her briefcase to the other hand. “We’re here to assess the situation and submit a drug test.”
“I refuse,” I told them, rocking back and forth on my
heels. My arms were crossed, gripping my shirt, damp from my wet hair.
Faye looked me up and down then made a notation on her pad. “That’s fine,” she explained, and my heart slowed down. “Just know that until you submit a drug test, the girls will be placed in a home.”
“Oh my God!” I cried, my hands going to my head. “You can’t do that. Our mom just died. You can’t do that!”
“Miss Hahn, please calm down.”
The nurse stared at our decrepit ceiling and avoided eye contact. The cop laid a hand on his gun.
“Please don’t do this to us. Please. They’ll be scarred for life as it is. Please don’t do this,” I said, bringing my palms out.
The Faye woman nodded at the cop and started toward my sisters’ room.
“No,” I said, and he stopped. “You don’t understand.” I wiped tears away, trying to gain some composure. “I was at a party. I admit I was smoking marijuana. I admit it. That’s all I do. I don’t do anything harder but when I smoked it, I realized too late that someone had laced it with something.” Faye looked uninterested, but she was feverishly scribbling across her pad of paper. “I think they were trying to or maybe they did, I don’t know, rape me or something.” The cop looked down at me, his eyes narrowed at me. “You gotta believe me.” All three adults sat there, their body language rigid and all business. “Oh my God, I’ll take the test. I’ll take it just so I can see what they drugged me with. I have witnesses that will corroborate my story.”
The nurse walked to my mom’s kitchen table, the same one we used to sit together and draw with crayons on, and set down a big plastic folding case. She popped it open and retrieved an alcohol swab, needle, test tubes, a pair of scissors, and a small container with a taped label.
“Miss Hahn—” she began.
“If I do this, are you still taking the girls?” I asked the Faye woman.
If you tell the truth, everything will work out.
“Let’s just take the test,” she hedged.
“You can’t take them. You don’t know what it will do to them.”
I sat down and swiped my face across my sleeve. “First, Faye and I will witness a urine test and after, I’ll take a blood test and a sample of your hair,” she explained methodically.
“Whatever, I don’t care. I just need to know what it was so I can press charges against Trace and clear this whole thing up.”