My game was early that day, so as soon as breakfast was over, we all piled in the car. I was already dressed for the game—cleats and shin guards and jersey—and I was bouncing the ball on my knee in the backseat.
We got to the field, and I started looking around the back seat, but I couldn’t find my gloves. I remembered they were on the bench near the front door. I left them there after practicing with Dad in the back yard the night before.
“How can you forget your damn gloves, Thomas?” Dad snapped. “You’re a keeper, for God’s sake.”
“They didn’t get back in my bag,” I said. “I thought they were in there.”
“You have to check these things!” Dad growled as he shook his head.
“Don’t yell at him, Lou,” Mom scolded. “I’ll go back and get them. We’re only five minutes from home, and there’s plenty of time before the game.”
And so she left.
And we waited.
And waited.
And waited.
The coach called us to the center of the field. We all shook hands, and the ref blew the whistle, so I started the game without gloves.
When I stopped the ball, I had to rub my hands on my legs to get rid of the sting. That’s what I was doing when I heard Dad’s phone go off. At about the same time, Sheriff Skye showed up on the edge of the field. He headed for Dad.
The game went on, but I lost focus as the sheriff went up to him and put his hand on Dad’s shoulder.
The ball went into the net behind me as I watched Dad jump out of his folding chair and start running back to the parking lot. Sheriff Skye went over to talk to my coach and then the ref before the whistle was blown to start play again. Coach called me over to the sideline and said I needed to go with the police officer. While in the cruiser on the way to the hospital, Sheriff Skye told me about the wreck.
I put on a button down shirt with a pair of dark colored Dockers. I pulled my black tie out of the closet and in front of the bathroom mirror, I tied it in a full Windsor knot. I pulled a warm sweater on over my shirt in case it was cold outside. After I was dressed, I headed past Dad—who was passed out on the couch—and slipped outside. Back behind the garage, I picked up the pot of bright yellow mums.
Gripping the key to the Jeep, I slowly turned it, and the car started smoothly. I made sure the mums weren’t going to tip over on the floor of the passenger seat and started heading down the drive. It didn’t take long to get there—it wasn’t that big of a town—and the city cemetery was on the same side of town as our house.
I pulled into the parking lot and got out of the car, carrying my potted mums and a small hand shovel. I walked through the trees and around a couple of large stone monuments. There was a little mausoleum in the center of the cemetery, and I walked to the left of that. Near the edge of the path, there was a large, rectangular stone of mauve-colored marble.
Francis Malone
Beloved Wife and Mother
Getting down on my knees in the damp grass, I used the little shovel to dig a hole big enough for the mums, pulled the flowers out of their plastic pot, and planted them in the ground next to the headstone. Leaning back on my knees, I took a deep breath as I ran my hands through my hair. I shifted a little and dropped my ass down next to her headstone and then pulled my knees up close to my chest.
“Hi, Mom,” I said softly. “I, um…I brought you some flowers. They were on sale.”
I cleared my throat and wrapped my arms around my legs.
“I’m sorry for what I did,” I whispered. “I’m still keeping my promise, though. I’ll never forget anything again—I swear it. I haven’t forgotten anything since that day, Mom. Nothing.”
For a while I just sat, reliving the day over and over again…the ride to the hospital, sitting in the waiting room for hours before someone comes to take me back to another room where I sit for hours again. Dad finally coming in, freaking out, taking me to the room where she is—hooked up to a dozen noisy machines that are the only things keeping her alive. Saying goodbye. Being taken away by the nurse who tries to give me coloring books to occupy myself while Dad is switching off the machines. Going home. The look in Dad’s eyes as he hits me over and over again. Knowing it was my fault. Knowing I deserve all of it.
He told everyone I was too torn up to come to the funeral. He didn’t want them to see the bruises.
It started raining, of course, but I only barely noticed.
“School’s pretty good this year,” I said to the slab of marble beside me. “The team is doing well. Oh, yeah—Real Messini is actually checking me out, too. That made Dad happy.”
I reached over and yanked one of the mums off the plant. My fingers slowly shredded the petals from the flower. The rain poured down a little harder, plastering my hair to my forehead. I needed a haircut.
“I’m taking a couple of AP classes. Shakespeare is one of them, which I thought you would like. Biology, too. There’s a girl in there…a new girl. She’s from Minnesota. It’s Sheriff Skye’s daughter. She, um…she’s really…interesting. I think I kind of like her, you know? Not like the other girls…but I never told you about them. I don’t think you’d really approve, you know? Well, no you don’t, but anyway…”
I took a deep breath and wiped some of the rain from my face.
“I think I really like her,” I continued. “She’s just different. She’s smart—I can tell that, even though we only have one class together. The thing is—I kind of pissed her off. She heard me saying some stuff…it wasn’t very nice stuff…and now she won’t talk to me. I don’t know what to do.”
I reached out and ran my finger over and over the letter “F” carved into the marble.
“I wish you were here so you could tell me what I should do. I’ve never really had to…well, to do anything to get a girl to like me. I don’t know how to do that. I’m not really sure what there is to like. She said I was a jerk…but she danced with me at the city banquet. She’s so pretty, and she smells good.”
I closed my eyes and leaned my head against my knees. My clothes were soaked through, and there was a breeze that was sending a chill through me. I leaned over and placed the side of my face against her headstone. I could feel the indentation of her name against my cheek. When I opened my eyes again, my vision was all blurred from pressing against the stone.
“I miss you,” I whispered. “Dad misses you, too. I know he doesn’t come here and tell you that, but he really does. I helped him tie his bowtie again this year. He’s afraid of being alone when I’m gone. I told him to come with me, but I don’t think he really wants to. I just remind him of you, and it hurts him too much to have me around and to know it’s all my fault. He’s stuck. He doesn’t want me around, but he doesn’t want me gone, either.”
I closed my eyes again, trying not to think…not to remember.
It didn’t work.
I listened to the rain.
I listened to my heartbeat.
I listened to the bass, choking sounds as I tried to breathe deeply.
At some point, the rain stopped.
I blocked out the sounds altogether, and listened to the sounds inside my head—the sounds of the machine that was keeping her body alive even though she was already gone. I listened to my Dad’s screaming and the steady thump of his fists on my body.
“Thomas?”
I didn’t move.
“Thomas?” This time, the sound was accompanied by a soft touch against my hand. I opened my eyes to long, muscular legs encased in red running shoes. I licked my lips and thought about how I might respond, but I didn’t know what to say.
“Come on, Thomas.”
The first hand was joined by another, and they started to work together to pull me up by my arm. I obliged, pushing myself first to my knees and then to my feet. As my eyes managed to focus a little more, I saw Nicole at my side, wrapping her arm around my waist and leading me away.
“Rumple?”
“Yes?”
&nb
sp; I sighed and leaned my head on top of hers. She kept her arm around me as we walked toward my car.
“Give me your keys,” she said.
“Why?”
“I really don’t think you should be driving.”
I tried to process the information.
“You want to drive my Jeep?”
“I think that would be best, yes.”
“It’s a stick.”
She turned her head to look up at me and raised her eyebrows.
“I can drive a stick.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.”
I reached into my sodden pocket and pulled out my keychain. She took the keys from my hand and clicked the fob a couple of times before opening the passenger door and pushing me inside. I looked around a bit—I’d never seen my car from this angle before. It was strange to see someone else getting into the driver’s seat and turning the key.
“What’s your address, Thomas?”
“Not going home.”
“You should go home.”
“No,” I replied.
“Where is your dad?”
“He’s home.”
“You should be with him.”
“No…it’s too soon.” I looked over to her. My eyes hurt, but I tried to keep them open anyway. “I can’t go home yet.”
She sat there and looked at me a minute and then huffed a breath through her nose.
“Do you want to come back to my place?”
I began to focus again as I realized just what she was saying, and more importantly, the fact that she was speaking to me at all. I could only nod in response, afraid any actual words would remind her that I was a jerk.
She turned her head to look out the back window as she shifted into gear and headed out of the cemetery while Shakespeare echoed through my head.
“In the course of justice, none of us should see salvation: we do pray for mercy.”
I knew what was happening as Nicole pulled me from my car and led me up to the front door of her house, but I was still in a daze. Undoubtedly, I would remember it all later with crystal clarity, but while it was happening, everything was sort of a blur.
Nicole held open the door while I stood on the porch and just watched her. She continued to watch me as she tilted her head toward the foyer.
“Are you going to come in?” she asked.
I looked down at myself.
“I’m all wet,” I said.
“Yeah, you are,” she agreed. “Come in anyway; take your shoes off here by the door.”
I did as she said, but even with my shoes and socks off, I was still dripping a bit.
“You are soaking wet,” she said. “Is that a wool sweater?”
“Um…I don’t know. Maybe?”
Her fingers ran down the sleeve.
“Well, I’d say it’s pretty much ruined,” Nicole said. She pursed her lips together and looked up at me again. “Let’s get it off, okay?”
“Okay.” My head was still pounding as I stared at her, unmoving.
Nicole took a deep breath and sighed, then reached up and unbuttoned my sweater. She pushed it off my shoulders and hung it on a hook next to her father’s police jacket. She pulled at the knot of my tie, loosened it, and I bent my head down so she could loop it over and off. She tossed it over the same hook as the jacket. Her fingers brushed over the front of my button-down shirt once, and then she began to release the buttons one at a time.
“You’re freezing,” Nicole said quietly as she finished with the last button. Her fingers pushed my shirt open. I couldn’t do anything but watch her hands in seemingly slow motion, trailing up my chest and easing my shirt off my shoulders and down my arms.
“Come on upstairs. The towels are up there, and I’ll find you something else to put on.”
I followed her blindly up a flight of stairs to a small landing. There were three doors—two leading to bedrooms and one to a bathroom. She grabbed two towels from the cabinet under the bathroom sink and placed them on the counter.
“Dry yourself off a bit, okay?”
“Okay.”
She walked into one of the bedrooms and left me in the bathroom. I dried my chest and arms a bit, but I started shivering anyway. I used the towel to rub my hair, but it just flopped back over my forehead again. Nicole walked back in holding a plain white T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants.
“These should work, I think,” she said. “I can put your other stuff in the dryer, but I’m not sure there’s any hope for the sweater. Go ahead and put these on, and I’ll see what I can do.”
“Okay.”
She looked up at me again.
“Thomas?”
“Yeah?”
“Can you get yourself changed, or do you need help?”
Her words finally penetrated, and I glanced down at the towel still in my hand and the clothes she had placed on the counter.
“I can do it,” I replied quietly.
She nodded and closed the bathroom door.
I pulled the button of my Dockers open and dropped the zipper. I had a hard time getting the wet fabric down my legs but managed to do it without falling over. I yanked the sweats and T-shirt on, but the sweats were falling off my hips. I found a drawstring inside and tightened it a bit. I picked up my wet pants and boxers but wasn’t really sure what I should do with them. I didn’t want them dripping all over the place, so I just hung them over the edge of the bathtub. I opened the bathroom door and wandered out to the little hallway.
I glanced into one of the rooms and knew right away it was Nicole’s. I recognized the window because of the little desk and chair right under it. There was an old desktop computer with a CRT monitor sitting on top of it. On the other side of the window, where I wouldn’t have been able to see from the outside, was a full-sized bed with a blue comforter over it, a dresser with a lamp, and a nightstand containing an MP3 player, and a stack of dystopian-themed books.
“Thomas?”
My head kept pounding, and I couldn’t bring myself to answer. I felt her come up beside me, and her hand touched my elbow.
“Geez, Thomas—you’re absolutely freezing,” Nicole said as her hand brushed up and down my arm. “Your skin feels like ice.”
She looked me up and down, and her voice softened.
“Come here,” she said as she took me by the hand and led me to the edge of her bed. She pulled back the comforter and the sheet under it and placed her palm on my shoulder blade, pushing me forward. “Get in.”
“In your bed?” I asked.
“You need to warm up,” she said, “and you look like you’re about to fall over.”
I didn’t have any energy to argue with her even if I had been so inclined. Once my head made contact with her pillow, and I was completely encompassed by her scent, there was no way I was going to protest. I inhaled deeply as my eyes closed and my body sank into the warmth of the blankets Nicole pulled over me.
“My mom died today,” I heard myself say and then corrected myself. “I mean…on this day.”
“I know,” Nicole told me. “I saw the date on the stone.”
“What were you doing there?” I asked.
“Running,” she said. “I usually run in the morning, but it was raining too hard. When the rain stopped, I decided to go. My route takes me past the cemetery, and I saw your Jeep there. I looked around, and I saw you on the ground. I thought you might be…hurt or something. I didn’t know about the day…”
Her voice trailed off, and I nodded. It made sense. I felt the bed drop a little and opened my eyes. Nicole was sitting beside me with her eyes full of concern.
“Is this okay?” she asked. “I mean, if I sit here?”
I looked up at her and nodded again. She was quiet for a minute, and I just kept basking in the scent that was all around me as I stared blankly toward her bedroom wall.
“Thomas? How long were you out there?”
“What time is it?”
“Almost three.”
/>
“In the afternoon?”
“Well…yes.”
I turned my eyes into the pillow. I had left the house shortly before eight in the morning.
“A while,” I finally said.
“You were soaked,” she reminded me. “It hadn’t been raining for a good hour when I saw you.”
I shrugged, which made the blanket shift off of my shoulder. Nicole reached up and fixed it again.
“Do you want anything?” she asked. “Are you hungry? Or I could make some hot chocolate. That might warm you up.”
I shook my head and closed my eyes. I sank further into the pillow and finally started to feel a little warmer. At least I wasn’t shivering anymore. The mattress shifted again, and I opened my eyes to find Nicole standing to walk out the door.
“Stay!” I reached my hand out from under the blankets, toward her.
Nicole turned back toward me and slowly returned to the edge of the bed. I relaxed again as her fingers ran down my arm. When she got to my wrist, I flipped my hand over and wrapped my fingers around hers. I looked up to her just to check her expression, but she didn’t seem to mind. I closed my eyes again. Soft fingers brushed over my temple and began tidying the hair that was plastered to my forehead. Her fingers continued up and over my head, pushing the longer strands back over the top of my head as my consciousness faded into the background.
I felt as if I were floating—my mind only barely comprehending the images in my brain.
Nicole’s hand still stroked my hair, but we were sitting out on the cliff near the ocean with the wind blowing across our skin. I had my legs pulled up against my chest, and Nicole’s were sticking straight out. She was pivoting her feet back and forth at her ankles.
“Is this it, Thomas?” Her voice was a low whisper over the wind and the waves. “Is this the real you, without the costumes?”
I looked down and realized I was sitting on the rock, naked. I looked back up at her, trying to figure out if I should be embarrassed by my lack of clothes, but she was only looking at me inquisitively as she awaited my answer.
I didn’t have one for her.
I was disoriented for a moment when I finally woke up, but I didn’t feel at all concerned about where I was.