151 Days (6 page)

My mom walked out with Brad’s mom and Mrs. Axeworthy, which kind of stunned me.

“How did I know you guys would be sitting out here waiting?” my mom asked me, smiling.

I did not feel like smiling back. “How bad did it go?”

Mrs. Axeworthy looked at me and grinned. “That’s a funny story.”

D
OROTHY
A
IMES

T
HERE
ARE
things in life that you can never ready yourself for.

I mean, you grow older and you see things and you think, “Well, there is just nothing else in the world that can surprise me.” And then life has a way of coming along and proving you wrong in ways you can barely survive.

I had never been one of those women who believed getting pregnant was going to get in the way of living my life. When I was a little girl, I didn’t dream only of growing up and being someone’s wife: I knew I had other plans. What I’m saying is that I wasn’t one of those women who insisted year after year that they weren’t ready for children. “I’m not ready yet. We’re not ready yet.” That didn’t even occur to me. When I was told I was pregnant, such a joy came over me that I knew there was nothing in the world that would ever compare with that feeling, so why bother trying?

William wasn’t as ready, but he didn’t shy away from being a parent either. The further along I got, the more he embraced it, until the end when he was easily as nervous as I was. I can tell you I had a life before that day in April when I was wheeled into Foster General feeling like I was going to explode. I had dreams and wants and friends and desires, all of them very real to me.

Right up to the point where they handed me my son, and I realized my
life
was just starting.

We ended up selling our part in one of the larger ranches outside of town and using the money to buy a place big enough for the three of us. From that home base, William and I set out to fit into the tax bracket we felt was ours. I wish I could tell you that trying to make friends with the women who were born into that tax bracket was easy, but I think I’ve lied enough for one life. I have fake boobs, fake hair, fake eyelashes, and a pretty convincing fake smile, so a little truth shouldn’t be that painful.

There is a rather large group of people who live in and around Foster with money, and more than a few had children the same age as Kelly. We began to throw parties, attend fund-raisers, and Will took up golfing, all in the name of our infant son. William and I told ourselves we were doing it for Kelly, that we were trying to make influential friends for his sake.

What a crock of shit.

I had a bird growing up named Ola. She was an albino cockatiel and, I thought, a smart bird all around. I say “thought” because one day my mother hung a mirror on the side of Ola’s cage, and the bird was beside herself. She would coo and chirp and preen herself, all in hopes of gaining the mystery bird’s attention, never knowing it was just a reflection. I hate to admit it, but I lost respect for Ola because what was once a clever bird was reduced to looking like a self-centered fool by just adding a mirror into the equation.

I became worse than Ola once I began to socialize with the upper crust of Foster society, the people who lived just under the scale of the old money. I became vain, I became petty, and worst of all, I became a bad mother. Of course, all of this is crystal clear after the fact. There’s nothing like hindsight to make you realize every single one of your flaws when it is far too late to fix them. Kelly grew up with children who had this social Darwinism bred into them unconsciously, and it made him miserable. Kelly was an emotional child. He had wild mood swings, was always on the verge of crying, whether it be from rage or sorrow. He walked around the house on eggshells because we had instilled such a value on the things we had purchased that he felt terrified he would accidentally break something. William pushed him into football because he thought the sport would somehow toughen him up. Again, I did nothing because I was too busy
flirting with the woman I saw in the mirror and trying to find ways to make her more
popular.

All in the name of our son, of course.

When Kelly started high school, everything got worse. He had already pulled away from us, something that didn’t even register with me, since I was so busy trying to maintain our good standing in the community. After Halloween his freshman year, Kelly came to us and asked if he could throw a party for his friends. At first the idea seemed absurd, but he explained that Francis Patterson had let her daughter have a huge costume party that everyone had gone to and enjoyed—everyone but Kelly, who hadn’t been invited. Neither William nor I caught that little detail, because we suddenly saw the value of throwing a party for the children of the people we continued to try to impress.

That first year we stayed home and chaperoned, which is a polite way of saying that I got mildly buzzed and listened to my much drunker husband make inappropriate comments to underage girls. A lot of kids had shown up, and Kelly did seem genuinely happy for once. The next year when he asked to have it again, it was no longer a matter of if he could; it was a matter of if we needed to stay home and chaperone a second time.

Trust me when I say I now realize how insane that sounds.

So we left our fifteen-year-old son alone, with money to throw a party for his teenage friends, and then caught a plane to Dallas so we could have a weekend to ourselves. It was a wonder that someone never called CPS on us. There was some mess when we got back, but what it cost to clean up seemed trivial when compared to the popularity that Kelly seemed to be getting from throwing the parties.

This went on all the way to senior year, when someone ended up taping my son admitting he had feelings for men. He ended up shooting himself a couple of weeks later.

Sorry if that seemed abrupt, but I’m pretty sure we were all thinking the same thing. I am… I was a horrible mother, and my son killed himself. I suppose everything else is just me trying to justify it.

As I was saying at the beginning, there are things in life you can never ready yourself for. Burying your son is one of them. A few years back we had bought plots of land at Foster Hills, the local cemetery. We bought three of them for William, Kelly, and myself and then another three for what we assumed would be Kelly’s future family. Six plots of land so we could stay together as a family even in death.

The fact that our teenage son was the first occupant is as tragic as it is ironic.

I haven’t been there since the day of the funeral. I just can’t bring myself to go out there and look at the tombstone yet. How can I face even the virtual image of my son knowing I have done nothing to atone for the numerous sins I have committed? So instead I sit in my house and try not to look at the many pictures we have hanging up of Kelly; and I wait for something to happen.

As with most things in life, karma takes very little time to catch up with you.

The thunderous declaration of “Goddammit!” came from William’s study followed by the sound of a phone being slammed into its cradle. I didn’t budge. Instead I just sat there and silently counted in my head. It took to twenty-four before he charged into the living room.

“That school is fucking us again,” he roared, waiting for me to ask him how.

He would have to wait a long time.

“Don’t you even want to know what they’re doing?” he asked me, his anger tapering off slightly as he registered my apathetic response.

I said nothing again, which he took as a silent agreement.

“They are going to pass a set of rules about bullying and fag protection this Friday during the school board meeting. Do you know what they are calling them?” He was about to answer his own question, since I hadn’t said a word so far. He froze when he heard my answer.

“Kelly’s Laws.”

His mouth sputtered shut and then twisted into a snarl. “You knew about this?” It was incredible how his anger could shift from targeting the school to me.

I nodded but said nothing more; there was no use.

“Why didn’t you say anything about it?” he demanded.

“What does it matter?” I asked him, my voice sounding like it was coming from a machine. “Our son is dead. What else matters?”

“We still have to live here!” Spittle flew out of his mouth as he leaned toward me, screaming. Lately it seems the madder he got, the less I was inclined to respond. I’m sure he was itching for a fight, but I really couldn’t bring myself to care, so he just kept on screaming. “You think I want our family’s name associated with that kind of garbage? Liberal-loving gay protectors. It’s embarrassing.”

Something inside me began to smolder as he kept complaining.

“We spent all this time trying to build up a reputation in this town, and then something like this happens, and that reputation means nothing.”

Smoke began to rise from the shattered remains of what used to be my heart.

“I am going to have to go down there and tell those idiots that I don’t want Kelly’s name within a thousand miles of that crap.” He looked at his watch and sighed, which seemed to be one gesture too many for me.

“Oh my goodness, I forgot. Kelly’s suicide must have interrupted your plans for the day. He was always such a polite boy. I’m sure that if we’d explained to him about your schedule—” I took a breath and heard a stranger’s voice coming from my mouth, rasping my next words. “—he would have shot himself on a more convenient day.” I actually snarled at William, then choked down my fury.

There was no confusion on his part about what I was saying now. “Of course I knew about it. When they called me and gave their deepest condolences at my loss, they informed me that they would be taking steps to ensure nothing like this would happen again. I was so caught up in the gesture that I completely forgot to factor in how my son’s death would impact our fucking reputation.”

“Dorothy…,” he began to say, but I had been quiet enough.

“No, William, I think I am done listening to you. I said nothing when we came home and you screamed at Kelly because somehow it was his fault that other people had spray-painted stuff on the side of his truck. I said nothing when you planned on sending him to a brainwashing Bible camp to somehow ‘cure’ him of his gayness. I even said nothing when you tried to stop the Tyler boy from speaking the truth at Kelly’s funeral. But you know what? I am done. I told them they could use Kelly’s name, and that decision is final. I cannot believe it is barely a week after we buried our son, and you are still more concerned about our reputation, and, no doubt, your round of golf, but it ends now.” I stood up and watched him stare at me in shock. “And you’re wrong.
We
do not have to live here—I do. You’re free to get the hell out, and don’t bother coming back. Because effective right now, William, there is no ‘us.’”

I waited for him to say something, but it was his turn to say nothing.

“Don’t be here when I get back.” I locked eyes with him. “I’m not kidding.”

I grabbed my purse and left, never once looking back.

I
WALKED
into Nancy’s and saw Gayle sitting in one of the booths talking to someone. I couldn’t place him from the back, but as I walked by and took a table, I could see it was Brad, Kelly’s best friend from school. Instead of sitting down, I made my way to the back where the restrooms were and fled into the women’s room before I could be seen. Tears came unbidden as I hid in one of the stalls.

Just seeing Brad had brought back a flush of memories I had been fleeing from all week, and I couldn’t stop them. Brad had practically grown up in our house. For a while he was like the brother Kelly never had. We had always talked about having more kids, but it never happened. Instead we focused all our efforts on the one son we did have, which of course became a euphemism for “focusing only on ourselves.” I wonder, if he had a sibling, whether things would have been different.

“Dorothy?” a voice asked me from the other side of the stall.

I recognized Gayle’s voice and tried to wipe the tears away quickly. “Just a second, please,” I called back, wondering what a couple of seconds would accomplish. Sighing, I opened the stall and walked out slowly. I felt like a little girl getting caught by a truant officer.

“I thought I saw you rush past,” she said, reaching out and pulling me into a hug. “I didn’t expect to see you out yet.”

I hugged her back and took a deep breath for the first time since I found Kelly.

I had known Gayle forever. I don’t remember a time where she wasn’t running Nancy’s Diner, the center of all Foster. William had taken me here on our first date, and every Friday when Kelly got to choose where we ate dinner, he always chose Nancy’s. I don’t know many people from Foster who don’t have a list of memories that include this diner and Gayle with it.

“I think I just left William,” I whispered to her.

She pulled back and looked me directly in the eyes for a long couple of seconds. Gayle had this ability to just look into your eyes and somehow divine the truth out of them in a way that words could never quite convey. Finally she let out a sigh and said, “Good. Are you okay?”

I nodded and then walked over to the mirror. “As good as I can be. I saw Brad out there and just lost it.” I dabbed at my eyes with some tissue. “I really don’t think I am ever going to be okay again.”

She came up behind me, put her hands on my shoulders, and gave me a warm smile. “You are okay, Dorothy. You’re just going through the worst possible thing a mother can ever endure. Give it some time.”

“Why?” I asked her, putting some concealer on. “Is it somehow going to miraculously get better?”

Without missing a beat, she said, “No, you’ll just get better at hiding it from everyone else.” It was the most truthful thing anyone had said to me since Kelly’s death. “Come back to the kitchen, let me make you some food, and we can talk away from everyone.”

We sat by the back door and shared a burger as we watched the afternoon sun slowly drop behind the buildings. “You hear about the school board meeting?” I asked her between bites.