Fallout (86 page)

Summer
I’M SORRY

That’s what Kristina says.

We all look at her as if we haven’t

quite heard her correctly.

But she repeats,
I’m so sorry.

I never wanted to be a bad mother.

Maybe that’s why I kept on

trying, kept on begging for another

chance to finally do it right. But I

don’t have the skills, don’t have—

“Don’t you dare say it!” I yell.

“Don’t say you don’t have

the resources. You do, or

you could have. All you had

to do was ask for help.” Anger

oozes like blood from my pores.

Her anger is greater.
No!
she

shouts.
You don’t understand.

I can’t ask for help from people

I turned my back on. People

I stole from. Lied to. Hurt.

People whose love I threw away.

Hunter
KRISTINA IS OUT OF WORDS

Good thing, because

that’s all they are. Words

without conviction

have no meaning.

I look

down the long table,

past turkey carcass and half-

eaten pie, and ignoring

the shock-iced eyes that stare

at her,

I measure her lowered

gaze, the foreign

language of her body.

And I

find

in the cold iron set

of her shoulders,

the boulders of her fists,

defiance.

Apology without regret.

The desire to challenge,

still. And, obvious through

a red haze of my own,

anger.

Autumn
KRISTINA IS OUT OF STEAM

I can’t help but feel sorry

for her. She is a bird,

too broken to fly.

I look

across the granite width

of table, beyond crystal

glassware and cloth napkins.

Notice the way Trey smiles

at her,

as if telling her she has said

exactly the right thing. But

Hunter is not swayed. Summer,

too, seems unconvinced.

And I

find

in Kristina’s refusal to meet

anyone’s eyes, in her knuckles

that tap without rhythm,

fear.

And in the way she hugs

her secrets close, like I must

continue to hold on to mine

for a while longer yet,

deception.

Summer
KRISTINA IS OUT OF EXCUSES

I know that’s what Grandpa

Scott would say, and the rest

of us would no doubt agree.

My mom has said enough.

I look

to my right, where Leigh

sits, drop-jawed, gawking

at her

sister, as if she’s never seen

her before. On my left, Autumn

seems lost in some obscure

distraction. Wonder where

her thoughts have wandered.

And I

find

in the tears that drop from

my mother’s eyes into puddles

on her dinner plate,

doubt.

A growing desire to escape

the confines of this house,

no longer her home, by

her own design. And in that,

loneliness.

Hunter, Autumn, Summer
I HOPE FOR

Trust. Joy.

Courage. Honesty.

Belief. Belonging.

Attaining these

things may not

come easily.

Because, look

very long at

Kristina, I see

me

me

me.

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

The release of Marie Haskins’s and Kristina Shepherd’s highly anticipated mother/daughter memoir,
Monster
, was yesterday put on indefinite hold.

“We felt it was appropriate to wait until Kristina’s current round of chemotherapy has been completed,” said Haskins, whose novels
Crank, Glass
, and
Fallout
offer a fictionalized account of Shepherd’s twenty-year battle with methamphetamine addiction.

Shepherd said in June of the memoir project, “We want to fill in the blanks, not only for my mother’s readers, but also for my children, who still might not have all the answers they need.”

All five of Shepherd’s children currently reside with Haskins.

Shepherd, who reunited with her husband, Trey, after a fifteen-year separation, has recently undergone radical treatment for lung cancer. “The prognosis is about as good as you could hope for,” Shepherd said. “I throw it out there to the universe, pray God is listening and that he hasn’t given up on me.”