Life Before (7 page)

The handicapped door is swung open next to the sinks. I push it out of my way and it swings open again. It hurts when I punch it, but the hurt is good. I punch it again and again, dozens of times, until I’m so close that it can’t open anymore. The door is closed and I keep punching and the pain feels so good. So real.

I’m alive. My hand aches, but I can’t stop. I am alive.

When I have nothing left, I slide to the floor in a puddle.

It starts in my belly—a long, low wail.

Deep breath. Wail.

Deep breath. Wail.

It builds until I am screaming at the top of my lungs, “You killed my mother! You freaking coward!”

My hand throbs. Damn, it hurts. And I’m crying. Not for my hand. For my mother. For my stupid fucking family. For my life, which never started at all.

For Mom.

For Mom.

My mom.

_______

The whole thing is my fault. He flat-out said he was looking for me. And he was looking for me because Renee had emptied their apartment an hour after I shared all those gruesome pictures of my mother.

My fault.

Hell, it’s my fault my parents were together in the first place. They married in February and I was born that August; I’ve done the math.

If you look at it that way, the marriage, the beatings, and the murder are all my fault.

There’s no one else to blame, really.

What am I going to do without her?

_______

Planning a funeral is like one of those ridiculous icebreaker exercises: if you were a tree, which species would you be? Except the trees in question have been carved into coffins. I choose poplar because it’s the cheapest. The tall, lanky guy at the funeral home, who looks just like Ichabod Crane, tells me to call it a casket.

It’s a coffin.

Next icebreaker: if you could wear only one outfit for the rest of your life, what would you wear?

Ichabod Crane says we’re choosing clothes for Mom’s “final rest.” Someone else should be doing this. Mom’s parents have been estranged for years, but I’m pretty sure they’re alive and out there somewhere. Choosing clothes for all eternity should be their job.

Except it’s not. It’s mine. I am my mother’s next-of-kin, so I take a huge dose of grow-the-fuck-up and choose Mom’s green dress. It’s not exactly clean, but maybe she would have appreciated the faint Olive Garden scent.

Mom loved those breadsticks. She loved this dress. It made her feel beautiful. It made her sashay. How can something so annoying three days ago now seem charming? Between her divorce from Gary and her death at his hands, Mom had a little peace and happiness, a sliver of light in her otherwise gray life.

I smell the shoulder of the dress. It’s not just Olive Garden; it’s Mom. She always smelled faintly of sawed-apart cardboard from the warehouse. And Ivory soap—the white bars, always the white bars. And something else that’s distinctly Mom. Her skin.

That skin doesn’t exist anymore. Well, not alive. It’s cold and rigid now instead of soft and squishy. Mom’s hugs are soft and squishy. Were.

She won’t cradle my face in her hands ever again. I hated that so much, but I want it so badly. I just want to go back.

N
INE

Jill’s parents, Janice and Dale, are letting me stay indefinitely. We’ve rolled out a sleeping bag—not
that
one—on Jill’s bedroom floor.

And Jill is amazing. She holds my hand through the whole blur of events. I’m doing it all with a police escort because everyone is pretty scared for my life.

Janice rarely leaves us alone, and when she does it’s to buy me a black suit for the funeral or drop off the obituary at
The Vindicator
or pick up donuts for breakfast even though I don’t want donuts.

I don’t want anything.

They think Gary will steer clear of calling hours and the funeral, but there’s a huge police presence anyway. At the funeral home, I stand by a closed coffin that allegedly has my mother in it. Why was her outfit so important if no one will see it?

It feels like I’m watching an underwater movie of my life, on mute; everything moves in slow motion, and I can’t hear a sound.

Lots of people hug and kiss me.

Where’s Gary?

Every time I close my eyes, I hear him breathing out the kitchen window. I’m still cowering beneath it.

I can’t close my eyes anymore.

The nights are long, and my brain is just as bad when I’m awake. Dinner with Renee runs over and over in my head. I shouldn’t have done it. My parents’ last argument plays on continuous loop. I should have run in. I could have saved her.

Or we both could be dead, I guess.

There was no way for us to win against Gary. One or both of us was bound to lose.

Where is he?

Is he coming?

When?

_______

Some of Dale’s officers are here for Wednesday dinner. Just, you know, casually.

“You haven’t touched your pasta,” the fat smoker cop says.

“Full.” Grief and dread have permeated every last cell in my body. I am so full that my stomach can’t take on any food right now. Also, I’m not hungry.

Despite not having any more questions for me or Jill, the cops hang around, keeping watch. After years of Dale’s police stories, all I can think is
You’re welcome for the overtime,
because this is ridiculous. Gary won’t come after me when I’m surrounded by friends.

Dale and Janice forbid us to leave windows open, though the weather is perfect. They pile on more rules: No dates outside the house. No errands without an adult. No trip to the Adirondacks.

Nothing that can put my life in danger.

Privately, Jill and I refer to our captivity as Dale Jail.

Still, this is a million times better than the emotional imprisonment of the Gary years. And this time, I have a cellmate.

_______

Two days after the funeral, Mom is a mere anecdote to everyone else: just another ancestor gone, no big deal.

Jill says the whole thing is surreal, but it’s not surreal to me. I was there. I saw my mother. I tried to revive her.

It’s almost too freaking real.

Janice is sort of force-feeding me a few bites a day, but I’m really not hungry. It’s as if my body stopped when Mom died. My belly is full. My days are empty. I am full and empty. My life is one big dichotomy.

The only thing heavier than Mom’s death is my own imminent danger. Gary is out there, waiting. I can’t leave the house without panicking, so here we sit. Jill and I used to spend long summer hours inside the house listening to music, but that was by choice. Now we’re imprisoned.

Jill still tries to escape. “Movies, Mom? The new Spiderman opened today.”

Janice sighs. “We’ve been over this. I don’t want to sit around somewhere. I want to go do what we need to do and come back home. It’s the safest place for Xander right now.”

I hate that she blames me. “Maybe today you two can go, and I’ll stay here. No danger for you.”

Janice shakes her head. “I can’t leave you here alone.”

“Who’s alone? There’s a cop on the front porch. Gary isn’t sitting across the street with a sniper rifle or something.”

The second it comes out of my mouth, I realize he could be. He could be hiding in the neighborhood. That would take balls the size of watermelons, but I wouldn’t put it past him.

Our little Olive Garden encounter really spooked Renee. The life she and Gary were building together evaporated so, really, Gary now has nothing to lose. Maybe he’s on the run. I sure as hell would run if I were him. Gary could be anywhere in the world right now, but I’m betting he’s still here. He’s never really been anywhere else.

At night, I lock Jill’s bedroom door. I know the house is secure, but I still can’t sleep. I run to the window every time a car drives up the street.

“It freaks me out when you do that,” Jill says.

“I just have to check. I need to be sure it’s not him.”

“Just be quiet about it, okay?”

_______

Friday, three days after the funeral, I finally find sleep.

I also find dreams.

Scenes from my past are warped: Mom and Gary are fighting in the next room and my door has become a wall, so I can’t run in to save her. Gary’s throwing knives at my mother again, but now she’s strapped to a magician’s spinning wheel of death. Gary pushes me down a waterslide, and I’ve forgotten how to swim. He looks like the deviant elves from
A Christmas Story
: “Ho. Ho. Ho.” And down I go.

The garage door’s groan jolts me awake.

My entire body is tense; every muscle flexed at once, with nowhere to go.
Only dreams.
I will never sleep again.

I creep close to Jill’s door as Dale climbs the stairs.

“Another miss,” he says to Janice. “Youngstown this time. Two sightings, reputable witnesses.”

Youngstown is seventeen miles away.

“Do you think it was really Gary?” Janice sounds tired.

“Sure sounds like it was him. I left Clyde on our front porch.”

“But you’re home. Don’t you think you’re enough?”

Dale’s pissed. “I don’t even want him to think of coming here. We’re keeping a cruiser or two at our house at all times. Someone will be posted at the door 24/7 until we catch him.”

“It’s been six days. I wonder what he’s doing in Youngstown?”

“Being stupid. We just have to wait for him to raise his rotten head.”

Janice is quiet for a while. “You don’t think he’d come after the rest of us, do you?”

Dale’s pause stretches out forever. “I don’t know what he’d do at this point.”

“Did we do the right thing bringing him here?”

“It’s the safest place for him, Jan.”

I press my ear to the door during the pregnant pause. There has to be more. I need to hear it.

Finally, she says, “But having him here makes it unsafe for the rest of us.”

Janice has a very good point.

T
EN

Sunday afternoon, Jill has arranged a sort of date for Gretchen and me. It’s exactly two weeks after what was supposed to be our first date. Gretchen’s body and our mini-forest seem a world away and absolutely unappealing, but Jill begs me to host one night of normalcy.

Everyone makes a big deal about it. When the doorbell chimes, Janice hustles the little boys upstairs for a night of new video games and junk food.

Jill opens the door to a huge hug from Gretchen. My hands are firmly in my pockets, but I tilt my head a little. “Hey.”

We’re standing here—them trying desperately to make normal conversation and me staring at the walls—waiting for Tucker and Grant Blakely. We had anticipated a much bigger gathering, but no one else is coming. Some parents won’t let their kids anywhere near me.

To her credit, Jill screamed, “Screw your mother!” into her phone more than once while she was inviting people.

I’m being punished again. Wasn’t the murder enough? Hell, wasn’t my childhood enough? This is exactly why I never told anyone what was going on in my house. Well, the embarrassment, and the fact that I didn’t want people to be scared to hang out with me.

Tucker, who is closest to his normal self, shows up with Oreos and orange soda. “Glad to see you alive, buddy.”

I manage a half-smile.

Grant Blakely is close behind him with three giant pizza boxes.

In the kitchen, they all dig into the pies. Jill serves me a huge slice. “Here, Xander, you need to eat.”

I sit at the kitchen table, because everyone’s at the kitchen table, but I’m still full. Or not hungry.

Gretchen is watching me. She’s quieter than I’ve ever seen her. “I thought sausage and onion was your favorite?”

Is it? This party was a terrible idea. It’s too soon for all of this. It will always be too soon.

A year ago, I would have savored this moment. Hell, sixteen days ago, I would have been elated about our little fivesome.

Mom has been gone fifteen days, and now my life is divided: with her and without. Before and after.

My friends—these people—make small talk as they devour pizza.

Afterward, Jill says, “Okay. How about a few hands of euchre to get us back into the swing of things?”

“Sure,” Gretchen says, much to my surprise. Since her parents taught her to play bridge, she’s had nothing good to say about euchre. Desperate times, I guess.

I bow out of the game but sit near the table. Jill keeps the conversation afloat and I feel like I’m sitting outside of life. Things are moving on, but I can’t go on with them. Moving on would mean I accept what has happened. Moving on would mean I no longer have a mother.

Deputy Nolton tips an invisible hat when he comes inside to use the toilet.

“He’s the one who sits down to pee,” Jill whispers. “Quietest pees ever.”

Tucker lays down outside the bathroom, peeking beneath the door to confirm that Nolton’s feet face away from the toilet. Unless the guy is biologically backward, he pees sitting down. This is hilarious to everyone but Gretchen, who looks at me with big, sad eyes while everyone else snickers.

Tucker scrambles back to his seat when the toilet flushes. Nolton emerges, tips his not-hat again, collects a Mountain Dew from the fridge, and is out the front door.

“What kind of dude pees sitting down?” Tucker says.

Jill laughs. “One who’s used to sitting on his ass outside my house all day?”

Play continues and Gretchen turns her focus to me. “How are you doing cooped up in the house for days and days?”

I shrug.

“We call it Dale Jail,” Jill says, and Tucker laughs. “No, seriously. I’m thinking of mocking up some orange shirts with inmate numbers and everything.”

Jill has other plans, too, of course. For an hour, she fills in details about the road trip to the Adirondacks: the pack list, the emergency kit, the route, and the menus. Every miniscule detail is planned, except that tiny factor of getting out of Dale Jail.

Being here is more than unsafe. I’m ruining everything. I can’t do much about my life, but Jill’s would be a lot better if it weren’t for me.

“I think I’m ready to call it a night,” I say, and everyone’s eyes shift toward me.

Gretchen reaches across the table toward my hands, which are instantly in my lap. “Xander, what can we do for you?”