Lost (2 page)

Fast forward 3 months after the loss of
Brian to the conversation with Sam

“Mom? I don’t want to go back to
school.” Sam looked at me, willing me to agree with his decision.

“Excuse me? No.
No. No, Sam.” I shook my head.

Brian had
wanted to go to Duke. Unfortunately, money was an issue. He had the grades to
get accepted. However, options for financial aid were limited, and the partial
scholarships he was awarded still didn’t make Duke a reality. So in-state it
was—UVA. It was far cheaper and closer to his family. When the opportunity for
Sam to attend Duke presented itself, Brian didn’t want Sam to miss out as he
had. Duke had once been Brian’s dream. Now it was their dream... our dream for
Sam.

“Mom...
seriously!” He was about to raise his voice. “I can help you here. I can help
with the house. I’ll go to school. I won’t have any trouble getting into a
school here. I can live at home. Mom it’s been three months since Dad died, I
don’t want to go back. I just don’t.”

I was silent
for a moment.

Sam was getting
frustrated. “Come on, Mom. I didn’t even finish my first semester, and the
second semester’s almost a month in. The Dean said I had a week to decide. Come
back, defer, or leave.”

I know what I
wanted to say. Yes! Please stay. I need help. I’m afraid to be home alone. I’m
afraid of answering the phone. But all of that was my problem, not Sam’s.

“Okay, then get
your stuff. Go back to school!” I begged him. “Sam, Duke was your dream. You
worked so hard to get there, and you really want to give up?”

“NO! Mom... No.
I don’t feel up to it. I want to be here. I want to be home. Jack still has my
stuff, I’ll just go down and pick it up. I don’t have a whole lot. But... home,
I want to be home!”

“Sam...”
Desperation was creeping into my voice. I had to make him understand. “Honey.
This is hard. On all of us. But your dad wouldn’t want you to put your life on
hold.”

“Oh, fuck
that!”

“Excuse me!” It
wasn’t the language that caught me off guard. It was the anger behind the
words.

“NO! He left
us, Mom! He left! He checked out. It was dinner time! He had to fit in a run.
If he had just stayed home, maybe this wouldn’t have happened. Or... Or, you
would have been there. Instead, he died in a ditch and left us!”

I couldn’t tell
him to stop, because that would make me a hypocrite. How many times had I
railed at Brian thinking the exact same thing? But I’d never had the courage to
say it out loud. Sam did.

I stood up and
crossed to him. He was tall, so much taller than me. Just like Brian.

I took him in
my arms, and he collapsed to the floor. His head rested on my hip. He was a
little boy again, running to me because he was hurt. I sat back down, and he
put his head in my lap and cried. I leaned my head against the wall, and when
Carey came in carrying Jessie, I let them curl up next to us. Soon, Jimmy came
in with Maggie in tow, and they joined us.

My babies.

“Mommy?” Jessie
and Maggie called me together.

“Hmm?”

“Can’t Sam stay
at home?” Maggie asked.

“Please, Mommy.
We don’t want him to go away right now,” Jessie piped up.

“Mom, Sam
should be here. With us,” Carey chimed in.

In the last
three months, Carey had lost the gangly look that had plagued him for years. At
15, he looked older than his years.

“Guys! I want
everything the way it was too. But we have to move forward. Dad wouldn’t want
us sitting here."

“No, Mom. Dad
always said we do what’s in our hearts. Sam wants to be home with us. Let him
stay home.” Jimmy never said much, but when he did, he cut right to the heart
of the matter.

I sighed. Lying
to the kids wasn’t going to work. “Okay. Damn, you guys are good.”

Sam looked up.
“Really?”

I looked at
him, looked at those eyes, and shut mine. Brian’s eyes. “Stay home. I need your
help right now. The girls need you. And Jimmy’s right... Dad always told you to
follow your heart."

He hugged me
tightly, and the kids all cheered. The girls clapped and looked happy for the
first time in months.

“You need to
get me the registrar’s numbers. Or the Dean of Students! Or someone’s. Who am I
supposed to call?” I was already making a list in my head.

Sam bent down
and kissed my cheek. “It’s cool, Mom. I got it. Carey and I will leave tomorrow
to get my stuff, and I’ll talk to the Dean of Students. Jack was a great guy.
Maybe we can stay a day or so and hang out?”

“Road trip!”
Carey was excited. “Does Jack still live in the dorms?”

Sam had brought
Jack, his roommate, home for a long weekend in September. He was a great guy,
and... well, he liked to party!

“If you come
back with more ink, we’re gonna have a talk," I said with a glare. “And
remember! Your brother’s not even 16 yet!”

“Really, Mom?”
Sam looked at me in disbelief.

“Yeah! Really!
Not even 16,” I reminded him again and laughed as the little girls formed a
circle around Sam and danced. While I shot my best evil glare to each of the
kids, I jokingly said, “And don’t think I didn’t notice I’ve been bamboozled
here... This was some sort of setup.”

The guilty
looks I received in return said it all.

The next morning, Sam and Carey threw
duffel bags in Sam’s old Jeep and came over to say good-bye.

“Okay, Mom.
We’re gonna drive right through.” Sam looked at his watch. “We’ll stop for
lunch in a few hours, and we’ll call, okay?”

I nodded and
hugged him. Carey jogged over and gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

“Good-bye, baby
girls!” Sam had picked up both the girls and twirled them around. My breath
caught at the memories. How many times had Brian done the exact same thing?

“More. More!”
They chanted as Sam stopped.

“No, I’m
getting dizzy. When we get back, okay?”

The girls
looked up at Sam with adoration. He was such a good big brother.

“You guys drive
safe, okay? And don’t forget to call me when you stop for lunch.”

“We will, Mom.
We’ll see you in a few days,” Sam assured me.

Again, I
nodded, and I stood with Jimmy and the girls as Sam and Carey pulled out of the
driveway.

“Well, It’s
just us. What should we do?” It was Saturday, and the whole day stretched in
front of us.

“Can we go to
the mall, Mom? I could really use some new jeans.” Jimmy rarely asked for
anything, content with hand me downs from Sam and Carey.

“That sounds
like a great idea! We’ll make a day of it.” I bent to envelope the girls in a
tight hug. “We should get you guys some new clothes too. Maybe a pretty
sweater? A new skirt?”

“Yes, Mommy!”
Maggie said with excitement.

“Can I get a
purple one?” Jessie pleaded.

I laughed, and
it startled me. It felt good to laugh. It felt good to plan a trip to the mall
with the kids, to anticipate something simple.

“You can get a
purple sweater! I think I’ll look for a purple sweater too. And then we can
have lunch, and maybe even see a movie. How does that sound?”

The kids all nodded
their agreement and ran into the house to get shoes on. I went upstairs to my
room.

My
room. It wasn’t
our
room any
more.

Taylor Swift came on the radio, and the
girls started singing. They didn’t know all the words, but they gamely tried
their best. I even heard Jimmy humming. We were healing. If I was being honest,
a part of me was relieved. It felt good to be able to put one foot in front of
the other, to move forward without knowing we were going to have to take two
steps backwards. Brian had a large insurance policy, and to be honest, it would
keep us comfortable for a while. The girls were wrapping up second grade, and
realistically, I didn’t have to go back to work, but maybe that’s what I
needed. Maybe doing
something
would feel good, something more than being
the young widow with five kids.

“J?” I asked
Jimmy, and he turned to look at me.

“Mom?”

“How would you
feel if I went back to work?”

“I would feel
fine, Mom. If it makes you happy, it will make all of us happy.”

I cut to the heart
of the matter. “Well, I’ve decided then. Monday, I think I’ll start looking.
Maybe I’ll buy a new suit today.”

“Great... Wait?
Does that mean I have to sit around while you try on suits?” Jimmy didn’t seem
to be looking forward to that.

“Yep. A man’s eye
always helps.”

He rolled his
eyes, but I caught a quick smile out of the corner of my eye.

Healing.

My phone rang three hours later as we
were standing in some surf shop, or skateboard shop, or just a really loud
store as Jimmy tried on jeans.

“Hello?”

The store’s
music was growing louder.

“Hey, Mom! Can
you hear me? Where are you?”

I could barely
hear, and I motioned for the girls to stay where they were as I walked out into
the mall. “Hi, Carey! I took the kids to the mall to get a few things. I don’t
know where we are. Some store that your brother wanted to go into. You guys
okay?”

“Yep, we’re
good. We’re in North Carolina. I think we’re only about an hour from Durham.”

“You guys
eating, or just stop for gas?”

“No, Sam wanted
to go to some hot dog joint. Mom, it’s so funny. There’s a picture of Dad and
Sam on the wall. Dad has like four hot dogs in his mouth!”

I could hear
the laughter in his voice, and a part of me was jealous. Carey could look at a
picture of Brian and remember the good times, the laughter, the joy. I wanted
to be there with him. I wanted to remember the happiness he gave me, the joy we
shared, yet I was glad that Carey was in a place that allowed him to do that. I
didn’t like to see the kids hurting. I could hold my pain inside, close to my
heart as we all healed.

“Yeah, didn’t
they stop at a restaurant a while back to do a hot dog challenge?” I quizzed
him.

Carey laughed,
and I could hear Sam in the background, “Yeah, but Sam failed epicly! Dad
finished it though. Hey, wait a second—”

Carey’s voice
got smaller, and then I heard Sam come on the line. “Hey, Mom. Almost there.”

“So I heard!
You guys made good time.”

I knew he could
hear the reproach in my voice.
You better not be speeding
was what I was
really saying, and Sam caught that.

“We did, Mom.”
He soothed my fears, “I promise we aren’t driving too fast or recklessly.
There’s been almost no traffic. Not even through Richmond.”

He was a good
boy. No sighing. No “God, Mom!” He understood where I was coming from.

“Okay. Well, I
took the kids to the mall to get a few things for school. Let me go see how
Jimmy’s doing, and you guys call when you get to Duke, okay?”

Sam assured me
they would. “Mom?” He called to me before I hung up.

“Yeah?”

“I love you.”
He sounded so young in that moment. I pictured a tiny little boy in an
impossibly small suit. On our wedding day, Sam had stood at the altar with us.
I wasn’t just marrying Brian. I was accepting this little boy as my own, and
more than once over the years, I have realized that it wasn’t blood that made
us family. It was so much more than that.

“I love you
too, sweetie. Be safe!” I answered him, and we hung up.

I sagged
against the wall. “Brian,” I said quietly, “you’re missing it.”

I allowed
myself another moment to sulk. Then I took a deep breath, pushed myself up, and
went into the store.

“Mommy, Jimmy
is taking FOREVER!” Maggie complained.

“Yeah, what’s
taking him so long?” Jessie chimed in.

“I’m done!”
Jimmy came out of the dressing room holding two pairs of jeans. “Okay. Now we
can go, and you brats can get your green sweaters.”

Jimmy smiled at
the girls, and they caught his teasing, “Purple!” They shouted in unison.

“We want purple
sweaters!’ Jessie clarified. “Green is for boys!”

“Really? But
you two goobers would look so cute in green and brown sweaters.” He let it
hang. Their two least favorite colors.

I took the
jeans from him and pulled him to me. “I love you, kiddo.”

He slid his arm
around my waist and squeezed. “Me too, Mom. Me too.”

God, I hope the
boys never get too cool to give their mom a hug.

I left Jimmy
and the girls to their teasing and went up to the counter to pay for the jeans.