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Mom (2)

Giddy Baby Bro

Mom (3)

Mom

Mom (4)

Mom

Unknown Number (3)

My stomach dropped through the floor. Something was wrong. I knew it instantly, the way you know in dreams before the monster appears. Cold, hard certainty.

Tyler was trying to pull me back. His lips were wet against my neck, his erection poking insistently at my thigh. “Babe, come on?—”

The phone rang again.

“I need to?—”

“Come on, Rae, it’s fine—” His hand found my hip, tugging me toward him.

But it wasn’t fine. Nothing was fine. I could feel it in my bones, in the hollow space behind my ribs where my heart was supposed to be beating.

I grabbed the phone with numb fingers.

CALL FROM: UNKNOWN NUMBER

My thumb missed twice before I managed to answer. “H-hello?”

At first, there was only a brief, buzzing static on the other end. Then a woman’s voice broke in.

“Is this Rae Everett?”

“Yes? May I ask who’s calling?”

“This is Officer Wilkinson with the state police. There’s been an accident. Your parents…”

I felt woozy, as if there were frames that had been stolen from the film reel of my life. It kept skipping ahead, bits missing, things not adding up.

The officer was still talking—Route 9… head-on collision… your parents…“You need to get to the hospital, ma’am.”

The phone fell from my fingers. It bounced once on the mattress, then tumbled to the carpet. I could hear the tinny voice still coming through the speaker, asking if I’m there, if I understood, if there was someone who could drive me if I was unable to drive myself.

Tyler was saying something. Or at least, his mouth was moving, though I heard none of it. His hand on my shoulder shook me, gently at first, then harder, but I couldn’t feel it. I couldn’t hear or feel or sense anything at all, except this vast, yawning emptiness opening up in the center of my chest, swallowing everything whole.

Three days later, I stood at the edge of two holes in the ground. The sky was gray and spitting rain. Mom would have laughed at that.

How cliché,she would have said.Couldn’t the universe do better?

But Mom wasn’t saying anything anymore.

The caskets went down one at a time. Dad first, then Mom. I watched the ropes lower them into the earth and felt nothing. Or rather, I felteverything. So much that it all canceled out.

Gideon stood beside me, not speaking or moving. He hadn’t said a word to me since the hospital. Not one word. Not when we identified the bodies or when we picked out the caskets. Not when relatives I didn’t even recognize descended on our house with casseroles and condolences.

He blamed me. He was right to.