The Sound of Letting Go (24 page)

“Want to come with us for coffee at Bouchard’s?”

Ned asks after school,

too quickly for Justine to shush him,

his mouth moving before he realized

the invitation he’s extended is to the girl

who is kissing Andy Bouchard’s trophy wife’s son.

“Or we could go for ice cream.”

Justine tries to pull my fingers from my car door handle.

“Unless you’re waiting for Dave.”

“I should probably get home.”

I toss my backpack into the passenger seat.

An inexplicable surge of worry passes through me.

“Call me later. We’ll talk.”

Justine’s expression assures me

she hasn’t spoken of Steven to Ned,

which makes me smile with gratitude

even as I press my foot hard on the gas pedal,

slide through the four-way stop sign without braking.

There’s a police car outside our house, lights flashing.

And an ambulance.

Mrs. Allen from up the street stands in our front yard,

her toddler daughter balanced on her hip.

“I heard your mother scream. I called 911.

She’s in there now.”

She points.

Mom is on a stretcher in the back.

A uniformed EMT kneels beside her.

“I told your dad I’d watch for your car,

let you know what happened.”

“Wait for me,” I yell to the medic.

“I’ll ride to the hospital with her.”

I dash through the open front door.

The hall is littered with broken glass,

strewn with sprays of dried flowers.

Through the kitchen entryway I glimpse Steven

flailing against the locking embrace of Dad’s angry arms

as I run back out to the bright-red van.

Dad kisses Mom gingerly

when we come through the front door five hours later.

He has managed to get Steven to take a pill

that will make him sleep.

“You okay?”

“I’m . . . fine.”

The bruise over Mom’s left eye is getting darker.

“Guess you don’t need me anymore,” I say,

heading for the stairs.

I want to practice, but I feel too tired.

“Thanks for coming with me, Daisy,” Mom says.

Her left forearm is in a cast.

I wonder how she’ll do yoga.

“No problem,” I reply.

They are right.

They are right.

They are right.

We cannot live like this.

We have to let Steven go.

They are right, but I don’t want it to be true.

Where is the normal,

the hope I felt when I woke up this morning?

I text Dave: “Can you come get me?”

“Where do you want to go?” he texts back.

“Anywhere but here.”

“Fifteen minutes.”

I wonder if Steven realizes the die he has cast,

whether tomorrow at the breakfast table

I will see in his expression remorse, regret.

And if I do, will it be there or just a lie I want to believe?

I remember when Dad used to tuck me into bed at night.

He’d tell me a list of things he loved about me:

my smile, my laugh,

the music I made, the silly jokes I told,

the way I loved to read stories about animals,

baby bunnies, tiny turtles.

I’d wrap my arms around him, say, “I love you, Daddy,”

never asking what was on the list he made for my brother,

who didn’t smile, didn’t joke, didn’t say “I love you.”

I, too, have started something I cannot stop

by calling Dave, not Justine.

Instead of confiding in my best friend

that the unthinkable has happened again,

I will have to tell Dave

what happened to Mom, what Steven has done.

What lie could I offer instead?

Flakes of snow are falling when the Fiesta pulls up—

the pretty kind that won’t stick

to the not-quite-frozen ground,

just linger for seconds on your hair, your tongue,

melt away without consequence.

“You okay, Daisy?”

“No.”

“Where do you want to go?”

I wish the library were open.

Dave and I could sit hip to hip in the egg chair

in the middle of the fiction section

and just be without a yesterday, without a tomorrow.

“I guess down to the lake.”

“You told me that’s not a real date.”

“This isn’t a date,” I tell him.

“I just need to get away from the house.”

“I get that.”

He drives to the end of my street and turns onto Main.

“Looks like we might have a White Thanksgiving

after all,” Dave says.

He has driven us past the parking lot,

down to the boat launch at the lake’s edge,

vacant on this cold November Monday.

“It’s not going to stick.”

“Don’t be so hopeless,” he says,

sliding his fingers between mine.

We sit there, holding hands,

watching innocent snowflakes

dissolve into the dark blue water.

“A little jazz?” he points to the radio.

“The quiet is nice.”

I wonder if we can sit this way forever,

or at least until the car runs out of gas.

Cozy against the worn leather upholstery,

lulled by the friendly rumble of the old engine,

I hold the moment like a fragile glass,

like how my father kissed my mother.

“The other night,” Dave says at last,

“you asked me what I was expecting from you.”

“I thought maybe you didn’t know.”

He gives his hair a familiar nervous rumple.

“I don’t want

to be the odd one out at my dad’s anymore;

I want a place like the sandbox we used to play in,

where you and I were safe,

felt like nothing would ever change.”

He hasn’t asked what he was rescuing me from—

why I needed to get away.

“I’m a person, not a place. And we’ve already changed.

You ditched me when you moved across town.

I made other friends, got good at music, grew boobs!”

My voice is rising to a shout,

the kind that would send Steven into spirals of fury.

Steven . . .

Steven . . .

“Steven broke my mother’s arm!”

Those words come out loudest of all.

Dave wraps his arms around me,

nestles my head beneath his chin.

Trickling teardrops grow to a storm of drenching sobs

until I can no longer see the frosty lake before me

and Dave Miller’s chest is soaked in my snotty anguish.

Comfort turns to kissing,

hard and desperate,

although I don’t repeat the mistake of climbing into his lap.

I tell myself it’s okay that I feel more anger than romance.

If HBO is right, I am allowed my lust,

like so many fickle fantasy vixens and powerful mafia men.

I am discovering a new talent

for disappearing into touch, taste,

not unlike losing myself in sound.

Dave wraps his arm around my ribs,

like he did that first time we kissed

in the parking lot of Evergreen High.

This time, I am not frightened

by the tightness of the embrace.

I know it is different from when I am touched by Steven.

Dave isn’t trying to drive some wordless message

into my bones.

He isn’t hurting me.

He is holding on.