But what could have brought this seemingly strong and fiery woman to tears? After some convincing, she’s sitting in my truck. I don't realize how much I want to see someone laugh until she does. It’s something I want to bottle up and open every time I want to feel my soul soar. It’s a strange feeling.
We can be friends, this pretty girl and me. I follow her directions, and I start to feel my chest tightening as I drive through the familiar streets of my childhood, every turn bringing back suppressed memories. It’s been years. When she mentioned the area, I knew it would be difficult, but when she leads me to a pretty little house with white walls and dark shutters, it takes everything in me not to drive off. My chest hurts severely. The beginning of a panic attack.
“You live here?” I feel my jaw tensing.
“Yeah, I moved here a year ago.” She looks up at the house, then back at me. “You okay?”
“Just go,” I say, feeling my face flush, not willing to look at her or her house again. My head hurts, and I just want to get away from here.
“I—”
“Just get out!” I shout, and I feel my hands tremble. She’s barely closed the door when I’m speeding off, my vision blurring. This is some sick twist of fate.
I pull over down the street, and I feel the rage bubbling up to the surface—an inferno I’ve held at bay for twenty years.
Twenty Years Ago
A paramedic man presses his hands to her chest and pumps. Two, three, four, he counts, and then another man covers her mouth with his, holding her nose shut. I try to break free from the arms holding me, but they won’t let me. She’s asleep, that's all. I know it. They bring large pads that they use on her chest, there’s a strange sound, and she lifts off the ground each time. Like a ragdoll, I think.
“Mama!” I shout, and my neighbor, Mr. Barnes, holds my shoulder. “Just let them work, son.” His voice is shaky. Mrs. Barnes has been by Mama’s side. She’s white in the face. I watched the house I grew up in go up in flames before me, smoke and ash everywhere.
And then the paramedic man looks at Mrs. Barnes and shakes his head. He looks at me, his eyes sad. He bows his head. Mrs. Barnes rushes toward me, gathering me in her arms. “I am so sorry, baby, but your mama didn’t make it.”
“What do you mean?” I say, and Mr. Barnes finally lets go of my shoulders.
“She’s no more, son. Your mama has passed.” His voice sounds far away. I slowly walk toward the stretcher my mother lies on. I look down at the paramedic.
“My brother is inside. Is he okay?” I ask the paramedic man pointing to my mama’s tummy.
“I’m afraid not, son.”
They keep calling me that. I am not their son. My mama is here. She’s here. I fall to my knees and touch her face. “But we were supposed to be together forever.” The tears slip down my face. I rest my head on her chest and sing to her all the songs she sang to me. I sing until my father shows up, disoriented. His clothes are a mess, and his hair is standing on end.
“Where were you, Daddy” I sob. “Mommy needed you. I needed you.”
He says nothing, just wails when he looks down at me. He walks past me and falls to his knees, holding onto my mom for dear life. He had to be pried away. I watched him from Mrs. Barnes's guestroom.
That was the last time I saw my father. Like the coward he was, he took his own life a week later, after the funeral. He never did tell me where he was that night my mother died. My grandmother said he was out fucking some woman from his office. I don’t really care what the truth is. Everything was taken from me that night. Everything that mattered, and now, this stranger dragged me back to where it all began. I speed back to the station and climb into the shower. I can’t stand to speak to anyone. The Chief will want to know how Kyle is, but I don’t have the energy to get into that right now. My grandmother would tell me I’m being a coward. She’d be right. That’s what I am. That’s what I was that night. I couldn’t protect my mother. I couldn’t do anything. I feel that familiar surge of anger coursing through me, and I have to breathe to prevent myself from smashing the glass doors that surround me. I hear my mother’s shaky voice as she sang to me, I see my father’s vacant, guilt-filled eyes as he looked at me. And then I see two gravestones that sit side by side in the town cemetery.
Ocea
Eighteen Years Old
My aunt wraps her arm around me as we sit on the couch in my living room. There are a few other family members gathered in the corner of the room closest to the exit. In case poor Ocea falls apart. I scan the family room, which feels void of life. This house that I used to call home is a foreign place. It is empty and cold like I feel inside. Everybody tells me that it’ll get better with time. That I have my whole future ahead of me. I’m supposed to start medical school in a couple of weeks, but I cannot see how I can do any of it without them. My parents weren’t just that; they were my best friends, and living in a world where the two most influential people in my life don’t exist seems unfair. I feel like a traitor for every breath I take that they aren’t. It’s odd how everything you have ever known and loved can be taken away from you in the blink of an eye.
“You should eat, honey,” my aunt Sam tells me. She looks so much like my mother; it hurts to meet her gaze.
“Later,” I tell her, more to get her off my back. I curl my hands around the hem of my black dress. The house is swarming with neighbors and friends, family I hardly know. My parents were loners, much like I am.
The lawyer insists on doing the reading of the will today. He has somewhere to be. That’s the thing. Everyone wants to sell you something, and they promise the world when you’re alive, but when you die, they forget the promises they made.
“You don’t have to meet with the attorney today. I can reschedule,” Sam whispers.
I shake my head. “Let’s get it over with. There is no use in postponing the inevitable. If it isn’t today, it’ll be tomorrow or the day after.”
Sam nods. “I am still here, baby girl. And I’m not going anywhere.”
I love Sam. She’s amazing as far as aunts go. She’s my mother's twin sister, and we've always been close. She’s been more like a sister to me than an aunt, and I am grateful for her love. Her presence makes it easier to breathe, but she’s not Mama. She doesn’t have the same sparkle in her eyes when she looks at me. She doesn’t know that I wanted Hermione to be with Harry instead of Ron. Sam doesn’t know that I don’t hate Cal from Titanic, but that Rose annoys me the most. Those are things Mama knew and related to. I walk to the fireplace and look at the last picture I took of my parents. They didn’t know I was watching them dance. I framed it for their anniversary. I wonder why of all the cars on that road, theirs had to be hit by that truck. What if they’d decided to stay a little longer at the restaurant or not go at all? What if I’d insisted that they go away for the weekend like they usually did, that it didn’t matter that I was leaving for college?
What if? We plague ourselves with those two words. But it never changes the outcome or the reality. No. “What if” is the curse we will never break free of.