She inhales as if to brace herself. “When I was thirteen and Gabby was ten, my mom was going through a bad spell. She wasn’t taking her medication or something. I don’t really know what was going on back then, but I do know she’d stay in bed all day. My dad would plead with her and then they’d fight. Screaming fights where my mom would end up crying and locking herself in a room until my dad broke the lock or persuaded her to open it.”
“That had to be hell on a kid.” I lift my hand across her stomach and rub her arm.
“One day, my mom loads me and Gabby into the car. We had this car with a DVD screen mounted on the headrest of the passenger seat,” she says, a far-away tone to her voice, “so the person who sat in back could watch a movie. Gabby and I would always fight over who would sit back there. Mom would make the other person get in the front so we wouldn’t fight in the back seat. I won the argument because I always did. It’s like my mom just didn’t have the energy to fight my stubborn streak. I got in the back and mom was driving. Gabby and I were still arguing—even yelling across the seats.”
I make a little ‘hmm’ sound, uneasy about the tension rolling off her.
Emerson squeezes my hand tighter. “My mom says that she’s leaving my dad and taking us to live with my grandmother. Gabby starts crying, but I’m just pissed off. I hated her so much that I wished she’d go away and never come back. I started yelling at her that she had no right and that my dad would bring us back as soon as he found us. I yelled at my mom that she was in so much trouble with my dad and that he would never let me live with anyone else. I said it was because my dad loved me even if he didn’t love her. We drove past a lake and my mom stopped in the middle of the highway, got out, and opened my door. She yanked me out of the car and said, ‘Then stay with your father. He does love you the most.’ I was crying and Gabby was crying and trying to get out. My mother jumped back in the car.”
Fear freezes my chest, stopping my lungs from pulling in air. It’s like this frame in time is flash frozen. Emerson’s hold on my hand is fierce, fingers biting into mine.
She exhales and I swear I can feel her muscles tense, ready to bolt from this memory she’s reliving. I imagine one hundred story endings, all collaged in my brain with one tragic theme.
“We were near this place where people launch fishing boats. I took a few steps to get out of the highway and watched her drive straight down the ramp and into the lake. My mother...” Emerson whispers, her words strained. “She drove them into the lake.” She shakes her head as if disbelieving even now what she has to say. Emerson stops talking, moving, being. I’m unable to process what she’s said. I hug her to me, making consoling sounds, those noises you make when words are worthless.
“How did they get out?” The question is more so I can understand all the details of the accident—no, I realize it can’t be called that. Because the bigger picture is that this wasn’t an accident and Emerson was almost in the vehicle.
“A guy in a truck was driving by.” Emerson’s voice is too even and calm. “He got out, jumped in the water, and pulled my mom out. My mom struggled against the guy and yelled that she was so done with everything. So ready to be finished.’ The place they drove in was deep, but it was the edge of the lake. Gabby was out of the car and swimming.” Emerson’s mouth twists into a rueful smile. “She could not wait to give me hell for leaving her in that car.”
“You didn’t leave her anywhere. You had no control over that—”
She doesn’t respond to my soothing. “And I was just standing there watching. I couldn’t move or think or do anything. I just stood there, unable to help because I couldn’t even function. I provoked my mother into trying to kill them both. Gabby got to the shore and let loose this hysterical scream and smacked me so hard it knocked me down.”
And then it hits me. Gabby was caught in her mother’s suicide attempt and Emerson blames herself.
I place my hand underneath her chin and turn her head, forcing her to look at me. “There was nothing you could’ve done to stop what happened. You understand that, right?”
She doesn’t answer.
“Hey,” I say. “Sometimes things happen and as much as you want to think you could’ve done something different—something to impact that event—it’s just not true.”
“Yeah, sure,” she says in an automatic, placating tone. “I was a kid. But now I’m an adult and I understand my mom was sick back then. My dad should’ve done something. But I was so wrapped up in worshipping him, I never saw him as anything but perfect.”
We sit in silence. She’s enveloped in my arms, warm and pliant. I listen to the sounds of the heater kicking on and the clunk of the ice maker.
“I tried to warn you about the baggage thing,” she whispers in an I-told-you-so voice.
She’s bared her soul to me. A gift. An offering so I’ll know the demons of her past.
“Three years ago, I fell in love for the first time.” I say the words so low that I wonder if I thought them or said them aloud.
There’s an immediate difference in her. She pulls away from my arms and turns to look at me, wide-eyed. I gently push her head back down to my chest. “Yes, hard to believe, I know.” I laugh at her expression.
“Yeah, I didn’t see that coming. Dylan falls in love...”
I stroke her hair. “Well, I didn’t want to, but that stuff you hear about having no control over the people you love? All true.”
“How’d you meet her?”
“I was a sophomore, she was a junior.”
She laughs. “I can see that. Older woman. You thought she was a challenge.”
I ignore that comment. “Met her at a Cardinals game. I accidently threw my hotdog into her lap.”
Emerson chuckles. She’s enjoying this. My chest tightens and I debate telling her the rest of the story.
“And then....” she prompts. “You said she had nice buns. Okay, that was so corny I am literally dying.”
“Yes, she had nice buns.” I smile and lift our joined hands to lay on top of the blanket. I’m starting to sweat a little as I always do when I think about that year.
“So, you asked her out and she went. Then what happened?” Her voice is soft, steady, curious.
“Kate and I dated. Actually, you can’t call it dating. I knew I loved her from the first time we went out. We spent every spare minute together. Kate was this serious type. I mean, she had to be. She had Paisley to think about.”
“Paisley?”
“Oh. Sorry. Kate had a daughter. Paisley. She’d gotten pregnant when she was in high school. She and Paisley lived with her parents while she went to college.”
Emerson’s voice is carefully neutral. “Why’d you break up?”
This is the part I always imagine saying as matter-of-factly as the first of the story. But it’s simply not possible. My throat is tight and my skin hot. I kick the blanket off.
“She was in a car wreck. Guy had been driving all night and fell asleep. He crossed the centerline going eighty. T-boned Kate’s Mazda. She and Paisley died on impact.” Every muscle in my body tenses, freezes, burns. It’s been a while since I’ve said these things aloud. I thought by now it’d be easier.