Johnny Angel (4 page)

“It's Johnny … he had an accident… he was killed leaving the prom,” her mother said, choking on the words, and Charlotte let out a long, agonized sound, a wail of pain, as she heard the words.

“No … no … Mom … noo … please. … ” They clung to each other and sobbed, as Pam cried quietly, watching them, wanting to be there for them, but not wanting to intrude. And a few minutes later, Jim walked in, he had sobered up again, and all Alice could see was the devastation on his face. They all sat and cried together for a long time, and finally Alice went up to Bobby's room. He was awake and lying in bed, as he did sometimes, but she had a feeling that today he had sensed something was wrong, and he was hiding from it. Even his silence was not enough to shield him from the horror of this.

“I have something very sad to tell you,” his mother said, pulling him into her arms to hold him, as she sat on his bed. “Johnny has gone away … to be in Heaven, with God…. He loved you very much, sweetheart,” she said, sobbing as she held the child, and she could feel him shudder and then stiffen in her arms, but he said not a word. And when she pulled away to look at him, she could see that he was crying, soundlessly, agonized, as broken as the rest of them. The brother he had adored had been taken from them. He understood it perfectly, and he never stopped crying as Alice helped him dress. They went back downstairs hand in hand, and the rest of the day was a blur of pain.

Pam stayed with Bobby and Charlotte, while Jim and Alice went to the coroner's, and Alice gave a wail of grief as she saw her son, and held him in her arms. Jim had to pull her away from him finally. And they went to the funeral home to make arrangements after that. It was after lunchtime by the time they came home. Pam had quietly made lunch for all of them. Charlotte was sitting silently in the backyard, and Bobby was upstairs in his room.

It was on the news that afternoon, and people started calling and dropping by and bringing food. Becky came over to visit them. She looked terrible. Her face was white, and her bandage seemed huge. She couldn't stop sobbing the whole time she was there, and finally, Pam took her home. Becky kept saying how sorry she was, and how she couldn't live without him, which only mirrored the others' pain.

The next day was worse somehow, because with each passing hour, it became more real. They went to the funeral home that night, and the next day the room they had chosen for him there was filled with friends, and relatives, and other kids. His graduation had been that day, and they had talked about him. There had been a moment of silence for him, and everyone in the auditorium had cried for all of them.

The funeral was on Tuesday, and Alice had never been in so much pain in her life. Afterward, she couldn't even remember it. All she could remember were the flowers, the sound of singing in the distance somewhere, and looking at her shoes. She had clutched Bobby's hand the entire time, and Charlotte had cried uncontrollably. Jim had sat there crying and looking glazed. The high school principal spoke at the funeral for Johnny, as did his best friend. And the minister gave a beautiful eulogy about the remarkable boy he was, how bright, how kind, how wonderful, and how loved. But even the words were not enough to dim the pain. Nothing could soothe the agony they all felt. Nothing could change the fact that Johnny was dead.

And after they left him at the cemetery, it felt like the end of the world to them, when the Petersons got home. There was nothing to comfort them in any of it, nothing to cling to, or to negotiate or bargain with. He had been taken from them in the blink of an eye. Too fast, too soon, too hard, too sad. Too overwhelming, and too agonizing to bear. And yet, whether they felt equal to it or not, it had to be borne. They had to live through it, and go on without him. There was no other choice.

Charlotte cried herself to sleep that night. And Bobby lay silent and alone in his room. He had cried all day too, but he was exhausted and fell asleep finally. And Alice and Jim sat downstairs, staring into space, thinking of their lost son, grappling with it, wrestling with the impossible concept that he was gone and would never return. It was truly unthinkable. Unbearable. Neither of them wanted to go up to bed, they were too afraid of their own thoughts and dreams. They just sat there all night. And finally at three o'clock, Alice went to bed. Jim stayed downstairs and drank all night, and in the morning she found him passed out on the couch, with an empty bottle of gin lying on the floor. It was the beginning of a ghastly time for all of them, and Alice couldn't imagine a time when life would seem normal to them again. Normal was Johnny coming home at night after work, going off to college in the fall, being valedictorian of his class, and playing on the football team; kissing him and hugging him, being able to look up at him and smile, or laugh with him, hold his hand, or touch his hair. There was nothing even remotely normal about his being gone. And as each day wore on, Alice grew more certain that their lives would never be normal again.

Chapter 3

Johnny had been gone
for a month on the Fourth of July. Alice had had the photographs developed from the night of the prom. And when she did, the pictures of him smiling in his tux nearly broke her heart. She had had three of them framed and put them in Charlotte's and Bobby's rooms, and her own. Sometimes she thought seeing the photograph of him made things worse. He looked so handsome, and so young, and so alive.

The Fourth was a grim day for the Petersons that year. The barbecue they gave every year was a thing of the past. Seeing their friends would only have reminded them of the funeral, and it didn't seem appropriate to celebrate anything. There was nothing to celebrate or enjoy, nothing to smile about. Their house had been deadly quiet for the past month. They all looked exhausted and drained, and sick. And they were. Just surviving each day was like climbing Everest, and when they met at the dinner table every night, it was shocking to each of them to see how bad the others looked.

Alice had lost fourteen pounds and had dark circles under her eyes. And she admitted to Pam Adams, when she called every day, that she literally no longer slept at night. She fell asleep around six in the morning every day, and was awake again an hour later, by seven or eight. Sometimes she fell asleep in a chair. And Jim lay on the couch, drinking all night until he passed out. Charlotte cried constantly, as they all did. She didn't want to leave the house, and had missed the entire month's baseball games. Bobby hadn't been this withdrawn since he nearly drowned. They were all in extreme pain.

And Becky was no better, Pam said. She wouldn't get out of bed for the first week, and when she finally went back to work, she was so upset they sent her home. She had finally managed to work part-time the week before, she seemed to cry constantly, seldom ate, and said that she wished she had died with him. The rest of the Adams children were sad for her, and worried about her, and they missed Johnny. He had been their friend too.

“You've got to get some sleep,” Pam said to Alice practically. “You will eventually. The same thing happened to me when I lost Mike. But you don't want to get sick before you start sleeping again. What about sleeping pills?” She had taken them for a while, but she didn't like the hangover she had all day, so she had finally just toughed it out, which was what Alice said she wanted to do.

“Will I always feel like this?” Alice asked, feeling panicked again. It was hard to imagine spending the rest of one's life in that much pain.

“I think it's different with a child. And you never forget. But it changes eventually. You learn to live with it. Like a limp.” She hadn't gotten over Mike yet, and it had been two years. But she managed to get up every day now, and laugh sometimes, and take care of her kids. She didn't tell Alice that there was no longer any real joy in her life. Her friends were still telling her that there would be again one day. “It won't be this bad forever. Alice, it's only been a month. How are the kids?”

“Charlie started playing baseball again yesterday, but she left halfway through. The coach has been really great about it. He says she can do whatever she wants, play, sit it out, just watch if she wants. He lost a sister at her age, and he says he knows what it's like.”

“What about Bobby?”

“He seems completely shut down. He just lies on his bed all day. He won't even come downstairs to eat. I have to carry him. Jim thinks I shouldn't baby him, but,” she broke down in sobs again as she tried to explain it to her friend, they were closer now than they'd ever been, and Alice had come to rely on talking to her every day, “in a way, Bobby and Charlotte are all I have left. Jim is never here, and when he is … well… you know how he is … he just anesthetizes himself so he doesn't have to feel anything. He doesn't even want to talk about him. He thinks I should clean out his room and give everything away. I just can't do that yet. Maybe I never will. I go in and sit in there sometimes. It's as though, if I sit there long enough, and wait for him, he'll come home. I haven't even changed his sheets. That must sound crazy to you,” Alice said apologetically, but Pam knew it only too well.

“I kept Mike's clothes for over a year, and I still have some of his favorite things.”

“I just wasn't prepared for this,” Alice said miserably. “Maybe I never will be. It never occurred to me that he could die, that something like this could happen to us. This happens to other people. I never thought it would happen to me … or to any of us….” It was almost exactly the way Pam herself had felt when her husband died unexpectedly. But losing a boy like Johnny at seventeen was even more of a travesty. Becky had even said that herself. Johnny had left a lot of broken hearts behind, but it wasn't his fault. Some people had told Alice that she'd be angry at him one day, for leaving them, but she couldn't imagine it. His death had certainly not been his fault. And no matter how shattered they were by it, by no stretch of the imagination could she blame her son.

They had all been planning to go to the lake in late July, but they canceled their plans and stayed home. By August, Alice was still awake all night, but at least Jim was drinking less. He had gone back to drinking beer in front of the TV at night, and had stopped drinking gin. Charlotte was playing baseball again, and Alice had asked Jim to go to her games, just to show her some support after everything that had happened to them, but he said he didn't have time. And Bobby was still lying on his bed most of the time. Despite all of Alice's efforts to lure him downstairs with her, and keep him entertained, the moment her back was turned, or she answered the phone, or did anything, he went back upstairs to his bed. The house was like a tomb at night, they each kept to themselves, nursing their wounds, and thinking of him. And for a while every afternoon, Alice sat in Johnny's room.

And when Pam took a good look at her in early September, she thought Alice looked worse than she had since June. Johnny had been gone for three months by then, but for his mother nothing had changed. She was as grief-stricken as she had been in the first few days after his death, and she could barely make herself get dressed every day. When she did, she wore jeans and a sweater with holes in it. She looked every bit as depressed as she felt. Pam even offered to do her hair for her, but Alice just shook her head and said she didn't care.

The kids had gone back to school again when she started getting stomach pains. They were fierce and sharp, and she finally mentioned it to Jim one night and he looked concerned.

“You'd better go to the doctor right away.” They were all frightened about each other now. Their own mortality had been underlined. Alice worried about Charlotte now constantly, getting hurt while she played, or hit by a car on her way to school on her bike. The concept of invulnerability had been permanently dispelled.

“I think I'm okay,” Alice said unconvincingly She was more worried about the kids. Charlotte had gotten two migraines that week, and had to come home from school. And Bobby wouldn't go to school at all. He locked himself in his room so he wouldn't have to go, and the principal of his school had said to wait another month and see how things went.

The stomach pains got worse over the next few weeks, but she didn't say anything. She knew she had to be strong for the rest of them, and she said as much to Pam. Becky was still in bad shape too. She was working full-time again, but all she did was sit at home and cry at night. She never saw her friends anymore, or went anywhere. Johnny had left them all in sorry shape.

The kids had been back in school for a month, when Alice lay in bed next to Jim one night, trying not to shout out in pain. She was in so much agony, she could hardly think, and just after he came to bed, she began vomiting, and as soon as she did, she saw bright spots of blood. Her old nursing experience told her just how bad it was. She stayed in the bathroom for a long time, vomiting and when she finally opened the door, she could hardly stand up. Jim was still awake, though a little less than alert, but he sobered up quickly when he saw her face. She was no longer even white. She was green.

“Alice? Are you okay?” He was sitting up in bed, and staring at her, with a look of panic on his face.

“No,” she said softly, doubled over with pain. She couldn't even walk by then, and as she looked at him, the room whirled around, and she began sliding slowly to the floor.

“Alice! … Alice….” He rushed to her, as she passed out, and then he ran to the phone and dialed 911. She looked as though she were dead, and he could feel his heart pound as they answered and he told them his wife was unconscious, and she had been vomiting. He realized suddenly as he looked at her how much weight she had lost. And it suddenly occurred to him that she might die too. He couldn't even conceive of losing her. And as he spoke to the emergency operator, Alice stirred and began vomiting again. She never fully regained consciousness, but he saw bright pools of blood.

“We'll get an ambulance out right away.” And, minutes later, as he knelt next to her, he could hear the siren of the ambulance, and ran to let the paramedics in. He took the stairs two at a time as he led them upstairs, and as they hurried into the room, Charlotte came out into the hall, looking terrified. Mercifully, by then Bobby was sound asleep.