Second to No One (32 page)

I thought about another time I was in that very spot in my closet. It seemed like a lifetime ago when my dad caught Jess and me in there together. Not that there had been anything to catch. We hadn’t even kissed back then. But my dad had been so worried. I smiled at the memory. His wide eyes and his stiff upper lip. His command that Jess had to stay out of my room. I loved the fact that my dad was worried about me, that he lost energy over my welfare, my safety. An ache swelled in my heart. He would never worry about me again. He would never open a door on me and a boy again. He would never scare another one of my boyfriends away, ever again.

Then I thought about the last time I was in that spot in the closet. It was the night I found out Dad had cancer. My mom hadn’t known I was in my room. The words she had uttered to my dad that night so long ago ran clear through my mind.
How will I rais
e her without you?
It’s not that hard. I wanted to tell her. Just love me and be kind to me and try not to order me around so often. But how did I tell that to her when we barely even spoke to each other anymore? I was sixteen years old. I didn’t need my mom as much as I once did. Yet I ached for her. For the relationship we once had, before things got so…complicated.

I missed her. I missed telling her about my day. I missed listening to her laugh. I missed the feel of her playing with my hair. I had become so used to the pitch blackness of my closet that when the door opened and daylight flooded the small space, my eyes burned and I had to blink a few times before I could see who had opened it. It was her. It was my mom. I groaned within myself and sunk deeper into the wall. I sat silent, waiting for her reprimand and praying silently that by some miracle she wouldn’t see me in there.

She stepped into the closet and stopped in the center. I didn’t look up at her face. I couldn’t bear the possibility of locking eyes with her. She took a breath, then turned one hundred and eighty degrees. Maybe she didn’t see me. I held my breath, willing her to leave. But she didn’t leave. Instead she stepped closer to me, and in one sweeping motion, she ducked around my old dresses and took the spot next to me against the wall. I glared at the side of her face in the darkness. What was she doing? Couldn’t she see that I wanted to be alone?

“I thought I’d find you here.” Her voice was soft, gentle, quiet. I was surprised by the sudden yearning I had to curl into her side and rest my head on her shoulder. But I didn’t. She inhaled deeply, then spoke again, “This is torture, isn’t it? All those people down there, in black, talking about Dad as though he were a character in a book they read once. I couldn’t stand it any longer.”

It was impossible for me to peel my eyes away from her face, her jawline, her eyelashes, her strong lips. That was the first time in months—maybe years—that Mom had sounded human.

“I miss him,” she said. “I miss him so much that…” She stopped. Her breath was heavy in the darkness. “Did I ever tell you about our first date?” Her words were drenched with the moistness of oncoming tears.

“Yes,” I said. “He took you to the beach, but it was raining, and you were mad because your new white shoes got ruined.”

She laughed softly at the memory. “Yes, but after that, when he walked me home, we were both barefoot and windblown, and I actually remember thinking that if he had the nerve to ask me out again, I would throw my muddy shoes at him. But then he slipped his hand in mine, and for a reason I can’t explain, I held it back, and at that moment I knew that we were going to be together for the rest of our lives.” She fell silent then whispered. “The rest of his life at least.”

At that moment, it dawned on me for maybe the first time ever, that Dad was Mom’s Jess. They were young once. They got butterflies when they were together. They got nervous about their first kiss. They got lost looking into each other’s eyes. They fell in love.

They were married for over twenty years. For twenty years, they woke up next to each other in bed. They ate breakfast together. They waited to be together after work. They shared stories about their day. They laughed together, cried together, raised children together. They were best friends, and they were in love, but now he was gone.

I imagined what my life would be without Jess. What if he was the one who died? What if I was the one who had to continue on without him? My heart ached for my mom. If Jess died, I would go absolutely ballistic. I don’t know how I’d go on. So considering all that, it seemed that my mom was actually kind of amazing.

“I’m sorry, Mom,” I said, and I finally let my head rest against the soft part of her arm.

“I’m sorry too. It breaks my heart to think about you and Bridget living life without your father.”

“No, I mean, I’m sorry for how horrible I’ve been to you for the past”—had it been so long?—”couple of years. You’ve been going through so much, and I was just so mad at you. Not for any particular reason either. I think I just wanted to be mad at someone, and you were an easy target. I wanted you to put everything back together again, to fix things, to fix Dad. But you couldn’t, and I started hating you for it.”

“I’ve spent a lot of time hating me too,” she replied. “Trying to figure out what I could have done differently. I keep thinking that if I would have gone back to work earlier, then your dad wouldn’t have had to work so hard. Maybe he could have stayed well longer.”

“Mom, you’re not the reason he got sick.”

“I just keep looking for answers.”

“I don’t know that there are any.”

She let her head rest on top of mine, and we sat in the pitch-black silence for a long time. We could hear the muffled voices below us, the front door opening and closing, car engines turning on and then disappearing down the road. We knew people must be wondering where we were, but neither one of us said a word just in case the moment would be lost and gone forever.

At some point, the door opened again, and Bridget stood between us and the daylight. Without saying a word, she too took a place next to us on the floor of my closet.

“I didn’t see Rick today,” my mom said matter-of-factly.

“No, I guess you wouldn’t have. He broke up with me.”

Mom turned slightly toward Bridget. “What? When?”

“I called him last Sunday night to tell him what happened with Dad. But he wanted to talk first. He said we were moving too fast. He said we should see other people.” Bridget let her head rest against the wall behind us. “I never even told him about Dad. How could I after that?”

“That jerk,” I said mostly to myself. “I’m glad he doesn’t know.”

“I guess I’m just going to have to get out there in the dating scene and start all over again.”

“That makes two of us,” Mom said as she draped her arm over us both. “Your dad told me a few days ago that he wants me to get remarried.” She laughed a low, bitter laugh. “Can you even imagine?”

“That makes three of us actually,” I said, looking at both of them in the darkness. My eyes were slowly adjusting to the dark, and I could make out an outline of both of their faces. “Jess doesn’t want to do the long-distant relationship thing. He wants us both to date other people.”

“What’s wrong with these guys?” Bridget said. “Can’t they see how amazing we are?”

“Look at us,” Mom said as she tightened her grip. “All of our men are abandoning us. This is a house full of broken hearts.”

We sat there for a while with our arms linked and our heads pressed together, all of us staring at the looming darkness. But as we sat on my closet floor in silent thought, I was surprised by the comfort I felt at knowing I had them, at knowing that whatever life threw at me they were going to be there—my mom and my sister, by my side, forever and no matter what.

By nine o’clock most of the funeral guests had gone, and Jess and I sat on my front porch staring across the street at the weathered For Sale sign that was stabbed into his lawn. “I don’t know what’s more depressing,” I said with my chin propped between both of my hands, “the fact that you’re leaving or the fact that no one sees how amazing your house is.”

“It’s the market right now.” Jess rubbed his hand over my back. “Everyone is trying to sell but nobody’s in the position to buy.”

I took in a heavy breath and leaned into his chest. “I’m so glad this is over.”

“The funeral?”

“Yeah, it kept feeling like we were on display, you know, like those depressed little dogs behind the glass at the pet store. I’m ready for everyone else to move on so that I can make an attempt for some normalcy in my life.”

“I haven’t wanted to talk about it.” Jess squeezed me softly. “But we’re leaving tomorrow night.”

“I know,” I said matter-of-factly. I was numb to the pain. Someone could have stabbed me with a million tiny thorns and I wouldn’t have known the difference.

“But I’m all packed and ready to go, so tomorrow is our day. We can do whatever you want.”

I nodded once at what Jess was saying, but my attention was caught somewhere in the trees across the street. “Do you see something over there?” I asked as I pitched my head forward in an attempt to decipher what I thought I’d just seen.

“At my house? I don’t know. It’s probably just my mom walking around making sure we haven’t left anything behind. So,” he nudged me gently, “What do you want to do tomorrow?”

“Um, I don’t know. Anything.” But it was impossible to concentrate because there was definitely something in the trees and why would Jess’s mom be walking through the trees at nine o’clock at night?

Then suddenly his mom was behind us on the porch. “Jess, hon, help me with this casserole dish. I don’t want to leave it here because I know I’ll never get it back.”

Jess stood up and emptied his mom’s arms. “I didn’t know you were still here,” he said, then squinted across the street, suddenly aware of the same strange presence that I was. “Where are Vivian and Mags?”

“Oh I don’t know.” She was hardly paying attention as she rubbed at a stain on her black skirt. “They ran off a few hours ago.”

An aching pit formed in my stomach as Drew and Bryce came out the front door holding a couple of cookie trays and an empty vase. “Hey Gem,” Drew said. “I think we’re going to take off.”

“Okay,” I said, tearing my attention away from the dark trees behind Jess’s house. “Thank you so much for coming and helping with everything.”

“Of course.” Drew looked tired. “I’ll call you tomorrow and we can…” Drew’s eyes were suddenly wide and terrified, and before I could register that something was wrong she was yelling, “Fire! Your house, Jess! Your house is on fire!” She bolted past me and I whipped my head around and saw bright yellow and orange flames dancing inside the windows of Jess’s house. Caris screamed and glass shattered against my porch steps as Jess shot across my front lawn.

“Vivian! Maggie!” He yelled their names over and over again as he got closer to the flames.

I ran in my own house and yelled for someone, anyone, to call 911. When I saw three different people pull out their phones, I ran back outside and across the street towards Jess’s home. Smoke was escaping from the windows now in big, black puffy clouds. Caris had collapsed on her front lawn, screaming her daughters’ names. With her head buried in her hands, she rocked back and forth between her knees and her heels, sobbing like a little baby.

Jess had grabbed the hose on the side of the house and was frantically spraying the fire. He jumped around the smoke and ashes and tried to get what he could of it. But the spray from the hose was a pathetic drizzle compared to the massive flames that were overtaking the house. Drew was screaming into her phone and Bryce pulled over a hose from my house in attempt to help Jess. My mom and Bridget hysterically ran toward Caris and cradled her in their arms, and I ran to Jess’s side desperately trying to unkink the hose as he hysterically sprayed the growing fire. Some of the leftover funeral guests hurried over with buckets of water but they were no use. None of it was working. The fire was in charge.

The sirens got closer, and soon a million red and blue lights flashed across the dark shadows of our neighborhood as firemen and policeman took over the premises and demanded that we all move back across the street. I took Jess’s shaking, ash-covered hands and pulled him toward my house as he yelled for the firemen to please find his sisters. It was impossible for any of us to take our eyes off of the blazing image in front of us, but then I did, for the smallest second, because despite the fire and the smoke and floating ashes, I knew that an undeniable presence was still lingering beyond Jess’s house, in those dark looming trees… something was out there. And this time I saw what it was, because this time she was standing right in front of me. Her long, dark red hair falling heavily over her face and the reflection of orange and red flames dancing wildly in her eyes. She was back. Lauren was back. I didn’t know how and I didn’t know why, but I knew in that moment that some people will do whatever it takes to be second to no one.