When things go wrong, I paint. When things go right, I paint. I am an artist. Without a degree. Without a job. Without a home. But this one thing no one can take from me. No, what I do is not who I am, but it helps me, and it helps others. That’s why I do it. What other reason do I need?
When the girls left Morgan and Jon’s, it got difficult. Morgan’s relationship with Jon was so different from the one she once had with Liam, and so different from what happened to her in that room that sometimes it was hard to reconcile in her mind. While Libby was home, probably channeling her feelings into a painting, while Emily was setting up lunch dates and meetings with congregants at church, while Jess was curled up next to her husband, falling asleep, Morgan was fighting.
Old voices from the past came back to taunt her. One told her Liam was right, she was just a drug addict now. Another, that she was so filthy, no man could ever love her, and if he said he did, he was lying. The last voice and the loudest voice did its best to convince her about what Jonathan really wanted. He was a man, and all men were after the same thing.
“You’re quiet,” Jon observed, sitting beside her on the couch.
Against her will, Morgan let go of the quilt she had held so tightly around herself. It didn’t reveal much but her layered tank tops, but Liam had loved those. Buddy had loved when she took them off.
“Morgan, look at me,” Jon said, his tone decisive.
He hated when she got like this. Trapped, she called it, or getting lost. With Buddy’s voice and Liam’s voice warring inside her head, talking shit to her. In those moments, she stopped seeing Jonathan for the man he was, and saw him as a faceless person who just wanted take from her and control her and use her. Her eyes looked dead and distant, as she remembered whatever torture her mind had in store for her. Jon was sure the interview hadn’t helped.
Morgan blinked, seeing Jonathan clearly. His messy blond hair and warm brown eyes. His green plaid drawstring pants and brown shirt, he always wore to Madness. His strong jaw line and the way he had his hands up, to show her he wasn’t a threat. Even so, she shuddered, pulling the blanket back around herself.
“Sorry,” she apologized clearing her throat reflexively. “This was just a horrible night.”
“Yeah, it was,” Jon nodded. “But you’re safe here, we’ve got all our boundaries in place and I’m sticking to them,” he reminded. “Are you?”
She hesitated. Usually, she felt so much safer knowing that they had separate bedrooms and that they never slept together. Not even in the innocent sense, like falling asleep accidentally on the couch. However, tonight, she felt genuinely afraid to be alone. Sure those nightmares would haunt her.
“I don’t want to sleep by myself,” she confessed. “I hate the nightmares…”
Jon sighed. “This is what it is, Morgan. It’s not changing. So, what’s your plan B?”
Morgan took a deep breath. She didn’t like it, but Jon was right. She wouldn’t feel any safer sleeping in the same room with him; in fact, it would probably mess with her head and make everything worse.
“Call you, or call somebody else and talk about it. Knock on your door. Do some house chores,” Morgan remembered, knowing it always helped her integrity to state her intentions out loud.
“You’re not alone with this, all right? So, don’t shut me out when things get tough. Talk to me, okay? I don’t understand it all, and I don’t expect any big confession. Your business is your business. But I care about you as a friend, and I want to know where you’re at in your head,” Jon told her, squeezing her hand.
“Thanks,” she said, squeezing back. Then, she got up and excused herself, taking the quilt with her, and hoping it would shield her from some of the things she most feared.
--
Emily spent the next couple of days really getting comfortable with her new job. Technically, it didn’t really pay, so she didn’t know if she could call it a job, but she still loved the church and its openness. They accepted her. They were grateful for her offer to serve as a lay counselor. She also offered to be an extra set of hands for their small youth group - which, as of now, only had five or six members - but that was okay by Emily. She had already worked out where she would be when. Hands-on and involved during the services or youth group, but for a half hour to two hours afterward, Emily made herself available in a side room with a glass sliding door. That way, people could see her when she was available, and there were vertical blinds that could be pulled if the room was in use.
Today, though, Emily was making house calls. She had gotten a list of a few elderly congregants who were recovering from an illness or injury, or just lonely. Emily asked questions about how they were, and mostly just listened as they talked about their lives and shared with her. It had taken a little while for them to open up, with her being a new face around town.
Emily dressed in a business-casual fashion for these visits, foregoing her usual loud crazy style for something more subdued. Though she had given many of her clothes away on the road, she still had collared dress shirts to wear under a suit jacket and matching slacks. She pulled her hair back with a clip and wore matching earrings and a necklace
“Are you a tourist?” they all asked suspiciously. “Never seen you around.”
However ironically, Liam’s interview had done some good. Now instead of wariness, Emily found warmth and sometimes even kinship.
“I saw you on the television the other night. The program with that Rock Hudson, or Samson or whoever. He sure is handsome.”
Though Emily enjoyed her time with these people, she found herself happiest when she talked to referrals. People that her regulars recommended. These people sometimes had never been to church before. One woman she visited that day was a Holocaust survivor. Mrs. Marek. Emily hadn’t pried, but had seen the numbers tattooed on the inside of the sweet lady’s arm. She had white hair and soft wrinkled skin. Her eyes, Emily noticed, were kind, not bitter.
Mrs. Marek recognized Emily and held her hand tightly, staring into her eyes for a long time.
“You tell your friends. You are not victims. You are survivors. There are bad people. But the world is a good place,” the woman said, her voice colored by a beautiful Polish accent.
“I will. I promise. Is there anything I can do for you?” Emily asked, looking around the small cluttered house. So much needed to be done, and she was a widowed woman, living alone. The house could use a coat of paint. The drive could be shoveled. “I know the handyman here. He’s a good friend of mine. He could help you out.”
However, the woman just shook her head, and said simply, “Live. Live your life. That is what you can do for me.”
Emily blinked tears from her eyes and nodded. Instead of meeting the reverend for lunch, she stayed with Mrs. Marek and had sandwiches and lemonade for lunch, listening to this brave woman share about her life - the Holocaust and more - and what she planned to do, even now.
“Never stop making plans. Never stop dreaming.” Mrs. Marek urged. “You come back anytime. And I will tell the neighbors that you are a good person, so they will not give you a hard time.”
“They don’t give me a hard time. I’m just new. This is my number. If you need anything or just want to talk, call me. Anytime,” Emily urged, tucking the piece of paper into the woman’s hand.
“Thank you,” she said, and as Emily headed for the door, Mrs. Marek called to her again.
“Emily. Are you going to stay?”
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll be here,” she promised.
--
“So, I was thinking of getting a dog,” Nate mused the night after Liam’s interview at dinner.
“Well, stop,” Cary decided. “Our bed still smells like pee.”
Nate snickered. “Oh, it does not. You’re just in a bad mood. A dog would be so nice. Or a little puppy like Snoopy.”
Cary rolled his eyes. “Why do you want a dog all of a sudden?” he asked irritably.
It wasn’t just that Jess and Coby’s dog peed; it was Cary’s awful night at work. He had been behind all night and had gotten screamed at by his ass of a boss. Then there was the talk. It seemed like everyone in town had seen Liam’s interview and was asking him if he was Nathaniel’s partner. Was it true, what the young man said about Nate? Was Nate upset watching it? On and on, until Cary wanted to storm out of the mercantile, the elementary school, picking up Christian for Coby, and God, even the Ben and Jerry’s!
“We don’t need a dog,” Cary maintained, stabbing his meatloaf with his fork.
“You don’t. I do,” Nathaniel maintained. “Can’t we just talk about it? They’re man’s best friend!”
“I thought we were enough for each other,” Cary said softly.
“We are! Jesus, Cary! A dog won’t take your place, but it would help me. Don’t you understand? I need something to take care of. Something to focus on. Something that needs me, so I’m not always thinking about the awful shit in my life!”
With that, Nate had scraped his chair back and left the kitchen.
Now it was Thursday and just based on that, Nate was a hot mess. He slept through his alarm, was late to work, and tripped over something on the way out the door. In his sleepy haze, Cary had heard him cursing as the door slammed. Now, he was home, and instead of being up, doing things together before Cary had to be back at work tonight, Nate had gone back to bed. When Cary tried to wake him, Nate just mumbled something. The next time Cary had checked, the bedroom door was locked.
Usually, he never thought twice about Thursdays, but ever since Liam’s stupid interview, Nate seemed extra jumpy. Come to think of it, the only time Cary had seen Nate calm was when he had Snoopy for the night. It hadn’t mattered to Nate that the puppy peed all over both of them and the sheets. He had just held the dog close and talked to it about how “everyone had accidents” and “it was okay.”
Cary knew he hadn’t been fair to Nate earlier in the week. He hadn’t even tried to hear him out, and that wasn’t okay. Therefore, even though Cary wasn’t crazy about it, Nate deserved to have something that brought him comfort. That was how Cary ended up driving an hour to the Central Vermont Humane Society in Montpelier, to pick out a dog.
That was how, an hour later, Cary ended up driving home with an eight-month-old Border collie mix puppy. Cary named him Linus on sight, after seeing the way the black and white puppy refused to part with his blanket. Cary figured it fit. Jess and Coby’s dog was Snoopy and Nate loved him. He figured Nate could learn to love a Linus, too. Plus, they really seemed perfect for each other. This dog was timid and shy, and needed a lot of positive reinforcement. A lot of activity, too. Therefore, he was simultaneously like Nate, and everything Nate needed.
Having made a stop at a local pet store on the way to Montpelier, Cary was all set when he arrived home three hours later. As he hoped, Nathaniel hadn’t moved, and the door to the bedroom was still locked.
“Ssh, it’s okay. You have to be quiet, because you’re a surprise,” Cary told the puppy, carrying him quietly down the hall and picking the lock with a paperclip. Linus jumped in Cary’s arms, and shook nervously.
Quietly, Cary set the dog beside Nate’s head and flipped on the light.
The bedroom had been totally dark, the way they both liked it, and the shift from darkness to light was abrupt. The covers on the bed were rumpled and Nathaniel slept with one arm over his eyes, bare-chested. When Cary’s eyes adjusted, he took in all the framed black-and-white pictures and some paintings that Nate had done that hung on the wall with their wedding picture.
By now, Nate was blinking and looked about ready to let Cary have it. Then his eyes fell on the tiny puppy staring at him, with a plaid piece of cloth between his paws. Nathaniel stared, uncomprehending, as the puppy backed up in terror.
“Surprise,” Cary said simply, sitting down beside him.
“It’s ours?” Nate asked, still not quite sure this was real. He had just been having a really nice dream that they owned a dog, but every time they left the house, it grew bigger and bigger, until it was the size of a horse, and no good to cuddle.
Cary scooped up the puppy, and dumped him into Nate‘s arms. “Linus?” he asked, testing the name for Nathaniel to judge. “I thought it was appropriate. He wouldn’t let go of that thing,” Cary gestured towards the blanket.
“It’s perfect. He’s so perfect,” Nathaniel said, breathlessly, his eyes full of light and adoration. For the first time in days, he smiled, holding and loving the newest member of their family.
Leaning over, he gave Cary a kiss.
“Thank you,” Nate whispered.
--
“Did you hear that Nate got a puppy?” Christian asked, distractedly swirling purple paint across his paper. “Cary got it from the Humane Society, and named it Linus, like our dog is Snoopy. I can’t wait to meet him. Maybe Nate and Cary will bring it over to play with our dog.”
Libby had kept her word, and was now painting with Christian for an hour or so each night in Coby’s workshop. When it was occupied, Libby hung an old sock on the handle just to give Jess and the others a heads up.
Honestly, while Libby loved doing art with anybody and everybody, she was having a hard time concentrating. Liam had been calling nonstop. Their last conversation echoed in her head:
“So, did you see me?” he had asked excitedly. “It turned out better than I thought, really. What did you think?” He sounded so eager, and Libby wondered if he was delusional or if he really thought his tell-all interview was something she enjoyed watching.
“It was better than you thought to tell the world what happened to me? To out Morgan’s struggle with drugs? To call Jess a bad mother?”
“Oh, Libby, come on. Don’t be so dramatic. Mom and Dad already knew about you. I told them right away after I found out,” Liam said, as if to ease her mind. “And as for Morgan and Jess, I was just telling the truth as I saw it,” Liam defended.
“Oh, my God…“ Libby moaned, devastated not only to learn that her parents knew, but that they had known for years, and hadn’t yet said a word to her about it. “And you didn’t lie about yourself, but you lied about them?” Libby challenged, angry, and wishing that she had someplace private to talk, where she didn’t have to worry about three or four people overhearing at any given time. “You never brought Morgan to the hospital when she OD’d! I dropped out of school because I couldn’t get out of bed for it! And in what universe do you honestly think that I’m okay? After putting up with your pressure to be just like you, to do everything you did, how you did it, when you did it. I’m not you, Liam! And I am not okay!”
“Libby, jeez, I just thought I was helping. Nothing I ever do is good enough for you, is it? I didn’t do this for me. I did it for you. All you guys. So you wouldn’t have to. You know those people wouldn’t have stopped asking for an exclusive until one of us gave it to them. Listen, I know you don’t like to hear this, but sometimes you have to lie. I didn’t want everyone watching to get a bad impression of Christianity as a whole, based on me. People over generalize all the time, and if they heard that I abandoned Morgan… Well, that wouldn’t have been a good impression. I made sure to put you in a good light.”
“Because if you didn’t, it would reflect badly on you!” Libby seethed.
“When are you coming home? I don’t think all that time out there is good for you,” he said gravely.
Libby had hung up on him and turned her phone off. She had yet to turn it back on, and didn’t care whose calls she was missing. Everyone she cared about was right here.
“Hey, Libby, so what am I painting?” Christian asked. “I’m done with my purple sky.”
Taking a deep breath, Libby made herself focus. This was what was important right now. This was what she could give to the people she was around. A way to express everything inside.
Every day, she started by letting Christian do a free project. Paint something that he wanted to paint. Then they talked about it, and then, when he seemed relaxed, she asked him to paint an emotion. So far, he had painted sadness, happiness, loneliness and fear.
“Paint your anger,” Libby encouraged, and then she watched, amazed, as he immediately went to work, dumping little cups of paint onto the paper and smearing them with his hands.
“That looks confusing,” Libby observed.
“Yeah,” Christian answered, distracted. “Sometimes my anger is confusing.”
“Like when?” Libby asked.
“Like…when I got in trouble in school, and I knew I should get in trouble but I was still mad,” Christian said, matter-of-factly.
“You don’t sound mad,” Libby observed.
“No, I’m over it.” Christian said, dumping black paint on his messy paper.
“Okay,” Libby agreed. “So, why did you get in trouble at school?”
“Because I wasn’t staying seated,” Christian remembered.
“What were you doing instead?”
“Looking out the window and opening the door,” he said, working the black in with both hands.
When she asked why, he just shrugged.
“Hey, CJ? Look over here for a second,” Libby said, getting his attention. “Which of these do you think you were feeling on the day you were looking out the window and opening the door?” On her easel, Libby had displayed his four previous paintings. They all had a color-theme. Sadness was blue and green. Happiness was orange and red. Loneliness was gray. Fear was yellow.
“The yellow one,” he said thoughtfully. “I was just checking for my mom and dad, but they weren’t there yet. It reminded me of when I was in the daycare with all the other kids. We had to stay in there with the lights off and be very quiet. And then the lights came back on and everybody had people come and get them, but nobody came for me. Because both my mom and Coby got shot, right?” Christian asked.
Libby nodded, surprised to hear Christian address Coby by name. “Right. But Legend came as soon as she could, didn’t she?”
“Yeah, but that’s not the same as your mom coming to get you,” Christian pointed out. “And you know what? I just remembered. My mom got left when she was almost my same age. So she knows how it feels probably.”
Libby nodded, impressed. “She probably does. You should ask her about it.”
Christian was quiet a minute, thinking. “Can you ask her? Can you write it on the back of my yellow painting?”
So, Libby took a pen, and wrote carefully, transcribing the words as Christian spoke them:
How did it feel
When you got left?
Did you feel scared and lonely
And out of yourself?
How did you get over it
And be brave again
And not be scared
Anymore?
A knock sounded at the door, and Coby poked his head inside. “Hey guys. Sorry to interrupt. I wasn’t sure what the sock meant…”
“It means ‘occupied,’” Christian passed along knowingly. “I’m going to give my fear to Mom,” he said, taking the yellow painting from Libby.
“Can I have one?” Coby asked, intrigued. He came in, dressed in a black leather jacket, knit cap, blue jeans and boots. Looking from him to Christian, Libby could see the similarities. Christian, with his Spongebob boots, blue jeans and red knit cap and matching jacket.
“Sure, you can have that one,” Christian pointed. “As soon as it’s dried.” Then he took off toward the house, before Coby had the chance to ask anything else.
Coby looked at the painting, intrigued. “What is this?”
“His anger,” Libby passed along. “I’m sorry. I’ll get out of your way. I’m sure you have things to do in here,” she said apologetically, gathering up her art supplies.
“Actually, I was wondering if I could paint with you. Unless you’re starving. I asked Jess to hold dinner for us. She said she’d leave our plates in the oven,” Coby said, uncertain.
“Um…sure.” Libby answered, setting her paints back down. This was the last thing that she expected, but who was she to deny Coby this if he was coming to her? So, she poured out fresh paint and got new brushes. She hadn’t ever done an art session with a peer. Christian was the only one.
“Just do what you do with Christian with me,” Coby encouraged.
So, Libby tried. She put Coby at the easel and then stood behind it. She asked him to paint the one thing that seemed the hardest for him to deal with.
“Paint your helplessness,” she said, and sat on a stool to wait. Libby wasn’t sure if Coby would be up for this. Maybe he would leave. Maybe he would get upset. Maybe he would refuse.
Libby held her breath, and Coby started to paint.
She wrote in her journal while she waited, staying instinctively quiet. She wrote about what art meant to her and why it was important to share with others, even if she didn’t have a lot of material possessions. Then, she painted tiny flowers around the thought, in brilliant colors. She had started adding paintings to her journal and really thought they completed each entry.
Coby, meanwhile, bit his lip and painted furiously for upwards of half an hour. When he was done, he was breathless, and turned the easel so she could see it.
There - in expertly mixed colors - was a leg. The skin was a near-perfect match to Coby’s own. He hadn’t missed the small details. Hair. The ragged edge of his jeans where Morgan had cut them open with Buddy’s knife. Morgan’s belt wrapped around his thigh, each notch in the belt visible. And the wound, with blood gushing from it.
“When did you feel this last?” Libby asked, breathless.
Coby looked her in the eye. “I feel this every day. When Jess can’t think of the word for garlic. When Liam does ridiculous TV interviews. When Nathaniel blushes, as if he couldn’t possibly receive a compliment. When Christian can’t leave my side. When you show up here and pretend to be okay. I feel it every single day.”
“Why?” Libby asked, unflinching.
“I don’t know why. I just do,” Coby insisted quietly.
“Well, think about it.”
“Because I couldn’t help them,” Coby admitted, ducking his head.
“Jess?” Libby guessed.
“And Morgan… He pulled her right out of my hands. I couldn’t do anything to stop it.”
Libby nodded, swallowing.
They had all been hiding beneath the same table. Libby had watched, scared silent as Morgan lunged forward, saying she wasn’t going to let Buddy - who was showing the gun - do this, and Coby had grabbed her by the hood of the sweatshirt to hold her back. She still fought, and Coby had held on. Then Buddy had come over and grabbed her, jerking her away from Coby. When he came out from beneath the table, Buddy had shot him. Libby took a breath, steadying herself from the memory, and addressed Coby, speaking softly.
“None of us had control then, okay? But it wasn’t our fault. The thing is, we have control now. We can choose what kind of people to be. Our attitudes. The way we parent. The way we’re there for one another. You can choose the kind of husband you are to Jess now and the kind of father you are to Christian. The kind of friend you are to all of us.”
There was silence and then Coby nodded. Libby thought she saw tears in his eyes.
“Will you do me a favor?” she asked gently.
Another nod.
“Before you go, will you paint me your strength and your power?”
So Coby got to work, throwing the leg painting aside and starting on a new one. All the while his mind was working.
The kind of work Libby was doing deserved its own space. Not just his workshop, which had one source of light and a crappy space heater. So as he painted calligraphy-style initials in black and red across the page, Coby thought about the spare bedroom. It had exercise equipment that was never used. He could easily give it a new paint job. Maybe hang her Independence painting on the wall and get her a few new supplies.
Even as he thought and worked, Libby stayed. For over an hour while he added little details.
When it was done, he thanked her, and then simply got up and started for the door.
“Wait! Don’t you want it?” Libby called.
“Keep it,” he said.
When Libby was alone, she walked around easel and studied it. What she found took her breath. Initials danced across the page, intertwining with one another, as if they‘d been penned, not painted.
Coby’s initials were connected to Jess’s and Jess’s to Christian’s. Coby’s were connected to Bryan and Aaron. Aaron’s to Jess and Legend. Legend’s back to Christian. Jess’s were connected to Morgan’s, Libby’s and Emily’s. Morgan’s, Libby’s and Nate’s were connected. Libby’s and Emily’s were connected. Nate’s and Cary’s were connected. Cary’s and Jonathan’s were connected. Jonathan and Morgan’s were connected. It had the delicate strength of a spider web. Finding the initials was like working on finding hidden pictures in a magazine.
In the spaces, there were paintbrushes and paint. Books and food. A cross. A snowboard. A motorcycle. A skateboard. A van. A home with a lit porch. Music. Everything seemed perfectly selected and was placed in a space near someone’s initials.
Libby knew he said she could keep it, but she didn’t even want to touch it. It was too amazing. So she left it where it was to dry and hurried in the house for dinner, wishing she had a place to hang it.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Stowaway: Chapter 3
Seriously? If Liam tells me one more time to check him out on channel 5 tonight, I’m sure I’m going to scream. I have no idea what he’s doing, but I’m sure he’ll get a kick out of seeing himself on TV if nothing else.
“Libby, come on, it’s Monday Madness. Can’t you go on journal-silence for this?” Emily teased. “It’s not every day we get a Luau.” She stabbed a piece of mango with her ham and pineapple skewer, which was already picked clean, and popped the fruit in her mouth.
“Liam keeps texting me,” Libby objected. “’Check me out tonight--’”
“Trust me, I have,” Morgan interjected dryly. “He’s not that big a prize.”
“’--Channel 5! Channel 5, channel 5, Channel 5! What channel? 5!’” Libby read sarcastically.
Jon groaned, head in his hand. He’d taken a migraine pill already, but it wasn’t doing the job. He went to sleep in his Madness pants so he wouldn’t have to change clothes, and got up to find a Hawaiian feast. Secretly, he’d been hoping for Jess’s spaghetti, but he didn’t tell Morgan.
“Sorry,” Libby whispered. “I was just saying in that way for emphasis.”
“I lived with your brother for eight months. I remember what he sounds like, and that ain’t it,” Jon joked, trying to keep things light, despite the agony he was feeling.
“So, come on, guys. Tell us about your trip. I want to hear,” Coby encouraged.
“Okay, so!” Emily announced. “It was a dark and windy morning on Friday when we first set out…” she began dramatically.
“Boo!” Nathaniel called, and Cary tossed a pineapple chunk her way.
“Hey, thanks!” Emily said, biting into it.
“First, we stopped in Minneapolis to help somebody move,” Libby said, taking over the narrative.
“Who do you know in Minneapolis?” Jess wanted to know. “You know what this is missing? Those flower-necklaces.”
“We made those last year in school,” Christian piped up. “We took a make-believe trip to Hawaii and made necklaces out of yarn and paper. I told the teacher they weren’t real leis but she said that’s why we were using our imaginations.”
Coby looked on, glad to see Christian with a happier attitude. He’d had an awful day at school, according to his teacher, and kept leaving his seat to look out the window, and opening and closing the door. Coby had warned her that CJ was having a tough time, so that she would understand. Still, he ended up all of his tickets - a little strip of paper folded accordion-style and taped to the base of the board at the front of the room. They had the kids’ initials and were different colors each week. They lost one for minor infractions. Christian had lost all five in one day. Coby wasn’t sure what that meant, but he was sure it wasn’t good.
He tuned back into the conversation in time to hear Libby describing how they had done some checking before left, and found volunteer opportunities in some of the major cities they would pass through. Minneapolis, it turned out, had what was called the Center for Victims of Torture, which was like a counseling center for both locals and internationals that had been through unimaginable things. Apparently, oftentimes they would try to settle in the neighborhood but would not always have the resources to do it by themselves.
“So, that’s where The Beast came in handy,” Emily announced. “It has a lot of space for stuff, because let’s be honest, we didn’t take very much. Oh! And our next stop was the best, because it was a Culver’s in Madison. We dropped off art supplies in the Easter Seals bin, and I got two scoops of chocolate custard with Kit-Kats.”
“We stopped at a young adult group in Rockford and hung out there one night,” Libby said, referring to her journal as she worked on her chicken. “And then…we were going to stop somewhere in Chicago, but couldn’t find anywhere that didn’t require paperwork and long term commitments to help,” she said, sounding disappointed.
“You said you found a kid there,” Nathaniel reminded. I remember, ‘cause you updated about it: ‘Chicago: Found child.’”
“Where is he?” Christian wanted to know.
“Yeah, we did,” Emily confirmed her excited tone of voice dropping into sadness. We were driving late one night and Libby saw this little boy walking on the side of the highway. He only had a shirt and a diaper on. No coat. No shoes.”
“No pants?” Christian asked, concerned.
“Nope, no pants,” Libby confirmed softly. “And it was really cold out.”
“Did you stop?” Jess asked, grateful for the table, when she put a hand protectively over baby AJ.
Emily nodded. “Libby pulled over and we got out. We asked him his name and he said it was Michael. He was only three, and he couldn’t tell us how he got there or where he lived.”
“My mom got lost like that when she was three,” Christian said seriously, looking at Jess. “Then some people came and got her, but she still had hard times.” Saying this actually made Christian feel a little better inside. His mom did know what it felt like to be forgot about. Because her mom forgot her. It was on purpose, too. At least his mom and dad didn’t do that.
Everyone was quiet a few minutes, and under the table, Coby took Jess’s hand.
“That’s right,” Jess said, nodding for Emily and Libby to continue.
“So, I called the 911 to report it,” Emily said, and we kept him in The Beast with us. Wrapped him in blankets and took him to a McDonalds to get something to eat. He kept asking if he could play, even though he was shivering. He cried when they came and took him in…” she remembered.
“It’s a good thing you were there,” Cary said honestly.
“A ton of people were there,” Libby snapped more harshly than she meant to. “But none of them stopped. They just pretended not to see him.”
“It’s a good thing you stopped,” Cary amended, softer now.
“And then we did another shopping trip in South Bend for their homeless shelter, drove forever, stopped in Erie to help the House of Healing set up their garage sale--”
“And then, we did Emily’s favorite thing,” Libby cut in.
“Next to shopping,” Emily put in. She paused dramatically. “We bought fabric and got to be Blanketeers for the Buffalo chapter of Project Linus. It gives homemade blankets to kids who need them. In foster care, hospitals, or wherever. Our blanket rocked. It had monkeys on it and a yellow back, and Libby and I did it really fast. We made it in a church and then dropped it off.”
“Then it was Syracuse to help transport Angel Food for Robinson Memorial Church, and now we’re here,” Libby sighed.
It had been a crazy trip. They were all the way in Rockford before she realized she left her pillow at home and they couldn’t turn around for it. They got lost when Karen insisted they drive over a closed bridge, and Emily insisted that she was right. That was when Libby almost threw Emily’s phone out the window and they had a huge screaming fight. However, in their defense, they had been driving on and off for two days by then with very little sleep.
By then, Morgan was taking dessert requests and bringing out the Chocolate Macadamia Nut Ben and Jerry’s.
“Bryan called,” Coby volunteered. “He said he wished he was here, but that he was thinking of us and to hang in there.”
“Anyone hear from Legend?” Jess asked. Her best friend had been so distant lately. It was a hard thing, when they used to be so close.
Christian took a big bite of his ice cream, grimacing at the nuts. “I Skyped her,” he said matter-of-factly.
“How did you…” Jon wondered. His headache was finally fading. Maybe he needed Morgan’s Hawaiian food every year, and then he would feel better.
“Don’t ask…” Nate said, laughing.
“No, I really would like to know how my seven-year-old figured out how to Skype and did it without my knowledge,” Jess insisted.
“It’s so easy,” Christian smiled. I just saw her name on the list, and clicked it. Then I said to make a video call and bam, there was Legend.”
“Where was Dad?” Jess asked, sending Coby a look.
“Talking to Bryan. Didn’t I just say that?” Coby objected lightly. He crunched a macadamia nut loudly.
“So, how was Legend?” Jess asked, figuring she’d deal with computer issues later.
Christian shrugged. “She wanted to talk to you but I said you were at work. She cried a little and I told her you promised not to be late, but that didn’t help,” he stirred his ice cream. “So I said I was sorry for biting her that one time.”
“You bit Legend?” Jess asked, shocked.
“Yeah, when you guys were all gone and only she was there. I was mad so I bit her where her hand was already hurt when I was four. What? She said it was okay,” he insisted. “And I asked if she was having a hard day and she said yes, so I told her to go break some stuff. I told her I did this morning, and it felt really good. She said she was going to, and she said thanks and stuff.”
--
“Tonight, on Backward Glance, we look back on a tragedy that shattered a busy college town. I’m Rock Stevens. Tonight, hear from the man who was trapped in the middle of it all.
“William Wright had just transferred to High City University, months before the attack. He was a senior, and his younger sister, Elizabeth, just a freshman.”
Jess gasped as a picture of Liam and Libby filled the screen. She had just settled down on the couch with Coby after getting Christian to bed an hour later than usual. The TV had been on in the living room and Jess had just about switched it off when Liam’s name caught her attention.
She didn’t waste time with the stairs, or risk waking up Christian by shouting; she called Libby’s cell phone. “Libby, I think you should see this…Come upstairs…” Jess pressed pause, letting the DVR freeze the action. She wasn’t about to record this ridiculous thing - only if Libby wanted it - but Jess couldn’t imagine anyone wanting something like this.
“I’m not gonna watch this,” Coby said, sounding resigned. “Good night. I love you,” he said, giving her a kiss. He understood her reasons. Jess had almost no memory of the day at all. She was always looking at news reports, reading articles and even asking questions to fill in the holes for herself. Coby just couldn’t handle reliving it. Not if he didn’t have to.
Coby had just come from a meeting, and wished he were just leaving for it instead. He needed a place to figure this all out. He didn’t mind being surrounded by strangers, but he liked having a familiar face there, too, in Morgan. Stowe was such a small town that the only AA meeting that existed was at the Community Church Monday nights. Coby always stopped by Jon and Morgan’s to see if she wanted a ride. Usually, she went alone, and they saw each other there. They didn’t talk much, but took comfort in one another’s presence. It was nice to know that neither one was fighting alone.
“Okay, I love you,” Jess returned, giving him a kiss, and watching him disappear down the hall.
By then, Libby and Emily had thundered none-too quietly up the stairs.
“I forgot this was even on!” Libby exclaimed softly. “What is it?”
“An interview with Rock Stevens for Backward Glance,” Jess filled in gently.
“Oh, crap…” Libby moaned. “I think that producer approached all of us. We all said no. I never thought he’d ask Liam…”
Emily was busy calling Nate and Cary, Morgan and Jon. They all deserved a heads-up and the option of whether or not to watch this.
Jess pressed play to let them see the opening and caught up to where the picture of Liam and Libby - a dated photograph - she noticed. Liam’s hair was longer, and they both looked younger. Liam had his arm around Libby’s shoulders. Libby had her arms crossed. Her smile looked genuine, but Jess noticed the little things - how it didn’t reach her eyes - how she was leaning away from him. Belatedly, Jess noticed something else, too. Libby was in a dress, and in all the years that Jess had known her, she had never seen Libby in anything that could remotely show off her body.
“My eighth grade dance,” Libby supplied. “I didn’t want to go, but my family thought it was a good idea to go. To socialize. To meet people. To be a little feminine,” Libby said darkly. Sexual abuse was a part of her life even earlier than three years ago. When was a little girl, she was repeatedly molested by the neighbor who had been put in charge of herself and her brother the summer between kindergarten and first grade. He had liked her dresses. Ever since then, Libby had hated them.
“If Elizabeth’s name sounds familiar to you, it should,” the reporter’s voice said in voice-over.
Then the scene cut to an interview in a comfortable looking living room that Libby had never seen. Liam sat in one chair, and the interviewer across from him. Liam was dressed in a light blue dress shirt and a dark blue suit jacket. He wore matching pants and black shoes. It was the most dressed up Libby had ever seen him.
“It’s funny because the whole reason Libby transferred here was because I was. We all thought - my parents and I - that she’d be safer in college with her big brother nearby. But we were wrong.” Liam’s eyes looked haunted.
“Were you familiar with any of the other victims?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“All of them, sir.”
“All of them?” The reporter was incredulous. “All ten of the people in that room? How could you know all ten of them?”
“Libby’s my sister, obviously. Morgan was my girlfriend at the time, and my sister‘s roommate. Jon and Nathaniel were my roommates…”
With each name Liam spoke, a corresponding picture appeared on the screen. Libby ready for the dance. Morgan snowboarding. Jonathan laughing at a joke. Nathaniel standing uncomfortably in the apartment he had shared with Jon and Liam.
“Emily, Legend and Jess, they were all living with Libby, too,” Liam continued. And all of them, including Aaron, Bryan and Coby were a part of the Bible study I led on campus.”
“More, with William Wright, when we return.”
Libby buried her face in her hands.
--
“Shit,” Jonathan swore. “I told that Rock Stevens crony exactly where he could shove his exclusive interview, and here it is…”
“How the hell was Liam in the middle of it all?” Morgan cursed angrily. She pulled the quilt off the back of the couch and wrapped herself in it. She felt dirty anyway, just thinking about the events of that day, but somehow hearing Liam tell the world that she was his girlfriend made Morgan’s skin crawl.
“And we’re back,” Jon said sarcastically under his breath.
On the screen, Morgan watched as Rock and Liam walked down 7th Avenue like old buddies. Now, Liam wore a red tee shirt with the logo blurred out, but Morgan recognized it as one of his favorites with a Christian message on the front. He had once worn it to Bible study with a Dr. Seuss hat. They kept walking. Past the grocery store. To the skate park. Her stomach flipped nervously.
“Where were you when it started?” Rock asked.
“Right here,” Liam said somberly, skateboard in his hand, beside one of the ramps. “I noticed traffic start to get heavy sort of, but I had my phone turned off for most of the time. Then I got a call from somebody. I don’t even remember who. They asked if I was okay. Told me there had been a shooting on campus. He‘d just seen Aaron Martinez on the news.” Liam said quietly.
A clip of Aaron jumping out a second-floor window and collapsing with a broken foot was shown. Then, a few seconds of Aaron, pale and shaken, reporting what was happening.
“Were you shocked?” Rock asked.
“I just sat down, right there,” Liam indicated a spot at the top of the ramp. “Just started crying. Our parents were out of the country on a mission trip to Mexico. It was just me, and I failed my sister, you know? I failed my Bible study and my roommates and my girlfriend. I kept calling Libby but she wouldn’t answer. I thought she was dead. I thought they were all dead.” Liam choked.
Morgan breathed deeply and tried to steal herself against the sensation of being shoved against a wall. Of another man’s tongue in her mouth and down her throat. She knew where she was. Knew Jon was watching, in case it got bad. In case she needed an anchor. Blood rushed in her ears and then the sound receded. It was as if no time at all passed.
“But they weren’t,” Rock said obviously.
Liam shook his head, swallowing. “No, they weren’t. It was a miracle.”
“What did happen to them?”
The scene at the skate park faded, and suddenly there was the study room, as it was after the SWAT team rescued them. The window shattered. Glass on the tables. Blood on the floor. Schoolwork was left on the table. Morgan recognized her Sociology textbook open where she left it. Her I-Pod lying next to it. Gradually, the scene faded, and Liam and the host were seen in the room as it was now. Carpeted, with new tables and chairs. No desk at the front of the room.
“Your sister, first. What happened to her?”
As Liam knelt beneath a table to show just what happened, Morgan looked away.
“We all came back here a few months later. Right before Spring Break. Libby told me what happened and showed me where everybody was.” Liam explained.
Then, he told, in excruciating detail, what happened to Libby. What he assumed happened to Morgan and Nathaniel. Jonathan getting cut. Bryan, Jess and Coby getting shot. Aaron jumping out the window when he had a chance. Legend getting cut by flying glass, and Emily, so traumatized at revisiting the room that she barely lasted a few minutes.
--
“Why is he doing this?” Nate choked. “This isn’t happening. He didn’t just remind the whole country what happened to me, did he?”
“You don’t have to watch,” Cary reassured. They both were lying on the couch, holding each other, a blanket pulled over them. Cary could feel Nate’s heart pounding; hear how short of breath he became when he saw the room.
Nathaniel shook his head, staring into Cary’s blue eyes. “I can do this.”
“I know you can, Nate. I’m telling you that you don’t have to. Jess is watching, she can tell you. Or I can watch and tell you.”
However, the voice of the interviewer caught Nathaniel’s attention.
“What about afterward?”
Liam chuckled wryly. “Afterward? We were all kind of a mess… I mean, Libby couldn’t get out of bed for days. Nathaniel freaked out and threw a coffee cup at my head…”
Cary laughed softly. “You threw a cup at him?”
Nathaniel nodded and laid his head on Cary’s chest.
“Good for you,” Cary congratulated, running a hand through Nate’s hair.
“Jessica was shot in the head, wasn’t she?” Rock asked, as if he knew her. “And she was a mother, right?”
“Right,” Liam said gravely. “Honestly? I had concerns about her parenting when I first met her. She had her son when she was really young, and you know statistics. A lack of resources. Lack of education. Lack of morals…”
“You believe she lacked morality?” Rock asked, intrigued.
“I’m a Christian,” Liam answered, by way of explanation. “I just had my doubts about her, and then she’s in the hospital recovering from a gunshot wound to the head. She didn’t even know her own name at first. Could hardly talk. She had to relearn everything.”
“Who took care of her son?”
“We all did,” Liam said simply. “When something like this happens, you take care of your own, no questions asked, but I worried about how she was would be with him afterward. You know, he was four then, would she even have the intelligence to raise him when he reached five, six, seven years old?”
--
“Oh, I’m going to kill him…” Jess vowed, clutching a pillow to her chest. “And if he says my child’s name on national television, I am going to rip his limbs off. …Sorry Libby,” she apologized as an afterthought.
“No, hey. If you do it, I won’t have to. He did just tell the whole viewing audience the exact details of what happened to me, approximated Morgan and Nate’s, and insulted you on every front possible,” Libby shrugged.
“Seriously, and what’s with all his ‘we’ crap?” Emily demanded. “He’s been sharing this whole time like he was in the room, too, and he never was. Except when he dragged us all back in there.”
“…What about Morgan? You’ve talked about your sister and about Jessica, who you clearly disapproved of, and your roommate, Nathaniel. What about your girlfriend? Are you two still together?” Rock asked.
“Oh, shit,” Jess swore, already anticipating what was coming next.
--
Morgan clenched the quilt in her fists as she listened to Rock ask if she and Liam were still together.
“No, we’re not,” Liam denied, shaking his head firmly.
“At first weird things would just set her off. She’d stare at a clock as if she was mesmerized by it. Once she confided in me that it was because that’s how she coped when she knew what was going to happen to her. She watched the clock on the wall. But around the time that we went back to the study room, we found out she was using drugs to cope with what happened to her.”
“Drugs?” Rock raised his eyebrows, surprised.
“Pills she stole from us, marijuana, and alcohol. On spring break she overdosed and tried to kill herself,” Liam said gravely.
“Were you there for this, too?” Rock asked, sympathetically.
“Yes. I couldn’t tell at first, because I’d never seen an addict before, you know? I go to church every Sunday, lead youth group…I’m kind of…”
“Sheltered?” Rock supplied, taking a guess.
“Yeah, exactly. But eventually it was pretty clear. So, my roommates and I, and another guy took her to the hospital,” he said, biting the inside of his cheek.
Morgan turned alarmed eyes on Jonathan. “I thought he wasn’t there.”
“He wasn’t there,” Jon said firmly. “He’s trying to save his own ass right now. Look at his body language. How he’s leaning away from Rock, and biting his lip. He doesn’t believe it himself. It was me, Nate and Cary. Liam left because he couldn’t deal.”
On the screen, Liam was still talking. “She went through rehab, and once she got out, she just broke up with me,” he shrugged. “I heard she relapsed last November.”
“How is everyone now?” Rock wanted to know.
“To be honest, I don’t know. Jess and Coby got married in May of ‘09. Nathaniel got married last October. They’re all living in New England now. Morgan and her boyfriend, too.”
“Ouch. He hates me bad…” Jon exclaimed. “Not even a name!”
“Legend, Aaron and Bryan are still here, but we don’t talk. Libby and Emily are the only two I’m in touch with regularly, and I know for a fact they’re doing great. Libby lives with me, and is going to school to be a teacher.” Liam continued.
“Not anymore…” Morgan muttered. Five minutes with Libby had told her that.
“That’s great to hear. Liam, just one more question. Why did you want to do this interview?” Rock asked, leaning forward intently.
Liam sighed. “I wanted to do this interview, Rock; because I think it’s important to get the truth out there. The aftermath of something like this isn’t easy. The truth is we’re all still trying to cope. This has broken us. But the most important reason is because I want people to know that there is hope. God is with me every day, giving me grace and strength to get through each day. To face the loss of the life I knew.”
The screen faded to black and then cut to the news anchors behind the desk.
“None of the ten victims could be reached for comment,” the woman anchor reported. “What an inspiring young man. Please log onto our website Backward Glance dot com to chat live with William Wright and ask him your questions.”
--
“I guess we should be grateful that he didn’t use Christian’s name, or out Nathaniel on television,” Jess said darkly. “We all said no to that interview, and he just jumped at it.”
“I’m not going back, ever,” Libby insisted, wiping tears away on the sleeve of her pajamas. “How can I show my face to my parents now that they know what he did to me?”
“And I’m sure my dad saw it. If I know one thing about him, it’s that he tuned into this show every single week. Great for him to hear what a horrible mother I am…” Jess said bitterly.
Emily put her arms around Jess and Libby, pulling them close. “Ladies, we can’t do anything about what’s been done. But if anybody needs to talk, I’m the lay counselor at Stowe Community now, and aren’t you lucky? I live right in your basement,” she told Jess, smiling.
“We should go check on the boys, and Morgan and Jon,” Jess decided. As bad as this was for us, it was just as bad or worse for them.” Jess decided. “Girls, can one of you leave a note for my husband?”
Emily typed a few things into her cell phone, and hit SEND. “Done!” she said.
--
They arrived at Jon and Morgan’s minutes later and found Morgan on the phone while Jon held her hand.
The girls politely excused themselves, and went to the kitchen, which they found mostly clean, except for the dishes waiting to be put away. Emily started there, while Jess wiped the table and Libby swept.
“Hey, you guys don’t have to do that,” Jon told them, coming into the kitchen. He was still wearing his Madness pants and an old white tee shirt, also known as his pajamas. Just his luck to get past his migraine and then have see Liam on the news. It made the end of his day horrendous.
“I know, but we helped make the mess,” Emily rationalized.
“Me, especially,” Libby added, “I helped cook.”
Jess came over and wrapped her arms around Jon. “Are you okay?” she asked quietly.
“No, are you?” he returned, still holding on.
“No, none of us are. That’s why we’re here,” Jess told him.
So, Jon held on, not knowing what else to do and knowing it would be stupid to fight it. Jess had that mom thing down. She’d had like, eight years of practice already.
Since Jess seemed to have Jon under control, Libby and Emily went to Morgan. By the time they got there, her phone was on the table, her jaw was set with resolve and her eyes held determination. A quilt was pulled around her shoulders, though she didn’t seem particularly cold.
“Can we sit?” Libby asked.
Morgan nodded. “Thanks for coming. How’d you know we’d need you?”
“Because we need you,” Libby answered seriously. “I’m so sorry about those things he said, Morgan. That’s your business.”
“Yeah, it is, but it’s not your fault,” Morgan said sincerely. “You’re not like him at all. You’re like you. Be your own person and don’t ever change.”
“If you ever want to talk or paint or anything, come over,” Emily invited, her voice uncharacteristically soft. “I’m a lay counselor now, and Libby’s having anger art in Coby’s workshop.”
“Sounds good,” Morgan smiled shakily. “I love you girls. Thanks for coming by.”
“Of course, not like you could get rid of us,” Emily joked.
“So, do you have anymore of that chocolate ice cream?” Libby asked.
“It’s in the freezer,” Jon called, “But not for long. Jess, grab a spoon! Hurry!”
There was a commotion beyond the door and then laughter, as Libby, Emily and Morgan joined their friends in the kitchen. It was nice to be together anytime, but it was especially good when times were hard.
“Who cares about the damn show?” Morgan asked certainly, digging into the container for an especially good bite.
“Got that right,” Jon affirmed. “We got the ice cream, and what’s he got?”
“An empty house and no trick-or-treaters,” Libby blurted out and Emily cackled.
They sat together, eating and laughing. They knew what was coming would be hard for them to endure. Therefore, they seized the joy in this moment, hung onto it with both hands, and prayed it could carry them through.
--
Jess, Emily and Libby drove back to the house. Jess darted inside quickly and out again through the back door with her the dog in her arms.
Then Jess called the girls around and showed them the secret passageway through the place where the back fence didn’t quite join up to the chain link fence on the side. She brought Snoopy because sometimes animals could do things to help that humans just couldn’t manage. Smiling ruefully, Jess thought about the day when she wouldn’t be able to fit through such a narrow opening. Together, they walked up to Nate and Cary’s kitchen door, and knocked their secret knock, so Nate wouldn’t get freaked out about intruders.
No one answered, so Jess took the lead and pushed the door open. Emily and Libby followed close behind, and the three of them found Nate and Cary standing and just holding onto each other in the living room. Without a word, the three girls surrounded them, making a human shield, and letting both men know that they had support. Though Snoopy was in Jess’s arms, he somehow maneuvered so that his head was right against Nate’s arm. It was a precious thing to do, and Jess was proud of him.
“You guys okay?” Libby asked quietly.
“You need anything?” Emily spoke up.
“No, we’re okay,” Nathaniel reassured them, glancing up with red-rimmed eyes. “Go home. Get some sleep.”
“Hey Jess?” he called, before she got too far away.
“Yeah?”
“Can I keep Snoopy for the night? I’ll bring him back tomorrow, I promise,” Nate asked, biting his lip nervously.
“He is all yours,” she said sweetly, nestling the puppy in Nathaniel’s arms.
Snoopy was fluffy with light brown fur. He was teddy-bear-soft, and snuggled immediately against Nate’s chest. Perfect for cuddling. Perfect for keeping nightmares away. Quietly, he carried the puppy to bed and got settled himself, relieved when Snoopy got close, and snored in Nate’s ear.
Back in the kitchen, before Libby, Emily and Jess left, they each had to pass Cary’s test, which involved having their faces held between Cary’s hands while he stared into their eyes for an undetermined amount of time. When he was satisfied, he gave them each a gentle kiss on the forehead.
“We love you guys,” he called as they left.
“We love you more,” Emily insisted, as they disappeared into the night.
“Libby, come on, it’s Monday Madness. Can’t you go on journal-silence for this?” Emily teased. “It’s not every day we get a Luau.” She stabbed a piece of mango with her ham and pineapple skewer, which was already picked clean, and popped the fruit in her mouth.
“Liam keeps texting me,” Libby objected. “’Check me out tonight--’”
“Trust me, I have,” Morgan interjected dryly. “He’s not that big a prize.”
“’--Channel 5! Channel 5, channel 5, Channel 5! What channel? 5!’” Libby read sarcastically.
Jon groaned, head in his hand. He’d taken a migraine pill already, but it wasn’t doing the job. He went to sleep in his Madness pants so he wouldn’t have to change clothes, and got up to find a Hawaiian feast. Secretly, he’d been hoping for Jess’s spaghetti, but he didn’t tell Morgan.
“Sorry,” Libby whispered. “I was just saying in that way for emphasis.”
“I lived with your brother for eight months. I remember what he sounds like, and that ain’t it,” Jon joked, trying to keep things light, despite the agony he was feeling.
“So, come on, guys. Tell us about your trip. I want to hear,” Coby encouraged.
“Okay, so!” Emily announced. “It was a dark and windy morning on Friday when we first set out…” she began dramatically.
“Boo!” Nathaniel called, and Cary tossed a pineapple chunk her way.
“Hey, thanks!” Emily said, biting into it.
“First, we stopped in Minneapolis to help somebody move,” Libby said, taking over the narrative.
“Who do you know in Minneapolis?” Jess wanted to know. “You know what this is missing? Those flower-necklaces.”
“We made those last year in school,” Christian piped up. “We took a make-believe trip to Hawaii and made necklaces out of yarn and paper. I told the teacher they weren’t real leis but she said that’s why we were using our imaginations.”
Coby looked on, glad to see Christian with a happier attitude. He’d had an awful day at school, according to his teacher, and kept leaving his seat to look out the window, and opening and closing the door. Coby had warned her that CJ was having a tough time, so that she would understand. Still, he ended up all of his tickets - a little strip of paper folded accordion-style and taped to the base of the board at the front of the room. They had the kids’ initials and were different colors each week. They lost one for minor infractions. Christian had lost all five in one day. Coby wasn’t sure what that meant, but he was sure it wasn’t good.
He tuned back into the conversation in time to hear Libby describing how they had done some checking before left, and found volunteer opportunities in some of the major cities they would pass through. Minneapolis, it turned out, had what was called the Center for Victims of Torture, which was like a counseling center for both locals and internationals that had been through unimaginable things. Apparently, oftentimes they would try to settle in the neighborhood but would not always have the resources to do it by themselves.
“So, that’s where The Beast came in handy,” Emily announced. “It has a lot of space for stuff, because let’s be honest, we didn’t take very much. Oh! And our next stop was the best, because it was a Culver’s in Madison. We dropped off art supplies in the Easter Seals bin, and I got two scoops of chocolate custard with Kit-Kats.”
“We stopped at a young adult group in Rockford and hung out there one night,” Libby said, referring to her journal as she worked on her chicken. “And then…we were going to stop somewhere in Chicago, but couldn’t find anywhere that didn’t require paperwork and long term commitments to help,” she said, sounding disappointed.
“You said you found a kid there,” Nathaniel reminded. I remember, ‘cause you updated about it: ‘Chicago: Found child.’”
“Where is he?” Christian wanted to know.
“Yeah, we did,” Emily confirmed her excited tone of voice dropping into sadness. We were driving late one night and Libby saw this little boy walking on the side of the highway. He only had a shirt and a diaper on. No coat. No shoes.”
“No pants?” Christian asked, concerned.
“Nope, no pants,” Libby confirmed softly. “And it was really cold out.”
“Did you stop?” Jess asked, grateful for the table, when she put a hand protectively over baby AJ.
Emily nodded. “Libby pulled over and we got out. We asked him his name and he said it was Michael. He was only three, and he couldn’t tell us how he got there or where he lived.”
“My mom got lost like that when she was three,” Christian said seriously, looking at Jess. “Then some people came and got her, but she still had hard times.” Saying this actually made Christian feel a little better inside. His mom did know what it felt like to be forgot about. Because her mom forgot her. It was on purpose, too. At least his mom and dad didn’t do that.
Everyone was quiet a few minutes, and under the table, Coby took Jess’s hand.
“That’s right,” Jess said, nodding for Emily and Libby to continue.
“So, I called the 911 to report it,” Emily said, and we kept him in The Beast with us. Wrapped him in blankets and took him to a McDonalds to get something to eat. He kept asking if he could play, even though he was shivering. He cried when they came and took him in…” she remembered.
“It’s a good thing you were there,” Cary said honestly.
“A ton of people were there,” Libby snapped more harshly than she meant to. “But none of them stopped. They just pretended not to see him.”
“It’s a good thing you stopped,” Cary amended, softer now.
“And then we did another shopping trip in South Bend for their homeless shelter, drove forever, stopped in Erie to help the House of Healing set up their garage sale--”
“And then, we did Emily’s favorite thing,” Libby cut in.
“Next to shopping,” Emily put in. She paused dramatically. “We bought fabric and got to be Blanketeers for the Buffalo chapter of Project Linus. It gives homemade blankets to kids who need them. In foster care, hospitals, or wherever. Our blanket rocked. It had monkeys on it and a yellow back, and Libby and I did it really fast. We made it in a church and then dropped it off.”
“Then it was Syracuse to help transport Angel Food for Robinson Memorial Church, and now we’re here,” Libby sighed.
It had been a crazy trip. They were all the way in Rockford before she realized she left her pillow at home and they couldn’t turn around for it. They got lost when Karen insisted they drive over a closed bridge, and Emily insisted that she was right. That was when Libby almost threw Emily’s phone out the window and they had a huge screaming fight. However, in their defense, they had been driving on and off for two days by then with very little sleep.
By then, Morgan was taking dessert requests and bringing out the Chocolate Macadamia Nut Ben and Jerry’s.
“Bryan called,” Coby volunteered. “He said he wished he was here, but that he was thinking of us and to hang in there.”
“Anyone hear from Legend?” Jess asked. Her best friend had been so distant lately. It was a hard thing, when they used to be so close.
Christian took a big bite of his ice cream, grimacing at the nuts. “I Skyped her,” he said matter-of-factly.
“How did you…” Jon wondered. His headache was finally fading. Maybe he needed Morgan’s Hawaiian food every year, and then he would feel better.
“Don’t ask…” Nate said, laughing.
“No, I really would like to know how my seven-year-old figured out how to Skype and did it without my knowledge,” Jess insisted.
“It’s so easy,” Christian smiled. I just saw her name on the list, and clicked it. Then I said to make a video call and bam, there was Legend.”
“Where was Dad?” Jess asked, sending Coby a look.
“Talking to Bryan. Didn’t I just say that?” Coby objected lightly. He crunched a macadamia nut loudly.
“So, how was Legend?” Jess asked, figuring she’d deal with computer issues later.
Christian shrugged. “She wanted to talk to you but I said you were at work. She cried a little and I told her you promised not to be late, but that didn’t help,” he stirred his ice cream. “So I said I was sorry for biting her that one time.”
“You bit Legend?” Jess asked, shocked.
“Yeah, when you guys were all gone and only she was there. I was mad so I bit her where her hand was already hurt when I was four. What? She said it was okay,” he insisted. “And I asked if she was having a hard day and she said yes, so I told her to go break some stuff. I told her I did this morning, and it felt really good. She said she was going to, and she said thanks and stuff.”
--
“Tonight, on Backward Glance, we look back on a tragedy that shattered a busy college town. I’m Rock Stevens. Tonight, hear from the man who was trapped in the middle of it all.
“William Wright had just transferred to High City University, months before the attack. He was a senior, and his younger sister, Elizabeth, just a freshman.”
Jess gasped as a picture of Liam and Libby filled the screen. She had just settled down on the couch with Coby after getting Christian to bed an hour later than usual. The TV had been on in the living room and Jess had just about switched it off when Liam’s name caught her attention.
She didn’t waste time with the stairs, or risk waking up Christian by shouting; she called Libby’s cell phone. “Libby, I think you should see this…Come upstairs…” Jess pressed pause, letting the DVR freeze the action. She wasn’t about to record this ridiculous thing - only if Libby wanted it - but Jess couldn’t imagine anyone wanting something like this.
“I’m not gonna watch this,” Coby said, sounding resigned. “Good night. I love you,” he said, giving her a kiss. He understood her reasons. Jess had almost no memory of the day at all. She was always looking at news reports, reading articles and even asking questions to fill in the holes for herself. Coby just couldn’t handle reliving it. Not if he didn’t have to.
Coby had just come from a meeting, and wished he were just leaving for it instead. He needed a place to figure this all out. He didn’t mind being surrounded by strangers, but he liked having a familiar face there, too, in Morgan. Stowe was such a small town that the only AA meeting that existed was at the Community Church Monday nights. Coby always stopped by Jon and Morgan’s to see if she wanted a ride. Usually, she went alone, and they saw each other there. They didn’t talk much, but took comfort in one another’s presence. It was nice to know that neither one was fighting alone.
“Okay, I love you,” Jess returned, giving him a kiss, and watching him disappear down the hall.
By then, Libby and Emily had thundered none-too quietly up the stairs.
“I forgot this was even on!” Libby exclaimed softly. “What is it?”
“An interview with Rock Stevens for Backward Glance,” Jess filled in gently.
“Oh, crap…” Libby moaned. “I think that producer approached all of us. We all said no. I never thought he’d ask Liam…”
Emily was busy calling Nate and Cary, Morgan and Jon. They all deserved a heads-up and the option of whether or not to watch this.
Jess pressed play to let them see the opening and caught up to where the picture of Liam and Libby - a dated photograph - she noticed. Liam’s hair was longer, and they both looked younger. Liam had his arm around Libby’s shoulders. Libby had her arms crossed. Her smile looked genuine, but Jess noticed the little things - how it didn’t reach her eyes - how she was leaning away from him. Belatedly, Jess noticed something else, too. Libby was in a dress, and in all the years that Jess had known her, she had never seen Libby in anything that could remotely show off her body.
“My eighth grade dance,” Libby supplied. “I didn’t want to go, but my family thought it was a good idea to go. To socialize. To meet people. To be a little feminine,” Libby said darkly. Sexual abuse was a part of her life even earlier than three years ago. When was a little girl, she was repeatedly molested by the neighbor who had been put in charge of herself and her brother the summer between kindergarten and first grade. He had liked her dresses. Ever since then, Libby had hated them.
“If Elizabeth’s name sounds familiar to you, it should,” the reporter’s voice said in voice-over.
Then the scene cut to an interview in a comfortable looking living room that Libby had never seen. Liam sat in one chair, and the interviewer across from him. Liam was dressed in a light blue dress shirt and a dark blue suit jacket. He wore matching pants and black shoes. It was the most dressed up Libby had ever seen him.
“It’s funny because the whole reason Libby transferred here was because I was. We all thought - my parents and I - that she’d be safer in college with her big brother nearby. But we were wrong.” Liam’s eyes looked haunted.
“Were you familiar with any of the other victims?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“All of them, sir.”
“All of them?” The reporter was incredulous. “All ten of the people in that room? How could you know all ten of them?”
“Libby’s my sister, obviously. Morgan was my girlfriend at the time, and my sister‘s roommate. Jon and Nathaniel were my roommates…”
With each name Liam spoke, a corresponding picture appeared on the screen. Libby ready for the dance. Morgan snowboarding. Jonathan laughing at a joke. Nathaniel standing uncomfortably in the apartment he had shared with Jon and Liam.
“Emily, Legend and Jess, they were all living with Libby, too,” Liam continued. And all of them, including Aaron, Bryan and Coby were a part of the Bible study I led on campus.”
“More, with William Wright, when we return.”
Libby buried her face in her hands.
--
“Shit,” Jonathan swore. “I told that Rock Stevens crony exactly where he could shove his exclusive interview, and here it is…”
“How the hell was Liam in the middle of it all?” Morgan cursed angrily. She pulled the quilt off the back of the couch and wrapped herself in it. She felt dirty anyway, just thinking about the events of that day, but somehow hearing Liam tell the world that she was his girlfriend made Morgan’s skin crawl.
“And we’re back,” Jon said sarcastically under his breath.
On the screen, Morgan watched as Rock and Liam walked down 7th Avenue like old buddies. Now, Liam wore a red tee shirt with the logo blurred out, but Morgan recognized it as one of his favorites with a Christian message on the front. He had once worn it to Bible study with a Dr. Seuss hat. They kept walking. Past the grocery store. To the skate park. Her stomach flipped nervously.
“Where were you when it started?” Rock asked.
“Right here,” Liam said somberly, skateboard in his hand, beside one of the ramps. “I noticed traffic start to get heavy sort of, but I had my phone turned off for most of the time. Then I got a call from somebody. I don’t even remember who. They asked if I was okay. Told me there had been a shooting on campus. He‘d just seen Aaron Martinez on the news.” Liam said quietly.
A clip of Aaron jumping out a second-floor window and collapsing with a broken foot was shown. Then, a few seconds of Aaron, pale and shaken, reporting what was happening.
“Were you shocked?” Rock asked.
“I just sat down, right there,” Liam indicated a spot at the top of the ramp. “Just started crying. Our parents were out of the country on a mission trip to Mexico. It was just me, and I failed my sister, you know? I failed my Bible study and my roommates and my girlfriend. I kept calling Libby but she wouldn’t answer. I thought she was dead. I thought they were all dead.” Liam choked.
Morgan breathed deeply and tried to steal herself against the sensation of being shoved against a wall. Of another man’s tongue in her mouth and down her throat. She knew where she was. Knew Jon was watching, in case it got bad. In case she needed an anchor. Blood rushed in her ears and then the sound receded. It was as if no time at all passed.
“But they weren’t,” Rock said obviously.
Liam shook his head, swallowing. “No, they weren’t. It was a miracle.”
“What did happen to them?”
The scene at the skate park faded, and suddenly there was the study room, as it was after the SWAT team rescued them. The window shattered. Glass on the tables. Blood on the floor. Schoolwork was left on the table. Morgan recognized her Sociology textbook open where she left it. Her I-Pod lying next to it. Gradually, the scene faded, and Liam and the host were seen in the room as it was now. Carpeted, with new tables and chairs. No desk at the front of the room.
“Your sister, first. What happened to her?”
As Liam knelt beneath a table to show just what happened, Morgan looked away.
“We all came back here a few months later. Right before Spring Break. Libby told me what happened and showed me where everybody was.” Liam explained.
Then, he told, in excruciating detail, what happened to Libby. What he assumed happened to Morgan and Nathaniel. Jonathan getting cut. Bryan, Jess and Coby getting shot. Aaron jumping out the window when he had a chance. Legend getting cut by flying glass, and Emily, so traumatized at revisiting the room that she barely lasted a few minutes.
--
“Why is he doing this?” Nate choked. “This isn’t happening. He didn’t just remind the whole country what happened to me, did he?”
“You don’t have to watch,” Cary reassured. They both were lying on the couch, holding each other, a blanket pulled over them. Cary could feel Nate’s heart pounding; hear how short of breath he became when he saw the room.
Nathaniel shook his head, staring into Cary’s blue eyes. “I can do this.”
“I know you can, Nate. I’m telling you that you don’t have to. Jess is watching, she can tell you. Or I can watch and tell you.”
However, the voice of the interviewer caught Nathaniel’s attention.
“What about afterward?”
Liam chuckled wryly. “Afterward? We were all kind of a mess… I mean, Libby couldn’t get out of bed for days. Nathaniel freaked out and threw a coffee cup at my head…”
Cary laughed softly. “You threw a cup at him?”
Nathaniel nodded and laid his head on Cary’s chest.
“Good for you,” Cary congratulated, running a hand through Nate’s hair.
“Jessica was shot in the head, wasn’t she?” Rock asked, as if he knew her. “And she was a mother, right?”
“Right,” Liam said gravely. “Honestly? I had concerns about her parenting when I first met her. She had her son when she was really young, and you know statistics. A lack of resources. Lack of education. Lack of morals…”
“You believe she lacked morality?” Rock asked, intrigued.
“I’m a Christian,” Liam answered, by way of explanation. “I just had my doubts about her, and then she’s in the hospital recovering from a gunshot wound to the head. She didn’t even know her own name at first. Could hardly talk. She had to relearn everything.”
“Who took care of her son?”
“We all did,” Liam said simply. “When something like this happens, you take care of your own, no questions asked, but I worried about how she was would be with him afterward. You know, he was four then, would she even have the intelligence to raise him when he reached five, six, seven years old?”
--
“Oh, I’m going to kill him…” Jess vowed, clutching a pillow to her chest. “And if he says my child’s name on national television, I am going to rip his limbs off. …Sorry Libby,” she apologized as an afterthought.
“No, hey. If you do it, I won’t have to. He did just tell the whole viewing audience the exact details of what happened to me, approximated Morgan and Nate’s, and insulted you on every front possible,” Libby shrugged.
“Seriously, and what’s with all his ‘we’ crap?” Emily demanded. “He’s been sharing this whole time like he was in the room, too, and he never was. Except when he dragged us all back in there.”
“…What about Morgan? You’ve talked about your sister and about Jessica, who you clearly disapproved of, and your roommate, Nathaniel. What about your girlfriend? Are you two still together?” Rock asked.
“Oh, shit,” Jess swore, already anticipating what was coming next.
--
Morgan clenched the quilt in her fists as she listened to Rock ask if she and Liam were still together.
“No, we’re not,” Liam denied, shaking his head firmly.
“At first weird things would just set her off. She’d stare at a clock as if she was mesmerized by it. Once she confided in me that it was because that’s how she coped when she knew what was going to happen to her. She watched the clock on the wall. But around the time that we went back to the study room, we found out she was using drugs to cope with what happened to her.”
“Drugs?” Rock raised his eyebrows, surprised.
“Pills she stole from us, marijuana, and alcohol. On spring break she overdosed and tried to kill herself,” Liam said gravely.
“Were you there for this, too?” Rock asked, sympathetically.
“Yes. I couldn’t tell at first, because I’d never seen an addict before, you know? I go to church every Sunday, lead youth group…I’m kind of…”
“Sheltered?” Rock supplied, taking a guess.
“Yeah, exactly. But eventually it was pretty clear. So, my roommates and I, and another guy took her to the hospital,” he said, biting the inside of his cheek.
Morgan turned alarmed eyes on Jonathan. “I thought he wasn’t there.”
“He wasn’t there,” Jon said firmly. “He’s trying to save his own ass right now. Look at his body language. How he’s leaning away from Rock, and biting his lip. He doesn’t believe it himself. It was me, Nate and Cary. Liam left because he couldn’t deal.”
On the screen, Liam was still talking. “She went through rehab, and once she got out, she just broke up with me,” he shrugged. “I heard she relapsed last November.”
“How is everyone now?” Rock wanted to know.
“To be honest, I don’t know. Jess and Coby got married in May of ‘09. Nathaniel got married last October. They’re all living in New England now. Morgan and her boyfriend, too.”
“Ouch. He hates me bad…” Jon exclaimed. “Not even a name!”
“Legend, Aaron and Bryan are still here, but we don’t talk. Libby and Emily are the only two I’m in touch with regularly, and I know for a fact they’re doing great. Libby lives with me, and is going to school to be a teacher.” Liam continued.
“Not anymore…” Morgan muttered. Five minutes with Libby had told her that.
“That’s great to hear. Liam, just one more question. Why did you want to do this interview?” Rock asked, leaning forward intently.
Liam sighed. “I wanted to do this interview, Rock; because I think it’s important to get the truth out there. The aftermath of something like this isn’t easy. The truth is we’re all still trying to cope. This has broken us. But the most important reason is because I want people to know that there is hope. God is with me every day, giving me grace and strength to get through each day. To face the loss of the life I knew.”
The screen faded to black and then cut to the news anchors behind the desk.
“None of the ten victims could be reached for comment,” the woman anchor reported. “What an inspiring young man. Please log onto our website Backward Glance dot com to chat live with William Wright and ask him your questions.”
--
“I guess we should be grateful that he didn’t use Christian’s name, or out Nathaniel on television,” Jess said darkly. “We all said no to that interview, and he just jumped at it.”
“I’m not going back, ever,” Libby insisted, wiping tears away on the sleeve of her pajamas. “How can I show my face to my parents now that they know what he did to me?”
“And I’m sure my dad saw it. If I know one thing about him, it’s that he tuned into this show every single week. Great for him to hear what a horrible mother I am…” Jess said bitterly.
Emily put her arms around Jess and Libby, pulling them close. “Ladies, we can’t do anything about what’s been done. But if anybody needs to talk, I’m the lay counselor at Stowe Community now, and aren’t you lucky? I live right in your basement,” she told Jess, smiling.
“We should go check on the boys, and Morgan and Jon,” Jess decided. As bad as this was for us, it was just as bad or worse for them.” Jess decided. “Girls, can one of you leave a note for my husband?”
Emily typed a few things into her cell phone, and hit SEND. “Done!” she said.
--
They arrived at Jon and Morgan’s minutes later and found Morgan on the phone while Jon held her hand.
The girls politely excused themselves, and went to the kitchen, which they found mostly clean, except for the dishes waiting to be put away. Emily started there, while Jess wiped the table and Libby swept.
“Hey, you guys don’t have to do that,” Jon told them, coming into the kitchen. He was still wearing his Madness pants and an old white tee shirt, also known as his pajamas. Just his luck to get past his migraine and then have see Liam on the news. It made the end of his day horrendous.
“I know, but we helped make the mess,” Emily rationalized.
“Me, especially,” Libby added, “I helped cook.”
Jess came over and wrapped her arms around Jon. “Are you okay?” she asked quietly.
“No, are you?” he returned, still holding on.
“No, none of us are. That’s why we’re here,” Jess told him.
So, Jon held on, not knowing what else to do and knowing it would be stupid to fight it. Jess had that mom thing down. She’d had like, eight years of practice already.
Since Jess seemed to have Jon under control, Libby and Emily went to Morgan. By the time they got there, her phone was on the table, her jaw was set with resolve and her eyes held determination. A quilt was pulled around her shoulders, though she didn’t seem particularly cold.
“Can we sit?” Libby asked.
Morgan nodded. “Thanks for coming. How’d you know we’d need you?”
“Because we need you,” Libby answered seriously. “I’m so sorry about those things he said, Morgan. That’s your business.”
“Yeah, it is, but it’s not your fault,” Morgan said sincerely. “You’re not like him at all. You’re like you. Be your own person and don’t ever change.”
“If you ever want to talk or paint or anything, come over,” Emily invited, her voice uncharacteristically soft. “I’m a lay counselor now, and Libby’s having anger art in Coby’s workshop.”
“Sounds good,” Morgan smiled shakily. “I love you girls. Thanks for coming by.”
“Of course, not like you could get rid of us,” Emily joked.
“So, do you have anymore of that chocolate ice cream?” Libby asked.
“It’s in the freezer,” Jon called, “But not for long. Jess, grab a spoon! Hurry!”
There was a commotion beyond the door and then laughter, as Libby, Emily and Morgan joined their friends in the kitchen. It was nice to be together anytime, but it was especially good when times were hard.
“Who cares about the damn show?” Morgan asked certainly, digging into the container for an especially good bite.
“Got that right,” Jon affirmed. “We got the ice cream, and what’s he got?”
“An empty house and no trick-or-treaters,” Libby blurted out and Emily cackled.
They sat together, eating and laughing. They knew what was coming would be hard for them to endure. Therefore, they seized the joy in this moment, hung onto it with both hands, and prayed it could carry them through.
--
Jess, Emily and Libby drove back to the house. Jess darted inside quickly and out again through the back door with her the dog in her arms.
Then Jess called the girls around and showed them the secret passageway through the place where the back fence didn’t quite join up to the chain link fence on the side. She brought Snoopy because sometimes animals could do things to help that humans just couldn’t manage. Smiling ruefully, Jess thought about the day when she wouldn’t be able to fit through such a narrow opening. Together, they walked up to Nate and Cary’s kitchen door, and knocked their secret knock, so Nate wouldn’t get freaked out about intruders.
No one answered, so Jess took the lead and pushed the door open. Emily and Libby followed close behind, and the three of them found Nate and Cary standing and just holding onto each other in the living room. Without a word, the three girls surrounded them, making a human shield, and letting both men know that they had support. Though Snoopy was in Jess’s arms, he somehow maneuvered so that his head was right against Nate’s arm. It was a precious thing to do, and Jess was proud of him.
“You guys okay?” Libby asked quietly.
“You need anything?” Emily spoke up.
“No, we’re okay,” Nathaniel reassured them, glancing up with red-rimmed eyes. “Go home. Get some sleep.”
“Hey Jess?” he called, before she got too far away.
“Yeah?”
“Can I keep Snoopy for the night? I’ll bring him back tomorrow, I promise,” Nate asked, biting his lip nervously.
“He is all yours,” she said sweetly, nestling the puppy in Nathaniel’s arms.
Snoopy was fluffy with light brown fur. He was teddy-bear-soft, and snuggled immediately against Nate’s chest. Perfect for cuddling. Perfect for keeping nightmares away. Quietly, he carried the puppy to bed and got settled himself, relieved when Snoopy got close, and snored in Nate’s ear.
Back in the kitchen, before Libby, Emily and Jess left, they each had to pass Cary’s test, which involved having their faces held between Cary’s hands while he stared into their eyes for an undetermined amount of time. When he was satisfied, he gave them each a gentle kiss on the forehead.
“We love you guys,” he called as they left.
“We love you more,” Emily insisted, as they disappeared into the night.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Stowaway: Chapter 2
It is so nice to be with Jess and Coby again. I thought they might change once they were married, but they really haven’t. They have such a peaceful house, and they respect each other. It’s like I can finally breathe. I can finally relax, and I don’t have to keep looking over my shoulder…at least not for a couple weeks.
Jess and Coby’s house was such a great place to be. They had given Libby and Emily the whole downstairs as their “apartment.” The whole area was decorated to Coby’s taste with aqua walls, Olympic swimming posters of Mark Spitz and Michael Phelps. All the chairs were wicker, the deep kind that you could just sink into, and different shades of blue. There were sturdy, wooden end tables, and lamps that cast patterns onto the walls. The coffee table was a treasure chest, and there were oars in the corner.
The bathroom looked to be decorated with help from Christian. It had a Finding Nemo bathmat, shower curtain, towels, washcloths and toothbrush holder. There was even a light switch cover, and a border of Nemo and Dory wallpaper. The bottom half of the wall was painted darker blue to suggest ocean water. The top half was a lighter, sky blue.
Jess looked to have had her own way in the guest room though. It was beautifully decorated with natural colors. A tan bedspread, accented with a green and purple throw pillow. There were green and blue candles in glass votives on a worn-wooden shelf. Some were hanging from hooks and one was a hurricane lamp. There was a large, vintage-looking dial clock on the bedside table. All the bedroom furniture was whitewashed, and on their vanity, there were flowers - magnolia in a vase and a green chrysanthemum arrangement. The window had a roller blind with a wooden sill, and a wooden branch in a vase. There was one lighthouse print on the wall, and a soft blue throw blanket on a chair in the corner. When Libby had first seen it, her eyes had filled with tears.
Her phone lit up with an incoming text message and she grabbed it. She knew from the series of numbers that it was an online status update from one of her friends. Libby flipped it open, doing her best not to disturb Emily who was sleeping soundly for the first time that Libby could recall.
Walking out into the family room, Libby flipped open her phone and read:
William Wright: Hey friends and family: Everybody tune into channel 5 tomorrow night at 10/9c to see…ME!
Rolling her eyes, Libby figured she’d better respond to his text messages. He’d sent one every half-hour, asking where they were, and when they were coming home.
To: Liam
We’re fine. Made it to VT.
Then, Libby buried her phone in the cushions of the porch-swing-style couch and tried to enjoy the solitude. What she needed to do was paint. She hadn’t been able to since before they left more than two days before. Quietly, she stole back into the guest bedroom, with its one big bed, got her art supplies, and some Halloween candy, and made her way out the back door. She thought about visiting Nate and Cary, but decided against it when she saw all their lights off. However, a little building that looked like a shed caught her eye.
She pushed open the door, shivering a little under her winter coat and layers of clothes. This wasn’t a shed. It was a workshop. Libby knew that Coby worked as Stowe’s handyman now, and thought it was probably the cutest job ever. The shop was surprisingly cozy, with a light and a space heater and plenty of space to paint. She didn’t think Coby would mind her painting there.
Within minutes, Libby had the heater running and her supplies all set up in the middle of the small room. She wanted to throw paint angrily on the canvas, but didn’t want to mess up the workshop. Therefore, she settled for splattering it like little fireworks all over the page.
She would call this one: Independence.
--
Liam was really bummed. Instead of going to church and leading a game night like the one he usually had, to give the neighborhood kids somewhere safe to come, he had stayed home. He wanted to be there, with his phone on, just in case Libby called him back. He had never handed out candy himself before, so he decided to make it fun. He dressed up as a yellow and black striped leaf, even painting his face. He even attached little notes to the Smarties and tootsie pops. They said, “Be SMART! Come to church!” and “Don’t be SUCKERED! Come to church!”
He even had plans to ask each little kid and teenager, “Do you beleaf in Jesus?” But no one had come. Not one kid had shown up at his door. To make matters worse, Libby hadn’t even bothered to call, and he had left her a lot of messages. He was beginning to get worried, until around one o’clock in the morning, when he finally got a text from her that only said they were fine and had made it to Vermont.
How was that supposed to ease his mind? The way his luck had been lately, he was going to end up all alone, because Libby and Emily were going to decide to live there or something. Then what would he do?
Sighing, he walked down the hall and looked into Libby’s empty room. It used to be Nathaniel’s. He turned the mattress before Libby moved in there, since he had already taken Jonathan’s old room and made it into his office. Liam walked inside and flipped through the textbooks she had left behind. He picked up the pictures on her nightstand and stared at them. He searched in all her usual hiding places for her journal, but couldn’t find it. It wasn’t wrong. Privacy was earned. After what Morgan pulled a couple years ago, Liam had a right to be suspicious of everyone in his life. He had trusted Morgan with his whole heart, and she had deceived him, gone behind his back and started using drugs to cope instead of turning to God like she should have. He hadn’t seen it coming at all. Therefore, this time, he was going to be prepared. Just in case.
Plus, tomorrow was the anniversary, and that made him nervous. He didn’t want Libby to go away in order to take her own life. Morgan had done that, too. It didn’t escape him this time that Libby was getting thinner, that she was depressed, and that she was pulling away from him. It was his job as her older brother to look out for her, so he went through her things. Nevertheless, he also let her go with Emily on their little missionary road trip. Liam had never heard of that before, and he was sure it didn’t actually exist, but if it would help Libby get back on track with school, he decided it was worth it.
That left him home in High City with only a few of the original Bible study members. Aaron, Bryan and Legend. None of them spoke to him. But then again, Liam was sure they didn’t speak to anyone else either. He poured himself into work at the Boys and Girls Club and church. He was somewhere every night. Every day, someone called him, and wanted something from him. He’d gotten used to putting himself last, but he did need his alone time. Therefore, he guessed this was God’s way of giving it to him.
That night, he prayed to put off sleep, and when he did, he dreamed of losing Libby repeatedly, in countless ways. He woke at five o’clock and bundled up to go on a prayer walk and clear his mind.
At least the day was finally here. He counted down the hours until it would be over; knowing that no one would ask him how he was, but everyone would be asking the victims how they were. It wasn’t fair, but it was life.
--
Jess and Coby were quiet in the morning. They woke earlier than usual, and just lay in bed together. They were going to work like it was any other day, but it wasn’t like any other day and they both knew it. The anniversary affected the whole family in different ways.
Coby laid a hand on Jess’s stomach. “Days like this, I’m not sure we’re right, bringing another kid into the world.”
Jess turned to face him, narrowing her eyes. “AJ’s gonna be able to hear us soon, and I don’t want our baby hearing that kind of talk.”
“AJ? I thought it was LP?” Coby said, confused.
“No, it’s AJ. Adam Jacob or Anna Jaclyn,” Jess said firmly.
“My name?” Coby managed, shocked.
“Of course, your name. I gave Christian my name as his middle name. You should give this baby yours.” Jess gave Coby a kiss. “Are you still gonna love me when I’m huge?”
“Hey, that hugeness is going to be AJ, and I’m going to be praying he gets big,” Coby smiled. “Anyway, I gotta get Christian up for school. Sleep more if you want. Love you both. I’ll come in and say bye before I leave.” Coby pulled on jeans and paused, thinking. It’ll be cute to have a CJ and an AJ. Good thought.”
“What do you mean, ‘he’?” Jess hissed.
“Well you picked the names. Don’t I get to pick the sex?” he whispered, shooting her a beguiling smile.
“The only thing you get to pick is whether or not to leave when I’m screaming how you did this to me on delivery day,” Jess said seriously, her voice hushed.
“First? I will never leave you, and second, can we tell people soon? This secret is damn hard to keep.”
“Yeah, but not today. They’re sad today,” Jess decided. “Are you all right?”
“No, but I will be tonight when I come home to you and Christian, and everything’s the way it’s supposed to be.” Coby admitted. “Love you. I have to go. Christian’s gonna be late to school otherwise.”
“I’ll get up and help you,” Jess resolved.
Christian was in a bad mood in the morning on most days, but today, he should have earned a prize for his mood. He had a headache. He had a stomachache. He had a triple-stomachache.
“It’s probably from too much Halloween candy,” Jess offered. She was busy at the counter, packing his lunch and his snack.
“No, it’s not, Mom!” Christian exclaimed, burying his head in his arms.
“Hey. You know I’m going to be there to pick you up at 2:30 just like always?” Coby asked. “Come on now. Sit up and eat your cereal.”
“I want Mom to get me…”
Jess sighed. Christian sounded dangerously close to crying, which was becoming something that he didn’t like to show.
“Christian, I’ll be home the same time I always am. Not late. I promise.”
Carefully, Jess wrote the one thing that was guaranteed to make her son smile on a hard day. He liked cheesy jokes, and she was always on a mission to find more. Since they both liked rap music, this joke was perfect.
Q: What is a mummy’s favorite type of music?
A: Rap music.
I.L.Y.T.T.M.A.B.
Mom
The last part was their “secret code.” I Love You To The Moon And Back. Christian knew what it meant and he could brag about having a secret code to his friends rather than be teased because she left a note that overtly said, “I love you.”
“Whatever. You don’t know that for sure…” Christian said in a sulky tone of voice that bordered on disrespect.
“Christian,” Jess warned, coming over to join him at the table.
“It’s a hard day for me, too,” Coby offered. “And Mom and Emily and Libby and all of us.”
“Yeah, but none of you guys got forgot about,” he said, his eyes accusatory.
“No, you’re right,” Coby conceded. He knew it wouldn’t do any good to argue that being shot was worse than being forgotten, because to Christian, being forgotten was worse. “But we all remember feeling sad and scared and angry that day, just like you did, all right? We need to be good to each other every day, but especially the hard ones.”
“But you’re not having a hard day,” Christian objected softly as Jess listened.
“Actually, I am. This day is hard for me. Because I remember everything that happened and how scared and angry I was about what was happening.”
“Well, I’m mad enough to punch something!” Christian announced, taking a bite of his Count Chocula.
“Okay, but we don’t punch people, do we?” Coby asked rhetorically.
“Dad, come on. I didn’t say I was going to punch something. I just said I was mad enough to.”
“Come on and grab your coat and boots. I’ve got something for you to do.” Coby decided, grabbing his own coat off the back of a kitchen chair.
He had plenty of old stuff in his workshop that CJ could smash with a hammer. In their experience, it was disastrous to send him to school angry, so anything they could come up with to help him deal with it was helpful.
Together, they stepped into the workshop, leaving Jess in the kitchen. She was good about letting Coby have time with Christian when they needed it.
“So, what are we fixing? Holy cow!” Look at this painting! Can I paint?” he asked.
“I think this is Libby’s,” Coby said, after some examination. She had a style all her own. It wasn’t contained or careful, yet he got the distinct impression that she had been holding back on this piece. Fireworks dotted a black landscape, and the word independence was swirled into the paint below them.
“No, I actually have some stuff for you to break. Here.” Coby continued, searching out the bags of junk that he had brought from home. Stuff that he didn’t care about, and was better off destroyed.
“Awesome!” Christian exclaimed.
“Put your gloves and safety goggles and grab a hammer.” Coby directed. Once his son was suited up in the appropriate safety gear, Coby stood back, and let him go. Steering him clear of Libby’s painting and the other important stuff.
When Christian was done smashing and screaming, and using words that Coby was pretty sure Jess wouldn’t approve of, Coby sent him back to the house so he could finish getting ready for school. Once he was alone, Coby jotted down a quick note, and taped it to the base of Libby’s easel.
This is nice. Would you mind working with Christian maybe? Letting him paint with you or something? He’s having a hard time and I think it would help him out. He always enjoyed doing art stuff with you.
P.S. Do you think you could make anything with broken pieces of junk? It’s in that plastic bag. Be careful of jagged pieces. I let Christian smash them this morning.
- Coby
--
Nate rolled over and groaned. This was his least favorite day. It didn’t matter that he had taken the day off work, or that Cary would be here with him the whole time. This day was like a black hole of nothingness and it had the potential to knock him on his ass if he let it. He even forgot that he’d be hanging out with Cary all day when he told Morgan that he would hang out with her. But he had promised. Therefore, Nathaniel steeled himself and sat up, surprised to see Cary was already awake and moving.
Nate didn’t shower; he just walked to the kitchen in his pajama pants and tee shirt, knowing that he still had streaks of parrot makeup on his face. It had probably stained the pillowcase but Nathaniel didn’t care.
“Morning.” Nate forced himself to say this, and not the first thing that popped into his head, which was that he wasn’t hungry and Cary should know that by now.
“Hey,” Cary greeted, abandoning the stove after turning down the burner that held the pan full of eggs and studied Nathaniel carefully before stepping forward and putting his arms around him.
“I’m not hungry, and I gotta see Morgan. I promised her,” Nate said, shuddering involuntarily in Cary’s embrace.
“Do you want to go to her or do you want her to come over?” Cary asked, guiding Nate gently to a chair. Then, like magic, Cary produced a single slice of French toast topped with peaches. “They’re not in season now, so sorry if it sucks.”
Nathaniel shrugged. “I don’t know. Jon’s there, too, and I wouldn’t want to leave him alone inviting her over here.” He took a tiny bite of the toast and found that he felt less nauseous, not more.
“You can go over there, I won’t feel bad. Do you want me to come with you, or do you want to hang out alone?” Cary asked. He pulled a second kitchen chair directly next to Nate and was busy eating his own plate of eggs and bacon.
“Alone. But it’s your day off. Are you sure you won’t feel bad?” Nate pressed.
Cary sent him a disarming smile. “Today isn’t about me. It’s about you and your friends taking care of each other, being wherever you’re needed, and it’s about me being wherever I’m needed.”
So Nate left Cary behind to clean up the breakfast, and Nate drove to Morgan and Jon’s, knocking softly on the door and inviting himself inside. He found Morgan on the couch, her Bible and Courage to Change devotional thing open in front of her. Nevertheless, she raised her head and looked at him.
Morgan had cut her hair in the style that she termed “Jennifer Lopez’s Enough look.” It was shorter, because her long hair freaked her out after Buddy fondled it. However, it was cute, flipped out in the back, and her natural brown color. Her eyes were probably Nate’s favorite feature. She made it no secret from the beginning that she was Hawaiian, at least partly. Her eyes were a warm brown, like some kind of fancy wood, and they were slightly slanted at the corners. She was dressed predictably in lots of layers of bright tank tops. He could see them peeking out of her robe. She wore jeans and tennis shoes, too, and Nate knew without asking that she had already been to a meeting. However, he didn’t ask, because it was a private thing.
“This is nice,” he complimented, sitting down beside her. “I didn’t know you had a robe like this.” It was deep purple and shiny with flowers on it.
Morgan smiled, lighting up her face. “It’s a kimono,” she corrected gently. “Basically like a robe, but the size and shape is a little different, and the craftsmanship is better, I think.”
“How’s Jonathan?” Nate wondered.
“Asleep. I called in to check on him and he didn’t answer, so I think I’ll just leave him alone and check on him later.”
They were quiet a while, just enjoying one another’s company, when there was another knock at the door. Morgan got up to answer it before they knocked again and the distant sound aggravated Jonathan.
Libby stood on her front step, her hair pulled back in a messy brown ponytail, her clear blue eyes heavy with secrets like Morgan used to carry. She was too skinny, but Morgan just opened her arms and invited Libby into them. Nathaniel soon followed and they stood in the open doorway, in an awkward three-way hug for a long time.
“Hoapili, you’re so thin. Are you okay?” Morgan asked, staring too intensely into Libby’s eyes because the younger looked away. “I’m sorry. Come in. I missed you so much! Where’s Em?”
“Hey! I love your hair! So cute! She’s checking out the Community Church. She thinks she wants to work there. Do lay counseling and help with the youth group,” Libby said. She somehow managed to sound optimistic and happy despite the horror that had been replaying in her mind since that morning.
It had been a hard morning. Only Morgan had looked at her and asked if she was okay in a way that sounded genuine. Liam always asked in a way that suggested Libby too had fallen into the drug culture, which wasn’t true. She just wasn’t hungry.
“I’ve got some chicken soup in the fridge. Homemade. It’s good, I promise. I’ll get you some tea, too.”
While Morgan got to work setting places at the table and microwaving the soup and tea, Nate and Libby visited quietly, showing each other Halloween pictures on their phones.
“You were such a gorgeous parrot. You should have come over!”
“I did come over! But it was before you got there! No wonder Christian didn’t stop by, you excited him too much.” Nate teased, smiling.
Libby found herself relaxing even more here. For some reason, being around Nathaniel and Morgan always made her feel okay. Because around them, she didn’t feel alone. They knew what it was like to be hurt - the way she was - and worse. They were all learning how to cope and winning the battles against their own darkness every day.
She gratefully took the soup and the tea when Morgan brought it over, joining them at the table. “Seems like I might also be employed as an unofficial art therapist. Coby left a note on my Independence painting this morning, saying that Christian might need to paint out his aggression. Coby also let him smash stuff with a hammer, it looks like, and so I’m already working on ideas for a mosaic.”
“That’s really cool,” Nate said, genuinely impressed. “Can I do anger-art with you, too? Or trauma-art? Or Nate-just-really-needs-to-do-art-with-his-best-friend art?”
“You can do any kind of art with me, any time. Morgan, you, too. It’s really helping me just to get stuff out that doesn’t get dealt with enough journaling or whatever.”
“Shit,” Morgan swore suddenly.
Nate and Libby turned to see her staring at the clock on the wall. The time was inching toward ten o’clock. Three years ago, at ten o’clock, Buddy had come in. Three years ago now, everything had started. Three seconds. Two. One.
Morgan bolted out of the chair and out the front door. She stood on her porch, taking deep breaths. She reminded herself that she was in Vermont, not Minnesota. That the man who hurt her was dead, and couldn’t hurt her anymore. But it didn’t do any good. She stood outside, clutching the railing and trying to still her thoughts again and again.
Then, suddenly, she wasn’t alone. Nathaniel was on one side and Libby filled the empty space on the other.
It had happened like this before, in the weeks after the attack. They had gathered at Coby’s apartment, the one he shared with Bryan and Aaron. There had been pizza, which was a trigger for all three, since Buddy smelled and tasted like pizza and coffee. Moreover, when Aaron unknowingly put on a pot to brew, it had sent all three of them outside. They had gone to Wendy’s, Morgan remembered, and had Frosties. She had also taken a few Vicodin that night, to take the edge off her anxiety, depression and PTSD.
There was no Vicodin now, though. No pills of any kind. No liquor. Just herself, God, and her friends to help get her through these horrible moments, when her body remembered being used and hurt in agonizing ways. It sucked, but Morgan had promised herself that she would do this. She would stay clean for herself. Even if she had to take it one second at a time. The only thing that got her through was the fact that she knew she could. She had gotten through last year, and she got through it in one piece. This year would be the same. And maybe, as more and more years went by, it would get easier.
“I don’t know what I’m doin’ here. How I landed in this space. But it’s a good place. And I don’t want to mess it up, make mistakes or say too much. Cause it’s a good place. You find it. You hold it. You feel its grace. These are words I want to say every hour of every day. These are words that say how good it feels to be here with you today. I hope it’s not too late…” Libby sang, remembering the words from Emily’s most-played song on her MP3 player. She didn’t usually sing, but this seemed appropriate. They all needed a distraction, and a more positive focus.
Morgan squeezed her hand, so Libby kept it up, singing the entire song.
At some point, Nathaniel danced away from them, spinning and bending and gracefully reaching as the snow fell around him.
It was second nature for Nate to dance, even though he had never taken a single class. He didn’t do it often. In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time he allowed himself to feel that free. To move to the words of a song, and interpret them the way his body begged him to, spinning, leaping and landing gently. Dancing made him feel like something good had broken loose inside him, and was taking over all the dirtiness he felt. So that, even if he didn’t feel clean, at least he felt lighter, with the snow falling on his face and crunching under his feet.
This, Morgan knew, was exactly what she had prayed for moments ago, as she rushed outside. Something else to listen to instead of the words that killed her inside. Beauty to focus on instead of the evil that had its way in the dark, forgotten study room, where no one had come to help until everything was over.
“Thanks,” she managed. “I needed that. Prayed for it, actually.”
“That’s what we’re here for,” Libby insisted, linking her arm through Morgan’s, as Nathaniel made his way back onto the porch and into the house.
“Wanna make Madness dinner?” Libby asked. “Jess is at work today and so is Coby. Em’s busy and we don’t have money anyway…”
“Yeah, for sure,” Morgan nodded, her mind already working to come up with the perfect menu for their anniversary dinner. Not everybody might feel like celebrating, but Morgan felt sure that she and her friends should celebrate. They were all here to see this day, to be together again, and that was a blessing.
Nate poked his head outside. “It’s safe to come in,” he said quietly.
Morgan and Libby exchanged a look and walked in. Immediately, Morgan could see the clock on her microwave had been switched off and all the others had been unplugged and turned around.
“How are we going to know what time it is?” Libby asked, smiling at Nathaniel’s thoughtfulness.
“It’s okay. My cell has the time,” he said, giving their shoulders a squeeze. “Now, what are we making?”
“I think we should have a Luau. Jon will want to get up for that, especially if he smells what we’re cooking.” Morgan insisted. She got to work, pulling out various ingredients that she had in the freezer for such a time as this. Real pineapple, kiwi and a mango.
She assigned Libby to work on the Tropical Fruit Salad, and Nathaniel to the Luau Ham and Glazed Pineapple Snacks and herself to the Macadamia-Nut Crusted Chicken with Honey Mustard Dip.
“I hope no one has a nut allergy,” Nate commented skewering ham and pineapple chunks.
“No one does,” Libby said, sure of herself. “Liam asked that the first day of Bible study, remember? No one did.”
“What about Christian?” Morgan pressed.
“He used to eat peanut-butter on everything. He’ll be fine,” Libby reassured, waiting impatiently for her fruit to thaw.
“Hey, why don’t you go finish your soup, girl?” Morgan encouraged.
“I should, it’s actually really good. What’s in it? It tastes better than normal soup.” Libby observed.
“It’s Parmesan cheese. A whole rind, and then some extra, too. Jon’s mom brought it the last time she visited. She thinks we’re getting married soon and that our babies will look…” she stopped, to put finger-quotes around the next words, “handsome and exotic,” Morgan grimaced.
“Maybe when me and Cary get a baby, we’ll get you one,” Nate offered sweetly. “We’d rather adopt than go the surrogate route. Probably international. We’d give the sweet baby to you and Jon and keep the feisty one for us.”
Libby was busy imagining the pretty babies Nathaniel and Morgan would one day parent, and what countries they might come from when she stopped short.
“Wait. You said a rind is in here?!” Libby asked in an alarmed voice, inspecting her soup closer for anything that might be a rind. She didn’t know what it would look like, but assumed it was brown and ugly, lurking in the broth.
Nate rolled his eyes. “Lib, chill. It tastes good. Eat it.”
“But it’s a rind! What is that? I don’t think you’re supposed to eat those…” Libby persisted, sending concerned looks to Morgan.
“I ate it. I’m fine. Jon ate it, and he has a migraine, but he gets those every year. Just enjoy it, girl, I wouldn’t give you poisoned soup, I promise.”
So, Libby propped her feet up on a nearby chair and decided to do that. There was no point in not enjoying good food. Emily told her that a million times. Libby propped her feet up on a nearby chair and watched as Morgan and Nate bustled around the kitchen. She even convinced Morgan to get out of her robe, so that Libby could try it on, and it was so comfortable.
At that moment, Libby knew that she was meant to be right here. In this kitchen with these friends, preparing a meal. It was almost perfect.
However, the more she thought about it, perfect was over-rated.
Libby preferred almost perfect.
She preferred this.
Jess and Coby’s house was such a great place to be. They had given Libby and Emily the whole downstairs as their “apartment.” The whole area was decorated to Coby’s taste with aqua walls, Olympic swimming posters of Mark Spitz and Michael Phelps. All the chairs were wicker, the deep kind that you could just sink into, and different shades of blue. There were sturdy, wooden end tables, and lamps that cast patterns onto the walls. The coffee table was a treasure chest, and there were oars in the corner.
The bathroom looked to be decorated with help from Christian. It had a Finding Nemo bathmat, shower curtain, towels, washcloths and toothbrush holder. There was even a light switch cover, and a border of Nemo and Dory wallpaper. The bottom half of the wall was painted darker blue to suggest ocean water. The top half was a lighter, sky blue.
Jess looked to have had her own way in the guest room though. It was beautifully decorated with natural colors. A tan bedspread, accented with a green and purple throw pillow. There were green and blue candles in glass votives on a worn-wooden shelf. Some were hanging from hooks and one was a hurricane lamp. There was a large, vintage-looking dial clock on the bedside table. All the bedroom furniture was whitewashed, and on their vanity, there were flowers - magnolia in a vase and a green chrysanthemum arrangement. The window had a roller blind with a wooden sill, and a wooden branch in a vase. There was one lighthouse print on the wall, and a soft blue throw blanket on a chair in the corner. When Libby had first seen it, her eyes had filled with tears.
Her phone lit up with an incoming text message and she grabbed it. She knew from the series of numbers that it was an online status update from one of her friends. Libby flipped it open, doing her best not to disturb Emily who was sleeping soundly for the first time that Libby could recall.
Walking out into the family room, Libby flipped open her phone and read:
William Wright: Hey friends and family: Everybody tune into channel 5 tomorrow night at 10/9c to see…ME!
Rolling her eyes, Libby figured she’d better respond to his text messages. He’d sent one every half-hour, asking where they were, and when they were coming home.
To: Liam
We’re fine. Made it to VT.
Then, Libby buried her phone in the cushions of the porch-swing-style couch and tried to enjoy the solitude. What she needed to do was paint. She hadn’t been able to since before they left more than two days before. Quietly, she stole back into the guest bedroom, with its one big bed, got her art supplies, and some Halloween candy, and made her way out the back door. She thought about visiting Nate and Cary, but decided against it when she saw all their lights off. However, a little building that looked like a shed caught her eye.
She pushed open the door, shivering a little under her winter coat and layers of clothes. This wasn’t a shed. It was a workshop. Libby knew that Coby worked as Stowe’s handyman now, and thought it was probably the cutest job ever. The shop was surprisingly cozy, with a light and a space heater and plenty of space to paint. She didn’t think Coby would mind her painting there.
Within minutes, Libby had the heater running and her supplies all set up in the middle of the small room. She wanted to throw paint angrily on the canvas, but didn’t want to mess up the workshop. Therefore, she settled for splattering it like little fireworks all over the page.
She would call this one: Independence.
--
Liam was really bummed. Instead of going to church and leading a game night like the one he usually had, to give the neighborhood kids somewhere safe to come, he had stayed home. He wanted to be there, with his phone on, just in case Libby called him back. He had never handed out candy himself before, so he decided to make it fun. He dressed up as a yellow and black striped leaf, even painting his face. He even attached little notes to the Smarties and tootsie pops. They said, “Be SMART! Come to church!” and “Don’t be SUCKERED! Come to church!”
He even had plans to ask each little kid and teenager, “Do you beleaf in Jesus?” But no one had come. Not one kid had shown up at his door. To make matters worse, Libby hadn’t even bothered to call, and he had left her a lot of messages. He was beginning to get worried, until around one o’clock in the morning, when he finally got a text from her that only said they were fine and had made it to Vermont.
How was that supposed to ease his mind? The way his luck had been lately, he was going to end up all alone, because Libby and Emily were going to decide to live there or something. Then what would he do?
Sighing, he walked down the hall and looked into Libby’s empty room. It used to be Nathaniel’s. He turned the mattress before Libby moved in there, since he had already taken Jonathan’s old room and made it into his office. Liam walked inside and flipped through the textbooks she had left behind. He picked up the pictures on her nightstand and stared at them. He searched in all her usual hiding places for her journal, but couldn’t find it. It wasn’t wrong. Privacy was earned. After what Morgan pulled a couple years ago, Liam had a right to be suspicious of everyone in his life. He had trusted Morgan with his whole heart, and she had deceived him, gone behind his back and started using drugs to cope instead of turning to God like she should have. He hadn’t seen it coming at all. Therefore, this time, he was going to be prepared. Just in case.
Plus, tomorrow was the anniversary, and that made him nervous. He didn’t want Libby to go away in order to take her own life. Morgan had done that, too. It didn’t escape him this time that Libby was getting thinner, that she was depressed, and that she was pulling away from him. It was his job as her older brother to look out for her, so he went through her things. Nevertheless, he also let her go with Emily on their little missionary road trip. Liam had never heard of that before, and he was sure it didn’t actually exist, but if it would help Libby get back on track with school, he decided it was worth it.
That left him home in High City with only a few of the original Bible study members. Aaron, Bryan and Legend. None of them spoke to him. But then again, Liam was sure they didn’t speak to anyone else either. He poured himself into work at the Boys and Girls Club and church. He was somewhere every night. Every day, someone called him, and wanted something from him. He’d gotten used to putting himself last, but he did need his alone time. Therefore, he guessed this was God’s way of giving it to him.
That night, he prayed to put off sleep, and when he did, he dreamed of losing Libby repeatedly, in countless ways. He woke at five o’clock and bundled up to go on a prayer walk and clear his mind.
At least the day was finally here. He counted down the hours until it would be over; knowing that no one would ask him how he was, but everyone would be asking the victims how they were. It wasn’t fair, but it was life.
--
Jess and Coby were quiet in the morning. They woke earlier than usual, and just lay in bed together. They were going to work like it was any other day, but it wasn’t like any other day and they both knew it. The anniversary affected the whole family in different ways.
Coby laid a hand on Jess’s stomach. “Days like this, I’m not sure we’re right, bringing another kid into the world.”
Jess turned to face him, narrowing her eyes. “AJ’s gonna be able to hear us soon, and I don’t want our baby hearing that kind of talk.”
“AJ? I thought it was LP?” Coby said, confused.
“No, it’s AJ. Adam Jacob or Anna Jaclyn,” Jess said firmly.
“My name?” Coby managed, shocked.
“Of course, your name. I gave Christian my name as his middle name. You should give this baby yours.” Jess gave Coby a kiss. “Are you still gonna love me when I’m huge?”
“Hey, that hugeness is going to be AJ, and I’m going to be praying he gets big,” Coby smiled. “Anyway, I gotta get Christian up for school. Sleep more if you want. Love you both. I’ll come in and say bye before I leave.” Coby pulled on jeans and paused, thinking. It’ll be cute to have a CJ and an AJ. Good thought.”
“What do you mean, ‘he’?” Jess hissed.
“Well you picked the names. Don’t I get to pick the sex?” he whispered, shooting her a beguiling smile.
“The only thing you get to pick is whether or not to leave when I’m screaming how you did this to me on delivery day,” Jess said seriously, her voice hushed.
“First? I will never leave you, and second, can we tell people soon? This secret is damn hard to keep.”
“Yeah, but not today. They’re sad today,” Jess decided. “Are you all right?”
“No, but I will be tonight when I come home to you and Christian, and everything’s the way it’s supposed to be.” Coby admitted. “Love you. I have to go. Christian’s gonna be late to school otherwise.”
“I’ll get up and help you,” Jess resolved.
Christian was in a bad mood in the morning on most days, but today, he should have earned a prize for his mood. He had a headache. He had a stomachache. He had a triple-stomachache.
“It’s probably from too much Halloween candy,” Jess offered. She was busy at the counter, packing his lunch and his snack.
“No, it’s not, Mom!” Christian exclaimed, burying his head in his arms.
“Hey. You know I’m going to be there to pick you up at 2:30 just like always?” Coby asked. “Come on now. Sit up and eat your cereal.”
“I want Mom to get me…”
Jess sighed. Christian sounded dangerously close to crying, which was becoming something that he didn’t like to show.
“Christian, I’ll be home the same time I always am. Not late. I promise.”
Carefully, Jess wrote the one thing that was guaranteed to make her son smile on a hard day. He liked cheesy jokes, and she was always on a mission to find more. Since they both liked rap music, this joke was perfect.
Q: What is a mummy’s favorite type of music?
A: Rap music.
I.L.Y.T.T.M.A.B.
Mom
The last part was their “secret code.” I Love You To The Moon And Back. Christian knew what it meant and he could brag about having a secret code to his friends rather than be teased because she left a note that overtly said, “I love you.”
“Whatever. You don’t know that for sure…” Christian said in a sulky tone of voice that bordered on disrespect.
“Christian,” Jess warned, coming over to join him at the table.
“It’s a hard day for me, too,” Coby offered. “And Mom and Emily and Libby and all of us.”
“Yeah, but none of you guys got forgot about,” he said, his eyes accusatory.
“No, you’re right,” Coby conceded. He knew it wouldn’t do any good to argue that being shot was worse than being forgotten, because to Christian, being forgotten was worse. “But we all remember feeling sad and scared and angry that day, just like you did, all right? We need to be good to each other every day, but especially the hard ones.”
“But you’re not having a hard day,” Christian objected softly as Jess listened.
“Actually, I am. This day is hard for me. Because I remember everything that happened and how scared and angry I was about what was happening.”
“Well, I’m mad enough to punch something!” Christian announced, taking a bite of his Count Chocula.
“Okay, but we don’t punch people, do we?” Coby asked rhetorically.
“Dad, come on. I didn’t say I was going to punch something. I just said I was mad enough to.”
“Come on and grab your coat and boots. I’ve got something for you to do.” Coby decided, grabbing his own coat off the back of a kitchen chair.
He had plenty of old stuff in his workshop that CJ could smash with a hammer. In their experience, it was disastrous to send him to school angry, so anything they could come up with to help him deal with it was helpful.
Together, they stepped into the workshop, leaving Jess in the kitchen. She was good about letting Coby have time with Christian when they needed it.
“So, what are we fixing? Holy cow!” Look at this painting! Can I paint?” he asked.
“I think this is Libby’s,” Coby said, after some examination. She had a style all her own. It wasn’t contained or careful, yet he got the distinct impression that she had been holding back on this piece. Fireworks dotted a black landscape, and the word independence was swirled into the paint below them.
“No, I actually have some stuff for you to break. Here.” Coby continued, searching out the bags of junk that he had brought from home. Stuff that he didn’t care about, and was better off destroyed.
“Awesome!” Christian exclaimed.
“Put your gloves and safety goggles and grab a hammer.” Coby directed. Once his son was suited up in the appropriate safety gear, Coby stood back, and let him go. Steering him clear of Libby’s painting and the other important stuff.
When Christian was done smashing and screaming, and using words that Coby was pretty sure Jess wouldn’t approve of, Coby sent him back to the house so he could finish getting ready for school. Once he was alone, Coby jotted down a quick note, and taped it to the base of Libby’s easel.
This is nice. Would you mind working with Christian maybe? Letting him paint with you or something? He’s having a hard time and I think it would help him out. He always enjoyed doing art stuff with you.
P.S. Do you think you could make anything with broken pieces of junk? It’s in that plastic bag. Be careful of jagged pieces. I let Christian smash them this morning.
- Coby
--
Nate rolled over and groaned. This was his least favorite day. It didn’t matter that he had taken the day off work, or that Cary would be here with him the whole time. This day was like a black hole of nothingness and it had the potential to knock him on his ass if he let it. He even forgot that he’d be hanging out with Cary all day when he told Morgan that he would hang out with her. But he had promised. Therefore, Nathaniel steeled himself and sat up, surprised to see Cary was already awake and moving.
Nate didn’t shower; he just walked to the kitchen in his pajama pants and tee shirt, knowing that he still had streaks of parrot makeup on his face. It had probably stained the pillowcase but Nathaniel didn’t care.
“Morning.” Nate forced himself to say this, and not the first thing that popped into his head, which was that he wasn’t hungry and Cary should know that by now.
“Hey,” Cary greeted, abandoning the stove after turning down the burner that held the pan full of eggs and studied Nathaniel carefully before stepping forward and putting his arms around him.
“I’m not hungry, and I gotta see Morgan. I promised her,” Nate said, shuddering involuntarily in Cary’s embrace.
“Do you want to go to her or do you want her to come over?” Cary asked, guiding Nate gently to a chair. Then, like magic, Cary produced a single slice of French toast topped with peaches. “They’re not in season now, so sorry if it sucks.”
Nathaniel shrugged. “I don’t know. Jon’s there, too, and I wouldn’t want to leave him alone inviting her over here.” He took a tiny bite of the toast and found that he felt less nauseous, not more.
“You can go over there, I won’t feel bad. Do you want me to come with you, or do you want to hang out alone?” Cary asked. He pulled a second kitchen chair directly next to Nate and was busy eating his own plate of eggs and bacon.
“Alone. But it’s your day off. Are you sure you won’t feel bad?” Nate pressed.
Cary sent him a disarming smile. “Today isn’t about me. It’s about you and your friends taking care of each other, being wherever you’re needed, and it’s about me being wherever I’m needed.”
So Nate left Cary behind to clean up the breakfast, and Nate drove to Morgan and Jon’s, knocking softly on the door and inviting himself inside. He found Morgan on the couch, her Bible and Courage to Change devotional thing open in front of her. Nevertheless, she raised her head and looked at him.
Morgan had cut her hair in the style that she termed “Jennifer Lopez’s Enough look.” It was shorter, because her long hair freaked her out after Buddy fondled it. However, it was cute, flipped out in the back, and her natural brown color. Her eyes were probably Nate’s favorite feature. She made it no secret from the beginning that she was Hawaiian, at least partly. Her eyes were a warm brown, like some kind of fancy wood, and they were slightly slanted at the corners. She was dressed predictably in lots of layers of bright tank tops. He could see them peeking out of her robe. She wore jeans and tennis shoes, too, and Nate knew without asking that she had already been to a meeting. However, he didn’t ask, because it was a private thing.
“This is nice,” he complimented, sitting down beside her. “I didn’t know you had a robe like this.” It was deep purple and shiny with flowers on it.
Morgan smiled, lighting up her face. “It’s a kimono,” she corrected gently. “Basically like a robe, but the size and shape is a little different, and the craftsmanship is better, I think.”
“How’s Jonathan?” Nate wondered.
“Asleep. I called in to check on him and he didn’t answer, so I think I’ll just leave him alone and check on him later.”
They were quiet a while, just enjoying one another’s company, when there was another knock at the door. Morgan got up to answer it before they knocked again and the distant sound aggravated Jonathan.
Libby stood on her front step, her hair pulled back in a messy brown ponytail, her clear blue eyes heavy with secrets like Morgan used to carry. She was too skinny, but Morgan just opened her arms and invited Libby into them. Nathaniel soon followed and they stood in the open doorway, in an awkward three-way hug for a long time.
“Hoapili, you’re so thin. Are you okay?” Morgan asked, staring too intensely into Libby’s eyes because the younger looked away. “I’m sorry. Come in. I missed you so much! Where’s Em?”
“Hey! I love your hair! So cute! She’s checking out the Community Church. She thinks she wants to work there. Do lay counseling and help with the youth group,” Libby said. She somehow managed to sound optimistic and happy despite the horror that had been replaying in her mind since that morning.
It had been a hard morning. Only Morgan had looked at her and asked if she was okay in a way that sounded genuine. Liam always asked in a way that suggested Libby too had fallen into the drug culture, which wasn’t true. She just wasn’t hungry.
“I’ve got some chicken soup in the fridge. Homemade. It’s good, I promise. I’ll get you some tea, too.”
While Morgan got to work setting places at the table and microwaving the soup and tea, Nate and Libby visited quietly, showing each other Halloween pictures on their phones.
“You were such a gorgeous parrot. You should have come over!”
“I did come over! But it was before you got there! No wonder Christian didn’t stop by, you excited him too much.” Nate teased, smiling.
Libby found herself relaxing even more here. For some reason, being around Nathaniel and Morgan always made her feel okay. Because around them, she didn’t feel alone. They knew what it was like to be hurt - the way she was - and worse. They were all learning how to cope and winning the battles against their own darkness every day.
She gratefully took the soup and the tea when Morgan brought it over, joining them at the table. “Seems like I might also be employed as an unofficial art therapist. Coby left a note on my Independence painting this morning, saying that Christian might need to paint out his aggression. Coby also let him smash stuff with a hammer, it looks like, and so I’m already working on ideas for a mosaic.”
“That’s really cool,” Nate said, genuinely impressed. “Can I do anger-art with you, too? Or trauma-art? Or Nate-just-really-needs-to-do-art-with-his-best-friend art?”
“You can do any kind of art with me, any time. Morgan, you, too. It’s really helping me just to get stuff out that doesn’t get dealt with enough journaling or whatever.”
“Shit,” Morgan swore suddenly.
Nate and Libby turned to see her staring at the clock on the wall. The time was inching toward ten o’clock. Three years ago, at ten o’clock, Buddy had come in. Three years ago now, everything had started. Three seconds. Two. One.
Morgan bolted out of the chair and out the front door. She stood on her porch, taking deep breaths. She reminded herself that she was in Vermont, not Minnesota. That the man who hurt her was dead, and couldn’t hurt her anymore. But it didn’t do any good. She stood outside, clutching the railing and trying to still her thoughts again and again.
Then, suddenly, she wasn’t alone. Nathaniel was on one side and Libby filled the empty space on the other.
It had happened like this before, in the weeks after the attack. They had gathered at Coby’s apartment, the one he shared with Bryan and Aaron. There had been pizza, which was a trigger for all three, since Buddy smelled and tasted like pizza and coffee. Moreover, when Aaron unknowingly put on a pot to brew, it had sent all three of them outside. They had gone to Wendy’s, Morgan remembered, and had Frosties. She had also taken a few Vicodin that night, to take the edge off her anxiety, depression and PTSD.
There was no Vicodin now, though. No pills of any kind. No liquor. Just herself, God, and her friends to help get her through these horrible moments, when her body remembered being used and hurt in agonizing ways. It sucked, but Morgan had promised herself that she would do this. She would stay clean for herself. Even if she had to take it one second at a time. The only thing that got her through was the fact that she knew she could. She had gotten through last year, and she got through it in one piece. This year would be the same. And maybe, as more and more years went by, it would get easier.
“I don’t know what I’m doin’ here. How I landed in this space. But it’s a good place. And I don’t want to mess it up, make mistakes or say too much. Cause it’s a good place. You find it. You hold it. You feel its grace. These are words I want to say every hour of every day. These are words that say how good it feels to be here with you today. I hope it’s not too late…” Libby sang, remembering the words from Emily’s most-played song on her MP3 player. She didn’t usually sing, but this seemed appropriate. They all needed a distraction, and a more positive focus.
Morgan squeezed her hand, so Libby kept it up, singing the entire song.
At some point, Nathaniel danced away from them, spinning and bending and gracefully reaching as the snow fell around him.
It was second nature for Nate to dance, even though he had never taken a single class. He didn’t do it often. In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time he allowed himself to feel that free. To move to the words of a song, and interpret them the way his body begged him to, spinning, leaping and landing gently. Dancing made him feel like something good had broken loose inside him, and was taking over all the dirtiness he felt. So that, even if he didn’t feel clean, at least he felt lighter, with the snow falling on his face and crunching under his feet.
This, Morgan knew, was exactly what she had prayed for moments ago, as she rushed outside. Something else to listen to instead of the words that killed her inside. Beauty to focus on instead of the evil that had its way in the dark, forgotten study room, where no one had come to help until everything was over.
“Thanks,” she managed. “I needed that. Prayed for it, actually.”
“That’s what we’re here for,” Libby insisted, linking her arm through Morgan’s, as Nathaniel made his way back onto the porch and into the house.
“Wanna make Madness dinner?” Libby asked. “Jess is at work today and so is Coby. Em’s busy and we don’t have money anyway…”
“Yeah, for sure,” Morgan nodded, her mind already working to come up with the perfect menu for their anniversary dinner. Not everybody might feel like celebrating, but Morgan felt sure that she and her friends should celebrate. They were all here to see this day, to be together again, and that was a blessing.
Nate poked his head outside. “It’s safe to come in,” he said quietly.
Morgan and Libby exchanged a look and walked in. Immediately, Morgan could see the clock on her microwave had been switched off and all the others had been unplugged and turned around.
“How are we going to know what time it is?” Libby asked, smiling at Nathaniel’s thoughtfulness.
“It’s okay. My cell has the time,” he said, giving their shoulders a squeeze. “Now, what are we making?”
“I think we should have a Luau. Jon will want to get up for that, especially if he smells what we’re cooking.” Morgan insisted. She got to work, pulling out various ingredients that she had in the freezer for such a time as this. Real pineapple, kiwi and a mango.
She assigned Libby to work on the Tropical Fruit Salad, and Nathaniel to the Luau Ham and Glazed Pineapple Snacks and herself to the Macadamia-Nut Crusted Chicken with Honey Mustard Dip.
“I hope no one has a nut allergy,” Nate commented skewering ham and pineapple chunks.
“No one does,” Libby said, sure of herself. “Liam asked that the first day of Bible study, remember? No one did.”
“What about Christian?” Morgan pressed.
“He used to eat peanut-butter on everything. He’ll be fine,” Libby reassured, waiting impatiently for her fruit to thaw.
“Hey, why don’t you go finish your soup, girl?” Morgan encouraged.
“I should, it’s actually really good. What’s in it? It tastes better than normal soup.” Libby observed.
“It’s Parmesan cheese. A whole rind, and then some extra, too. Jon’s mom brought it the last time she visited. She thinks we’re getting married soon and that our babies will look…” she stopped, to put finger-quotes around the next words, “handsome and exotic,” Morgan grimaced.
“Maybe when me and Cary get a baby, we’ll get you one,” Nate offered sweetly. “We’d rather adopt than go the surrogate route. Probably international. We’d give the sweet baby to you and Jon and keep the feisty one for us.”
Libby was busy imagining the pretty babies Nathaniel and Morgan would one day parent, and what countries they might come from when she stopped short.
“Wait. You said a rind is in here?!” Libby asked in an alarmed voice, inspecting her soup closer for anything that might be a rind. She didn’t know what it would look like, but assumed it was brown and ugly, lurking in the broth.
Nate rolled his eyes. “Lib, chill. It tastes good. Eat it.”
“But it’s a rind! What is that? I don’t think you’re supposed to eat those…” Libby persisted, sending concerned looks to Morgan.
“I ate it. I’m fine. Jon ate it, and he has a migraine, but he gets those every year. Just enjoy it, girl, I wouldn’t give you poisoned soup, I promise.”
So, Libby propped her feet up on a nearby chair and decided to do that. There was no point in not enjoying good food. Emily told her that a million times. Libby propped her feet up on a nearby chair and watched as Morgan and Nate bustled around the kitchen. She even convinced Morgan to get out of her robe, so that Libby could try it on, and it was so comfortable.
At that moment, Libby knew that she was meant to be right here. In this kitchen with these friends, preparing a meal. It was almost perfect.
However, the more she thought about it, perfect was over-rated.
Libby preferred almost perfect.
She preferred this.
Monday, November 1, 2010
Stowaway: Chapter 1
I never told anyone how bad it got. Not that it mattered. Everybody left, and there was nobody to tell when it really mattered. Except Emily. She saved my life. Literally. But I don’t have to tell her that. She knows.
Libby glanced up from her notebook, with the map of the world as its cover, and to the snow-covered road ahead.
“Are you sure we’re going the right way?” she asked, tucking her pen behind her ear. Sure, Emily had been guiding The Beast - as they affectionately called the cargo van that they were taking on this cross-country trip - pretty well up to this point, but Libby was still nervous. Her brother drove like a madman. Her brother was the one she usually drove with.
“You’re seriously doubting Karen’s navigational skills?” Emily joked, holding up her phone’s GPS system.
“No, I’m not doubting Karen. I’m doubting you!” Libby laughed.
“You want to drive for a while?” Emily asked.
“No thanks,” Libby shook her head.
She had only just learned to drive. It was the only thing Emily asked of her when she promised to give Libby an out.
“Well, you’re going to have to, sometime soon. I’m tired, and there’s still five hours ‘til Stowe, if Karen’s right. And she always is.”
Because Libby recognized that it was the last opportunity she might have to sleep, she curled up in the back and tried for it, listening to the song on Emily’s MP3 Player. It was called Good Place, and it was appropriate because Libby thought that finally, she might be headed for one.
As soon as she closed her eyes, it came back to her. The constant pressure. The control. No one had ever believed her, when Libby had tried to tell.
It all started when Nathaniel and Jonathan moved out, leaving Liam with no other roommates. Since Jess was preparing to move out anyway, and Morgan didn’t live there anymore, Libby hadn’t thought it would be a big deal to move in with him.
Except that he watched her all the time. Said where she could go and where she couldn’t. He controlled everything. The money because he was the one working. The car because he was the one who drove. He pressured her to keep going to classes, even though she couldn’t manage to get out of bed on school days.
It didn’t seem to matter that she had been through a trauma. It didn’t matter that she couldn’t go on campus at all without flashing back to something. He made her come to his on-campus Bible study that he continued even when it shrunk to just the two of them.
A few months ago, she was approached at Bible study by someone who asked her to do an exclusive spot on a national news report for the upcoming third anniversary of the worst day of her life. Libby had said no, flat-out. She blocked out whatever else they said to try and convince her, and refused to give out any of her friends’ contact information.
It was then that everyone she had met and loved, everyone she considered close, had nearly been killed. An older guy who worked on campus, who convinced everyone that he was slow, had stalked them, and then trapped them in an empty study room where he brutalized them.
Time had passed. But they were nowhere near over it. Libby knew it was an impossibility to get over something like that. Liam, of course, was convinced that if she prayed hard enough, anything was possible. Like God was a magic eraser who could wipe her memory clean of all the terror she endured.
Emily - who was alternately snacking on Gardettos and yelling at Karen - had been terrorized that day, and still couldn’t sleep through the night. Today, the ghosts in her eyes were somewhere else. Her black hair was hidden underneath her pale blue jacket, with fur around the hood. Emily, who was sure they would all die that day…who couldn’t cope with sudden loud noises….this was the girl who put her whole life on hold for Libby.
She could still remember the conversation. The look in Emily’s eyes as she watched Libby, sitting on one end of the couch with her arms wrapped around her knees as she shook.
“I can’t do this anymore,” Libby had confessed. “I can’t have people always wanting a piece of me, and Liam controlling everything I do. If this is what my life is going to be now, then what’s the point? The only thing that’s stopping me is Morgan.”
Emily nodded. They all remembered the hell everyone experienced when their roommate - who’d been with them in the study room, and sexually assaulted not just once, but over and over - had tried to take her own life in the months after the attack.
“You should come with me,” Emily had invited softly. “I’m taking The Beast on a road trip. We could be nomads, or traveling missionaries. Just doing God’s work, wherever He called us, you know?”
“I wish I could,” Libby sighed, her heart heavy. “Liam would never go for that.”
“Oh, yes he would!” Emily snapped. “It’s God’s work, and Liam’s a total religious freak. Even he couldn’t say no to that.”
Silence had fallen around them, and then Emily had broken it again. “I’ll make you a deal. You learn to drive The Beast, and I’ll help you convince Liam.”
Libby held her head in her hands. “Drive?” She all but moaned the word.
“Lib, you are twenty-one years old! You need to learn to drive. He’s got you totally dependent on him…and kinda brainwashed if you honestly think you can’t do anything.”
“I’ll do it,” Libby answered quietly.
She may have had every aspect of her life controlled by her brother, but she could still think for herself, and she knew, even though her counseling had recently stopped, that she could stand in her power and make her own choices.
So, they introduced the idea to Liam - not of her driving - but the trip itself. He was not only on board with it, he actually gave them money with the promise that they would be back in a week or two.
And now? Now they were living the dream. They had made seven stops, in major cities across the country. They were on their way to their final destination: Stowe, Vermont, where most of their friends had already relocated.
Libby pulled her white comforter around her shoulders, and stood up to take the wheel from Emily. The blanket was still covered in the fabric-paint handprints of their roommates back when college first started. Before November.
It looked like life had been before everything had fallen apart. And it felt like hope.
She wasn’t going back, Libby thought, and breathed a sigh of relief.
--
“Mom! I changed my mind!” Christian called for the millionth time. “I don’t want to be a green Lego. That’s lame, anyway.”
Jess glanced up from the computer where she was checking Libby’s most recent update.
“Coby spent a lot of time making your Lego costume, and your coat can fit under it.” Sighing, Jess asked, “What do you want to be instead?”
“Something cool. Like a skateboarder. Or a basketball star.” Distracted, Christian climbed into Jess’s lap.
“Libby…Jane…New. England. Is beautiful. The Beast…is…beautiful. Life is…beautiful,” he read off the screen. And then turned to Jess, his knees digging uncomfortably
“Who’s Libby Jane? Is that our Libby?”
“Yes. Remember, we used to live with her in the big apartment?” Jess said. She remembered that time fondly.
“Yeah, but her name’s Libby Wright. Not Libby Jane,” Christian pointed out.
“Libby Jane Wright, just like you’re Christian Jesse Walker,” Jess pointed out.
“I wish I was still Christian Gray sometimes,” he confided softly. “But then, I wouldn’t have a dad. So I guess it’s okay.”
Christian went through this dilemma at least once a day, despite the fact that she had married Coby Walker a year and a half ago. Despite the fact that it was Christian who had walked her down the aisle, since her own father still maintained he didn’t have a daughter, even years after she had gotten pregnant while she was a teenager. It was nice to have a family, but it was difficult, too. Because Christian was seven now, almost eight, and still not used to having a man in the house. Even though Coby had legally adopted Christian in the days after the wedding, it was still hard. Sometimes, Christian was happy to have a dad, and sometimes, he wished things could go back to the way they were.
And now he was getting upset over every little thing. He almost had to sit out of the Halloween parade at his school on Friday because he was antagonizing some kid in his class, hitting him over the head with his Lego hat.
But it made sense. Christian was tense for the same reason that she was tense, and getting headaches more frequently. It was the same reason Coby’s leg not only hurt when it rained, but now, every minute of every day. It would be like that until November 1st passed. Then, she knew, everything would return to normal.
“The Beast is a great name for a car.” Christian told her. “I think, when I drive, in eight years, I’ll name my car that.”
Jess nodded, wincing as pain radiated through her head.
“I’ll get you ice,” Christian insisted, rushing to the kitchen. Jess knew without watching that he was wrapping an ice pack in a towel, and getting her a glass of water and Tylenol.
Her son was used to being the man in the family. From the time he was a toddler, and could barely talk, he did what he could to help her, protect her and comfort her. It was a tough adjustment for him to get used to Coby not only as a father, but also as Jess’s husband.
“Hey, what’s up?” Jess heard Coby ask.
“Mom has a headache,” Christian passed along seriously.
Jess imagined him, with his curly black hair cut shorter now, his light brown skin that didn’t match either her own or Coby’s - so much so that when they first moved to Vermont - well-meaning people asked her quietly where he was adopted from. She explained patiently that Christian’s biological father was black. She appreciated it when they would nod and move on.
“I can bring this stuff to her, CJ. Why don’t you get your costume on?” Coby encouraged.
“I got it,” Christian insisted.
Jess smiled as they both came into the living room where she was now lying on the couch. Christian carefully put the ice pack where he knew it hurt the most, and then waited as she took the Tylenol and the water.
“Thanks, baby,” Jess said, blowing Christian a kiss.
Coby sat carefully on the couch beside her, laying Jess’s head in his lap. “How’s my wife?” he asked softly as Christian climbed onto the rolling desk chair and started typing.
“Great now. How are you?” she asked. “You’re limping.”
“Yeah, I’ll be glad when tomorrow’s over,” he confided.
Everything would be easier once tomorrow was over. Anniversaries sucked. She still couldn’t believe it would be three years since some psycho on their college campus trapped herself, Coby and several of their friends in a room. Coby had been shot in the leg, protecting Morgan, another one of their friends. And Jess had been shot in the head moments after the crazy took over the room. At least, that’s what she’d been told. Jess honestly couldn’t remember much of the attack, except for the shirt Coby had on. It was a black tee shirt that read I LOVE HOT MOMS. It was back when he had a crush on her, and she couldn’t see past his leather jacket, motorcycle-riding exterior.
Lucky for Jess, he had seen her, and he had always been there for her, even before November. It seemed fitting that he started out lending her his cute, black car, because now it was hers, and he had pickup. It was appropriate since he now worked as the town’s handyman. She had a job as a room attendant at the Stowe Mountain Lodge.
They had a cute house - yellow with green trim - and even a golden retriever puppy named Snoopy that liked to be carried around, and still peed on the carpet if you didn’t open the back door to let him out immediately. They had the perfect family, and she and Coby had been diligently trying to add to it. And now, Jess was pregnant. But no one knew yet. Christian had been begging for a little brother or sister, and Jess had always wondered what it would be like to come together with someone who she genuinely loved and respected and wanted to start a family with. Not that Christian was unwanted. He was a blessing, but these circumstances were different. She felt ready. And so far, she didn’t feel sick or anything. It was great. Now if she could just get this damn headache to go away so she could enjoy Halloween.
Easily, Coby started massaging Jess’s head. Sometimes it helped, and sometimes it made her want to smack him. Luckily this time, it relaxed her.
“How’s LP?” Coby asked, furtively moving one hand to rest on Jess’s stomach. Since they still didn’t know the sex of the baby, and she was three months along, Jess had taken to calling the baby Little Precious. Since Coby couldn’t quite say the words aloud, he abbreviated it.
Jess was about to answer when the doorbell rang.
“Trick-or-treaters!” Christian exclaimed, rushing to get into his Lego costume. Finally, he gave up, tossing it aside, and rushing to look out the window and open the door.
--
Nathaniel and Cary stood on Jess and Coby’s front steps, shivering. It had seemed like a good idea in theory to come dressed in their Halloween best.
Cary was a pirate, but not just a Pirates of the Caribbean rip off, a unique and amazing pirate, with tall boots, an authentic pirate earring, shiny black pants and a blue, ripped shirt, with a vest over that. He had a great hat, and an eye patch that he wasn’t wearing, because it was already snowing, and hard to see.
Nathaniel was the most gorgeous parrot that Cary had ever seen. He made the costume himself, with plenty of encouragement from Libby, back in Minnesota, who was constantly mailing him colorful, pretty fabric. He had layers of bold, bright, and shiny fabric. Cary didn’t know shit about fabric and was pretty sure Nate didn’t either, but at least Morgan was nearby and willing to put in whatever free time she had at the sewing machine, piecing together Nathaniel’s parrot costume.
They had been married for a year, and every day, Cary was positive that Nathaniel got more beautiful. In addition to the fabric-feathers, Nate had real honest-to-God feathers interspersed: bright red ones, vivid green ones, orange and yellow ones, blue and purple ones. Cary didn’t ask whose idea or whose job it had been to dye millions of feathers. He wore Morgan’s green eye-shadow and his face was streaked with color. It was unlike Nate to dress in a way that attracted attention. That stopped three years ago - before he and Cary met - when Nathaniel had been trapped in a room on his college campus. He, along with two girls, Morgan and Libby, had been taken behind a desk and violated by a fast-food employee who worked on campus. He called himself Buddy, but his real name was Melville Hamilton. He was in his forties, and it was known now that he had a record as long as Cary’s arm, which included previous sexual offenses in other states. Though they didn’t talk about him, Cary understood that Mel existed between them, and probably always would. But right now, Cary didn’t want to think about that. He wanted to think about how his husband looked amazing.
The door was finally pulled open, and both held out their buckets. “Trick or treat!” they called in unison.
Christian, dressed all in green, cracked up as soon as he saw them. “Hey, Mom and Dad! Nate and Cary are here! And they’re dressed just like Johnny Depp and his parrot, if Johnny Depp had a parrot!”
“Nice,” Cary said under his breath. “I go to all this effort to dress like a unique pirate, and right away, I’m Johnny Depp.”
“Oh, settle down,” Nate chided, smiling. “Johnny Depp’s hot. It’s a compliment.”
“Johnny Depp is disgusting and creepy,” Cary said decidedly.
“Out,” Jess ordered playfully, sitting up. “Anyone who speaks ill of Johnny Depp is banished from my home.”
“Hey, you guys look great!” Coby exclaimed.
“Thanks,” Nathaniel replied, blushing under his makeup.
“Oh, really. Our house is in your back yard. It’s not really a punishment,” Cary argued.
“I’ll show you a punishment,” Jess insisted, her voice low.
“Take these and run,” Coby advised in a whisper, giving Nathaniel and Cary handfuls of candy.
“I’ll be home tonight,” Nate called over his shoulder. “Cary has to work, but come over, Christian. You can see our Haunted House.”
“Are you going to go work at the bar dressed like Johnny Depp?” Christian asked, as they headed for the door.
“No, I don’t think it’s allowed,” Cary said, hiding his scowl with a pleasant tone of voice.
“I’m gonna be a Lego! I’ll come and show you before you go to work! What time do you go to work?” Christian asked.
“Eight o’clock,” Cary called back.
“Okay, that’s my bedtime. So, I’ll for sure be over before then!”
Together, Cary and Nate walked home. Their house wasn’t really haunted, but they had decorated the entry way with spider webs and had Halloween songs playing. Nathaniel had insisted it not be too scary, in case little kids came by.
It hadn’t been much of an adjustment getting married. Nathaniel and had moved in with Cary, and had lived there for months before Cary proposed in the most romantic way ever.
It was romantic because it was simple, and private, and Nathaniel treasured those things. He was grateful for a place where he could be himself and not be harassed. His former roommate Liam, had been a master at that. It was weird, too, because Nathaniel was best friends with Libby, Liam’s younger sister. She acted nothing like him.
Nathaniel loved being married, and loved being taken care of and looking out for Cary. Their roles weren’t set in stone, and that was good. But it was understood that around this time of year, it was Nate that needed to be looked out for.
He tried to focus on the simple things. Work, as a line cook at the Stowe Mountain Lodge. Remodeling their downstairs, so they could get a pool table. Getting to know the neighbors, since they were still viewed as newcomers, even after living here for a year. Luckily, everyone treated them well, and they didn’t have any problems. Even the little church was great. Plus, it was really nice having Jess and Coby right behind them, and Jonathan and Morgan a ten-minute drive away, if the roads were good.
Talk of having kids wasn’t happening at the moment, but it wasn’t completely off the table either. Someday, they agreed. But every time Nate saw a baby in church or at the mercantile, he melted inside. Then, he’d send Cary a look, and Cary would nod, understanding.
It wasn’t always smooth sailing. In fact, it usually wasn’t. They fought. Especially this time of year. Cary didn’t get why so many things caused problems for Nate. He didn’t understand why Nate was always thinking about it. Why he couldn’t just think of something else for five minutes. Why Nate couldn’t handle being away from Cary for an extended time. Why Nate always panicked when Cary traveled - it wasn’t out of some need for control - but fear that something might happen to Cary and then Nate would be alone. But their fights were pretty low-key. They mostly yelled to blow of steam. And when it was over, it was over, and they went back to the way things were. The two of them, madly in love with one another.
“I have to show this to Morgan, and thank her for the amazing job. I wonder how they’re doing?” Nate asked, thinking of not only Morgan, but Jonathan as well.
They were both in the room with him three years ago. Four months later, Morgan had fallen hard into drinking and drug-use to cope with being raped repeatedly, and watching as the man who did it kill himself in front of her. Jonathan had gotten cut - a brutal slash down the side of his face - with the knife he’d been using to threaten Nate behind the desk. He choked Jon until he almost passed out. Morgan and Jon were living together now, both doing amazing, generally. But all bets were off with November around the corner.
So Nate got in the car, parrot costume and all, and drove down the snowy streets to pay his friends a visit.
--
Morgan was doing her best to deal. She had been to a meeting already today, and had called her sponsor repeatedly, who advised her in some basic things that Morgan already knew, but it helped to hear them again.
The fact was, she spent the entire year dreading this day. Right after it happened, she lost herself, using drugs and drinking when that wasn’t enough to dull the pain. She got straight after Jonathan, Nathaniel, and his new boyfriend Cary, saved her life. They found her suicide note and took her to the hospital, where she spent seventy-two hours in the psych ward and then thirty days in rehab. She did counseling and all that, too, to deal with the abuse and the attack. And for a while, she was okay. Then November came around for the first time, and Morgan relapsed. She didn’t try to kill herself, but it was still bad. She got kicked out of the apartment on-campus where she lived with Jess, Christian, Emily, Libby and Legend. She was homeless for a while and then, on Christmas Day - when she realized what day it was - she went to church and knew she had lost everything. She made a decision then and there to get treatment, and get her life together. For real.
Now, she was nearly two years clean and sober and felt great. Except for Thursdays, the first of November, or when she encountered any of her countless other triggers. But she was coping. It was a battle, but she was winning it, a day at a time.
She was really blessed, actually. Jonathan had been by her side since her suicide attempt. She didn’t remember it, but knew he was there. Just like she knew Nathaniel and Cary had been there. Her boyfriend at the time, Liam, had been in deep denial and left as Morgan had nearly surrendered to hopelessness. In the months following, she broke up with him, which, let’s face it, was one of the best decisions she had ever made.
Jonathan was a strong presence in her life, but never pushed himself on her. When she relapsed, and she called, he stood firm. They could talk when she got sober, until then, he wanted nothing to do with her.
The journey here had been hard for both of them. They had been living together for six months, and had followed Jess, Coby and Christian, and Nathaniel and Cary out east to Vermont. The appeal of small-town life was too great.
She and Jon had gone in together on a white lodge-style house. It was sparsely decorated, with just a few pieces of furniture, and always clean. They had a fish tank, and once, it had been full of tropical as well as regular fish, until they started getting weird diseases, and attacking each other. Now, they had a goldfish and an angel fish, and some blue fish that looked like he was about to die. Jon called him Grandpa because he looked old.
Morgan had been keeping busy these last several weeks, dedicating every second of her spare time when she wasn’t working her program to sewing Nathaniel’s Halloween costume. It had been a nice distraction, and it was fun to watch Jon diligently dying white feathers all different colors, wearing rubber gloves and goggles.
“What’s up?” Jon asked, coming to join her at the kitchen table.
“Your grandmother called. She says we’re living in sin,” Morgan passed along, forcing a smile.
“Aw, Grandma Mitchell?” he said affectionately. “Give her a break, she’s eighty-seven. Pretty soon, she’ll just be happy that we’re happy. You want to go trick-or-treating tonight?” he asked. “I could go as a pirate. I already have the scar. Won’t even need make-up,” he joked.
Morgan looked at him for a long time, and then kissed her fingertips and pressed them to the scar. “I don’t care how you look. I don’t love you because of that. I love you because you’re an amazing guy. …And you can’t be a pirate, Cary’s already being one.”
“The lazy bum!” Jon exclaimed good-naturedly. “Can’t even come up with his own costume ideas, so he steals mine. What’s up with that?”
“Dude, he and Nathaniel decided on their costumes in, like, April,” Morgan passed along, smiling. “I should know, I worked on the damn parrot costume every waking hour for just about that long…”
“He better get his ass over here. I wanna see how my feathers look,” Jon grumbled.
--
Christian had finally gotten into his Lego costume, and was thrilled when Jess and Coby revealed their plan to be Green Lego’s buddies Yellow Lego and Red Lego. They were almost ready to go out, after taking pictures when a knock stopped them short.
“Oh, I bet I know who it is!” Christian hollered, rushing to look out the window and throwing open the door.
“Hey! Oh my gosh, you’re so big!” Libby exclaimed, hugging Christian awkwardly around his costume.
“Trick-or-treat!” Emily called, “Hey Jess! Hey, Coby!”
“What are you girls doing here! Oh gosh, I’ve missed you! Get over here and hug me,” Jess demanded.
It still hurt to be so far away from Legend, the best friend that Jess had grown up with. Over time, she had grown apart from them. The same could be said for Aaron, who Jess had gone to high school with, and Bryan, who had also been there in November, and had his own life back home. For them, Jess knew, it was easier to break away and move on than it was to stay with them and be reminded each day.
Jess held onto each of them an extra long time, not caring that her yellow Lego was probably digging in to them somewhere. She held them at arm’s length and studied them. Emily’s eyes were brown and shining with happiness and strength. She had grown up in the year and a half since Jess had seen her. Next it was Libby’s turn, and Jess held that precious face between her hands and studied Libby’s clear blue eyes seriously. They looked haunted, and she felt too thin. Jess made a mental note to feed them both, and insist they stay as long as they need to. These were her friends, and they all missed each other.
“We sort of got invited…” Libby confessed handing her phone to Jess and embracing her.
Jess glanced at the screen.
U shud come and vist us. We are New England. CJ
“Honey, come see this,” Jess called, as Coby the Red Lego limped out to see what all the commotion was.
“Hey, ladies! Long trip?”
“Christian invited us!” Emily said happily.
“And aren’t you glad I did? You guys should come trick-or-treating with us! You both can be Blue Legos if you want!” Christian interjected.
“When did you write this?” Jess asked, simultaneously impressed and mortified that her son apparently knew how to comment on people’s online statuses.
“You left the page up when you had your headache,” he passed along. “Come on Libby and Emily. I’ll show you where the costumes are.”
--
Nathaniel showed up as if he’d been conjured, and had plenty of news to report. Still dressed as a parrot, he passed along the text he received from Libby.
“What does she mean, ’We’re here’?” Morgan asked, confused.
“Don’t you ever go online? They’ve been driving for two days straight. I didn’t know they were headed here until Christian told Libby they should stop by.”
“Smart kid,” Jon put in.
“Hey, anyway, sorry! I’m so not a good guest. Thanks so much for the costume. I love it. Doesn’t it look great?” Nate asked, turning slowly to show off every inch.
“So great,” Morgan complimented. “We need a picture.”
“No! Not blackmail!” Nate called, laughing. He tried to crouch behind the chair Jon occupied, but all his feathers got in the way.
“Hell, yes, blackmail!” Jon countered.
Nate pretended to hide, but at the last minute, struck a pose, standing one leg. “So, how are you guys?” he asked, sitting awkwardly in a chair.
“I’m okay,” Morgan allowed. “Hey, with the girls here, we should have a Monday Madness. Tell Libby.”
“Okay. They’re trick-or-treating with the Walkers. They’re all dressed as Legos,” Nate passed along.
“Oh, my God… And you guys can go, but I’m gonna be in bed Monday, with a migraine. I’ll probably sleep the whole day,” he confided. It was true. Every year, he got the worst migraine and spent the entire day trying to sleep it off.
“But you’ll be up in time for dinner, right?” Nate asked seriously.
“I guess I can make that my goal,” Jon allowed.
Nathaniel was halfway to the door when Morgan called him back. “Hey. Come over tomorrow, all right? Hang out with me. I don’t want to be alone, and you don’t either. I’m taking the day off work.”
“All right. Thanks,” Nate nodded. “See you tomorrow.”
But all three knew that seeing each other wasn’t a guarantee. That was why it was so important to take care of each other moment by moment.
Libby glanced up from her notebook, with the map of the world as its cover, and to the snow-covered road ahead.
“Are you sure we’re going the right way?” she asked, tucking her pen behind her ear. Sure, Emily had been guiding The Beast - as they affectionately called the cargo van that they were taking on this cross-country trip - pretty well up to this point, but Libby was still nervous. Her brother drove like a madman. Her brother was the one she usually drove with.
“You’re seriously doubting Karen’s navigational skills?” Emily joked, holding up her phone’s GPS system.
“No, I’m not doubting Karen. I’m doubting you!” Libby laughed.
“You want to drive for a while?” Emily asked.
“No thanks,” Libby shook her head.
She had only just learned to drive. It was the only thing Emily asked of her when she promised to give Libby an out.
“Well, you’re going to have to, sometime soon. I’m tired, and there’s still five hours ‘til Stowe, if Karen’s right. And she always is.”
Because Libby recognized that it was the last opportunity she might have to sleep, she curled up in the back and tried for it, listening to the song on Emily’s MP3 Player. It was called Good Place, and it was appropriate because Libby thought that finally, she might be headed for one.
As soon as she closed her eyes, it came back to her. The constant pressure. The control. No one had ever believed her, when Libby had tried to tell.
It all started when Nathaniel and Jonathan moved out, leaving Liam with no other roommates. Since Jess was preparing to move out anyway, and Morgan didn’t live there anymore, Libby hadn’t thought it would be a big deal to move in with him.
Except that he watched her all the time. Said where she could go and where she couldn’t. He controlled everything. The money because he was the one working. The car because he was the one who drove. He pressured her to keep going to classes, even though she couldn’t manage to get out of bed on school days.
It didn’t seem to matter that she had been through a trauma. It didn’t matter that she couldn’t go on campus at all without flashing back to something. He made her come to his on-campus Bible study that he continued even when it shrunk to just the two of them.
A few months ago, she was approached at Bible study by someone who asked her to do an exclusive spot on a national news report for the upcoming third anniversary of the worst day of her life. Libby had said no, flat-out. She blocked out whatever else they said to try and convince her, and refused to give out any of her friends’ contact information.
It was then that everyone she had met and loved, everyone she considered close, had nearly been killed. An older guy who worked on campus, who convinced everyone that he was slow, had stalked them, and then trapped them in an empty study room where he brutalized them.
Time had passed. But they were nowhere near over it. Libby knew it was an impossibility to get over something like that. Liam, of course, was convinced that if she prayed hard enough, anything was possible. Like God was a magic eraser who could wipe her memory clean of all the terror she endured.
Emily - who was alternately snacking on Gardettos and yelling at Karen - had been terrorized that day, and still couldn’t sleep through the night. Today, the ghosts in her eyes were somewhere else. Her black hair was hidden underneath her pale blue jacket, with fur around the hood. Emily, who was sure they would all die that day…who couldn’t cope with sudden loud noises….this was the girl who put her whole life on hold for Libby.
She could still remember the conversation. The look in Emily’s eyes as she watched Libby, sitting on one end of the couch with her arms wrapped around her knees as she shook.
“I can’t do this anymore,” Libby had confessed. “I can’t have people always wanting a piece of me, and Liam controlling everything I do. If this is what my life is going to be now, then what’s the point? The only thing that’s stopping me is Morgan.”
Emily nodded. They all remembered the hell everyone experienced when their roommate - who’d been with them in the study room, and sexually assaulted not just once, but over and over - had tried to take her own life in the months after the attack.
“You should come with me,” Emily had invited softly. “I’m taking The Beast on a road trip. We could be nomads, or traveling missionaries. Just doing God’s work, wherever He called us, you know?”
“I wish I could,” Libby sighed, her heart heavy. “Liam would never go for that.”
“Oh, yes he would!” Emily snapped. “It’s God’s work, and Liam’s a total religious freak. Even he couldn’t say no to that.”
Silence had fallen around them, and then Emily had broken it again. “I’ll make you a deal. You learn to drive The Beast, and I’ll help you convince Liam.”
Libby held her head in her hands. “Drive?” She all but moaned the word.
“Lib, you are twenty-one years old! You need to learn to drive. He’s got you totally dependent on him…and kinda brainwashed if you honestly think you can’t do anything.”
“I’ll do it,” Libby answered quietly.
She may have had every aspect of her life controlled by her brother, but she could still think for herself, and she knew, even though her counseling had recently stopped, that she could stand in her power and make her own choices.
So, they introduced the idea to Liam - not of her driving - but the trip itself. He was not only on board with it, he actually gave them money with the promise that they would be back in a week or two.
And now? Now they were living the dream. They had made seven stops, in major cities across the country. They were on their way to their final destination: Stowe, Vermont, where most of their friends had already relocated.
Libby pulled her white comforter around her shoulders, and stood up to take the wheel from Emily. The blanket was still covered in the fabric-paint handprints of their roommates back when college first started. Before November.
It looked like life had been before everything had fallen apart. And it felt like hope.
She wasn’t going back, Libby thought, and breathed a sigh of relief.
--
“Mom! I changed my mind!” Christian called for the millionth time. “I don’t want to be a green Lego. That’s lame, anyway.”
Jess glanced up from the computer where she was checking Libby’s most recent update.
“Coby spent a lot of time making your Lego costume, and your coat can fit under it.” Sighing, Jess asked, “What do you want to be instead?”
“Something cool. Like a skateboarder. Or a basketball star.” Distracted, Christian climbed into Jess’s lap.
“Libby…Jane…New. England. Is beautiful. The Beast…is…beautiful. Life is…beautiful,” he read off the screen. And then turned to Jess, his knees digging uncomfortably
“Who’s Libby Jane? Is that our Libby?”
“Yes. Remember, we used to live with her in the big apartment?” Jess said. She remembered that time fondly.
“Yeah, but her name’s Libby Wright. Not Libby Jane,” Christian pointed out.
“Libby Jane Wright, just like you’re Christian Jesse Walker,” Jess pointed out.
“I wish I was still Christian Gray sometimes,” he confided softly. “But then, I wouldn’t have a dad. So I guess it’s okay.”
Christian went through this dilemma at least once a day, despite the fact that she had married Coby Walker a year and a half ago. Despite the fact that it was Christian who had walked her down the aisle, since her own father still maintained he didn’t have a daughter, even years after she had gotten pregnant while she was a teenager. It was nice to have a family, but it was difficult, too. Because Christian was seven now, almost eight, and still not used to having a man in the house. Even though Coby had legally adopted Christian in the days after the wedding, it was still hard. Sometimes, Christian was happy to have a dad, and sometimes, he wished things could go back to the way they were.
And now he was getting upset over every little thing. He almost had to sit out of the Halloween parade at his school on Friday because he was antagonizing some kid in his class, hitting him over the head with his Lego hat.
But it made sense. Christian was tense for the same reason that she was tense, and getting headaches more frequently. It was the same reason Coby’s leg not only hurt when it rained, but now, every minute of every day. It would be like that until November 1st passed. Then, she knew, everything would return to normal.
“The Beast is a great name for a car.” Christian told her. “I think, when I drive, in eight years, I’ll name my car that.”
Jess nodded, wincing as pain radiated through her head.
“I’ll get you ice,” Christian insisted, rushing to the kitchen. Jess knew without watching that he was wrapping an ice pack in a towel, and getting her a glass of water and Tylenol.
Her son was used to being the man in the family. From the time he was a toddler, and could barely talk, he did what he could to help her, protect her and comfort her. It was a tough adjustment for him to get used to Coby not only as a father, but also as Jess’s husband.
“Hey, what’s up?” Jess heard Coby ask.
“Mom has a headache,” Christian passed along seriously.
Jess imagined him, with his curly black hair cut shorter now, his light brown skin that didn’t match either her own or Coby’s - so much so that when they first moved to Vermont - well-meaning people asked her quietly where he was adopted from. She explained patiently that Christian’s biological father was black. She appreciated it when they would nod and move on.
“I can bring this stuff to her, CJ. Why don’t you get your costume on?” Coby encouraged.
“I got it,” Christian insisted.
Jess smiled as they both came into the living room where she was now lying on the couch. Christian carefully put the ice pack where he knew it hurt the most, and then waited as she took the Tylenol and the water.
“Thanks, baby,” Jess said, blowing Christian a kiss.
Coby sat carefully on the couch beside her, laying Jess’s head in his lap. “How’s my wife?” he asked softly as Christian climbed onto the rolling desk chair and started typing.
“Great now. How are you?” she asked. “You’re limping.”
“Yeah, I’ll be glad when tomorrow’s over,” he confided.
Everything would be easier once tomorrow was over. Anniversaries sucked. She still couldn’t believe it would be three years since some psycho on their college campus trapped herself, Coby and several of their friends in a room. Coby had been shot in the leg, protecting Morgan, another one of their friends. And Jess had been shot in the head moments after the crazy took over the room. At least, that’s what she’d been told. Jess honestly couldn’t remember much of the attack, except for the shirt Coby had on. It was a black tee shirt that read I LOVE HOT MOMS. It was back when he had a crush on her, and she couldn’t see past his leather jacket, motorcycle-riding exterior.
Lucky for Jess, he had seen her, and he had always been there for her, even before November. It seemed fitting that he started out lending her his cute, black car, because now it was hers, and he had pickup. It was appropriate since he now worked as the town’s handyman. She had a job as a room attendant at the Stowe Mountain Lodge.
They had a cute house - yellow with green trim - and even a golden retriever puppy named Snoopy that liked to be carried around, and still peed on the carpet if you didn’t open the back door to let him out immediately. They had the perfect family, and she and Coby had been diligently trying to add to it. And now, Jess was pregnant. But no one knew yet. Christian had been begging for a little brother or sister, and Jess had always wondered what it would be like to come together with someone who she genuinely loved and respected and wanted to start a family with. Not that Christian was unwanted. He was a blessing, but these circumstances were different. She felt ready. And so far, she didn’t feel sick or anything. It was great. Now if she could just get this damn headache to go away so she could enjoy Halloween.
Easily, Coby started massaging Jess’s head. Sometimes it helped, and sometimes it made her want to smack him. Luckily this time, it relaxed her.
“How’s LP?” Coby asked, furtively moving one hand to rest on Jess’s stomach. Since they still didn’t know the sex of the baby, and she was three months along, Jess had taken to calling the baby Little Precious. Since Coby couldn’t quite say the words aloud, he abbreviated it.
Jess was about to answer when the doorbell rang.
“Trick-or-treaters!” Christian exclaimed, rushing to get into his Lego costume. Finally, he gave up, tossing it aside, and rushing to look out the window and open the door.
--
Nathaniel and Cary stood on Jess and Coby’s front steps, shivering. It had seemed like a good idea in theory to come dressed in their Halloween best.
Cary was a pirate, but not just a Pirates of the Caribbean rip off, a unique and amazing pirate, with tall boots, an authentic pirate earring, shiny black pants and a blue, ripped shirt, with a vest over that. He had a great hat, and an eye patch that he wasn’t wearing, because it was already snowing, and hard to see.
Nathaniel was the most gorgeous parrot that Cary had ever seen. He made the costume himself, with plenty of encouragement from Libby, back in Minnesota, who was constantly mailing him colorful, pretty fabric. He had layers of bold, bright, and shiny fabric. Cary didn’t know shit about fabric and was pretty sure Nate didn’t either, but at least Morgan was nearby and willing to put in whatever free time she had at the sewing machine, piecing together Nathaniel’s parrot costume.
They had been married for a year, and every day, Cary was positive that Nathaniel got more beautiful. In addition to the fabric-feathers, Nate had real honest-to-God feathers interspersed: bright red ones, vivid green ones, orange and yellow ones, blue and purple ones. Cary didn’t ask whose idea or whose job it had been to dye millions of feathers. He wore Morgan’s green eye-shadow and his face was streaked with color. It was unlike Nate to dress in a way that attracted attention. That stopped three years ago - before he and Cary met - when Nathaniel had been trapped in a room on his college campus. He, along with two girls, Morgan and Libby, had been taken behind a desk and violated by a fast-food employee who worked on campus. He called himself Buddy, but his real name was Melville Hamilton. He was in his forties, and it was known now that he had a record as long as Cary’s arm, which included previous sexual offenses in other states. Though they didn’t talk about him, Cary understood that Mel existed between them, and probably always would. But right now, Cary didn’t want to think about that. He wanted to think about how his husband looked amazing.
The door was finally pulled open, and both held out their buckets. “Trick or treat!” they called in unison.
Christian, dressed all in green, cracked up as soon as he saw them. “Hey, Mom and Dad! Nate and Cary are here! And they’re dressed just like Johnny Depp and his parrot, if Johnny Depp had a parrot!”
“Nice,” Cary said under his breath. “I go to all this effort to dress like a unique pirate, and right away, I’m Johnny Depp.”
“Oh, settle down,” Nate chided, smiling. “Johnny Depp’s hot. It’s a compliment.”
“Johnny Depp is disgusting and creepy,” Cary said decidedly.
“Out,” Jess ordered playfully, sitting up. “Anyone who speaks ill of Johnny Depp is banished from my home.”
“Hey, you guys look great!” Coby exclaimed.
“Thanks,” Nathaniel replied, blushing under his makeup.
“Oh, really. Our house is in your back yard. It’s not really a punishment,” Cary argued.
“I’ll show you a punishment,” Jess insisted, her voice low.
“Take these and run,” Coby advised in a whisper, giving Nathaniel and Cary handfuls of candy.
“I’ll be home tonight,” Nate called over his shoulder. “Cary has to work, but come over, Christian. You can see our Haunted House.”
“Are you going to go work at the bar dressed like Johnny Depp?” Christian asked, as they headed for the door.
“No, I don’t think it’s allowed,” Cary said, hiding his scowl with a pleasant tone of voice.
“I’m gonna be a Lego! I’ll come and show you before you go to work! What time do you go to work?” Christian asked.
“Eight o’clock,” Cary called back.
“Okay, that’s my bedtime. So, I’ll for sure be over before then!”
Together, Cary and Nate walked home. Their house wasn’t really haunted, but they had decorated the entry way with spider webs and had Halloween songs playing. Nathaniel had insisted it not be too scary, in case little kids came by.
It hadn’t been much of an adjustment getting married. Nathaniel and had moved in with Cary, and had lived there for months before Cary proposed in the most romantic way ever.
It was romantic because it was simple, and private, and Nathaniel treasured those things. He was grateful for a place where he could be himself and not be harassed. His former roommate Liam, had been a master at that. It was weird, too, because Nathaniel was best friends with Libby, Liam’s younger sister. She acted nothing like him.
Nathaniel loved being married, and loved being taken care of and looking out for Cary. Their roles weren’t set in stone, and that was good. But it was understood that around this time of year, it was Nate that needed to be looked out for.
He tried to focus on the simple things. Work, as a line cook at the Stowe Mountain Lodge. Remodeling their downstairs, so they could get a pool table. Getting to know the neighbors, since they were still viewed as newcomers, even after living here for a year. Luckily, everyone treated them well, and they didn’t have any problems. Even the little church was great. Plus, it was really nice having Jess and Coby right behind them, and Jonathan and Morgan a ten-minute drive away, if the roads were good.
Talk of having kids wasn’t happening at the moment, but it wasn’t completely off the table either. Someday, they agreed. But every time Nate saw a baby in church or at the mercantile, he melted inside. Then, he’d send Cary a look, and Cary would nod, understanding.
It wasn’t always smooth sailing. In fact, it usually wasn’t. They fought. Especially this time of year. Cary didn’t get why so many things caused problems for Nate. He didn’t understand why Nate was always thinking about it. Why he couldn’t just think of something else for five minutes. Why Nate couldn’t handle being away from Cary for an extended time. Why Nate always panicked when Cary traveled - it wasn’t out of some need for control - but fear that something might happen to Cary and then Nate would be alone. But their fights were pretty low-key. They mostly yelled to blow of steam. And when it was over, it was over, and they went back to the way things were. The two of them, madly in love with one another.
“I have to show this to Morgan, and thank her for the amazing job. I wonder how they’re doing?” Nate asked, thinking of not only Morgan, but Jonathan as well.
They were both in the room with him three years ago. Four months later, Morgan had fallen hard into drinking and drug-use to cope with being raped repeatedly, and watching as the man who did it kill himself in front of her. Jonathan had gotten cut - a brutal slash down the side of his face - with the knife he’d been using to threaten Nate behind the desk. He choked Jon until he almost passed out. Morgan and Jon were living together now, both doing amazing, generally. But all bets were off with November around the corner.
So Nate got in the car, parrot costume and all, and drove down the snowy streets to pay his friends a visit.
--
Morgan was doing her best to deal. She had been to a meeting already today, and had called her sponsor repeatedly, who advised her in some basic things that Morgan already knew, but it helped to hear them again.
The fact was, she spent the entire year dreading this day. Right after it happened, she lost herself, using drugs and drinking when that wasn’t enough to dull the pain. She got straight after Jonathan, Nathaniel, and his new boyfriend Cary, saved her life. They found her suicide note and took her to the hospital, where she spent seventy-two hours in the psych ward and then thirty days in rehab. She did counseling and all that, too, to deal with the abuse and the attack. And for a while, she was okay. Then November came around for the first time, and Morgan relapsed. She didn’t try to kill herself, but it was still bad. She got kicked out of the apartment on-campus where she lived with Jess, Christian, Emily, Libby and Legend. She was homeless for a while and then, on Christmas Day - when she realized what day it was - she went to church and knew she had lost everything. She made a decision then and there to get treatment, and get her life together. For real.
Now, she was nearly two years clean and sober and felt great. Except for Thursdays, the first of November, or when she encountered any of her countless other triggers. But she was coping. It was a battle, but she was winning it, a day at a time.
She was really blessed, actually. Jonathan had been by her side since her suicide attempt. She didn’t remember it, but knew he was there. Just like she knew Nathaniel and Cary had been there. Her boyfriend at the time, Liam, had been in deep denial and left as Morgan had nearly surrendered to hopelessness. In the months following, she broke up with him, which, let’s face it, was one of the best decisions she had ever made.
Jonathan was a strong presence in her life, but never pushed himself on her. When she relapsed, and she called, he stood firm. They could talk when she got sober, until then, he wanted nothing to do with her.
The journey here had been hard for both of them. They had been living together for six months, and had followed Jess, Coby and Christian, and Nathaniel and Cary out east to Vermont. The appeal of small-town life was too great.
She and Jon had gone in together on a white lodge-style house. It was sparsely decorated, with just a few pieces of furniture, and always clean. They had a fish tank, and once, it had been full of tropical as well as regular fish, until they started getting weird diseases, and attacking each other. Now, they had a goldfish and an angel fish, and some blue fish that looked like he was about to die. Jon called him Grandpa because he looked old.
Morgan had been keeping busy these last several weeks, dedicating every second of her spare time when she wasn’t working her program to sewing Nathaniel’s Halloween costume. It had been a nice distraction, and it was fun to watch Jon diligently dying white feathers all different colors, wearing rubber gloves and goggles.
“What’s up?” Jon asked, coming to join her at the kitchen table.
“Your grandmother called. She says we’re living in sin,” Morgan passed along, forcing a smile.
“Aw, Grandma Mitchell?” he said affectionately. “Give her a break, she’s eighty-seven. Pretty soon, she’ll just be happy that we’re happy. You want to go trick-or-treating tonight?” he asked. “I could go as a pirate. I already have the scar. Won’t even need make-up,” he joked.
Morgan looked at him for a long time, and then kissed her fingertips and pressed them to the scar. “I don’t care how you look. I don’t love you because of that. I love you because you’re an amazing guy. …And you can’t be a pirate, Cary’s already being one.”
“The lazy bum!” Jon exclaimed good-naturedly. “Can’t even come up with his own costume ideas, so he steals mine. What’s up with that?”
“Dude, he and Nathaniel decided on their costumes in, like, April,” Morgan passed along, smiling. “I should know, I worked on the damn parrot costume every waking hour for just about that long…”
“He better get his ass over here. I wanna see how my feathers look,” Jon grumbled.
--
Christian had finally gotten into his Lego costume, and was thrilled when Jess and Coby revealed their plan to be Green Lego’s buddies Yellow Lego and Red Lego. They were almost ready to go out, after taking pictures when a knock stopped them short.
“Oh, I bet I know who it is!” Christian hollered, rushing to look out the window and throwing open the door.
“Hey! Oh my gosh, you’re so big!” Libby exclaimed, hugging Christian awkwardly around his costume.
“Trick-or-treat!” Emily called, “Hey Jess! Hey, Coby!”
“What are you girls doing here! Oh gosh, I’ve missed you! Get over here and hug me,” Jess demanded.
It still hurt to be so far away from Legend, the best friend that Jess had grown up with. Over time, she had grown apart from them. The same could be said for Aaron, who Jess had gone to high school with, and Bryan, who had also been there in November, and had his own life back home. For them, Jess knew, it was easier to break away and move on than it was to stay with them and be reminded each day.
Jess held onto each of them an extra long time, not caring that her yellow Lego was probably digging in to them somewhere. She held them at arm’s length and studied them. Emily’s eyes were brown and shining with happiness and strength. She had grown up in the year and a half since Jess had seen her. Next it was Libby’s turn, and Jess held that precious face between her hands and studied Libby’s clear blue eyes seriously. They looked haunted, and she felt too thin. Jess made a mental note to feed them both, and insist they stay as long as they need to. These were her friends, and they all missed each other.
“We sort of got invited…” Libby confessed handing her phone to Jess and embracing her.
Jess glanced at the screen.
U shud come and vist us. We are New England. CJ
“Honey, come see this,” Jess called, as Coby the Red Lego limped out to see what all the commotion was.
“Hey, ladies! Long trip?”
“Christian invited us!” Emily said happily.
“And aren’t you glad I did? You guys should come trick-or-treating with us! You both can be Blue Legos if you want!” Christian interjected.
“When did you write this?” Jess asked, simultaneously impressed and mortified that her son apparently knew how to comment on people’s online statuses.
“You left the page up when you had your headache,” he passed along. “Come on Libby and Emily. I’ll show you where the costumes are.”
--
Nathaniel showed up as if he’d been conjured, and had plenty of news to report. Still dressed as a parrot, he passed along the text he received from Libby.
“What does she mean, ’We’re here’?” Morgan asked, confused.
“Don’t you ever go online? They’ve been driving for two days straight. I didn’t know they were headed here until Christian told Libby they should stop by.”
“Smart kid,” Jon put in.
“Hey, anyway, sorry! I’m so not a good guest. Thanks so much for the costume. I love it. Doesn’t it look great?” Nate asked, turning slowly to show off every inch.
“So great,” Morgan complimented. “We need a picture.”
“No! Not blackmail!” Nate called, laughing. He tried to crouch behind the chair Jon occupied, but all his feathers got in the way.
“Hell, yes, blackmail!” Jon countered.
Nate pretended to hide, but at the last minute, struck a pose, standing one leg. “So, how are you guys?” he asked, sitting awkwardly in a chair.
“I’m okay,” Morgan allowed. “Hey, with the girls here, we should have a Monday Madness. Tell Libby.”
“Okay. They’re trick-or-treating with the Walkers. They’re all dressed as Legos,” Nate passed along.
“Oh, my God… And you guys can go, but I’m gonna be in bed Monday, with a migraine. I’ll probably sleep the whole day,” he confided. It was true. Every year, he got the worst migraine and spent the entire day trying to sleep it off.
“But you’ll be up in time for dinner, right?” Nate asked seriously.
“I guess I can make that my goal,” Jon allowed.
Nathaniel was halfway to the door when Morgan called him back. “Hey. Come over tomorrow, all right? Hang out with me. I don’t want to be alone, and you don’t either. I’m taking the day off work.”
“All right. Thanks,” Nate nodded. “See you tomorrow.”
But all three knew that seeing each other wasn’t a guarantee. That was why it was so important to take care of each other moment by moment.
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