This year my gift to you is the first chapter of my new book, Everything in Between.
Happy Holidays! Enjoy!
Chapter 1
Cradle to the grave - we were meant to be together.
Until we weren’t.
I don’t remember a time when I didn’t love Adam. We were born on the same day in the same hospital. Our houses were across the street, and our parents were best friends. We did everything together.
Even before we could walk, my mom claims we’d try to crawl across the street to be with each other.
At one point, our moms became concerned we weren’t playing with the other kids in the neighborhood, except Steve, of course. Steve was the brother that Adam and I chose. The Hodges lived three houses down. Like peas in a pod, my dad always joked. Adam loved corny dad jokes. They tried putting us in separate play groups, but we always came back together.
We walked to school together and played together at recess. Some years the three of us were together. Those were the best years. Some years, Adam and I weren’t in the same class. I’d search the halls and the cafeteria, my heart pounding until I caught a glimpse of him. At least one of us always had Steve. There wasn’t a year when we were in three different classes until middle school.
We took swimming classes together and played tee ball, soccer, and ice hockey. Steve started wrestling when he was about five. He loved it, but Adam and I just saw it as something our friend was doing without us. When the boys started getting bigger and stronger, most of us girls transitioned to the girls’ leagues. Adam came to my games whenever he could, and I did the same for him. We even went to Steve’s wrestling matches to cheer him on.
We weren’t playing kissy face (as Adam and Steve called it) in elementary school, but Adam and I always knew we’d get married someday. Sure, we’d kissed as babies and toddlers like I used to kiss my cat, and Adam kissed the top of his dog’s head. It wasn’t romantic until we went to Sarah Peterson’s 13th birthday party, and we played spin the bottle in her basement. I kissed a lot of boys that day, but Adam was my first spin and my first real kiss. I got butterflies in the pit of my stomach, and everyone, everything in the room, disappeared for a few seconds. No one else made me feel that way, and no one else ever has.
I want to scream about how much life sucks because he’s not here with me. Instead of saying all those things, when it’s my turn to talk, I introduce myself and say I’m just here to listen today. I sit back down and watch the people in the group. Some seem to nod in understanding, while others shake their heads as their lips disappear in disapproval.
I look at Clay. His face is expressionless. He made me come here in exchange for his silence. What will he do if I don’t participate in the grief support group? Will he report finding me sleeping beside Adam’s grave, holding his picture on what should have been our 27th birthdays? Finding me sleeping there three other times… other times I can’t blame on our birthday. Will it get me fired or carted off to a rubber room? How many parents would want a crazy woman who sleeps in the cemetery entrusted with the education of their children?
I’m glad Clay doesn’t know I’ve spent all of our birthdays there since the accident.
He tells me he’s my friend and wants to help me. He tells me how much a grief support group helped him after his sister died. Do I see a friend when I look across the circle at his chair? Do I want a friend? Why can’t he let me wallow in the unfairness of life for a while longer?
I’m not hurting anyone. I do my job, and my students seem to like me. At least as much as anyone likes their high school English teacher. So what if I haven’t moved on in almost ten years? Adam and our entire future died on that bus that day, but everyone and everything else survived. I survived. Sometimes I wish I didn’t. If I’d been sitting on the other side of him. Maybe he’d be here, and I’d be the one in the cemetery.
Adam always said he wanted to be cremated. He didn’t want to take up space where kids could be playing, or food could be growing, but his parents didn’t listen. They put him in the ground. I still apologize to him about that when I visit. He wanted his ashes scattered, so the wind would take him to far-off places. Now his body is trapped. After I got out of the hospital, as soon as I was able, I burned one of his favorite t-shirts and scattered the ashes in the park where we used to play. It was the best I could do.
They tell me Adam’s soul is in heaven, and his spirit will always be with us. They buried an empty shell, and he’s not really in that cemetery. Then why did they do it? Why do I go there and talk to a slab of stone? Why do I bring flowers to eyes that will never see them? Why do I lay my head on the grass in front of his marker like it’s resting on his chest, and I’m listening to his heartbeat, feeling the rhythm of his breathing… Like I’ve done so many times.
An elderly man is speaking. Glenda squeezes his hand and gives him a tissue. I want to listen to what he’s saying. I understand he’s hurting, and I want to feel empathy, but I’m so jealous that he got over 40 years with his wife. He got to live in a house with her and have children with her. He got to fight and make up and do all the heavy lifting to keep a relationship going. Adam and I never got that chance.
People tell me college might have changed everything. We might have grown apart and met new people, but I’ll never know because we never got to do all the in-between stuff. We never got to be tested.
Clay stands up. It’s his turn to speak, so I force myself to listen.
“Most of you know my story. My sister’s name was Angela. She was almost six years younger than me, and she followed me everywhere. It used to drive me crazy.”
Some people chuckle, and I smile in spite of myself.
“My mother says I didn’t want a baby sister or a baby brother, but when she came home from the hospital, I insisted on sleeping on the floor beside her bassinet for the first week.”
“My junior year in college, my parents went away for the weekend and made me come home to stay with Angela. I was supposed to pick her up after volleyball practice, but I ran into some old friends from high school. She left me three messages. By the time I came to pick her up, she’d already walked home. Angela was pretty ticked at me, so when she asked, I let her sleep over at her friend Kelly’s house. I figured she’d cool down and maybe not tell mom and dad. I didn’t check to see if Kelly’s parents would be home. I didn’t think to ask if Kelly was having a party. Angela insisted on walking the two blocks to Kelly’s house – I’d just let her walk a mile and a half home from practice, after all. I didn’t argue. I wish I had. I wish I’d picked her up that day, and I wish I’d taken her out for pizza instead of letting her go to Kelly’s.”
“The last thing I said to her was, ‘Love you, Angie!’ She hated being called Angie.”
“‘Have fun and come back a little less bitchy, okay?’ She laughed and flipped me the bird. But Angela didn’t come home. She drowned that night. They’d been drinking, and nobody noticed until she’d been in the water for a while. The paramedics came, but there was nothing they could do. When the police knocked on the door, I had no idea. She’d be 26 this month. I’ve lived with this guilt for eleven years, and if I didn’t have a safe place to share my grief, I don’t know where I’d be today. So, thank you.”
Clay sits down, and Glenda rushes over to hug him. She’s a certified grief counselor and the leader of this group. Clay is the last person to share tonight. I make a mental note to try to be nicer to Clay even though I’m angry he’s making me come here.
I’ve worked with him for about three years. I’d call us acquaintances, at best. Sometimes we sit together in the teacher’s lounge, or we share a lunch table when we both have cafeteria duty, but I rarely see him outside of school. Clay’s always been nice to me, but I’ve always kept him at arm’s length. It’s where I keep everyone except Steve and my parents. I knew Clay had a sister who died, but I never knew the circumstances. I never asked. I don’t think I ever ask. I don’t talk about Adam, so I don’t expect people to talk about their lost loved ones, either.
After the meeting, we’re all invited to stay for refreshments. Coffee, tea, and some bottled water. Sometimes there are donuts, cookies, or a cake. A woman named Melody used to bring scones. That was before my time, but people still talk about it.
I’m angling toward the door and a hasty retreat, but Clay comes over with two coffees and a plate of cookies.
I shake my head, but he hands me the coffee anyway and gestures toward two folding chairs.
“C’mon, Sabrina, I heard you telling Mrs. Paxton in the teacher’s lounge that snickerdoodles were your favorite. I also know you take your coffee black instead of using those fancy creamers they’re always collecting money to buy.”
Three years and I have no idea how Clay takes his coffee. I sneak a quick peak. No sign of cream, but it could be loaded with sugar. I’ve never seen him put anything in, not that I’ve ever bothered to watch.
“I’m a purist, too.”
He holds up his coffee in explanation. So, black it is. I file that under things I probably should know but have no idea why. I see everything that happens in my classroom and in the hallways. I know if my students are happy or upset about something, but adults, not so much.
I take a bite. The cookie’s good, really good. The coffee is even better.
Clay must have noticed my surprise.
“I’m in charge of the coffee. It’s nothing like the swill they used to serve at these meetings. I make most of the coffee in the teacher’s lounge for the same reason. It’s also my night to bring refreshments.”
That explains why the coffee at school is drinkable…
“Did you make these?”
“No, I picked them up at the bakery on Lewis St. I don’t bake, but I can cook.”
I smile. I can be pleasant. Maybe it will get him off my back. How many of these things will I have to go to before he’s satisfied I’m not a threat to myself, or I won’t have a meltdown in front of my students?