Say Goodbye

So Kimberly fussed over gingham ruffles and teddy bear stencils and all the stuff a woman like her had once sworn was foolish, but now had become the center of her entire being. She ironed curtains, dusted the ceiling fans, and washed the top of the refrigerator. Then she purchased a medicine cabinet and demanded Mac install it that very night, because there was no way she was giving birth with their minor collection of pharmaceuticals still housed in a baby-accessible bathroom drawer.

Sometimes, when she was not nesting with the frantic compulsiveness of a nine-months-pregnant woman, random thoughts would pop into her head. She might discover a garden spider and spend the next hour thinking of Dinchara, the boy he had once been and the man he had become. And she would remember Aaron and that last look on his face before he pulled the trigger.

Aaron turned out to be Randy Cooper. He had been kidnapped walking home from school in Decatur ten years earlier. His family had claimed his body, his twenty-two-year-old sister, Sarah, now at Harvard Law, returning for the funeral. Sarah had thanked the small gathering of neighbors and law enforcement officers on behalf of her family. They were grateful for the closure the funeral allowed. They understood they were fortunate to have this moment, as so many families didn’t. And they would choose today, and all days, to remember Randy as the laughing, happy boy they had known, and not the victim he had become.

Kimberly wondered if Sal was struggling to make the same choice. Each day, every day. How best to know his brother.

Kimberly installed additional locks on every bedroom window. She ordered a home security system complete with a panic alarm. She purchased a video baby monitor so she could see at all times what was happening in her baby’s room.

And maybe it was panicky and neurotic. But maybe this was what a woman who worked in crime and had already buried two members of her family needed to do. Mac didn’t question her. He let her do what she did, and when she could bring herself to speak, of both her consuming fear and her tentative hope, he made the time to listen.

One week before her due date, Kimberly went into labor. With Mac by her side, and Rainie and Quincy flying in, she gave birth to a little girl, Elizabeth Amanda McCormack.

Three days later, she and Mac brought their little girl home. Mac took a couple of weeks off from work and they happily spent their time changing impossibly small diapers and marveling over ten perfect fingers and ten perfect toes. After much debate, they determined that little Eliza had Mac’s dark hair, but Kimberly’s pointed face. Obviously she possessed her mother’s intelligence, as well as her father’s strength. As for the temper tantrums, they both considered the other one guilty of providing that DNA.

Mac returned to work. Kimberly stayed at home and discovered…she was okay. Nursing and tending and fussing was not the death sentence she had feared, but rather a new set of challenges to explore. She could handle it for a bit. Six months, she thought. Maybe a year. That sounded about right.

So she took her time. She held her daughter close. She took her for walks to the park. She got up every three hours and rocked her baby girl in the middle of the night.

And during those months, little Eliza snuggled against her breast, Kimberly thought that while life may not be perfect, at least it offered moments that were perfect enough.

“I love you, Eliza,” she promised and smiled as she listened to her infant daughter snore.

Strawberry is my favorite flavor of ice cream.

My mom told me as she dished it up for me the first night I came home. I nodded as if I remembered, then ate the whole bowl, wishing it were chocolate.

Life will return to normal. That’s what everyone says. I’m lucky. I’m a survivor. Something bad happened, but now, Life Will Return to Normal.

I’m like Pinocchio, waiting to wake up one morning and discover I’m a real boy.

In the meantime, I pretend to sleep on top of my bed, instead of huddled underneath, where I can see people enter my room without anyone seeing me. I pretend I don’t notice that my parents never leave me alone with my little sister. I pretend I don’t hear my mother crying every night down the hall.

Life Will Return to Normal.

But I don’t think I ever will.

Some days, when it’s really bad, my dad drives me the two hours to Rita’s house. I chop wood, pull weeds, mow her lawn. She can’t move too well due to her hip, so she can always use the help. Better yet, she never asks me anything. She gives me chores, barks at me to move. Rita is always Rita and maybe she isn’t normal, either, and I like that.

Sometimes, when I’m whacking away at dandelions, I find that I am talking, things are pouring out. So I work harder and talk faster and Rita hands me more lemonade and it’s okay when Rita’s there. When Rita’s there, I feel safe.

Sometimes, my dad returns while I’m still ranting. So he’ll chop wood and pull weeds and paint spindles and I daresay Rita has the best-looking house on the block. It’s the least she deserves, you know. I wish I could stay with her always.

But sooner or later, gotta go home. Life Will Return to Normal.

I don’t sleep. I see things behind my closed eyelids I don’t think other boys see. I know things I don’t think other boys know. Can’t imagine going to school. Can’t imagine hanging out with my old friends.

I play dolls with my baby sister. I do whatever she tells me to do. I think of it as practice. Sooner or later, I’ll know how to be a six-year-old girl. Seems a lot better idea than being me.

My mom takes me to a therapist. I draw pictures of rainbows and flowers and he gazes at me with deep disappointment. So I draw birdies and kittycats. Goldfish and unicorns. I tell Rita about it later and she laughs, but I can tell she’s concerned.

Sometimes, on the really bad days, we simply rock on the front porch and she holds my hand.

“You are strong, child,” she tells me. “You’re tough and smart and capable. Don’t let him take that from you. Don’t give him that.”

I promise Rita I won’t and we both forgive the lie.

Rita lived to be ninety-five years old. She died in January. I came over that Saturday and found her sitting in the front parlor, one arm in her mother’s old coat. Joseph was sitting beside her. It was the first time I ever saw him. Moment I opened the door, he looked up at me, smiled, and disappeared.

I didn’t cry at the funeral. Rita’s was a good death. Peaceful. It gave me my first glimmer of hope. Someday, I want to die like that, sitting on my sofa, just waiting to get out the door.

I like to think Rita is ru