Николас Спаркс - The Return

After the shock passed, her eyes narrowed. “I suppose you’ve already called my parents? And they’re on their way?”

“No,” I said. “I didn’t. Not yet, anyway.”

“Why not? Because you plan to have me arrested?”

“No. Because I’d like you to contact your parents before the police do.”

“I don’t want to talk to them,” she said, her voice rising. “I’ve already told you that.”

“You told me a lot of things,” I continued, remaining calm. “But you’re a minor and technically a missing person. The police will contact your parents no later than tomorrow, so all of this is over no matter what you decide. They’ll find out where you are and I’m sure they’ll come to see you. I just think it would be better if they heard everything from you first. I’m sure they’ve been really worried about you and they miss you.”

“You don’t know anything!”

“What don’t I know?”

“They hate me.” Her voice was half sob, half cry of rage.

I stared at her, thinking about the news clipping I’d read. “Because of what happened to Roger?”

She flinched at the name and I knew I’d unleashed a tidal wave of painful emotions. Instead of answering, she drew her legs up, her knees to her chest, and began to rock. I wished that I could somehow help her, but I knew from experience that guilt is an individual battle, always waged alone. I watched as she began to cry before swiping angrily at her tears with the back of her hand.

“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked.

“Why? It won’t change what happened.”

“You’re right,” I admitted. “But talking about sadness or guilt can help let out some of the pain, and sometimes, that leaves more room in your heart to remember what you loved about someone.”

After a long silence, she finally spoke, her voice ragged. “It’s my fault that he died. I was supposed to be watching him.”

“What happened to Roger was a terrible, terrible accident. I’m sure you loved your little brother very much.”

She rested her chin on her knees, looking absolutely drained. I waited in silence, allowing her to make her own decision. I’d learned in my own therapy how powerful silence can be; it gives people time to figure out how they want to tell the story, or whether they want to tell it at all. When she finally began, she almost sounded as though she were talking to herself.

“We all loved Roger. My parents always wanted a son, but after Heather and Tammy were born, my mom had trouble getting pregnant again. So when Roger finally came along, it was like a miracle. When he was a baby, me and Tammy and Heather treated him like a doll. We’d change his outfits and take pictures of each one. He was always so happy, one of those babies that always smiled, and as soon as he could walk, he would follow us everywhere. It never bothered me when I had to watch him. My parents didn’t go out all that much, but that night it was their anniversary. Tammy and Heather were staying over at a friend’s house, so it was just me and Rog. We were playing with his Thomas the Tank Engine set and when he got hungry, I brought him to the kitchen to make him a hot dog. They were his favorite. He ate them all the time and I cut it into small pieces, so when my friend Maddie called, I thought it would be okay to talk to her on the porch outside. She was upset because her boyfriend had just broken up with her. I didn’t think we talked that long, but when I came inside again, Roger was on the floor and his lips were blue and I didn’t know what to do…” She trailed off, as if caught up in the paralyzing moment all over again. When she continued, her expression was dazed. “He was only four years old…I started screaming and eventually one of the neighbors heard me and came over. She called 911 and then my parents and the ambulance came, but by then…”

She took a long, uneven breath.

“At the funeral, he wore a blue suit that my parents had to buy for him. We each got to put a toy in the casket with him, and I picked Thomas. But…it was like this horrible dream. He didn’t even look like Rog. His hair was parted on the wrong side and I can remember thinking that if his hair had been parted the right way, then I would wake up and everything would be back to normal again. But of course everything was different after that. It was like this blackness settled over us. My mom cried and my dad spent all his time in the garage and Heather and Tammy fought all the time. No one was allowed in Roger’s room and it stayed exactly the same as when I’d been playing Thomas the Tank Engine with him. I had to walk by that room every time I went to my room, or to the bathroom, and all I could think was that if we’d stayed in the room a few minutes longer, then Maddie wouldn’t have called while he was eating and nothing bad would have happened. And my mom and dad…they could barely look at me because they blamed me for what happened. And it happened on their anniversary, so I killed that, too.”

I hesitated, wondering how to make sense of such a terrible tragedy. Finally, I said, “Callie, I’m sure they know it wasn’t your fault.”

“You’re wrong,” she said, her tone suddenly rising. “You weren’t there. I heard them talking one night, and they were saying that if I hadn’t been on the phone, then Roger would be alive. Or that maybe if I’d called 911 right away, they might have been able to save him.”

I tried to imagine how devastating it must have been to overhear those words.

“That doesn’t mean they stopped loving you,” I offered.

“But it was my fault!” she cried. “I’m the one who went outside to talk on the phone and left him alone and every time they looked at me, I knew what they were really thinking. And then…everything started going bad. My dad got laid off, my mom got skin cancer, and even though they caught it in time, it was just one more thing. Finally, my dad found another job, but we had to sell our house and Tammy and Heather were really upset because they had to leave all their friends. All I could think was that I set it all in motion and suddenly I knew I had to leave. If I left, then things would eventually return to normal.”

I wanted to tell her that layoffs happen and that anyone can get cancer; I wanted to explain that in stressful situations, arguments are far more likely. But Callie wasn’t ready to hear any of those things just yet, because blaming herself allowed her to feel some control over all of it.

“So you decided to run away.”

“I had to. I went to the bus station and caught the first one that was leaving. I went to Charlotte first, then Raleigh, and after that, I caught a ride with a man who was heading toward the coast. I ended up in New Bern.”

“Where you slept in my grandfather’s barn and he found you.”

“I didn’t have any money and I was so tired and dirty by then,” she said, sounding impossibly old for her age. “I hadn’t showered in days. He found me the following morning.”

“My guess is he probably offered you breakfast.”

For the first time since I’d been in the room, she cracked the weariest of smiles. “He did. He didn’t seem angry at all. He just asked who I was and I accidentally told him my real name, but then Callie popped in my head, so I told him it was my middle name and asked that he call me that instead. So, he said, ‘Okay, Callie, I’ll bet you’re hungry. Let’s get you some grub and get your clothes cleaned up.’ He didn’t ask me a lot of questions. Mostly he talked about the bees.”

“That sounds like him.”

“When I finished eating, he asked me where I was going. I didn’t know, so he told me he’d get clean sheets on the bed in the guest room and that I could stay until I figured it out. It was almost like he’d expected me to show up. I can remember that one morning, after he’d given me breakfast, he asked me to help him with the bees. He put me in one of the suits but he wouldn’t wear one himself. He told me they were his friends and they trusted him. I thought he should have said it the other way around—that he trusted them , but he didn’t. I still think that’s kind of funny, don’t you?”