Mary Robb - Down the Rabbit Hole

Abe nodded. “Your mother was remorseful—you saw it in her eyes. But you played indifference, you cut her off short and you did not give her a chance to apologize. Do you know why?”

If she didn’t at the time, she did now. To punish, to teach her mother a lesson, to have stowage to barter with, tit for tat, for any future transgression of her own. Her heart tipped. That wasn’t the way she was raised, it wasn’t the example her mother set for her. Everyone deserved a second chance—isn’t that what she’d said? Didn’t they also deserve the opportunity to ask forgiveness?

“And with no apology to sooth your wound it remains sore and unable to mend,” he said.

Elise shuffled her weight from foot to foot uncomfortably, searching for a good excuse or a reasonable explanation. A chronically overdrawn, cynical, judgmental hypocrite was not what she’d set out to become.

“Look,” he said, reclaiming her attention; his slim-fingered hands still resting on her shoulders. “Their food has arrived.”

“Oh! Good choice!” Elise smacked her lips. “Ferdinand’s Crab Louie never gets old.”

“Thank you for this, Molly,” said Liz Gurney, picking up her fork and knife to cut her salad into manageable pieces. A chink in her voice suggested her emotions were raw and near the surface. “I need . . . You’re a good friend.”

“Nonsense. We mothers need to stick together. We may not have all the right answers, but we do have all the same questions, I think. It helps to know we’re not alone.” She sipped on a sweet tea, still watching her beleaguered friend. “You know, if kids were cake mixes we’d have all the instructions on the back of their boxes with baking tips and low-fat alternatives. But they aren’t, so we don’t. All we can do is our best and hope it’s enough.”

Liz shook her head slowly and left the utensils resting on her plate. “My best is suffocating him. I know it. I see it. And I can’t seem to stop it.

“I look at Cody and I see him struggling to carry a heavy burden that I’ve forced on him—without thinking; without intending to. I’ve been too overprotective, too involved in every second, every aspect of his life . . . holding him too tight, fearful of losing him, too.”

“But that’s perfectly understandable, Liz, losing Lucas the way you did. Cody understands. And he’s not going to blame you for loving him too much.”

“No, of course not, but that’s not what I mean. I see him trying to be more , you know? More than what he is already, which is more than enough. Way more. I see him trying to fill the empty space Lucas left. And I’ve seen the fear in his eyes that he might not be enough.”

Her voice finally cracked, and a tear spilled onto her cheek. “The ‘Jolly Old Saint Nicholas’ recording?—that’s when I started to notice it. Cody was so patient and supportive the whole time Lucas was sick. He’s such a great kid.

“But then after . . . we decided we needed to get away; to do something fun, just the three of us. We took him to Disney World. It was a trip we’d always meant to take—you know, before—but then there was no time and . . .

“I should have realized the first time he said it . . .” She tapped on her forehead with the tips of her fingers. “I should have seen it then. I should have seen it coming. All those stupid books I read on dealing with the death of a child . . . I didn’t see it.” She looked away, and then back again. “We were leery at first, thinking the trip might remind him of Lucas too much. You know, more painful than pleasant for him, for all of us. Finally, Cody just blurted out that the trip was something Lucas would have liked. He said Lucas, not him. It didn’t click.”

“But what twelve-year-old boy wouldn’t want to go to Disney World?” Then, recognizing that there might be a few exceptions, Molly added, “And even if he didn’t, how were you supposed to know?”

“Because it got worse.” She took a draw from her water glass. “He kept pushing himself. Rides that would have scared him to death normally, he rode because ‘Lucas would want me to.’ I look back now, I see his face and he was scared to death. Terrified. But then he’d go find another—a ride Lucas would have ridden over and over—and he’d ride that one. He’d get off pale, trembling and forcing himself to laugh. And all I saw was what I wanted to see.”

“What you needed to see, too, I think. You were all hurting.”

Liz’s nod was slow and tired. “I think the whole trip was like a punishment for him. You know, that survivor’s guilt they talk about?” Her chin quivered. “I can’t bear to think that he, even once, wished he’d been the one to die instead of Lucas. The books say it’s common, but I can’t . . . I hope it isn’t true.”

“But what about his therapy? I thought you were all in therapy.”

“He is now, but that’s only been recently. In the beginning, we were all going to support groups. We went to the parents’ group, of course, but there was a special one for siblings that Cody went to. He always said he liked it, that he was learning a lot, that he thought it helped—he said everything he thought I wanted to hear. Then last fall he turned out for middle school football. We couldn’t believe it; he’d never shown any interest in it before. Lucas was the athlete, and school was easy for him. Cody struggled with his dyslexia to be a good student. He was the laid-back one, the daydreamer who loved to draw the most amazing pictures—his attention to detail is startling . . .” She hesitated, then sighed. “Last year he ran cross-country. It seemed like the perfect sport for him—running alone with just his thoughts, competing against his own best times. He loved it. Football, though, that should have been another red flag.”

“He didn’t like it.”

Liz shrugged her bewilderment. “He never said he didn’t. He went to practice. He sat on the bench during most of the games, and when they did play him, he spent most of his time facedown on the ground. He’d come home at night scraped and bruised and forcing an enthusiasm he clearly didn’t have. His father tried to help him, give him a few tips, but he had no aptitude for it. And again, I missed it. I missed seeing that he was trying to be both himself and Lucas for us. I only saw him failing at things that had been so easy for Lucas, without a clue as to why he’d bothered to try them in the first place.”

Molly reached across the table to cover her friend’s hand with hers.

“The recording.” Liz shook her head. “The dyslexia is so frustrating for him. The tutor has helped, but he still needs some special ed at school. Kids tease him. I wanted to do something just for him. Something important. I wanted to show him that I love him; that I love everything about him—his talents and his limitations—and I wanted to do it in a big way. I wanted . . .” Her voice trailed away in defeat. “Well, let’s just say Elise wasn’t the only person who walked by looking like I was trying to sell vials of Ebola.”

“Oh no, I’m sure—”

“Oh yes. I could see it all over her face. So could Cody.”

From the wings, a horrified gasp escaped Elise, and she closed her eyes in deep and sincere regret.

Liz went on. “But to be fair, he was embarrassed to begin with. He said it was a bad idea. He said that he didn’t want me to go to so much trouble. He said, in every polite way possible, that he didn’t want me to do it. But did I listen? Did I hear him?

“The reactions I got at the mall were only the last straw for him. He finally broke down and told us everything. How he felt, what he was trying to do for us . . . why.” Her soft chuckle was ironic. “Maybe I should thank Elise after all.”