Danielle Steel - The Ranch

They settled in the living room and talked for a while, and then Tanya got up and said she had to go to the powder room, and Mary Stuart told her where to go. There was a tiny guest bathroom down the hall, on the left, and Tanya walked swiftly toward it. She opened the door, turned on the light, and then gasped. She had opened the wrong door, and she was standing in Todd's bedroom, staring at the trophies and the pictures and the memorabilia all around her. Everything in the room was perfectly in place, and it was as if he was in school, and would be home from Princeton any minute. And as she stood looking at all of it, Tanya didn't hear Mary Stuart come up behind her, or see the look of devastation in her eyes as she looked around her.

“I never come in here anymore,” she said in a whisper that made Tanya jump, and she turned to see the ravaged look in her friend's eyes and instinctively put her arms around her. Tanya didn't think she should have left the room that way. It was like a shrine to him, and just knowing it was there, so close to her every day, had to be incredibly painful. There was a wonderful photograph of him on the desk, with two friends from school. Tanya had forgotten how exactly he looked like his mother when he smiled, but now she remembered, and it made her cry to see it.

“Oh, Mary Stuart,” she said as tears filled her eyes too, “I'm so sorry… I opened the wrong door, and I just kind of fell in here…”

The boy's mother smiled through her tears and pulled away, standing next to Tanya and staring at the same picture. “He was so wonderful, Tanny… he was such a terrific kid… he always did the right thing… he was always the star, the boy everyone wanted to be, the kid everyone fell in love with…” There were tears slowly rolling down her cheeks and Tanya stood staring at the picture, it was as though she expected him to speak, or appear in the room, but they both knew he wouldn't.

“I know. I remember him perfectly… he looked so much like you,” Tanya said in a soft voice.

“I still can't believe it happened,” Mary Stuart said, looking at Tanny, and then sitting on the bed. She hadn't done that since Christmas. She had come in here alone, late on Christmas Eve, and lay on his bed, clutching his pillow, and cried for hours. As usual, she hadn't dared tell Bill she'd been in there. He had told her once before that he thought the room should be kept locked, but when she asked him what he thought she should do with Todd's things, he had told her to do whatever she wanted. And she hadn't had the heart to take any of it apart. She just couldn't bring herself to do it.

“Shouldn't you put his things away?” Tanya asked her sadly. She could only imagine how difficult it would be, but she wondered if it would be healthier for them. Or maybe they should think about selling the apartment. But she didn't dare say that.

“I just couldn't,” Mary Stuart answered her. “I just can't put his things away,” she said, and tears roiled down her cheeks all over again, thinking of the child who had once lived there. “I miss him so terribly… we all do. Bill doesn't say anything, but I know he must too. It's killing him… it's killing all of us…” She knew how it hurt Alyssa too. She had seen her go into his room once. And she didn't think it was a complete mystery why she wanted to stay in Paris. Who could blame her for that? Coming home was pretty depressing, and for the moment, there was no relief in sight. Neither she nor Bill seemed to have recovered.

“It wasn't your fault,” Tanya suddenly said firmly, taking her friend by both arms, and looking into her eyes with a sense of purpose. It was as though she was meant to be here. “You have to believe that. You couldn't have stopped him once he made his mind up.”

“How could I not see what was happening to him? How could I love him so much and miss it completely?” Mary Stuart knew she would never forgive herself for what she hadn't seen and what had happened.

“He didn't want you to see it. He was a grown man, he had a right to keep his own secrets. He didn't want you to know, or he would have told you. You're not expected to know everything, to see into someone's mind. You couldn't have known, Mary Stuart, you have to believe that.” What Tanya couldn't believe was that Bill had tortured her for the past year and hadn't released her from her own guilt. Instead, he had confirmed it to her, both by his actions and by his silence.

“I'll always think it was my fault,” Mary Stuart said sadly, but Tanya would not let her go. She was determined to free her from the hooks that held her. It was the ultimate act of friendship, and a matter of Mary Stuart's survival.

“You're not that important,” she said quietly. “As much as he loved you, you weren't that important to him. He had his own life, his own friends, his own dreams, his own disappointments, his own tragedies. You couldn't have made him do it if you wanted to, and you couldn't have made him not do it, no matter how much you wanted to. Not unless he had come to you, and begged you to stop him. And he would never have done that, he was too private a person, just like you are.” Tanya was very serious as she looked her in the eye, determined to help her friend now.

“But I would never do anything like that,” Mary Stuart said, still staring at her son's picture, as though she could still ask him why it had happened. But they all knew why now. It was so pathetically simple. The girl he had loved for four years had died in a car accident, on an icy New Jersey road four months before, and he had quietly sunk into an ever deeper depression. No one had realized how depressed he was, or the full extent of his despair after she died. They had thought he was coming out of it at Easter. But in retrospect, Mary Stuart had realized that he only seemed happier at Easter because he had probably decided to do it when he went back after the vacation. He had been so close to his mother then. They had gone for a long walk in the park, and talked philosophically and laughed, he had even talked in vague terms about his future. He told her he knew now he would always be happy. And then he did it, the night he went back. He committed suicide two weeks before his twentieth birthday, in his room in Princeton. The boy in the next room had found him. He had come in to borrow something and he had found Todd in bed, asleep, and something about the way he lay there aroused suspicion. He had checked him immediately and administered CPR, until the police and the fire department came. But they said later that Todd had been dead for several hours when the boy found him. He had left a note to each of them, telling them that he felt so peaceful and so calm, and so happy at last. He said it was cowardly of him, he knew, and he regretted any pain he would cause them, but he simply couldn't live without Natalie anymore. He said he had truly tried. And he hoped that once they forgave him, they would be relieved to know that he and Natalie would be together forever in Heaven. Although his parents had said they were too young, he had wanted to marry her, after graduation, the following summer. And in a sense, Todd said in his note, they were married now. And through it all, once they heard the news, and long afterward, Bill had blamed Mary Stuart. He said that she had filled his head with foolishness and romantic notions, she had allowed him to become too seriously involved with Natalie for the past four years, and if she hadn't forced religion on him, he would never have had such absurd notions of the hereafter or of God. According to Bill, Mary Stuart had, in fact, set the stage for disaster. And he laid Todd's suicide entirely on the conscience of his mother. At the time, what he said to her had almost killed her. But more than anything he could have said to her was the agony of her loss of her older child, her only son… her firstborn… the child who had always been her sunshine, and brought her so much joy and pride.