Jessica Sankiewicz - If Only We

“I know,” she says, her voice breaking. She smoothes down my hair and holds me until I stop shaking.

I am numb. I can’t feel anything. My life is like a leaf caught in the wind. Just tossed around forever and ever until the wind stops. The end is just a puddle full of mud, sucking me under and into itself. When it dries, I just dry up and wither away into nothing.

Into dust.

With all that has been done, everything that I have tried to do to help, everything that has happened and changed—why not this?

After putting on the black dress, I sit at my vanity and look in the mirror. The face that looks back at me is just like the face I saw the day at the cemetery. I slowly gather my hair into a messy bun. Even though I don’t want to bother, I put on a little bit of makeup.

Once I am done, I can’t look at the girl staring back at me any longer. She isn’t who I am. She is someone who can’t do anything right. Someone who gets herself into disasters and can’t find a way out. Someone who gets a second chance and still fails at making things right.

Someone who can’t even protect the ones she loves.

When I got home that night, I found my list and tore it up. There was no point to the list now that the most important item on it wasn’t possible anymore.

I can barely get a bite of food in me. The thought of swallowing one more thing makes my stomach clench. I sit in silence, touching my fork to my eggs, while Maurice and my mom talk. I can't focus on the words. All I notice is how they seem so calm, so normal. Like this is supposed to be normal.

Like death is supposed to be normal.

That is how it felt when I was younger and I went to funerals for family members I never even met before. Like my mom’s aunt Beatrice from Florida. We visited her when I was a baby so, of course, I didn’t remember who she was. Walking into the funeral home, I clutched my mom’s skirt, wide-eyed and wondering what everyone was crying over. My mom lifted me up so I could see inside the coffin. She told me that Beatrice died. I knew I was supposed to feel something, something like sadness. It looked like she was sleeping and that was it. I didn’t understand. I didn’t know who she was.

I didn’t feel anything.

Looking back on my limited experiences of death, I can’t glean anything useful. I can’t pin down the feelings that are pushing on my whole body with their sparks and twinges of pain and shame and misery. It is nothing I have felt before.

In the car, I didn't anticipate how much I would fidget. I can’t sit still, not even for a second. My foot taps, my fingers tap, I crack my knuckles, and I pick at the edges of my fingernails. I must be driving Kaitlin up the wall with my incessant moving, but I can’t tell. I think she knows I'm having a rough time and she lets it go for my sake. My mom and Maurice keep quiet, although I feel my mom wanting to try to talk to me. She has tried since Monday but I haven't been responding. My mind was spinning, reeling over what has come about. Being alone with my thoughts wasn’t what I wanted, but how could she begin to understand what I'm going through when I can barely understand?

Stepping into the funeral home, I am greeted with wall-to-wall black clothing. I scan the crowds looking for Chevy, but all I see are people from school and neighbors. I look away before they make eye contact. I don’t want to talk to them. I don’t want to talk at all. I'm afraid even to talk to Chevy, but I need to. He's been avoiding me since the hospital. I tried to call him, I tried stopping by. He would not talk to or see anyone. Roger has been trying to help him out as well, to no avail. Seymour is the one I talked to every time all week. He has been attempting to keep Noreen above water but has not been able to reach Chevy.

Lyndsay wordlessly comes up to me and pulls me into her arms. She holds me tight and then whispers into my ear, “I’ll sit with you if you would like me to.” I nod yes while she is still holding me. “Okay,” she says. “You’re going to be alright.” She takes my arm in hers and our families all enter the room.

By the time I find Chevy standing near the front of the room, there’s not enough time before the eulogy starts for me to go up to him. I am barely able to listen to what is said. I keep thinking I'm going to see John. Like this whole section of my second time through this life is the part that is really a dream. The heart attack was just a horrible prank that my subconscious is playing on me. I am going to wake up, and he will be alive. It needs to be fake because there is no way this can be real.

Some people get up in front of everyone to talk about John Thompson’s life. It gives me a glimpse into who John really was behind the alcoholism. A baseball fan, a car restorer, a former guitar player in a band in high school… I barely knew him. Yet I feel this connection to him beyond what is normal. I watched him die once. To see him die again is almost too much to handle.

I am beginning to question this second chance. I am feeling a strange feeling…like a mixture of guilt coupled with unexplainable distress that makes me want to jump out of my own skin.

It terrifies me.

I make my way up front afterwards and walk up to the casket to pay my respects. It's hard to look at him. He looks like my great aunt Beatrice—sleeping. My hand involuntarily reaches out to him, as if he was still here, but I flinch back at the last second. I hate open caskets. Seeing somebody lying dead in front of me, it pains my heart. Seeing their eyes closed, never to open again. Seeing their still chest, never to breathe again.

Seeing their lifeless body, lowered into the ground.

The anger spreads through my being. I touch the side of the casket and lean in, whispering, “You shouldn’t be gone,” as I force myself to hold in the tears.

There's a line of people surrounding the family. I stand behind them, anxiety rising inside of me. When I reach the front, Chevy is nowhere in sight. Where is he? I gather myself together and go up to Noreen. She pulls me in for a hug before I can even speak to her. I whisper quickly, “I am so sorry.”

She whispers into my ear, “Thank you so much for being there for us at the hospital.”

Tears begin to well up in my eyes. I whisper back, “Of course.”

She pulls back and holds on to both my shoulders. “Could you do me a favor?”

“Of course,” I say again.

“Please try to find Chevy and talk to him. He escaped right after the services. He'll listen to you. I need him right now.” All I can do is nod. She lets go of me and is enveloped in another hug.

I step out of the way and take in what she said. Find him, talk to him. It is the first and last thing I want to do. It scares me to go up to him. What do I say to him? I don't know how to console someone who has lost a parent. I'm afraid he won't want me there. Will not want to be consoled.

Like before.

Then I remember. This is my second chance. He needs a friend. Whether he wants it or not, he needs it. I need to do this. For him.

I sneak my way out of the building, avoiding anybody who may stop me on my way out. I open the door to a clouded-over sky. The fresh air reinvigorates me, if only a little bit to keep me walking. I look around and spot the park across the street. It's the same one Chevy and I were at not long ago. Something tells me he is in there. I look both ways, run across, and start down the path. It's nearly desolate, likely due to the threat of rain.

It doesn’t take long to find him. He's sitting on a bench facing the duck pond under a tree. He is leaning forward, staring into the distance. He seems almost as helpless as he did when I saw him in the cemetery. The fear of what he will say almost takes over. I can’t let fear win. It won in round one. Round two is not one for chickens. I swallow my pride and sit down on the bench next to him.

He doesn’t turn his head but he knows it's me. I hear his breathing change slightly at my presence. Almost like before, but not exactly. “I want to be alone,” he says.

If this were taking place way back when, I would have listened. This time I turn my body at an angle and say, “No, you don’t.” I reach out and take both of his hands in both of mine. “I am not leaving you.”

His eyes meet mine for the first time in days. I watch them trade anger for surrender. I squeeze his hands. His lips begin to tremble and he looks down, away from my gaze. I feel his tears drop down onto our hands. The next thing I know, he pulls his hands from mine and puts both of his arms around me. I wrap my arms around him, holding him close as he sobs into my shoulder. I gently stroke his hair and whisper to him that everything will be all right. We sit like this for a while. Even when the crying subsides, he doesn’t let go of me.

And I don’t let go of him.

I don’t know what to do with myself.

I am in the last twenty-four hours of my second chance and I have no idea what to think of it. Was that it? Is that what was supposed to happen? Did fate really think it was necessary to have me start over to end up pretty much the same? Sure, not everything has completely fallen apart.

Yet.

Then again, what if this was not how it was supposed to end up too? What if there is the possibility of having to start over until I get it right? Imagine having to relive all of this and every single detail I would have to fix.

Again.

I lean back against the wall behind my bed. Sitting here is not getting me anywhere. Dwelling on the negative possibilities is not helping me either. If this is it, I should be doing something to make things better.

I drive over to the Thompsons' house. There has to be something I can do for them. I don’t know what but I am willing to do what I can to make things easier if possible.

Seymour answers the door with a warm smile. “Adrienne, you’re just in time.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Just in time for what?”

He gestures that I come in. I step through the door and he closes it behind him carefully. He says quietly, “Chevy snuck out at some point in the middle of the night. He isn't answering his phone. Mom is beside herself. Well, she already was, but this is making it worse. I tried calling all his friends and several people in our family but nobody knows where he is.” He pauses. “Then I realized the person I needed to get in touch with was you.”

“Why me?” I ask. “I don’t know where he is.”

“Ah,” he says, holding up his index finger. “But you do.”

I stare at him, baffled. “How can I know when I don’t know?”

Seymour tries to hold back a laugh. “Come on. Don’t be so naïve. You and I both know there is a close friendship between the two of you. Maybe there isn’t something more,” he smiles, “but trust me, he needs you more than he has been letting on.”

I blink a few times in realization as to what he is hinting at. “Oh.” I stare off at the wall for a moment, taking that in. Here I am doubting when an outsider can see everything. Could he be right? I can’t help but doubt though, despite the certainty in his voice. Do I really know Chevy that well? I'm not some supernatural being that knows all about Chevy. I can’t just picture exactly where he would run off. Then it hits me. There is only one person who remembers what happened today. One person who remembers the end and the beginning.

I know where he is.

* * *

At the cemetery before, I didn’t know that Chevy would be there. Well, there weren’t any guarantees. All I had was this feeling, something inside telling me that was where I would find him.

I was right then and I know I am right now.

As I arrive there today, the anxiety from the first time returns. I sit there and take a deep breath. “You can do this. You are not a coward.”

I don’t know if it was the speech of confidence or my own determination, but I push my hesitation aside. I step out of my car and head down the same path, right where I need to go. There he is, standing there like before. This time, I don’t stop. I keep walking, straight for him.

He hears me coming this time. He says, “I had a feeling you would come looking for me.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”