"Now you sound just like Trina. So you're taking her side now?" Callie gets up and starts sorting through the wastebasket.
I stand in front of her. "That's not what I'm saying."
"Just go. I'll clean this up myself."
"Callie." I take the wastebasket from her and set it down. "If you don't make a change, things will always be this way."
She glares at me. "And what way is that?"
"The way that prevents you from moving on with your life."
"Why would I move on?" she yells, her voice cracking. "Ben didn't get to move on. Neither did my parents. So why should I?"
I hold her shoulders and look her in the eye. "Because you're still here. You're still alive."
"But I shouldn't be." Her lip trembles. "I should be dead, like them."
"Callie, don't say that."
"I should've gone with them. That was the plan, but then I didn't go. And now I'm here and they're not. I shouldn't be here. I shouldn't be getting up every day, going out, doing things without them. It's not fair that I get to do things and they can't."
My mind goes back to what she said at the bar that night. When she said she shouldn't be here, she didn't mean the bar. She meant here on Earth. Given how she acted that night, I suspected she might've meant that but I was hoping I wasn't right.
"Callie, please tell me you're not going to hurt yourself."
She shakes her head. "I'm not."
"But you feel you owe it to them to not live your life. That's why you stay in this house and won't make friends or go out and have fun? Because they can't?"
She shuts her eyes, nodding.
"Callie, look at me." Her eyes blink open. "Living this way is not what your family would've wanted. Obviously I never met them, but I know for a fact they wouldn't want you to stop living because of them. They'd want you to go on with your life. They'd want you to live the life that they couldn't. To make the most of it. To not take it for granted. They'd want you to be happy."
"How can I be happy? They're gone and they're never coming back."
"But part of them lives on in you. It's like with Becky and me. She's the one who got me hooked on country music. As a kid I never listened to music, but Becky always listened to country, and since I was always with her, I couldn't help but listen to it. And now I listen to it all the time, and whenever I do, I think of Becky. That part of her, the diehard country fan, still lives on through me. Do you know what I'm saying?" She doesn't answer so I continue. "Like I'm sure you're similar to your mom in many ways, and because of that, she'll always be with you. And that's a hell of a lot more real than holding onto the yarn she was using to make a scarf."
Callie steps back, then turns away from me and starts sorting through the wastebasket again. Did she not hear what I said? Or is she just choosing to ignore it?
"What are you doing?" I ask as she takes some toy race cars out of the trash.
She starts arranging the cars on top of the dresser, placing them in the same spots they were before. "Would you please go?"
"I don't think I should."
"Please. I need to do this, and I don't want you here."
I sigh. "Come over when you're done, okay?"
"I'm not coming over. It's not a work day."
"This isn't about work. This is about me being your friend. We don't have to talk. We can just hang out."
"I don't know. I need to think about it." She takes a stuffed animal from the trash and sets it up in the corner of the room. "I'll call you later."
There's nothing else I can say, so I leave her there and go back to my house. Around noon, I call to check on her and invite her over for lunch but she doesn't pick up, so I go to her house but she won't answer the door. I continue to call and stop by but she doesn't answer the phone or come to her door.
The same thing happens on Sunday. She refuses to talk to me. I keep watch on her house and see lights turning on and off so at least I know she's in there and okay, but she never comes outside. She usually mows on Saturday but she didn't yesterday, so I go over there and mow her lawn. I assumed she'd come out and yell at me for doing it, but she didn't.
On Monday, she sends me a text saying she won't be coming to work but doesn't say why, and as expected, she won't answer my calls or come to the door.
Why is she avoiding me? Is it because of what I said? If so, it's fine if she's mad at me. It had to be said. She can't keep living under this cloud of guilt she feels for being alive when her family is dead, just like I can't keep feeling guilty over what happened to Becky.
I spent last weekend thinking about that, realizing that no matter how much I allow the guilt to eat away at me, it'll never change what happened. The guilt is just a way to punish myself for not taking Becky to work that day. Just like Callie is punishing herself for not going on that trip with her family.
"Hey, Lou, is Callie here?" I ask him as I walk in the coffee shop. He's got a coffee pot in his hand, refilling cups at one of the tables.
"She's in the back, rolling pie dough."
"Would you mind if I went back there and talked to her for a minute?"