Rachel doesn’t want to talk today. She never wants to talk, but today she’s even more reluctant.
For the past two weeks, I’ve watched her emerge from her drug-induced haze. Her eyes are clear and focused, and her energy level is higher. But these positive changes have not inspired her to fully participate in this process. She doesn’t trust me yet.
I have Sam’s account of the events of that morning. Sam and Rachel were together when the accident happened. I can intuit Rachel’s perspective and the reasons why she bears the blame. But she needs to be the one to tell me, in her own words. And I’ll do whatever it takes to make that happen.
She reclines against the back of the couch, feigning comfort, but her rigid shoulders and clasped hands betray her.
“You look well,” I say, positioning myself in the chair opposite her. She snickers.
“Right.”
“You don’t believe me?”
“I know what I look like,” she says, picking at a cuticle.
“Do you know what you looked like the first day you came in? Trust me, you look much better now.”
She snaps her head toward me and lets out a surprised laugh. “That was direct.”
I meant it to be. “Well, Rachel, the soft touch doesn’t seem to be working with you. Thought I’d try something new.” I stare at her, hard.
“So the gloves are off now?” she asks.
“This isn’t a boxing match. But you are fighting me at every turn. Do you want to move forward past your grief? Because I see no evidence that you do.”
“Maybe I don’t. Maybe I don’t deserve to.”
“That’s bullshit, girl,” I snap, suffusing my voice with what I call street edge. Rachel’s mouth drops open. As a therapist, I don’t lecture. Lecturing is frowned upon in my profession. We’re supposed to ask questions, let our patients come to the right conclusions themselves. But with Rachel, my instincts compel me to abandon my training.
“I’m gonna tell you what isn’t bullshit,” I say. “You are in the driver’s seat here. You get to decide. No one can do it for you. Not me or Sam or Ruth or Eden. Just you. You want to bury yourself in your grief and shrivel up and die before you’re dead, that’s your choice. But you’ll end up dragging your whole family down with you, Rachel. They’re grieving for Jonah, but they’re also grieving for you.”
Her lower lip trembles, and in that instant, she looks just like her daughter. Her voice is hoarse, thick with emotion. “I don’t deserve to move forward.”
I shake my head for emphasis. “So we’re back to this now?”
“You don’t understand.”
“We’re back to that now, too? Then help me to understand.”
Rachel is silent. I try a different tack. “What about Eden, Rachel?”
“What about her?”
“Does she deserve to move forward?”
“Of course, she’s a child,” Rachel whispers.
“What about Ruth?”
Rachel seems to getting the gist. She nods. “Yes.”
“Sam? Does he deserve to move past his grief?”
Her answer is quick. “No. He doesn’t.”
I lean forward. “Why not? Because of what he did the night before the accident?”
“He told you?”
I don’t respond to her directly. “Let me see if I’m following you. Sam made an error in judgment, and for that one misstep he should be forced to grieve over the loss of his beloved son forever? Do I have it right?”
She blinks a couple of times, then looks at me. Opens her mouth, closes it, swallows. “Sam deserves to move past his grief. I just, it’s hard for me to let go of . . . If Sam hadn’t done what he did, I wouldn’t have done what I did, and Jonah would still be alive.”
“What did you do, Rachel?”
She doesn’t answer me, changes the subject. “He came to me yesterday.”
“Jonah?” My mind flashes back to my dream and Jonah’s imploring brown eyes.
“I thought I was dreaming,” she says. “I mean, I haven’t seen him for a while. I thought maybe, without the meds, I wouldn’t see him at all, but there he was, sitting on the end of my bed. It was different, though. He was . . . faded.”
“Did he talk to you?” You gotta help ’em, and fast.
She frowns at the memory. “Yes. But I couldn’t understand what he was saying. It’s like he was speaking English, but I couldn’t compute the words.”
I pause for a moment. Then, “Do you think it might be possible that he wants you to let him go?”
She jerks her head from side to side, her anxiety mounting. “No. He was upset and crying, and he looked really angry, like the time I took him to the doctor for shots—that was the only time Jonah was ever really angry with me. The way he was looking at me, I could tell he blamed me. I asked him to forgive me, but he just shook his head, because he can’t forgive me. And why should he forgive me? I can’t forgive myself.”
“For what, Rachel? What can’t you forgive yourself for?”
She springs from the couch. “For fucking killing him! Don’t you listen? It’s my fault he’s dead!”
“I know you believe that.”
“Because it’s true.” Suddenly drained, she drops her head to her chest and returns to the couch. She sits perched on the edge as silent tears slide down her cheeks.
“Tell me what happened,” I say gently.
She nods, stares at the floor. “Okay. But it won’t change anything.”
When she begins, I sit back in my chair and take a quiet breath. Rachel Davenport is finally talking.
PART FIVE: THE VERY BAD DAY
SIXTY-TWO
JONAH
I’m the first one up. I love vacation ’cause you get to sleep in, but I never do. Sometimes I lie in my bed for a long time and listen to the outside wake up. It’s always the birds first. The crows, mostly. They’re loud and squawk like crazy, but then other birds start making tweet sounds and I like that sound better, even though I don’t know what kind of birds those are. If they were insects, I’d know.
Marco is kind of smooshed under my back, and I roll to my side and pull him out from under me. He’s still got that big yarn smile, so I guess I didn’t hurt him or anything. I put his arms around me and bring his Velcro hands together, then we hop out of bed and get down on the floor.
I scooch over to my ’cyclopedia, only it isn’t open to the page I left it at. That page had a Buprestidae on it. Those’re called jewel beetles, too, ’cause they’re shiny green like a emerald. Mommy thinks they’re creepy, and this one time, one flew into the car and started flying around with that loud kind of buzzing noise it makes, and Mommy started screaming and pulled the car over to the side and got out and opened all the doors and just stood there until the beetle flew out of the car. I was kind of mad a little bit ’cause I wanted to see it up close, but Mommy said no way, olay. I didn’t stay mad at Mommy ’cause Daddy told me that girls don’t like bugs—that’s just how they are and you can’t blame ’em for that.