I turned on the small bedside lamp and rearranged the pillows twice. As if any of that could make the inevitable awfulness better. I was so distracted by my handiwork as I walked around the end of the bed that I crashed right into Sandy’s boxes stacked against the wall. The top one tipped over, its contents spilling out into a sad mess on the floor. I kneeled down, quickly gathering up the photos and papers, some plastic cups and silverware, hopelessly trying to put it back the way it had been. I didn’t want Sandy to think I’d been invading her privacy or, worse, to feel embarrassed that I’d seen what was left of her world.
I was about to toss in the last thing: a plastic bag filled with some scraps of paper, ticket stubs, a take-out menu—a sack of mementos—when I saw a long smudge of brownish red on the corner. That wasn’t blood, was it? I held it up to take a closer look. It did look a lot like blood. God, blood from that night. Thinking about it made me feel sick. I peered at one of the notes inside. It was a thank-you from Rhea, addressed to Hannah. It had an address written in a girlish hand in a blank space at the bottom. These were the things Hannah had given Sandy for safekeeping: her memories from the baby’s father. I was about to put the bag back in the box when a smaller slip of paper at the bottom caught my eye.
I pressed my face closer to the smudged plastic, my heart already beating hard.
No. I snapped my eyes closed.
That hadn’t been—couldn’t be.
I was tired. I was seeing things. I had to be. I squeezed my eyes tighter.
But when I opened them again, they were still there at the bottom of that blood-streaked bag. Little scraps of paper. Lots of them. And on them, lines of poetry written in Justin’s familiar hand.
I didn’t feel my feet moving, but they must have. Because soon I was standing in our bedroom, staring at Justin, gripping the blood-streaked plastic bag in one hand. The fingers of my other hand clenched into a fist. I was deep underwater, the sound roiling and bent against my ears. Justin was sitting there on the bed, pulling on a sweatshirt like it was any other day. As I watched him, the pressure around my head felt like it was going to crush my skull.
And there was Justin, saying something to me. Talking like the world had not just been incinerated. Like we were not reduced to embers.
When I put Hannah’s bag of notes on the bed next to him, he fell silent. Froze.
He stared and stared and stared at that bag. And all I wanted him to do was look confused. For him to say “What?” or “Why?” or “I don’t understand.” But he didn’t say anything. He didn’t say a word. Instead, he dropped his face in his hands and kept it there for a horribly long time. I must have backed up, retreated to the wall, because all of a sudden my back was pressed against it.
When Justin looked at me, his eyes were wide and terrified. “Molly,” he began, shaking his head.
And then he crossed the room to me. His arms soon locked around me like a cage. All I wanted to do was break free. To break him. To run. Except I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even breathe.
“I would do anything to take it back, Molly,” he breathed into my rigid neck. “It was such a stupid, selfish mistake. I just—and this isn’t an excuse, because it’s my fault—I just missed you. I loved you and I missed you and I wanted you back. And I couldn’t— I didn’t know how to reach you.”
“No,” I said. The word sliced the back of my throat.
But it wasn’t a yell. Or a sob. Or a scream. Just a statement: No. No, what? No, it didn’t happen. No, you didn’t miss me? No, you didn’t love me. No. This. Cannot. Be.
“It was so long ago, too, Molly. Months,” he said, rushing on with his panicked explanations. Like he was only now realizing the awful enormity of what was happening. “It ended before we ever moved here, I swear. Things were so much worse then. And I swear to God, I didn’t know how old she was. We met on campus when I came to interview—I thought she was a college . . . Molly, I am so sorry.”
“The baby,” I heard myself say.
“I didn’t know, not until after you—until just now, really, when Sandy told you. And even then, I mean, do we know for sure? There could have been other guys.”
Justin went on, said other things, they rebounded off me in echoed shards, tearing at my skin. She was the only one. Never again. I am so sorry. I love you. I am so sorry. I love you.
I am so sorry. She reminded me of you.
I tried so hard to get you off the story. I wanted so badly to protect you.
“No,” I whispered. My whole body had gone numb. But my lungs were on fire. “No.”
Molly Sanderson, Session 16, June 12, 2013
(Audio Transcription, Session Recorded with
Patient Knowledge and Consent)
Q: You seem extremely aggravated, Molly.
M.S.: I am aggravated. I don’t see why you’re trying to get me angry at Justin.
Q: I’m just trying to clarify where Justin was that weekend. You told me that you couldn’t reach him when you were at the doctor’s office. But I didn’t realize he was away that whole weekend.
M.S.: Yes, at a conference in Boston. I told you, he had two conferences.
Q: But you’re not angry at him for being away?
M.S.: Why would I be angry at him for going to a conference?
Q: For being unreachable.
M.S.: He was working. I was the one who freaked out.
Q: You had just received horrible news. Understandable that you were upset.
M.S.: Except I was upset way before the appointment. Oh yes, I freaked out long before then. And if you want to know why I really feel guilty, it’s because of that. Because Justin told me he would be busy. That he had three different panels and colleagues to meet with. He gave me a number where I could reach him if it was an emergency. But it wasn’t an emergency. So I just kept calling and calling his cell phone. And I don’t know if it was the hormones or what, but I got myself all worked into a panic—like maybe he was dead or something. I mean, it was so stupid. Because he was there with someone. She would have called me if he’d been hit by a car.
Q: She.
M.S.: Oh God, seriously? Yes, Justin was traveling with his research assistant, and yes, she was young and pretty and blond.