Chapter 1
At the precise moment when my life changed completely, I’d been clueless.
Eventually, after analyzing every detail of that day, I determined that at that life-changing moment, I’d been sitting on my back deck playing Candy Crush. Candy fucking Crush had been my focus when my son—my only child—chased an errant soccer ball into the street at recess and was hit by a Dodge pickup.
While I was attempting to clear the god-damned chocolate from level 147, my Sam was propelled 20 feet from the front grill of that truck. His small head—the same one I loved to smell right after a bath—hitting the pavement with such force the doctor later said that even had Sam managed to survive the other injuries he would have wound up “brain dead anyway.
Six months later that doctor’s curt “anyway” still resonated in my head. As if I should be glad Sam died rather than burden us with something as annoying as a vegetative state.
“Fucking Candy Crush.”
It was only when the woman next to me in the Starbucks pick-up line, who happened to be playing said offensive game on her phone, glared in my direction, I realized I’d spoken the words out loud instead of in my head as intended. Inside voice Eleanor, inside voice.
I looked away from Candy Crush lady and focused determinedly on the barista instead. At least my odds of seeing the woman again were slim given this wasn’t my usual Starbucks. I’d stopped on a whim on my way to Pacific View Cemetery, partly driven by a desire for caffeine but also because I wasn’t quite ready to face the significance of the day.
Six months ago—or ‘before the accident’ as it was now referred to—I would’ve quickly apologized to the woman because obviously it wasn’t her fault she was playing the game I would forever associate with the death of my son. But the new me, the broken me, simply didn’t have the energy to say the words. Easier to just add the guilt about my rudeness to this unknown woman to the enormous pile of guilt I was already carrying around with me every day.
Before the accident, I’d been full of energy, or at least as energetic as the mother of a precocious seven-year-old and owner of a small business could be. Now all I feel is tired. So very tired. I barely slept and when I did, it usually brought nightmares. I’d wake up in a cold sweat, my arms outstretched in a futile attempt to save the son that I now got to see only in my dreams. But instead of finding Sam in my arms, I’d wake to a dark room and the sound of Matt snoring.
His snoring annoyed me. I didn’t so much resent his ability to sleep peacefully, I just didn’t understand how he could. It was but one of the many things I no longer understood about my husband.
“Eleanor?”
My head jerked up at hearing my name spoken by a familiar voice.
“Avery,” I said, the surprise at seeing one of my closest friends this far from home clear in my voice.
“Oh my god, Ellie, I thought that was you,” Avery said. “It’s so good to see you. How are you?”
The sincerity of her words and the compassion in her voice caused a lump to form in my throat and I couldn’t bring myself to speak. Instead, I just shook my head as a tear escaped and slid down my cheek. God, I was tired of crying.
“Oh shit,” Avery’s smile disappeared. “What a tremendously stupid thing to ask. I know the significance of today and I just can’t imagine. Isn’t there anything we can do to help?”
The “we” Avery was referring to was herself along with Danielle McBride and Rachel Williams. We called ourselves the Bermuda Square. Because anyone who tried to join us never seemed to make it. Rachel, Dani, and I had actually started out as the Bermuda Triangle—which made a lot more sense—but then Avery Hayes came along, and somehow she didn’t disappear but became one of us.
Avery and I had met at my first PTA meeting, where my decision to grab a “quick” latte on the way had led to me showing up late. When the PTA Chair—a bitch of a bottle blonde named Paige—called me out in front of everyone for my tardiness, Avery was the only one (out of a table of ten other women) who stood up for me.
Our friendship had been cemented that day in the elementary school library and grew when our kids were placed in the same class. Playdates were soon set up between Avery’s twin girls and my Sam. I liked her immediately and when I invited her to join Rachel, Dani, and me for dinner, the deal was done. Our triangle became a square.
The three of them were my closest friends and had become my lifeline since I moved to Portland nearly 10 years ago. But, after Sam’s death, I’d isolated myself from them as they each represented something either connected directly to Sam or something related to motherhood. Both of which I just couldn’t face.
With Avery, I just couldn’t disconnect her from the school and from Sam’s classroom in particular. I knew in my heart it wasn’t right to reject her friendship just because she still had her two beautiful children. But since the accident, I simply hadn’t been able to separate the two people: my friend Avery and fellow Rock Creek Elementary School mom Avery.
Now, seeing the genuine concern on her face, I felt the first real pangs of regret at my decision. A choice that had seemed so smart and understandable at the time, now felt stupid and short-sighted. All three of my friends had continued to reach out in the months since the accident. Unanswered phone calls became compassionate voicemails.. Text messages offering everything from coffee delivery to coming to sit and hold my hand to walks along the river went unread. And if they came by the house, I refused to answer the door.
Slowly the frequency of their outreach decreased but never stopped completely. In fact, just that morning—which marked six months since the horrible day—I had received text messages from all of them. My friends knew the significance of the day and wanted to show their support even though I had shut them all out. I hadn’t replied to any of them.
“You don’t have to go through this alone,” Avery gently put her hand on my forearm.
It had been so long since I had spoken any of my feelings out loud or allowed myself to truly say what I was feeling, and for just a moment I thought maybe this might finally be the right time. Then I remembered we were standing in the middle of a packed Starbucks. This might have been the time but it definitely wasn’t the place.
“Thank you,” I finally said, grabbing a napkin from the dispenser on the counter and wiping the few tears off my cheeks with the rough, brown paper. “I want to talk but not here,” I gestured around. “And not now. I just can’t.”
“Okay,” Avery said. “But maybe soon? We can come over with a bottle of wine and we don’t even have to talk about what happened. We can talk about everything but.”
This was another recurring theme in the messages everyone sent me and, good intentions aside, it baffled me a little. How anyone expected me to be able to talk about anything else was beyond me. The only thoughts in my head were about the accident. My every waking hour—and my sleeping ones as well—were consumed with memories of Sam. That was who I was now.