Gone for Good (7 page)

I didn't call Dan before I went to his apartment. I knew that if I called, he'd offer to come meet me wherever I was, and I wasn't sure yet that I wanted to see him. I wanted to still have an out. My escape plan amounted to showing up unannounced, allowing myself the option of turning around and leaving if I wanted.

But when I arrived outside the dingy brick apartment building Dan lived in, I realized I did want to stay. Dan lived on the second floor, alone. Half the lightbulbs were burned out, and with evening coming on, the stairwell was uncomfortably dark, especially for someone whose mother had just been murdered. Music twanged behind one of the apartment doors, and I heard the unmistakable drunken whoop of a college boy. For the first time in my life, that sound brought me comfort. There were people around. And life. I wasn't alone.

Dan opened the door to my knock, his eyes widening in surprise.

‘Oh,' he said. ‘It's you.'

For a brief, terrible moment, I worried that someone was in the apartment with him. ‘I didn't call,' I said.

‘It's okay.' He stepped back, opening the door all the way. ‘Come in.'

I knew the place well. He had lived there in the cramped, rundown space for just over a year, ever since we both
entered the graduate program in history as members of the same class. For six months of that year, he and I had been a couple. Intensely. Crazily. We burned for each other like two hormonal teenagers, but we also possessed enough brains between the two of us to examine every flaw with our pairing, which meant we fought a lot. We broke up a lot. We got back together a lot.

I followed him into the living room. Ever since we'd broken up – and in the wake of two very temporary reunions and their accompanying breakups – we hadn't known how to act around each other. Do we hug? Do we shake hands? Do we nod at each other like strangers passing on a narrow sidewalk? I bypassed the dilemma by moving quickly to the couch and sitting down. He stopped in the centre of the room.

‘Do you want something?' he asked. ‘Coffee? Wine?'

‘You know me well enough,' I said.

‘Beer?'

‘Amen.'

He left and came back with two opened bottles. He sat on the far end of the couch from me, respectfully giving me my physical space. He'd finally learned to do that on the day I needed him not to.

‘Are you doing okay?' he asked. He quickly added, ‘I know, that's a silly question.'

‘I don't mind you asking,' I said. ‘And thanks for coming to the cemetery today. It was really sweet.'

I took two long drinks from my bottle. It tasted good. Really good.

Dan drank from his too. A flush spread on his cheeks, but I knew it wasn't from the beer. Even when we dated,
when we were in our most intense periods of romance, an uncertainty, a nervousness hovered around Dan. No matter how much time we spent together, it still seemed as though he didn't know what to say to me or exactly how to take me. He said, ‘I know you well enough to know that you don't want to discuss what happened, but I feel obligated to say out loud that I'm willing to listen to whatever you need to say.'

‘That's what I want to talk about,' I said. I jabbed my finger into the space between us, trying to emphasize my point.

Dan jumped a little. ‘What?'

‘That. That quality of mine you just mentioned.'

‘Are you saying it's not true?' he asked.

‘It
is
true,' I said. ‘And I need to talk about it.'

‘Okay,' he said. ‘But I'm not a licensed therapist.'

‘You know, I really appreciate the sarcasm today.'

‘Are you being sarcastic?' he asked.

‘No.' I drank more of the beer, almost finishing it. Too fast. I suppressed a burp and patted my chest. ‘Well, get ready for an awkward transition. My mother was murdered,' I said.

It felt like the first confession of a long recovery. Something had pivoted in my life. I had gone from being a person who read about families affected by violent crime in the newspaper to being a member of such a family. I no longer needed to understand such things from the outside. I needed to process it from the inside.

‘Jesus,' Dan said.

‘But wait – there's more.'

I told him everything, finishing the first beer while I
revealed the details about my mom's death. The fact that there had been no sign of forced entry. The violent encounter with Ronnie over the fishing trip. The inability of the police to account for Ronnie's whereabouts. Ronnie's trip to what I could only think of as the mental ward. The fight I had had with my mother and our six weeks of silence.

Dan didn't interrupt. He let me get it all out, and even rose once when I paused to take a breath in order to walk out to the kitchen and get two more beers. I happily started the second while I finished my tale of woe.

When it was all out, Dan said simply, ‘I'm sorry, E. I'm really sorry.'

‘I know. And I appreciate it.'

‘But I get the feeling that's not really what you wanted to talk about,' he said. ‘You said something about some quality you possess …'

‘I didn't know any of these things were happening,' I said. ‘My family – my mother and my brother – were deep in a crisis, and I didn't know anything about it. I was cut off from it.'

‘You can't blame yourself for all of this,' he said.

I stood up, beer bottle in hand. I paced across the worn wooden floors. ‘Don't,' I said. ‘I'm not looking to be let off the hook.'

‘All right. I was just trying to help. Did you come here to flagellate yourself?'

I kept pacing. I didn't look at him. ‘Did I ever tell you what it was like to grow up with Ronnie as a brother?'

‘Tell me?' he said. ‘Your mother and brother live across town. We dated for six months, more or less, and the first time I ever laid eyes on a member of your family was at
the funeral. No, you almost never talked about them, except to say you didn't want to talk about them.'

I grunted. I hated to hear my own words repeated to me, even though I knew they were true. I drank from the bottle. ‘Let me just say this,' I said. ‘Ronnie took up a lot of mental space.'

‘Because of his disability,' Dan said.

‘Because of that, yes. And because my mom was determined, absolutely determined, to give him the best life possible, she devoted herself to him. One thousand percent. I was closer to my dad. I'm more
like
my mom, but I was closer to my dad.' I felt like an idiot pacing. Every time I turned around I saw Dan's books, his empty coffee mugs – all the sad remnants of a grad student's life. I took my seat again, my back straight and rigid. I held the beer bottle in two hands. ‘My mom told me something once.'

‘Something about Ronnie?' Dan asked.

‘Something about me,' I said. ‘This was in high school, the first time Dad was diagnosed with cancer. He beat it then, but it came back and killed him later, when I was in college. When he was first diagnosed, we were all scared. We said the right things to each other, but we were scared. My mom and I were talking about family and caring for each other and how important it was to have children in your life. I was in high school. What did I know? I just listened. And then she told me that it was a tough decision for her and Dad to decide to have another baby after Ronnie, you know? Mom was forty-three when I was born, and that was just a year after Ronnie. The odds of having
another
baby with Down's syndrome were still high. She said they almost didn't have me.'

‘So
you were lucky. You were wanted.'

‘Oh, yes,' I said. ‘Very wanted. Because you know what Mom told me during that conversation? She said the main reason they had me was to take care of Ronnie after they were both gone. Can you imagine telling a kid that?'

I drained the second beer. My head had started to hurt, but I didn't want to switch to water. I felt like getting drunk. I waved the empty bottle around. ‘Any more where this came from?' I asked.

‘There is,' he said, but he didn't get up. ‘I'm sure your mom was just –'

‘Don't defend her,' I said. ‘You didn't know her, as you pointed out. You can't take her side.'

‘I'm not taking sides,' Dan said. ‘I'm trying to understand. Are you saying you never felt close to your family or let them into your life because of this?'

I raised the beer bottle again. ‘Another round? Then I'll tell you the rest.'

Dan came back with two more beers. When he settled back in, he didn't say anything. He just waited for me to go on.

I finally said it: ‘I used to hate my brother.'

Dan didn't respond. He watched and waited.

‘When we were kids, people looked at us wherever we went. I knew what they were thinking. “Oh, that poor family. That poor boy.” And then Ronnie would chew with his mouth open, or he'd grunt when he should have talked, and that would only make it worse for me. I'd want to hide under the table, or just run away.'

‘A lot of kids would feel the same way in your situation. I'm sure they have.'

‘I used to wish for something,' I said. ‘After my mom told me why they had me, I used to wish that
she
would die. It would make sense for me to want her to stay alive because then she would be there to take care of Ronnie. But I used to wish she'd die so I could be free of my obligation to her.'

‘And to Ronnie?' Dan asked.

I nodded.

‘You know that's illogical, right?' Dan said. ‘I mean, he's your brother, so if your mom died –'

‘I didn't say it was logical, Dan.'

‘Right,'
he said. ‘Well, just because you have those feelings doesn't mean you would really act on them.'

‘But I did act on them,' I said. ‘I've been absent from their lives.'

‘Well, I know all about that,' he said.

I turned to him. ‘What are you saying, Dan?'

‘I guess I'm wondering what you're here for,' he said.

‘Dan, my mother died. She was killed.'

‘I know,' he said. ‘I know. I'm just saying, E, that you don't exactly let people in, you know? You're not always there for others. At least not for me.' He held his hands out before him. ‘I shouldn't be saying all this now. It's bad timing.'

‘Go ahead,' I said.

‘I'm fine.'

‘Go ahead,' I said. ‘I might learn something.'

He reached up and ran his hand through his hair. ‘I don't know what you're here for. Do you want absolution? Or sympathy? I don't see or hear from you for weeks, and then here you are on my doorstep. I know your mother died, but I had to hear about it from someone else.'

I felt my chin quiver. I bit back any tears, holding them in. I looked at the floor again.

‘Do you want to hear the truth?' he asked.

‘I thought I was already hearing it.'

‘It's possible if you were more involved with your family's life that you could have done something. But that's assuming your brother really did this, and that's assuming there was anything to be done. You could have been right there, camped out in the living room, and the same thing
might have happened.' He sighed. ‘Or maybe you would have been hurt too.'

He sounded concerned, as though the thought of me being hurt was painful to him. It was sweet to hear, even if he was mad at me.

‘Thanks,' I said.

‘It's too late for your mom,' he said. ‘You can't do anything to help her. But you can still do what she wanted you to do. You can still take care of your brother.'

‘I've seen the will. It makes my uncle Ronnie's guardian. And that makes the most sense. Paul and Ronnie get along well. Paul is patient. He understands what Ronnie needs.'

‘Ronnie still needs you. You can play a role in his life. A big one.'

‘Unless …' I almost couldn't say it. ‘Unless the worst is true about him, the things the police say.'

Dan didn't have any words of wisdom to share about that.