Rebecca knocked on the door of Alexa’s room the day after the funeral. It was ten thirty in the morning; the day was shaping up to be cruelly, unfairly perfect, with the sun resplendent and the air dry. Rebecca knew that Alexa would have preferred rain.
She expected Alexa to be asleep but she was sitting on her bed, fully dressed, in shorts and a tank. Rebecca was carrying a plate of Ritz crackers slathered with peanut butter. She didn’t think Alexa had eaten since the funeral, and maybe not before. When Alexa was young, this was the snack that could draw her out of a bad temper or disappointment.
Rebecca had a very strict no-eating-in-the-bedrooms rule, and Alexa’s eyes shot up in surprise when she noted the plate.
“I know,” Rebecca said, interpreting the look. “I made an exception. Extenuating circumstances.” She put the plate on the nightstand and sat down on the edge of the bed. Alexa moved over to make room for her.
What to say to her brokenhearted daughter?
By the time Rebecca had gotten back to the house on the night of Brooke’s party (it had been no easy task to find a sober driver who could access a car), she felt like she’d had fourteen separate heart attacks. Esther’s uncle, who worked for the Newburyport Police Department, had been the one to let Esther know a white Acura had been involved in an accident. Until they had more details, naturally Rebecca thought it had been Alexa driving the Acura. Alexa hadn’t answered the phone the first dozen times Rebecca had called, in her mind confirming her very worst fear.
“Listen—” said Rebecca. She found Alexa’s calf under the blankets and laid her palm against it, flat and firm. “Listen,” she said again. “Sweetie.” Her voice was authoritative, but she had nothing to say and no confidence that she’d be able to come up with anything. They sat like that for a moment, mother and daughter, until Alexa spoke.
“It’s my fault,” she said.
Rebecca had anticipated this. She was ready. “It’s not your fault, honey. It was an accident. You weren’t driving. You didn’t give Tyler the keys. It’s not your fault.”
Alexa looked straight ahead, not at her mother. She hardly blinked. “But if Cam hadn’t met me, he’d still be alive.”
“Oh, honey.” Rebecca’s heart twisted for Alexa. “Honey,” she repeated. “You can’t think like that. You can’t let your mind go down those rabbit holes. There is absolutely no point to it.”
“But it’s the only way I can think! I can’t think any other way. I’m just lying up here, thinking and thinking and thinking.” Alexa’s face crumpled and she began to cry—first tentatively, then harder and harder.
Rebecca reached for a box of tissues on the nightstand. She said, “Can I tell you a story about Peter?”
Alexa nodded and gradually her sobs subsided. She sniffled and swiped at her nose.
“Two months before he died—” Even now, all this time later, Rebecca had to stop and catch her breath when she said that. “Two months before Peter died, he was offered a different job, with another company. It was more money, but he wouldn’t have liked it as much. It wasn’t hands-on, and the hands-on parts were the parts he loved. Nevertheless, he felt he should take it, for us. To provide more.”
Alexa’s face spasmed briefly. That was Peter for you was what her face said.
“But I didn’t want him to be unhappy in the service of money. I convinced him to keep the job he had.”
“And that’s why he was in Dubai,” whispered Alexa.
“And that’s why he was in Dubai,” affirmed Rebecca. “Do you know how many times I’ve lain awake at night trying to figure out if that aneurysm was just waiting for a reason to rupture? If it was going to rupture at that point in time no matter where he was, or if it was the long trip to Dubai that did it? Do you know how many times I’ve wondered if Peter would still be alive if he’d taken the job I convinced him not to take? The job he was leaning toward taking?”
“Mom. No.”
“It’s true. I have. I’ve thought about it so much. But the point is, I’ll never know. So I understand what you’re going through. But I also understand—I one hundred percent know, sweetie—that you can’t blame yourself for what happened to Cam.”
Alexa started to cry again. “I think I loved him, Mom. I really think I did. And I don’t think I’m ever going to fall in love again. I think that was my one chance, and look what happened.”
“Oh, Alexa.” Rebecca thought of all the twists and turns her life had taken since she’d been Alexa’s age. The early boyfriends, the missteps and misstarts. Alexa’s father. Rebecca thought it had been all over for her after that; she thought she’d used up her chances. Then she’d met Peter and she’d thought that those blissful years were here forever. But she’d been wrong about that too. Now she knew Daniel, and there was nothing that said that he would be in her life permanently. You could take nothing for granted. Nothing. A lump in the breast, a slip of the ski, a turn of the wheel, a deer in the road—who was to say what was waiting around the corner for any of them. “That wasn’t your only chance. I promise you. It wasn’t.”
“Mom?” Alexa motioned to the spot next to her at the head of the bed, and Rebecca, who hadn’t cuddled with her daughter in who knew how long, leaned back against the headboard and put her arm around Alexa. Alexa pressed her head into her mother’s neck—it wasn’t the most comfortable thing in the world for Rebecca’s neck, in truth, but she didn’t want to spoil the moment. “How long until it stops hurting, Mom?”
Rebecca thought about that for a long time. Six months? Definitely not. A year? No. Longer. There was only one real answer in the end. “I don’t know,” she said. “I’ll let you know when I get there.”
Alexa didn’t stop crying, and she didn’t say thank you or please help me through it. But she did reach over Rebecca to take a peanut butter cracker, and that was something.