THIRTEEN

July 2, 2012

5:52 a.m.

Lori-Anne returned from the bathroom but instead of getting back into bed, she stepped into the hallway, thinking she’d heard a noise. The door to Nadia’s room was ajar. She walked toward her daughter’s room, hesitated for a second, then pushed the door wide open.

“Mathieu?”

He sat at the little desk he’d built for Nadia about three years ago so she could do her homework in a quiet place instead of down in the kitchen where she was easily distracted. He was staring at the computer screen with wide and haunted eyes, which made her want to sneak back to her room and pretend nothing was happening.

“Mathieu?”

Lori-Anne closed her eyes. The weariness of it all drained her. It would be much easier to simply walk away. At some point, she needed to think of her sanity and well-being. Yes, her mother had told her to be patient, that Mathieu was a good man who was lost. But how long before she lost herself trying to save him?

How long?

“Mathieu?” she said again. Three months since her daughter’s death and Lori-Anne still couldn’t step into Nadia’s room. Maybe she was as messed up as her husband. Maybe she was the one who needed counselling. “Mathieu?”

This time, he turned to look at her.

“What are you doing? You’re shaking. What’s wrong?” She hoped she sounded concerned instead of annoyed.

He waved her in.

“Just tell me,” she said.

“Christ, Lori-Anne,” he said. “You still won’t come into her room.”

“Never mind,” she said. “Just tell me what’s got you so freaked out.”

He looked back at the computer screen, and Lori-Anne thought he wasn’t going to tell her.

“D’you know what she was doing in the car that day?”

“What are you talking about?”

“The day of the accident.”

“I get that,” she said. “But what are you talking about? I was trying to talk to her, get her to open up.”

“Did she say anything?”

“Did she ever?” Lori-Anne said. “You know she was difficult.”

“So you talked and she listened but said nothing.”

Lori-Anne rolled her eyes. “Something like that.”

“Was she on her phone?”

“No, she wasn’t talking to anyone. Like I said, I was trying to get her to talk.”

“Yeah, but was she texting?”

“Yes, and it was annoying me,” she said. “I wanted her to tell me what was going on. And I was trying to keep my eyes on the road.”

Mathieu made a snorting sound. “Little good that did.”

“Fuck you, Mathieu,” she said. “I’m so damn tired of you blaming me for that accident. It happened. Could have been you instead of me. It could have happened to anyone. It just so happens that it happened to us. Don’t you think I have to live with this my entire life now? Don’t you think I replay the accident every day, wishing I’d done something different, left a few minutes earlier or later, taken a different route, stopped for gas, so things could have ended differently? But you know what? I can’t change the past. And neither can you. I know you blame me but no amount of blame will change anything.”

He said nothing.

“You need to let that go,” she said. “Or d’you enjoy having us like this? Is that it? You like the way our marriage is? You like being miserable all the time? You like drowning in self-pity? You like making me feel guilty?”

Mathieu opened his mouth to say something, and then closed it.

“Talk to me,” she said. “Why can’t you just talk to me? Quit shutting me out and talk to me. I’m willing to get counselling for us so we can work through this. Don’t you want things to get better?”

“What if they can’t?”

“We have to try.”

“But . . .” He turned to the computer screen again.

“What’s so interesting on that laptop?” she said. “Just tell me.”

“You have to see this. Come here.”

Lori-Anne let out a heavy sigh. She didn’t have the energy to keep fighting, so she finally crossed the imaginary line that had kept her out of her daughter’s room all these months.

And she felt it instantly—the closeness to their daughter. Nadia’s presence assaulted Lori-Anne, coming from everywhere: the curtains, the bedspread, the clothes in her closet, the books on the bookshelf, the iPod on the night table, the laptop on the desk.

Nadia was gone but her room emanated this overwhelming aura. In here, Nadia was still alive.

This wasn’t good. No wonder Mathieu couldn’t let go, no wonder he spent so much time here. The room had to be cleaned. No, more than that. It needed a thorough cleansing. But it felt sacrilegious to erase the last reminder of their daughter. Besides, Mathieu would never allow it. If she went behind his back, it would be the end of their marriage.

Her shoulders sagged. She didn’t want to fight anymore. It drained her and didn’t solve a thing. All she wanted was to fall into his arms, feel the warmth of him, smell his scent, and connect with him like they used to.

But did he want her? She thought of the way he blew up at her all the time, his eyes stormy and full of ire, making her step back as if she’d been scorched. That wasn’t the man who had vowed to love her forever.

“What do you need me to see so bad?” she said and came closer to him.

“This,” he said, pointing at the screen.

Lori-Anne looked at what appeared to be some sort of poem or song, and shrugged. “So?”

“This is Nadia’s Facebook page.”

She looked a little closer. “And?”

“Did you read it?”

“Well, no,” she said. “What are you getting at? So she wrote something on her Facebook page. All the kids do that. Probably doesn’t mean anything to us.”

“She was in love, did you know that?”

“In . . . love?”

“Yeah,” he said. He read the poem aloud to her.

“Okay,” she said. “She was a teenager. They fall in love by the minute.”

“Maybe so,” he said. “Look at the posting time.”

“Oh my God! No wonder she didn’t want to give me her phone. She was uploading this to her Facebook when it happened.” A chill ran through her. “I . . . can’t believe this.”

“She’s gone but this poem is captured forever. So weird.”

“That’s a day I wish had never happened.”

They both stared at the computer screen, saying nothing.

“Our little girl was in love with a jerk, apparently,” Mathieu said to break the silence. “She had a broken heart. Could be why she’d become so moody.”

“I guess.”

“Whoever he was didn’t return her love. It’s obvious by her words.”

“Maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing,” she said. “Not like we were going to let her date at fourteen.”

“I know,” he said. “But she was hurt.”

“For all we know he was a senior who didn’t even know her.”

“True.”

Lori-Anne sat on the edge of the bed, her shoulders caving in. Nadia’s absence was so overwhelming in her room. Now more than ever, she wanted to clean it.

“So what do we do now?” she said in a voice that had no energy.

“Print it,” he said. “This is the very last moment on earth our daughter had.”

“No, not about that. About us.” She ran a hand across her forehead.

“She died while posting this,” he said. “It’s almost like being with her.”

“NO!” she said, getting to her feet. “It’s not. I was there and it was horrible. When the car got sandwiched, it sounded like a thousand pop cans being crushed. Glass exploded and I heard Nadia scream. I’ll never get those sounds out of my head. I’ll never get the guilt out of my soul.”

Lori-Anne stopped. She wanted to tell him what Nadia had said just before the crash, but he wasn’t listening, he wasn’t getting it, he wasn’t trying to comfort her. Instead, he stared at the computer.

She felt like spitting in his face.

Lori-Anne left the room without saying a word and hurried to her bedroom where she threw herself on the bed like a child.

That’s how small she felt.

Or how big the situation had become.

She curled up, looking for some sort of comfort that might chase away the hopelessness and helplessness that consumed her. She didn’t know what to do, how to reach him. She had lost a daughter and was now losing a husband.

Her husband.

Who was he? Who had he become? What exactly did they share now? Seemed like nothing. So how could she share the last moment of Nadia’s life with him?

God, she needed to. The burden of carrying Nadia’s words had become too much. Those words, Nadia’s last words, were just too difficult to voice. Children often said things they didn’t mean, and parents could dismiss what they said and move on, but Lori-Anne couldn’t do that. Her daughter was gone. Nadia would never say another thing to her mother that would amend her dying words. Lori-Anne had to live with the sting of those words, a dirty secret that burned like an eternal punishment.

* * *

“Nadia, I’m talking to you. Can you please put your phone away? Are you listening to me?”

Silence.

“Gimme the phone.”

“No, I’m doing something.”

“This is the attitude I want to discuss with you. And your poor grades.”

“They’re fine.”

“No, they’re not. Gimme the phone.”

“It’s my phone.”

“That we pay for so if I want to take it away, I will. Are you doing drugs?”

“I’m just a kid having fun. I know growing up with Granddad you didn’t get to have fun, but that’s not my problem. I’m not like you, work, work, work.”

“School is important.”

“I’m only fourteen.”

“Nadia, gimme the phone.”

“No.”

Nadia types really fast on her phone.

“Damnit, Nad. Gimme the phone so you can pay attention to what I’m saying.”

Lori-Anne grabs it.

“Hey, give it back. I wasn’t done posting—”

“Posting what?”

“Never mind. I hate you.”

* * *

Those words, cold and spoken with a sharp tongue, slashed Lori-Anne’s heart. No matter how hard she tried to tell herself that Nadia had needed to lash out at someone, anyone (because she’d been in love with a boy who hadn’t returned her feelings, Lori-Anne now knew), those words, the very last words her daughter had spoken to her, hurt almost as much as missing her did.

That’s what she’d wanted to tell Mathieu. She needed to hear him say that Nadia hadn’t meant it, that she’d apologize if she could. She needed Mathieu to be her strength so that, for once, she could put aside her bravado and be comforted.

Was that so much to ask?

Why couldn’t he do that, be the strong one?

Why was he punishing her?

Yes, punishing her.

She hadn’t done anything wrong. She’d just wanted to talk to their daughter because she was concerned and worried. Any good parent would have done the same. Any caring mother would have done the same. She knew that Mathieu would have done the same.

It was an accident. A dumb, stupid car accident.

Lori-Anne curled into a ball. She was tired, so tired. Physically and emotionally. But mostly, she was tired of being alone.