Look Closely - Laura Caldwell [104]
“I’ll call a doctor, the hospital,” Caroline said.
My mother leaned on me more. “I’m fine.” Her words trembled.
“I think I should call Dr. Wainer,” Caroline said.
My mother pressed harder on my shoulder. “I said, no, Caroline. I just need to rest.”
Caroline opened her mouth, then closed it again. We’d reached the top of the stairs by this time, and she moved to allow my mother to lean on her, as well. We walked down the hallway like that, Mom between us, until we reached her bed. She slumped onto it, and seemed to fall asleep immediately, but then raised herself up for a moment.
“You girls,” she said. “There’s no need to tell anyone about tonight.”
Neither Caroline nor I said anything.
“I want you next to me,” my mom said. “Please come sleep next to me.”
I looked at Caroline, who was staring at my mother. Caroline’s forehead was knotted, her eyes still scared. When she climbed onto the bed, I did, too. We lay on either side of my mother, and I held her hand, until I fell asleep.
Epilogue
Four Months Later
For my flight out of La Guardia, I upgraded myself to first class. I thought it was fitting. I put the seat belt into the metal opening and pushed it until it made a sharp click.
A flight attendant strode down the aisle. “Can I get you something before we take off?” she said.
I shook my head no. I turned to look out the window. Maintenance crews moved around the plane next to us, quickly unloading suitcases and duffels onto a trolley before they hurried away.
If only it was so easy to rid yourself of your own personal baggage.
I killed my mother. Not intentionally, of course, but there it was, an undeniable and hideous fact.
It was apparent in the first week after her death that I was quickly forgetting what had happened, my seven-year-old psyche doing what it could to protect me. My father decided it would be best if I continued to forget, if there was nothing and no one to remind me. So off Caroline went to boarding school and Dan to college. And they stayed away. Not intentionally at first. It wasn’t part of an elaborate scheme. But when my father saw that I had truly blocked it all, that I was growing up like a young girl should—free from blame, free to be happy—he pushed them away, little by little. Caroline and Dan died in a sense. Certainly their family died a slow death over the years, as it became clear things would never change. But they went along with it so that I could live without guilt. So that I could live.
My father blackmailed Ty’s dad with the chief of police position, and the case was quickly closed. And he let Sean McKnight blackmail him for information on the Fieldings Company because McKnight had been there that night, and my mother had told him exactly what had happened, how I’d inadvertently pushed her down the stairs. In fact, that evening was supposed to be McKnight and my mother’s first time together in public, the first time they would spend the whole night together. McKnight apparently did love my mother very much, and he couldn’t live with himself if he didn’t tell Leah that, before he loved her, he’d been trying to use her. So he told her that night at the door. Later, he regretted it. He always wondered if she would have gotten medical attention if he hadn’t devastated her with his news. But he blamed me more than he blamed himself.
My father and I moved around the country, around the world. Caroline and Dan crafted their own lives as best they could. But then I was hired by McKnight, who thought it was time for me to know, to remember, to understand what I’d set in motion. As far as McKnight could tell, his life, as well as the lives of all the Sutters, crumbled on that night my mother died. All those lives dashed, except for mine.
His letter had the intended effect—I started looking for answers. My father panicked, but he blindly hoped for the best, just as he had my