A Symphony of Cicadas (9 page)

“It’s not, though,” John whispered back
.
“I don’t know w
hat I’m going to do without her, without
them
.
It’s like everything sudden
ly
made sense when I met
Rachel and Joey
.
Everything seemed to just fall into place
.
And now that
they’re
gone, I’m not sure anything will ever make sense again.” He rubbed at his eyes, feigning tiredness to conceal the tears he was wiping away
.
Sara remained silent, her hand resting on his knee in a gesture of compassion
.
“I mean, what if he never talks again?  Rachel had this way of skirting around his stubborn ego, breaking through to reach the Sam no one
else
got to see
.
We became a real fami
ly
, and she was the one who helped to bridge th
e
gap that had been widening before she
and Joey
walked into our lives.”

“But Rachel always described Sam as a kid she had difficulty getting to know,” Sara noted
, curiosity in her eyes
.

It was as if she were mirroring my thoughts
.
When I had first moved in, Sam spent most of his days shut off in his room
. Despite
the fact that John and I had been dating for
three years before I died
, I didn’t know the kid
very well
.
It took some time and lots of patience before he
began opening his door and joining in on
the conversation with us.  However
, it always seemed like there was this invisible barrier he kept in place to
bar
me from getting too close
.
As a result, I felt like I had to walk on eggshells around him to keep from breaking the already thin layers
of
our
complicated relationship
.
It was an exhausting song and dance we played, and I would try to hide my sense of relief whenever it was time for him to visit his mother, knowing that life would feel effortless without him in the house for a few days.

“She definite
ly
felt at odds with Sam,” John admitted
.
“But I don’t think she understood just how unreachable he was before she moved in
.
We lived more like roommates than father and son
.
There were days he bare
ly
said two words to me
.
And many of those days, I decided it was easier to just let it be than to fight him
to hold an actual conversation
with
me
.
But Rachel, she had this way of not taking his silence as an answer, showing him she cared through her
consistent
efforts to reach him
.
Maybe it was just because she wasn’t jaded by the negativity he’s held onto for years
.
But through her persistence, she managed to change his habits from isolating himself into becoming a real part of this new fami
ly
we were creating
.”
He paused, taking a deep breath
in
.
“But now...” he trailed off, his voice
wavering
.
“It’s on
ly
been a few days since
they
died, but it seems like all the good
Rachel
did
since she
and Joey
moved in with us a year ago
left with
them
.”

“I know,” Sara
murmured
.
“It’s still so hard to believe
they’re both
gone
.
The other night I missed
Rachel
so bad I actual
ly
listened to a
n old
message she
’
d
left on my voicemail at least a
dozen
times just to hear the sound of her voice
.
And Joey…
”  Sara wiped at her eyes,
being careful to
dab at the corners to ensure what was left of her eye makeup would remain in place
.
She looked up at John and smiled
.
“Did you know that I was there in the room when he was born?”  John shook his head
.
I had never gone into much detail with him about those ear
ly
days, pockets of
the hurtful
memories
sometimes even
hidden from me
.
“Tony had since taken off, and Rachel had moved in with our parents
.
She asked both me and our mom to be there with her when she went into labor with Joey
.
I got to see Joey’s first breath of air in this world, hear his beautiful cry, see him open his eyes for the first time
.
I remember him looking right at me as the doctor held him up, and I instant
ly
fell in love
.
I had never known that about children, that they have this ability to make you fall in love with them at first sight
.”
She took
in
a deep breath, looking over at her kids playing across the room
.
“It was Joey who gave me the desire to be a mother
.
Before him, I didn’t think I ever wanted children
.
But seeing him for the first time, and then being there with Rachel as he took his first steps, said his first words, loved me as Auntie Sara…He was just such an amazing kid.”

John put
his
arm around her
.
She smiled up at him and patted his knee.

“I’m
sorry
.
If I’m having such a hard time coping with losing
both of them
, I can’t even imagine what you’re
going through
,” she sympathized.

“Oh, I think you can,” he said, placing his hand on hers and squeezing
.
“How about the flower shop?  Is business going to be
okay?
” he asked her.

“I closed up shop for the next week
.
I had to transfer some of our orders to our competition, which just kills me
.
But there’s been a lot of understanding from our clients about the situation. It’s going to be real
ly
strange doing this without Rachel, though
.
I know I’m eventual
ly
going to have to hire another body for the floor, and I’m real
ly
dreading it
.
No one can replace my sister
.”
She was having a hard time fighting the tears, a few escaping before she could catch them with her tissue.

“Sweetie,” Kevin interrupted
,
“I think Li
ly
has reached her breaking point
.
Think we can start heading home?” Across the room, Li
ly
was
sitting near her toys,
rubbing her eyes
.
Sam had found interest in the food table and had abandoned her in favor of piling his plate with whatever was within his reach
.
Li
ly
, in the meantime, was trying to conduct her tea party on her own
.
We all watched as Megan came over to try and help, on
ly
to be shouted at by Li
ly
for touching her toys.

“Mine, Megan!” Li
ly
squealed, pulling her dolls out of reach and spilling the whole
tea
party to the floor
.
Her face
began to contort, twisting into a silent scream of protest before letting out the siren’s howl.

“Uh, yeah
.
I think it’s time,” Sara chuckled, sniffing as she
shifted
from mourning
and went
into mom
-
mode
.
She
went over and
scooped up Li
ly
from the floor while Kevin picked up all the toys that had spread out across the room
.
Right on cue,
Li
ly
stopped crying, stuck her thumb in her mouth, and rested her head on Sara’s shoulder
.
She let out a little shudder of a hiccup from her crying spell, and kept her eyes wide open as she surveyed the room and everyone in it from the comfort of her mother’s arms.

“John, if you need anything man, we’re here for you,” Kevin said, extending his hand
.
John shook
it
before ending with a semi-embrace
.

I giggled from the sidelines, remembering John’s explanation of a Man Hug, the handshake that transitions into an embrace
meant to last
on
ly
a second or two.
“There are rules to these things,” he’d told me.

M
any of the guests took
Sara’s and Kevin’s departure
as their invitation to leave as well
.
My mother stood close to the door, ever the hostess
,
as she greeted th
e guests
one last time and thanked them for stopping by.

John put
on
his game face as he was approached by
guests
before they departed
.
I
could
sense
how much he didn’t want to be there as he
gave a distant smile
towards
anyone who wanted to tell him how sorry they were.

“Are you going to be
all right
driving home?” my mother asked after the last guest had left
.
“We have a guest room if you would rather stay the night.”

“No, I’ll be ok
ay
.
It’s on
ly
a
forty-five
minute drive
.
Besides, I think Sam would rather sleep in his own bed,” John said as he gave my mother a hug goodbye.

“John, you know you’re fami
ly
,” my father said as he extended his hand
.
“I know you didn’t get a chance to marry my daughter, but in my book
...” he trailed off.
“
You
two
are welcome
in our home anytime you’d like,
”
my father told John as he tried to keep himself composed.

John had told me once that my parents felt
a lot
like
they were
his own parents
.
Both of his parents had died a decade earlier
.
His father ha
d
suffered a sudden heart attack in his ear
ly
sixtie
s
.
His mother followed soon after, her mental capacity going downhill
fast
before passing away in her sleep. But of the scattered details I’d learned about them, I knew they had never been prominent figures in John’s adult life
.
So while I sometimes regarded my parents’
active
involvement in my life as intrusive,
John
regarded it with admiration,
embracing
it to fill the void his parents had left in his life
.

John
embraced my father
, forgetting the rules to his Man Hug in what seemed like
a
final goodbye.

“Thank you, sir,” he said
.
He walked out the door with Sam
right
behind
.
My mother pet
Sam’s
hair and gave him a hug
.
Sam returned
the embrace
, but
appeared awkward in the obligated gesture
.
I could see his body relax with relief when they parted ways, bounding down the steps to join his dad at the car. And the two of them drove away, leaving the little neighborhood in Sonoma
,
to head back to the loneliness of their overcrowded city.