Authors: J.P. Barnaby
Aaron (10 page)
The next morning, after making pancakes and sausage for all her boys, Michelle tapped into that strength that seemed to remain somewhere inside of her, and asked Aaron if he still wanted to visit Juliette. He said that he did, and went upstairs to change.
Neither of them spoke as they made their way to the commercial area of town. When they arrived at the small brick building with the displays of flowers exploding with late summer color, Aaron stayed in the car. His mother would pick out the flowers that she thought were best. What the hell did he know about buying gravesite flowers? It was all he could do to focus on something other than why the flowers were necessary in the first place.
“I decided to go with a mixed bouquet of pink roses, lilies, and daisies,” his mother said when she returned to the car with a subtly colored mix of flowers, which she handed to Aaron. Holding them on his lap, his expression was hard and cold as he wrapped his arms around himself, almost as if he were trying to hold himself together, or as if he wanted to curl up into a ball so tight and so small that he would just disappear into it. Aaron saw his mother glance periodically at him as they headed for East Park Cemetery.
She pulled off the side of the road near where Juliette’s grave must be. Aaron knew that his mother had been here a few times since Juliette’s funeral. Each time he stayed home and his father tried in vain to distract him. After turning off the ignition, Michelle sat waiting for Aaron to speak or move. He did neither.
“Aaron, honey, do you want me to go with you?” his mother prompted, but he shook his head. Aaron needed to do this alone, especially since he was unsure how he would respond to actually seeing Juliette’s grave, knowing she was buried there. However he reacted, his mother didn’t need to see it. She saw enough. After taking one last long moment to look over the small rolling hills of green, he opened the car door. The smell of freshly mown grass flooded over him, and he climbed out of the car. It didn’t take him long to find the small monument signaling the entrance to Juliette’s part of the cemetery. His mother had described the statue as a marble angel with a lamb at her feet. His friend’s parents had chosen to bury her in the children’s section. Maybe they wanted to maintain her innocence, or it could have just been that the plots were smaller and less expensive in this section. Whatever the reason, she was here, somewhere to the right of this statue.
The cemetery was silent, almost eerily so considering it was a nice summer Saturday afternoon. The only sound to be heard was that of a mower in the distance. Grass seemed to stretch on for miles around him, but for all its airy solitude, the place made him feel claustrophobic— almost as if there should be a grave here for him, like his grave was calling for him. He should be buried here, right alongside Juliette under the
granite eyes of God’s chosen messenger. Sometimes it felt like he
had
joined her, suffocating, trapped inside his own head.
Balling his hands into fists, he forced himself to take slow, measured steps toward the grave, his breaths coming in quick, sharp pants. Goddamn it, he couldn’t go to pieces. He wanted to do it, needed to do it, needed to see what he could get out of this physical reminder of his own fleeting mortality—maybe it would make him want to live again. Being careful not to step on the graves of other poor dead children, he followed the dates of death marked on the headstones, year by year, until he saw her name.
JULIETTE ANNE MARTIN AUGUST 14, 1991—OCTOBER 9, 2008 BELOVED DAUGHTER
There were no bears or blocks or even angels, as he had seen on the other headstones while he had looked for hers. It was dark gray, marble, and very elegant. All at once, the realization that his friend, his Juliette, lay dead at his feet, caused his legs to buckle, and he landed hard on the soft earth next to her. The forgotten flowers fell to the ground, and dry heaves wracked his body. He wouldn’t cry; he knew that. He’d been unable to cry since that night. Just as he couldn’t stand to be touched, he was also not allowed the small measure of relief that crying would have afforded him.
It took a long time for him to finally get himself together. Remembering the flowers, he moved them to the grass just below the marble marker he could no longer bring himself to look at. Aaron considered just standing up and going back to the car, having done what he came here to do unassisted. Glancing over his shoulder, Aaron noticed that he couldn’t see his mother’s car from here, and he wondered if she was starting to worry.
“J… Juliette, it’s… it’s Aaron,” he whispered, feeling fairly stupid for addressing the flowers and a patch of freshly mown grass. Running his fingers gently along the prickly surface of the short green lawn, he felt a mild breeze pick up and caress his face. He wondered in that moment if
maybe she could hear him, but shook the thought off as a silly superstition. Nevertheless, he continued to whisper to his friend.“It’s been so hard, Juliette. The way everyone treats me, like I’m a bomb just waiting to go off,” Aaron said, his voice trembling as he knelt on the cool, damp grass. “The memories, the flashbacks, I don’t know how much longer I can keep doing this. The doctors don’t help. The pills don’t help. As selfish as it sounds, I wish you were here, Juliette. God, I feel so alone, so fucking scared all the time. I don’t know if you would have wanted to live, just like I don’t know if I do, but it would be so much easier to have someone that understood.” His chest ached as he continued to caress the grass with his outstretched hand, talking to the idea of his lost friend. He had no idea if she could hear him, if anyone could hear him. Talking about this shit just made it all worse. The self-hatred that he felt, the feelings that he tried to keep contained, burned like acid on his tongue as he spoke about them.
Summoning all the strength he had left, he forced down the selfloathing and the thoughts of suicide, back into the place where he kept them locked away. These were things he couldn’t let his mother see; she had so much else to worry about. So, after baring as much of his soul as he could stand to this empty patch of grass, he was finally ready to leave. Standing slowly, he brushed the grass off his knees, feeling suddenly guilty for the new stains it had left on his jeans. Aaron looked around slowly, noticing that the sounds of the mower were now gone, and bent to straighten the flowers on Juliette’s grave.
programming book, he sighed. He’d learned most of the stuff in high school and had figured the rest out on his own. More than anything, he needed a challenge, something to keep his mind off the other shit going on in his life. While he was excited about starting college, his father’s drinking worried him. Dad was the only person in his life he could really count on. At eighteen, he couldn’t carry the weight of college and his father’s worsening alcoholism. It had gotten better for a while, until one of
his partners became involved in a lawsuit that wrecked their entire psychiatric practice. Rather than putting up a new shingle, he’d retired at forty-five to explore his other options. The only other option he’d found was in a bottle.
Spencer had expected the text. His father hadn’t gotten out of bed until about two in the afternoon, and even then he looked like hell. He thought about offering to cook, but didn’t feel much like it either. That kid at the college had scared the fuck out of him. One minute, he was tapping the guy on the shoulder, the next he was watching in horror as the boy freaked out on the ground. Spencer hadn’t meant to scare him like that. He just wanted to find all his classes before Monday. Dealing with the interpreter that the school forced on him was enough; he didn’t want to get lost and have to ask for directions.
SPENCER: Chinese
DAD: Orange chicken or fried rice?
Texting each other from the same damned house seemed ridiculous to Spencer, so he marked his page in the textbook, got up off the couch, and went in search of his father. The kitchen, spartan in its décor, was empty except for a lonely pitcher of ice tea Spencer had made earlier, which sat on the breakfast bar. The fifty-inch flat-panel on the wall of the living room was dark, and the room appeared equally empty. It took him several minutes and a few more rooms, but finally he saw his father in his office. A quiet room lined with books, it was rich with dark wood and supple leather. His father sat on the leather couch that dominated the back wall. The desk, a perfectly crafted walnut office desk with fancy bronze drawer handles and a black leather blotter, sat unused along the western wall. For all the effort his father put into managing his life the last few months, the desk could have had an inch of dust on it.
“Menu.?” Spencer asked, and his father looked up from the book in his hands. He didn’t mind talking in front of his dad, because he’d been doing it all his life. His father, along with Aunt Nelle, had taught him to speak. It took forever, especially since neither of them had any experience
