After several torturous days and restless nights, I decide to talk to the one person I can always trust. So I knock on Gabe’s door late one evening, finally catching him alone, without Leslie.
“Yeah?” he calls out, sounding exhausted.
I open the door a crack and peer into his darkened room. “Sorry. Were you asleep?”
“Nah,” he says, rolling from his back onto his side to look at me. “I just got in bed….You okay?”
“Yeah…yeah….I just wanted to talk….”
“Well, come on in,” he says.
I hesitate one beat, then take a deep breath, climb onto his bed, and talk as quickly as I can, before I can change my mind, spilling my whole disjointed, raw confession.
“Well, you always thought this might be the case….” he says after I’m finished, his tone sympathetic yet matter-of-fact.
“Yeah,” I say, nodding as I hug my knees. “But I also always hoped I was wrong.”
“I know,” he murmurs.
“It sucks,” I say.
“Yeah…but aren’t you just a little relieved to know?” he asks. “Now you don’t have to wonder anymore?”
I nod, impressed with his usual insightfulness. “Yeah. I guess. Maybe a little…I probably should have talked to Nolan a long time ago.”
“He should have talked to you, too,” Gabe says, loyally shifting the blame. “And I really can’t believe he never told Meredith….Wow.”
“Well, I kept a secret from her, too.”
“Yeah, but you aren’t married to her.”
I nod.
“Besides,” Gabe continues. “Nolan knew the truth. You only suspected it….”
“I guess,” I say, having considered all of these angles as I searched for ways to absolve myself, or at least mitigate my culpability. “But we’re still both to blame for what happened.”
Gabe props himself up, cradling his head in his left hand. “Nobody is to blame, Josie. It’s not like someone was drunk driving here….It was an accident…an accident nobody could have foreseen.”
“Still,” I say.
“Still what?” he says, his brow furrowed.
“I still played a role in it…and I still have to tell my family. They deserve to know the truth….” I stare into Gabe’s eyes, hoping he’ll talk me out of it, tell me there’s no point—or at least no upside. “Don’t you agree?” I ask, holding my breath.
He hesitates, then slowly nods. “Yeah…I think you’re probably right….But I think you need to tell them for your sake more than theirs…so that you can move on—”
“But I have moved on,” I say, cutting him off, thinking that is a large part of my guilt—the fact that I moved on with my life so effortlessly, never visiting my brother’s grave until last week, barely even mentioning him to friends or family.
Gabe shakes his head. “No. You haven’t, Josie. You haven’t moved on at all. You carry this with you everywhere.”
I stare at him, knowing that he’s right, and wondering how he can tell.
“And look what it’s done to you,” he finishes softly.
“What’s it done to me?” I ask, lowering my eyes, afraid of his reply, his always brutal honesty.
“Well, for one,” he says, “you didn’t tell your boyfriend why I was in your bed that night.”
“So?” I say, bristling at the mention of Will.
“So? You would rather have had him think you cheated on him than know the truth about the night your brother died. What does that tell you?”
“Are you saying I should have told Will? That I could be married to him if I’d told him the truth about why you were in my bed? About everything?” It is a thought that has occurred to me countless times over the years, and even more in the last few days.
“No,” Gabe replies, adamant. “That’s not what I’m saying at all….I think if Will had been right for you, he would have believed you when you told him nothing happened with us….”
“Yes. But it did look pretty bad,” I say, wondering why I’m still defending Will after all these years.
Gabe shakes his head, his voice becoming louder, passionate. “So what? So it looked bad? Nothing happened.”
“Well, jeez, Gabe. I know that….I tried to tell him that many, many times,” I say, getting sickening flashbacks to our final few escalating fights and the lonely, empty aftermath, when it slowly began to dawn on me that he wasn’t coming back. Ever.
“You could have done a much better job of convincing him, and you know it. If he had been your soul mate,” Gabe says, using a term I’ve never heard him use before, “you would have confided in him…or he would have taken your word and trusted you. You would have trusted him enough to tell him everything….Instead, you let him think the worst about you….So he did.”
“Killing my brother is worse than cheating on Will.”
Gabe cringes, dropping his head back to his pillow. “You didn’t kill your brother, Jo. Don’t ever say that again.”
“Well, it feels like I did….Do you know how many times Daniel gave me lectures about drinking? About how I needed to be more careful because of our dad? Jesus, Gabe, just a couple days before, he talked to me about it…and I brushed him off.”
“You were a college kid, Josie. Lots of college kids drink too much.”
“He never did,” I say. “Meredith doesn’t, either.”
“Well, you’re not them,” he says. “And you’re not your father. You’re you. Did you have too much to drink that night? Absolutely. Did you drink too much the other night when you made out with Pete at Johnny’s?” He smiles, clearly trying to cheer me up.
“We didn’t make out,” I say, quibbling with his verb, but he raises his hand and continues.
“The point is, I don’t think you’ve ever had a drinking problem. Maybe an attitude and behavior problem,” he says, smiling again. “But not a drinking problem.”
“Well, my behavior, along with my drinking, resulted in my brother’s death,” I insist. “Whether directly or indirectly, it did. And…”
“And what?”
“And I deserved to lose Will because of it,” I finish decisively, truly believing this.
“As your punishment?” Gabe asks.
“Yes,” I say. “As my punishment.”
Gabe shakes his head. “I disagree. I strongly disagree….You and Will broke up because he wasn’t right for you, Josie….That was clear….Hell, that was clear to me long before you broke up….You were never yourself around him….You were…a fake Josie…and you haven’t loved anyone since Will because you won’t let yourself.”
“That’s not true,” I say, thinking of all the guys I’ve gone out with, and slept with, and tried to love, and tried to make love me.
“It is true. And you need to stop punishing yourself.” Gabe stares up at me with a mixture of pity and love, before reaching out to gently touch my arm. The gesture, along with the feel of his skin on mine, instantly floods my eyes with tears.
“Aww, Jo. Don’t cry,” he says. “C’mere.”
“Where?” I say, desperately needing a hug, even from one of the world’s most awkward huggers.
“Right here,” he says, patting his chest twice before pulling me down beside him, wrapping both arms around me.
“I’m so sad,” I say, as it occurs to me that we are lying together exactly the way Will found us all those years ago—and that nothing has really changed since that night.
“I know,” Gabe says, his breath warm in my hair. “But you need to forgive yourself. It’s time, Jo.”
“But what if my family doesn’t forgive me?”
“They will.”
“But what if they don’t?” I say, thinking specifically of my sister.
“Well, then…I’ll be your family.”
“You mean my baby daddy?” I ask, smiling, only partly kidding.
“Yeah, that, too,” he says with a little laugh.
“Are you really serious about that?” I
ask. “Would you really do that for me?”
“Of course I would, Josie….I’d do anything for you,” he says.
I try to thank him, and tell him that I feel the same, but can’t get out the words, too overwhelmed with gratitude. Besides, I know he doesn’t expect a reply, that he’s simply stating a fact I already know. Instead, I close my eyes and let myself drift off in his arms, doing my best to memorize the moment I will one day tell my son or daughter about….That was the moment I made my decision. The moment I picked your father. The moment I knew.
chapter twenty-six
MEREDITH
Four days, two off-Broadway plays, one musical, and endless hours of wandering the city later, I can’t tell if I’m feeling a little better or much worse. I decide it’s closer to the latter when I get a call from Josie, gushing about how cute Harper looked in her butterfly costume. “Did you get my photos?”
“Yes. Didn’t I thank you?” I say, knowing that I did.
“Yes,” she says. “You did.”
“I’m really glad you stopped over to see her…because of course Nolan only took one shot. And it was dark and blurry.”
She laughs and says, “Typical guy.”
I murmur my agreement, and a long pause ensues before Josie brings up her visit to the cemetery.
“Yeah. I heard y’all went,” I say, tensing. “How was it?”
“It was nice,” she says. “Difficult, but nice…I feel a little better.”
“Well…good. Great…Does Mom know you went?” I ask, feeling certain that the answer is no.
“I don’t think so….Unless Nolan told her…I haven’t mentioned it to her yet.”
“Well, maybe you should tell her? You know—since she’s been wanting you to go for years,” I say.
“Yeah. I know. I will,” she says. “I actually need to talk to both of you….”
“Oh?” I say. “About?”
“About…some things,” she says. “When are you coming home?”
I lean back on Ellen’s sofa and stare at a large water mark on the ceiling as I tell her I don’t know.
“Soon?” she presses.
“I don’t know,” I say again, irritation creeping into my voice.
A long silence follows, but I am determined to outlast my sister. “Are you coming home?” she finally asks.
“Now, why would you ask that?” I bark, enraged by her insinuation that I would abandon my child.
“God. Sorry,” she says. “I didn’t mean to offend you….I’m just worried…about you and Nolan. And Harper.”
“Well, don’t be,” I say. “You have your hands full with your own life.”
I know my response is over-the-top bitchy, and I brace myself for a brawl, or at the very least, one of her signature hang-ups, but Josie floors me by taking the high ground.
“You’re right, Mere. I do,” she says. “But I’m really trying here.”
“Trying to do what, exactly?” I snap.
“Trying to get it together…and I just really, really want to see you in person. If you’re not coming home, do you think I could come up there?”
I shake my head and roll my eyes, getting the sudden feeling that Josie is using my crisis to justify a trip to New York and score a free place to stay. “Is it really that urgent?”
“Yes, Mere,” she says. “It kind of is, actually.”
I sigh, telling myself not to fall into Mom’s trap and start worrying that it’s something dire or health-related. “Can you at least tell me the topic?” I ask, betting that it involves Will, or her sperm donor guy and their half-assed birth plan, or maybe even some other new guy, Josie never going very long before some new male character emerges in her life.
A long pause follows—so long that I think we’ve been cut off. “Are you still there?” I say.
“Yes,” she says. “I’m here.”
“Okay? Well? What’s the topic?” I ask again.
“It’s about Daniel,” she says, her voice cracking. “I need to talk to you about Daniel.”
All of my instincts tell me to say no—that Josie is somehow manipulating me and my situation, or otherwise pulling some sort of attention-grabbing stunt. But of all the things my sister’s been dramatic about over the years, our brother has never been one of them. I think back to the days immediately following the accident, how she disappeared into her room for hours on end while the rest of us milled about the kitchen. I think about her demeanor at the funeral—how self-contained and withdrawn she was. I can’t recall her crying at the service at all, and have a vivid memory of her standing apart from our family at Daniel’s graveside until my grandmother pulled her over to the front row of folding chairs, practically forcing her to sit down.
So on the off chance this is all legitimate, I sigh and say yes, she is welcome to come to New York this weekend.
—
JOSIE’S FLIGHT LANDS around seven on Friday night, and she pulls up in a taxi less than an hour later, just as I’m arriving home from the corner bodega. She sees me first, calling out my name through her open cab window. She is wearing her hair wavy and natural around her unmade-up face, and my first thought is that she looks stunning—way prettier than when she spackles on the makeup and irons all the life out of her hair. I try to wave, but my grocery bags are weighing down my arms, so I simply smile and yell hello, waiting for her to get out of the car. It takes her an unusually long time to pay her fare and finish chatting with her driver, and I feel myself growing annoyed. She is the kind of person who will finish her phone call and touch up her lip gloss while someone waits for her spot in a packed parking lot. It makes me crazy.
I tell myself to stop my mental rant, then take a deep breath. I have enough on my plate right now. A few seconds later, her door swings open, and she plants a black suede platform boot onto the street, before heaving a giant roller bag out of the backseat.
“Perfect timing!” she declares as she gets out of the taxi, slams the door, and waves goodbye to her cabbie.
“Yeah, I just ran to the store.” I smile brightly while eyeing her suitcase. “That’s a lot of luggage for two nights,” I can’t resist saying.
“I know, I know….I’m a terrible packer. I just threw a bunch of stuff in before school this morning.” She steps toward me, then throws her arms around me. “It’s so good to see you, Mere.”
I lower my plastic bags to the sidewalk and hug her back, stiffly at first. Then I relax, as I realize that in spite of my cynicism, I’m genuinely happy to see her. We separate, and I watch her glance up, then down the block, as if to get her bearings. She then squints and points up at Ellen’s building. “That’s it, right?”
“Yes. Fourth floor. It’s a walk-up,” I say with a grimace. “No elevator.”
“That’s okay. I need the workout,” she says, making a muscle, then motioning toward my grocery bags and asking if we’re eating in tonight.
That hadn’t been my plan, but I say yes anyway, trying to gauge her reaction. “Would that be okay with you?”
“Sure,” she says, passing the test—at least for now. “Whatever you want to do is cool with me….”
I smile, then turn and lead her up the stone steps of Ellen’s building. We walk into the bare-bones lobby, past the small grid of mail slots, then enter the musty stairwell. All the while, Josie rambles about how tired she is, what a long week it’s been, how exhausting it is to be a teacher, especially with young children who have no self-control or respect for your personal space. After two flights, she’s completely winded, and by the third, she has to put her bag down to catch her breath.
“How many pairs of shoes did you bring? Tell the truth….” I say.
“Oh, I don’t know…four or five.” She flashes me a sheepish, yet somehow still proud smile.
“Including the pair you’re wearing?”
“Okay. So five or six,” she says.
“And yet…you’d be okay staying in?” I say as we climb the last flight.
“I said yes,” she says. “Why do you keep asking me that?”
“I’ve only asked you twice.”
“Right. But I already said yes….Whatever you want is fine, Mere.”
“Okay,” I say, rounding the corner, then unlocking Ellen’s door and pushing it open. Once inside, I put my groceries down and slowly remove my boots, lining them neatly up next to the doormat, her cue to do the same. But of course she does not, sauntering right past the entryway, her filthy airplane-airport-city-sidewalk boots clunking on the hardwood.
“Hey, Josie,” I say. “Your shoes?”
She rolls her eyes and says she was just about to take them off; would I please give her a chance?
“Okay. Sorry,” I say, though I don’t actually believe her. “You know it’s my thing….You overpack; I obsess about germs.”
“I know,” she says, retreating a few steps. “But still. Don’t you remember how Mom used to tell us to say ‘thank you’ before we had a chance to spit the words out?”
“Yeah,” I say with a laugh. “The cupcake wouldn’t yet be transferred to our hands before she was like, ‘Gir-ls! What do you saaay?’ ”
Josie sits on the floor, pulling off her boots. “Exactly. And don’t you remember how much it always annoyed us? Because we were totally going to say it? Only now…we no longer got the credit for having good manners? We just looked like a couple of dolts….” She stands and looks at me, her brows raised.
I smile, thinking, not for the first time, that although some of our worst sibling rivalry involves vying for our mother’s favor, some of our best bonding has come at her expense.
I carry the groceries into Ellen’s tiny galley kitchen, putting away the few perishable items before washing my hands. Josie does the same, this time without prompting, then turns and eagerly asks for a tour.
“Well, this is pretty much it,” I say, gesturing toward the living room. “Plus her bedroom in the back.”
“It’s nice,” she says, walking over to the windows and looking out to the street below. “Very cute…and cozy…What’s the rent run?”
“They bought it. And I have no idea what they paid for it,” I say, despising the way Josie talks about money.