I told you once that the thought of you somewhere happy is what keeps me going, but the thought of you somewhere sad is okay, too. I mean, I don’t want you to be sad, and if you aren’t that’s good, but it’s just you, as you are, that I think about. However you are.
Are you sad?
You don’t have to tell me. But just like you are there somewhere for me, I am here somewhere for you. If you are sad, I want to make you happy. If you are happy, I want to make you happier. Pen is running out of ink. Must get new pen.
Yours,
Peter
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
A knock on her door woke Kelsey from a dreamless sleep. It was dark outside, but her lights were still on. She had no idea how long she’d been out, but the partygoers were gone. One of Peter’s old letters lay next to her on the bed.
Her mother entered, now changed out of her dress clothes into sweatpants, glasses on the tip of her nose.
“All right, get up,” her mother said.
“Thanks, Mom, but I really don’t feel like talking right now,” Kelsey said, burying herself deeper in her pillows.
“Sit up,” her mother said.
“What time is it?” Kelsey asked.
“It’s time for you to be held accountable for your actions. Sit up.”
Her mother’s tone made Kelsey feel like she was seven years old again, and she hated it, but she did as she was told.
“Put on a sweater.”
She followed her mother to the front door without a word. The night air smelled as if it had just rained and they walked toward the river to the sound of the breeze. Yesterday’s events were still with her. Michelle’s death was, at least, out of her hands. It was accidental, a freak event.
The shame of losing Peter, of losing him because of her lies, seemed more like an endless sickness no one could cure. She would never forget what she’d done to him.
When they stepped aside for a jogger, Kelsey realized it must almost be dawn.
“I didn’t sleep last night,” her mother said beside her.
“Why?” Kelsey asked. Her throat felt itchy from crying.
Her mother put her hands in her sweatshirt pockets as she walked, and sighed. “I don’t know whether to call this boy’s mother or take you to a psychiatrist or what.”
Kelsey stopped in her tracks. “What? No.”
She put up her hands. “You obviously aren’t handling your sister’s death well—”
“None of us are handling Mitch’s death well!” Her voice was raised. Her fists were clenched. It was all coming out now. The rage, the hurt, the sensation of yelling at her mother from the bottom of a well to HELP ME UP, GODDAMNIT. “You criticize me all the time! You fill my house with strangers that you talk to more than me!”
She paused for air, watching her mother’s face fall. But Kelsey wasn’t finished.
“You don’t even like me!”
Her mother spoke softly. “That couldn’t be further from the truth. I love you.”
Kelsey wiped her nose. “Then why doesn’t it feel like you do?”
She couldn’t make out her mother’s face anymore in the streetlights, just the outline of her mane of hair and her body, more sure of itself than Kelsey’s. “Let’s keep walking.”
The flush of anger had not left Kelsey’s face. “Why?” she asked.
“Because.”
There was a deep rhythm to that exchange, an understanding that existed before she could even spell her name: Do this, her mother would say. Why? she and her sister would ask. Because, and that was the end of it. They would follow her anywhere.
But this wasn’t any other day. “Because why?” Kelsey countered.
She could sense a smile behind her mother’s words. “I’m not taking you to the loony bin, Kels.”
They continued on until they reached the river, and turned right down the gravel path on the north bank, deep into the trees as morning broke through the branches. Rocks crunched under their feet, birds conversed. The silence was soothing. Maybe it was the act of walking, setting a pace, putting her body back into a steady cadence. Maybe she had forgotten how well her body could speak to her. Maybe her mother knew what she was doing.
When they reached the large rusted gate that marked the end of public property, her mother leaned on it, and Kelsey followed suit. They looked at each other, two versions of the same eyes, one with makeup streaks, one with crow’s-feet. Her mother waited, asking silently, Why?
She could tell the story from the beginning, as she had done for her friends, as she had done on the video, or she could just answer.
“I missed her,” Kelsey said finally. “I really didn’t mean to pretend to be her. I wasn’t even good at it. It was mostly just wanting to be close to her again, you know? Even closer than I was when she was alive.”
Her mother was looking at her, contemplating. “And Peter wanted to be close to her, too.”
“Yeah, I guess. And I just couldn’t tell him. I couldn’t be the one to break his heart. I kept going after him because…”
She had already said that she had missed Michelle. Her mother knew what it was like to miss Michelle, and she could say that to anyone, any old day. She dug deeper.
“I wanted to do something. I didn’t want to think. Whenever I thought too much, I wanted to take a seat and…” Kelsey thought of the night with Davis and his parents, sitting on the curb. “And never move again. Just rot. No, rotting would be too slow.” She swallowed. “I wanted to die.”
“I know how you feel,” her mother replied.
Kelsey looked up, in shock. She couldn’t imagine her mother thinking anything like that, anything strange and dark and unexplainable. Her mother made lists. People who make lists didn’t have room for those thoughts.
Her mother nodded. “I wanted to do something, too, I suppose. But that was easy for me. I had a career.”
“That’s the thing,” Kelsey jumped in, smacking her hand on the iron railing. “It wasn’t enough just to do more of the things I already did when she was alive. I wanted to, like…” Opening the letter. Comforting Peter. Going to Paris. “Do things for her. Because she couldn’t.”
Her mother reached out to stroke her arm. “There are limits to what we can do for people. We can’t do everything for everyone. And, honey, you’re going to have to be strong when I say this.”
Kelsey took a deep breath.
“You picked the wrong thing to do. For Peter, for Michelle, for yourself. No matter what you were feeling, that was not the right thing to do. What did you think would happen? You had to have known you’d break his heart eventually.”
She opened her mouth. “But—”
“No more excuses. I want you to repeat after me. That was not the right thing to do.”
Kelsey took a moment. She had never really said it, the whole time she was talking to Peter. She had never really told herself it was wrong. Because she didn’t want to. She sighed.