What Remains True Read online

  OTHER TITLES BY JANIS THOMAS

  Something New

  Sweet Nothings

  Say Never

  Murder in A-Minor

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2017 by Janis Thomas

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Lake Union Publishing, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Lake Union Publishing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781542048248

  ISBN-10: 1542048249

  Cover design by Rex Bonomelli

  For Auntie Hilary

  Despite the losses, we find the laughter . . .

  Love you so.

  CONTENTS

  PART ONE: A DAY IN THE AFTERMATH

  ONE JONAH

  TWO EDEN

  THREE SAMUEL

  FOUR RACHEL

  FIVE RUTH

  SIX SHADOW

  SEVEN JONAH

  EIGHT EDEN

  NINE SAMUEL

  TEN RACHEL

  ELEVEN RUTH

  TWELVE SHADOW

  THIRTEEN JONAH

  FOURTEEN EDEN

  FIFTEEN SAMUEL

  SIXTEEN RACHEL

  SEVENTEEN RUTH

  EIGHTEEN SHADOW

  NINETEEN JONAH

  TWENTY EDEN

  TWENTY-ONE SAMUEL

  TWENTY-TWO RACHEL

  TWENTY-THREE RUTH

  TWENTY-FOUR SHADOW

  PART TWO: A DAY OF COUNSELING

  Therapist Journal: 5/15/17

  TWENTY-FIVE MADDIE

  TWENTY-SIX SESSION ONE

  TWENTY-SEVEN SAMUEL DAVENPORT

  TWENTY-EIGHT RUTH GLASS

  TWENTY-NINE EDEN DAVENPORT

  THIRTY RACHEL DAVENPORT

  THIRTY-ONE MADDIE

  PART THREE: THE DAY BEFORE

  THIRTY-TWO JONAH

  THIRTY-THREE EDEN

  THIRTY-FOUR SAMUEL

  THIRTY-FIVE RACHEL

  THIRTY-SIX RUTH

  THIRTY-SEVEN SHADOW

  THIRTY-EIGHT JONAH

  THIRTY-NINE EDEN

  FORTY SAMUEL

  FORTY-ONE RACHEL

  FORTY-TWO RUTH

  FORTY-THREE SHADOW

  FORTY-FOUR JONAH

  FORTY-FIVE EDEN

  FORTY-SIX SAMUEL

  FORTY-SEVEN RACHEL

  FORTY-EIGHT RUTH

  FORTY-NINE SHADOW

  FIFTY JONAH

  FIFTY-ONE EDEN

  FIFTY-TWO SAMUEL

  FIFTY-THREE RACHEL

  FIFTY-FOUR RUTH

  FIFTY-FIVE SHADOW

  PART FOUR: ANOTHER DAY WITH DR. MEYERS

  FIFTY-SIX MADDIE

  FIFTY-SEVEN THE FAMILY

  FIFTY-EIGHT SAMUEL DAVENPORT

  FIFTY-NINE RUTH GLASS

  SIXTY EDEN DAVENPORT

  SIXTY-ONE RACHEL DAVENPORT

  PART FIVE: THE VERY BAD DAY

  SIXTY-TWO JONAH

  SIXTY-THREE EDEN

  SIXTY-FOUR SAMUEL

  SIXTY-FIVE RACHEL

  SIXTY-SIX RUTH

  SIXTY-SEVEN SHADOW

  SIXTY-EIGHT JONAH

  SIXTY-NINE EDEN

  SEVENTY SAMUEL

  SEVENTY-ONE RACHEL

  SEVENTY-TWO RUTH

  SEVENTY-THREE SHADOW

  SEVENTY-FOUR

  PART SIX: THE VERY BAD DAY REVISITED

  SEVENTY-FIVE JONAH

  SEVENTY-SIX THE DREAM

  PART SEVEN: ANOTHER DAY

  SEVENTY-SEVEN

  EPILOGUE MADDIE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  PART ONE: A DAY IN THE AFTERMATH

  ONE

  JONAH

  Sometimes I hear Mommy crying in the middle of the night. She’s in the bathroom, her head pressed hard into a bunched-up towel so she won’t wake anybody. If I had arms or hands or fingers, I’d touch her on the shoulder. Just so she’d know I’m here.

  Sometimes, when no one else is around, she screams like someone’s stabbing her or something. But mostly it’s crying.

  Sometimes all three of them cry at the same time, Mommy, Daddy, and Eden. All together. It sounds like a song Mommy used to play in the car when we were driving somewhere, but it wasn’t crying in that song, it was laughing. Lots of different people with different voices laughing together. I liked that better than the crying. If I still had ears, the crying song would hurt my head. But I don’t have a head anymore, or a body, or anything. So the crying just whispers through me and reminds me what it’s like to be sad, even though I can’t feel it.

  I’m not sure what’s happened to me. I know I died. Kind of like my goldfish, Fred, only I’m not floating on top of the water waiting for Mommy to flush me down the toilet. But I feel like I’m floating somewhere.

  Daddy told me once that when we die, we go to heaven, but I know I’m not there. I haven’t seen God yet, or any angels.

  I see places I’ve never seen before, like the crawl space above my room and the gardening shed, which I was never allowed inside ’cause of all the sharp tools, and the closet that has the water heater in it. I can slip through the cracks in the door and slide around the metal tank, then slip out the other side.

  But I haven’t left the house or the yard since the “very bad day,” which is what Mr. Escalante calls it whenever he talks to Luisa about the day I died. Luisa works for Mrs. Martin next door, and sometimes she brings lemonade out to Mr. Escalante or coffee or something else to drink, ’cause Mr. Escalante does both the Martins’ yard and ours at the same time. Now when Luisa brings it, Mr. Escalante shuts off the lawn mower and limps over to her, and they talk quietly so Mommy won’t hear them. They both shake their heads and look at the ground, and Mr. Escalante always sees something on the ground, like a weed or something, and bends over to pull it out. I think he does it on purpose so that he won’t see the tears in Luisa’s eyes. And by the time he stands up straight again, she’s already wiped them away.

  I don’t think I’m a ghost. Mrs. Hartnett, my teacher, read us a story on Halloween about ghosts, and they all were mean and tried to scare people. I’m not mean. I know that because Mommy always told me the same thing. “You’re such a good boy, Jonah. You’re such a nice boy, Jonah. You’re such a lovely, sweet boy, Jonah.” I don’t think ghosts are nice and lovely and sweet and good. So I must not be a ghost.

  I think I’m supposed to do something. But I can’t figure out what. ’Cause I don’t have a body anymore. So I’m mostly just waiting. And listening. To the crying. Hoping it will stop.

  TWO

  EDEN

  I told them I didn’t want to come today, but they didn’t listen. They don’t listen to me anymore.

  They used to, before. We’d all sit around the table at dinner, and Mom and Dad would make us talk about our days. Jonah never said much. Mostly finger painting and jungle gym stuff, kindergarten stuff. Mostly. Sometimes he’d talk about the stupid jerky kid Jesse, who was always getting into trouble for doing stupid jerky things. Sometimes he’d talk about books. He was learning to read, and he liked this one book a lot—The Little Rose—and he could read it good, too, even though it was a first-grade book. But mostly he’d talk about coloring and drawing pictures. He loved to draw pictures.

  Mom and Dad would ask me to tell them about my day, and Mom would put down her f
ork and knife and look at me full-on, her blue eyes totally focused on me like I was the only one in the room, and I’d tell her about school, from start to finish. Dad would listen, too, but he’d still be eating, even though he’d nod and ask questions, sometimes with his mouth full, and Mom would give him a smack on the arm and tell him he was being a “bad influence on us” for talking with food in his mouth.

  Mom and Dad don’t ask me about my day anymore. They don’t ask me anything anymore. Mom doesn’t even really look at me. Her eyes have changed, like they can’t really focus on anything. They’re shiny, and not just from tears. I heard Aunt Ruth say something to Luisa about medication. I don’t know what that means. I had to take medication when I got an ear infection last year, but I’m pretty sure it didn’t make my eyes shiny, so Mom must be taking a different kind of medication. A kind of medication that makes her not listen to me anymore.

  I don’t think Dad is taking medication, but he doesn’t listen to me, either. His eyes aren’t shiny, but he has this really deep crease between his eyes always, like he’s thinking hard about something, trying to figure something out. The kind of look he used to get when we did puzzles at the dining room table or played Wii bowling in the living room or when he helped me with fractions. Now, he has that crease all the time, but he just wanders through the rooms of the house like he’s looking for something, but never finds it. And when I talk to him, he turns his head and looks at me, but like he’s looking through me, like whatever he’s trying to find is right behind me, and he never answers my questions quite right. Like, yesterday, I asked him if he knew where my softball helmet was, and he told me he didn’t think it was going to rain today.

  They said it was time for me to go back to school. It was Aunt Ruth, actually. She did all the talking while Mom sat on the couch with her shiny eyes staring down at her hands in her lap. Dad was standing by the window, looking out at the front lawn, with that crease in his forehead that looked like it hurt. And Aunt Ruth kept talking, saying things had to get back to normal at some point.

  I wanted to argue with her that things would never get back to normal. Normal was walking my little brother to the kindergarten gate, not because I wanted to, but because my mom and dad made me, but I kind of liked the feel of his chubby little fingers holding tight to my hand like I was his champion or something and would protect him from anything that could hurt him or scare him. Normal was going into Mrs. Hartnett’s class every Tuesday and Thursday for kinder-readers—they put me with my brother ’cause that’s the way they do it with brothers and sisters—and listening to him read and helping him with the big words that he couldn’t understand, but a fifth grader, his reading buddy, could tell him what they meant. Normal was walking home from school with my friends, pretending Jonah wasn’t there, but always checking, every few minutes, to make sure he was only four or five steps behind me, rolling my eyes when he called my name.

  Nothing would ever be normal again without Jonah.

  But I kept my mouth shut because I knew Aunt Ruth wouldn’t change her mind, and with Mom and her shiny eyes and Dad and his creased forehead, she’s kind of in charge of things right now.

  So here I am, and Mr. Libey is writing something on the smart board, and Betsy Morgan is staring at me and whispering to Ava Landou, and Matt Boyles and Josh Hannapel and even Ryan Anderson are trying not to sneak glances at me but failing epically, and all I want to do is disappear. Melt into my desk chair and slide into a pool of nothingness on the floor of my homeroom.

  Mr. Libey writes out a long-division equation on the smart board and looks around the room. “Who can tell me the answer, my friends?”

  I know the answer; it sits smartly on the end of my tongue. But all I can think is, Who cares, who cares, WHO CARES?

  THREE

  SAMUEL

  The sheet of paper stares up at me, mocking me with its blankness. The pencil in my hand mocks me with its impotence. I’ve been sitting at my desk for the better part of an hour, trying to make sense of my own sketches. My vision for this house was so clear when I began. But that was before. Now, I can’t remember why I put the walls where they are.

  I need to focus. It’s never been a problem. I could always rely on my ability to tune out the rest of the world and get down to work. My sketches and blueprints and schematics and 3-D virtual tours were an escape for me. I could shelve my personal problems, slough off any issue that was plaguing me, allow the stress to seep from my pores as my work enveloped me and carried me away.

  But this is not a problem I can shelve, nor an issue I can slough off. This is not stress. This is grief. Overwhelming and insidious grief that refuses to be ignored or denied or temporarily tucked away.

  Ruth thinks we need to see a counselor or find a group. I know she’s trying to be helpful, and I don’t disagree that counseling might be a good idea, especially for Eden. But I’m not sure I can handle it right now, and I sure as hell don’t think Rachel can. Rachel isn’t able to handle anything. Rachel can barely make it to the bathroom on her own.

  I wipe away the beads of perspiration that have erupted on my upper lip, can feel the dampness in the armpits of my polo shirt, the film of sweat pooling at the base of my spine. My office is cool, but my innards churn and burn, as though I’m running a marathon. A constant coil of tension twists within my gut. A jackhammer headache throbs just above my eyes.

  Survival is the worst physical challenge there is.

  A quiet tap on my door. The door opens a second later, and Greta peers in. She holds a cup of steaming coffee in one hand. I nod to her. She enters and crosses to my desk, sets the mug down slowly, carefully, as though she’s afraid she’ll spill the coffee. She gazes down at me, her eyes searching mine. I look away.

  “How’s it going?” she asks, her voice soft.

  “I’m having a tough time concentrating,” I admit.

  She places a gentle hand on my shoulder, and I have to force myself not to recoil.

  “Maybe it’s too soon for you to be back,” she suggests.

  I want to snap at her, Someone has to work—someone has to pay the bills. But I know she is trying to comfort me. Greta cares about me. She hates what’s happened, just like everyone else. And, like everyone else, she has no idea what to say to me.

  She rotates her hand in small circles on my shoulder. I want to shrink away from her, but I don’t want to hurt her feelings. How can I tell her that the touch of her hand feels like molten steel burning into my flesh?

  “I’m just so sorry, Samuel.” No one calls me Samuel. When Greta first started working here, she called me Mr. Davenport. I told her “Mr. Davenport” made me feel like I was a hundred years older than her, and she’d laughed her twentysomething laugh that wasn’t flirtatious on purpose. She decided to call me Samuel, because she thought it sounded more respectful than greeting me with the übercasual Sam. For a while, I was reminded of the sisters in my Catholic grade school, but after a while, I grew to like the way it sounded from her lips. “I wish there was something I could do to make it better.”

  I have heard this exact phrase more times than I can count over the last four weeks. Each word that makes up this detestable sentence is like a shard of glass pressed against my eardrums.

  “I know,” I tell her, then push her hand from my shoulder. She tries not to look hurt, fails, bites her lower lip, and takes a step away from me.

  She knew Jonah. I brought him to work with me on a handful of occasions, and she dutifully took him for ice cream or sandwiches; she made a little play area on the far side of my office where she provided him with pencils and crayons and reams of plain white paper. She oohed and aahed over his childish drawings, complimenting his skills and telling him he was a chip off the old block, and he’d smile even though he had no idea what that meant. Greta loved Jonah, but then, everyone loved Jonah. You couldn’t meet my son without instantly falling in love with him.

  And now he’s gone.

  The sob rises from my chest and
I force it down, then cough violently from the effort. Greta eyes me worriedly, and I wave her away. “I’m okay.” I pick up the mug and take a sip of coffee, set the mug down again.

  “What can I do?” she asks.

  Nothing. There’s nothing anyone can do.

  I clear my throat. “Call Laydecker and see if he can move our three o’clock to tomorrow. Please. I’d like to be home when Eden gets there.”

  She stares at me for a long moment, then nods. Wordlessly, she crosses to the door. As soon as she closes it behind her, I bend over and retch into the waste bin.

  FOUR

  RACHEL

  My eyelids are too heavy to open. My tongue is thick and lazy in my mouth. I taste bile. Did I throw up? I did, I know I did. My nostrils are filled with the scent of vomit, but I can’t remember when. I’m shaking. I’m curled up on my side beneath my covers, my knees tucked into my chest. Like a fetus in a womb. This is how a fetus feels. Fetus. Fetus. What a funny word.

  No, it’s not funny. Nothing is funny. Nothing will ever be funny again. But why? I can’t remember. Something happened. Something awful. I burrow more deeply under the comforter and farther away from the memory of the awful something. It’s there, just outside my grasp, but I don’t reach for it, because then I won’t ever want to leave this bed, this oasis, this escape.

  I’m suffocating my baby. I feel his arms around my neck, his soft body beneath me. I’m crushing him. No. Not my baby. Too small. Too soft. A stuffed animal. Yarn. Monkey. The monkey . . . No. I don’t want to think about it.

  I have to get up. I have to. The kids will be home soon. They’ll need a snack. And then dinner. Maybe there’s something in the freezer. Freezer. Fetus. Frisbee. Femur. Fleeting. Foible. So many F words. Fuck. I never say fuck. I should say it more. I would say it now if I could only make my mouth work.

  How can I get up if I can’t even make my mouth work or open my eyes? Why are my lids so heavy?

  I remember. Pills. Lovely pills that make me not happy but also not like every inch of my skin is on fire. Why was my skin on fire? It’s not, not now, but it was. Was that yesterday or last week or last month when I was screaming, both inside my head and outside my head and my skin was burning and I felt like I was being disemboweled? Now there’s a word. Disemboweled. Fuck.