kimschlotwrites

I’m in a small room, talking to a lady who smells like the mints Granny gives me. The ones that are red and white, the same colors of Mama’s tablecloth.

“Caleb,” the lady says to me. “Do you know where you are?”

I roll my eyes. “Of course I do. I’m ten, not four.”

The lady smiles. “You’re right. I’m sorry. So tell me. Where are you? Where are we?”

I sigh and roll my eyes again before answering. “We’re in some room at the hospital.”

The lady nods. And writes something in a notebook that sits in her lap. “What happened,” she asks. “Why are you here?”

“Do you really not know? Or is this one like the others?”

“‘This one’ what?”

“Ugh. This question. Are you asking me to see if I know? Are you asking me because you don’t know?” I stop. I feel like I’m going to cry. Dad said that there is nothing wrong with a man crying, but he shouldn’t do it in front of strangers. Mama tried to tell me that it’s okay to cry no matter where you are if that’s how you’re feeling. But I think Dad knows more about man stuff than Mama.

The lady offers me a tissue. I take it, but don’t use it. “I know you know what happened,” she says quietly. “I have a pretty good idea of what happened. I’m just here for you to talk to if you need to.”

“A car crash,” I say before I can stop myself. I probably screamed it because the lady looks startled. “Me and my parents were in the car. I don’t know where they are now. A doctor told me they went somewhere else.” I got goosebumps. All the hair on my body stood up. My whole body, but my face was freezing. My face felt very hot. And I thought I was going to be sick. “Are they dead? I thought the doctor meant they went to another hospital.”

I can’t help it. I start crying. When Dad said not to cry in front of strangers, I don’t think he thought this would happen. The lady hands me the box of tissues. She starts to say something, but I can’t hear her over my crying and yelling.

The screams become louder. I don’t know if they’re mine anymore.

**********

Two months later:

There’s about a dozen faces in this room. They all look sad. Well, it is supposed to be grief counseling. The woman at the hospital gave me information on this meeting two days after the crash. At first, I hated her because she saw me cry. Strangers aren’t supposed to see men cry. That’s what my dad always told me. But the woman and I both agreed that this is surely an exception. (Actually she didn’t really say that this is was an exception; what she said was, “Men shouldn’t cry in front of strangers? That’s horse shit! Pardon my language.”)

The meeting starts. A few people tell their stories. Wives dying after a long battle with cancer. Fathers who no longer remembered their daughters names before they die. After each story they look at me, waiting for me to talk.

I wait until everyone else has told their story before I begin. “Two months ago, my son, Caleb, was killed in a car accident.”