Chapter 14
BAILEY
I push into Noah’s room and stand there. It’s been two years since the wreck, and I haven’t changed a thing. His toys lie right where he left them, scattered over the floor. His twin bed rests in the corner, covered by a rumpled Spider-Man comforter. The pillow on top still carries an indentation in the shape of his head. I sometimes trace my fingers over it and try to recall the feeling of tousling his hair or rubbing his neck. I lie there and ache to pull him close and smell the fresh vanilla scent of his skin—that sweet, sleepy fragrance of him. But it’s long gone. In here, all that fills my nose is dust, and all I ever think of is his death. Especially on his birthday.
Today, Noah would have been six.
I trail across the carpet and the rainbow of Legos, creep past the toy trucks and Avenger figurines, and retrieve the love-worn bear resting on the foot of the bed. The fur is missing in spots. One eye hangs loose in its socket, the other scuffed from a playground fall. There’s no doubt the thing is ugly. It always has been—a cheap, long-ago gift from Noah’s first birthday party—but he loved it right away. Any time it went missing was cause for emergency.
Mama! Mama! Where’s Bear?
Bear. That’s what he called it. Nothing else. Just Bear.
He carried it with him everywhere we went—to the grocery store, the doctor’s office, the playground, and the park. To the library, the beach, the zoo, and the mountains. It didn’t matter the occasion, Noah always brought Bear along for the ride. He slept with the stuffed animal every night, wrapped tightly in his arms, holding onto it like I should have held onto him.
I set Bear on the comforter and grab the framed photo from the dresser. It’s a picture of the three of us at Disney World. In it, Noah is wearing a Captain America mask with his arms cocked off his hips and his chest proudly aimed at the camera. Ethan and I stand behind him with our hands on his shoulders, trying to stifle a laugh. The branches of the Tree of Life stretch skyward behind us, outlined in a peach spray of light.
A perfect moment captured.
A perfect life gone in a blink.
Like I always do when I look at the picture, I study myself. There I am with my carefully styled hair and designer clothes, lost in the moment. It was one of the few times on the trip I hadn’t been thinking about some pressing deadline at work or focused on how many calls I’d need to return when I made it back to the office. I was present—and I was happy, oblivious to what would come.
I want to reach into the photo, shake myself, and say,Wake up, Bailey! This is what matters. Enjoy every second with them before they’re gone.I want to tell myself this is the last vacation I’ll share with my family before they’re taken from me, erased in an instant. But even if I was able to tell myself to soak it all in, it wouldn’t have made a difference.
Back then, the last person I ever listened to was myself.
I shift my gaze to Ethan, my sweet husband who I berated for wanting to spend more time with me and our son. If I’d only let him stay at that party with Noah like he’d wanted, he’d still be here. If I’d only done what he’d suggested and told Bob I wasn’t coming into theoffice, they both would.
“I should have listened,” I whisper, staring at the picture. “I shouldn’t have left.”
If I’d waited another minute before leaving—one single, precious minute—before dragging Ethan and Noah outside, we never would have been hit by that car. But I hadn’t, and we were, and now all that’s left of my family are memories like the one I’m holding in my hand.
I blink and a tear hits the photo glass followed by another.
Two years. Noah and Ethan have been gone for two years now.
It feels like ten.
I threw up for three straight weeks after coming home from the hospital, unable to hold anything down. I sobbed until my eyes felt like open sores. I laid in bed for days at a time, lost in an ocean of grief so deep, I’d been unable to move. For months, the only moments of peace I had were those first few precious seconds when I woke every morning before the memories of what happened to my family came rushing back in a wave of pain.
Pain that’s never once stopped.
I set the picture in my lap and gaze at Noah’s superhero posters on the wall. Thor and Iron Man and Hawkeye and Black Widow—all of them draped in a shower of dusty afternoon light. Noah had wanted to be a superhero. He’d wanted to help people, and he would have someday. I’m sure of it. Maybe as a doctor or a teacher or a therapist. But he won’t now. Those possibilities were stolen from him along with so much else.
The thrill of his first crush. The rush of his first kiss. His high school and college graduations. His first job and the career that would follow. Meeting the love of his life and witnessing his child smile. Every beautiful experience ripped away from him before they ever happened. My boy will never grow up. Instead, he’ll remain forever etched in my mind, looking up at me from the Ocean Island parking lot as a red-faced four-year-old pleading for me to stay.
Mama, I wanna stay!
I should have let him. That’s what my life consists of now: and endless list of what ifs and should haves. I should have spent more time with my family when I had the chance. I should have read Noah more books. I should have toured the vineyards and wineries in California like Ethan wanted to and taken him to more concerts in the park. I should have told him I loved him more, that I appreciated him. I should have done so many things with those moments before the wreck. But I hadn’t.
I’d simply let them drift through my fingers like sand.
I can’t bear it anymore. And I won’t.
I wipe my eyes, place the photo neatly back on the dresser, and then leave my son’s room for the final time.
The pills are waiting for me on the kitchen table. They sit in a single neat line that, once I swallow, will ensure I close my eyes and never open them again. It’s exactly what I want. I can’t handle the pain any longer, the lies. So many lies. The ones I tell myself:You were just trying to build a life for them. You were only doing your best.The ones others tell me:Bailey, it wasn’t your fault. You were a wonderful mom. How could you have ever known that would happen? There’s nothing you could have done.
