Page 92 of Overkill

Once visiting hours ended, the kids came out, and I took them home. We had food delivered and ate on paper plates. I took out the trash. They went to sleep.

They didn’t talk. They knew as much as I did.

Melody and I argued. She walked away. Ian picked her up at gunpoint. He tried to make her stage her own suicide. She fought him, and they fell into the water. I went with her. Then we were rescued.

Miriam said Melody was barely lucid and that her leg looked gnarly. Her femur was broken. She’d be in a wheelchair for a while.

“Are you gonna stay and help?” Miriam asked shyly.

“If she lets me, kiddo. She might not need me, you know?”

She also broke up with me, technically. So I was an unwanted straphanger at this point.

Marcus never said anything. He just ate and slinked off. I tried to tell him to brush his teeth before going to bed. Did kids need to be reminded of that at seventeen? I would have needed it, but I was also an idiot, so…ya know. Maybe that was a me-problem?

“Can you remind me to bring her laptop tomorrow? She says she needs to send proof of hospitalization to her job.” Miriam genuinely looked concerned she’d forget.

She wouldn’t forget. But I did remind her.

The next day, I drove them down in Melody’s truck. Instead of waiting in the lobby, I went to the barn and grabbed my table saw, a ton of wood, sledgehammers, and the majority of my toolbox. Then I went back to her place and measured the house.

When visiting hours were over, Miriam jumped into the front passenger seat and told me Melody was up and able to eat, but the painkillers made her sleep a lot.

I didn’t comment that she could probably use the rest.

She’d been sleep deprived for a while.

We had a few more hours of light, so when we got back, I pulled out two sledgehammers. Holding one by the head, I nudged the handle towards Marcus.

“Wanna help me smash things?” I asked. Despite looking confused, he tentatively took it. I turned to Miriam. “What about you, little lady?”

She took the other.

I grabbed an axe. Then, with a giant swing, I smashed one of the banisters of the already rotting porch.

The kids helped unload the table saw, the wood, and the other tools while we took turns pummeling the porch to smithereens. We had just enough light to load half of it onto the truck.

The next day, I dropped them off at the hospital, visited the dump, and went back to load the rest for a second run to the dumpster.

Visiting hours weren’t quite over when Miriam called to say Melody was asleep. I picked them up, we stopped by a drive-through, and then they watched as I started framing the new porch.

I taught Marcus how to use the table saw, and he helped me while Miriam measured and nailed things. She was pretty damn efficient with the nail gun.

Marcus got lost in the task of cutting, measuring, and building. It was good for him. He couldn’t talk about his feelings, but the tasks were mundane enough that he could think while also being involved enough that he wasn’t overwhelmed.

The little helpers and I had the porch mostly done by evening.

The next day, I drove them to the hospital again. “Call me when you’re ready to be picked up.”

“I…don’t think I want to go,” Marcus said from the back. Miriam and I both turned to him. He looked sheepish with his hands in his lap and his shoulders hunched. “I’m not useful in there. I can’t do anything to help her. I might as well help with the porch.”

Miriam opened her mouth, no doubt to tell him he was being a prick, but I lifted my hand.

They were different kids. They grieved and processed in different ways.

I said, “Alright, son. You can help me finish things.”

I told Miriam to call me if Melody wanted food or a change of clothes.