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“So it’s my fault…”
“Oh no, honey. Don’t even think such a thing. I was the one who made all the wrong choices. I was the one who thought he didn’t need attention, but that you did.
Except I was wrong about that, too. Look what happened to Donnie. And look how you turned out before…before…”
“I died.”
She nodded. “You were a good girl. You were the best daughter a mother could have had. I was so proud of you, of all you’d achieved.”
“And my room…”
“I keep it and your memory alive because it’s the only thing left in this world that can give me any pride. It’s the light that burns into the darkness and lets me forget my shame. Not always. Not for long. But even the few moments I can steal free of my shame are a blessed respite.”
She fell silent again, head bowed, unable to look at what she thought was the ghost of her daughter.
Zia turned and glanced at where I was peering at her from the crack I’d made with the closet door. I knew her well enough to know what she was thinking. It was never hard. All I had to do was imagine I was in her shoes, and consider what I would say or do or think.
I turned to Donald.
“Is there anything you want to tell your mother?” I whispered.
He gave me a slow nod.
“Then just tell Zia and she’ll pass it on to your mother.”
He gave me another nod, but he still didn’t speak.
“Donald?” I said.
“I don’t know what to say. I mean, there’s a million things I could say, but none of them seem to matter anymore. She’s beating herself up way more than any hurt I could have wished upon her.”
I reached out a comforting hand, but of course I couldn’t touch him. Still, he understood the gesture. I think he even appreciated it.
“And I don’t even wish it on her anymore,” he added. “But then…while I feel bad about what she’s going through, at the same time, I still feel hurt for the way she ignored me.”
I opened the door a little more, enough to catch Zia’s eye. She inclined her head to show that she understood.
“I’ve talked to Donnie,” Zia said. “In the, you know. The hereafter. Before he went on.”
The old woman lifted her head and looked Zia in the eye.
“You…you have?”
Zia nodded. “He understands, but he really wishes you’d celebrate his life the way you do mine. It…hurts him to think that you never think of him.”
“Oh, god, there’s not a day goes by that I don’t think of him.”
“He knows that now.”
Zia’s gaze went back to me and I made a continuing motion with my hand. “And he wants,” she went on, then caught herself. “He wanted you to know that he’ll always love you. That he never held you to blame for what happened to him.”
The old woman put her arms around Zia.
“Oh, my boy,” she said. “My poor, poor boy.”
“He wants you to be happy,” Zia said. “We both do.”
The woman shook her head against Zia’s shoulder.
