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She uses a fork to stir the food before she covers it again and puts it back in the microwave.
Kitty leans against the counter. “You said your parents are divorced? Where does your dad live?”
“He’s on the west coast. He moved out there when I went to college in the city. There wasn’t much of a reason for him to stay, and he has siblings out that way.” I tuck my hands in my pockets.
“Weren’t you a reason to stay?” she asks softly, then shakes her head. “Sorry. I’m prying, and it’s rude.”
“No. It’s okay.” As hard as these memories are to talk about, burying them doesn’t seem to be an effective strategy for moving forward. “My dad would leave early for work to commute to the city, so my mom got me off to school. But after Toby died, she rarely got out of bed, she stopped cooking, and it was up to me to handle all the household stuff my dad couldn’t manage with his hours.” I fall back into the past, into the months and years that followed my brother’s death. “It was clear to all of us that my mom wasn’t dealing well. My dad did everything he could—therapy, family therapy, adjusting his hours at work. I remember there being medication, and her being flat for a long while . . . numb, I guess? Then things shifted. We weren’t allowed to go in Toby’s bedroom, and she refused to clean it out. After a while, she started sleeping in his room. I think that’s when things with my parents really started to erode.”
“That must have been hard for your dad. Grieving the loss of his son and watching his wife fall apart,” Kitty says softly.
“It was, harder than I realized at the time maybe. I think I saw him cry once when Toby died, and then he just sort of shut off? Put on a strong front for my mom’s sake, because she was struggling. I can’t really imagine what it was like for them, losing a child.” I rub my chin. “But my mom, she wasn’t moving forward. My dad really tried, but then the fights started. And they got worse until they finally separated. She was the one who asked for a divorce. So my dad ended up moving to the city where his job was, and I went with him. It was messy and hard, and I visited here every other weekend. I think my mom was hurt that I chose to live with Dad, but I had hockey all the time and a schedule she couldn’t manage.”
I swallow down the guilt. “It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be there for her. She just wouldn’t let us help her. Sort of shut us out. And I couldn’t stay in that house with all the memories of what happened, and the fighting. I went to high school in the city, and you know what it’s like being a teenager, friends over everything. I always had sports on the weekend, so those visits got fewer and further between. I feel shitty about it now, because she essentially lost everything. I wish I could have seen outside myself more back then.”
“You were young, and the loss was yours too. You can feel empathy, but it sounds like moving in with your dad was probably the best thing for your mental health.”
“Yeah, but I still wish it would have gone differently.”
The microwave beeps again. This time the plate is steaming, and Kitty needs to use oven mitts to take it out. I offer to do it, but she waves me away and tells me she’s got it. She sets it on the table, then drops into the chair to the left of me. “When we look at the past through an adult lens, it’s easy to beat ourselves up over the things we could have or maybe should have done differently. But at thirteen you didn’t have the life experience to be able to make those kinds of informed choices, and you were a kid who lost his brother.”
So many times, I came home from school and found her crying in Toby’s bedroom. It made me feel powerless, and in some ways irrelevant. I understood the pain of the loss, but I needed a mother, and she couldn’t be that. Not then. “It felt like it was my fault that he was gone.”
Kitty reaches across the table and squeezes my forearm. “Oh, Miles. This was a tragedy and not yours to own.”
“I was supposed to be watching him, though.”
“That’s a big responsibility for a child, and he was impatient, as kids sometimes are. You are not to blame for what happened. The person who hit him was. Like you said before, it’s easy to get caught up in the what-ifs, and your mother’s grief overshadowed her ability to be a good parent, but that’s not your fault either.”
