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Apparently, my disappearance was immediately covered up. The hospital was already struggling to remain open and the people running the place decided that admitting that they lost a baby would shut the place down. They decided that as the only hospital in the area, more good could be done if they remained open. So, instead of reporting it, they sacrificed me and my mother for “the greater good” and told her I had died.
My mother said she never believed it. She said she kept asking to see my body and they said that she couldn’t. Eventually, they told her that it had been accidentally cremated and tried to give her money to go away.
She didn’t take the money, but in the end, it didn’t matter. My mother was a nobody from the middle of nowhere. No one was going to believe her over a bunch of people with ‘Dr.’ in front of their name.
I get the sense that that was what broke her. Nero told me that she acted crazy for most of his childhood. Her behavior was that of a tortured woman.
According to Nero, eventually, she stopped her erratic behavior. Nero said he was relieved when it happened, but that was also when her decline began. Each day she became further disconnected from reality until she stopped going to work at all and they were about to be kicked out of their home.
That was when Nero stepped up and took care of both of them. At 13, Nero got his first job. It was a crap job that didn’t pay much, but it was enough to keep a roof over their head. And, ever since, he has done whatever he has had to to make ends meet.
I didn’t have a job in Snow Tip Falls yet, but I was asking around for one. Nero needed help and I was going to give it to him. Right now I was doing it by watching over our mother while he did what he had to do during the day. But, things were going to change as soon as there was a job opening anywhere in town.
I cleared the table when everyone was done eating. Washing off the dishes and setting them to dry, I could feel Nero staring at me.
“What is it?” I asked knowing that he often had to be prompted to say what was on his mind.
“You think we could go for a walk?”
“Of course,” I told him feeling uneasy.
I had only been living here for a few weeks so everything between us was still new. But this was the first time he had suggested we take a walk. It made me think of the last time I had spoken to Quin.
It took everything I had to not think about Quin. Most times I failed. The only thing that prevented me from calling him was that I deleted his phone number. I had to. I wasn’t strong enough to simply not call him. I needed to put a mountain of obstacles between us to stop me from running back to him. Deleting his number was just the first.
Finishing up what I was doing, I considered grabbing a jacket. It was getting warmer so neither of us did. Exiting the trailer into the cool early spring air, I followed Nero and the two of us entered the woods.
“There’s a place I used to go when everything would get too much for me as a kid. Want to see it?”
“Yeah,” I told him feeling a wave of guilt that I wasn’t here to take care of my little brother until now.
We walked in silence for almost 45 minutes and stopped when we approached the edge of a valley. The pain in my leg had been off and on since I had moved here. But for the last week, it had been off. I was sure it meant that I could remove my cast soon.
“This is it,” Nero said looking out at the waterfall below. After a long winter, it was thawing. I tried to imagine how beautiful it looked when it was warm and flowers covered the valley. Snow Tip Falls really was a breathtaking place.
“It’s nice. It’s quiet,” I told him appreciatively.
“Listen, I wanted to talk to you about you staying here…”
“You have a problem with me staying here?”
“No! Absolutely not. You being here has been the best thing that has ever happened to me.”
“Thanks! Me too,” I said feeling rewarded for the tough decisions I had made.
“It’s just that you’re here all the time.”
“You want me to find somewhere else to live?”
“No! I’m getting this wrong. What I’m trying to ask is, don’t you have classes? When you first got here I thought you were taking a couple of days off. But, it’s been weeks. Don’t you have to go back soon?”
“Oh! Yeah. I dropped out.”
“You dropped out?” Nero asked startled.
“Didn’t you say this was your last semester and that you just had three classes left to graduate?”
“Yeah. But, I need to be here with you. I need to help with Mom.”
