The Fall (11 page)

Weirdness. The book brought us closer, across time and impossible distance. We shared this.

 

YOU ARE

“And you are…?”

I stood rooted before the door. My mouth twitched.

“And you are…?”

She wanted me to identify myself. I was tempted to say, “I don't really know anymore.” But what I said was:

“Hi, I went to school with your daughter—”

“Sophie? She's up—” the mother said, momentarily confused. Then her face changed, she heard it,
went to school,
the past tense. A shadow fell over the mother's distrustful gaze. She steadied herself with a hand on the doorjamb.

I stood watching her, not knowing where else to look.

“Come in,” she said, not smiling. “And you are?” she asked again.

“Sam,” I said, for lack of a better answer.

(Guilty as charged.)

I wished that I could peel the skin off my fingers.
Here, take my prints, analyze what I've done, and you tell me.

Sophie appeared behind the mother, standing a few stairs above the ground floor.

“Sam?”

She looked good, shorts and a T-shirt. Sophie had no idea why I was there. Or, I don't know. Sophie was pretty smart. Maybe she knew all along.

“Hi,” I replied.

 

THE APOLOGY

After opening the door, the mother returned to a large upholstered chair in the front room. She sank heavily into it, facing a large television set, a dish of hard candy by her side, a basket of knitting by her swollen feet. Music trilled, some kind of opera. She never again looked at me.

She scooped up Larry into her lap and with a thick finger scratched the dog's ear.

It was all a little weird.

Sophie said something to the mother that I didn't catch, and led me to a small back room she called the den. The room had dark paneling and drawn blinds, sunlight filtered through in dusty streaks. It smelled musty. We sat on the couch, facing an old TV that looked like it didn't work.

Sophie seemed out of place inside her own home. I wondered if that's how Morgan felt, like a stranger passing through.

“I'm shocked you're here,” Sophie said.

“I know, I should have called. I'm sorry, I'm an idiot,” I explained accurately. “Should I leave? This was a bad idea, wasn't it? I should leave.”

I began to rise. Sophie placed a hand on my thigh.
Stay,
it told me.

I sat back, looking around. It was not a happy room, absent of art, photographs, even books.

“So,” she broke the silence. “Why did you come?”

“I needed to talk,” I said, “about Morgan.”

She swallowed and her shoulders stiffened, as if preparing for a blow. “Okay.”

“Remember I said to you that day, about how if you ever needed to talk? What I realized later on was that I wasn't doing it for you,” I said. “I was doing it for me. You're the only person I know who knew her.”

Sophie's fingers went to her ring, squeezing it,
squeezing it,
making sure it was still there. I couldn't read her face, didn't know what she was thinking.

“We were friends, I think, but the truth is that I was not a good friend to her,” I began.

“You don't have to—”

“No,” I interrupted, “I think I do.”

And I told Sophie the entire story, all of it.

To her credit, Sophie listened to every word, the good times and the cruelties. All the while she sat quietly, hands folded on her lap, legs crossed, uncrossed, crossed again, a stricken look on her face. I noticed that as I spoke, she leaned farther and farther away from me. It felt like an invisible force field rose up between us, and I was Doctor Doom.

I don't know if I finished or just ran out of gas, like a car on a lonely road. “I came here to apologize,” I said. “I needed to tell you that I'm sorry.”

I looked to her face, hoping for mercy.

Sophie stood, rising with the exaggerated care of an invalid. She turned her back to me, spoke to the wall. “Is that what this was all about? You're here to ask for forgiveness? Will that make you feel better?”

“I'm not …
asking
 … for anything,” I said.

She turned and snorted contemptuously. “Can your apology bring my sister back?”

Her voice grew bitter, vengeful.

“I don't
accept
, Sam,” she continued. “Do you understand? I don't accept your weak-ass apology. It's not good enough. It's not okay. It will
never, ever
be okay.”

I sat in defeat, my palms open. All words failed me. Another horrible mistake. Wherever I went, whatever I did, I only made things worse.

I found I had nothing, nothing at all, to say.

“I need you to leave now,” Sophie said. Her tone was calm, controlled, but ice-cold. “And Sam,” she added, “I don't ever, ever want to see your face again.”

 

OH WHY

She liked to sing. Have I mentioned that yet? Not that she had a good voice. But when Morgan sang, she did it joyfully and hysterically. Like any bird on a branch, Morgan was happiest with a song in her throat.

I like to remember her that way, singing loudly and badly in the cemetery—to the sky, the clouds, the gathering stars. She sang the hits on the radio, the crappy Disney stuff, rap, anything that caught her ear. But the song she loved the most was “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” you know, from
The Wizard of Oz.
Listening to her, I gradually got the words.
Troubles melt like lemon drops.

I loved the ending, especially that pause in the last line, “Why—oh why—can't I?”

It was just an ordinary song until I heard Morgan sing it. That's when I first heard the ache in her throat.

 

WHERE DREAMS COME TRUE

And she will find

     peace, and she will …

                 Forgive us.

 

I HATE THE WORLD

Falling, fallen, fell.

More than words

can ever tell.

 

THE ONLY ONE

A week after Sophie told me that she never wanted to see me again, she stood waiting by the main entrance of the school, like a vulture on a tree limb.

I tried to swing wide to avoid her, but Sophie stepped in my path. “Come with me,” she said.

“Where?”

“Away from here.” She started down the steps, away from the school.

I hesitated. “Wait, but school—”

“You're going to be late this morning. It's not the end of the world. The office doesn't start calling home until ten, so as long as we check in before that, nobody will know,” Sophie replied. “Besides, you owe me.”

The last stragglers entered the building. The doors closed. “Where are we going?”

“The coffee shop.”

“That's five blocks…” I began to protest. She wasn't hearing me.

We walked in silence. Her pace was purposeful, all business. Sophie stared straight ahead, and I followed like a sad puppy. Inside the café, she exchanged greetings with the curly-haired guy at the counter. “Hey, girl. Shouldn't you be in school?” he asked.

“Fire drill,” Sophie said. She ordered a complicated coffee. Asked me, “You want anything?”

I patted empty pockets. “I don't have any money.”

“Figures. I've got it,” she said.

The guy at the counter looked me over, not impressed. Eight thirty and he was bored out of his mind already.

(I could hear my father, “Go to college, kids.”)

“Okay, um, I'll take a hot chocolate, please.”

“Size?”

“What? Oh, um, small's fine. Tall, whatever.”

“Whipped cream?”

“Yeah, yes.”

We took seats at a table in the lounge area, which was sort of a fake living room deal—for that homey feeling—which was empty except for a few coffee-clutching types staring at their flickering laptops and cell phones.

Sophie sipped her coffee. “I never drank the stuff until I started working here part-time, nights, weekends,” she explained. “Once you get hooked on coffee, it's impossible to wake up without it.”

I tasted my hot chocolate. It was pretty awesome. I didn't get the appeal of coffee. Said nothing.

With a flick of her finger across her nose, Sophie signaled for me to wipe whipped cream off my face.

(Sigh. I'm a clown.)

“I've been thinking about your visit to my house,” she said. “I appreciate that you were trying to do something…,” Sophie paused and surprisingly offered up a crooked smile. “Something …
noble
 … the other day.”

She cast her eyes downward, drawing her lips into a line, as if regretting the smile.

The expression, those downcast eyes, gave her a familiar quality. Then it hit me. I'd seen that same expression on her sister's face.

“I hated you,” she said quietly. “I'm still angry. At you, at those cowards on the internet, at my parents, at the world, at Morgan…” She reached for the cardboard coffee cup. “That day you came over, I was like, ‘
Oh, poor you.'
Give me a break. You think you're the only one?”

“No, I don't—” I shook my head helplessly.

“I did crappy things too,” Sophie said. “I wasn't there for Morgan, not like I should have been. I feel guilty too. So you don't win first prize, okay? You have to get in line.”

“I never meant to—” I sputtered.

“Who do I have to apologize to? You?” she said. “My parents? There's only one person who matters, and she's not here.”

A woman looked over at us, obviously trying to eavesdrop, probably looking for new characters for her crummy, unfinished novel. She looked away when I gave her the devil's eyeball.

“She told me about you,” Sophie said, lowering her voice. “Do you even know that? I knew about you long before that day at my locker.”

“Wait, what? You knew me?”

“We were sisters,” Sophie said, as if the bond of blood explained everything. “Maybe not the closest sisters in the world, but there were times, late at night, when we talked.”

I sat back, trying to absorb this new information. Morgan and Sophie talking together, sharing secrets. “What did she say about me?”

“She liked you,” Sophie replied. “She said you were a good egg.”

“A good egg?”

(What the hell? An egg?)

Sophie shrugged. “Those were her words. She said you were one of the only people on the planet who treated her normal.”

“I wasn't always nice. I did some bad things.”

“No, you weren't perfect. Sometimes you were a creep, like a lot of guys,” she said, but without malice. Sophie's eyes flickered with kindness, and she leaned forward. “And sometimes you weren't, okay? Morgan tried to kill herself before, more than a year ago, back over spring break. She took pills, drank. I found her asleep on the bathroom floor, called nine-one-one. They pumped her stomach at Roosevelt Hospital. I guess she never told you about that?”

I was stunned, nearly speechless. “I didn't even know her back then.”

Sophie raised an eyebrow, gave a faint smile. “See what I'm saying. This is bigger than you.
Nobody
knew. My parents were ashamed, especially my father. He really freaked. They decided to keep it a secret. Morgan went back to school one week later, and we all acted like nothing happened. It worked for a while.”

We sipped the dregs of our drinks in silence. Mine had gone cold. I checked the time on my cell. “Look, we should—I've got a math test third period.”

Sophie didn't move. She wasn't finished with me yet. “You asked me to forgive you. I don't even know what that
looks
like, okay? I mean, it's not all right, what you did. But you weren't half as bad as some of the others. And I will
not
forget. Forgive and forget? I don't think so. Forgive and remember, that's your best hope.” She paused, scratched a fingernail at the side of her coffee cup.

I waited. It was a trick I had learned from Mr. Laneway. He would sit like a turtle, careful not to fill space with empty words. He always allowed room for me to speak. Gave me
time
to find my thoughts and put them into words.

She now tore at the top edge of the coffee cup. “I am not strong enough to forgive you or anybody. Not yet. But I hope to be someday. For myself, not for you. I don't want my sister's death to define who I am.”

“Mr. Laneway, this counselor at school—” I began.

“Yeah, I know him,” Sophie said.

“He says forgiveness is the gift you give to yourself.”

Sophie chuckled, rolled her eyes. “Words,” she muttered. “I really don't think Morgan did it because of you. Her issues ran deeper than Sam Proctor.”

A thought struck me. “I wondered about the book
The Bell Jar
. I got it in the mail like two weeks after—I never understood how that was possible.”

The right corner of Sophie's mouth lifted. She really did have the same cockeyed smile. “Maybe you're not so dumb after all. I was the one who mailed it,” she admitted. “In her note, Morgan asked me to.”

 

IN THE STAIRWELL

A week later, I was late for class. I was charging up the back staircase three steps at a time and nearly ran over Athena Luikin.

She was alone on the landing between two levels, leaning against the railing. “Whoa, sorry,” I said, before I even realized it was her. The fallen queen.

I took another leap, then paused. I turned back to look at her.

Athena's face was splotchy, her eyes swollen. Maybe it was because I stood higher on the stairs, but she looked smaller to me. Just a girl.

Fragile and alone.

And in tears.

“You okay?” I asked.