151 Days Read online

  All in the name of our son, of course.

  When Kelly started high school, everything got worse. He had already pulled away from us, something that didn’t even register with me, since I was so busy trying to maintain our good standing in the community. After Halloween his freshman year, Kelly came to us and asked if he could throw a party for his friends. At first the idea seemed absurd, but he explained that Francis Patterson had let her daughter have a huge costume party that everyone had gone to and enjoyed—everyone but Kelly, who hadn’t been invited. Neither William nor I caught that little detail, because we suddenly saw the value of throwing a party for the children of the people we continued to try to impress.

  That first year we stayed home and chaperoned, which is a polite way of saying that I got mildly buzzed and listened to my much drunker husband make inappropriate comments to underage girls. A lot of kids had shown up, and Kelly did seem genuinely happy for once. The next year when he asked to have it again, it was no longer a matter of if he could; it was a matter of if we needed to stay home and chaperone a second time.

  Trust me when I say I now realize how insane that sounds.

  So we left our fifteen-year-old son alone, with money to throw a party for his teenage friends, and then caught a plane to Dallas so we could have a weekend to ourselves. It was a wonder that someone never called CPS on us. There was some mess when we got back, but what it cost to clean up seemed trivial when compared to the popularity that Kelly seemed to be getting from throwing the parties.

  This went on all the way to senior year, when someone ended up taping my son admitting he had feelings for men. He ended up shooting himself a couple of weeks later.

  Sorry if that seemed abrupt, but I’m pretty sure we were all thinking the same thing. I am… I was a horrible mother, and my son killed himself. I suppose everything else is just me trying to justify it.

  As I was saying at the beginning, there are things in life you can never ready yourself for. Burying your son is one of them. A few years back we had bought plots of land at Foster Hills, the local cemetery. We bought three of them for William, Kelly, and myself and then another three for what we assumed would be Kelly’s future family. Six plots of land so we could stay together as a family even in death.

  The fact that our teenage son was the first occupant is as tragic as it is ironic.

  I haven’t been there since the day of the funeral. I just can’t bring myself to go out there and look at the tombstone yet. How can I face even the virtual image of my son knowing I have done nothing to atone for the numerous sins I have committed? So instead I sit in my house and try not to look at the many pictures we have hanging up of Kelly; and I wait for something to happen.

  As with most things in life, karma takes very little time to catch up with you.

  The thunderous declaration of “Goddammit!” came from William’s study followed by the sound of a phone being slammed into its cradle. I didn’t budge. Instead I just sat there and silently counted in my head. It took to twenty-four before he charged into the living room.

  “That school is fucking us again,” he roared, waiting for me to ask him how.

  He would have to wait a long time.

  “Don’t you even want to know what they’re doing?” he asked me, his anger tapering off slightly as he registered my apathetic response.

  I said nothing again, which he took as a silent agreement.

  “They are going to pass a set of rules about bullying and fag protection this Friday during the school board meeting. Do you know what they are calling them?” He was about to answer his own question, since I hadn’t said a word so far. He froze when he heard my answer.

  “Kelly’s Laws.”

  His mouth sputtered shut and then twisted into a snarl. “You knew about this?” It was incredible how his anger could shift from targeting the school to me.

  I nodded but said nothing more; there was no use.

  “Why didn’t you say anything about it?” he demanded.

  “What does it matter?” I asked him, my voice sounding like it was coming from a machine. “Our son is dead. What else matters?”

  “We still have to live here!” Spittle flew out of his mouth as he leaned toward me, screaming. Lately it seems the madder he got, the less I was inclined to respond. I’m sure he was itching for a fight, but I really couldn’t bring myself to care, so he just kept on screaming. “You think I want our family’s name associated with that kind of garbage? Liberal-loving gay protectors. It’s embarrassing.”

  Something inside me began to smolder as he kept complaining.

  “We spent all this time trying to build up a reputation in this town, and then something like this happens, and that reputation means nothing.”

  Smoke began to rise from the shattered remains of what used to be my heart.

  “I am going to have to go down there and tell those idiots that I don’t want Kelly’s name within a thousand miles of that crap.” He looked at his watch and sighed, which seemed to be one gesture too many for me.

  “Oh my goodness, I forgot. Kelly’s suicide must have interrupted your plans for the day. He was always such a polite boy. I’m sure that if we’d explained to him about your schedule—” I took a breath and heard a stranger’s voice coming from my mouth, rasping my next words. “—he would have shot himself on a more convenient day.” I actually snarled at William, then choked down my fury.

  There was no confusion on his part about what I was saying now. “Of course I knew about it. When they called me and gave their deepest condolences at my loss, they informed me that they would be taking steps to ensure nothing like this would happen again. I was so caught up in the gesture that I completely forgot to factor in how my son’s death would impact our fucking reputation.”

  “Dorothy…,” he began to say, but I had been quiet enough.

  “No, William, I think I am done listening to you. I said nothing when we came home and you screamed at Kelly because somehow it was his fault that other people had spray-painted stuff on the side of his truck. I said nothing when you planned on sending him to a brainwashing Bible camp to somehow ‘cure’ him of his gayness. I even said nothing when you tried to stop the Tyler boy from speaking the truth at Kelly’s funeral. But you know what? I am done. I told them they could use Kelly’s name, and that decision is final. I cannot believe it is barely a week after we buried our son, and you are still more concerned about our reputation, and, no doubt, your round of golf, but it ends now.” I stood up and watched him stare at me in shock. “And you’re wrong. We do not have to live here—I do. You’re free to get the hell out, and don’t bother coming back. Because effective right now, William, there is no ‘us.’”

  I waited for him to say something, but it was his turn to say nothing.

  “Don’t be here when I get back.” I locked eyes with him. “I’m not kidding.”

  I grabbed my purse and left, never once looking back.

  I WALKED into Nancy’s and saw Gayle sitting in one of the booths talking to someone. I couldn’t place him from the back, but as I walked by and took a table, I could see it was Brad, Kelly’s best friend from school. Instead of sitting down, I made my way to the back where the restrooms were and fled into the women’s room before I could be seen. Tears came unbidden as I hid in one of the stalls.

  Just seeing Brad had brought back a flush of memories I had been fleeing from all week, and I couldn’t stop them. Brad had practically grown up in our house. For a while he was like the brother Kelly never had. We had always talked about having more kids, but it never happened. Instead we focused all our efforts on the one son we did have, which of course became a euphemism for “focusing only on ourselves.” I wonder, if he had a sibling, whether things would have been different.

  “Dorothy?” a voice asked me from the other side of the stall.

  I recognized Gayle’s voice and tried to wipe the tears away quickly. “Just a second, please,” I called back, wondering what a
couple of seconds would accomplish. Sighing, I opened the stall and walked out slowly. I felt like a little girl getting caught by a truant officer.

  “I thought I saw you rush past,” she said, reaching out and pulling me into a hug. “I didn’t expect to see you out yet.”

  I hugged her back and took a deep breath for the first time since I found Kelly.

  I had known Gayle forever. I don’t remember a time where she wasn’t running Nancy’s Diner, the center of all Foster. William had taken me here on our first date, and every Friday when Kelly got to choose where we ate dinner, he always chose Nancy’s. I don’t know many people from Foster who don’t have a list of memories that include this diner and Gayle with it.

  “I think I just left William,” I whispered to her.

  She pulled back and looked me directly in the eyes for a long couple of seconds. Gayle had this ability to just look into your eyes and somehow divine the truth out of them in a way that words could never quite convey. Finally she let out a sigh and said, “Good. Are you okay?”

  I nodded and then walked over to the mirror. “As good as I can be. I saw Brad out there and just lost it.” I dabbed at my eyes with some tissue. “I really don’t think I am ever going to be okay again.”

  She came up behind me, put her hands on my shoulders, and gave me a warm smile. “You are okay, Dorothy. You’re just going through the worst possible thing a mother can ever endure. Give it some time.”

  “Why?” I asked her, putting some concealer on. “Is it somehow going to miraculously get better?”

  Without missing a beat, she said, “No, you’ll just get better at hiding it from everyone else.” It was the most truthful thing anyone had said to me since Kelly’s death. “Come back to the kitchen, let me make you some food, and we can talk away from everyone.”

  We sat by the back door and shared a burger as we watched the afternoon sun slowly drop behind the buildings. “You hear about the school board meeting?” I asked her between bites.

  She nodded. “Too little, too late if you ask me.” She didn’t say anything else, but I could tell she wanted to.

  “Never knew you to be one to hold your tongue,” I commented. “Don’t start on my account.”

  She kept staring at her feet for a moment and then took a deep breath as she faced me. “You are grieving, and I am not going to be one of those people who use the moment to kick you while you’re down. It’s just good they are doing something finally instead of trying to hide the problem again.”

  I had no idea what she was talking about, and then suddenly I did.

  “Thank you for the meal,” I said politely, no longer feeling like eating at all. I opened my purse to grab my pocketbook. “What do I owe you?”

  “Dorothy,” she said, putting her hand over mine. “I’m not attacking you—you asked.”

  I slowly pulled my hand away from hers. “I did, and thank you for the honesty, Gayle.” I got up and smoothed the front of my blouse. “We need to do this again.”

  I was being a bitch, and I knew it, but there was nothing else I could manage without tearing my own hair out. I needed to get out of there before I lost it, and thankfully she seemed to understand that. “Anytime. You are always welcome here.”

  I nodded to her and walked through the back alley toward my car, beating a hasty retreat.

  Thankfully it was dark enough to allow me a good ten minutes to cry hysterically in my car without anyone seeing me. After that, I wiped my eyes again and headed home.

  I was in no way surprised to find William gone.

  A COUPLE of days passed, and I found myself taking down things that were William’s the same way a surgeon would cut away cancerous tumors from healthy flesh.

  Gayle’s words kept echoing back in my head, but I refused to entertain them since I had more than enough pain in my life without adding to it. As I have said before, karma is not one to waste time in tracking you down. A knock on the front door made me pause, wondering if it was William crawling back with an apology.

  Not that there was anything he could apologize for; I was just curious if he was desperate enough to attempt one or not.

  Instead I opened the door and found Sheriff Rogers standing there, his hat literally in hand.

  “Afternoon, Dorothy,” he said in that low drawl that had always made girls smile when we were in high school.

  “Stephen,” I said, smiling back. “Come in,” I offered, moving aside.

  He did that little bowing of his head as he walked in that most boys these days never learn. It was an old world respect thing, and I was surprised to find myself sorry it had faded from popularity. “I come at a bad time?” he asked, not making the point that lately all times were bad for me.

  “No, I was just—” I looked at the living room, where a small, untidy hill of William’s belongings lay piled. “—taking out some garbage. I can use a break. You thirsty?” I offered as we walked into the living room.

  “Anything cold if it’s not a bother,” he said, sitting down on the couch.

  I took the pitcher of iced tea from the fridge and put it next to a couple of glasses on a serving tray. I set it down on the table as I sat in the chair across from him. “It’s sweetened,” I told him as he poured himself a glass.

  He took a huge drink and gave me a wide smile. “That is some good tea,” he exclaimed. “Tastes like your mom’s,” he added.

  I nodded. “The very same,” I said, sipping my own. “So what brings you around?”

  He put the glass down and took a moment before talking. “First, I wanted to see how you were doing. There hasn’t been any time since….” His voice trailed off, and I nodded for him to continue. “But something has come up, and I thought you might want to know about it.”

  It’s funny, I had just buried my son, but my stomach still clenched as I waited for his news. What could he say that would possibly be worse than that? “And that is?” I asked him.

  “I’m sure you know about the school board meeting.” I nodded, and he went on. “Well, there are two or three random students trying to get something added to the agenda, and they’re hitting a snag.”

  “You mean Kyle,” I said, knowing he was the only student at Foster High who would be pushing for the administration to do more. Kyle was a magnificent boy who was the only one who’d seemed to know how bad Kelly’s situation was, and we practically threw him out of the house more than once. I hadn’t seen him since William chased him away from the funeral service, but I had been meaning to contact him and to thank him for being Kelly’s friend at the end.

  God knows I hadn’t been.

  Stephen nodded and gave me a half smile that told me his thoughts about the boy were as lofty as mine. “That’s him. He wants to start some kind of gay and straight club at the school and thinks this is the only chance he will have of getting it pushed through.”

  It made sense. I would have been a fool not to understand that Kelly’s death was the only reason Kelly’s Laws were going to be enacted. Normally there wasn’t a chance in hell that Jeff Raymond would let something like that fly at Foster High. “He isn’t wrong,” I admitted.

  “No, he isn’t, but it isn’t going to happen,” he said with a bit of regret in his voice. “I told him about the deal with Charlotte and put him on the trail. But he isn’t going to find who lodged the complaint in time. It’s too well hidden.”

  It seemed that even if I ignored Gayle’s mention of the past, the ghost of Past Mistakes was bound and determined to come back and haunt me.

  “No, he won’t,” I admitted, putting my own glass down now. “Not after all the trouble we went through making sure everything was buried.”

  We sat there in silence for a couple of minutes, neither one wanting to say anything.

  “And there is nobody else who will take responsibility for the club?” Even as I asked it, I knew the answer was no. We had sent a message last time that no teacher would dare ignore.

  He gave me a sympat
hetic look. “What do you think?”

  I sighed and looked out the back patio. “I think I need to go talk to Dolores Mathison.”

  TO HELP you to understand who Dolores Mathison is means going into a small history lesson of the Foster wealthy. There are well-off people, there are wealthy people, and there are rich people.

  And then there is the Mathison family.

  They lived outside of Foster, but their presence in the town was overwhelming. They are old money, and their importance should never be underestimated.

  Their family was the first to really strike oil in this part of the state, and when I say “strike oil,” I’m saying it in a way that tells you they have more money than God. At the turn of the twentieth century, they were responsible for employing a little over 40 percent of the population of Foster in one way or another. Their money paved most of the early roads in the town, because they were the only ones to own multiple motorcars. Their money designed and installed the fountain on the corner of First Street, the first and last piece of a citywide renovation project that went nowhere. Their names are synonymous with money and power in this town, even though people didn’t speak about them that much. Old money works behind the scenes, diplomatically, out of the public eye.

  I knew them because Dolores Mathison had approached me about Charlotte Axeworthy when I had been on the school board.

  The grounds surrounding the Mathison estate were immaculate. Anywhere else their house would be called a mansion, but here in Texas we try not to use such showy words. We had enormous houses to do that for us. I wasn’t too surprised that she agreed to meet with me Thursday; after all, I was the woman whose son had just killed himself. That afforded me a little pity in the eyes of the Mathisons.

  Their wealth just reminded me of everything William and I wanted to give to Kelly but never quite achieved. Our money allowed us to talk with the Mathisons, but there was no way we were one of their group, and everyone knew it. We were new money, tacky money, and were tolerated only because we knew how to comport ourselves in public. The entire family had a way of making you feel insignificant without saying one word, and let me tell you, that was the true difference between new money and its loud brashness and old money and its immense, carefully wielded authority.