You’ll Remember

LOCAL MOTHER KILLED IN TRAGIC DOWNTOWN ACCIDENT

A local mother and Westchester High math teacher was struck and killed Monday night by a runaway SUV while attempting to cross a downtown intersection. The accident occurred at the intersection of Pine and 34th St at around 7:30. The woman was 40-year-old Andrea Pierce, police say that evidence suggests that Pierce died on impact.

Police are still investigating the scene, but say there is no reason to suspect anything other than a tragic accident. According to witnesses, the SUV began rolling down the hill on Pine St. The accident is most likely due to the driver of the SUV not engaging the parking brake before parking somewhere on Pine St., but the actual cause of the tragic accident is still not completely clear.

The beloved mother and teacher leaves behind her husband, Morgan Pierce, 41, and her daughter, Elise Pierce, 16. Westchester High School will be holding a memorial this Saturday to honor Mrs. Pierce.

Denial:

You don’t remember the night you and dad found out. You don’t remember dad’s reaction. If he rushed to put on his coat and grab of his keys or if he shrank to his knees. It felt like something you should remember, your dad crying. Most people would cry too.

You don’t remember if it was a police officer who stood on the porch or someone else. You never saw his badge, you only heard the solemnity in his raspy voice as he told your mother was dead.

Maybe if you’d paid more attention, you’d remember the finer details. If you hadn’t clung fervently to a faraway hope that it was all a joke. You could accept that. If someone was just pretending to get your reaction for some reality TV show, that was manageable. At least then the headlights of your mom’s car would light up the driveway again. There were plenty of mothers. Why did it have to be yours?

You don’t remember if you fell asleep that night, or any of the others after. You must have, but the thoughts never left. It wasn’t her. It was someone else. Someone else’s mother and wife. Not yours. Not yours.

But there was no mistake. And somewhere deep inside of you, you knew this. But you kept it hidden far down in your stomach, hoping the acid would destroy it. But it kept rising whenever you ate, tainting the food with its foulness.

If the thoughts hadn’t distracted you, maybe you’d remember what finally made you stop denying it. Maybe it was seeing her body at the funeral; her face set solemnly, as if her death had been a peaceful one.

The police said it was peaceful, she died on impact, quick and painless. But they didn’t know your mother. The panic she felt as she saw the headlights coming towards her, knowing there was no time to stop. The fresh rain on the pavement and her skin as she fell. The way her eyes widened and then slowly closed.

***

You half expected to see her in the passenger seat of your dad’s truck. Excited to see you after your first quarter of college, bundled up with only her eyes and nose sticking out between the fur-lined hood of her coat and her knit scarf. You’d smirk because you’d remember how she hated the cold.

“Hey, mom,” you’d say.

She’d smile—her lips tight—not wanting to let the cold in.

But as you approached your dad’s old red truck. The passenger side was empty, cold. Dust and old receipts collecting on the cracked leather.

Anger:

You don’t remember filing your nails all the way down to the skin. Your fingertips warm and bloody. Maybe it was the realization, maybe it was that you were right. Maybe it was that you would never get to talk to your mother again. Never get to feel her hands run through your hair as she tucked you in at night. And it pissed you off. It was unfair. No one else you knew had lost their mother. And you didn’t deserve it. You didn’t go to parties like they did, they talked about how they wished their parents would leave them alone, but none of them really wanted it.

Maybe you’d remember the funeral better if you weren’t so angry. Did your father choose the yellow dress or the blue? She’d look beautiful in either. You probably wore the black silk dress that cinched a bit too tight in the middle. Someone probably told a story about your mother as a child; how she was model citizen, got straight A’s, and somehow found time to take classes at the community college. One of her old students would talk about how they hated math until she was their teacher. Everyone probably cried.

***

“You never talk back in class, Elise? What’s going on?”

Mr. Shapiro knew you. He knew you didn’t mean what you said. But it’d made the whole class laugh and forget that you were the tragic girl without a mom.

When you didn’t answer, Mr. Shapiro put a hand on your shoulder. He sighed, looking down at the tight woven carpet floors of the high school hallway.

“I know you’re going through a tough time. Since you’re not usually like this I’ll let you off. Why don’t you go to the nurse’s office and rest for a bit?”

You didn’t go to the nurse’s office. You walked out the front doors. No one stopped you. Dad never got a call. Grief let you break the rules.

***

You pulled the seams apart and felt as each stitch came undone, one by one. It was surprisingly easy to tear the dress to shreds, you just put your fingers beneath the threads and pulled until it wound out.

You pulled the heads off the baseball participation trophies from when you were seven and bashed the bases against the window sill in your bedroom until they crumbled into gold-colored dust on the floor. You broke the framed picture of the three of you at Disneyland four years ago, ripping the photo into the tiniest shreds you could manage.

Staring down at the destruction, the anger didn’t subside. You felt it gloss down your spine, which wired it to every point on your body. It tingled.

You don’t remember how your dad reacted when he found you in the pile of your destroyed accomplishments, if he screamed or if he understood. It really didn’t matter anyway, he was angry too.

But no matter how angry you got or how many memories you destroyed, she was dead. She wasn’t coming back.

Bargaining:

Maybe you’d remember why your dad lost his job if you hadn’t been so developed in trying to bring her back. He’d come home early one day, the final paycheck sitting on the kitchen table like a meal waiting to be eaten. You didn’t ask. You just knew.

You’d noticed he hadn’t been going to work, been drinking a little too much. He normally stayed in his bedroom all day, only leaving to make breakfast in the morning. But you weren’t sure you cared. You knew this made you a bad daughter. But none of this would’ve happened if you hadn’t begged for those stupid concert tickets your mom had gone downtown for that night.

The police retrieved them from the scene. They smelled rain and the ink ran from falling onto the pavement. The theater offered to honor them for the night, but you couldn’t bring yourself to go. You ended up tearing them up with all the other memories.

***

You don’t remember the hospital. You just know you woke up there one day, your wrists raw and bandaged and your father asleep with his head resting near your feet. The doctors kept bringing in a shrink who asked you a bunch of questions about your mother and her death. About how it made you feel.

You hated forgetting and knowing that one day you would forget what her voice sounded like and what color her eyes were. You couldn’t remember the shape of her nose or what she smelled like. If only you had paid more attention—written everything down—and hadn’t ripped up all your photographs. It was all your fault, all this forgetting.

***

The broken glass reflected off the carpet. Your roommate probably brushed the bookshelf on her way out and didn’t notice. The picture sat just beneath the broken glass, the frame matching the taped together cracks of the photo. You slid it out from beneath the glass, wincing as it clanked against the back of the frame.

You cradled the picture in your hands. It felt so fragile, if you bent it at all the tape would rip and it would fall back to shreds. The guilt came back to your chest, heavy and unrelenting. It’d been gone for years, but you knew you should’ve been more careful with the photo. It was your prized possession, you never should’ve put it on the bookshelf where it could be bumped so easily.

You took the photo to the bedroom and hid it in one of the desk drawers. It would be safe there until you could get a new frame.

Depression:

The candles flickered over the tiles of the school cafeteria creating small ringlets of light around every individual face. Some eyes shed tears that turned cheeks into riverbeds and others stared straight ahead as if they couldn’t take their eyes off the flame. Everyone agreed it was just a freak accident. It could’ve happened to anyone, they’d say secretly glad it wasn’t their anyone.

You and dad stood off to the side. You held the candle out, so it wouldn’t shed its light on you. The vigil was nice. Most of the school had come—students, teachers, the lunch staff—it should’ve made you happy to see everyone gathered there. But the candlelight blinded you. All you could see was the hundreds of tiny roaring flames everyone held in their palms.

***

You knew you should start looking for colleges to apply to and scholarships to apply for, but every time you cracked open the brochure you felt a weight on your shoulders pressing down, harder and harder. She won’t see you graduate. She won’t see what you become. What’s the point in becoming anything?

No one berated you for failing a test or gave you a lecture when you came home late. Your dad tried, he really did. He set curfews and asked in the gruffest voice he could muster if you had done your homework. You’d usually offer a half-hearted reply, sometimes the truth and sometimes not. He hardly ever questioned you, normally glancing back to the colorful newspaper comics.

***

Dad tried to keep life like it was before. But it felt like forgetting her. He still took you for ice cream on Friday nights. The fluorescent lights burned your eyes whenever you walked in. You always got the same thing—one scoop of chocolate almond—but you never were able to finish the whole thing. Your stomach turned, and the acid-washed into your throat, ruining your appetite.

“Have you found a job yet?”

“Maybe,” he said. “I have an interview on Friday.”

You nodded.

***

“Maybe if you weren’t so depressed all the time you could remember her,” you think. But you know it’s not true. You couldn’t remember her before then either. The pills the shrink gave you didn’t work, so you stopped taking them. Eventually, you flushed them all down the toilet, watching as they spiraled down into nothingness.

***

You awoke tingly fingers and tears in your eyes. The sobs threatened to break from your throat, but you held them back. You didn’t want to wake up your roommate. You’d already woken her up twice this year. She’d always understood, she was a psychology major. She knew how trauma never really left.

You got up and walked to the kitchen. You grabbed a glass of water, your thirst overbearing as the sweat and tears lunged from your body. Before you knew it, you were curled on the couch, the cool dark air enveloping you in its uncomforting embrace. The world could end around you. Earthquakes and fires and violence all around you and you wouldn’t care. You were numb. Your hands and feet had no feeling anymore and felt as if your eyelids always wanted to seal shut.

Sleep eventually overtook you like always. In sleep, you were surrounded by darkness, you were calm. Occasionally, thoughts would fall through the cracks in the darkness and you’d wake up wondering where your mother was, and you’d start the process all over and grieve once again.

Acceptance:

The acceptance letter came on a Friday after school. Dad wasn’t back from work yet, so you hid the letter in the back of an old picture frame until you could stomach it.

It took a week for you to muster up the courage to pull the letter out and show it to dad. When you did, his face lit up, his brown eyes showing more color than the brightest blue. He hadn’t even known you’d applied. And to be honest, you hardly remember. Mr. Shapiro kept you after school one day and walked you through the application forcing you to fill in all the empty white boxes on the screen.

You’re not sure how you got in. Whether they took pity on you or whether Mr. Shapiro knew more than he was letting on. The crinkled paper of the acceptance letter was all you knew for sure.

You won’t remember again until graduation day. The anxiousness of you and your classmates pulsated in the air. Caps and gowns fluttering just above the floor of the high school gym. You took your seat in the middle of graduates. Dad was seated not far away in the first row of the bleachers. He wore the same suit from the funeral—the only one he owned—but paired it with the sickly orange tie you’d bought him when you were six. You tried to stifle your laughter.

You noticed his fingers tracing over something. It wasn’t until you had gotten your diploma and met him outside in the crisp late spring air did you realize it was the orange lapel pin you’d gotten mom the same year—to match the tie. He pinned it onto your gown and despite the noise of parents congratulating their children and cries of happiness; all you heard was deafening silence.

***

You loaded everything in the truck. The boxes piled to the rim of the tailgate and the feeling persisted. You climbed into the passenger seat and your dad in the driver. You pulled out of the driveway when the song came on. You hadn’t heard it in months, probably years, but as soon as you heard it you remembered.

You don’t remember what was missing. You’d checked all the boxes repeatedly to make sure you had all the essentials. A winter coat for harsh Vermont winters, all your toiletries, your phone charger, everything down to your brand-new stapler was there. Yet, a sadness persisted, rooted deep in the back of your head. It worked to dig through your skull and force itself to be felt.

You told your dad to turn around, that you’d forgotten something. Once you were back in the driveway you bolted to the house and pulled out the cardboard box you kept hidden underneath your bed. Inside was the picture from that Disneyland trip all those years ago. You don’t remember when you finally found all the pieces and taped it back together, but somehow it carried even more memories that way.

You still feel a small pang of pain in your heart, but this time it’s different. Not exactly happy, but not exactly sad either. Dad smiles when he sees what you brought back. There’s tears in his eyes, but you weren’t sure it was because of your mother or because he was losing you too.

***

You’ll forget again. As soon as get to university and make friends and start your classes. But one day in the middle of April you’ll be walking home on your way back from the grocery store, hands full of bags, and you’ll hear her laugh or you’ll see a woman with a coat the shade of her eyes.

It’s when you least expect it. Someone will say cappuccino wrong and can’t help but think of her and giggle. Someone will open the door for you and they’ll have her smile. And in times when you most need it, when you’ve forgotten for a long time. You’ll find yourself calculating percentages in your head like she taught you, or you’ll see a copy of 1984 in the window of a used bookstore.

And you’ll remember.