“Not a day goes by when I don’t miss her. But just remember what a free and big spirit she was, how she embraced life and always wanted to have fun. She would want the pair of you to be happy and to live your best life. Whatever that means, she would want it for you.”
“It’s up to us to keep Sadie alive in our hearts by living our dreams. For doing what she couldn’t,” Mom continues as if she can’t sense how much inner turmoil this is giving me. “We owe her that much.”
“Even if we are the ones to blame for her death?” I don’t even know who says that. It could be me or Jill, I suppose it doesn’t really matter. We are clearly both thinking the same thing. “Even if she hated us?”
“Oh, Jill, she never hated you.” Huh, I guess it was Jill in the end. “She loved you, you know that.”
“She did… until she passed away. The night that she died, she hated us… we fought… it was awful…”
Oh God, now she’s really crying like we have gone back four years in time and we’re in the middle of the road and sobbing together. All I want to do is wrap my arms around her and hold her, but I can’t.
“I know that she was shocked to find out that you two were together,” Mom replies, seeing it from an outsider perspective and clearly trying to make us feel better about the whole mess. “Of course it was a surprise to her. And knowing my daughter, she lashed out and said some terrible things because she was a hot head.” She laughs, thinking back to all of the temper tantrums that my sister threw. “She was always hot head but she calmed down just as easily, she always cooled off quickly and would think about things rationally afterwards. She didn’t have a chance this time. But that isn’t your fault. You can’t blame yourself for the actions of a drunk driver.”
“But… but she wouldn’t have been out there if it wasn’t for us…” Jill glances at me and I don’t know what to say. I should join in and say my piece, but I’m too dumb struck and shocked. “We are to blame…”
“You can’t think that way, it will eat you up forever.” The words coming from my mother’s mouth now remind me a lot of what my therapist has been trying to say to me. But understanding the concept and actually applying it are two very different things. “It was just a horrible accident, one of those things, it can’t be changed…”
As Jill cries harder, Mom can’t hold herself back any longer. She jumps up and scoots around the table as quickly as she can to envelop Jill in a much needed hug. I stay just watching them for a minute, but soon realize that I want to join in, that I need to.
We hug for a while, holding on to one another and working through the grief. There is something a little more freeing today than anything before.
“You two…” Mom finally rasps as she pulls back to look at us both. “You two could have been together if this hadn't happened. I always loved the idea of you guys as a couple. Sadie would have as well, given time to get over her temper. I just wish…” She sniffs loudly. “I wish you could have seen what you could’ve been.”
I catch Jill’s eye and I see the same thought in her mind. She wants to know what we could have been had our lives not been shattered. There’s a tiny voice in the back of my head, screaming at me, wondering what we could still be, if either of us were brave enough to just go for it.
“We need a drink.” Mom brushes her tears away. “This has been a crazy night. I didn’t mean for it to get like this. We can toast to Sadie.”
As Mom heads into the kitchen to get our drinks, and I find my eyes locking with Jill’s. She might not be crying anymore, but there is still emotion plastered across her face and I can feel it too. There is something lingering here now between us after what my mom said. Could this happen again? Could we get past everything we went through and be normal and in love?
My mom actually wants us to be together, I think to myself, trying to digest the magnitude of that. She thinks that Sadie would too… but how do I feel about it? How does she?
I can’t tell. I have to be careful, this isn’t the same Jill that I was head over heels with four years ago. I mean, she is in a lot of ways, but this changed us both. So, I can’t tell myself that I know just what she’s thinking because it isn’t as simple as that.