Page 63 of Never Always
The guilt eases for how long, and how relentlessly I begged her to take me last night. “It’s just, I know you have a lot of work to get finished and all that.” I interlace my fingers in my lap and drag my fingers against each other. As a single mom, she makes it look effortless, and I’m getting to the age where I see through the cracks, know just how hard she tries to make everything seem a certain way. For me. “Do you think the whale show will be seating when we get there?”
Mom turns to look at the clock in the dashboard by the radio, her profile back lit by the sun. I have her hair and eye color, but she says the rest of me is my father. Even though he left before I was born, she’s never said anything negative about him, never faulted me for inheriting his cheekbones and sarcasm. “We just might. I’ll go a little faster so we can get the good seats. In the splash zone.” She meets my eye in the rearview mirror and winks.
“What do you think happens when a predator comes along while the whale is sleeping though? Would a shark try to eat them?”
Mom tucks her hair behind one ear, something she does a million times a day. “Whales don’t really have predators, they’re so big, you know? That’s a really good question for the whale show, maybe they’ll pick you to go down and feed the whales today! You could ask them.”
I’ve dreamed about it. Me with my arm waving in the air, them calling me down by saying, “You there, in the blue shirt, come on down.” Like in thePrice Is Right, except the whales are way cooler than any microwave or dumb trip to Germany. Whales are awesome. The sea is life. I don’t know what I’ll do when I grow up, but I know I want it to be related to water in some way.
“That would be the best day of my life,” I exclaim, leaning away from the sun farther. “They never pick me, though.” Mom has taken me at least thirty times since I was five years old. I’m ten now and I’m still not sick of it, still not ready to give up my obsession with the ocean and everything that resides inside of it. “They always pick the younger kids.”
Mom chides, “Not with that attitude. Think positive thoughts.”
I switch up my line of questioning. “Will you always take me to Ocean Adventures? If I want to go, will you always go with me?”
“What have I said about absolutes? The words never and always?” she asks, turning her directional on to veer into the turning lane. I look at the clock and see that it’s eleven-thirty. Only thirty minutes until the whale show starts.
I parrot what she wants me to reply with. “In all or nothing thinking, there’s no room for improvement or understanding. Absolutes are dangerous.” There’s a hole in the side seam of my favorite shirt and I play with it while I think about how to rephrase my question. Mom watches me in the rearview. “Mom, we’re going to be late for the show. All the splash zone seats will be full.”
“Corrick Granger, I’m going as fast as I can. Want to ask me about Ocean Adventures again, different this time?”
“I want you to take me to Ocean Adventures for the rest of my life. Will you?”
She grins, flashing a white smile at me. “Always is never promised, but I will love you and love taking you to Ocean Adventures forever.”
I stretch the hole in my shirt a little more as a lump forms in my throat. Mom starts the familiar hum and I know she’s about to sing a verse from her favorite poem. It’s always a different verse, and I’d never admit my favorite game is to guess which one she’s going to sing by the look in her eye.
“I’ll give you the love of a thousand sunrises,” she sings, voice pitched perfectly. I guessed wrong this time.
“Eww, Mom. No more. Don’t be so gushy. I’m not a little kid anymore. You can’t talk to me like that. Just say you’ll take me to the park. Jeez.” Most kids get sung lullabies as children. It’s a security blanket when they hear the familiar words. This poem is mine.
She laughs again, louder this time, and it’s all I hear as I watch a car skirt the guardrail on the opposite side of the highway. It flies through the air, looking very much like an out of control airplane, and crashes into the side of our car. Our car flips over so many times that there’s no way I can keep count. My teeth clenched, I hold on to my seatbelt and close my eyes as hard as I can. We land upside down, the car hissing and creaking. My neck is bent against the roof of the car and all of the blood is rushing to my head—my heartbeat is so loud that it’s hard to hear anything else.
I realize the faint sobbing I hear is coming from me, and I don’t know how to stop it. Opening my eyes, I see that my shirt, my favorite shirt that Mom bought me three visits ago, has risen up and covered my face. I see the whale tail and the words imprintedSave The Whales, except backward.
My arms shake as I pull the shirt away from my face, and I know that nothing is right. Nothing will ever be right again. Blood. It’s coating the front area of the car. Mom’s head is hanging, her blonde hair pooling on the ceiling as the blood streams down, coloring her hair dark red—scarlet.
“Mom,” I scream, but the word comes out like a gargle. “Are you okay?” I say her name over and over, and when she doesn’t respond, I say the only thing I can think might help. “I’m sorry. Mom, I love you. I love you. I love. I’m so sorry I wanted to go to Ocean Adventure. I’m sorry. Please, Mom. Be okay. I love you so much. You can be gushy.”
Catching my breath, I unsnap my seat belt and crawl to where the front seat used to be. It’s mangled, it doesn’t look familiar at all. I unclasp her belt, getting blood all over my hands and face. She lands on my lap with a soft thud. Mom’s eyes, her blue, crystal sea blue eyes, are open, staring straight ahead. The wound on her head keeps pulsing blood out and even though I know she’s gone, I put my hand on the wound to make it stop. To erase the ugly.
“I’m sorry,” I repeat again. When my tears blur my vision, I lift my shirt with my free hand and wipe them away.
I hold her until the firefighters pull me from the steaming wreckage. I look at her until they zip up the body bag. I still hear her laugh, though. It hangs in the air like an empty promise. I hold that, and her, in my heart always.
I commit her tuning hum to memory and sing, very badly, the last verse of the poem. The first, and the final thing she gave to me.
When my sun sets and
I’m not by your side
Gift my love to your heart
And offer a thousand and one
sunrises