The Moment Before

Chapter Twelve

TWELVE

All the way down Vista, past the suicide bridge—where they just this week installed 9-foot screens to deter jumpers—past two Starbucks, and into the neighborhood that will lead to the park and then to Connor and whatever he’s found on Sabine’s phone, Martha’s texts intrudes.

We really need 2 talk.

            Can u meet me at Sbux?

            I hate that u r mad at me.

I’m mad at myself for even looking at them. Martha’s total OCD behavior when someone’s mad at her is endearing, in a way, but I really want to stay mad. How can she just charge forward with her life the way she has after Sabine’s death? And as for Nick? Was his Versace-slash-Johnny-Cash-Black grief just an act?

The week after my sister died, Nick was glued to our house. We were all zombies, sitting around the kitchen table, writing Sabine’s obituary. Deciding what picture to put in the paper. Where to have the big gathering after the funeral, whether to call it “a celebration of life” or “a memorial service.” It was like putting on some theater production with a week to cast the show, write it, rehearse our lines, decide on a venue and print out the tickets. All the while struggling in the numbness and disbelief that we’d lost Sabine.

We needed Nick for so many things. The Greenmeadow choir sang at her funeral, and Nick arranged that. He got the graphic design department at school to create the programs. And then there were the bread-and-butter details. Stuff like, In lieu of flowers, please send remembrances to The Humane Society. Martha came up with that—even though we weren’t exactly known for being one of those dog families. Why not cancer? I wondered. Why not the environment? Or even arts education? Naturally, I could see why we didn’t choose the cheerleading squad.

“When a child dies, it’s customary to choose an animal-related charity,” Martha assured us. And Martha would know that sort of stuff, so The Humane Society it was.

            Ironically, I’m pretty sure that was the beginning of Nick and Martha’s romance. And it happened under our roof, poring over the details of Sabine’s send-off. Nick helped with errands around town, and Martha coordinated casseroles. They both brainstormed the death announcement with Mom and ran interference when reporters wanted to talk with us. And then Martha color-coded all of my sister’s clothes, tidied up her room—staging it as though it were for sale. She created “the museum of Sabine,” explaining that she wanted to spare us the pain of having to sift through Sabine’s things until we were ready, but when we were ready, she explained, it would be easier to deal with an orderly version of her life.

            At first, I was grateful for their company. Dad was a mess. Not sleeping, not really awake. He sat in the family room in front of the flat screen for hours in a half-conscious state. A bottle of Jameson’s by his side. Mom, meanwhile, was an animated robot. Like some alien creature had inhabited her body, she was constantly moving from one thing to the next, check-off lists in hand. It was only after the service that she started to sputter and falter—forgetting to turn off burners, leaving her phone at home while slipping the remote to the TV in her purse. Having Nick see all of this, be around it, began to feel weird. His presence—the perfect 18-yr-old boy with everything to live for, everything ahead of him—began to remind me in deep, ugly ways that my sister would never grow any older. Soon, I would be the older sister. I would be a senior, then a high school graduate. College, career, marriage, kids, middle age, on and on I’d continue, and Sabine would always be eighteen. “They were so in love,” Mom exclaimed, wistfully, evening after evening, thumbing through the Spring Fling photos Martha had already glued into an album.