Age 16

“When one burns one’s bridges, what a very nice fire it makes.”

—Dylan Thomas

Kyle finally made it to the house. So did Ian. We sit around the kitchen table and talk about anything except why our mother hated her life more than she loved us. Kyle tells me I was brave today. He treats me like I’m still twelve, even though I’ve been the man of this house since he left home six months ago.

Ian calls one of those companies that provide cleanup service after a death. One of the officers must have left their business card on the counter, knowing we would need it. I didn’t even know those existed, but Ian mentioned some movie he watched called Sunshine Cleaning a few years back about a couple of women who did it for a living.

The company sends two men. One man who doesn’t speak English and one man who doesn’t speak at all. He writes everything down on a pad that he keeps in his front pocket.

When they’re finished, they find me in the kitchen and hand me a note.

Stay out of the bedroom for at least four hours so the carpet can dry. Your total comes to $200.

I find Kyle in the living room. “It costs $200.”

We both look for Ian, but we can’t find him. His car is gone and he’s the only one with that kind of cash. I find my mother’s purse on the kitchen counter. “She has enough cash in her wallet. You think it’s okay if we use it?”

Kyle snatches the money out of my hands and leaves the room to pay the guys.

Ian returns later that afternoon. He and Kyle argue about whether or not he informed us he was going to the police station, because Kyle doesn’t remember Ian leaving and Ian says Kyle just wasn’t paying attention.

No one asks why he went to the police station in the first place. I think maybe he wanted to see the suicide letter, but I don’t ask him about it. After reading how in love she was with this guy Donovan, the last thing I want to read is how she couldn’t live without him. It pisses me off that my mother would allow the breakup over a man to devastate her more than the thought of never seeing her sons again. It shouldn’t even be a tossup.

I can almost see how her decision played out. I imagine her sitting on her bed last night, crying over the pathetic bastard. I imagine her holding a picture of him in her right hand and a picture of me, Kyle, and Ian in the left. She looks back and forth between the pictures, focusing on Donovan. Do I just end it now so I don’t have to live without this man for one more day? And then she looks at the picture of us. Or do I stick out the heartache in order to spend the rest of my life with three men who are grateful to have me as their mother?

What I can’t imagine is what would motivate her to choose the picture in her right hand over the picture in her left.

I know that if I don’t see for myself what was so special about this man that it will eat at me. A slow, painful gnawing that will chip away at my bones until I feel as worthless as she felt when she circled her lips around the tip of that gun.

I wait a few hours until Kyle and Ian have gone to their bedrooms and then I walk into her room. I search through all the things I read earlier, the love notes, the arguments, the proof that their relationship was as tumultuous as a hurricane. When I finally locate something with enough information about him on it to Google his address, I leave the house.

I feel odd taking her car. I just turned sixteen four months ago. She was saving up to help me buy my first car, but we hadn’t gotten there yet, so I just used hers when it was available.

It’s a nice car. A Cadillac. I sometimes wondered why she didn’t just sell it so she could afford two cheaper cars, but I felt guilty thinking that. I was a sixteen-year-old kid and she was a single mom who worked hard to get where she was in her career. It wasn’t fair of me to think we even remotely deserved equal things.

It’s after ten p.m. when I pull into Donovan’s neighborhood. It’s a much nicer neighborhood than the one we live in. Not that our neighborhood isn’t nice, but this one has a privacy gate. It’s not that private though, because the gate is stuck in the open position. I debate whether or not to turn around, but then I remember what I’m here to do, which is nothing illegal. All I’m doing is scoping out the house of the man responsible for my mother’s suicide.

At first, it’s hard to see the houses. They’re all really long driveways with lots of space between lots. But the further down I drive, the more sparse the trees become. When I close in on the address, my pulse begins to thump in my ears. I feel pathetic that I’m nervous to see a house, but my hand slips on the steering wheel from the sweat on my palm.

When I finally reach the house, I’m instantly unimpressed. It’s just like all the others. Pitched, pointy roofs. Two car garages. Manicured lawns and mailboxes encased in stone that match the houses.

I expected more from Donovan.

I’m impressed with my own bravery when I drive past the house, turn around, and then pull the car over a few houses down so that I can stare at it. I kill the engine and then manually switch off the headlights.

I wonder if he knows?

I’m not sure how he would, unless they have mutual friends.

He probably knows. I’m sure my mother had a multitude of friends and coworkers and a side to her personality I never saw.

I wonder if he cried when he found out. I wonder if he had any regrets. I wonder if he had the choice to go back and unbreak her heart, would he do it?

And now I’m humming Toni Braxton. Fuck you, Donovan O’Neil.