Free The Mourning After by Rochelle B. Weinstein Page A

never coming back.
    “I’m sorry, Dad,” Levon whispers and before the words escape his lips, he knows they are insufficient.
    A tear drips down his father’s left cheek.  He doesn’t wipe it off.  It continues until it lands on the newspaper in a splotch of black ink.
    “I know you are, son,” he says.
    Levon wants to remind him, “ I’m here.  I’m alive.” but he decides it’s best he not draw any more attention to himself.
    His father rests on his elbows and hides his face behind lean fingers.
    Levon says, “I miss him.  Everyone’s so angry.  If I could change anything about that night, you know I would.” 
    “Levon…” Craig slowly lifts his head.
    “When is she going to stop punishing me?  When are you all going to stop punishing me?”
    “Levon,” he says it again, “it’s been a week.  Give her some time.  Give me some time.  This isn’t easy for any of us.”
    “And what about me?” he asks, his voice rising with each unanswered question.  “What about me who’s going to school today, and everyone will be looking at me like I’m some kind of murderer?”
    He flinches at this.  The word, which had lain dormant, made the atmosphere around them boil.
    “We told you, you don’t have to go if you’re not ready.”
    “I have to go,” he says.  “I have to get out of here.”
    “It’s not going to be easy.”
    “Maybe,” he agrees, “but I can’t sit in this house one more day with the two of you loathing me.”
    This is the point in their exchange when Levon’s father slowly comes undone.  The timing is apropos because Chloe and his mother are stepping into the room.
    “You should have thought of that,” he scolds Levon in a controlled, quiet voice that breaks under the pressure of emotion.  As the accusation floats around them, so, too, does his anger.  “You should have thought of that before you took the wheel of a car without a driver’s license and risked your brother’s life as well as the lives of other people on the road.  Hell, you’re lucky you didn’t kill yourself.  How would it have made you feel leaving your mother and me to bury two sons?”
    “It was a mistake,” Levon shouts, “a mistake I’ll live with the rest of my life.”  He stops to catch his breath.  “Don’t you think I know that?  Don’t you think never seeing David again is punishment enough?”
    Madeline is bawling into the palms of her hands, and Chloe has shrunk into the corner of the room.
    “You should have never left this house…you should have never left your sister!” his father hollers at him, the disdain coloring his words.  “What were you thinking?  What the hell were you thinking?”
    “You did bury two sons,” Levon interrupts, his voice hoarse and shrill, caught between a cry and a shriek. “I’m here, but you treat me like I’m not.  I may as well have died in the accident.  I was trying to help David that night.  He needed me, and I was trying to help.  I would never hurt David…”
    “Help him?” his mother wails.  “Help him?”
    “Mommy,” Chloe screams, “Daddy, please stop.  Please stop yelling at Levon.”  Her hands are covering her ears, and she has closed her eyes to shut out the sounds of their shouting.
    His mom is in a state that borders on complete loss of control.  She is shriveled up in a ball on their porcelain floor.  Chloe is begging for her to stop.  Craig is staring at Levon, as if to say, See what you’ve done.  See what you’ve done to us.
    She is calling out his name, screaming David as if her pleading will bring him back, make him appear.  The long week of suffering has come to a close, and what she has held back in the company of family and friends is exploding on the brand new marble tiles.  I want my baby back, I want my baby.  Please God, bring him back to me, please bring him home.   She is punching the floor and shaking and writhing.  Her hair is scattered in clumps, hiding the tears that