Free The Stories We Tell by Patti Callahan Henry Page A

it.”
    â€œI promise,” she says.
    Cooper gathers the dishes and I place them into the sink, the clanging and ringing of porcelain our only statement. He walks out of the room without a word. Gwen looks at me. “He hates me.”
    â€œOf course not.”
    â€œWell, I hate him.”
    â€œOf course not,” I say, repeating myself.
    â€œAs if you know how I feel. You’re not me.”
    Gwen takes the keys and leaves the house, slamming the door on the way out. I stand alone in the kitchen and sink into a chair when Cooper reappears in the doorway from the family room. “I need you to support me.” His voice is deep enough to reach the center of the earth.
    â€œWhat’s that?”
    â€œYou can’t negate me in front of Gwen. It’s not fair to me,” he says, using the palm of his hand to punctuate every word, as if pressing against an unseen wall.
    â€œShe’s just going to see Willa.”
    Cooper comes toward me. “You really think she’s going to see Willa?”
    â€œYes,” I say. “I do.”
    And then, sounding as if he’s absorbed the adolescent lingo, he says, “Whatever,” and walks away.
    *   *   *
    I rest on my half of the bed with my eyes wide open. Cooper is lying next to me. I’m on my side and I stare at the silver frame on my bedside table, which glints in the slight moonlight. The room is too dark to see the photo inside the frame, but I know what’s there: Cooper holding Gwen on the day she was born. He looks impossibly young to have a baby, although at the time he was twenty-seven years old. I was twenty-four.
    â€œBaby,” he says.
    I roll over and place my hand on his forehead, gently, so as to avoid the bandage. “How are you feeling?” I ask.
    â€œPercocet says I feel fine.” He smiles, and in the dark his teeth and the whites of his eyes shine through.
    The house creaks in the way it does when it’s left alone, and I try to find some words of solace. “I’m so sorry this happened. I know it was my sister’s fault, which makes me feel like it’s also my fault. I just don’t understand any of it.”
    â€œWhat don’t you understand?” He wraps an arm around me and pulls me closer, so my body runs along his, skin on skin.
    Yes, I think, my husband, I can ask anything. “Why did you make her leave the bar? I mean, what was she really doing? She wasn’t drunk. I’m trying to figure out what it … could be.”
    â€œAll I can tell you is that she seemed drunk. Other than that, I don’t know what to say. I didn’t ask her if she’d taken anything. Honestly, all I wanted to do was get her out of there because I’d been working so long with these clients that the last thing I wanted was to be embarrassed in front of them.”
    â€œWasn’t leaving them alone at the restaurant embarrassing?”
    â€œDinner was over. I was about to go anyway.…” He brushes his hand through my hair. “You know I don’t blame you. So you can stop saying sorry.”
    â€œI know.”
    His hand slips from my head and his eyes close. The pain meds are doing their job and my husband slips into sleep. I set my alarm so I can get up in four hours to give him another pill. “Stay ahead of the pain,” the doctor told me. Yes, stay ahead of the pain. I wish there was a way in the real world to do the very same damn thing.

 
    seven
    Now, days after the accident, there are brief moments when I’ll forget what happened to Willa and Cooper. I’ll cook dinner or roll cotton paper under the press and I’ll sense a deep heaviness before I remember: The accident . In the middle of the night, I’ll sense something terrible is about to happen before I realize that it already has.
    Willa is still in the hospital and is improving, thank God. In the next day or so, she’ll be allowed