Free One More Day by Kelly Simmons

when she’d said “they.” Had she seen a group of people nearby? A gang of teenagers maybe?
    â€œMaybe. I don’t remember.”
    â€œOtherwise, why did you say that, Carrie?”
    â€œI don’t know. I don’t remember what I was thinking, but I didn’t see anybody. I guess I just…assumed. I mean, how could one person do that so quickly? It doesn’t…make sense.”
    He had waited a long time before he’d nodded, agreed. There was something that clearly did not add up.

• • •
    At the hospital, the female nurse who dealt with trauma victims wore bright, printed teddy bear scrubs. She picked up a large sterilized kit from the table and smiled at Ben. An acrylic, pastel plaid curtain trembled on a metal rod, separating them from someone on the other side. Carrie didn’t want to see through the opening, but she could. She did. A girl. Sixteen or seventeen, alone, red-eyed, biting her nails, feet in stirrups. Carrie looked away, didn’t want to think about sex and teenagers. That girl should be doing her homework , she thought. Should have a test to worry about, some innocent concern, not this.
    They weren’t there long. No crying, no fuss. Ben had always been good with doctors and nurses, fine with getting his temperature taken, getting shots. He got that from John’s family, Carrie supposed, the ability to be both easygoing and stoic. Carrie held his hand but turned away, didn’t watch. She stared at an aqua wall, wondering how they’d chosen that particular shade. She heard the sounds of plastic packaging being opened, metal tools sliding on a tray, the snap of a rubber glove tempered by its powdery interior. But no crying from Ben, who just listened to his father telling him he was a big boy and he was doing great, buddy, way to go.
    An hour later, they were back in the car, driving to Ben’s favorite place for dinner, a diner that had fifty flavors of milkshakes. Carrie hadn’t been there in over a year, partly because it was a place you only went with a child and partly because she hadn’t allowed herself the pleasure of a milkshake, of a flavor, in a long time.
    â€œJohn,” Carrie said, “should we maybe go somewhere else?”
    â€œWhat? Why? He’ll love it.”
    â€œBut…we went there every Thursday. They’ll remember him. There will be…hoopla.”
    â€œHoopla?”
    She swallowed. It was a strange, old-fashioned word. Her grandmother’s kind of word. She had been full of words other people didn’t use anymore. Hoopla. Rapscallion. Balderdash. At her funeral, everyone had mentioned this singular tic kindly, with love.
    â€œThey’ll ask questions. It will turn into… It could be too much.”
    â€œI guess you’re right.”
    Why qualify it? she wanted to scream. Why couldn’t she just be plain right, obviously right?
    â€œThey have another one out by the mall, don’t they? We could go there instead.”
    She nodded. Yes. Let’s go where no one knows us, where we look vaguely familiar, but no one realizes who we are until the next day. John eased the car onto a back road that cut across the township, heading the back way to the mall, hiding, slinking, she thought. Like a criminal. Would everyone make something of that too?

• • •
    When Ben was a baby, they’d always taken turns putting him to bed. It was something a man could do at the end of a mother’s long day: one last bottle, a fresh person attending, still patient, willing to rock, to sing, and to shush. But the truth was Ben always wanted John to do it. From the moment he could reach out his arms, form his words, if John was home, Ben wanted him, not Carrie. Oh, he was content with her during the day. He loved his mother; Carrie knew he did. She told herself that, over and over— he loves me, he loves me, he loves me —singing it like a lullaby, those