done that since Christmas. She had come in here alone, late on Christmas Eve, and lay on his bed, clutching his pillow, and cried for hours. As usual, she hadn't dared tell Bill she'd been in there. He had told her once before that he thought the room should be kept locked, but when she asked him what he thought she should do with Todd's things, he had told her to do whatever she wanted. And she hadn't had the heart to take any of it apart. She just couldn't bring herself to do it.
“Shouldn't you put his things away?” Tanya asked her sadly. She could only imagine how difficult it would be, but she wondered if it would be healthier for them. Or maybe they should think about selling the apartment. But she didn't dare say that.
“I just couldn't,” Mary Stuart answered her. “I just can't put his things away,” she said, and tears roiled down her cheeks all over again, thinking of the child who had once lived there. “I miss him so terribly… we all do. Bill doesn't say anything, but I know he must too. It's killing him… it's killing all of us…” She knew how it hurt Alyssa too. She had seen her go into his room once. And she didn't think it was a complete mystery why she wanted to stay in Paris. Who could blame her for that? Coming home was pretty depressing, and for the moment, there was no relief in sight. Neither she nor Bill seemed to have recovered.
“It wasn't your fault,” Tanya suddenly said firmly, taking her friend by both arms, and looking into her eyes with a sense of purpose. It was as though she was meant to be here. “You have to believe that. You couldn't have stopped him once he made his mind up.”
“How could I not see what was happening to him? How could I love him so much and miss it completely?” Mary Stuart knew she would never forgive herself for what she hadn't seen and what had happened.
“He didn't want you to see it. He was a grown man, he had a right to keep his own secrets. He didn't want you to know, or he would have told you. You're not expected to know everything, to see into someone's mind. You couldn't have known, Mary Stuart, you
“I'll always think it was my fault,” Mary Stuart said sadly, but Tanya would not let her go. She was determined to free her from the hooks that held her. It was the ultimate act of friendship, and a matter of Mary Stuart's survival.
“You're not that important,” she said quietly. “As much as he loved you, you weren't that important to him. He had his own life, his own friends, his own dreams, his own disappointments, his own tragedies. You couldn't have made him do it if you wanted to, and you couldn't have made him not do it, no matter how much you wanted to. Not unless he had come to you, and begged you to stop him. And he would never have done that, he was too private a person, just like you are.” Tanya was very serious as she looked her in the eye, determined to help her friend now.
“But I would never do anything like that,” Mary Stuart said, still staring at her son's picture, as though she could still ask him why it had happened. But they all knew why now. It was so pathetically simple. The girl he had loved for four years had died in a car accident, on an icy New Jersey road four months before, and he had quietly sunk into an ever deeper depression. No one had realized how depressed he was, or the full extent of his despair after she died. They had thought he was coming out of it at Easter. But in retrospect, Mary Stuart had realized that he only seemed happier at Easter because he had probably decided to do it when he went back after the vacation. He had been so close to his mother then. They had gone for a long walk in the park, and talked philosophically and laughed, he had even talked in vague terms about his future. He told her he knew now he would always be happy. And then he did it, the night he went back. He committed suicide two weeks before his twentieth birthday, in his room in Princeton. The boy in the next room had found him. He had come in to borrow something and he had found Todd in bed, asleep, and something about the way he lay there aroused suspicion. He had checked him immediately and administered CPR, until the police and the fire department came. But they said later that Todd had been dead for several hours when the boy found him. He had left a note to each of them, telling them that he felt so peaceful and so calm, and so happy at last. He said it was cowardly of him, he knew, and he regretted any pain he would cause them, but he simply couldn't live without Natalie anymore. He said he had truly tried. And he hoped that once they forgave him, they would be relieved to know that he and Natalie would be together forever in Heaven. Although his parents had said they were too young, he had wanted to marry her, after graduation, the following summer. And in a sense, Todd said in his note, they were married now. And through it all, once they heard the news, and long afterward, Bill had blamed Mary Stuart. He said that she had filled his head with foolishness and romantic notions, she had allowed him to become too seriously involved with Natalie for the past four years, and if she hadn't forced religion on him, he would never have had such absurd notions of the hereafter or of God. According to Bill, Mary Stuart had, in fact, set the stage for disaster. And he laid Todd's suicide entirely on the conscience of his mother. At the time, what he said to her had almost killed her. But more than anything he could have said to her was the agony of her loss of her older child, her only son… her firstborn… the child who had always been her sunshine, and brought her so much joy and pride.
And as Tanya listened to her, she wanted to go to Bill Walker and shake him. His accusations were the most insane she had ever heard, and she sensed easily that he was trying to ease his own pain, and feelings of failure, by blaming it all on Mary Stuart. It was so cruel, it was almost beyond bearing. And it was easy to see what had happened to Mary Stuart as a result. She was nearly dead inside.
“The poor kid.” Mary Stuart was sobbing quietly as they sat in his old room, still trying to understand why he had done it, a whole year after he had. “He was so in love with her, when he got the call after Natalie's accident, I thought it would kill him.” And in the end, it had. It had killed all of them. There was nothing left of Mary Stuart now, or Bill, or their marriage. They had all died with Todd, the important parts of them anyway, their hearts and their souls, and their dreams, had all died with the boy they had so loved and had lost so unfairly.
“Have you ever gotten angry at him for all this?” Tanya asked, and Mary Stuart looked startled.
“With Todd? How could I?”
“Because he hurt all of you. Because he took something from you. Because he chickened out when he should have had the guts to live through it, and he should have told you how much pain he was in.”
“I should have known.” Mary Stuart turned it on herself again, but Tanya wouldn't let her do that.
“You can't know everything. You're not a mind reader, you're just a human being. And you were a wonderful mother to him. He shouldn't have done this to you.” Mary Stuart had never even allowed herself to think those things, and it frightened her to hear them. “It wasn't fair of him, and you know it. And it's not fair of Bill to blame you. Maybe it's time for you to get good and mad at both of them. They've put an awful lot on your back, Mary Stuart.”
For a long moment, she didn't say a word as she looked at Tanya. “I've felt it was my fault since the night he died.”
“I know you have. But that was kind of convenient for everyone, wasn't it? Maybe even now, Todd needs to take responsibility for what he did. Maybe you need to give that back to him, and tell Bill what you think. You can't just silently accept all the guilt and all the burden of what happened. Todd goes down in history as a hero, and not a poor, sick, foolish kid who did an incredibly stupid thing we'll all regret forever. But whatever it was, for whatever reason, maybe that was his destiny. And it is what happened. It can't be changed now. You can't take it back, or make it your decision, or your fault. It was all his doing. And Bill has no right to blame you, that's how he absolved himself. It was all
“I know,” she said softly. “I figured that out a while back, but it doesn't change anything. Bill will never admit it. As far as he's concerned, it's all my fault.”
“Then maybe you should leave him. Or are you going to let him punish you for the rest of your life? Are you going to stay on your knees for the next forty or fifty years, whispering ‘mea culpa’? That's a long time to feel guilty. You're way too young for that.” Listening to her was like having someone pull the drapes back in a dark room and let in huge splashes of sunshine. She had been sitting in a dark comer for a year, lost in the gloom, and grieving. And it was odd sitting in this room while they talked about it. It was almost as though Todd was with them. And listening to Tanya speak to her suddenly made it all seem very different. She wanted to be angry at Bill, wanted to shout at him, and to shake him. How could he be so stupid? How could he have destroyed their marriage?
“I don't know what to think anymore, Tan. It's been so confusing. And poor Alyssa, it must have been a nightmare coming home for Christmas last year. We were all such a mess, she couldn't wait to go back to Paris.” In the end, she had left four days early. And that had made her mother feel even more guilty.
