Read Detached for Free Online

next day. I was in that limbo for hours it seemed, until I remembered Anna and Joe. I knew they were both going to be devastated. I didn’t think I could face them with the news, but there wasn’t much choice.
    Joe’s school was closer, so he got home first, and as soon as I saw him, I saw the fear in his eyes.
    â€œAnna?” he asked, when he found me huddled in bed crying.
    â€œShe’s not home yet,” I managed to wail. “Granny and Gramps were in an accident. They’ve both been killed.”
    Joe’s knees buckled and he sank to the floor. I knew I should go to him but I couldn’t move.
    â€œI should have called you.” It was the only thought I could form until I heard the front door open.
    â€œMom?” Anna called from the living room. She wouldn’t know to look in the bedroom for me.
    â€œJoe?” she called out again.
    The house was too quiet, I realized too late. She knew something was wrong right away.
    Everyone deals with tragedy differently, I know that, but Anna’s reaction was almost eerie. She came into the bedroom and looked at Joe crying on the floor, then at me sobbing on the bed. I’d been crying for hours by then and my face must have been puffy and unrecognizable. Joe had his face buried in his knees. She didn’t speak a word but waited at the doorway. I wanted to say something, anything, but my throat was strangled with grief. Finally Joe took one long shuddering sob and said: “Granny and Gramps were in a car accident.”
    Anna stepped into the room and sat quietly on the end of my bed. Her cheeks were still red from being outside in the cold.
    â€œAre they okay?” she asked.
    â€œNo, sweetheart. They died.” I choked on the last word.
    â€œHow?”
    â€œTheir car went into the river.”
    â€œThey drowned?”
    I nodded and gasped.
    She sat on the end of the bed with her head down. She didn’t cry or move. I wasn’t even sure she was breathing. When my husband came home finally, she looked at him and scowled.
    â€œWhere have you been?” she asked.
    â€œWith the police,” he stammered.
    It was news to me.
    Anna handled their deaths remarkably well. She was stoic and proper, but I was a blubbering mess for months. I had so many of my own deep-rooted issues to work through, including the immobilizing anger at the drunk who slammed into their car one nondescript Thursday morning, that I barely had the energy to worry about anything or anyone else. I don’t think we went through with any of our Christmas traditions. I was too busy progressing through the stages of grief like the perfect student: denial, anger, bargaining, depression.
    I still haven’t moved on to acceptance yet. I can’t because I haven’t forgiven my mother for putting her art ahead of me. And then there were those unexplained absences, months at a time when she was mysteriously gone without an explanation. I’m still digging through a closet of dusty skeletons to find out what that was all about.
    When I finally recovered a little, after about six months when the shock at least lifted, I looked to Anna for signs of her suffering, but she never missed a beat. I watched her school grades for the slightest fluctuation, but nothing. She kept bringing home As and Bs in her academic courses and straight As in her art classes. I watched for her to lose interest in her art, but that didn’t happen either. If anything she became even more dedicated. I watched to see if she would pull away from us or her friends. But nothing of the sort happened. Her girlfriends were remarkably supportive and she seemed secure in their friendships. I was so relieved that she was going to be okay. I took pride in her strength. I assumed it was because she was young that she handled what I couldn’t, that she was coping so well because kids adapt without thinking. I was almost glad she didn’t have to lose them when she