January, 2018.
"Kevin? Are you home?"
Kevin heard a door opening and startled at the voice of his mother. He was so caught up on his memories, drowning in self-deprecation that it took him a few seconds to come back to the present and he panicked when he realized that his eyes were puffy and his make-amends list was still on his hands.
"Yeah!" He said, hoping that she wouldn't come to the living room.
"Randall told me you helped him today. That's good. Are you hungry? Miguel won't be home for another two hours, but I can make you something."
The voice was coming from the kitchen. Kevin quickly put the paper back on his pocket and wiped the remaining tears on his eyes, hoping that she wouldn't notice anything abnormal. When he saw her coming, he got up and walked to the other side of the room, where the dim light could hide him. "Hmm, yeah, no, no. Don't worry, I'll..." he paused, trying to find the right excuse to get out of there, his mother staring at him. "I'll just go upstairs to take a shower, then I'll make a sandwich or something."
Anxious to get out, Kevin didn't notice his hand was still holding the pendant in front of his chest until his mother turned on the lights and came walking towards him. "Is this your necklace? Did you get it back?" She was smiling, but then she looked at his face, while he only nodded, because he couldn't find the strength in himself to speak. "Kevin, sweetheart, are you okay?"
"Yes, I'm great." He said, knowing he couldn't convince anyone. "It's just..." His voice broke and Rebecca rubbed his arm.
"Sweetie, what's going on?"
Unable to handle the physical proximity, he walked back to the couch and sat again on the same spot he had been before. "It's nothing, it's just..." Rebecca came to sit by his side and waited patiently as he decided what to say. He could see she was really concerned and he felt like crap for making her feel like that again. He had to give her something, he wouldn't just snap out of the conversation and hurt his mother. Again. "I got this on the mail and... All those feelings and all those memories came back." She nodded, encouraging him to keep talking. "Lots of memories. It's been twenty years and it's like they're all here, in my hand. The only thing I'll ever have from..." He couldn't finish the sentence.
Kevin watched as his mother put her hand inside of her shirt, taking off her half-moon golden necklace. She looked at it and smiled, as if she was also being transported to another time, a better time when they didn't miss a piece of their hearts. "We don't have many things left, that's what's devastating about having lost our house too. But you and I, we are lucky, Kev. We can carry your dad's symbol of love right next to our heart and we can hold these little things and remember him. I wish your sister and your brother could have that too."
The pain was so strong it filled his whole body and he didn't know what to do, he didn't want to be that vulnerable in front of his mother. Putting up his walls again, he chuckled. "Yeah, and at least you guys got your goodbyes."
His voice sounded more harsh than he wanted to and Kevin closed his eyes and bent his head down, already regretting his words. None of them spoke for a few seconds, until she broke the silence. "What do you mean?"
He shrugged, still looking at his feet. "I wasn't home." He answered slowly and with the corner of his eye he could see her nodding in acknowledgment. Now that he had put it out there, he had to go all the way. And he deserved it. He deserved that pain to get worse and worse, he deserved his mother to be reminded of how horrible he was to them. "I should be there and I wasn't. That's one more thing I didn't live with you guys. If I was there, maybe things would have been different."
His mom touched his face, forcing him to look at her. "Kevin, I thank God every day that you weren't there. Because if you were..." Her voice broke and she looked up, trying to avoid the tears with no success. "You were injured. You couldn't walk without your crutches..."
"I know," he interrupted before she finished her line of thought. "It's just... I was sleeping on the couch most nights, I would've noticed the fire before it did what it did."
She shook her head, staring at him lovingly. "There's no way you could know that now. Maybe you could have saved your dad, but you also could have died. How is that better?"
He swallowed hard and his voice came almost as a whisper. "Then he wouldn't have died being hurt by what I said."
January 25, 1998.
"Hey, babe. What took you so long?" Rebecca said as her husband walked through the door. It was late and she was tired of cooking and dealing with the issues of three teenagers.
Jack took off his plaid shirt, sat by her side on the bed and kissed her softly on the lips. "Did some cleaning, talked to Randall, left a note to Kev, said goodnight to Kate."
"A note? What is that about? Are you still mad at him?" She asked. She wished Kevin would have come home and talked in person to both of them. It broke her heart to see her son being so distant.
Jack sighed. "No, not mad, Bec. I feel sad," Rebecca nodded, she knew exactly how he felt. "As a parent, I want him to fix his attitude, but as a human being, I get why he's so angry. And I think he needs us now more than ever. So I left a note saying I love him, but he still needs to apologize."
"That's a very Jack thing to do," Rebecca smiled, filled with love for her perfect husband. What would she ever do without him? "And you're right. Kevin has the right to be angry at the world, but he doesn't have the right to treat us like that, and that's what kills me inside. I don't know when I have to scold him and when I have to support him. I don't know what to do to get to him. He never lets us in, Jack."
Jack looked into her eyes and she could see the concern, but also the love. And she was filled with love as well, for her husband and for her children.
"We'll get there, babe," he said sweetly, before kissing her one last time.
January, 2018.
"Then we heard a noise and it was getting hot, so he opened the door and well, you know the rest."
As Rebecca told him about the last minutes of normal life his father had, Kevin stared at her, but he couldn't see her, he couldn't speak, he couldn't feel anything but the excruciating pain inside of him. He knew a big flow of tears was coming from his eyes, but at this point he had given up on making them stop. He blinked once, twice, three times, before her face became familiar again and he saw that his mom was as disturbed as he was. She moved her hand, getting it closer to him and then withdrawing it again, as if she didn't want to touch him. That gesture hurt him and Kevin didn't know he could hurt more. But he knew it was his fault, he was the one that put that barrier between them, so he was the one who had to break it. Then he did it. He got closer and hugged the woman that gave him life.
The two were there for a few minutes. After that fateful night for the Pearsons, Kevin spent nights and nights crying in silence, so no one could hear him. By himself, he was a wreck, but in front of anyone, he was strong, he was tough, he was brave. He left home, he got married, he faced the world and never looked back. He didn't know how to handle his feelings, so he learned to avoid them.
But now, with his mother's arms around him and after listening to her talking about the last conversation his parents had - a last conversation about how they were worried about him and how they didn't know how to get to him - he felt both comfort and a new kind of guilt. Not the guilt for not having apologized to his late dad, but to have pushed his mother all this years. Thankfully, that mistake he could still fix.
Rebecca held him tightly until he felt ready to pull away.
"Are you okay?" She asked.
He took a few seconds to answer. "Yeah," he said. "Are you okay?" She only nodded, still staring at him and waiting for his next move.
He smiled slightly. "Why didn't you ever tell me that?"
She thought for a while. "I guess I didn't think you'd want to hear it, you always snapped every time we talked about him. Then I guess I just didn't feel it was the right time."
Kevin nodded, understanding. He couldn't blame her. He looked into her eyes and said those words one more time. "I'm really sorry, mom."
She touched his face and put her hand on his neck, the same way his dad used to do. "You don't have to apologize, Kevin. I forgave you. Your dad forgave you. You can forgive yourself too." As he didn't say anything, she continued. "You know, he wasn't there when his father died either. You were about ten, I guess. Your dad chose not to be there, he chose to spend his time with us instead, and though your grandfather was terrible to him and to his mother, your father still carried that weight with him. He wouldn't want you to carry that too."
"Yeah..." He said, still trying to absorb all that. Then his mother repeated.
"You can forgive yourself."
With a deep breath and a new determination, Kevin decided that he didn't want the weight anymore. He would forgive himself. For his dad.