Work Text:
we'll stand like two ghosts by the road
hitchin' a ride
watch how the blue follows
as you float by my side
/\/\/\
“It felt different when I thought it was an accident. I mean, it hurt of course. It was always going to hurt… but it was different. It wasn’t like how I feel now.”
It was a cold November morning in Rochester. The breeze from Lake Ontario chilled the bones of the city, driving pedestrians inside. The city was eerily quiet and empty. Heidi Hansen and Cynthia Murphy sat outside a coffee shop, watching their drinks grow as cold as them.
Cynthia didn’t respond to Heidi.
“I’m… sorry,” Heidi sighed. “I’ve never been good with words.”
“It’s fine,” Cynthia said sharply. A cigarette burns away between her fingers. Heidi hasn’t seen her take a single drag from it. She just sits, staring at it.
“I never knew that Evan felt that way,” Heidi continued. “When it was an accident, it was unfair, brought upon by some force none of us knew would happen. I was angry at the world. Then I learned that he… did it on purpose and… suddenly—”
“Suddenly you’re angry at yourself?” Cynthia added, punctuating with a question to dampen the bite.
“Yes. I’m angry at the world. I’m angry at myself… I’m angry at him.”
Heidi took a shuddery breath.
“And I shouldn’t be angry at him!” she practically shouted. “Because I didn’t know! I didn’t pay attention! It was, I was—”
“Please stop,” Cynthia said quietly this time, all sharpness she had prior dissolving in an instant. She finally put her cigarette to her lips. “I get it.”
Before the two women seated themselves outside, they had made small talk. Heidi explained her situation. Cynthia briefly mentioned her own. Both tried to be discreet sharing the basics of their experiences. One could only reveal so much devastation in a Starbucks coffee line.
“Connor wasn’t always difficult,” Cynthia said quietly, almost a whisper. “He was such a good kid, and then when school started it was like he was a… a monster. I tried so so hard when he was young to fix whatever broke inside him, but he just kept getting worse. I know I sound heartless, but… I feel like I lost my son years ago.”
Heidi finally took a drink of her coffee. Cynthia continued.
“I know that deep down he was a good kid. Maybe I tricked myself into believing that after so long, but there were moments where the Connor I raised was still there. But as soon as I saw that light switch on, he closed the blinds on me. So, I gave up.”
“But you at least knew something was wrong!” Heidi interjected. Cynthia’s glare could’ve killed her.
“And yet my son is still dead.”
“And so is mine, Cynthia.”
Heidi was crying. She had been since the moment they sat down. Her entire state of being was a waterfall spilling tears, words, anger, and sadness onto the ground beneath their feet. Now the runoff had frozen and both women were treading on slick, dangerous ice. Ice that was already starting to crack.
Hot tears appeared at the corners of Cynthia’s eyes.
“He was a good kid,” she repeated softly, to no one in particular. “Somewhere inside him, he was a good kid.”
“Would you,” Heidi asked cautiously, pausing between her words,” tell me about… him?”
“I think about his voice most often. It was always a bit higher than most boys his age, even when he hit puberty. There was a scratchiness to it, too, but that’s probably because he started smoking in middle school. I tore him apart when I found out. Funny enough, these were his.”
She holds up a pack of cigarettes that had been sitting on her lap.
“But this cigarette isn’t from this pack,” she continued. “I couldn’t smoke any of his. I just keep it in my purse next to my own.”
Cynthia brought the lit cigarette to her mouth again, but paused and scoffed at it, putting it out on the table and stuffing it in her pocket. She sighed. “I was never the best example.”
A silence fell over them. Cynthia finally took a sip of her coffee. Heidi shuffled through her purse, placing an old, battered composition notebook on the table. The name “Evan S. Hansen” was written across the front in wobbly but neat handwriting. At one point there were stickers on the notebook’s cover, but most of them had been torn off or worn away, leaving a white residue.
“Evan had a million of these,” Heidi said, a warmth in her voice. “He called them his ‘field books.’ It started with his science notebook in seventh grade, but he continued to keep them. He’d go on hikes and write down everything he saw, drawing out plants or even taking pictures and pasting them in the moment he had access to a printer. I’ve been reading through them ever since…”
“Connor had sketchbooks,” Cynthia breathed. “He would always be drawing, but I never got to see any of it. Still, for birthdays and Christmases I would always buy him a new one.”
“I’ve spent so much money on these notebooks alone.”
“Thank God for Hobby Lobby coupons!”
“Whenever Evan was let down by his dad flaking on some new camping trip or hike, or taking him to Colorado for a summer, I would buy him a new one, even if he wasn’t done with the old one.”
“Sketchbooks became peace offerings. Not for every argument, but the explosive ones that ended in slammed doors or holes in the wall, I’d buy him a new sketchbook and write a note hidden on one of the pages with a little doodle to accompany it.”
“I never knew anything about plants, but I would write affirmations, oddball medical facts, or something horoscope related. He always said the ‘star stuff’ wasn’t real science.”
“I don’t know if Connor ever paid attention to my hidden notes.”
Two conversations wove into one though neither Cynthia nor Heidi directly spoke to each other in the exchange. But they listened. They learned that the notebooks and sketchbooks were comfort objects for their sons. They were vehicles with which the boys saw the world and themselves. They were rare and private bonding moments, even if neither mother directly experienced those moments they tried to share with the lost boys. Heidi knew that Evan highlighted each of her little notes. Cynthia wondered if Connor just tore the pages out.
“I’m sure he did,” Heidi declared confidently, looking Cynthia in the eyes for the first time that morning. Cynthia pressed her lips together, her nose turning red.
“I hope so,” she whispered, composing herself quickly. “Evan sounded like a really smart kid.”
“He was... Smarter than I will ever be. I should’ve never forced him to do National Honors Society, or all of those science extracurriculars. It was either that, or he sit alone at home while I just worked. I didn’t want him to be alone. I thought being alone is what would make him lonely.”
“All parents surround their children with kids, activities, and school,” Cynthia sighed, “and it convinces us that they’re incapable of being lonely.”
“I know that now.”
“Me, too.”
There were no more tears, just stinging noses, frozen fingertips, and tight and tired voices. Coffees were half finished and cold as a bone. The ice bellow them became of stream that they floated on, reminiscing, sharing some, hiding most. Cynthia packed away Connor’s cigarette carton and placed a hand over Heidi’s.
“You were a good mother, Heidi,” she choked out, just barely. Heidi smiles sadly.
“You were, too, Cynthia.”
Cynthia left. Heidi stayed seated. Though they shared few words the whole time they had been in each other’s presence, they felt heard and understood.
They felt forgiven.
/\/\/\
and we will ride again
the road, the ocean
the sky is wide
and seems to be openin'