All photos by Halle Wellington.

Orange Juice

In this series, Halle Wellington shares original works of fiction imagining the stories behind the songs she loves. This installment is inspired by Noah Kahan’s “Orange Juice.”

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February 23rd, 1997: 2:07 am

This first thing I remember is wanting to be held. There was blood on my hands and everywhere I could see, but whose it was seemed unknowable. I remember Will obliging, grabbing me and holding my head tight to his chest without asking any questions. I also remember his grip loosening as he realized Wilder hadn’t moved yet. We both cried. Cried as we realized everything that had just changed. A stupid, insignificant moment had just defined our lives. And I can’t even remember it.

The air was freezing when I finally got out of the car. Maine winters were never known for being less than, but this felt different. Like I was going from a sauna to the bottom of the Atlantic. Underwater. I felt underwater. No words seemed to form in my head, and voices felt far away. I remember looking at Wilder as they took him out of the car. He wasn’t moving and it didn’t seem like the paramedics expected him to. His coat was ripped and spilling over the sides, dyed with a mixture of debris and blood. For a second I thought I was looking at myself, maybe hoping. That would make the next part so much easier. It clicked that I had a concussion. Maybe I finally was able to hear someone, or maybe I could just tell. But they were wrapping Will up in some bandage so he must have at least broken something. It was then that I started crying again, as me and Will locked eyes between the lights and moving figures. I felt like he was holding me again, and wished everyone would go away. That I could go away. I tried to go to him. To hold him or be held I don’t remember but I know I just wanted to be next to him. The paramedics wouldn’t let me, saying they needed to run more tests, but it all seemed so futile in the moment. Miniscule compared to the need to be next to the only person who saw what I saw, who felt was I was feeling.

March 9th, 1997: 7:00 am

Wilder’s funeral was held two weeks later. The cuts on my head were scabbed over and turning dark brown. My nails seemed to permanently have dirt under them, and my skin was dry and cracking from the frigid winds.

My mother and I stood in her and my father’s cluttered closet in the early morning light, searching for a suit that would fit my depressed, childish body. The air in the room was suspended. Encasing. My mothers hair was ratted, her face bare. She wore her pale pink robe that was so old it was more gray, and it dragged on the carpeted floor of the walk-in closet as she shuffled from rack to rack, searching. I knew nothing in here would fit me properly, and that I would never look the way she would want me to look: wearing a tailored, elegant suit and probably about 70 years older. But I let her search, biting my tongue. She held up various jackets and shirts up to me without saying a word. She would lift a shirt, tilt her head, lightly shake a no, then put it back and move on. This went on for about twenty minutes.

“Ma, I know it’s hard but its getting late,” I hesitated. “Why don’t you finish getting ready and I’ll try on a few options.” She looked at me stone-faced and so unmoving I felt as though I was staring at a statue of my mother, replaced in the second I looked away. I stared at her storied skin and saw so much sadness. I couldn’t help but see all the mistakes I’d made written all over her face as she locked eyes with me. She hadn’t talked much since the accident, to anyone. No one pried, but you could tell we all wondered if this was the new norm. She gripped her mouth and nodded ever so slightly before exiting the closet, gently touching my back as she pushed past.

The dim lighting in the closet made everything look dull gray. But I guess that was fitting. I knew I had lost weight in the past weeks and likely wouldn’t fit in most of my father’s clothes but tried my luck towards the back section: the oldies. I tried on a few jackets over my stained Sea Dogs shirt that I slept in and landed on a deep brown one that was hiding at the far end. It must have been from a while ago because it almost fit, the shoulders only a bit oversized. I grabbed a random dark colored button down to match, knowing I would just have to tightly tuck the excess fabric into my pants, and got the fuck out of there.

My father sat in the kitchen, dressed since the wee hours, stewing over a beer. He had one good suit that he wore for any dressed occasion so getting ready wasn’t too laborious. Since the accident, my father mostly acted out of practicality. He filed paperwork, payed bills, grocery shopped when needed. He was there to keep life moving. I only saw him truly cry over Wilder once. A few days after, when I was back from the hospital but still couldn’t sleep through the night, I went downstairs to get water. Before I made too much noise, I heard a soft whimper from the living room. I peaked my head around the corner, knowing he wouldn't want me to be there for this, and saw my father clutching his chest in agony. I’ve never seen him like that and decided that was purposeful. I detoured to the upstairs bathroom instead and took a gulp from the sink. The next morning he was the same old dad I’ve always known.

The house was heavy with silence that morning. Each of us was doing the things on our task list: wake up, brush teeth, get dressed, go to family member’s funeral. There wasn’t much any of us wanted to talk about. It was March in Maine and the air hit our faces like a thousand shards of glass, but Wilder was to be buried in the local cemetery, so that’s where we went. There was a small, silent crowd all bundled in long down coats and wool hats with presumably useless dark formal attire underneath. My mom brought a small but ornate picture frame bearing a wide-smiled Wilder that she placed on the waiting casket. A priest spoke nice, meaningless words at us and we all bowed our heads in grace. My mother spoke, nearly intelligible, while me and my dad stood silently by her side.

Towards the end of her speech, I looked at the faces of the people listening for the first time. There were a lot of townies I’d known since birth, family I’d recognized from pictures, and many glass eyes with frostbitten noses beneath them. I locked eyes with Will, who stood farther back in a long, dark coat that nearly reached his knees, with the knot of a navy tie peeking out from the collar. For a moment, we were looking at one another from sister ambulances, letting the world go on without us. I thought I saw the edges of his lips curl up ever so slightly. A simple gesture saying it was okay that I was here and he was not. But the wind blew it away, and my mom finished her speech.

A crowd of people came back to our house for a wake. Every surface was filled with a lasagna, a cookie, or a beer. Coats were shed, and kids started to forget why their parents had brought them here. I couldn’t remember the last time the house had held noise like this. It wasn’t the deafening silence I had become used to. I heard my mother talking. Someone had pointed out a particularly happy picture of Wilder and I at a pumpkin patch. I was six at the time, making Wilder eight and therefore already a foot taller than me.

“What is all over Charlie’s face?” someone said to my mother.

I joined in at the mention of my name: “I was about three scoops of Moose Tracks in by the time that picture was taken.”

I glanced at my mother, hoping to manage her emotions in a quick look. She still looked broken. But perhaps in a nostalgic, bittersweet way.

“They were perfect,” I heard her croak. “I’ll remember them that way.”

I knew what she meant. But for a moment I felt like a ghost amongst the living: transparent, gone. I would never blame my mother for acting as if part of me died with Wilder. I was almost positive that a part of me did. I felt it missing, deep down. I wasn’t sure what part it was, or how big, but I could feel icepicks through my stomach that I couldn’t feel before, so something must have gotten out of their way.

I stayed busy cleaning as the night progressed. Picking up cups here and there, occasionally washing dishes as they stacked higher in the sink. Every once and a while I would get an affirmative nod from a father or a tender smirk from a mother. “So helpful,” I imagined them thinking. “How hard this must be for the family,” and, “His mother must be grateful he’s around.” I bit back at them in my mind. She thinks I’m gone.

February 15th, 2007: 9:00pm

The house seems already filled as I pull up the driveway. I can hear a slight murmur of voices close to my ear. My face grows hot and itchy while my palms get slick. I haven’t been home in at least five years. At least, not for anything more than a night or two. It looks the same. I think. The windows are still windows, and the grass is still brown and compact on the icy ground. I see Will’s car in the driveway

alongside other family friends’ rides. He’s had the same car since highschool, a dark green Subaru with a Maine flag sticker on the bumper.

The old, familiar crowd I know is waiting squeezes at my chest, pulling at a side of me that hasn’t surfaced for a long time. It yanks too hard and draws a tear, slow and steady. I feel the rims of my eyes grow hot and red and urge them to calm down. I grab my small duffle from the passenger seat before my mind can stop me and head inside.

The house is warm and bright compared to the outside frost. My mother stands in the kitchen in a large gray sweater that covers her hips, and my father sits at the kitchen table dealing out cards to two men he works with whose names I can’t remember. The house smells of firewood and freshly blown-out birthday candles. Kids playing tag race by my legs like a train leaving the station and as I stumble out of their way, I see Will in the corner with a beer. His smile is tender and apprehensive, like if he grinned too sincerely, it might push me down. Without breaking eye contact, he yells to the crowd in the kitchen. “Amy! I owe you ten bucks.”

I feel a spotlight on me.

“My baby’s home!” I hear her say before I see the blur of wool heading towards me. I drop my bag in anticipation. “Hi, mama.”

Finally feeling her arms around me, I realize how long it’s been since I last hugged my mom. Her head is at my chest now, but her grip is still protective. I lean my head into the crook of her shoulder and breathe deeply.

“I’ve missed you baby,” she whispers.

“I’ve missed you too.”

Nothing changed, and yet the house feels completely different. The house feels alive. The night consists of hugs and laughter, welcoming me home. On the couch, my mother is gossiping with the neighbor and other ladies from the town, something about church choir. She started playing the organ for the local church a couple years back. She was always musical but lost the time for it when she had kids. She found it again when we weren’t around as much. It brings her joy, playing again, and she’s connected with the town a lot more. She used to cower from the women at church, shy away from bringing others into her life—our old life. That doesn’t seem like a problem anymore. She’s glowing on the couch, the center of it all.

My father sits in the kitchen amid men from work with small kids on their laps. They’re still doling out cards without any money in the middle—it’s all for fun. The kids get to look at their fathers’ hands without fear of spoiling the game. In on the secret. They are all laughing alike, harmoniously, around a table I know so well. Their elbows rest on engravings I was reprimanded for carving and stains I was an accomplice in hiding.

Will spots me floundering in this new swirl of life—feeling something like a puzzle piece you were sure would fit but is just off—and makes his way over to me, a sweating beer still in his hand. “Your mom tells me you don’t drink anymore,” he says, approaching.

“Yeah, quit about eight or so years ago.”

We nod at each other, remembering without saying.

“I saw some kids runnin’ around with orange juice,” he says. “I’m sure you’re welcome to it too.” “Nice, yeah, maybe in a bit,” I answer. “Might just take a smoke break for now though.” I hold up the pack I’ve been clutching in my pocket and make a graceful exit to the porch.

The porch lights are dying and dim. The wood is splintered and looks like it could give way at any moment. My smooth exit from Will didn’t leave time for me to grab my coat, so I clutch my arms together as I breath the smoke in deep. The inside lights project a soft orange glow on me as I gently peer inside, trying my best not to look directly at any one person out of fear of locking eyes and outing myself for taking a moment alone. It feels like a scene I would watch in a movie when I was a kid: wholesome house party where everyone knows everyone else’s name. Where everyone fits perfectly. I stare at the pictures of the family I know to be mine watching over the scene. Their smiles are frozen but, somehow, seem to be in response to the present. I smile back at them.