and yet it continues.
I don't even know.
-
March 2009
I end up moving back home. It's for the best.
"Really?" my boss says, staring at me in disbelief. He's sitting back comfortably in his chair.
"It's for the best," I tell him. "My mother has no one."
"She's not an invalid, though. 58? Come on."
"I would rather be with her right now," I say. I hold back the other words, the harsher words. I bite my tongue and taste the blood.
"It's your decision." He shakes his head with disapproval.
"I'll find something back home. It'll be for the best, you'll see. I'll have my stuff gone by Monday."
"Give me a call if you ever change your mind." I am happy to have the door close on this statement.
Although, back in DuBres, I don't have much luck finding a suitable make-up position. At all. Job application after job application goes unanswered. But what was I to do? My mother has her siblings but they have their own lives. Their own families they set up with the liquids of their bodies. The obligation to them was first, and the way I saw it, my obligation to my remaining parent should be chief priority.
My life could wait.
This didn't mean moving back with her- I was lucky enough to find a cheap studio a few blocks from the house. I come over everyday but I am within the confines of my "own life."
It's like college, I tell myself, walking back at night after late meals with her. I tell myself to give it a silver lining. My mother drinks a lot of wine these nights, so much so it stains her teeth a burgundy tint after the second or third glass. Her breath smells like bad perfume. I'm almost reminded of an old girlfriend.
"I am doing pretty okay most of the time. You shouldn't worry yourself so. I mean, it would have happened, sooner or later. And if not this, another way," she tells me afterwards. It is hard to listen to her and be unbiased. After she and my father met in their early twenties, they were inseparable. Hardly spent a moment apart. I am reminded of those dear elderly couples in which one half dies and other other fails to live much longer, a split being. A molecule cut in two. I do not want this to happen even if my mother still retains the characteristics of someone twenty years younger.
"I miss him," I confess.
"How?"
"More abstract than I realized," I join her, partaking in the wine drinking though its by far my least favorite beverage.
"Like...?" She leads me on with an annoyed hand gesture.
"The way he stood in a doorway." The first thing that comes, flashing into mind. "Or when he didn't agree with something I said or some dumb thought I had. That laugh he'd do or that way, that way he had of just showing so passive aggressively he didn't think much of it. But not in an annoying way, no. Just that specifically Dad way."
My mother takes this in, stroking a random loose hair behind her ear. At this moment in time, she looks quite young. Quite vulnerable. Long forgotten photos I’ve seen of her come flashing into my mind. When she was an art history student at Sarah Lawrence and passionate devotee of Sontag.
"I miss his laugh so much." She looks into my eyes, but they are vacant of tears. She looks beyond sad, at this moment. "I miss his voice. His smell. His shadow draping the bed when he'd get up in the morning before me."
"And there are these nuances of his- like how he handled the laundry or never remembered to change light bulbs. And I'd yell and yell at him about them like I was his mother." She shook her head quickly. "It all seems so frivolous in retrospect."
"I'd take it all back for just another second with him." She drinks some more. "I think I'm doing pretty okay. But there's all this, and it's endless."
Before I go, I want to make sure she’s okay. I want to make sure she’ll take a bath and brush her teeth and do her nails without too much despair. I would like to make things normal for her, as much as is in my power.
She leads me to the door, gripping at herself.
“It’ll just be a while. It was a lifetime together,” she explains. “It already is a lifetime apart.”
“I’ll be okay. I promise. You don’t worry so much about me! Worry about you.”
I can’t worry so much about myself. I end up taking a job below my skill level because no one is hiring and the economy is in the tank. Like, a lot of things.
I met Sarah for lunch, after the funeral. It wasn’t what I expected, but then, it was more. She’s working in New York City at a bank but she comes home quite often, on the train that stops nearby.
I find out she just emerged from a relationship that would have led to marriage and isn't rushing anything. I don't want to pry; it's just a lunch between childhood friends. But I'm secretly crestfallen.
I am a ghost to her.
"Life's different now, you know," she said, her hands breaking up pieces of her dinner roll. "I know the death of your father was much more...significant than my break-up with Paul. But you know, it feels like a death, in a way." She looked out the window at some couple passing on the street, wrinkling her nose. I felt heat on the back of my neck. "Except he's still out there, doing his thing, and I'm just not part of it."
"Paul sounds like an idiot, if you'd ask me," I take a drink of my water. I wish it was wine; I thought it was too early in the day to drink.
Sarah giggles, a tuft of her hair falling over her left eye. God she's so beautiful it hurts. Sometimes the most beautiful things hurt.
"I didn't ask." I blush. "How's your mom holding up?"
My shoulders rise and fall. "She handles it well, I think. I don't know how she is when I'm not around- she's obviously mourning but she carries on with life. She's trying to go on, status quo, as much as she can. I try to help with that."
"I'm sure you help a lot. It was so great of you to move back here. I don't know if I'd do that if one of my parents died." Her eyes shift around.
"You never find out until you're in that situation." She's so beautiful. She's pensive and quiet for a moment, her bottom lip pursed, looking down. "So I heard you were delivering pizzas for a while?"
"For a while, I've moved up in the world."
When we part ways, she hugs me.
"Keep in touch," she whispers in my ear. Sarah doesn't linger; it doesn't offer an insincere romantic promise. But I still hope.
Watching her walk away, which everyone seems to do sooner or later, I stop for a moment. I catch a smell drifting off my jacket; I can smell her perfume on me, an odor rich with burnt almonds. I will not wash my jacket for a long time.
-
March 2009
I end up moving back home. It's for the best.
"Really?" my boss says, staring at me in disbelief. He's sitting back comfortably in his chair.
"It's for the best," I tell him. "My mother has no one."
"She's not an invalid, though. 58? Come on."
"I would rather be with her right now," I say. I hold back the other words, the harsher words. I bite my tongue and taste the blood.
"It's your decision." He shakes his head with disapproval.
"I'll find something back home. It'll be for the best, you'll see. I'll have my stuff gone by Monday."
"Give me a call if you ever change your mind." I am happy to have the door close on this statement.
Although, back in DuBres, I don't have much luck finding a suitable make-up position. At all. Job application after job application goes unanswered. But what was I to do? My mother has her siblings but they have their own lives. Their own families they set up with the liquids of their bodies. The obligation to them was first, and the way I saw it, my obligation to my remaining parent should be chief priority.
My life could wait.
This didn't mean moving back with her- I was lucky enough to find a cheap studio a few blocks from the house. I come over everyday but I am within the confines of my "own life."
It's like college, I tell myself, walking back at night after late meals with her. I tell myself to give it a silver lining. My mother drinks a lot of wine these nights, so much so it stains her teeth a burgundy tint after the second or third glass. Her breath smells like bad perfume. I'm almost reminded of an old girlfriend.
"I am doing pretty okay most of the time. You shouldn't worry yourself so. I mean, it would have happened, sooner or later. And if not this, another way," she tells me afterwards. It is hard to listen to her and be unbiased. After she and my father met in their early twenties, they were inseparable. Hardly spent a moment apart. I am reminded of those dear elderly couples in which one half dies and other other fails to live much longer, a split being. A molecule cut in two. I do not want this to happen even if my mother still retains the characteristics of someone twenty years younger.
"I miss him," I confess.
"How?"
"More abstract than I realized," I join her, partaking in the wine drinking though its by far my least favorite beverage.
"Like...?" She leads me on with an annoyed hand gesture.
"The way he stood in a doorway." The first thing that comes, flashing into mind. "Or when he didn't agree with something I said or some dumb thought I had. That laugh he'd do or that way, that way he had of just showing so passive aggressively he didn't think much of it. But not in an annoying way, no. Just that specifically Dad way."
My mother takes this in, stroking a random loose hair behind her ear. At this moment in time, she looks quite young. Quite vulnerable. Long forgotten photos I’ve seen of her come flashing into my mind. When she was an art history student at Sarah Lawrence and passionate devotee of Sontag.
"I miss his laugh so much." She looks into my eyes, but they are vacant of tears. She looks beyond sad, at this moment. "I miss his voice. His smell. His shadow draping the bed when he'd get up in the morning before me."
"And there are these nuances of his- like how he handled the laundry or never remembered to change light bulbs. And I'd yell and yell at him about them like I was his mother." She shook her head quickly. "It all seems so frivolous in retrospect."
"I'd take it all back for just another second with him." She drinks some more. "I think I'm doing pretty okay. But there's all this, and it's endless."
Before I go, I want to make sure she’s okay. I want to make sure she’ll take a bath and brush her teeth and do her nails without too much despair. I would like to make things normal for her, as much as is in my power.
She leads me to the door, gripping at herself.
“It’ll just be a while. It was a lifetime together,” she explains. “It already is a lifetime apart.”
“I’ll be okay. I promise. You don’t worry so much about me! Worry about you.”
I can’t worry so much about myself. I end up taking a job below my skill level because no one is hiring and the economy is in the tank. Like, a lot of things.
I met Sarah for lunch, after the funeral. It wasn’t what I expected, but then, it was more. She’s working in New York City at a bank but she comes home quite often, on the train that stops nearby.
I find out she just emerged from a relationship that would have led to marriage and isn't rushing anything. I don't want to pry; it's just a lunch between childhood friends. But I'm secretly crestfallen.
I am a ghost to her.
"Life's different now, you know," she said, her hands breaking up pieces of her dinner roll. "I know the death of your father was much more...significant than my break-up with Paul. But you know, it feels like a death, in a way." She looked out the window at some couple passing on the street, wrinkling her nose. I felt heat on the back of my neck. "Except he's still out there, doing his thing, and I'm just not part of it."
"Paul sounds like an idiot, if you'd ask me," I take a drink of my water. I wish it was wine; I thought it was too early in the day to drink.
Sarah giggles, a tuft of her hair falling over her left eye. God she's so beautiful it hurts. Sometimes the most beautiful things hurt.
"I didn't ask." I blush. "How's your mom holding up?"
My shoulders rise and fall. "She handles it well, I think. I don't know how she is when I'm not around- she's obviously mourning but she carries on with life. She's trying to go on, status quo, as much as she can. I try to help with that."
"I'm sure you help a lot. It was so great of you to move back here. I don't know if I'd do that if one of my parents died." Her eyes shift around.
"You never find out until you're in that situation." She's so beautiful. She's pensive and quiet for a moment, her bottom lip pursed, looking down. "So I heard you were delivering pizzas for a while?"
"For a while, I've moved up in the world."
When we part ways, she hugs me.
"Keep in touch," she whispers in my ear. Sarah doesn't linger; it doesn't offer an insincere romantic promise. But I still hope.
Watching her walk away, which everyone seems to do sooner or later, I stop for a moment. I catch a smell drifting off my jacket; I can smell her perfume on me, an odor rich with burnt almonds. I will not wash my jacket for a long time.
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