“Fine! Make them! But do they have to be so . . . opposite? So outlandish? He would hate this . . . this disorder,” my grandmother says, waving an arm as if to take in the entire room. “He was so neat and organized, Rachel, and this is pure chaos.” She snatches an onion from her grocery bag, a knife from the drawer and, jaw set, starts peeling. “Completely out of control.”
“Well, maybe that’s the way my life is now,” my mother says, turning away.
“But it doesn’t have to be,” my grandmother says, and now it sounds like she’s pleading. “My God, look at the table, Rachel. Can’t you just clear it off? Can’t you even try to straighten up a little, maybe put the house back in some kind of order, the way it was before? It was all right then. Not perfect, but livable.”
“Why?” my mother says. “It’s not going to change anything.”
“Well, couldn’t you even try?” my grandmother says, setting down the knife and gazing at her beseechingly. “If not for you or your daughter, then for Nicky? Couldn’t you do it for Nicky?”
I stop breathing.
My mother pales. “You know what, Mom? You’re right. Let me do for Nicky exactly what he did for me.” She wheels and with one savage sweep of her arm, she clears the table and sends everything crashing to the floor.
Chapter 67
Oh.
My.
God.
Chapter 68
“There,” she says into the stunned and ringing silence. “Happy now?”
My grandmother lays the onion and the knife down on the counter and turns to my grandfather. “Come on, Albert. We’re not needed here.”
“No,” my mother says angrily, pointing at my grandfather, who has risen halfway, as if commanding him to stay seated, and turns to my grandmother. “You started this, now don’t you dare walk away just because you don’t like what I have to say.”
“Well, I’m sorry, Rachel. Then I guess I can’t do anything right,” my grandmother says, and now there are tears in her eyes. “You’re not the only one Nicky hurt, you know. We loved him, too. Do you think this has been easy, watching you go through this terrible pain when all we want is for you to be happy again?”
“And I will be, Mom, but you can’t push me into it. I have to go through it myself, my own way, when I’m ready.” My mother runs a hand through her hair and sighs. “I’ve been Nicky’s wife for twenty-two years, and I never wanted to give that up but now I have to because I have no choice. I have to find a new way to live because it’s really hard being married to a man who no longer exists. You ask him something, he doesn’t answer. You reach for him, he doesn’t reach back. You want him, there’s nothing there.”
“But at least you have beautiful memories,” my grandmother offers, eyes watering as she picks up the knife and resumes chopping the onion.
You have me, I want to say, but can’t speak the words.
“Memories. Yes, to remind me of exactly what I’m missing,” my mother says, reaching past my grandmother and taking my father’s wallet from the windowsill. She gazes down at it, rubs her thumb along the worn edges and cups it, the curve fitting her palm. “It’s a lonely way to live.” She puts the wallet back in its place. “Those vows we took? Till death do us part? I kept them, Mom. He didn’t. It’s done. I’m a widow now.”
“I know,” my grandmother says softly, sniffling and dumping the chopped onions into the pot.
“No, you don’t,” my mother says, stopping behind her. “Trust me. You don’t know how lucky you are that you and Daddy got to grow old together. Do you know that I’m the only one in the world who knows the whole story of me and Nicky now? If I forget any of it, there’s no one to ask. You know where that leaves me?” She holds out her hands, palms up and empty. “Standing here with all these emotions and nowhere to put them!”
I open my mouth to say I know how you feel but my grandmother isn’t finished yet.
“Then maybe you should talk to someone, Rachel,” my grandmother says, sprinkling sweet paprika into the pot. “And I don’t mean your daughter or me or your sister, either. I mean a professional who can help, because . . .” She bites her lip and then says in a rush, “You sound very angry.”
“Me? Angry?” my mother says after a long moment, staring at her in total and honest surprise. “No, Mom. I’m not angry.”
The three of us gape at her in silence.
“What?” she says, scowling and falling back a step. “I’m not. I mean I’m sad and I miss him but I’m not mad at him. How could I be? I know why he left. I saw how miserable he was . . .”
“That doesn’t mean you can’t be angry at him too, Rachel,” my grandmother says quietly. “Angry that he left you, that he isn’t here now—”
There’s a weird, hurtful grating inside of me, the scrape of stone against my heart, and I want to tell her to stop, to leave my mother and me alone, to stay out of it because she doesn’t know, doesn’t understand that we are not mad at my father, we can’t be, it isn’t fair, and even if we are it’s not her business, it’s our business, and yes, anger is one of the stages of grieving but we don’t need that one, we’re skipping it, and nothing she does or says can make us be mad at him because we love him and yes, he chose to leave us but—
“Stop it! What are you trying to do?” my mother says, and the look of fear, alarm, on her face scares me even more. “What do you want me to say? That yes, I am angry with him? Furious? That I feel deserted? Is that what you want?” She’s shouting again, but this time it’s not at me or even at them, it’s at my father, who isn’t here to defend himself, to say he’s sorry he hurt her and that he’ll never do it again. She’s shouting into the void, filling it, and the echo is a blade slicing through me.
“Rachel, no, I—” my grandmother says, distressed.
“Then what? Do you want me to say that I forgive him? I can’t. Not yet. Do you want me to say I hate him? Because I don’t. I hate what he did to us but I love him, okay? And yeah, I’m mad. Oh God, I didn’t want to be but I am.” She’s crying now, the tears streaming down her face. “I know he loved me, I know it was the depression, but I’m really mad that he just left me here, that he made a decision that changed my life and Rowan’s and everybody’s without even asking us!”
I look down at the table, stomach churning, glad now that I didn’t say anything. It’s one thing to have these thoughts myself, in private, another to hear them thrown right out into the air, big and harsh and accusatory. She’s never admitted to being angry before and I don’t like that she’s mad at my father, that she’s so fierce about his being gone now, like she’s trying to drive home the point once and for all, make us accept it.
Make herself accept it.
My mother is a widow.
No longer married.
Single. A single mom.
I am the daughter of a dead dad and a single mom.
Chapter 69
“So wait, you’re collecting cats to get back at Nicky for dying?” my grandfather says, leaning forward in his chair and frowning.
My mother takes a hitched breath. Wipes her eyes and stares at him for a long moment. “Oh my God,” she says weakly. “You still don’t get it.”
“Well then, tell me so that I do,” he says angrily, thumping his good fist down onto the table. “What, Nicky saved people and now that he’s gone you have to save cats? You’re the one who’s big on all those words, so explain it. How many cats is it going to take until you stop feeling guilty? Twenty? Thirty? A hundred?”
My mother goes still.
“It wasn’t your fault Nicky died,” my grandmother says, exchanging a quick, speaking look with my grandfather and putting the chopping block and paring knife in the sink. “None of us thought he would ever do something like that. Your father and I believe he hid his intentions on purpose so we couldn’t stop him, Rachel.” She sets the lid on the pot and lowers the heat. “You couldn’t have saved him, and saving all of these cats to atone for it isn’t going to bring him
back.”
“No, I know, but . . .” She lifts her head, her face naked with pain. “I have to do something because I didn’t do the one thing I could have done to save him: taken his off-duty pistol out of the house. I forgot all about it. I never even thought—”
“Listen, Rachel, if Nicky was determined to die he would have found a way, gun or no gun,” my grandfather says gruffly, leaning over, picking up Stripe and settling him on his lap. “He’d handled plenty of suicide calls before. He’d found the bodies, investigated the methods; he knew all the ways to do it. If you’d taken his pistol he would have hanged himself or overdosed on his pills or cut his wrists . . .” He stops, throat working. “Mother of God, when I think about it . . .” He shakes his head quickly, as if to dispel the thought, and goes on. “All I’m saying is that if somebody really wants to die, they’re going to find a way to do it. Look at that overpass.”
“I don’t know how you can stand to see it every day,” my grandmother puts in. “If I were you I would think about selling the house and moving to a nice little condo somewhere in town.”
I look at my mother in alarm but she doesn’t notice.
“And what about Nicky’s counselor?” my grandfather continues doggedly, and strokes Stripe, his calloused hand trembling. “She didn’t think he was a suicide risk either and she was the one trained to spot it! She asked him if he was suicidal. He said no. She believed him and prescribed those goddamn drugs. Who knows what they did to his mind?” His jaw tightens. “Son of a bitch, that still makes me mad. What good is counseling if they don’t know any more than I do?” He sets Stripe down, hoists himself up, walks across the room and, keeping his back to us, stares out the porch door. “You’re not the only one who feels guilty, you know. I lie in bed at night thinking about how alone he must have felt and I swear to you, it rips me up inside.” His voice cracks. “Why didn’t he come to me? I would have listened. I would have done anything to help him. Anything.”
“Daddy, he knew that,” my mother says, face crumpling as she goes to him. “He loved you guys. I don’t think he could have asked, don’t you see? I think the depression made him believe he’d be weak for asking. Or maybe he thought we wouldn’t respect him anymore. You know how he was. He didn’t ask for help; people called him to help them.” She releases him, wipes her eyes. “I think the depression convinced him that if he wasn’t big, strong, capable Nicky then we wouldn’t love him anymore, and he just couldn’t bear it.”
“Of course we would have loved him,” my grandmother says, taking the lid off the pot and stirring the onions. “How could he think that?”
“It was the depression talking, Mom,” my mother says, picking up the colander full of chicken and bringing it to my grandmother.
“Terrible,” Gran says, sighing and gently dumping the chicken into the pot. “I wish I could ask him.” She pokes around inside it with the wooden spoon a moment and replaces the lid. “I wish I could sit him down and talk to him one more time.”
“Yeah, me too,” my mother says tiredly, slinging an arm around her mother’s shoulders and giving her a quick, hard hug. “What a conversation that would be.”
“He should have left a note,” my grandfather says, running a shaky hand over his eyes. “It’s not right, him going without saying good-bye.”
“I know,” my mother says, releasing my grandmother and sitting back down in her chair. “But that just shows me how bad he was hurting.” She looks at her wedding ring and flexes her fingers, watching as the afternoon sunlight streaming in through the window makes the diamond sparkle. “I’m guessing, of course. We’ll never know for sure.” My mother glances over at me standing wide-eyed and silent among the scattered mail and groceries strewn across the floor. “Oh, Rowie.” A myriad of emotions crosses her face and she pushes herself up out of her chair. “I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”
Am I? No, and I may never be again, but I nod anyway.
“My God, look at this mess.” Bending, she picks up a handful of envelopes and one of the grocery bags. “That’s the bad part about throwing a fit. You always have to pick up again afterward.”
“I can do it.” My mind is reeling and there’s so much I want to ask her—but the only thing I seem to be able to do is start gathering the newspapers and mail spread out in front of me.
“All right.” She meets my gaze and there’s something clear and steady in her eyes that wasn’t there before. “I’ll keep the cats away from Grandma while she’s cooking.”
“Okay.” We exchange strained, crooked smiles, and as the cats slowly venture back in, wary but curious, and my grandmother cooks, my mother shoos them out again while she puts away groceries and I gather the mail back into a pile, and my grandfather cradles Stripe on his lap and lets him bat at his bound-up finger, I am left with a hundred frightening questions about our future and at the same time, a heart that expands with an almost unbearable tide of love for the crazy courage, strength and beauty of my family.
Grief Journal
Something happened today, Dad.
Everybody fell apart and then, somehow, fell back together again.
But the stuff they said . . .
Scary.
I don’t know whether they just forgot I was there or they figured that since I’m a part of it I’d understand, but it was really intense. I never heard Grandma go off, especially on Mom, or Mom go off on her like that.
Maybe the beginning of this fourth month is a turning point for them, too.
We’re still so raw inside.
And Mommy feels really bad, Dad. I’m starting to think that it’s not me you need to get in touch with but her, instead.
I never even knew you had an off-duty pistol.
Or maybe I did, way back a thousand years ago, and forgot too, because you never used it. Just kept it tucked away somewhere, I guess.
You knew Mommy forgot about it, didn’t you?
You knew and you counted on it, and I’m sorry but that makes me mad.
Didn’t you realize how much this would haunt her, or did you just not care because all you wanted was a way to exit and by that point you would have said or done anything to get it?
So, was Grandpa right? If she did remember the pistol, or if I did, and we somehow found it and took it away, would you have just found another way to do it?
I think you would have if you wanted to go badly enough, which apparently you did.
Or the depression did. I think Mom’s right about that.
It wasn’t you talking.
And isn’t it weird that knowing it was the depression making you so miserable and not us or your life actually makes me feel a little better?
I guess that’s what I’m reduced to now: Weighing what could have happened versus what actually did, and trying to understand it, accept it, take comfort in the fact that you didn’t make your death as bad for us as it could have been.
Because I’m just now realizing, piece by piece, that it actually could have been worse.
Bleak, I know, but for some reason, it matters.
And what I’ve discovered so far is that suicide is better than murder/suicide, one quick, clean shot is better than hanging or slitting your wrists, doing it away from home is better than at home . . .
A note would have been better than no note at all, but I guess I can’t have everything.
Only . . . you took such good care with all the other details in your life, so why not that, at the end of it?
I will never understand why not that.
Chapter 70
I make it to the dry cleaner’s by three thirty, after promising to be home again by five so I don’t miss my grandmother’s early-bird-special paprikás.
It’s funny; when I left the house my mother was making the nokedli and Gran the chicken, and Grandpa had coaxed the unrepentant Sage up onto his lap and, in between admiring the cat’s clean, black-and-white tuxedo coat, was making a case for bringing him home, saying if anybody could teach him pr
oper cat manners it was my grandmother.
And my grandmother snorted and gave my grandfather a knowing look . . .
But she didn’t say no, and even more astonishing, neither did my mother.
The parking lot is sweltering, shimmering with heat waves, and stepping into the air-conditioned cleaner’s is like stepping under an ice-cold waterfall.
The motion-sensor bell over the door announces my presence and from the back I hear Eva yell, “I’ll be right there,” in a voice filled with frustration.
“Take your time,” I call back with a smile, and step in between the counters so she can see me. “Hi, Eva.”
Her eyes widen and her jaw drops, and then she hurries toward me, arms out, her face creasing into the widest smile I have ever seen her wear. “Rowan! Oh, my dear, it’s so good to see you.” She enfolds me in a surprisingly fierce old-lady hug and that’s when I tear up, because I didn’t even know how much I’ve missed her.
“Oh no, now, we don’t want to do that,” she says, releasing me and rummaging in her cardigan pocket. “Here, I think this one’s clean.”
“Thank you,” I blubber, laughing at the crumpled wad of tissue she thrusts into my hand. “So how are you? How’s everything been? Is it busy? You got a new doormat, I see. It looks good. I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to come by but—”
“You’ve gotten skinny,” she says, hooking a gnarled finger into the too-big waistband of my shorts and giving it a tug. “What’re you going to be now, a model?”
“Ha, right. And you’ve changed your hair,” I say, knuckling away the tears and nodding in approval. “I like it. New haircut?”
“Cut, color, the works!” She makes a face like it’s foolishness but her gaze dances behind her glasses. “You know why?” She motions me closer. “I have a man friend now and he likes that sexy Betty White look, so . . .” She shrugs, eyes twinkling. “I told him you pay, I’ll do it, and he did. So now I look so good I can’t keep him off of me!”