You Are Not Here Page 8
I thought that after the funeral,
things would change.”
“Things have changed.”
“Yeah.
I can see that.”
This time she leaves for real,
slamming the screen door behind her.
I stare out the window
and watch her walk down the street.
Once Marissa’s out of sight,
I go upstairs and get dressed.
I need to tell Brian about this.
I wear my favorite sundress,
the one with the blue flowers
and straps that tie at the shoulders
to visit Brian today.
I even pack lunch.
Brian and I never went on a picnic
so I figure, why not now?
I spread out a small blanket next to him
and take out an apple.
In between chews I say,
“I was reading this book last night
about death and different cultures.
One part talked about how
Hopis use feathers in burials.
I would have liked
to do what they do—
cover you in soft white feathers,
lay them over your eyes and mouth,
and put them on your hands and feet.
That way you could float away,
get wherever you were going quickly,
smoothly.
Oh! And there’s a place
in central Asia called Turkistan,
not that I’d ever heard of it before,
where they dig L-shaped graves.
They lower the body down
and then slip it into a nook on the side.
That way when the grave is filled in,
no dirt falls on the body.
I think it’s kind of nice.
Gentle.
Respectful.”
I stop.
“Maybe you don’t want
to hear about this.”
I think for a moment
and then reach into my bag.
I tear off a bit of my sandwich.
“If a bird or squirrel eats this bread
in less than fifteen seconds,
then you want to hear more.
If nothing tries to eat it,
then you want me to stop.”
I toss the crust several feet away
into the grass and count,
“One, two, three, four,
five, six, seven, eight…”
Two little brown birds
hop toward the bread.
“Nine, ten, eleven…”
The first bird grabs one end of the crust,
the second nibbles the other side.
I smile a little smile.
“Javanese Muslims
do this washing ceremony thing.
They cradle the body on their laps
as if it were a child.
Then they wash the body while holding it,
and get soaked in the process.
The book called it
‘a last demonstration of nurturing love.’
It sounds so beautiful.
So personal.
So intimate.
I wonder who washed you.”
In bed, I cannot sleep.
I think about my dad
at my middle school graduation.
He sits toward the front,
right next to my mom.
And even though
it’s hard for them,
they don’t fight.
From up on the stage,
I can see my dad
holding a huge bouquet.
Daisies.
Nothing but dozens of daisies.
He remembered.
When my name is called
and I cross the stage,
I hear a chorus
of cheering and clapping.
I know the loudest of those
is my father.
Afterward, my dad and I
go for lunch.
Just the two of us.
The sky has turned gray.
The air in the car is heavy
with humidity
and the crisp smell of daisies.
As the rain tap-taps
against the windshield
and the windshield wipers
swipe-swipe back and forth,
I lean my head against the window
and sleep
sleep
sleep.
There is a pain
under my left rib.
I wonder if it’s because
my belly is empty.
Or maybe it’s because
all of me is empty.
My tear ducts are empty.
I can’t imagine that I will ever
have any more tears to cry.
My heart is empty.
But my brain—
my brain is full.
It races with thoughts
of what could have been.
The death book taught me
two new words today:
columbarium and mausoleum.
The first is a resting place
for someone’s ashes.
The second is an aboveground
burial structure.
These words seem
old and mysterious.
And maybe also
a little beautiful too.
Sitting with Brian is too quiet.
I take out my music and put it on shuffle
to get a message.
“Idioteque” by Radiohead comes up.
The song is fast, frantic.
It makes my heart race
in an uncomfortable way.
And the message is not clear.
“Here I’m alive.
Everything all of the time.”
Is that supposed to mean
that Brian’s soul is alive in heaven,
that he can still take everything in?
Or is he talking about
how I am left here,
alive without him,
and feeling everything—
every painful moment?
“You can’t just lie here all day,”
my mom says
while standing in my doorway.
She is holding her purse in one hand
and her car keys in the other.
I stare at her from my bed, thinking,
Sure I can.
I’ve been doing it
for the last few weeks.
“Why don’t you come to the mall?”
“You think going to the mall
is better than staying here?”
“Yes. Get dressed.
I’ll wait for you downstairs.”
This time it isn’t a question.
It’s a statement.
And I don’t have the energy to fight,
so I twist my hair into a bun
and root around on the floor
for reasonably clean shorts,
a tank top, and a pair of sneakers.
Washing my face is out of the question.
The most I can manage is deodorant.
My mom does most of the talking in the car.
She tells me what’s been happening
with the other nurses at work.
There’s always some dirty bit of gossip
passing through those sanitized halls.
Usually, it’s entertaining,
but today I’m barely listening.
I’m planning my escape.
“What’s going on
with Marissa, Joy, and Parker?”
she asks, changing the subject.
I don’t have an answer.
I haven’t seen any of them in a while.
The only thing I can tell her with certainty
is that a few blades of grass
have sprouted on Brian’s grave.
“Don’t know.
They’ve all been really busy.
Parker’s got an internship
at an ad agency in the city.
Joy’s working at a boutique.
And Marissa’s nannying.”
“Busy.”
She pauses and shakes her head.
“That’s what you should be.”
The mall is awful.
There’s no way
fighting with my mom
about staying home
would have been worse than this.
It’s loud, crowded, too bright,
smells of greasy food.
And it’s freezing.
It’s almost August.
I shouldn’t need a sweater.
I follow my mom from store to store
as she does her errands:
new dress,
overpriced skin cream,
linen tablecloth.
When she’s done she asks,
“Do you want to go to Victoria’s Secret?
I saw your bras and panties in the wash.
You could use some fresh ones.”
Hearing her say “panties” is torture.
And what do I need new underwear for?
I don’t care if they’re dingy
and unraveling.
It’s not like anyone’s looking.
“It’s okay. Thanks.”
“Are you sure?
It’s my treat.”
“Yeah. I’m sure.”
“Do you want to stop in anywhere else?
Maybe some new skirts and tops?
Or a pair of pretty sandals?” she asks,
glancing at my less than impressive outfit.
“No, I’m sure. Thanks.
Can we just go?
There’s a yoga class I want to get to.”
“Oh, how nice! Good for you!”
She is way too excited,
which makes me feel bad
because I’m not really going to yoga.
I’m going to visit Brian.
I am thankful that Brian
is buried near my house.
It keeps us close.
Slows the separation.
Just like the poem
Peter read at the funeral:
I am but waiting for you for an interval
Somewhere very near
Just around the corner.
I read in the death book
that the Yuqui, in South America,
don’t bury their dead.
They leave the body to decompose
and then clean and paint the skull red.
Next the skull is given to a close relative,
who carries it with him during the day
and keeps it under his hammock at night.
When the skull starts to disintegrate,
it is discarded.
The book says that now
“the duty of honoring the deceased
has been fulfilled.”
This seems so loving.
Keeping the person with you—
even if it’s just his bones.
I’m telling Brian
about shopping with my mom,
when I hear someone come up behind me.
I turn around to see who it is,
then quickly stand up.
It’s Brian’s grandmother.
The one I met at the funeral.
“Oh, I can go,”
I say, picking up my bag.
“Now, why would you do that?
There’s no reason we can’t visit together.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
“We met at the funeral,
didn’t we?”
“Yes. I’m Annaleah.”
“Hmmm. Annaleah.
What a beautiful name.”
She pauses for a bit
to stare at Brian’s grave,
then starts again,
“When Brian was little,
he never stopped moving.
Helene, my daughter-in-law,
said she couldn’t get any sleep
while she was pregnant with him.
He just wouldn’t stop moving around.
Even as a child, when he slept,
Brian was always twitching
or kicking free of the covers.
And now,
he’s at rest.
Hard to imagine.”
I’d never heard a story about Brian as a child.
It makes me smile to imagine him, little,
running around like crazy.
A blur in the room.
“What will you remember most
about Brian?” his grandmother asks.
Images flash through my mind.
Brian laughing.
Brian drawing.
Brian leaning in to kiss me.
“I don’t know.
There are a lot of things.”
“He was really special.
But you already knew that.”
She looks right at me.
There are those Dennis blue eyes again.
Maybe Brian told her about us.
Or maybe she senses it.
But it doesn’t really matter right now.
What matters
is that for the first time
since Brian was buried,
I am not standing here alone.
I have cornflakes.
My mom has eggs and toast.
We maneuver around each other.
She reaches for the salt.
I reach for the sugar.
She reaches for the pepper.
I reach for a napkin.
No words.
No touching.
Barely even eye contact.
I have nothing to say,
but I can feel
that she’s building toward something.
“Did you get into a fight with your friends?”
I look back at her with squinted eyes.
“What? No.
They’re just busy with work.”
“You know, I could get you
a volunteer position at the hospital,”
she says gently.
“We always need a hand
with delivering flowers, making copies,
or walking patients to appointments.
A job like that would look great
on your college applications.”
“Thanks, but I don’t think so.
I’ve got a lot going on.”
“Like what?” she snaps.
“You don’t do anything.”
“I do plenty,”
I say, pushing back my chair.
I put my bowl in the sink
and go to my room
to get dressed to visit Brian.
I do
plenty.
What would it be like if I had died
instead of Brian?
Would the whole school have turned out
and appeared brokenhearted—
even the girls who talk trash about me?
What would it have been like
to have all those people in my house?
Friends, family, teachers, acquaintances,
maybe even some strangers.
Something would be missing
and that something
would be me.
It’d be like not inviting the guest of honor
to her own party.
And my mom,
my mom,
my mom.
How would it have been for her,
with no husband’s shoulder to cry on,
no parents of her own to give her comfort?
Who would have spoken at my funeral?
What would people have said?
Would my mom have been able to find the words?
Would my dad have shown up?
Maybe one of my teachers would have spoken.
But which one?
Definitely not Mr. Lowry.
He was giving me Ds in history.
I don’t think someone who gave you Ds
would speak at your funeral.
Although he always said
that I had great potential—
just that I wasn’t working up to it.
Maybe he would have said something about that.
Ms. Lohman would be the likely one.
I got As in creative writing.
She said I had a vivid imagination
and a talent for creating characters and stories.
Maybe she would have said something about that.
Maybe Joy and Parker
would have read a poem.
They’re always doing dramatic things like that.
But I hope it wouldn’t have been that poem about God,
and footsteps, and being carried.
Because that’s bullshit.
I hope Marissa would have spoken.
Maybe she would’ve told some funny stories
from when we were kids.
Maybe she would’ve said she was sorry
for how things have been with us lately.
And Brian?
What about Brian?
Would he be going through
the same things I am now?
I walk down my block
and then take a right turn.
Two more blocks
and I’ll be with Brian.
For the first time
in a long time,
I know he’ll be there
waiting for me.
I sit down on the grass next to him.
He has flowers,
but I know they’re not for me.
I wonder who gave them to him,
but I don’t ask.
I tell Brian about my day.
I say, “I saw your dad
at the supermarket.
I didn’t talk to him—
it’s not like he knows who I am,
and even if he did,
I wouldn’t know what to say.
I watched him
take things off the shelves,
look them over,
and then put them back.
There was almost nothing
in his cart.
I wonder if he’s always been like that,