Dave obeyed her immediately. At least, he went into his room. I have no way of knowing whether or not he actually went back to sleep. Probably he did. But I stayed awake the rest of the night, sitting outside my mother’s bedroom door, quietly listening. My father was sleeping in the den by that time, so I knew she was in there all alone. Like she was every night. I didn’t go back into my room until I heard her get out of bed and open up her dresser drawer at six-fifteen. She was getting ready for work, just like she did every morning. And for weeks afterwards I wondered why it was she didn’t cry that night. There are times, even now, when I wonder about that.

  So when Brian and I were snatched out of slumber by a phone call on the last Monday in May, my first conscious thought was, who died? He reached for the phone and my next thought was that it must be about Rachel. And I hoped that she was just sick or in jail…

   “Yeah? Uh, okay...yeah, no problem.” He hung it up and fell back onto the bed with a small yawn. Or it may have been a sigh of relief. “Wrong number.”

   Good. It was someone else’s bad news. I looked at the clock. 2:38 in glowing green numbers. Just over three hours of sleep left. I rested my head on his chest to settle back down to sleep. Then it hit me.

   Green numbers...

   I sat up. “Shit!”

   “What is it?”

   “This is my apartment.”

   “Yeah. So?” Then: “Oh.”

   The phone rang again. Because it was my bad news. Mine.

   Second ring. Some things go away if you ignore them. A ringing telephone carrying bad news in the middle of the night isn’t one of them.

   It was Dave. “Sorry to wake you up, Tess.”

   “Is Matthew okay? And Kim?”

   “Yeah, they’re fine.”

   It was Dad, then. Or my mother.

   “Tess, I...it’s Alice.”

   “No.”

   Gone. She’s gone. I knew it already.

   Please let her just be sick, God. Please just sick, not...

   I swallowed. Tried to talk. I had to say it again

   but couldn’t find my voice. I hadn’t seen her in months. Spoke to her the day before I moved. She called me at Dave’s house, begged me to come see her before I left.

   I’d said it even though I knew I wouldn’t. I should have gone to see her. Just to say goodbye. That’s all she’d wanted. Just to say goodbye.

   Please, God, please don’t let it be too late...

   I cleared my throat and finally managed, “Is she sick?”

   “No, she’s...she died. It was a heart attack.”

   “Oh my God...”

   “It started late last night. Jason was there at the house with her and--”

   I flipped myself over onto my belly and let my feet dangle off the side of the bed. I rested my free arm on Brian’s chest. Rested my chin on my arm. Cracked the joints in my toes. Ankles. Knees. Couldn’t think of anything else to do that might drown out Dave’s words. I tuned back in at:

   “--they lost her once in the ambulance, but they were able to bring her back. When they got her to the hospital…well, she was just too sick and...it happened about an hour ago. I was going to wait till morning to call, but I thought you’d want to know.”

   I nodded, even though he couldn’t see it. Closed my eyes and saw Alice’s kind, lovely face; tender and patient and generous. She had always loved me, always. Never stopped. Even when she should have stopped.

   The tears came, finally; hot stinging tears that rolled down my face and landed on Brian’s chest. He touched my cheek, wiped it dry, but it was wet again a second later.

   I wanted to turn towards him, to try to make out the shape of his face in the semi darkness, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I stared instead at the clock and got control of myself.

   “Did...” I closed my eyes again. “Did Jason get a chance to say goodbye before she...went?”

   “Yes. He did.”

   “Good.” His father died when Jason was only nine. Car accident. That morning Jason was sick and stayed home from school. He’d slept in late, so he didn’t get the chance to say his usual goodbye. Their little ritual. Fake British accents.

   And he’d never really gotten over it.

   “Can you...can you tell Jason that...can you tell him that I’m sorry?”

   What a useless, empty thing to say. I tried to think of something better, but a hard, hollow bubble of sadness and guilt had swelled in my chest and for a moment I was afraid that I was going to break down. Lose it for real. I swallowed, squeezed every muscle in my stomach, managed to hold it in. Took a deep breath.

   “I really loved her, Dave. Can you let him know that?”

   “I’ll tell him.”

   Then there was silence, except for background noise; a woman’s voice paging a doctor. Dave was still at the hospital. Was Jason standing near him? Listening to Dave’s half of the conversation? Maybe I should ask to speak to him, to let him hear my condolences personally instead of having them filtered through my brother.

   Except that I was lying in our old bed. Naked. On Brian’s naked chest.

   Dave sighed heavily. “Well I’ll let you get back to sleep. I’ll call you tomorrow afternoon--well, it’ll be this afternoon, actually. Hey, Tess, is this your new phone number...?” He rattled it off.

   “Yeah. Why?”

   “Because I...I must have dialed a wrong number right before I got you. I woke up some...guy.”

   I wasn’t in the mood for his little fishing expedition. “He’ll get over it.”

   There was a long pause, then: “Yeah. I’m sure he will.”

   He knew. The only question was whether he knew it was Brian he’d talked to or if he thought I’d just picked up some strange guy. A random hook up. Which would he think was worse?

   I hung up the phone and sat up. Took in a slow, tight breath and let it out even slower. Brian sat up, too, and switched on the lamp beside the bed. I hadn’t expected it and had to close my eyes against the sudden bright intrusion. I blinked rapidly and focused on him, but he said nothing, only looked at me expectantly.

   “That was my brother. My mother-in-law--my, um, ex-mother-in-law--died.”

   He still didn’t say anything.

   “Heart attack.”

   More silence. He was waiting for more, but I couldn’t think of anything. Finally he asked, “You were close to her?”

   “Um, yeah. We...uh, Jason’s family lived on the same road as us when we were growing up, so I’ve known Alice since I was a kid, and...well, anyway. She’s gone.”

   He reached for my hand and squeezed it. “What was she like?”

   “Like?”

   “Yeah. You know, what kind of person was she?”

   I shrugged. “She was...nice.”

   Nice was a stupid word and Alice deserved a better one, deserved a thousand and one of them. And if she had been just a friend then I could’ve found all those words, used them to tell Brian all about her. Tell him about the sound of her potter’s wheel, tell him about my easel. That she had always smelled of ginger, even though she never baked. How she encouraged my impractical dreams when my own mother was too busy with work and money to bother to even ask me what they were. Let me visit with her, long after I was past the age of needing a babysitter. Just let me sit with her in the workshop, and didn’t ask questions, during my last two horrible years of high school; after my mother had completely given up on me.

   I wanted to tell him all of it, and I knew he wanted to let me, probably wanted to hear about her. Because it would help him to know me better. And because he wanted to comfort me. But it would all lead back to Jason.

   Pump faster, Tess. You can do it! Faster. Now...let go!

   Make it clear to him just how deeply those roots went. He didn’t need that rubbed in his face. And I didn’t want to be reminded of it.

   He finally said, simply, “I’m sorry.”

   I only shrugged again and wiped away another tear. What I really needed was to let it out. Have a good, hard cry. Because that’s what you do when you lose someone you love, what you’re supposed to do. Cry. Say goodbye. Move on. But the idea of mourning my ex-husband’s mother in front of my new boyfriend didn’t feel right. And, even worse, I had a sudden, creepy feeling that somehow Alice could see me now, that she knew that I was in her son’s bed with someone other than her son.

   Stop it. You’re just tired. Just go back to sleep. Bury your head in your pillow and hunker down until morning. You can let it all out in the shower after Brian leaves for work. You can hold it in. Just a few more hours. You can do it. You can wait.

   I tried to tell him I was okay, to turn off the light. I wanted to remind him that he had to be to work early and that he needed to get back to sleep. Instead the bubble finally burst. It burst with a horrible, sick yelp that I tried to swallow, but couldn’t.

   I struggled blindly to make my escape to the bathroom, to have my breakdown in private; but he reached out before I could and pulled me to him, held me tightly against him so I couldn’t get away. I lay there with my face against his chest, trying not to cry, mostly succeeded. Just a few errant tears. A few dry, sickening sobs. And still Brian held me, whispered comforting words, stroked my hair. Told me, over and over, to just let it out, that it was okay to cry. But I couldn’t. The guilt was too great, bigger than the grief.

  It was bullshit. Most of it was packed already, just waiting to be moved. She knew it, too. Knew she wouldn’t see me. Probably ever.

   And then there was Jason. He had lost the woman who was the most precious person in the world to him. He was--at this very moment--being tortured with a grief I couldn’t even imagine. And he had no one to hold him like I did, to whisper sweet words of comfort and love in his ear, to make him feel safe.

   I fell asleep against Brian’s chest. When I woke up a few hours later he asked if I was okay. I told him, yes, thanks for holding me, I feel better now. And it was true. I did feel better.

   I didn’t feel anything.

~~~~~

   True to his word, my brother called me with details about the funeral.

   “Do you think you’ll make it?”

   “I think it would be pretty awkward for Jason if I’m there. Don’t you?”

   He sighed. “I don’t know, Tess. It’s up to you.”

   I rubbed my eyes and mulled it over. I knew already. Everyone would be there. Everyone.

   “If I show up it will cause a fuss, and I don’t want that. Everyone’s energy should be focused on comforting Jason, not on gossiping about us.”

   “If you don’t show up then they’ll just talk about you anyway. It will all be about why you weren’t there.”

   “Well if I’m gonna be in a damned if I do, damned if I don’t situation I’d rather do the ‘don’t.’ It won’t do Jason any good having me there anyway. I bought a card for him this morning. I’ll mail it to him and leave it to his friends to do the rest.”

   “I guess you’re right.”

   “You sound exhausted, Dave. Did you get any sleep last night?”

   “None.”

   “Well try to get some tonight.”

   “Speaking of sleep, Tess...that wasn’t a wrong number I got last night. Was it.”

   I’d known it was coming, eventually. I just figured he’d wait, maybe until after things had settled down. After the funeral at least. “Dave, I don’t think this is an appropriate time to get into this subject.”

   “Really? And when would be an appropriate time?”

   I sighed. Why not? What was the big deal anyway? I wasn’t committing a crime. Hell, this time I wasn’t even committing adultery. Why shouldn’t he know? Why shouldn’t they all know?

   “I’ve been...seeing someone. It’s just been a couple weeks, but--”

   “That didn’t take you very long.”

   “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

   “You don’t think it’s a little soon?”

   “Is there a waiting period I’m supposed to observe? Shit, I guess I shoulda bought me some black dye to boil all my clothes in the day after Saint Jason left me so I--”

   “Cut the bullshit, okay? I only meant...you just moved down there. That’s all I meant.” He groaned. “Jesus Christ, Tess. Who is it? That kid from downstairs?”

   “It’s none of your goddamned business, Dave. What a fucking double standard. And I never expected it from you. Jason started banging someone less than a week after he left me and all you had to say about it was some bullshit about how he was doing it for an ego boost. Here it is, closing in on a year later, and I’m starting an actual relationship, not just putting a few notches in my bedpost. And I’m the one getting shit? Is it because I’m a woman? Or because Jason’s your best friend?”

   “Goddamn it, Tess, it’s neither. Just forget it. I’m sorry I even brought it up.”

   I rubbed my forehead. It was throbbing. The sort of throb I knew from experience wouldn’t fade anytime soon. Then I took a deep breath. I might as well tell him the truth. He was going to find out sooner or later; they all were. And I wasn’t ashamed. I had no reason to be.

   “It was Brian. And it’s not what you think.”

   Silence. So much of it I began to think we’d been cut off. Finally he said, “Okay, Tess. Whatever makes you happy, I guess.”

   I snickered. I couldn’t help it. Because I’d heard those words from him once before.

   He remembered, too. “I mean…I just don’t want to see you get hurt again.”

   “Oh.” It was the first time he’d ever acknowledged that I’d been hurt, too. It was the first time anyone had.

   He cleared his throat. “Don’t forget to send the card, Tess. I think Jason will...it would be a nice gesture.”

   I checked the clock. 4:34. Just enough time to write a few lines, sign my name and drop it off at the post office before work. Except for one thing.

   “Dave...I don’t know his new address. I always just had my lawyer--”

   He gave it to me.

   “Thanks. He should get it in the mail tomorrow.”

   “Good. Well...I’ll talk to you later.”

   I sat down at the table and looked at the card. Orange sunset. Inside it was white. Blank. Scary. I’d always hated words and this card didn’t need any. The sunset said it all.

   I looked up at the clock again. I was running out of time. I scribbled a few lines, read them over, added a few more and read the whole thing. Read it again and groaned.

   I drove to the post office and bought a stamp from a tall, young brunette who told me, without much enthusiasm, to have a nice evening. I wished her the same, only with even less enthusiasm. She was one of Them. One of the local girls who’d kept Brian company over the winter. Like curly, blonde Ashley from the insurance company. And the pretty, dark receptionist at Dr. Stephens’ office. And the curvy, red-headed cashier at the courtesy counter at the market. There were others too. They always seemed to be staring, sizing me up. Why her? What’s so goddamn special about…her? But there wasn’t anything I could do about it.

   I dropped the card in the mailbox outside. It told me that the last pickup had been at four-thirty, almost half an hour earlier. But Jason would get a hundred cards in the next few days. If he bothered to open mine at all he’d only skim through the awkward expressions of sympathy…then he’d toss it aside. So what difference would a day make?

   A big difference. And it wouldn’t get tossed aside. I was too tired to fool myself, and that didn’t happen very often. But there wasn’t anything I could do about the postal service, either. And so I went to work. To start cleaning. Other people’s shit.

Chapter 11

Chapter 13

Table of Contents

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