Me Since You

by Laura Wiess

  “Oh my God, are you kidding?” I stop walking and stare up at him, aghast. “Why did they do that? I’m not running away!” I gesture wildly at the sunglasses. “I’m shopping!” I can’t believe this. “Why didn’t they just call me?” I fumble my phone from my pocket. “God, I would have . . .” I stare down at it. “Great. It’s dead.”

  “Well, when you charge it you’re going to find some pretty hysterical voice mails,” Vinnie says, his gaze grave and his manner nothing at all like that of the funny, easygoing guy I’m so used to. “I don’t know what you were thinking going off like that without giving them a heads-up, but it wasn’t your smartest move. Especially now.”

  I look away, embarrassed by the lecture but also strangely comforted because it’s almost what my father would have said. “I’m really sorry. I just didn’t think.” I see how tired he looks, the strands of gray at his temples, the bags under his eyes, and I realize, not for the first time but almost like I have to keep being reminded to notice, that my father’s dying hurt him, too.

  “Nicky would’ve given you hell for this, and he’d be giving me hell for not giving you hell, but I think we’ve all had enough of it lately, so . . .” He steps back. “Come on. I’m handing you over to the firing squad. You can explain it to them.”

  He opens the door and I see my grandfather’s stony face, my grandmother’s teary eyes and my mother’s outrage all staring at me from the back of his patrol car.

  This is going to be bad.

  Chapter 50

  “What were you thinking?” my mother demands on the ride home, glancing in the rearview mirror at my grandparents, who are following us back with their trunk full of groceries. “How could you do that? My God, Rowan, Grandma was crying when she called me—”

  “Talk about an overreaction,” I mutter before I can stop myself.

  My mother goes quiet a moment like she’s counting to ten. “Do you have any idea how scared they were, not being able to find you? Girls go missing every single day—”

  “I wasn’t missing,” I say.

  “They didn’t know that,” my mother snaps, throwing on the signal light and careening into the driveway. She slams the car into park, fumbles off her seat belt and swivels to face me. “We didn’t know anything. One minute you’re shouting at Mrs. Thomas in the store, the next you’re gone. What were they supposed to think? There was no note, no explanation. You were just gone!” Her voice cracks. “All you had to do was tell them where you were going or leave a note, just have the courtesy to let them know, but—”

  “I’m sorry, okay?” I interrupt, unbuckling my seat belt so she can’t see the tears in my eyes. “I just didn’t think.”

  “Well, you’d better start,” my mother says raggedly. “You can’t keep being sorry after the fact. You need to think beforehand from now on. You can’t just do whatever you want and disappear without—”

  “Okay, Mom, I get it!” I say, shoving open the car door with a force that rocks it on its hinges. “I said I was sorry. God, why do you keep yelling at me? You never did before.”

  “I never had to before,” she says.

  I stop halfway out of the car and turn, scowling. “Well, you don’t have to now, either, okay? I’m not a little kid anymore.”

  “Then stop acting like one,” she says, slipping off her sunglasses and rubbing her eyes. “I’m sorry but I don’t know what else to say, Rowan. I really don’t.” She pulls the keys from the ignition and glances in the rearview as my grandparents’ Buick creeps slowly up into the driveway. “You know, it’s not just you I worry about. It’s them, too. They haven’t been the same since your father died. For the first time ever, they actually look old to me.”

  That deflates me, and we sit silent for a moment as a monarch butterfly flits past the car, its brilliant orange and black wings glowing in the sun.

  “Well, I’ll apologize but I still think they totally overreacted,” I say gruffly, and then, because it seems to need saying, “Nobody would have freaked if Daddy was still alive. You would never have called the cops because I was gone in a mall for ten minutes, you would have just waited till I got back and been mad or something.”

  “I know,” she says, sighing and passing a weary hand across her forehead. “We’re all a little sensitive right now. I think it’s because we missed seeing the first one and we’ll be damned if we’re going to get caught like that again.” She reaches across the seat, touches my arm. “I’m sorry I yelled and I will try very hard not to do it again, but you have to try too, Rowan. We have to figure out how to be a family without your father and it isn’t easy, so just bear with me, okay?”

  “I know, Mom.” I glance at her and then say impulsively, “You should ask Auntie Kate to come out for like, the weekend or something.”

  “Oh, I don’t want to bother her,” my mother says, waving a hand. “She has so much going on right now that—”

  “Mom, she’s your little sister,” I say, giving her a look. “She’s used to you bossing her around.”

  “She is, isn’t she,” my mother says after a moment, a small smile playing about her lips.

  “Well, I don’t know what you’re waiting for,” I say, and slide out of the car, shut the door and start up the sidewalk to the house.

  “Hey, don’t disappear,” she calls after me, and there’s a sudden lilt in her voice that I haven’t heard in a long time. “We have groceries to bring in.”

  Chapter 51

  I hug my grandparents and tell them I’m sorry, and they say they accept my apology but they don’t talk much while we’re lugging in the groceries, don’t accept my mother’s offer of iced tea when we’re done, and mumbling something about getting home so their frozen food doesn’t spoil, they get right back into the Buick and leave.

  “That was odd,” my mother says, shading her eyes and watching them go.

  “Yeah,” I say, swishing my bare foot across the long, cool grass. “Grandpa didn’t even notice that the lawn needs cutting. Weird.”

  “Did you apologize like we discussed?”

  “Yes,” I say, slapping at the hungry mosquitoes I just stirred up. “Ow! Gotcha. They didn’t really want to talk about it.”

  “That doesn’t sound right,” she says, frowning and absently waving the bugs away. “Do you think I should call them and make sure they’re okay?”

  I shrug, still slapping, and back toward the driveway. “Grandma said she’s making chicken paprikás for tomorrow. Why don’t you just wait and see how they are then?”

  “Hmm,” she says, giving me a speculative look. “And you’re sure you’ve apologized?”

  “Yes,” I say with a touch of irritation, and head inside, leaving my mother standing out in the driveway alone, her hands on her hips and staring worriedly down the empty road.

  The sunporch smell, hot, musty, more like an old attic than a main entrance, hits me the moment I open the door, and seized with sudden impatience, I crash my way through the bags of birdseed and litter, past the bundles of newspapers my father tied for recycling and the cases of cat food to the lone window on the back wall. It’s high off the ground and shaded outside, the one window my father always said was in the perfect position to let the cool breeze in, and I’m in the middle of fighting with the latch when I realize the screen isn’t in, my father must have taken it out last fall and put the storm window down, and so I can’t open it anyway.

  And I know exactly where he put it, too: way out in the spider-filled back shed, stacked flat and neat and high up out of the way in the rafters.

  I stand there sweating, stuck amidst piles of yesterday, frustrated, pissed off at the window, my life, my father, at his obsession with doing things right and his attention to every stupid detail. Rake the leaves, paint the eaves, clean the gutters, tune up the snow thrower, store the stupid screens . . . Why couldn’t he have just slacked off for once and left them in the windows? Why did taking care of everything have to be so important to him? Why couldn’t he
have just cut himself a break and gone fishing or woodworking or something all of those Sundays, instead of spending them working? God, maybe if he didn’t always try so hard to do the right thing . . .

  I close my eyes, rest my forehead against the dusty glass.

  If he didn’t try so hard, he wouldn’t have been him.

  And for better or for worse, I wouldn’t be me.

  The ripple effect.

  A fly buzzes up near the ceiling, searching for a way out.

  “Good luck,” I tell it as my fists slowly uncurl. Straightening, I shove my damp hair from my eyes and wend my way back out of the piles, leaving the kitchen door open so the cats can go into the porch and do a little fly catching.

  The grocery bags, still full, cover the kitchen counters and balance precariously on top of the stuff on the table.

  Okay, this I can do. By the time my mother comes back in I’ve sorted through most of the bags and put away all of the perishables, a move so shocking that instead of going back to the couch to lie down, she automatically opens a bag and starts emptying it.

  The third thing she pulls out is her box of hair dye.

  “This isn’t my normal color,” she says, gazing down in dismay at the pert, smiling, swingy-haired model on the front. “This is ash brown, not chestnut brown. Why did you—”

  “I didn’t,” I say, standing next to her and peering at the box. “Grandma must have.” I look from the model to my mother and back. “It’s not bad. Why don’t you just try it and see how it comes out?”

  She sets the box down with a thump. “Because I don’t want to just try it, all right? I like chestnut brown. I’ve been using chestnut brown for twenty-five years, Rowan. It’s your father’s favorite.” She goes silent, staring at the box as the words hang in the air. “Damn.” Sags and runs a hand through her hair. “What am I doing?”

  “You could go red,” I offer, deliberately misunderstanding her. “That’d be pretty.”

  “Pretty.” She gives a weak snort. “Who am I trying to be pretty for?”

  “You,” I say, throat tight. “Me.” It’s as far as I can think, as far as I can go right now.

  “Maybe I should just shave my head and forget the whole thing,” she says with a small, forlorn laugh. “Or bleach it blond—”

  “And get a tattoo,” I add, hoping to coax a real smile. I pull back and look at her. Nothing yet. “A big old tramp stamp right here.” I touch the small of her back. “What do you want it to say?”

  “Absurd,” she says, lips twitching. “I’m not getting a tattoo, Rowan.”

  “But if you did, what would it be? And not a rose or a butterfly or a fairy, okay? Everybody’s got those.”

  “A fairy?” she echoes, and there it is, the smile I’ve been waiting for. “Really, do I look like the fairy type to you?” She shakes her head, actually lets out a snicker. “A fairy. No, I’m sorry to disappoint you but I’m not getting a tattoo. This is about as wild as I get.” Still smiling, she picks up the box of hair dye and starts for the stairs, cats trotting at her heels. “Wish me luck.”

  “Mom, it’s going to look great.”

  “Decent will do.” Her voice echoes back down to me, still amused. “A fairy.”

  I stand there for a moment, tears of surprise prickling my eyes because I didn’t know it before, but I do now: I would do just about anything to see my mother smile like that again.

  Chapter 52

  My mother dyes her hair and it does look great, makes her look younger, prettier, makes the new grief lines in her face seem softer and her eyes more striking.

  And she hates it.

  “But why?” I say, standing in the bathroom doorway and watching in distress as she rakes all that clean, shiny hair back with her fingers and struggles to trap it in a coated rubber band. “Mom, it looks good, it really does. You look totally different.”

  “Come on,” she tells her reflection, frustrated as the silky strands slip through her fingers. “Just cooperate, will you?” Savagely, she drags it all back, pulling the hair so tight the roots go white at her scalp and snapping the band around it. “There. That solves that. Next time maybe you people will understand that when I say chestnut brown, I mean chestnut brown.” Her voice is ragged, the fear in her eyes mixed with something deeper, something that makes her turn away from the mirror as if unable to bear the sight of herself, push past me and thunder back down the stairs.

  I stand there dazed, staring at the mess lying in the sink, the stained gloves, the empty applicator bottle, the box with the young, sexy, flowing-haired model on the front, and it looks like a war zone, like some kind of terrible battle took place, a fearsome tug- of-war between yesterday and tomorrow . . . and suddenly I get it, how choosing something new and different is like leaving the past and everyone in it behind.

  But she isn’t, right? I mean, it’s only hair color . . .

  Isn’t it?

  I don’t know.

  It’s too complicated.

  There are too many layers.

  Too many traps, everywhere.

  We take one small step forward and get knocked back a mile.

  If there’s a finish line out there, it isn’t in sight.

  And what’s the point of it, anyway? Are we really going to be stronger, getting the emotional shit kicked out of us every single day and then struggling to stand up again? Is this what happens every time you love and then lose someone? Is this supposed to be some profound journey, some kind of warped and psychotic learning experience that will expand our brains and teach us—what, that it’s better to not have your father kill himself?

  “I already know that,” I grind out, snatching up the remnants of the dye disaster and jamming them all in the trash can. It’s full though, packed to the brim with damp, tearstained tissues, and the dye box teeters and falls out again. The hair model lies there smiling up at me, no longer perky and carefree but sly and challenging now, and with a surge of rage I grab the empty box, crush and rip and tear it into pieces. Hurl them at the can. They hit the wall, scatter all over the floor, and the sight of that smile, torn from her face but still landing in one piece, is too much.

  I step back, breathing hard.

  “Fuck you,” I tell it, and, feeling stronger than I have in months, walk out, leaving the trail of destruction behind me.

  Why not?

  It seems to run in the family.

  Grief Journal

  Hey, Dad, I need to ask you something.

  Do you think a turning point is an outside event or an inside one, or both?

  I mean, what is it, actually, and what was yours?

  What was bad enough to send you over the edge?

  I don’t really know why I’m asking that except . . .

  I’m kind of worried about Mom.

  I mean I know everybody mourns their own way on their own schedule, but . . .

  You wouldn’t even recognize her.

  She sleeps a lot, doesn’t get dressed or go out, and she hasn’t gone back to work yet. There’s like, three months’ worth of unopened mail sitting on the kitchen table and twice so far the electricity’s gone off and she’s had to call and make a payment to have it turned back on. Same with the phones, Internet and cable, too. She’s not cooking anymore, either, and sometimes she wears the same clothes for like, three days in a row.

  Oh, and she yelled at me for “disappearing” without leaving a note when all I did was go into the drugstore to buy a pair of sunglasses.

  You know what?

  I think she was really yelling at you and just didn’t realize it.

  Or maybe she doesn’t want to.

  It’s so weird. Neither one of us can stand being mad at you right now.

  But I think we are, Dad. I do, even if we just can’t admit it yet.

  I don’t know.

  All I know is that Mom really misses you. I know she misses talking with you and let’s face it: I’m no substitute, and neither are the cats, or Grandma and Gra
ndpa.

  Oh yeah, we have eleven rescued cats now, just in case I forgot to mention it.

  Mom is really into saving things now.

  Anyhow, she keeps reading about the stages of grief like she’s charting herself a path through it but in all honesty . . .

  I’m not sure she’s getting anywhere.

  I mean, remember the time it rained for like a week straight and you took me for a ride on your quad, and we went down the side hill and it shouldn’t have been any big deal but when we tried to get up it again we only got maybe halfway, and then we just sat there spinning our wheels, digging ruts deeper and deeper into the mud? I had to stay on and steer while you got off and pushed just to get us unstuck and back up to the top . . .

  But you’re not here to push anymore, and I don’t think I can get us unstuck alone.

  I wouldn’t even know where to start.

  Chapter 53

  I shut my bedroom door. Open my laptop, pull up Google Maps and chart myself a path. Change into a pair of black shorts and a plum-colored tank. Brush my hair and actually put on some makeup.

  Stand back and stare at my reflection.

  What good is a glossy outside, anyway, if your insides are nothing but a shredded-up mess? Sooner or later whatever’s inside comes out, right?

  Right.

  Great.

  I look over at the paisley grief journal sitting on my night table.

  Perch on the bed, reach over and pick it up.

  Trust the process. You will see and feel what you need to when you are ready.

  Trust. There’s a word we’re struggling with right now.

  Grief Journal

  Where are you? Can you hear me?

  Can you see us?

  If you can, then why don’t you send us a sign?

  Send proof that you still love us. Gather up your energy and blink the lights, rap three times, send a gentle breeze through the house, hold our hands, manifest a scent . . .