Her: A Memoir

by Christa Parravani

  She looked just as she always had in the mornings: messy-haired, her face pillow- and blanket-creased.

  I fell to my knees before her in thanks, rested my head in her lap. She’d returned to me, just as we’d both promised. When we were girls we’d made a pact: If one of us died first, a sign should be given from beyond, a gesture to say we’d made it, we were safe: a flick of a light switch; a vase pushed from the mantel; a door blown open; a ringing phone; a visit must be paid. That was the rule.

  “I thought you might be worried. I know how you are.” Cara put her cold hand on the back of my neck and gently rubbed, pressing her small thumb down into my sore shoulders, smoothing knots, kneading like a kitten for momma’s milk.

  “Are you in heaven?” I asked.

  “I don’t know where I am. But there are other women here like me.” She pushed and rolled her bony elbows tenderly into my back.

  “I’ll miss you,” I begged.

  “I like it here. We women eat. We play hide and go seek in the sunflower fields. We hold hands and swing near the water’s edge.”

  “Will I ever see you again?”

  “I hope not here. You wouldn’t fit in.”

  “Why not?”

  “We compare scars and burns,” she said. “You don’t have any of those.”

  “But I do,” I argued.

  Cara lifted my head from her lap, holding the sides of my face with both hands. “You have years before you, happy ones.”

  “I don’t want years.” I was certain of this. I felt I had been cut; I was alive, but only by half.

  I twisted from her grasp. I’d loved her as though she would never die. “Did it occur to you that if you went and died I would still have to live? How could you do this?”

  “There are things still left to do,” Cara said, apologizing. “You’ll have to plan my funeral.”

  “What are you asking of me?” I hadn’t allowed myself to consider what would happen to her body.

  “I spent years trying to get out of this body,” she said. “Get rid of it. Burn it.”

  “I don’t know if I can.” How could I destroy her?

  “Please. Help me get out of here,” Cara was pleading.

  “I will. I promise.” But I wondered too what would become of me. We’d been one soul in two bodies.

  “Take me to Venice,” she said. “I could be there forever. When we went together, it was the best time of my life.”

  Cara told me she wanted to wear a fancy dress and then be cremated and scattered in the sinking city: the other half of me wanted to spend eternity swirling in the Venetian tide.

  Chapter 20

  Three weeks earlier, a tire on Cara’s car had flown off on the interstate. She had been coming home to Mom’s from downtown when the tire came loose and then shot straight up into the air like a pop-up ball. The hubcap had rolled to the side, a grounder. She’d lost control and turned the wheel quick to the right to recover, careening sidelong into a guardrail. The wheel had flown to places unknown, and the front fender with it.

  June 13 was the day Mom and Cara had planned on driving to Will’s Wheels and Hubcap Haven in Middleburg, to pick up a new tire. Will’s is open until 5:30 p.m., and it’s a forty-five-minute drive from Mom’s house. Mom hoped to leave work early enough to get to Will’s before it closed.

  She’d seen Cara early that morning, just after sunup, as she was leaving the house for work. Cara stood in the kitchen stirring a spoon of sugar into her coffee. Ordinarily, Cara woke after eleven; she slept in like a teenager. Mom asked if Cara planned to accompany her to Will’s, and Cara was ahead of her. She proudly handed Mom a freshly printed copy of directions. Mom poured herself a cup of coffee into a tall metal travel mug and kissed Cara’s cheek, thanked her for being so thoughtful, and headed out for work. Mom said she’d call when she was ready to leave. She’d see Cara later.

  Mom works as a laboratory specialist at a fertility hospital. She helps women conceive. Her day consists of semen washes and injections of ready sperm into waiting eggs. She makes twins at her job, as many babies as can be safely tucked into a uterus to grow. June 13 was busy with babies—typical of spring. She wouldn’t be out early.

  At 3 p.m., Mom left a message for Cara saying she wouldn’t be able to leave work for another hour. She asked Cara to call and let her know if she wanted to be picked up to go to Will’s. Mom called several more times, and finally made the decision to go straight to Will’s. She didn’t want to miss out on getting the wheel. Graham, Mom’s boyfriend, had set aside time that evening to paint the fender and start putting the car back together. There wasn’t a lot of time. Cara needed the car; she was to begin her summer teaching job at Williams College that weekend.

  Mom arrived home at six. Cara’s dog met Mom in the kitchen, whined and yawned, scratched at her leg. Mom called out. There was no reply. She opened a window and looked into the backyard. Cara wasn’t there reading a book or napping on a lawn chair in the shade. Cicadas sang in the trees. Lilies bloomed. The grass would soon need cutting.

  Mom went upstairs and looked to see if Cara was sleeping. Her bed was unmade, but empty. Her favorite shoes were tucked beneath her desk. Cara’s diary was open; a pen lay in the crease of its spine. She’d left her perfume uncapped on her dresser, beside a soggy bowl of cereal. Cara’s purse was open and rifled through on the floor. Her wallet was missing. Maybe she’d gone out with a friend for ice cream or had a last-minute date? There was a new young man in the picture—there were several.

  Mom walked to the hallway and looked at the open bathroom door. Cara had scolded Mom earlier in the week for walking in on her when she was in the bathroom; that was still on Mom’s mind. There were new rules to follow now that her grown daughter had moved back home. Rule number one: privacy.

  * * *

  Mom had painted and freshly papered every wall in the house. Each room had a decorative motif. Mom had moved from room to room in a circle of remodeling. This was her habit; it had been for years. It still is: She finishes one room in the house just as the first needs remaking. She guts her house with sledgehammers; she sandblasts plaster. Mom smells like wood stain. She breathes in fiberglass by the lungful. She makes her home prettier than the newest Pottery Barn catalogue. She had made the bedroom upstairs and the adjoining bathroom comfortable for Cara. The shower curtain was crisp and clean. The bathtub was caulked and the drains clear.

  Mom had made everything right in her house, but everything seemed wrong to her that evening: It was sunny and warm outside, but inside the house was cold and dim. The dog was frantic and wouldn’t follow Mom upstairs. The wrecked Mitsubishi was in the driveway, but Cara wasn’t around.

  Mom went downstairs to start dinner and stood at the stove; Graham came in, said hello, and wrapped his hands around her waist. He asked what was for dinner. She said she’d planned to cook on the grill, but found it was out of propane. Graham suggested they go out to eat. They could stop on the way to his auto shop and save time.

  They went to a diner down the road; Mom had a fish fry. She wanted to go back, felt she must go back, but didn’t say anything. She’d been told she was paranoid and she knew that she was. Hers had been a lifetime of fears grown into horrors. Her father didn’t live to see her eleventh birthday. Her own mother had passed when she was only twenty-one. They’d just buried her eldest brother. It was trivial, she knew, but the family cat had just died, too, right at Cara’s feet. Was this an omen? The proud Siamese was old, but had sickened suddenly, seized, and failed. Cara called Mom at work with the bad news. That was just days ago. In the prime of her life, Mom was surrounded by death. There was always a disaster plan. Her life had trained her to make them.

  Mom took a deep breath and thought of the shining new hubcap and sturdy wheel. Cara was fine. Soon she’d be off in her newly repaired car.

  At the shop, Mom sanded the fender to prep it for the paint. Graham opened the new bucket and found it was the wrong color. The auto paint store had misrea
d the code and mixed brown instead of blue. Car work ended for the evening.

  On the way home, Graham saw one of his friends. The two stopped so he could visit. Mom fidgeted with her phone, called Cara. No answer. She told Graham she wanted to go home but didn’t say why. Mom was always worried about something: the iron was switched on, she’d left the door unlocked, the dog had slipped the fence, her daughter was dead and gone.

  They got home around 7:30 p.m. Mom went immediately upstairs, first to the bedroom, then to the bathroom.

  Cara was on the floor, sitting, half on her right hip, her legs bent at the knees and to the side. Very casual and easy. Her head was bent down so her chin rested on her chest. Her hair covered her face. The sink cabinet supported her forehead. Mom called Cara’s name, put her hands on Cara’s back; it was warm, a trick of the sun. The sun had risen and set on her back. Mom placed her hands on Cara’s shoulders to shake her. They were cold. Cara’s arms were in front of her, hands clenched and purple. Mom knew she was dead from her hands. Cara sat on her open wallet. It was stuffed full: appointment cards, saved fortunes from cookies, a book of stamps, two one-dollar bills, five bags of heroin. Graham heard Mom scream and ran upstairs—this was noted in the police report. Mom went for the phone, still calling out for Graham. She dialed 911.

  The operator told Mom to lay Cara on her back; she said she’d talk her through CPR. Cara was rigid, propped between the sink and the commode. She was immovable, too heavy for her mother’s arms. It was Graham’s turn to try; Mom stayed on the phone with the operator, begging her to send help. Mom went back and forth. She alternated thinking—Cara was dead; maybe she was going to be all right. Mom left the narrow bathroom so Graham could get inside. She asked him the same question, skipping like a record in her head: “She’s not dead, right? She’s going to be okay, right?” He didn’t answer.

  From the door, Mom saw that Graham had moved Cara from in front of the sink to the wall just inside the doorway. She was still, frozen in position. Mom couldn’t look at her face. She’d never forgive herself this moment of self-preservation: a mother should never fear her child’s face.

  She heard sirens in the driveway, went downstairs to usher in the EMTs, and followed them upstairs. Now she was asking them, “She’s going to be okay, right? She’s not dead, right?” No answer.

  The police found a dirty syringe, cotton balls, a spoon, and a lighter, which Cara had used to cook up her brew. All were tucked into a makeup bag in her medicine cabinet. Along with the makeup bag there were several bottles of Dexatrim, a pile of hair clips encrusted with glitter, and plastic flowered bobby pins. She had a bottle of multivitamins that read: Healthy Choice Naturals; choose to begin the rest of your life.

  The police noted that Cara had started to tidy the room after sitting on the toilet to shoot up and must have gotten dizzy. She simply sat down and closed her eyes and never got up. A bottle of Windex with the top screwed off sat on the floor beside her. She’d cleaned her needle with window cleaner and then tidied the room. It was clear that Cara intended to go on with her day. If she’d died instantly, she would have left a mess. If she’d planned on dying, she would have left a note. Writers leave notes.

  The police and paramedics sent Mom downstairs, first to the kitchen, then to the living room. Mom was not to see them taking Cara out of the house.

  A psychic once told Cara that she’d die young, and on the opposite side of the world from where she was born. She took her last breath in the town where she was born. She took her last breath at home.

  Chapter 21

  Cara’s boyfriends came to her wake and her funeral. They vied to carry her casket. Joseph Mario was a painter. He accompanied me in the procession of cars from the funeral home to the church. He was nearly family because he had given her a ring. He was the last boyfriend to propose, the second to do so in Italy. He wasn’t her fiancé; he was her ex-fiancé, but he was the last of her fiancés. I invited him to ride with immediate kin at the head of the procession. He’d bought her diamond in Chinatown and had it fastened to a platinum band. We sat side by side in the convoy of mourners following directly behind the hearse. I didn’t rent a limousine. I selected a van that was ordinary but large enough for six. Cara wouldn’t have cared about the car. I splurged on lavender and tulips and zinnia. The boyfriends grabbed armfuls to take to her grave.

  Charlie, Cara’s coresident at The Meadows, had also given her a ring. He’d twisted a black-eyed Susan around her finger and tied it, pulling the bloom through a knot, knocking off some of the petals. The band had loosened but she continued to wear it; she’d slip the ring off and re-loop the stem, securing it in place. Cara and Devon met at Bard College during the first week of freshman orientation. He was her truest love. Cara carved his effigy from wood and burned it after he left her. Devon delivered her eulogy. Eric, I didn’t know well; he stood at the rear of the church. Jude was an architect and never proposed. She’d met Danny on Match.com. He cued the music at the funeral home. Brian was an attorney; he proposed before any of the others. Cara said his diamond was a chip. She’d accepted it and then given it right back.

  A few of her lovers weren’t in attendance, and there were some I didn’t know well enough to invite. Ethan told me over the telephone that he didn’t like death. Kevin’s car broke down on the interstate and he missed the services. Jared was a jazz drummer and didn’t show. Travis was her childhood boyfriend and mailed his condolences. Ishmael was a lover, not a boyfriend, and couldn’t be reached. Kahlil told me he wouldn’t be coming. He sent three calla lilies.

  The diamond in Cara’s engagement ring from Kahlil weighed a fraction over half a carat and was set in a channel platinum setting. It had no visible inclusions. Mom had given the diamond itself to Cara as a graduation gift. She gave each of us a diamond: one diamond necklace for each girl, one diamond from each of her marriages. She had had the necklaces and the pendants modeled after the illusion style of her own mother’s engagement ring. The diamond pendants hung on strands of yellow gold, anchored in silvery squares so the diamonds looked larger. Cara had the diamond from her necklace extracted and put into a ring of Kahlil’s design.

  * * *

  I stood at Cara’s casket and received her mourners. Red roses arranged in the word SISTER were positioned on an easel behind me and stood as high as my head. Mom had bought them on my behalf. Clear glass vases filled with seasonal flowers stood tall on the floor. Notes that accompanied the flowers were propped and folded in front of them like labels on a buffet. A kneeling pew sat in front of the casket. Some people approached, ignoring Cara’s body, coming to me instead. Others walked directly to Cara and touched the edge of her coffin, kneeling in front of her. I thought of them as the bravest of the grievers.

  The funeral home had faded pink carpets. The end tables were decorated with inspirational cards and tissues for weeping, boxes and boxes of them. The thermostat was kept low and the pinch-pleated drapes were drawn. The windows were closed and topped with stiff sage valances. Metal folding chairs with padded seats formed twelve rows, divided into two sections by an aisle that led to my sister. My mother asked the funeral director to display some childhood photographs of Cara. He had obliged, scattering the images around the funeral home on waist-high viewing tables topped with lace doilies and propped on stands beside plastic potted ferns and bowls of peppermints. Pictures were plentiful: Cara at three, feeding a goat with a baby bottle at a petting zoo, my mother beside her, holding Cara’s hand steady so that the goat could suckle; Cara at five jumping up and down on her bed after a bath, in our Barton Avenue apartment, her hair cut like a boy’s; Cara cradling a beloved doll; Cara in a grade-school headshot wearing a light blue shirt studded with rhinestones; Cara smiling for the camera as she got ready for prom. Cara beaming with pride after her turn as Mrs. Bedwin in our high school production of Oliver!, her arm around Fagan’s shoulder. The funeral home director displayed the grad thesis images I’d taken of me and Cara, exhibition style. These photogr
aphs—large, 32 x 40 inches each—were strung with wire, hanging from the ornate picture rails of the funeral home’s ceiling molding. Landscapes of blazing white snow looked stark against the paisley wallpaper.

  Our father had missed all of the years displayed in the photographs. Cara and I had maintained some careful contact with him throughout our twenties, though not enough to invite him to either of our weddings or graduations. I’d told him that I loved him and he’d done the same. But my words felt false. I didn’t love him. I only thought that I should. He hadn’t earned my trust, let alone my love. When Cara died my budding relationship with our father went with her. I can only say in retrospect that I must not have wanted it enough to forgive him his abuse. The question of his attending the funeral was a difficult one. Part of me felt that even though he’d been a terrible father, he had the right to say good-bye to his daughter. The other part of me worried for my mother. I didn’t want him to come and make a scene. That had always been his way. Perhaps I was cowardly in my choice to exclude him from the services. I asked Jedediah to call him in Florida where he lives and tell him I didn’t want him there. And that command was both true and untrue. I did want my father to console me in my loss, our loss. But he had never been that type of father. That father might have kept Cara from her elegant casket.

  Jedediah had made a CD of Cara’s favorite music for the funeral home staff to play over the loudspeakers: Jonathan Richman, the Magnetic Fields, Indigo Girls, and Otis Redding. I greeted Cara’s attendants to Jedediah’s sound track. Attendants took turns visiting me casket-side, bringing me glasses of water.

  Few of Cara’s girlfriends attended her funeral. She hadn’t had many. After Kahlil left, she’d spent most of her time trying to win the affections of men. She didn’t want to be “a barren old maid,” she’d told me; she’d said I’d better learn from her “mistakes as an irresponsible wife” and hold on to my own husband. “Don’t do what I did and go out and cheat and lie and run around. You’ll be sorry if you do.”