I Liked My Life

by Abby Fabiaschi

  He laughed so she’d know he’s more normal than initially presented. “Geez, tough crowd. I apologize for wanting to pay you.”

  “I don’t mean to give you a hard time,” Rory said, the smile showing in her voice. “I’ll take any excuse for humor these days.”

  Brady thought back to the comment about her mother, which he’d chalked up to a genius stop calling tactic, and kicked himself for not hanging up. The idea that he woke an infirm old lady was too much for his already overworked conscience.

  Me too, I suggested he respond, keeping him in the moment.

  “Me too,” he said to my delight. “And I did sound a lot like a man about to offer zero-transfer fees.”

  “Well, clearly I appreciate your concern with payment as I just inadvertently confessed I have no money. Are you okay leaving a check with Eve?”

  “No worries,” he said, switching from telemarketer to surfer dude in a multiple personality disorder sort of way.

  * * *

  She arrives fifteen minutes early. Eve is upstairs finishing a thirty-minute beginners yoga DVD when the doorbell rings. By the time she gets downstairs, Rory is at the garden, humming the tune to “Everybody Plays the Fool,” which I stuck in her head on the ride over. Eve freezes, remembering how I sang that chorus every time she came home devastated or embarrassed by one social travesty or another. Whenever I did, Eve demanded to hear about a time I played the fool. There was no shortage of material; the challenge was keeping the story age-appropriate. Eve got to picture me as a freshman tripping in front of the entire football team—or whatever other humiliation I opted to reveal—and I got to ease my daughter’s there’s-no-way-I-can-go-back-to-school-tomorrow anxiety. It was a healing song for us.

  I couldn’t have directed the scene better; Eve’s association draws her to Rory.

  “Ms. Murray?” she says, sad to interrupt her own memory. I watch like a gambler with money on the game as Rory flashes her hypnotic smile. I send energy to complement it. Eve relaxes and so do I.

  “It’s summer. Call me Rory.” She steps into the foyer and slides off her Birkenstocks, clearly a learned, long-standing habit. Eve has never seen a guest do this, but she’s a hostess like her mother and follows suit. Rory notices and it endears her to Eve.

  “Thanks for agreeing to come to the house,” Eve says, leading her to the kitchen. “I really didn’t want to spend all summer at the library.” She leaves out the detail that her mother recently died at one.

  “It doesn’t matter to me, as long as you’re able to focus. Covering precalculus in one summer is a tall order. I had to brush up before coming here.”

  “Yeah, I know, but Exeter doesn’t usually accept people for only senior year, so I was at their mercy.”

  “Oh, you won’t be here in the fall?”

  “No, I’ve, umm, always wanted to go to boarding school, and … well, my dad, he finally agreed.”

  The word dad catches Rory’s attention. Or rather, lack of the word mom. Our story clicks into place. Starling. Spring. Suicide. The elementary teachers who had had Eve in class all those years ago were in absolute shock. “Madeline Starling was the nicest, most normal mother I ever worked with,” her friend Sarah attested. “I truly can’t wrap my head around it.”

  Rory hides her discovery well. “My brother Brian went to Exeter. He graduated about eight years ago now, but I remember the campus. It’s beautiful.”

  Small talk complete, they sit at the kitchen table and get to work. I struggled to focus on calculus when my GPA was on the line, and it’s immediately clear nothing has changed in the stimulating world of mathematics. When the hour is up, their good-bye is lamentably efficient:

  “Same time Wednesday?”

  “Works for me.”

  The challenge is clear: calculus is too dry a topic to foster a meaningful bond between Rory and Eve, and they meet while Brady is still at work. Nurturing their relationship will take prompting.

  Eve is still in the kitchen doing practice problems when Brady gets home and announces they’re having gyros for dinner. “What the heck is that?”

  “You’ve never had a gyro? Where’ve you been?”

  Eve crosses her arms. “Ah, living here with you.”

  “Touché.” He unwraps one to showcase it. “As you can see in Exhibit A, a gyro is shaved lamb with red onions and this cucumber-y, yogurt-y sauce on a pita.”

  Eve pretends to throw up in the sink. “That sounds heinous. I’ll stick with ramen noodles.” I repeat Rory’s name to Eve, trying to break through their banter so she’ll mention the tutoring session.

  “That’s too bad,” Brady entices. “I had a proposal for you, but it requires someone with a taste for adventure.”

  This mysterious comment commands Eve’s full attention; she pushes my message to the side. “I’m listening.”

  “Try a small bite of the gyro.”

  Eve gives in, but only on her terms, munching off a quarter of the pita in one bite. With a full mouth she grins and says, “It’s good,” her words barely discernable.

  “See. Next time, don’t share an opinion until you have one.” Brady opens the second wrapper and they sit at the table.

  “What’s up?” Eve asks.

  He claps his hands together. “All right, what are you doing after your required community service is done, but before school starts?”

  “Can you stop calling it ‘required community service,’ please?”

  Brady taps his foot, anxious to get to his announcement. “Sure. What should I call it?”

  “Camp.”

  “Fine. How about we go on vacation when camp ends?”

  “Ha-ha-ha, very funny. You never want to go on vacation.”

  Brady looks wounded. He didn’t need to be reminded of our fights. “I’m serious,” he says. “You can bring a friend.”

  Eve waves off the offer. “I’m in for vacation, but pass on the friend.”

  Brady wipes his mouth with a napkin. “It might be nice to spend time with Lindsey or someone before you leave for school. Just don’t pick Kara. She’s too much, and I’d go nuts figuring out logistics with Todd and Christie.” In truth he doesn’t want a repeat of homecoming night.

  Eve pretends to gag again. “We don’t even speak. It’s like she’s mad at me that my mom died.” Eve looks down at her half-eaten gyro. “I’ve sort of figured out that I don’t really, like, have any friends.” She holds her hand up in a preemptive defense. “I don’t want to talk about it. I’m not upset or anything. It’s just so totally obvious that no one gets me right now.”

  Let it be, I suggest. To Eve’s relief, Brady does. “Okay … so vacation for you and me?”

  “’Kay. Where?”

  “Anywhere we’ve never been.”

  Eve snorts. “So that rules out … Florida.”

  Brady concedes the point. His mind’s eye scours the globe. “How about Paris?”

  Eve slaps the table. “Paris? For real?”

  He inhales her eagerness like the drug it is. “Paris for real.”

  “Oh my God. Seriously?” She’s out of her chair now.

  “Seriously,” he repeats in his best teenage-girl imitation.

  I urged him to suggest vacation; he’s been thinking about it since a journal entry documenting our semiannual fights, but I was not expecting Paris. I’d have relished an opportunity to vacation in Europe. If Brady had ever given the slightest inclination he’d go for it, I’d have planned the perfect trip. “Touring cities isn’t relaxing,” he always said. “Trust me.” And with that weak reasoning I was relegated to Naples.

  I’m jealous. Not a cute, envious-from-afar jealous, but a raging this-is-total-bullshit jealous. How ironic: I’m dead and we’re still having the same damn fight, only this time arguing opposite sides.

  While Eve leaves the table to look at places online, and Brady tosses the wrappers from dinner, I vent. Paris, now? I’ve had to beg you to take even a couple days off to go to Florida for the p
ast twenty years, and suddenly you’re game to gallivant across Europe? I’m ranting, not even thinking I can get through his noise with my thoughts, when suddenly he fights back.

  Yes, Paris, he thinks. And you don’t get to be upset, Maddy. There were other ways to get me to change besides taking your life. You wanted to send a message? You wanted to demonstrate that I wasn’t engaged? Grateful? That work isn’t everything? Well, message fucking received. And the prize for sending it so dramatically is that you’re not here to enjoy it.

  It’s the first fight Brady’s won in a long time.

  Eve

  Reading Mom’s journal is total crack. I can’t stop. The selections Dad deems Eve-appropriate are the lame ones where she’s all Mary Poppins. The ones I read while Dad is at work are her, the real her, uncut. She was tired of serving our every whim without any recognition. It’s all right there:

  December 14, 2014

  Even my wrists are tired from this day. Eve’s school had winter festival, and I got roped into baking ten dozen cookies, which would’ve been fine if I didn’t also agree to individually wrap each one in a red cellophane baggie with a ribbon. When will I take Brady’s advice and learn to say no? I was up until two a.m. tying the damn things.

  I awoke with a cold coming on. In between sneezes, Brady casually mentioned his boss Jack leaves tomorrow for the holidays, so he needed a gift today. I went from the festival to the liquor store, which was completely insane, and bought a bottle of Dom. The stupid carrying case alone was thirty bucks, but whatever, it got the job done. I dropped it off at Brady’s office and made it back to school in time to watch Eve’s talent show, which took forever because some kid on an oboe thought it’d be a riot to see how long he could play before someone made him get off the stage.

  Brady and Eve came fluttering in tonight, starving as usual, and after dinner, as I cleaned the kitchen alone, I realized that my mother never did anything for anybody and Meg and I turned out fine. So who’s the crazy one—the lady who spent her life doing whatever the hell she damn well pleased or the one running errands full-time for two people who don’t even appreciate it?

  I remember the day because I was annoyed Mom didn’t videotape the lame lip sync I did with Lindsey and Kara. “I reminded you this morning to bring the camera,” I scolded. She mumbled something about the only predictable thing in life being human imperfection. Reading the day from her point of view I see she was a punching bag and my dad and I gave her a daily workout. I’m starting to wonder why she didn’t jump sooner. I’m never getting married or having kids. We suck.

  I return the journal to the nightstand, depressed, and head to my first therapy appointment. The conversation is totally pointless.

  “Keep in mind, Eve,” the counselor says, uncrossing and recrossing her legs for the hundreth time, “time heals all wounds.”

  I can’t believe anyone considers this lady a real doctor. She should have a distinct title like Talking Doctor so people know not to trust her with a scalpel. I’ve spent the last thirty minutes explaining that time doesn’t heal jack shit, but she doesn’t get it. Whether it’s my birthday or Mother’s Day or prom or random, lonely Tuesdays, time is my worst enemy. It slaps me over and over by reminding me how permanent a mess I’m in.

  Someone needs to publish a list of things not to say to people in mourning and start it with Time heals all wounds. Runners-up include: Everything happens for a reason; God only dishes what you can handle; I know how you feel, I lost my—whatever—; It’s good to have an angel on your side; and, my personal favorite, How are you feeling? To that brilliant question, I want to yell back that I don’t have the goddamn flu. My suggested response to someone grieving is no response at all; just shut the hell up.

  I call Dad on my way home to explain that therapy isn’t for me. His temporary ass-wiper puts me right through. “I’m not going back,” I reply to his overly animated hello. Every time we talk he’s either trying too hard or not even listening. The man doesn’t know how to act normal.

  “Why not?”

  “It was cheesy. She was all, ‘You know it’s not your fault, Eve.’ So I’d be like, ‘Yeah, I know, but I wish I knew why she did it.’ Then she’d say something asinine like, ‘It’s normal to ask yourself questions like that,’ and I’d say, ‘Yeah, I know.’ The whole thing was a waste of time.”

  “Who did you see?”

  “Dr. Cliché.”

  He laughs, which makes me feel weirdly proud. “Well, how about trying your next session with someone else on the list?”

  “How about not going again?”

  He makes a tsk sound. “I’d like you to try one more time. You might find someone you relate to.”

  I agree to that. I don’t want to give him an excuse to skip out. He needs a shrink more than me.

  “Listen,” he says, “if we’ve reached a verdict, I need to hop back into this meeting.”

  I love the idea that there’s a group of people my dad left hanging to take my call. “Sure, but one quick thing. Don’t bring food tonight. I’m cooking.”

  “You don’t—”

  “Love you,” I say. “Bye.”

  I’m glad I’m not working at the Y, but he was right about needing more to do. I think it’s possible daytime TV kills brain cells. I’m only a week into The Young and the Restless and most of the cast have already slept together. The only entertaining part is imagining my mom’s take. I have yet to see anyone pause to put on a condom. All of these people must have gonorrhea by now. Or It takes an awful lot of Botox to always look that surprised. Or He’s a second-rate personal trainer. He doesn’t drive a BMW. Fun as it is to crack up with a ghost, I’m getting dumber sitting on that couch.

  It was Paige who suggested I cook. I don’t know how she knew I was lounging around all day in pajamas, but she showed up yesterday obsessed with the idea. It’s a logical thing to take on. I’ve been my mother’s sous chef forever. Before I was tall enough to reach the counter, Uncle Dan built an adjustable shelf for the island so I could be in the action. I don’t know how he thought of it. Aunt Meg doesn’t cook, so there has never been anything for Lucy to watch.

  I unpack the groceries and wash my hands. Mom preached that the best cooks keep it simple. Spinach with a little garlic and salt, rice simmered in chicken broth with pepper. Fish with lemon. Easy peasy. With the warming drawer full and the table set, I head outside to light the grill. I’ve watched Mom do it a million times. It hasn’t been touched in months, so the gas clicks several times. When it finally catches, flames shoot straight up, scaring the crap out of me. I jump back, touching my eyebrows to make sure they’re still there. Holy shit. I exhale, looking at the grill as if it were a living thing that just tried to kill me, then I laugh—a loud, creepy laugh that doesn’t sound like mine. What a rush! That’s what my mother’s death took from me—I’m now only truly present during extremes. Anything ordinary is dull.

  I go back in the house to grab a smoke from my purse, hoping to keep the surge going. I’m not hooked or anything; it’s just something to do. I usually wait until Dad is in bed, but it’s windy enough he won’t smell it on me. I flick the butt when I hear his car coming down our long driveway. The fish is done. I shut the grill and bring it inside.

  He can’t hide his surprise at the set table. I follow his eyes as he takes in the new seating arrangement. Dad used to sit at the head of the table closest to the door, with Mom and I on either side. We’ve been preserving her spot, even though it makes no sense to have two people sitting kitty-corner. Tonight I busted out, putting both plates on the far end of the table across from each other.

  He looks tense but manages to sit down and say, “Dinner smells great. What are we having?” His point is clear—he can make the change, but he can’t handle a whole conversation about it. It’s better than having him walk out the front door.

  The whole scene is awkward, like I’m on a date with my dad. I take a scoop of each dish as I run through the menu, then pass it to
him for a helping. Our exchanges are clumsy; it’s supposed to be a circle. Tomorrow I’ll set the plates with food already on them.

  “Do you smell something burning?” Dad asks. I sniff. We both look to the patio at the same time—the grill is engulfed in flames. “Call 911,” he says, running to the laundry room for a fire extinguisher. By the time he gets outside the flames have spread to the plants, so the dinky red can doesn’t help much. It’s been a dry summer. It’s definitely a job for professionals.

  While we wait, Dad stares at the fire as if they’re in a conversation. I stand there, praying the cigarette butt disintegrates with the flowers and everything else, assuming it won’t. Luck and I haven’t been getting along.

  The firefighters arrive and put it out quickly. They then start in with questions. When they realize I was the grill operator, they eye my dad. “But you were home, sir?” the cutest fireman clarifies.

  “Yes,” he answers. “Well, no, not when she cooked.”

  “Have you ever operated a grill before?” they ask me.

  “No.”

  They look back at my dad with disgust, which he puts right back on me. “You’ve never used it? How did you know how to turn it on?”

  “I’m not an idiot. Mom used to do it herself.”

  “Goddamn it, Eve, you are not your mother.”

  The words sit in the air between us, stinging more than the smoke. I look at the charred patio and ashy garden and start to cry. The three firemen stand there, attempting to piece together our backstory.

  “At least I’m trying, okay, Dad?” I shout through my tears. “I cooked so you’d maybe eat more. And it worked. You were. I mean, who the hell gets takeout every night? We’re turning into freaks.” I move to go inside but one of the firemen reaches for my arm.

  “Don’t touch her,” my father says firmly.

  Everyone freezes.

  “Sir, we need to file a report on this fire, and I don’t have the information I need. Now, I can call the police if you want, for assistance, or the two of you can answer my questions so we can leave you alone to work out whatever”—he waves a hand between us—“is going on here.”