by Sheila Heti
*
I think I used my ordinary, humble sadness with Miles to access a bigger sadness that wasn’t mine. All the times I thought I was upset about Miles, I think I made the sadness bigger, made it wider so I could tunnel inside. I used our fights to make the tears come—needed the pain to touch a sadness that went so far back and deep inside, to try to heal it there.
Then I remembered how the tarot reader said, There is a way of saying, Could you please send that ball of pain back where it belongs, if it isn’t mine? Actually say, ‘I’m sending this back now. And please send it back in the most healed and loving form it can go. But I don’t want it, it’s not welcome, and it’s not helping me.’
I think this book is the most healed and loving form I can make. Then should I send this book across the ocean to where my grandmother is buried—give it to the worms and bugs who live in the soil of my grandmother’s grave? But why do they deserve this sadness? Maybe I’ll just scatter it like ash in the world—as if publishing a book is like scattering ashes from an urn—in the sea, in the forest, in a city, anywhere.
*
Maybe I will take this book to my mother’s house. I will knock on her door and go up to her and say, It’s here. On the page. Your mother’s sadness, and your sadness, and mine. Although not all of the reasons. I don’t know all of the reasons.
As she reads through it, I’ll stand there and wonder: Do you think with our lives we validated your mother? Do you think we helped her at all? Did we do our job? Can her life be said to be worth what you thought it was worth? Is this the first thing we have ever done together? You carried the nightmares, and I carried them, too. Can we put them down now? In putting down this book, will you put your sadness down? Put down whatever remains of your task, and finally rest satisfied?
Maybe she will say, It’s okay that you don’t know all of the reasons. When I diagnose a cancer, I don’t need to say the reasons. I’m just asked whether it’s malignant or benign.
Then these tears, I will say, this pain, this sadness, this tumour-like growth. In your professional opinion, is it malignant or benign?
I’ve looked it over carefully—and my opinion is that it’s benign. My suggestion is not to operate. There are more dangers associated with taking it out than leaving it inside.
I was in a small town, giving a reading at a literary festival, several hours’ drive from home. I finished writing these pages, and then, with a fear I didn’t completely understand, and yet at the same time which I understood well, I sent these pages off to my mother. I asked her to please read them, and let me know whether she would rather I use her mother’s maiden name, Becker, or her married name, Waldner. Without thinking about it anymore, I sent them off, and a great pleasure filled me.
*
I went out to explore the area for the first time since I arrived. I left the apartment in the little house where I was staying, and walked down Lighthouse Street to where a cliff overlooked the bay, and everything was green and wet. It had been raining all day, but now the rain had stopped. After walking along the cliff’s edge, I discovered some wooden steps leading down—all the way, I supposed, to the beach. I was wearing white sneakers, a white nightgown, and a grey sweatshirt—a little underdressed for the weather. I went down five or six steps before my feet slipped out from under me and I fell down the whole flight, landing roughly as the back of my shins knocked again and again against the wooden steps which were cut into the hill. I jumped up quickly, like an animal spooked, and hobbled back up the hill, going quickly across the grassy field back towards the street. Strolling past me was an elderly couple. They were heading to the cliff’s edge to watch the sunset, and even though it was almost nine at night, only a touch of redness could be seen against the clouds which lined the edge of the horizon. The woman saw the bruises appearing on my legs, and she said, That looks bad—you should put some Arnica on that. We stood there, the three of us, and watched the end of the sunset. The man said, twenty miles down, and thirty kilometers across, there is the largest bed of salt in the country—it’s a salt mine. The woman and I hadn’t known this. After the couple walked off, I remained in the grassy field, and watched the sky grow dark. All I wanted was to stay there through the night, just fall asleep in the grass, and wake with the dew in the morning.
*
When morning arrived, I sat up in bed in the little house where I was staying, and reached over to the side table, on which rested my phone. There was an email from my mother, which had arrived ten minutes before, just as I was stirring awake. I pulled it close and read her message.
Subject line: It’s magical!
My mother was the person I loved the most, was the most important person in my life for the longest time.
When I was pregnant with you, it never occurred to me that I would have a son. I lost my mother. I had to have a daughter to make the Universe perfect again.
You will be soon forty years old and she died about forty years ago. You never knew her, and you are the one who will make her alive forever.
It is magical! And yes, the Universe is back to perfect.
Thank you, Sweetheart. I love you very much.
Then I named this wrestling place Motherhood, for here is where I saw God face-to-face, and yet my life was spared.
ALSO BY SHEILA HETI
FICTION
The Middle Stories
Ticknor
How Should a Person Be?
COLLABORATIONS
The Chairs Are Where the People Go
Women in Clothes
PLAYS
All Our Happy Days Are Stupid
FOR CHILDREN
We Need a Horse
About the Author
SHEILA HETI is the acclaimed author of the novel How Should a Person Be?, which was named a New York Times Notable Book, the story collection The Middle Stories, and the novel Ticknor, which was a finalist for the Trillium Book Award. Her writing has appeared in various publications, including The New York Times, London Review of Books, The Globe and Mail, n+1, McSweeney’s and The Believer. She frequently collaborates with other writers and artists. Sheila Heti lives in Toronto. You can sign up for email updates here.
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First Edition 2018
eISBN 9781627790789
First eBook edition: May 2018
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Note
A Further Note
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New York
Home
Book Tour
Home
PMS
Bleeding
Follicular
Ovulating
PMS
Bleeding
Follicular
Ovulating
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Also by Sheila Heti
About the Author
Copyright
