Things I'm Seeing Without You

by Peter Bognanni

  “I thought we were fixing things,” he said.

  He blinked into the early morning sunlight.

  “I thought you were actually going to tell me what was going on in your life. I wanted to be that person. I was ready. But I guess that’s just not going to happen with us, is it?”

  I was starting to prefer his silence.

  “I know I’ve made mistakes,” he said, “I get that. And I know you think I sabotaged our family. But it’s not that simple, Tess. You don’t know everything. You’re old enough to understand some complexities.”

  “What do you mean?” I said.

  “It’s not worth talking about.”

  “Then how do I know you’re not lying?”

  He sighed.

  “Look,” he said. “There were certain indiscretions.”

  “Dad,” I said. “Will you stop speaking in code? If you want to tell me something, tell me.”

  “Your mother was having an affair,” he said.

  I felt my mouth close tight.

  “With that guy she’s seeing now. And I wasn’t entirely in denial, the way you think I was.”

  He opened the lid on a thermos, and the smell of his burnt coffee filled the car.

  “It’s easy to imagine that since I was so checked out, but the truth is I was in mourning. There’s a difference. I knew my marriage was dead, and I couldn’t help grieving for it. It swallowed up everything else, and I walked around in a fog. For years I guess.”

  “But you were trying out all those jobs . . .”

  “A distraction,” he said. “A way to get away from home.”

  “God, I can’t believe her,” I said.

  He took a sip of coffee.

  “It wasn’t just her, Tess. You don’t need to make her your super villain. I wasn’t the world’s greatest husband.”

  I looked in the rearview mirror and watched the road disappear behind us.

  “She didn’t even come to get me,” I said.

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “In Sicily. I thought maybe she’d show up to bring me home.”

  My dad was quiet a moment.

  “That was never going to happen,” he said.

  “Why not?”

  He took another loud sip of coffee.

  “Because I never told her you were there.”

  “Oh,” I said. I paused to let that sink in.

  “How do you think it makes me look?” he said. “The one time you’re with me in the last two years and you flee the country. I knew there was some tension between us, but I didn’t think it was this bad.”

  “It was for a funeral,” I mumbled.

  “I know,” he said. “That makes it even worse! Funerals are what I do!”

  “Dad . . .” I said.

  “I don’t want to hear anything else now. I just want to let you know I’ve made a decision. And I’m afraid it’s a final one.”

  “What decision?”

  “I don’t think we should work together anymore,” he said.

  He said it low and quiet, like it was hard to get out.

  “It was an irresponsible idea to begin with, and it has now run its course.”

  I expected to feel nothing after he said this. After all, I had been helping him. I was doing the favor. But there was a pit in my stomach after he spoke, and I felt it all the way home. I felt it when I went to bed that night. And I still felt it when I woke up thinking of my funeral.

  When my dad finally came home, I found him making business calls at the kitchen table. After he got off the phone, I asked him if there was a new funeral he was planning, but he didn’t answer me.

  “C’mon,” I said. “What is it? A funeral for a stray cat? A marmoset?”

  Silence.

  “Just give me a hint.”

  More silence.

  Eventually I went upstairs and called Grace. I asked her if I could come over for a little while. Surprisingly enough, she told me to pack a bag and stay for the weekend.

  “Your dad just needs more time to get over it,” she said.

  “Over what exactly?” I asked.

  “His heartbreak.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  41

  So I showed up with a backpack and sat on Grace’s balcony while she went to work. There was an egg-shaped wicker chair hanging outside of her small, stylish apartment downtown and I claimed it for my own.

  It had been a while since I lived with a woman and the perks were pretty awesome right off the bat. Cleanliness, for one. Grace did a natural deep clean of her entire apartment every weekend, she told me. And she used a fancy cider vinegar that made the whole place smell like apples. Also, there were no freakishly long pubic hairs on the toilet seat, so that was a plus.

  Another perk was the grocery shopping. Grace’s fridge was stocked with organic produce, and I was given full access. I began to eat fruits and vegetables like a sailor staving off scurvy. And finally, there was the library, mostly composed of books about the alternative death movement. After spending some time just scanning the shelf, I began to read through them, taking in large gulps of information about backyard burials and nature cemeteries.

  That evening, Grace still wasn’t home, so I ignored my best instincts and went into her home office. I only had to look in two drawers before I came across the baby pictures. Grace appeared in one after the other, along with a man with the same blue eyes and turned-up nose as the child. And, of course, the closer I looked, the more the baby girl resembled Grace, too. Her hair was an identical shade for one thing. And her top lip curved in just the same way.

  Later that night, over vegan lasagna and a glass of wine, I asked her if I could volunteer at Greener Pastures the next day. Grace looked surprised, but only for a few seconds. She finished chewing a bite of lasagna, and simply said, “I don’t know how your dad will feel about that.”

  But I showed up the next morning and she didn’t turn me away. So, for the next week, while I waited for my dad to talk to me again, I went to Grace’s office in Northeast Minneapolis. Mostly, I helped with record keeping and answering the occasional phone call while Grace’s assistant was at lunch. But a few days in, I began to keep a blog, writing short entries about hand-carved stoneware urns, funeral photographers, recycling pacemakers, and finally, on day five, I began an extensive entry about how to remove deceased family members from social media.

  I started it with no trouble, writing about proof of authority and login information. It was only when I felt the urge to comment on the topic that I froze up. By the end of the morning, I broke down and visited Jonah’s Facebook page. The page had not been taken down like I thought. Instead, in the time since I’d last checked it, it had become a full-on memorial page.

  “Missing you, J!” wrote a former classmate. “Had a dream last night that you were still here, man. Wish it were true.” “Your birthday’s coming up, soon. I didn’t forget!” Extended family were present, too: “We’ll be setting a place for you at the lake this year, Jonah. Be sure to pay us a visit.” “Hope you’re enjoying your journey.” “Your cousin just graduated high school. I know you’d be proud!” I scrolled down the page.

  Since I wasn’t a “friend” anymore, I didn’t have access to all the pictures, but I was surprised to find that I still had most of them memorized. There were so many times I’d used them as placeholders to picture him when I hadn’t seen his face in months. I wasn’t sure how long I’d been staring at the screen when Grace tapped me on the shoulder. I jumped.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  I didn’t answer, and Grace looked at the screen over my shoulder.

  “There’s a food truck down the street with decent tacos. You ready for lunch?”

  It would have been so easy to say no, to say I was almos
t finished with my blog post. But I darkened the computer screen in front of me and stood up. I followed Grace out the door and out onto the street. Summer was here in earnest and I was sweating the instant the hot sun hit my neck.

  “You’ve been doing some nice work on the blog,” Grace said. “I’ve gotten a lot of compliments.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I’m glad.”

  “I think it’s time to start paying you for it.”

  I heard myself laugh.

  “I’m eating all of your food,” I said. “I live in your house.”

  “That can’t be a permanent arrangement, Tess. You understand, right?”

  The information didn’t entirely register with me. I didn’t want to hear it.

  “But I’d like you to keep the blog going,” she said. “I think it will be a good part-time job when you go back to school.”

  I slowed my step.

  “I dropped out of school,” I said.

  “You dropped out of a school,” said Grace. “One school. For reasons of bereavement and mental distress. I think we can find you another one.”

  We were approaching the taco truck.

  “Listen, Tess,” said Grace, “I think you have a hell of a lot to offer this industry if that’s what you want to do with your life. You are a smart, capable, deeply empathetic person, and those are the skills you need to actually do this. But I also think you’re a seventeen-year-old in the final stages of mourning, and you don’t need to do something forever because it helped you through a difficult time.”

  I shielded my eyes against the sun.

  “There are plenty of other ways to contribute. And you need time to figure that out. Finish high school. Go to college. Find out what you want. Find out what you don’t want. Screw up some more. Get your heart broken again. Try to be decent along the way. That’s how you make a life.”

  Grace got in the line behind one other person.

  “It’s easy to get stuck. To let one big thing hold you in place. And it’s such a waste. Don’t fall for it. It will keep you from everything.”

  Grace paused for a breath. I looked over at her.

  “That can’t be all your advice,” I said.

  She smiled.

  “No!” she said. “It’s not. Get the HPV vaccine. And order some tacos, for Christ’s sake! I’m starving.”

  I ordered and when my tacos came out, I took a small bite of the first one. It tasted good. So salty it stunned my tongue. The two of us ate and watched the crowd build at the taco truck. A couple of pierced boys rode by on tall bikes, and I watched them pedal away with purpose. Eventually, we finished and got up to walk back to the office. When I got back to my desk, she brought me something.

  “Here,” she said. “Your dad gave me this. It came to his house yesterday.”

  She held out a single letter, and I grabbed it with my thumb and forefinger. I looked at it for a moment. His handwriting, in blue pen, was messy but legible. Eventually, I opened it up. It said:

  Dear Tess,

  I don’t know how to write letters. That will become very apparent soon. I don’t think I’ve written one since I went to 4-H camp the summer after fifth grade and got a tick on my eyelid. In fact, I’m so out of practice, I had to type this out first, and now I’m transferring it to my mom’s stationery with a pen, which explains the flowers on the bottom of each page. I hope you like begonias.

  Anyway, this isn’t going to be a long letter. I know much has already been said. And I don’t want to rehash our conversation from the airport. In fact, I’d like to forget that airport ever happened, maybe. Instead: I just want to do something small. I don’t know why, but I want to tell you about the first time I met you.

  It was November, I think. And I had just come back from a night class to find my dorm room dim. There was a video game glowing on the TV, a little sword-wielding avatar running in place, frozen in his mission. I didn’t see Jonah at first. He was on his bed, taking deep breaths and rubbing his temples. I asked him if he was okay, and he said yeah. Just a headache. No big deal. A week earlier I might have believed him. But he’d been having a lot of these “headaches” lately, and I was starting to suspect that maybe there was something more going on.

  But I sat down at his desk nearby and asked him if he needed anything. He said yes. I was thinking Advil maybe. A glass of water. But when I asked him what, he said he needed me to respond to you.

  Now I had heard all about you at this point. Jonah had told me about Iowa and the way you guys continued talking online. He told me that you were beautiful. That you were funny. That he wished he lived in Iowa so he could be with you all the time. And I believed him, of course. He didn’t lie about people.

  So you guys had been g-chatting, I guess, and apparently he had just walked away to lie down. But he forgot to tell you. He forgot to sign off. And that’s what he wanted me to do.

  “What should I say?” I asked him.

  “Doesn’t matter,” he said. “Anything. Just say I have homework or something.”

  “As you, though.”

  “Right,” he said.

  So, that’s what I did. I wrote in his voice, some excuse about having homework and that I needed to sign off. And I would have left it at that, but you wrote back really fast.

  “You never gave me an answer . . .” you said.

  I looked over at Jonah. He was wincing.

  “To what?” I wrote.

  “Jesus,” you said. “You have short-term memory problems.”

  “I know,” I wrote.

  Then you wrote: “The million-dollar question: Would you rather have no penis or five?”

  I laughed out loud at that point, I think. And I asked Jonah the question. But he didn’t answer. He was asleep, or pretending to be. I glanced back at the screen and you had written again.

  “Just kidding, Now quit stalling and tell me if you’ve ever been in love.”

  I watched the blinking cursor. And I thought about coming clean about my identity right then. But it didn’t seem right to mess up this moment. That was one of my justifications. And given what I knew about Jonah, I felt like I could answer the question honestly. That was the other. So, I answered it. I wrote:

  “Not until now.”

  You took a moment to write back. And then you wrote: “Sorry, but I’ll never fall for a man with five penises.”

  And I said: “That’s okay because I don’t have one at all.”

  And then you sent a smile and signed off.

  On the one hand, it felt like nothing much had just happened. I had flirted for a friend. And I had done a decent job, I guess. On the other hand, it started to occur to me that I had just told you Jonah loved you. In so many words. But I don’t think I was writing for Jonah in that moment.

  I know it’s absurd. I had no right. I understood that on some level. You didn’t know me. And really, I didn’t know you. But I felt like I did. Or maybe, as I tried to explain before, I just wanted to be part of it.

  And I knew already that Jonah was starting to retreat from you. He was ducking away from everything, and I didn’t know why. I just knew he was going to let you go, and I didn’t want that to happen. So, at first, I thought what I was doing was selfless. I was keeping love alive.

  However imperfect.

  I know now that I was doing something else. And I wish everyday that I had met you under different circumstances. That you knew me as a different person. But I don’t think we would have met in any other way, Tess. And I think now that maybe what I was doing was reaching out to someone else who knew this amazing person. Someone who might be able to help me as he slowly disappeared from my life.

  I guess this turned into a long letter.

  The only thing I want to say before I stop this thing is that I don’t know what created this feeling for me. But I don’t care.
I would like you to be a part of my life. If I have to write more of these letters, I will. And if I have to come to Minnesota once a month to convince you to be my friend, I will. But, in the end, my answer was true that day.

  I have only been in love once.

  I was crying when Grace came back to my desk. She just stood there for a moment, unsure what to do. But eventually, she put a hand on my shoulder and then leaned in.

  “It’s slow,” she said. “There are no clients. Why don’t you go home for the day?”

  I wiped my nose on the sleeve of my shirt.

  “I’ll just ride back with you when you’re done,” I said.

  “No,” she said. “I mean home home.”

  I was still holding the letter. Now I started to fold it back up.

  “Oh,” I said. “There.”

  She opened her purse and dug out some money. She handed me a twenty-dollar bill.

  “I called you a cab,” she said. “I can bring your stuff by later.”

  “Grace,” I said, but I started to cry again.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “I know.”

  42

  I walked out onto the street where there was already a taxi waiting for me. And I hopped inside. As the guy took off toward my father’s neighborhood, I came back to myself a little, and I remembered that I hadn’t finished my blog entry. I had left it half-done on the computer. I knew it would be there for me when I came back. It wasn’t a big deal. But I had this itch of unfinished business. Finally, it hit me that it wasn’t the blog I was thinking about.

  I pulled out my phone and broke every rule I had set up. I texted Daniel.

  There’s one last thing we need to do.

  I waited a few minutes and then his reply came back.

  What’s that?

  I wrote back immediately.

  Take him off-line. I know you have the passwords. It’s time.

  There was a significant pause this time. So I wrote again.

  All the accounts you wrote me from. They shouldn’t be there anymore. They aren’t ours.