John loved kids. Even before Ellie was born, you could find him at his friends’ kids’ Little League playoffs, Pee Wee football games, or ballet recitals, cheering from the sidelines. Not that he knew anything about football, or ballet, or much about baseball. Didn’t matter. He’d cheer on every child—kids from opposing teams, as well. He owned a padded seat for long waits on the cold metal stands. He bought a folding chair that looked like a La-Z-Boy recliner. Kids loved him, too. They’d spot him in a crowd of parents. Maybe it was his smile, his boyishness. Maybe because he’d remember their names. John was always up to play catch, to guess Silly Bandz shapes, to hold one end of a jump rope.
I loved children, too—on other people. Since college, I’d been so busy with my career I couldn’t even keep my Yoplait from going bad. The point is, I’d forgotten to have children. Or, you know, date.
And then I met John. I spent eight of my nine months of pregnancy seasick to give John the one gift he’d never received: Eleanor Parker Bernal. She weighed 8 pounds, 3 ounces, was born at 5:38 in the morning after twelve hours of labor … and the first person to hold her was her daddy.
“Eleanor,” he said, putting his nose to her tiny one. “Ellie … I’ve been waiting for you …”
“Can I see her?” I said. I was still groggy from the drugs, but I was pretty sure I’d just given birth.
“You’re gonna love Mommy,” John said, as he handed me this squirmy bundle in a pink blanket. “Mommy’s the funniest girl I know. Just don’t ask her to cook anything, ever, okay, El?”
The baby yawned. Already, she was bored with me. Then, she started crying. Mother and daughter were getting off to a great start.
“She doesn’t even know me well enough to hate me,” I said, as I handed her to John, who pressed his face to her cheek and started singing softly. Meanwhile, my seasickness had ended and the thought of French toast had begun.
The baby stopped crying.
“Oh, he’s good,” the nurse had said. “Daddy has the touch.”
Weeks later, I was sitting in our backyard under our avocado tree, nursing our baby. Nursing was the only thing John couldn’t do with Ellie, but trust me, I think he tried when I wasn’t looking.
John was feeding me rigatoni bolognese, to keep up my strength to breast-feed; even I was jealous of myself.
“What were you singing to Ellie the morning she was born? ‘You Are My Sunshine’?”
“Um, no,” John said, putting a forkful of pasta in my mouth. Sometimes, he fed me just to keep me quiet. Worked.
“ ‘Hey, Jude’?” I said, my mouth full.
“You’re not going to guess,” John said. “Eat.”
“ ‘Don’t Worry, Baby’?”
“ ‘I’m a Flirt,’ ” he said. “R. Kelly. Told you you couldn’t guess. It was the first thing that came to me.” He stuffed another bite of rigatoni in my mouth, making it impossible for me to object.
From birth, John took his little shadow, Ellie, everywhere. Whole Foods, the library, bookstores, corner market, post office, the Brentwood Country Mart for BBQ chicken, Montana Avenue for a stroll and an espresso, the Promenade to watch a matinee. Was I jealous? No. I was relieved. John was born to raise Ellie; she was born to complete him. Me, I spent her first three years petrified that I would choke her with a half a grape. I needed a buffer.
Then there were Mommy and Me classes, which should have been renamed Mommy, Hot Daddy, and Me. African Music Mommy and Me, Pre-Ballet Movement Mommy and Me, Cooking Lebanese Mommy and Me—in every class, there were a dozen young moms and John. The few classes I attended scared me back into my jar of Ponds. How did I miss the middle-aged-mommy wave?
“I blame the latest wave of starlets,” Jay had said one day after I cried to him sitting in our favorite coffee shop. “Instead of normal young starlet activities—smoking meth, driving the wrong way on the 405, flashing their baldies, screwing bad manager/boyfriends—”
“There must be a bad manager/boyfriend outlet store. There’s so many of them.”
“Starlets are popping out babies,” Jay said.
“One after another,” I said. “Babies are the new drug of choice. And the Mommy and Me girls are following in their pedicured, heroin-pricked footsteps.”
I took Ellie to her ballet class after John had passed away. A new Mommy asked me, in my desiccated, elderly state, “So, are you Ellie’s grandmother?”
New word for me and my kind: Grammommy.
If I had been the one to die, Ellie’s life would continue relatively smoothly. But I wasn’t. I was left here to pick up the pieces. And endure Mommy and Me classes.
Life is cruel.
Ellie attends Bunny Hill Preschool, in an old two-story just south of Sunset. Remember when there were “nursery schools”? Perhaps they still exist out in the Valley, but not here. Oh, no. Here there are “preschools.” “Preschool” sounds much more important than “nursery school.” In preschool, your toddler learns “pre-reading” and “pre-math.” Don’t get me started on pre-K. I just like my K straight, thank you.
Why are we in Bunny Hill? Every big life decision I make is based on a quotient: Time + Distance divided by Parking. Thus, Ellie’s pediatrician, Dr. Bob, located seven minutes from Casa Sugar, has ample parking; Dr. Jim (the “surfing doc” who’s always on CNN hating on vaccines, because, like, “science” is, like, not “cool”) is closer, but parking is impossible. Bunny Hill is 8.2 minutes from Casa Sugar. Parking is great. Done and done. Also, Chloe had insisted on Bunny Hill.
“I don’t want to be an alarmist, but like my blog says, preschool is the new college. You don’t want Ellie going to prison, do you?” Chloe had said.
Our interview with Rhoda, Bunny Hill’s seventy-year-old matriarch (matriarch is to Bunny Hill as Castro is to Cuba) went something like this:
1. Have you ever spent quality time with any of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills?
(I thought this was a trick question. It wasn’t. The right answer was “yes,” not my answer, which was snort, laugh, cough.)
2. Can you offer a Four Seasons Maui cabana for our Spring Auction?
3. Can you get letters of recommendation from Bill Clinton or Whoopi Goldberg?
By the time John and I were ready to turn tail and run, Ellie was emotionally attached to Fred, the school mascot, a tired old bunny kept in a cage in the dusty backyard.
“Did you realize,” Rhoda whispered, her eyes wide, across her crowded desk, “Ellie is already a pre-learner?” Of course, we signed over our life savings.
Now, guess what? Bet you can’t. I’m the only widow at Bunny Hill, including elderly Rhoda, who’s vacationing in Greece this summer with her husband, Abe. I feel about that how I feel about everything that’s unfair—wars, poverty, starvation, the price of almonds, John dying, Nic Cage’s hairline—there is no God.
Oh, and none of the moms of the other Mommies are widows, yet, either.
So. My child.
They sell grief books for parents. Well, when bad stuff happens, the last thing you want to do is drive to Barnes & Noble, and ask an English Lit major working minimum wage for a how-to-tell-your-kid-dad-is-dead book.
A week went by. Almost two weeks. Aimee and I were sharing a bottle of pinot noir as I tried to roast chicken à la John. Crispy skin, juicy breast. Truckloads of garlic.
Ellie danced through, then stopped as I sweated over the bird. “Mom, that’s Daddy’s job,” she said.
“You’re right,” I said, “it is Daddy’s job.”
“You’re not a cook, remember?” she said, her hazel eyes huge in her chubby doll face. “Daddy really needs to come back and cook.” She was wearing a new outfit, via Uncle Jay. I wasn’t totally sure about the leopard tights. The beret seemed fine.
“That’s right, Ellie. I’m not a cook,” I said. “Just ask this chicken.”
“Daddy’s the Mommy Daddy. And you’re the Daddy Mommy. You go to work and he stays home with me.” She waltzed off, wiggling her bottom. I
tried to avoid Aimee’s glare by hiding behind my undercooked chicken.
“I’m trying to find the right moment,” I said weakly. “I’ll do it. After I make these vegan cupcakes for Ellie’s lunch.”
“Step away from the spatula,” Aimee said. “I’ll roast the salmonella out of the chicken. There’s no time like the present.”
“And there’s no present like time,” I said. “But we don’t have that, do we.” Now and then, Aimee made sense. I had to be the adult, even if I just wanted to lie around in my pj’s and watch cartoons and eat cereal out of the box and generally avoid everything.
“I’m going in,” I announced, and went to find Ellie.
I hadn’t stepped foot in John’s office since he died. My books are there. Various pens I like. I just can’t seem to cross the threshold. See, if I walk in and he’s not bent over his desk, mumbling he’s got “nothing in the tank”—then he’s really dead, isn’t he?
Ellie had wandered into his office. I watched her from the doorway, hopping around, peeking behind the bookcase, looking through his scribbled recipes.
“El,” I said, finding my voice, “I want to tell you something.”
El’s usually the one who wants to tell me something—that’s what she always says, very serious. “Mommy, I want to tell you something.”
I sat on the love seat from his old apartment. Ellie snuggled close to me. She’d been clinging to me lately, without even knowing the bad news. I’d wake up to her little fingers entangled in my hair.
“I don’t want you to tell me something,” she said, whispering.
“El, it’s important.”
“No.”
Ellie is three. Three’s a stubborn age. But more than that. Three is smart. Three knows. This three, she knew. Her daddy had never been away from her. I had an epiphany. Luke the Goldfish.
“El, you remember Luke?”
John had won Luke the Goldfish at an arcade game at the Malibu Chili Cook-off, from a toothless carny. Luke was a bargain at three bucks. (And $120 at Petco for the tank, food, chlorine drops, light-up rocks … goldfish are a money pit. You know the drill.)
Luke the Goldfish was effervescent and full of life. He had a little Joel Grey in him, now that I think of it. He really enjoyed greeting us in the morning, swimming right to the surface and blowing goldfish kisses. Ellie loved Luke. I loved Luke.
A week later, Luke went belly up. At first, I thought he was sleeping. I’ve never had a pet, forgive me for not knowing that goldfish don’t sleep. I tapped the bowl, then screamed, dropped his food, and ran out of the room.
“Luke’s dead,” I said to John, who was making French toast. (Oh, his French toast—browned edges and sifted powdered sugar on top—you don’t even know.)
“Well, I’m not surprised,” he said. “We did win him from a guy with no teeth.”
“It’s like a bloodbath in there!” I said. Ellie was still asleep. “Go, get him out, please, before Ellie sees—I can get a goldfish twin later. Maybe say a prayer—what’s a prayer for the dead?”
“You want me to do a prayer for Luke?”
“Luke. Was. Special.”
“I’ll do the kaddish,” John said, wiping his hands on a dish towel. I followed him, then listened in the doorway as he recited words in Hebrew, and as the toilet flushed.
“I love Luke,” Ellie said, bringing me back to the (horrifying) present, in John’s office.
“El, you know how Daddy hasn’t been here in a few days?” I said. Lying. Few days? Kids have no sense of time, scientists say. Like dogs, a year will go by and feel like hours. They’ll just pick up right where they left off. I don’t buy it.
“No no no nonononononononononono …,” Ellie said, putting her hands over her ears.
“Ellie, Daddy loves you so much—”
“nonononononononono—”
“He loves you so much but you’re not going to see him—”
“nononononononononono—”
“Ellie, please—even though you won’t see Daddy anymore, I mean, in his office, or cooking—”
“NONONONONONONONONONONONONONO!!!!!!”
“El, El, Daddy’s in heaven—”
“NONONONONONONONONONONONO!!!!!!!”
“You’ll feel him forever, in your heart—he’s there, he’s still there—we just can’t see him—but you can still talk to him—I’ll never ever stop talking to him—”
“No no no no! NO, MOMMY, NO!” El said. She hit me.
“Please don’t be mad at me,” I pleaded, going down on my knees. “Please, El—”
“NO, MOMMY, NO!”
“I’m here, Ellie. I’m not going anywhere. We’re going to be okay. Daddy wants us to be okay. He doesn’t want us to be sad. I’m here. I’m here!”
How could I lie to her? I wasn’t there. I was gone. Could I even say I would survive? What if I got sick? Died of grief? People die from a wounded heart.
I couldn’t write the how-to book on telling kids their father is dead.
And if you’ve written it, you haven’t done it. Think back to the hardest conversation of your life: “I want a divorce.” “Princess has to be put to sleep.” “Mom and Dad, I’m gay.” I win “Most Difficult Conversation.” I get first place.
And when the wailing and sobbing and sniffling finally came to an end, I sat on Ellie’s bed and held my exhausted, red-cheeked daughter in my arms. And around us, Casa Sugar was silent, holding us in its embrace.
7
Dead Men Tell No Tales;
Dead Women, Either
One clear Saturday morning, Jay somehow got it in his head that it would be a good idea for me to take Ellie to Pacific Park for the day.
“You can take her on rides, play games. She needs alone time with you,” he’d said in my bedroom, as he instructed me on how to dress myself. I’d lost the will to accessorize.
“She’ll have a whole lifetime of alone time with me,” I’d said, as I slipped into old Juicy Couture sweatpants. I could see Jay blanch. “Jay, she wants her dad, not me. I was the third wheel.”
“Nonsense,” Jay said. “Ellie adores you. More important, you adore her. Now, let me get you down there early enough to avoid gang shootings.”
With that, Jay drove us down to the pier, with instructions to have fun, and that he’d pick us up in two hours. We looked around. The ocean was flat, the sun glinting off its surface like a new set of knives. I stared out at the endless sky and sighed. I’d forgotten my sunglasses. Of course.
Ellie clasped my hand and looked up at me, giving me a wan little smile. There were circles under her eyes.
“Ready to have some fun?” I said. I smiled back—or at least, a close facsimile of a smile.
Ellie nodded. The sun shone on her curls. We walked down the pier, into the park.
We’d eaten cotton candy, rode bumper cars, won a stuffed SpongeBob toy at the water cannon, got carried away at Whac-A-Mole, and I’d lost about twelve million dollars at the basketball hoops (which John could win in a heartbeat).
Hip-hop music blared as the Saturday crowd filled up the lines, and though I was done before I began, Ellie was desperate to ride the Ferris wheel. We were running late, and Jay would be waiting for us, but Ellie wouldn’t take no for an answer.
“I’m not a big fan of heights,” I informed Ellie. “And the fact that it’s solar powered just makes me nervous.”
“Mommy, it’s okay,” Ellie reassured me. “See?” she said, as we were strapped into our cart. “See? We’ll be okay.”
She slipped her hand over mine, and laughed as the Ferris wheel floated lazily toward the sky. I felt light-headed as the ground drifted away from us.
Suddenly, Ellie got squirmy. “Mommy, make room,” Ellie said.
“Ellie, stay,” I said. “What are you doing?” The Ferris wheel continued to circle up. Ellie scooched her bottom away from me, toward the other side of the cart.
�
��Ellie, stay next to me—”
The view was breathtaking, a postcard for Southern California days. I could see the entire coastline. All I wanted, though, was for the ride to stop. I was feeling woozy. I needed solid ground beneath my feet. My palms started to sweat.
“Mommy, when we go to the top, Daddy can jump in!”
“Honey, no,” I said. I felt stunned. “Daddy’s not going to jump in.”
“Mommy, Daddy’s in heaven … he’s right up there.” She pointed to the sky. “He can see us—he’ll see us and jump in!”
Ellie tried to stand up—I grabbed her and screamed as she leaned over the rail. People below started staring and pointing.
“Ellie, stop!”
“Daddy!” Ellie yelled. “Daddy! We’re here! Daddy!”
The ride operators took notice. I held on to Ellie, who had started to cry, until we reached the bottom. Jay, pale, a worried look on his face, was waiting for us. A ride operator, an older woman, shook her finger at a sobbing Ellie as she raced out of the cart into Jay’s arms. I stumbled as I walked toward the exit.
“Mommy!” Ellie said, her eyes red, tears running down her face. “Why didn’t you let Daddy in? Why?”
“I’m sorry,” Jay said softly, holding Ellie in his arms, his hand over her head, as we made our way back to the car.
Five-fifteen in the morning. The wind blows through an open window. I get up to close it. October, I think. The air is changing. Chilly. A sweet smell, the promise of rain. I sit in front of my mirror, and stare at myself. Stare at all the ways my face has changed. I’m forty-three-and-a-half years old. Only. Too old to fully appreciate Lil Wayne, too young to be a widow. This is around the time I start lying about my age, but I lie older. I look much better for forty-four than forty-two. Especially since John died.
I’ve lost twelve pounds. I can’t coax it back on. I’ve tried everything, except, maybe, eating (where’s that damn Post-it?). I know what you’re thinking. You’re mad at your husband or boyfriend, the guy who takes up most of your bed and the last piece of crispy bacon. “I could drop these saddlebags? Just by losing this guy? Done and done!”
The After Wife Page 5
