Signs of Life

by Natalie Taylor

  Just as the Corleone family knows, however, sometimes there are clashes in the Family. Carlo Rizzi is the new brother-in-law at the beginning of The Godfather. It is evident that the men in the Corleone family are skeptical of his character, but they must embrace him as their brother. Ashley, Josh’s little sister, is my Carlo Rizzi. When Josh was here, he and Ashley had a rocky relationship. We only really saw her on holidays or during the summer at their cottage. But now that Josh isn’t here, I see her almost every day of the week.

  Ashley is my age and about my height, but she always feels taller than me. She has long blond hair and is ferociously good-looking. She is the type of woman who, when she walks in high heels, announces her presence with the sound of her heels striking the ground. This is an odd way to judge a person, I know, but just watch how some people walk, how loud their shoes are, and see if it doesn’t match their personality. Another way I judge women is by when they choose to expose their cleavage. For example, most of my close friends (Maggie, Battersby, and Terrah) would only show their cleavage at a very special occasion—a wedding, for example. So they qualify as Wedding Date Cleavage. And they would only show their cleavage at a friend’s wedding, not a family member’s wedding. Moo is more Date-Night Cleavage, but she lives in Miami where everybody is Morning Coffee Cleavage (or at least that’s my impression of Miami as a midwestern suburbanite). Hales would blush if you said the word cleavage, and my mom hasn’t shown off her cleavage since 1974, which classifies her as Back-in-the-Day Cleavage. But Ashley is Workday Cleavage, hands down. Four out of five days, she’s showing off the girls. She is a wine rep and works at restaurants and bars, so it is an acceptable venue for cleavage, but still. In my mind, the only bosom display that ranks lower than Workday Cleavage is Religious Ceremony Cleavage. She’s not quite there yet. She is extremely confident (most Workday Cleavage women are) and has a loud, definitive voice. I have always been intimidated by her, though I have never admitted this to anyone, most certainly not her. She is an intense human being who will always tell you exactly how she feels, even if her opinion is offensive, outlandish, or uninvited. She is boisterous, and though she would never outwardly admit it, she prides herself on getting what she wants. Aren’t most Workday Cleavage women this way? Isn’t that after all the objective of Workday Cleavage?

  Perhaps the anecdote that best shows Ashley being Ashley stems from an incident that occurred a few weeks after Josh’s funeral. When Ads and I were driving home from up north after the Fourth of July, Ashley called my cell phone. She had gone to the Tigers game the night before with Chris and some friends. I think they were excited to do something normal after a month of funeral stuff. I asked how the game was.

  “The game was fine. Kinda long, but nothing exciting. But, um, it was after the game that a few crazy things happened.” This is a typical Ashley story setup. She acts like she doesn’t really want to tell me what happened and now I will have to pry a little to get the details, but in reality she is dying to tell me something juicy. She had called me, after all. And I know I am not the only person who will get this suspenseful story today. She has this well rehearsed. She is looking to stun me with some drunken tale from last night.

  “Oh really. Well, what happened?”

  “Well, we were at the bar after the game—we went to the Inn Place in Royal Oak—and who do I see but none other than Brady Ryan.” She says his name slowly, as if to make sure I heard. She wants to solidify a reaction from her audience. Brady Ryan is the guy who directed Josh’s funeral. Even before Josh’s death, Ashley and her family have always known Brady; he grew up in the same area as they did, and she and Brady were acquaintances throughout high school and college. Obviously, in the days following Josh’s death, we were with the guy all the time. He’s now in his early twenties and is single and, if I may say so myself, he is a downright beautiful human being. Having said all of that, he still directed her brother’s funeral, but just in the tone of her voice, I know where this is going.

  “Really. Well, how did that go?”

  “Well, we chatted, had a few drinks, and then the next thing I knew he was dropping me off at my place.” She pauses and waits for me to ask what happened next.

  “And then?”

  “And then somehow it went from a beer at my apartment to a drunken make-out.”

  I am officially stunned at this point. Stunned, but not stunned. I can’t say it any better than that.

  “You had a drunken make-out with Brady Ryan,” I say out loud, so Ads can hear me. He just about swerves off the road.

  “Yeah, it was pretty funny, actually.” I can sense she is smiling through the phone. “But after a little while, we both decided it didn’t need to go any further.”

  “Good for you, Ash,” I say dryly, still trying to process what she has just told me. I glance over at Ads. He is shaking his head in disbelief.

  “Ash, that is funny. Wow. You and Brady Ryan. Maybe this is the beginning of a beautiful relationship. You never know.”

  “Yeah, we’ll see.” I can tell by the way she says this that she would not be opposed to repeating the experience. Finally I hang up.

  As my phone clicks shut I look over at Ads. His jaw is dropped.

  “What?” he says, slamming one hand down on the steering wheel. I relay the details.

  “Nat, I’m not sure what to say right now.” I agree with him. We are both speechless, but we can’t stop laughing. Obviously, as everyone in my family knows, Brady Ryan, for being so young, did a tremendous job with Josh’s funeral and with helping us through the process. All of us were in awe of his sense of understanding for our grieving family and the way he conducted himself so confidently through the process. But this, this was the real red-blooded American boy coming through.

  For the next thirty miles or so, we go back and forth discussing the hilarity of him making out with Ashley. We brainstorm ideas of what we will say next time we see Brady Ryan. “Brady, hey, just so we’re on the same page, I’m not going to get a bill for additional services rendered, am I?” or “Brady, do you smash face with all of your grieving clients or just the blond ones?” To his credit, Ads and I both concede that with the combination of Ashley’s natural saleswoman personality, her Workday turned Date-Night Cleavage, the overwhelming feeling that life is short, and alcohol, the guy didn’t stand a chance.

  Brady and Ashley never did follow through on the initial spark they had that night. And while I do find the whole thing a little concerning, I have to say that it gave me something to laugh about with Ads instead of thinking about how Josh wasn’t the one driving next to me. Ads and I both concluded that Brady certainly did follow through on helping a girl in a time of loss, to say the least. How many funeral directors can put that much sense of life into dealing with death? Maybe I should even send Brady a thank-you card for his comic relief. I even have some leftover stationery from the funeral, courtesy of Brady himself.

  I may not fully agree with Ashley’s behavior all the time, but she is part of the capital F no matter what. But that is the nature of the Family. Sure, she is an in-law, but just like Carlo Rizzi that doesn’t mean she’s not in.

  At my first baby shower Ashley of course shows up looking gorgeous with a full face of makeup and her blond hair looks perfect. She is wearing three-inch heels and clomps around as she excitedly arranges presents around me at the front of the room. Her enthusiasm is overwhelming. I sit with my shoulders rolled forward in a large armchair. I am not wearing makeup. My hair, which has not been highlighted since January, is pulled back in a low ponytail. I have always thought that showers, however generous they may be, are incredibly awkward for the person doing the opening. I feel greedy for asking for all of these things and I feel sad that I’m not even sure about being a single mom. But I have to act excited and happy. It’s like being at your own wedding shower when you secretly hate the groom. The panini maker is only a big coverup for the truth: no object wrapped in pretty tissue paper can make the future easier.
But we still sit here and do this. Ashley feels entirely different about the process.

  Ashley makes me open her gift first in front of the twenty-six women at the shower. She hands me a laundry basket. I pick up the first outfit and am prepared to ooh and ahh and say my thank-you, but I quickly discover that the outfit is clipped to a piece of string, along with another outfit, then another, and another. The laundry line of baby clothes wraps around the entire room so that every single woman at the shower is holding an outfit attached to the clothesline. Everyone claps and gasps at Ashley’s generosity. She beams. “I went a little crazy!” She then announces to the crowd that she opened up a charge card at Baby Gap. Deedee turns to Aunt Kathy: “Did you hear that? She opened a charge card at Baby Gap. That’s so Ashley.” I am confused. I’m not quite sure whom the shower is for.

  The entire time Ashley sits next to me, cleaning up wrapping paper and organizing gifts. She tells me about every present I open, as if I would otherwise be clueless of its function if it weren’t for her. Ashley loves babies and children and desperately wants to have children, though at this point she isn’t dating anyone. Before she got a job as a wine rep, she spent several summers and postcollege months nannying for a family with a two-year-old boy and triplet baby girls. As a result, she feels qualified to speak to all things baby and children. It seems like everything I hand to her, she gives me her advice and finds it necessary to add in her own experiences with her children, which, again, weren’t really her children at all.

  “Hey, Nat, just so you know, all the girls had the Graco Snug-Ride car seat, and it was awesome because you can buy a separate base for your mom’s car if you want. Lynn! Lynn!”—she is now yelling across the room to my mother—“I just told Nat you can buy a separate base for this if you want!” Then “Hey Nat, I know they say to use Dreft detergent with baby stuff, but just so you know, they say that Tide detergent is the worst.” (Is it?) I smile and say thanks and try to keep my cool. No one wants to see a pregnant woman freak out at her own shower. But man, I sure am close.

  After the shower I sit and go through all the outfits by myself. The other week I went to breakfast with one of my co-workers, and she kept saying, “But really, you must be so relieved to be pregnant. What a blessing. I mean, you must be thrilled to be pregnant, despite everything else.” I just kept nodding and staring at my pancakes, but I couldn’t actually verbally agree with her. This is the most frightening thing in the world—to have a baby without my husband. I have absolutely no clue what I am doing. I have no idea what to expect or how to prepare. Am I thrilled? No. I’m downright scared. I’m scared and sad.

  I have no urge to go out and buy baby clothes. Ashley always seems more excited than me to have this baby, but maybe that’s more my fault than hers. My fault? Is that the right word? Excited? That can’t be the right word either. It’s just hard to be excited about anything right now. I am always thinking about Josh, and when I smile or laugh it never feels real. I can tell I’m faking it.

  • • •

  Although I go to my house for small increments of time, I am still living with my parents. No one is pressuring me to move back, but I know they all envision me moving back in at some point. I envision slapping a FOR SALE sign on the front lawn. Deedee suggests painting. She sees it as her mission to finish the nursery that Josh had started. I agree at first but only because I know it would make Deedee feel better, not because I am actually planning on moving in again.

  “Well, the first thing we’ll do is paint the ceiling white. Don’t you think, Nat?” She says this as I stand in the doorway of the nursery. She is standing so close to me when she says this I can feel her body touching mine. And it’s hot and humid in my house, not to mention my body has a built-in furnace. Deedee is a close talker and a long hugger, and she kisses right on the lips. I am particular about my personal space, I don’t really like hugging people all that much, and I am most certainly not a lip kisser. The little barrier, the unspoken space that existed between us when Josh was here, is gone now. There is no screen, no buffer, that a woman normally has between herself and her husband’s mother. No son to say to his mother, “No, Mom, let’s not paint the ceiling.” There is just the mother-in-law and me. “Till death do us part” may be true of husband and wife, but it’s not true of the mother-in-law. She stays no matter where the husband goes. I think of this as she puts her arms around me. I try not to flinch in discomfort. She tells me she is going to finish this room for me. She is going to do it for Josh, and for me, and for my son. This is an incredibly kind gesture, but all I can think is that if she doesn’t let go of me, I’m going to start choking for air. I feel like I’m inhaling Saran Wrap. She won’t let me leave this house. If I tried, it’d be Tiananmen Square in my driveway.

  “Well, you are using Benjamin Moore paint, aren’t you?” Deedee says later at my parents’ dining room table. This is her way of disguising a direction in the form of a question. “I mean, you can’t beat Benjamin Moore paint.” Deedee says this all the time. I’ve known her for four years now and I have heard her say this exact same sentence at least twenty times. You must be wondering how many times in four years can a group of people talk about paint—not even paint color, but paint manufacturers. Amazing, I know. She also says it about her three staple recipes that she has made for twenty-five years. I’m not sure if you’ve heard, but you can’t beat swiss cheese chicken, hamburger soup, or marshmallow sweet potatoes either.

  Sure, Benjamin Moore sounds great, I tell her. I just want to get it over with, though. Just put the paint up so I don’t have to think about who wasn’t there to do it. Let’s hammer this thing out. But once she decides to repaint the nursery, she also decides to repaint Josh’s old office and the master bedroom. I don’t know if allowing her to do this is okay or if this is what I’m supposed to do. But I don’t know what I am supposed to do, so I just kind of go along with it. I won’t live in my house as it looks right now, but I feel like I’m not supposed to change things around me so quickly. It seems like you’re not allowed to redecorate so shortly after someone dies. I am breaking some sort of undefined law, defying a code of grief. I have this fear that one day two grief auditors will show up and point to the drop cloth and the blue tape and I’ll be punished with two more months of losing it in line at Target. I decide to do it anyway, but I want it over and done.

  All my life, I’ve been the type of person who takes the accelerated route. I liked being in advanced classes. Normally it takes people five to six years to complete an education degree, perform the requisite student teaching, and earn teaching certification. I did it in four. When I decide to do something, I want it done quickly. I do not dilly-dally. When Dr. G. told me that grief takes time, I wanted to say, “But what about for the smart kids?” I took Advanced Placement Calculus in high school. Let’s talk Advanced Placement Grief. But one of the first things I realize about this stupid emotion is that AP Grief does not exist. Time goes by, weeks pass, a month passes, my belly grows, my hair grows, but when I wake up in the morning it feels exactly the same. Grief goes at its own speed. Because there is such a lack of progress in my emotional healing, I just want to see progress somewhere else. Every time Deedee leans against the wall with another paint swatch, I think that this may be the only way to compensate. My brain is royally screwed up and I feel completely unprepared to have this baby, but maybe paint is the answer. It would be nice if something in my life—even if it’s just paint—reflects readiness for this child to come into the world. So the house becomes the project and my mother-in-law decides to spearhead the project with me waddling in tow.

  We go to Benjamin Moore. Deedee picks out the colors. Skylark Song for the nursery, French Lilac for the bedroom, and Oklahoma Wheat for the office.

  “Anything worth doing is worth doing right,” she says to me as she individually cleans the blinds in the baby’s room. She wants to clean the blinds before she starts painting. Every single blind. “Wednesday,” she says. “We’ll star
t Wednesday.” But it’s too humid on Wednesday, so we move it to Friday. The primer goes on. Then we wait. “Well, it needs another coat of primer, don’t you think? And you are going to paint the ceiling, right?” Again, a direction dressed in a question’s clothing. “Anything worth doing …” she says to me. I sneak out before she can start in on Benjamin Moore. A million different things come up. A million reasons why we have to postpone the paint. “You really can’t do molding all at once” or “You know, even the guys [how she refers to the people who work at Benjamin Moore] say that you should allow a full two days for drying.” She is insistent on the details of the process. I just want the results. I hate the process. Pregnancy, grief, paint. Every element of my life feels like I’m wading in molasses. But with the paint, that molasses has a name: Deedee. The AP Grief student in me is deeply, deeply frustrated.

  Finally the ceiling gets done. Deedee yells for me to come in and see it. She likes to yell across the house. I walk in. She is standing in the nursery with her hands on her hips, admiring her work. If this were my own father or Josh or my mom, I would walk in and say, “Looks great. Let’s get going with the walls now.” But with Deedee, I can’t. There are these little unwritten rules with her that I have to feel out. I remember my first encounter with her seven-layer Jell-O cake on Thanksgiving was almost disastrous. (“No, Deedee, it’s not that I don’t like it, it’s just I’m not a big Jell-O fan. No, it’s not that I won’t eat your Jell-O cake, I just don’t like Jell-O in general.”) After a half-hour Jell-O conversation, I gave up and I’ve been eating it ever since. So now, here we are. She really needs me to stand here and take the time to appreciate this ten-by-ten-foot white ceiling, which I didn’t even think needed to be repainted and has just set us back by about ten days. She stares at it.