Black Girls Must Die Exhausted: A Novel for Grown Ups

by Jayne Allen

“I’m sorry Dr. Johnson, what does that mean?”

  “I’m sorry Tabby.” Why is she apologizing? People don’t just apologize like this. Unless....

  “What? Wha?” I was having trouble breathing. Please don’t let this be what I think it is, please don’t let this be what I think this is. I silently and desperately prayed against what I already knew.

  “I’m so very sorry Tabby. We did everything that we could to revive her, but we could not. We believe that she had already passed in her sleep.”

  “Passed? What do you mean? What does that mean? I….I….” I knew what it meant. I couldn’t breathe anymore. I was having trouble formulating words about thoughts around the surreal reality that had begun to swirl around me.

  “She’s gone, Tabitha, I’m so sorry.” Gone. I lost control of my body. My hands dropped the phone. All I could hear was my own voice, but not feel where it was coming from.

  “WAAIITTTTT!! WAAAAIIIIITTTTT!! WAAAAIIIIITTTT!! WAAAAAIIITTTT!” I heard myself wailing. My own sounds grew until that was all I heard, all I could hear—my own voice wailing, screaming “wait” until it turned into a small whimper. I had no idea how long Dr. Johnson stayed on the line. I slid down the wall with my body, dropping softly to the floor. My bones and my muscles had turned to mush. The energy I had remaining drained into the ground beneath me and what remained of the many tears I had cried fell in puddles just under my face. I have no idea how long I stayed there.

  It was only a text from Marc that stirred me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw “WYD?” flash on the screen of my phone as it laid on the floor next to me. Compulsively, I reached for it.

  Me: Come over.

  Marc: Now?

  Marc: What for?

  Me: Sex.

  Marc: U sure?

  I was not sure. But I let my text stand. My life these past months had been just one long run-on-sentence of bad decisions. My hand, along with the phone in my palm, fell again to the ground. If I don’t call my parents, they’re going to barge in here, I thought, realizing I still had unreturned messages from earlier. I found the energy to dial my father.

  “Tabby, I’ve been trying to reach you.” He sounded distraught, his voice hoarse, as if he’d been crying. Other than when I was a child, I couldn’t remember ever seeing my father cry.

  “I heard…what happened…to my grandmother.” I whispered, through my own brand of hoarseness.

  “Oh, Tabby, I asked them not to call you. I wanted to tell you myself.”

  “They told me. Dad, I can’t really talk right now. I need to hang up ok?” It was taking everything in me to form these basic words. I hoped that I would wake up from this terrible dream tomorrow, if I could just get to sleep.

  “I understand Tabby. This is rough on everybody. I’m going to Crestmire in the morning to try to collect some of her things. If you’re able, you can meet me there. I know it’s early, but we should start planning…” Oh, her funeral. Of course, because that’s what happens when people have died. Granny Tab…died. My mind continued on its spiral.

  “Ok, Dad, see you tomorrow, I’ll try ok. I’m saying I’ll try to be there. I’m sorry, I really need to hang up now.”

  “Goodnight Tabby…I love you.”

  “I love you too.”

  I picked myself up off the floor and poured myself as much of a bottle of wine as would fit into my largest glass, not caring in the least if the deep red juice spilled on my neutral tone leather sofa under me, or on me, for that matter. I didn’t care other than it was that much less I’d be drinking, and I wanted to drink as much as possible. I had been drinking a lot lately. But, I didn’t care about that either. I made it nearly to the bottom of the glass when I heard the knock on my door. I had almost forgotten that I asked Marc to come over. With foggy thinking and uncoordinated, heavy limbs, I picked myself up and answered. He stood there looking good, deliberately dressed, holding a bottle of wine.

  “Hey,” he said, in what I had come to recognize as his sexy voice.

  “My grandmother jussdied,” I slurred. I opened the door wider to let him in, and turned my back to him to walk toward the sofa and my waiting wine glass. Marc stood there stunned for a minute, looking around my apartment, and then stepped inside, closing the door behind him. He walked further toward me, and put the bottle in his hand down on a side table.

  “I’m sorry, did you just say that your grandmother…died?” I was drinking, so I didn’t answer. “Tabby! Are you talking about your grandmother that you’re named after? When? Are you ok?”

  “Marc, I…donwanna talk.” I got up from the sofa, with my wine glass in one hand and used the other to unbutton my blouse, letting it drop to the floor as I walked over to him. In that moment, I understood what Laila meant by just needing to stop hurting. The wine had anesthetized the bulk of my pain, and the rest, I just needed to replace with something else. Topless, in just my bra, I kissed him full and heavy on his lips. For a second, he kissed me back…and then, he pushed me away.

  “Tabby!” he said, holding me at half arm’s length distance, “You’re drunk.”

  “Immnot,” I said. “I tolyou want I wanted, din’I?”

  “How can you…” he tried to ask, but I cut him off with another full kiss. This time, grabbing him in a way that I knew he wouldn’t resist. In response, he kissed me back, full and heavy. He took the wine glass out of my hands and placed it down on the nearest surface. To the bed, we moved as a single organism, shedding clothing along our path in a wake of textiles, underwear, bra, and socks until we were naked on the bed. My head swirled. I felt him enter me. I pushed back. Like this we continued as I searched for the intensity that continually felt just beyond my reach with him.

  I lost control of myself in the ways I needed to. It was all too much. Flashes of everything ripped through my mind, Dr. Ellis, Dr. Young, Scott, Chris, Officer Mallory, Laila, Rob, Alexis, and Daequan’s mother’s tears. I thought of my grandmother and the choices that I’d made, trying to save everyone else and I couldn’t even save myself. If only I could stop all this thinking, my mind cycled back to me. But I couldn’t still my thoughts. “Harder!” I yelled. “Marc, harder!” Marc pushed against me harder. But, it still wasn’t enough. “Harder! Harder! Harder!” He pushed harder; it started to hurt. I knew we needed to stop, but I couldn’t.

  “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “Yes you do.” The words came out on their own. I started to cry.

  “Whoa, Tabby, I don’t…” I cut him off again, with a kiss, another kiss, and a tightening of myself around him. I didn’t want him to stop. I needed him…right now, I needed something. Maybe it was this. If this was all Marc could give me, I would take it all. On this night, Marc would be my refuge and my punishment. Like a thousand other tiny deaths before, I wanted to expire by consumption and be reborn perhaps as somebody else. Somebody who didn’t make all the mistakes that I had. Somebody who didn’t miss seeing a friend in trouble…somebody who didn’t let her grandmother die alone… somebody who was worthy of being chosen for love…somebody worth staying for. I let my tears flow, hoping that Marc would leave me extinguished, exhausted, fully. At the least, so that tonight, I could find the slightest comfort in a few hours of sleep.

  I don’t remember how or when we fell asleep, but I woke, just before dawn, groggy with a throbbing headache. I sat up and turned slightly to see a naked and sleeping Marc in my bed. A feeling of disgust rose in me and the memories of the evening flooded forward into my consciousness. Maybe like the darkness that Laila described, exhaustion could also creep up on you too, like a silent thief, at your throat before you know it for all your valuables. I had let so much build up, pushed through it all, and for what? Chasing everything I thought I was supposed to have was costing me everything that mattered most. My grandmother, my Granny Tab, was dead. I missed the last chance to spend time with her. She was counting on me…I let
her down, just like Laila.

  I watched Marc sleep. I remembered his words, his rejection, his denial of interest in any of my most sacred gifts, preferring instead to make use of my time, my body and my pleasant company. I felt a slight satisfaction in knowing what it felt like to use him similarly. I felt him stir beside me. I wondered if he’d open his eyes and see me watching him. I wondered if he knew I was watching him because I was ready for him to leave. I cleared my throat. His eyelids lifted halfway.

  “Hey…” he said, groggily.

  “Good morning.”

  “That was quite a night”

  “Was it?”

  “Tab, everything happened so…so fast, we didn’t get to talk. I’m sorry about…”

  “My dead grandmother?” I said, flatly.

  “Whoa.” Marc sat up quickly. “Tab, are you ok?” He tried to put his arms around me, but I pulled away.

  “Does it matter?”

  “Tabby, what’s wrong with you?” Everything. Everything is wrong, can’t you see that, Marc?

  “Nothing Marc. Absolutely nothing. I’m fine.”

  “You’re fine? So you’re not going to talk to me? What am I—just some good dick to you now?”

  “Relatively speaking.” I knew I needed Marc to leave. I realized I was being cruel in a way he didn’t deserve. I couldn’t help it. The prior night just confirmed what I already knew in my deepest parts and the disappointment made me bitter. He thought that somehow the magic from his penis would fix everything. Well, I tried it and there was no magic in it. I was still just as broken.

  “What the fuck Tab? What is wrong with you?” At that very moment, so much of me wanted to collapse in his arms and just let go. The other part remembered how he hurt me and wanted to hurt him right back. And yet another part wanted to build a barrier between us to protect the deep wounds still fresh underneath. My body shook as I felt the tears come. But I couldn’t allow myself to cry, not with him. He couldn’t be trusted. I forced it all back inside.

  “I don’t understand Marc, why are you getting upset?” I asked. “I thought you wanted to be single-purpose.” Almost instantly, I regretted those words. In the very moment I needed him desperately, I couldn’t even trust him enough to take the comfort that he offered. And I couldn’t figure out if it was his fault, or if it was mine. Look what he did when you needed him before, my thoughts reminded me. Marc got up and jumped out of my bed, snatching what clothing that he could find in front of him. His morning wood, meanwhile, deflated before my eyes.

  “I think I should go,” he said, bending over to replace his underwear.

  “That’s probably a good idea.” Keep running, Marc. Keep running. And I’ll keep building walls so you can’t hurt me. Marc disappeared from the bedroom. Finally, I heard the door close. And then, I lowered my head back onto the pillow, wrapped my own arms around my torso and finally let the tears come.

  Chapter 35

  For the second time on Sunday, I woke up with a start. I had been dreaming of my grandmother. It was almost a replay of our last conversation, but the only specific thing I could remember was of her with tears in her eyes, yet smiling and saying, “Be optimistic.” Optimistic. That was a quite a word for today’s circumstances. And, a better challenge for another day. Admittedly, under questionable judgment, I poured what remained of the wine from the previous night into an empty coffee mug and gulped it down before leaving for Crestmire. To my credit, considering how much of the bottle I had actually consumed in the prior night’s mega-serving, there really wasn’t much left to finish off. Deep down somewhere, I worried in some way what my drinking had become. All I knew is that it allowed the flood of memories from the prior day and evening to be metered by my brain, slowing the rush to something I could process. I cringed just slightly, recalling that Marc left in a huff after our morning in the bedroom. It was something I didn’t have the energy to fix.

  By the time I picked up my phone, Chris had already sent an email to discuss the follow-up on our interview with Daequan and his family. As it turns out, both of our competitors in the local market picked up on the story during their 11 PM news hour, which meant that we must have hit pay dirt with our exclusive. On any other occasion, this would have been an incredible development. Not today. I sent Chris a note back to let him know of my circumstances and that I wasn’t available. Yesterday, I had the option of focusing on my grandmother or work. Today, I had fewer choices. At Crestmire, my dad was waiting on me to make one final visit.

  On the car ride, I called my mother and then Lexi to tell her the news. I tried my best to keep things brief. The attempted comforts around death are sometimes the worst part of the experience—the heaviness of the conversations, the expectations of sadness, and the careful word choices. All that inevitably trended toward depressing, rather than uplifting. Thankfully, my arrival at Crestmire provided the perfect excuse to end the rolling of obligatory outreach.

  My dad was standing in the middle of Granny Tab’s living room when I walked into her apartment. He was holding a faded family picture of her with him as a little boy from her cluttered menagerie shelf and seemed absorbed in a memory. I hesitated to disturb him, but felt uncomfortable as an observer. I let the door close behind me with enough noise to announce my presence. My dad turned to me startled with the picture still in his hand.

  “Hey Two,” he said softly. I couldn’t help but notice the slight hesitation before he addressed me as “Two.” I guessed because there weren’t two anymore. Now, I was the only Tabitha Walker.

  “Hey Dad, whatcha got there?” I said.

  “Just a picture of me and your grandmother…” he said, wistfully. The moment felt more awkward than it should have. I realized that presently, my dad and I were operating at the far limits of our relationship. We found ourselves in the grips of an emotional tide that was rivaled only by that fateful day in the kitchen, when my mother broke the news of his departure. And other than my father’s wedding, this would be the most significant day of loss that I had ever felt.

  “She looks…looked so young and happy,” I said.

  “Those were good times…and not so good times…but, mostly good times,” he said. I thought back to what Granny Tab told me about my father’s history with his own father. I wondered if I would have ever known if she hadn’t chosen to tell me that day.

  “I…miss her,” I mused, as much to myself as to my dad.

  “I miss her too. It feels like she’s right here, but just barely out of reach. It’s like this picture, we had gone to the beach. I almost drowned.” He let out a little laugh. “Well, I thought I was going to. Mom took me out in the ocean, and the tide swept me away from her—just enough that my feet couldn’t touch the bottom and I couldn’t reach her hands. For just the few seconds until she stepped out to pull me back to her, I panicked; I just knew that I would wash away, lost forever. That’s kind of how…”

  “You feel now…” I said, finishing his sentence as he trailed off. He nodded, taking a dab at his eyes. I didn’t know how, or if to comfort him, so I just stood, frozen in the uncomfortable silence. My dad seemed to catch the wave of a thought, and brought himself back into the moment with renewed attention.

  “I guess we need to talk about the funeral program.”

  “I’m not sure I know how to plan one, but anything I can do, you know I will,” I said.

  “Your focus should probably be on giving the eulogy, and me and Diane will handle the rest. I think I have a pretty good idea of what she’d have wanted.” What? Me, the screw-up? No way I could be trusted with the eulogy.

  “Oh, Dad, I can’t. I can’t give the eulogy. You…need to find someone else—what about you?”

  “Me? Oh no, Tabby—this is what your grandmother would have wanted.” Are you sure? I couldn’t even keep my word to her. I’m not anyone to rely on.

  “Dad, really, I can’t. I’m no
t the right person.”

  “Tabby, you are. Will, you just think about it? I’ll understand if you need some time to consider things. You have some days to decide.” This was exactly what I did not want to do. I didn’t want to consider anything. I just wanted to be numb.

  Chapter 36

  On Sunday evening, Alexis came over to my place to sit with me. We talked and cried, reminiscing over memories of my grandmother. We cried until we laughed. We laughed until we got tired. Eventually I was able to sleep.

  I wasn’t able to take a day off of work because of the Daequan Jenkins story, so I forced myself into the gym on Monday morning for rapid self-care. The question of my grandmother’s eulogy roiled through my mind like a tornado. The idea of standing in front of the entire church like I was this dutiful granddaughter, felt like a heinous lie. What kind of person picks an assignment for work over the last moments with their grandmother? In my mind, it was almost as if the turn of events was instant judge and jury, the ultimate condemnation for yet another one of my wrong decisions. No, I couldn’t stand up there and pretend like I deserved to be there, or that it might have been anything Granny Tab would have wanted, especially now. Still, as much as the punishment of my thoughts seemed to fit my “crime,” in the deepest part of me, not doing the eulogy didn’t feel like the right resolution either.

  On my phone, I noticed a missed call from Ms. Gretchen, who I presumed was calling for the funeral details. She was still on her road trip, but was going to arrange to come back early, “whenever she needed to,” she said, for Granny Tab’s funeral. She said at her age, friends’ funerals were like the weddings of her late 20’s. According to Ms. Gretchen, both events took place in a church and both eventually put you in the hole. Of course, after two divorces, she would think that. Walking back home from the gym, I returned the call.

  “Hey Tabby! How’re you doin’?” Ms. Gretchen said with her usual cheer.

  “I’m hanging in there, Ms. Gretchen.”