Good Grief: A Novel Read online

“Look,” she says coolly, “I can sell this house in no time.” She snaps her fingers. “But you have got to be a motivated seller. Please, get some furniture and do something about that leak.”

  I want to explain that I won’t have money for furniture or repairs until after I sell the house. But she darts up the stairs two at a time, commenting on my grass cloth wallpaper.

  “That is so easy to tear down,” she tells the couple.

  On Thanksgiving I join Marion for dinner at Ethan’s aunt’s house, bringing two of my pies.

  As Marion drives, she peers over the backseat intermittently to make sure her yam puff casserole is anchored. She wears a camel’s-hair coat and brown felt hat with a stiff black feather perched in the brim. She is more formal than my mother was and a better housewife and cook.

  Mother was more interested in reading Russian novels than in keeping house. She’d spend hours in the basement laundry room, ironing and listening to art history books on tape. Everything in our house was neatly pressed—even nightgowns and draperies—but caterpillar dust collected on the blinds, and our kitchen floor was always sticky with something. She was a dreadful cook. Her Minute Rice burned and stuck to the pan, and her green beans were always slightly frozen, squeaking between your teeth. My father and I struggled to pretend we enjoyed her murky stews of canned tomatoes and stringy meat. Marion is just the opposite, and now she makes me miss my imperfect mother.

  The hugs at Ethan’s cousins’ house are tighter and longer than usual. I haven’t seen these relatives since Ethan died. “How are you?” they want to know.

  As the afternoon progresses—from football to relish trays to salads to the main course—I begin to have a floating sensation, as though I’m one of the floats in the parade, billowing unsteadily down the street headfirst, a maniacal grin stretched across my face. The women fawn over my pies. Homemade crust! Their cheer rings in my ears.

  “Sophie, you sit here,” Mrs. Waxman says, pointing to a seat in the middle of the table. “Girl, boy, girl, boy.” I’m seated between two of Ethan’s cousins: a political science professor and a TV news cameraman whose bristly sweater rubs against my arm as he pulls out my chair. Men. My age. I’d forgotten how good-looking Ethan’s cousins are. Their tenor voices reverberate as they talk and laugh, and the hair on their wrists peeks out from under their cuffs as they pass potatoes and peas. They are attentive, piling turkey on my plate and telling funny Ethan stories. Remember the time, remember the time.

  I move the turkey around on my plate and try to laugh at the stories: ha, ha! But my laughter comes out: herp, herp. The turkey is dry and sharp. I gulp water and cough, then excuse myself to go to the bathroom. Instead, I hurry past the bath to the end of the hall and duck in the laundry room, closing the door. At least in here I can’t smell the cinnamon and sage. At least in here it could be any day of the year.

  Ethan couldn’t really eat last Thanksgiving—he was weak and slept most of the time—but the orderly brought him a tray of food anyway. I loved the cafeteria trays for their optimism. Look here, they said. You can’t die. Because we’ve got turkey, yams, milk, and cranberry Jell-O! I picked up the carton of milk and shook it, and Ethan’s eyes widened suddenly. Maybe he’s going to make the Love Story speech now, I thought. Words of courage to carry me through.

  “Why,” he gurgled, “are you shaking my milk?”

  I squeezed open the carton and white bubbles foamed out the top. Ethan blinked at them. I stuck the straw in. I don’t know why I’m shaking the milk, I thought. I’m shaking the milk because I want everything to be just a little better here. I want to improve on this hospital carton of milk the way you’d fluff up a pillow.

  I shrugged, handed it to him, kissed his forehead.

  Now, I bend over the concrete sink in the laundry room and splash water on my face as if trying to put out a fire.

  There’s a knock at the door.

  “Sophie?” Marion whispers loudly.

  “Yes?” There’s no towel, so I quickly dry my face on a shirt of Mr. Waxman’s that hangs on a water pipe. It smells perfumey, like detergent.

  “Oh, now,” Marion says when she opens the door. She gives me a brisk military hug, then pulls a hairbrush from her purse to fix my hair.

  “You can’t really brush my hair,” I try to explain, picking at the curls with my fingers. Then I just stand with my hands at my sides and let her use the brush. It feels good against my scalp and her body gives off warmth.

  “It’s all right,” Marion says. “You’re among family.” She hands me a lipstick called Coral Reef. It’s too bright and orange, but I dab some on anyway.

  “Now let’s see about those lovely pies of yours.”

  Clearly, Marion and I are never going to talk about Ethan, about how we miss him.

  Marion drops me at home late Thanksgiving afternoon. I sit alone at the kitchen table and pick systematically at the crumb topping on one of the remaining sour cream apple pies. My reflection stares back at me from the French doors. Do something, it says. Read a book. Work on your media pitch letter. Bundle up and go for a walk. Call someone. Call Ruth.

  I don’t want to bother Ruth. A single working mother doesn’t need her kooky college roommate pestering her. Our friends Sonia and Alfie invited me over for dessert, encouraged me to sleep over, stay the whole weekend. But I called and canceled last night. I’ve become an expert canceler in the past few weeks, telling friends at the last minute that I can’t make it after all, feigning a sore throat or oncoming migraine. I hate to impose my glumness on them. Besides, everything about them reminds me of Ethan.

  The pies seem pointless now, spread across the kitchen. Melanie said bake a pie, not nine pies. The idea of spending the weekend alone with them makes me nervous. I don’t want to eat them, yet I don’t have the heart to throw them away. I get up from the table and carry the pies one by one out into the driveway and load them into the trunk of my car, so I won’t have to look at them anymore.

  Last year I didn’t bake because Ethan and I spent Thanksgiving in the hospital. The Thanksgiving before that we went to our friends Sonia and Alfie’s house, but not until late in the day, because Ethan insisted on working. I close the trunk and head back inside. That was our last real Thanksgiving. Screw him for working on Thanksgiving. I slam the front door behind me. The pictures on the walls shake and rattle. “Screw Ethan!” I holler into the empty house, at the hall table and the TV, at all the inanimate objects that have become my aloof roommates. “Screw Thanksgiving! It’s all about women doing all the work and men doing as they please. Watching football. Working. Getting cancer!”

  In the kitchen I reach into the cupboard for cereal and a bowl. Unable to swallow my turkey at dinner, I’m hungry now. My hands tremble and I fumble and drop the bowl on the floor, sending it spinning like a dreidel. As I scoop it up I remember the exercise the grief counselor suggested—smashing dishes. She also said you could knead bread or yell in the shower.

  The bowl is cold and hard in the palm of my hand. How do you break a dish on purpose? Do you fling it sideways like a Frisbee or hurl it overhead like a softball? Maybe you could stomp on a cup the way you’d crush a tin can.

  I don’t have any unwanted china—only my grandmother’s Limoges. My everyday dishes are the white retro-looking set with the black-and-yellow stripes that Ethan and I picked out before the wedding. There we were, a typical couple registering for kitchen accessories in preparation for our Special Day. The world was our oyster. Then red tide seeped into our oyster. Now the cheerful yellow trim annoys me.

  I look at the tower of dishes in the kitchen sink; it seems it would be easier to smash them than to wash them.

  I remember feeling overwhelmed by the choices of dishes at Macy’s and wanting to ask my mother’s opinion, wishing she were there to meddle in our decisions. Now I want her here, to fix me soup and tell me not to worry about my stupid boss and to help me arrange the photos of Ethan for the album that Dr. Rupert said I should make.
/>   I last saw Mother on a snowy morning when I was thirteen and she sped off for work in her Chevette, even though ribbon-candy sheets of ice covered the roads and radio DJs said motorists should stay home. The museum wasn’t even open that day, but Mother was eager to prepare for an upcoming exhibit. She loved her job as docent. I think she liked being among the paintings as much as she liked being home with us. How I resented that job.

  When the policeman came to the door to tell us about the accident, my father’s reaction was remarkably calm. He said nothing, just nodded, smiled faintly, and pushed the door shut as the officer described the icy conditions and sharp curve in the road. I remember the officer’s badge shining under the porch light and how his inky eyebrows shot up as the door swung closed in his face.

  “Wrong house, I guess,” my father told me cheerfully.

  After Ethan and I were married, I made him buy a big car with double air bags. Fortunately he was a cautious driver. Still, as he looked both ways and stuck to the speed limit, malignant cells crept into his lymph nodes.

  There’s no milk for cereal. But who cares? Because now the bowl is flying out of my hand. To lose a mother and a husband! The bowl bursts against the wall, shards like pointy teeth shooting across the floor.

  A heavy cape of nausea hangs over me, and my knees feel wrong. Cap’n Crunch smiles maniacally, his blue hat like a ship on his head. Outside, silly, he says. You’re supposed to break the dishes outside!

  I open the cupboard and peer in at the plates. They are inviting, smooth and white and neatly stacked. I recall how carefully I packed them when Ethan and I moved into our new house, sliding each saucer into a padded liner as if it were a treasure from King Tut’s tomb.

  Now I understand why rock stars wreck hotel rooms—to shatter the relentless stillness of a room. My arms are prickly and my hands feel as swollen as baseball mitts. I’ve got to get hold of more dishes.

  I drag the wheelbarrow clanging from the garage into the kitchen and load it with the dirty dishes from the sink, then plates, bowls, mugs, saucers, and cups from the cupboards. The wheelbarrow wobbles under the weight as I heave it through the French doors and shove it across the grass, dishes clacking and rattling.

  As I fling dinner plates against the back of the garage, they pop and shatter. Pieces of china fly back at me. Teacups split into crescent shapes like shells. Little Pyrex custard bowls explode. I wish that I were the one who got cancer, since I can’t even do my stupid job. My legs give out and then I am on my knees, chucking saucers with both hands, my pulse a crazy metronome ticking in my head. Charcoal dusk envelops the yard. The wind picks up, the branches on the bushes beside the garage swatting like arms. As the French doors to the house blow shut, the blinds crash against the glass.

  I know I should stop breaking my dishes, just as you know you should stop eating cashews or potato chips. But who needs twelve special bowls for pasta? My right shoulder burns as they sail through the air.

  My neighbor Mrs. Selman pushes open her sliding glass door and calls out, “Sophie? Are you there?” I see her silhouette through the bamboo hedge lining the fence between our yards, standing on tiptoes and trying to look over. I dive into the grass and crawl on my belly into the bamboo, the ground soggy and cold beneath my knees. A branch scrapes my cheek and my glasses fog up, turning the world white.

  “Hello?” Mrs. Selman says. She gives up and slides her door shut. I wait for the click of the lock, then scramble out of the bushes.

  Broken dishes are spread across the lawn like remnants from an archaeological dig. It begins to rain. Maybe I should be kneading bread or yelling in the shower. Kneading bread in the shower? The air is moist and cold and my hands are raw and my nose is running. I dab at it with the sleeve of my coat and peer in the wheelbarrow, which is empty.

  Just as I’m wondering whether I’ve got paper plates, a policeman rounds the back corner of the house, the automatic porch light clicking on.

  “Ma’am?” he says, blinking and peering into the yard.

  My hands shoot up over my head. “Yes?”

  “Do you live here?”

  I hear my voice bark an enthusiastic, “Yes!”

  He looks at the broken dishes. “Everything all right?”

  “Sure. It’s just that I’m sick of these dishes. And believe it or not, the doctor advised me to break them. She’s not a real doctor, she’s an MSW.” Stupid. Babbling.

  “Do you mind if I see some identification?” The policeman’s face is round and chubby. He’s probably younger than me.

  “Yes, of course. Please, come in.” My voice slides into jovial unctuousness. We step through the French doors into the kitchen, the officer taking care to wipe his feet.

  In the front hall, I show him my driver’s license, with my address and photo, tiny face surrounded by hurricane hair. He looks at me, looks at the picture, looks at me.

  “Okay, thank you.” He hands back the license. “Your neighbor called and said she thought someone was breaking and entering over here.”

  “Just breaking.” I laugh.

  He tries to laugh. “Right,” he says. Then he says good night and ambles down the front walk to his cruiser, the radio scratching out a message that I can’t hear.

  “You can break the rules now,” Dr. Rupert said during our last session, encouraging me to do something entirely different for Thanksgiving. “The big rule was broken: Your loved one died.” But I’m pretty sure he meant fly to Hawaii or eat roast beef instead of turkey. I don’t think he meant break all of my dishes, and I don’t think I should leave the house anymore.

  DEPRESSION

  5

  Since Ethan died our bed has grown from the size of a California king to the size of an aircraft carrier. It seems to take up the whole room now, the vast white bedspread screaming: empty, empty, empty. I decide it will be easier to sleep alone if I lie on Ethan’s side. That leaves my side open, but I’m here, so it’s not as though anyone’s missing, right?

  I try the middle.

  The sheets remain cold and indifferent.

  I give up and drag the covers to the living room, inflate our camping air mattress, and push it against the wall where the couch used to be. Without furniture, the living room rug is as expansive as a lawn and there are little things that fell underneath the sofa: a dime, a Frito, a Scrabble tile with the letter O.

  Oh. Friday night. Two more days of this dreaded four-day holiday weekend. I remove the key to the house from the realtor’s lockbox, so Melanie can’t get in for her drive-by showings, which are like scary surprise parties. I should take my medication and wash my hair and rescue the pies from my trunk and find a place that rents living room furniture. Instead, I curl up on the air mattress with a blanket, stick my legs in the sleeves of Ethan’s down parka for extra warmth, and turn on the TV.

  It would be better if my mother were here. When I was home sick from school, she’d fix a tray with soup and crackers, a Pyrex cup of Junket custard, ginger ale, and two tiny orange aspirin tablets. We’d curl up on my bed and watch Perry Mason. I remember the swell of her breasts against my back and how the tickly down on her cheeks was as supple as tennis ball fuzz.

  The blanket is as soft as an animal, and I pull it over my head and knead the nubby fabric between my fingers. I would like to touch someone. It seems the last time someone touched me was a few weeks ago when I went to the dentist and he had to wrap his arms around my head to check my fillings. He patted my chin and cheeks and asked me to say ahh. I liked the comforting curve of the chair and the sweet, soapy smell of his hands and my eyes teared up and he asked if he hit a nerve and I nodded yes.

  On a TV program called Cops, a shirtless man strung out on something called sherm stick beats down an old girlfriend’s door to reclaim a box spring. There’s a channel that’s showing a weekend marathon of Cops episodes, and now I see the attraction of the show: It makes your own life seem pretty together.

  Mother would insist that I turn off the TV, shower, g
et dressed, eat a piece of fruit, and call to rejoin the grief group.

  I will call Ruth and then the hospital to find out when the next group meets. I would call, if I could get to the phone. But my limbs are weak and heavy and won’t go. My brain says, Get up, and my body says, Screw you, I’m watching Cops.

  If Ethan were here with his annoying habit of clicking through the stations, I wouldn’t be stuck on Cops.

  A police officer on the TV talks over the backseat of his patrol car to the camera. He says, “Some folks don’t know how to stay out of trouble.”

  Instead of showering, I build a fire. The reindeer lawn ornament makes excellent firewood. You don’t even need a saw. You can just break him apart like Ramen noodles and toss him into the flames. I forget to take off his nose, though, and it pops and oozes, melting like a candied apple.

  The phone rings and the answering machine picks up. I hear Melanie leaving a message, asking if I’ve had a change of heart about selling the house. Even though it’s nighttime, she’s still working. Her voice is tinny on her cellular phone. It sounds as though she’s calling from another world: the land of the capable.

  Over the weekend, my sleeping schedule moves around the clock because I can’t sleep at night and I can’t stay awake during the day, and pretty soon I seem to be missing daylight altogether.

  One morning (what morning?) a garbage truck (Tuesday morning!) screeches and roars down the street, and then I am awake, floating on the air mattress through the middle of the living room. The good news is that the four-day Thanksgiving weekend is finally over. The bad news is that I forgot to take out the garbage and I’m at least a day late for work. I hear my neighbor’s car door slam as he pulls out of the driveway.

  The grief is up already. It is an early riser, waiting with its gummy arms wrapped around my neck, its hot, sour breath in my ear. Now it follows me down the hall to the bathroom, tapping my shoulder the whole way. Try to pick up your toothbrush, it says.