Good Grief: A Novel Read online

  Dad had only one girlfriend between Mom and Jill, an accountant from his office named Beverly who bore down on him like a tropical storm about a year after Mother died. Everything about Beverly was big and loud—big bones, big bosom, big white teeth that always had a dab of orangey lipstick on them. She stayed over once when I was at a friend’s sleepover party. I came home early the next morning and found her in our kitchen wearing chiffon baby-doll pajamas and frying bacon. She offered me a cigarette even though I was only fifteen. There were so many things wrong with her that instead of being angry I was actually drawn to her, the way you might be drawn to an exotic bird or lizard if one wandered into your yard.

  After he and Beverly broke up, Dad quit dating and took up beekeeping. He wrote away to the U.S. Department of Agriculture for information and set up two colonies. One of his queens died right away, and I worried that even a seemingly therapeutic hobby might break his heart. But he prevailed by cheerfully merging the two colonies with the one queen. Every morning he trudged out to the backyard to check on them, looking like an astronaut in his stiff white coveralls. As he lifted the lids off the white pine boxes the bees swirled up to meet him, dripping off of his black mesh bee veil. The precision and steadiness and underlying threat of danger involved in beekeeping seemed to calm him. Soon we had buckets of thick blond honey, and he and I worked at the kitchen table decorating jars with labels and bows to hand out at Christmas. Whenever the word apiculturist showed up on one of his crossword puzzles, he’d say it aloud proudly, his title—beekeeper—and he seemed grateful to be something other than just a widower.

  Now, I feel bad that Jill’s alone in Vermont while Dad’s stuck out here chauffeuring me around. But it’s a good thing he’s driving because Dr. Rupert switched me to a new antidepressant that makes my head feel light, as though my scalp might float away. I feel more like a gas than a solid, and driving doesn’t seem possible with all these lines in the road.

  According to Dr. Rupert, I had a depressive breakdown brought on by grief. “It can happen after such a large life loss,” he explained, as though showing up at the office in your bathrobe is perfectly understandable. I don’t like having to take the pills twice a day. I don’t mind relying on eyeglasses or vitamins or mousse, but relying on pills confirms that I’m feeble.

  “You look nice today,” Dad says, clicking on the signal to change lanes and dipping his head to peer over the top of his glasses at me.

  “Thank you.” He’s probably referring to the fact that I actually got dressed—shed my pajamas, showered, and wriggled into jeans and Ethan’s boxy old ski sweater. The rest of my wardrobe seems to belong to someone else: a happily married thin woman who’s too busy to spend her evenings baking and eating rolls of refrigerator biscuits. I smooth a hand over the yellow, red, and navy stripes on Ethan’s sweater.

  “It’s the new black,” I tell Dad.

  “Oh,” Dad says.

  “That’s a joke, Dad.”

  “Oh!” He laughs a little too hard, then tugs the handkerchief from his back pocket and dabs perspiration from his forehead. He perspires when he’s worried, even when it’s cold out. I feel bad for causing him anxiety. Mother was the calm one in the family, the one who soothed our nerves.

  Dad wears his retiree uniform of khaki pants with a navy chamois shirt. He sticks to blue because he’s color-blind and if he strays into reds, greens, and browns, he ends up clashing and looking like a kid who dressed himself. A stub of pencil sticks out from behind his ear for doing The New York Times crossword puzzle in the waiting room while Dr. Rupert stares at me and I stare at the Oriental carpet. What does he scribble on that pad, anyway? Wacko, hopeless, weird sweater. Or maybe it’s just his list for what to do on the weekend: weed, prune, mulch.

  “Almost there,” Dad says as we exit the freeway.

  Gorgatech has given me a three-month leave of absence without pay. LOA. They said I probably wouldn’t be PR manager when I returned, but there will still be a place for me at the company. I wonder if that place is in the cafeteria or parking garage. The HR manager presented a long document that I tried to read before signing, but the papers shook in my hands and the tiny type crawled across the page. I still have a job, technically, a business card to hand out at parties, but no paycheck. LOA. LoserOutofA job.

  The state of my house has thrown Dad into a panic. Dirty dishes and laundry and unopened mail and overflowing garbage. Moldy pies in the trunk of my car and newspapers littering the driveway, their dry, yellowing pages curling into newspaper jerky.

  “Soph, honey, why don’t you bring the paper in in the morning?” he asks, worrying that the pile signals burglars that no one’s home. I try to explain that the end of the driveway has become impossibly far away, but then he wonders why I don’t just call and cancel the paper. Frankly, that hadn’t occurred to me. Despite the fact that I’ve been dying to talk to someone, the phone confounds me with all its crazy buttons.

  Dad wants to know what happened to my dishes. Are they in those boxes in the garage?

  “Yes,” I fib. “I didn’t want to look at them anymore.”

  He nods understandingly. But the boxes, and the fact that I have to park in the driveway, make him chew nervously on his lower lip, which has become red and raw since he arrived.

  “I’ll rent you a storage locker,” he offers, flipping through the Yellow Pages.

  “No!” I snatch the phone book away.

  Dad still owns many of Mother’s things—her art history books, cashmere sweaters, letters from friends, old hats in festive striped boxes. But they are tucked away on shelves or in drawers—woven through his house unnoticeably. While this makes more sense to me than a towering shrine of boxes in the garage, I’m not sure how to merge Ethan’s things back with mine.

  I see Dr. Rupert on Tuesday and Thursday; it’s not clear why I need to get up Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Dad’s in my room every morning by eight, though, opening the curtains and windows and coaxing me out of my flannel shell.

  “We’ve got a lot to do today,” he says, clapping his hands like a camp counselor. “How ’bout you put just one foot on the floor?”

  I slide a foot out and explore the chilly wood floor with my big toe, the covers tugging me back into the warm center of the mattress. Don’t listen to the father, they insist. Just sleep.

  Finally I stumble out of bed and into the shower while Dad tidies my room. He’s a neatnik who can’t stand the sight of an unmade bed or clothes on a chair. By the time I emerge from the bathroom, the covers and pillows are as smooth and plump as a Macy’s display ad, making it hard for me to crawl back in. The next thing I know, he’s herding me outside to rake leaves or sweep the driveway, the air and light clearing my head.

  Dad fixes my favorite grade-school dishes—Cream of Wheat for breakfast, Fluffernutter sandwiches for lunch, and creamed tuna on toast for dinner. He frets over the creamed tuna, which he hasn’t made for years, hovering over the stove and stirring the white sauce, the Joy of Cooking laid out on the counter with recipe steps outlined in highlighter pen.

  “Please, thicken,” he begs the sauce, frantically scratching the bottom of the pan with the wire whisk as though he might dig through the burner into the oven.

  I’m grateful. All this for bathrobe-can’t-hold-down-a-job me. I stand beside him at the stove, watching the white liquid finally congeal. Suddenly I worry about when Dad’s going to die. I hope I die first. I’m not afraid of dying. I’m afraid of everyone else dying and leaving me behind. I wonder if I need more than a leave of absence from work—maybe a leave of absence from the planet. Dr. Rupert says I’m doing well and just need to give everything more time. There are no miracle cures; there’s only time.

  Dad and I shop for folding lawn chairs and TV trays to refurnish the living room and a set of dishes that serves four. I’m relieved when we don’t buy the bigger eight-serving set, which seems painfully optimistic.

  We eat dinner in front of the TV, and I take a qua
rter of a tablet more of the antidepressants every other night. You have to go on the pills gradually, like shifting gears to merge onto the freeway. After supper we have pralines and cream ice cream and play cassino. Dad’s large block letters spell out BERNIE and SOPHIE on the back of an envelope, with our scores underneath.

  He’s going to leave soon, a little voice nags as I watch Dad shuffle the cards. He can’t stay here and take care of you forever. You’re an adult!

  But Dad stays for three weeks, and then Jill joins us for Christmas. I want so badly for her to like me, like us, stay with Dad, keep him happy, that I set the alarm and get up on my own at seven-thirty every morning and stumble out to the kitchen to fix them coffee and toast.

  Jill, whom I’d met only once before, at their simple backyard wedding just before Ethan died, seems perfect for Dad. Sweet, smart, and funny. Even though they’re still newly married, she encourages me to come and live with her and Dad in Vermont for the winter. She brings pages from the classifieds with jobs circled—one for manager of fund-raising at the local public radio station. I’m flattered that she thinks I’m this capable. I suppose I could stay with them for a few months, as I did in college, when I’d go home to sleep off Anna Karenina and the categorical imperative and all those cafeteria carbohydrates. I imagine snuggling into Dad’s down coat and heaving the snow blower down the driveway. Tapping syrup from the maple trees in the yard. But I don’t want to barge in on them.

  Dad and Jill come up with so many holiday activities, it’s impossible for me to sleep in the afternoons. We string cranberries and popcorn, bake Christmas cookies, go to matinees, and drive around town to see the colored lights. When it’s time to decorate the tree, I’m a little irritated by how agreeable they are. I miss having Ethan to argue with about the decor. He was from the garland-and-colored-lights school, while I favored the more understated tinsel and plain white lights. After much grumbling we would compromise, layering everything on until our tree looked like Las Vegas.

  Now, Dad’s cheer and optimism about the holidays still seems unfamiliar to me. After Mother died, he and I grew to dread Christmas. That first winter he sank into a foggy depression. We were supposed to go to New York City for Christmas and stay at the Plaza, like Eloise, but he said he was sick and we couldn’t go. He sat in his chair in the living room all day for a week, a shadowy layer of beard creeping across his face. It didn’t seem as though we would have Christmas that year. No tree or stockings or turkey. I called my aunt Athena—my mother’s sister in Wisconsin—and she flew out and helped Dad find a psychiatrist and took me to pick out a tree and shop for all the groceries we needed. She layered a ham with canned pineapple rings, put it in the oven, then flew home to be with her own family. Somehow during Aunt Athena’s visit Dad snuck out of the house and bought me a new ten-speed bike.

  On New Year’s Eve, Dad, Jill, and I celebrate with lobster and champagne. Dad looks relieved and victorious to have gotten me through the holidays, as though he hiked the entire Appalachian Trail. I’m not sure what to choose as a New Year’s resolution. Don’t crawl on the floor at the store anymore? I read an article in a women’s magazine that suggested choosing one easy, fun thing, so you can feel good about yourself. I decide my resolution is to wear more lipstick.

  The morning that Dad and Jill go home, I bravely smear on a rock-star serving of Saucy Salsa lipstick and drive them to the airport, firmly planting my hands at ten o’clock and two o’clock. This is the first time I’ve driven in a month, and I manage not to count the lines in the road.

  I follow Dad and Jill to the security checkpoint, where a guard tells me I can’t go any farther without a boarding pass. We hug quickly, not wanting to hold up the line. Dad says he’ll call as soon as they get home. I watch the backs of their silvery heads bob along with the crowd of passengers. The guard asks me to step back, please, step back, and I realize I’m lurching into the line. Let me through! I want to holler. I move away and sit in a row of green plastic chairs scattered with newspapers. Once through the metal detector, Dad turns, smiles, and waves. I jump up to wave back. Then he vanishes.

  In the airport parking lot, I have no idea where I left the car. I stand swaying like a boat bumping a dock. The whole garage looks unfamiliar; the whole dadless planet looks strange.

  I find my parking ticket in my purse and turn it over in my hands, noticing Dad’s big square handwriting on the back: Level Two, Row G. Thank you.

  As soon as I see the EXIT sign in the garage, I lift my foot off the gas and the car slows. There’s no way I’m going back to that empty house. What if I can’t get up in the morning or rake the leaves or break out of the Oreo food group again? What if I’m terrified of the shower curtain and can’t wash my hair? I should have gone with Dad and Jill. Flying to Vermont to stay with them or moving up to Oregon to live with Ruth seems easier than going back to sleep alone in my house. Ruth worked up a good sales pitch for Ashland when she called on Christmas Day.

  “There are lots of cute actors and there’s river rafting and plenty of jobs up here,” she said. “Not fancy jobs, but, you know, low-stress jobs.” She added this apologetically, not wanting to insult my career capabilities.

  I told her I’m afraid of men and rivers and jobs, but she urged me to come ahead anyway. “Hang out. Hunker down,” she said.

  A car pulls up behind me. Stepping on the gas, I veer up a ramp toward more parking. My tires screech. An oncoming car swerves to avoid me, the driver glaring and making a “What the hell?” gesture.

  Level three. Maybe Ruth’s right. What’s the point of staying in Silicon Valley? It doesn’t make sense for a jobless English major to live in a place with the highest cost of living in the country. I could help Ruth with Simone, cook them dinner every night. Homemade macaroni and cheese.

  Level four. While I don’t want to impose on Ruth, I know I would urge her to come and stay with me if our roles were reversed.

  Level five: the roof. Sun blasts through the windshield. I flip down my visor. Plenty of parking up here. I pull up to the wall facing the airport, turn off the engine, and watch the planes take off.

  It’s exhilarating being at the airport, surrounded by the possibility of traveling anywhere. At the same time, it doesn’t feel right being a thirty-six-year-old woman with no place to be on a Wednesday morning. No job or children or husband. I could pack up and rattle off across the country, no one knowing for days where I am or whether I’m safe.

  Another plane rumbles overhead, its bright silver belly tipping and turning over the bay. Actually, I do have someplace to go: the mall. Not a very glamorous destination. No passport required. But I need to shop for curtains, decorative throw pillows, and houseplants, so I can stage and sell my house, then leave Silicon Valley.

  “I could live here,” I told Ethan the last time we visited Ruth in Ashland. We sat by the Rogue River on a hot August afternoon, reading Shakespeare aloud and eating cheese and apples with wine.

  “No jobs,” Ethan said.

  “No high-tech jobs,” I said.

  I imagine giving my new throw pillows decisive karate chops, creating House Beautiful creases Melanie would approve of.

  I turn the key over in the ignition and reach for my parking ticket.

  ESCROW

  7

  One bright February morning Melanie shows up with a buyer for my house who looks as though he walked out of a men’s underwear ad. Broad shoulders, square chin, shelf of sandy blond hair.

  “Steve Cunningham,” his deep voice rumbles as he steps through the front door. His handshake is warm and firm, and suddenly I’m glad that I fussed over contact lenses, mousse, and Juicy Tubes lip gloss. “Love the place,” he says.

  “Thanks.” I feel myself blush and wonder how it’s possible to be both lonely and terrified of social encounters at the same time.

  Steve has made an offer on the house that matches the asking price, and Melanie says we’ll soon be on our way to escrow. Steve just wants to have another
look. He rattles on about how he loves the neighborhood and the proximity to the freeway. I agree, smiling and nervously spinning my wedding ring around my finger with my thumb. He says this will be an easy commute to Whatevertech, where he’s VP of sales.

  After Steve takes measurements in the living room for his wide-screen TV, Melanie tells me to show him the garden. She nudges the two of us into the backyard. I point out the hydrangea, roses, wisteria, lantana, and salvias, all of which are dormant now. The “mow, blow, and go” guys have been by, but I haven’t done any yardwork for months.

  “It looks like the Addams Family lives here now,” I tell Steve, bending over to pull up a weed, “but I promise it’ll all come back in the spring.”

  Steve smiles, looks at my hair. For some reason it hangs in silky ringlets today. For the first time in months I feel attractive. Even female. For so long I’ve felt like an androgynous lump. Grief on a stick.

  “Now that I’ve found a place, I can get back to skiing on the weekends,” Steve says. “You ski?”

  “Not lately. Used to.” Used to before Ethan turned into a work slug and we had to go to a marriage counselor just to get him to come home on Saturday for a few hours, let alone go skiing.

  “I could take you sometime,” Steve offers.

  “Ha!” This response comes out involuntarily, like a sneeze. I peer through the kitchen window for Melanie, wishing she’d show up to nag me about some decor blunder. I look at Steve, who’s studying the spindly peach tree. Maybe I should wear a placard around my neck that says: WIDOW, KEEP BACK. I tell Steve that the tree will look better after it’s been sprayed in the spring.