Bright Before Us (3 page)

Sure,
I said, loosening my tie. I was surprised that you asked—in the four days since the accident I hadn't left you.

 

When the call came, I was searching the channels for the next day's weather forecast before I left your apartment. You were making French toast for your dinner, opening and shutting
the fridge. The phone rang.
I have egg on my hands,
you called.
Could you get that?
I answered and a man said his name, Officer something. He asked if you lived there. He called you
Miss Lucas
, above the buzz of his radio. I was, despite a flash of guilt, sorry I hadn't left sooner. From the way I said your name—
Nora, you should take this
—you knew to come quick. You took the phone with your dirty hands, confirmed that you were indeed you, and hung up.

He said he'd be here shortly,
you said.

I started to speak—
What else did he
—but was interrupted by a knock at the door. He had called from outside, had been parked on the street. He stood in the entryway and took off his hat—you followed it with your eyes as he held it to his middle—and told you swiftly, like it was burning his mouth, that he was very, very sorry.

The first thing you said after he finished was
How did you know where I live?
You chewed on your lip. He explained the process a bit too gamely, like he was showing you a new toy. He told you they ran the plates on the totaled car—that was how they identified your parents in the absence of their identification.
Your mother's purse landed some yards away,
he said.
We haven't found your father's wallet, if he carried one. I'm assuming he did?
When you didn't answer, he went on to tell you that they had looked up your parents' records and found your birth certificate, and checked the directory for your name. You were listed.

It was actually pretty easy,
he said.

Oh,
you said, reaching behind you, feeling for something. He shut the door as he left; the TV was still making noise. I wasted a few seconds wondering if I should step toward you and when I didn't, you told me to:
Come here,
please.
Since then we had spent every hour in your apartment or mine, the funeral director's sweaty office, our cars. And finally, the gritty parking lot above the graveyard.

In the vista beneath us were hundreds of gravestones, sprouting from the hills like teeth. We had just learned that no one is buried in San Francisco anymore—one must choose from the twenty cemeteries in the necropolis next door, where the residents have bumper stickers that read:
It's good to be alive in Colma.
You chose that cemetery because it was at the top of the list; the day of the service was the first time you saw it. The only trees stood at the outer edge of the lawn, and so the sun was everywhere, stone markers shooting glares like a laser show. The graves were coarse with crabgrass, the studded expanse enclosed in chain-link. On the mausoleum behind you was an old lady's rounded cameo photograph, embedded in the marble face of the stone drawer that contained her body. The type on her monument was harsh and certain. You were twenty-two, slouching in a discount black dress, about to absorb the sympathy of people you rarely saw or had never met. We roasted like tender plants, flushing beneath our black clothes, until your aunt came over to tell you it was time. She was a big, burdened woman, bent like she was dragging something. She put her arm around you and pulled you away, and you let her, because this was too big to fight: not the goldfish and hamster death we knew from childhood, but real death, searing and complete.

 

Inside the chapel, everyone shivered in the aggressive air-conditioning. I chose a seat a few rows behind and to the left of you, next to a string of business-casual strangers. You
stared at your lap.
When young people are taken,
the man at the podium began, rustling his papers. The sound crackled through the slender microphone. He had merely been given dates and names, had never met you or your parents. Two caskets sat side by side in front of the altar, flowers spilling over their contoured lids. You had requested that they remain closed, and had declined a viewing. The director had leaned forward like you were six years old.
People want to say their good-byes to the faces they knew and loved.
You had pulled away from his mouthwash scent as you said,
Well I don't.

The chapel had one wall of streaked glass that looked onto a small rock garden furnished with plastic ferns and fake frogs. An electric fountain emitted a weak stream, an extension cord growing from it like an orange tail. The pews were nearly full, people dabbing at their eyes with their sleeves, mothers transacting bribes to quiet their children. Your parents hadn't been religious, but the man at the podium spoke of the many rooms in His house. You blinked slowly. You could have been a passenger on a commuter train; you could have been waiting in a dentist's office. And then you jerked a little, your lips pulling in disgust, your hand batting at something. I couldn't see what.

Afterward, most people went to the lawn, others to their cars. Together, we approached the flimsy white tent at the graveside, the folding chairs sitting crookedly in the knotty grass. A bulldozer rested in the near distance.
It was a beautiful service,
I said, trying to think of what people say in movies.

But you were somewhere else.
I have to host a party after this
, you said. We qwalked, my hands in my pockets, yours clutching a purse from which you pulled tissues and gum.
And guess who cleans up afterward!

You don't have to clean up,
I said.
I'll do that.

You pulled at your clothes, smoothing your dress, and asked me,
Do I look okay?

Your face was puffed as if from too much sleep, though you had gotten none. The edges of your nostrils were abraded red hoops. You were pretty, but that day you looked like what you were: someone over whom sadness had triumphed.

Yes,
I said.
You look very nice.

Keep her talking, I thought. Just keep tossing questions.
What were you twitching about in there?

There were ants on my leg.
The corners of your mouth plummeted.
This place is a shithole.

And then you saw the open grave. There was only one hole, cut deep for the two bodies that would share it, but you didn't understand. You had chosen this when you were making decisions by pointing at glossy pamphlets, half-awake, forgetting things the moment you said them. You glanced around like a spooked horse, trying to catch the eye of someone in charge. You wanted an explanation. Your aunt pulled you close to her, misunderstanding, and you pushed out of her embrace like a distracted toddler.

My mind clearing, I rushed forward and gripped your hand, hard, like a parent; I pulled you to me briskly enough that you dropped your purse. I whispered in your ear,
It's okay. Sometimes people are buried one on top of the other. This is fine.

Everyone watched you. I knew they were waiting for the fireworks moment I dreaded, the moment you hit the ground wailing. I hated each of them, imagining them wanting privately, selfishly, to be the source of your comfort.
And standing there, holding your hand, I had a sour sensation of pride: I had won.

Okay,
you said, pulling your hand away. You picked up your purse and took your place at the grave.
Okay,
you said again. And everyone exhaled, beneath the soft, enervating waft of pollen, as the proceedings commenced.

 

You left with your aunt as soon as it ended. Once everyone had gone, a casket began to descend. I didn't know which of your parents was inside. I waited until I felt the lowering mechanism stop vibrating, until I knew the first coffin was safe at the bottom of that hole, before I walked to my car. I had the irrational thought that you might worry about this, later. And I wanted, at least once, to be able to reassure you with some conviction.

 

When I arrived at your parents' house you were sitting on the steps alone. I jogged up the drive.
You beat me.

My aunt had to get her lasagna in the oven,
you said, motioning behind you to the house full of people. You pulled my arm so I would sit. Before I smelled your breath I knew: your gaze was bouncing around.

What, do you have a flask on you?
I asked, but then I saw that behind you were two minibar bottles, their twist lids nearby like spent shells.

You showed me the place beneath the bushes where you had shoved the other three.
Catch up,
you said, pointing.
Watch out for the cop, though. He keeps driving past to see what all the cars are about.

I picked up the bottles and downed one, then two. I asked,
Have you eaten today?
though I knew the answer.

We sat for a while in the October air. I imagined every one watching us through the window.
We have to go in,
I said. Soon, all the bottles were empty, the lids littering the stoop. I felt heavy, embarrassed. So when you leaned over and put your hand on my knee, I thought it was because you could tell I was sick. I had my lips poised to say,
I think we should drink some water.
But before I could speak you had pushed your palm up the length of my leg, fingertips pressing. The back of my throat made a noise, low and involuntary. You dug your nails in and waited.

I felt automation take over, my fingers straining to touch you back. But it was simple: I was afraid. I would have felt the same fear had your fingers landed there in high school, in college; I would have been afraid if you were sober. I would have been afraid if nobody was watching us through the window; or if nobody had died—if you had ten parents, twenty of them. I couldn't touch you. I couldn't do, at that moment, what you were asking me to do.

Don't,
I murmured, stopping your hand with mine. You snatched your hand back, got up, and stumbled inside. You slammed the door as the cop came around the block again, peering like a predator. I swept the bottles to the dirt patch beneath the bushes and trudged up the steps, then through a small crowd milling in the foyer. I scanned the room and didn't find you there or in the dining room, the kitchen, the den. I walked up the steps and went into your old bedroom, the room where we had watched bad TV in high school and whispered our earnest, youthful convictions. The place where I had once cried after confessing some dumbfuck misdeed: I had, without any real motive, defamed a kid I had known for six grades, and though I
forget what I was telling people—he was gay? A virgin? A gay virgin?—I know it was wholly invented. In that room one evening, after two pilfered lite beers, I had wept,
I'm not a bad person.
All I could do was hope it was true.

Of course you aren't,
you had said, because you believed it.

The same posters, now comically dated, were tacked to the wall, and dried roses hung upside down from the ceiling fan's beaded pull-chain. Next to your bed was the novelty phone you had had forever, translucent plastic that lit up from within when a call came through. There was a sharp air-freshener smell. I hadn't been in there in years.

I suddenly knew where I would find you. I walked down the hallway, passing a picture of you as a baby: surrounded by plastic blocks, nestled in shag carpet, naked apart from a diaper. One of your hands was in the air, holding up three fingers. You were smiling, mostly toothless. I passed the open door of your father's office. His reading glasses sat upside down on a desk calendar beside a half-empty glass of water. The wastebasket was full. I opened the door at the end of the hall and found you on your parents' still-made bed, your dress twisted around your waist, wearing one of your shoes. You were unconscious, your mouth open, and I pulled the skirt of your dress down to cover you. In the bathroom I spit up my three bottles of hotel vodka, avoiding my eyes in the mirror as I washed my hands.

Downstairs, someone had put on the evening news. I joined the morose club on your parents' couches, eating turkey casserole and fielding stares. I knew what they wanted to know: who was I, to you?

I
scanned my mind, opened my eyes. It was Saturday. I could hear Greta's metronome—it helped her insomnia—and my head throbbed to the familiar tempo. I awoke fully, my stale breath permeating the air, and the memory came: the body, the beach, the crying.

The sheets had tangled around Greta's waist in her sleep. Her breasts rolled toward her flanks and her squared stomach puffed around her navel like a cushion punctuated by a button. Sleep didn't calm Greta's face the way it does most, smoothing lines into angelic peace. Instead, she appeared elderly—feeble and uncertain.

She was four months along. Recently, I had been catching myself staring at her stomach. As she slept, I put my hand there and watched her face twitch; I pressed as though I were a doctor testing her appendix, feeling for something hard, defined. She awoke with a quick breath, her eyes wide. I reached over her to still the metronome, my hand lingering tenderly on her rib cage.

Good morning,
she croaked, watching me until I forced a smile.

 

The previous evening returned in bursts. A gauntlet of parents, armed with questions. The sense that it wouldn't be over soon. It wasn't a situation I had thought to prepare for. It wasn't a situation I could have imagined. And even their simplest question couldn't, it seemed, be answered satisfactorily—
Where were you?

This, more than anything, was what they wanted to know. They wanted me to tell them whom to blame. That is, they had an idea, and they wanted it confirmed. And they wanted to hear,
Don't worry, your kid barely knew what was going on.