Postcards from a Dead Girl (18 page)

Driving clears my head—the movement, the white noise, the tangible feel of cause and effect as I push the gas pedal or brake. So I drive, and wait for clarity. I guess I should be feeling thankful that the restaurant owner happened to be one of Natalie's patients, and that Natalie was willing to cover my bill. I wouldn't have gotten off so easy, otherwise. I should also be feeling grateful that Melanie wasn't waiting outside the restaurant, ready to punch me in the stomach. But all I can think about is her eyes, how they smiled at me over dinner, how much of a good time we seemed to be having, and how I ruined it for both of us. It's especially difficult to feel thankful when my sister is yelling at me through my cell phone while I'm driving. But I'm pretty good at talking on the phone and driving at the same time, unlike some people. I put the phone on speaker and let it rest in my lap so I can drive with both hands. Natalie's voice pierces through the road noise.

“You just left her there?!”

“She left me.”

“Because you vanished!”

“Just relax.”

“You're telling
me
to relax?”

“Well, what do you want me to say?” I ask.

“How about ‘I'm sorry' for starters?”

“I'm sorry.”

“And then ‘Thanks for paying for my dinner' would be good.”

“I didn't know my card was maxed out.”

“Jesus, Sid!”

“I don't know what to tell you.”

“No kidding.”

“Sorry and thank you,” I say. I keep the wheel steady on the road, focus my stare on the highway.

“Well that's not really going to cut it, is it,” she says.

“I'll pay you back, don't worry about it.”

“I'm not worried about the fucking money, Sid!” Natalie is not the swearing type, so I know I've really upset her. She reserves this kind of language for when she's feeling helpless, or hopeless, and neither one is good. She seems to be feeling like this a lot more often since her pregnancy. And right now her voice sounds hoarse, desperate, as if she'd been screaming previous to our conversation. “I just don't understand how you could let this happen.”

I let out a big sigh.

Natalie winds up again. “You know, I told her about Zoe and Mom. I told her about your past year, and she still wanted to meet you. So what the hell am I supposed to say about this?”

“I don't know what to tell you.”

“I don't know what to tell you,” she mocks, then says it again away from the receiver, to imaginary people she wants to have join in her resentment. “That's all you can come up with?”

I answer with silence, and continue my study of the road signs.
The Highway 20 overpass is three miles away, and I feel a sense of dread when I realize where I'm headed.

“Let me tell you something, Sid, because there's a lot I can tell.”

“I bet.”

“Let me tell you how it's been to be your sister for the past year.”

“That'd be great, Nat.”

“Let me tell you how it is to have thirty patients in my care daily, but the one who needs the most attention is my brother, who is perfectly healthy. My brother, who calls me five times a day, even though I tell him I can't talk, not because I don't want to but because I need to tend to people with
real physical ailments
.”

“I won't ever call you again.”

“Let me tell you about my brother, who tragically lost his girlfriend—”

“Here we go!”

“—but who doesn't know how to let go, over a year later.”

My hands form a thin layer of sweat, greasing the steering wheel. I clamp down harder.

“A year,” she says again, for maximum impact, “that's twelve months.”

Still driving.

“He can't let go because he feels guilty that he somehow did something wrong, even though it was an accident. He can't let go because he doesn't want to admit that the relationship was over anyway.”

Two miles to the Highway 20 overpass. “You don't know what you're talking about,” I say. My mouth is dry. I feel something spark in my chest, a tiny ember burning a hole in my lung.

“You didn't love Zoe anymore, and you feel terrible about it.”

I cough hard, or maybe it's a laugh. It's a loud noise, whatever it is.

“You didn't love her anymore,
Sid.
”

I fucking hate it when she says my name like that. I punch the roof, but she keeps talking. The scar on my hand throbs.

“You two fought constantly. You were both done with each other, and then she died, and now you can't stand yourself, so you're screwing everything up as punishment—some kind of twisted atonement.”

“That is fucking perfect, Nat. Sounds like you got me all figured out. I didn't realize you were a psychiatrist, too.” The hot hole in my chest blossoms wider, threatens vital organs. “I just wish you'd be less subtle, you know, say what's really on your mind.”

“You want me to be more direct?”

“Yeah, that'd be great!”

“I can definitely be more direct,” she snarls. Her voice is muddy and distorted, like her mouth is pressed tight against the phone.

“Go for it,” I say, and swallow hard against the heat rising in my neck.

“You got it!”

“Here we go!” I say, and then she goes.

“She wanted to travel, so you go to work at a travel agency.”

“Really—”

“She wanted a dog, so you go buy a dog. Sound about right?”

“No,” I say, because I want to tell her that's not how it happened with the dog.

“She died in that car accident and you lived,” Nat says, “so you come up with reasons every day for why you should be dead too.”

I want to challenge her on all of it, but my throat is smoldering
and I can't speak. I notice the highway lines slipping by my car, one by one.

“Sid, you may have been in the hospital during Zoe's funeral, but she is deceased. She's gone. And it's a terrible, sad thing because it was an accident, but you are going to have to deal with this and move on because your life is not the only one affected by this.” She's silent for a moment. I assume she's taking a deep breath to continue, but then I hear crying, which builds to sobbing. Suddenly she shouts: “God damn it!” Then more big, heavy, ugly sobs.

My throat constricts and my eyes get hot and weepy, and it's too much already. I roll the window down and toss out the phone. It skips along behind the car, tiny flashes of spinning light before it goes dark in the rearview mirror.

I feel like I've won and lost all at once, but I don't know what I've gained or given up. I punch the roof again. I yell to make a sound, to feel it in my throat. I shout at the road, at my sister, at everything. I punch the roof again. My hand hurts, but it helps somehow.

The chilly evening air pours in from the open window, howls through the cabin, cools my forehead, fills my lungs. The white highway divider lines continue to drift by the car; I can almost hear them as they slip past: dash, dash, dash. This deceitful rhythm synchronizes with the racing pulse in my hand as I approach the dark bend near the Highway 20 overpass, now only a quarter-mile away, according to the white reflective letters on the green highway sign.

I roll past the merging exits, and the rhythm doesn't stop abruptly or tragically, as it has before, because there are no other cars or trucks out tonight. No distracted drivers on their cell phones. No dog running across the highway. Not tonight. In
stead, the rhythm gradually slows as I let up on the gas and pull over on the gravel shoulder.

I kill the lights.

It doesn't seem so bad here at night. Without a blazing sun illuminating the details, it's almost a peaceful place, like I'm not really here at the actual scene but just at any old highway along a grassy field in the middle of the night. It's weird how the world cleans up places, not people.

And now, with all signs of the crash gone, I can truly see it. That dog running across the highway. Every thought I had, every feeling. All the stupid things I was thinking. A dog ran into speeding traffic, in front of my car, and my first thought was that I hope we don't hit the dog because I don't want Zoe to wake up and be mad at me. She was napping so quiet next to me, if I could just get her home maybe we could have a few more minutes without arguing.

But then I noticed this dog's tongue drooping out of its mouth and I was thinking how the dog seemed out of its mind, like it was having a psychotic episode and that's why the dog ran into traffic in the first place. That's why it ran directly in front of our car. All of these things and my gamble was to keep on rolling because if I missed the dog, then we'd keep on rolling. The semitrailer truck on Zoe's side didn't gamble my way. One of the last things I recall seeing was Zoe's seat belt snug against the door, not where it should have been, but left unfastened for comfort's sake. I felt our car lurch to the side, and then there was spinning and screeching and stopping.

I gained consciousness soon after, maybe one minute later, maybe five.

I saw the hole in the windshield. And next to me, the seat was empty. As if she'd flown away.

The whole world buzzed and my head and chest were killing
me, but I stared through the windshield, straight into the sun, for as long as I could, until it hurt, because I thought if I looked away, I'd lose her forever.

The dog sat outside my car. I pushed opened the door and he crept closer. He sat with me for a long time, licking my hand, until the paramedics arrived. Strange how this dog, so oblivious to having caused a major car accident, was so intuitive and knew I needed help. I remember telling him, “You have no clue,” as the wreckage smoked around us, horns blared, and sirens wailed in the distance. “Absolutely zero,” I told him. And we waited together for Zoe to come back down from the clouds.

I get out of my car and take a few wobbly steps. I try to fight this, but it's too big, there's too much to hide. There is no hole to crawl into here, no way to pretend this away. I'm on solid ground and it hurts like hell.

I lie down on the gravel roadside and stare up at the deep black night to find solace, but everything in me is breaking away. Every twisted memory and sweetened tragedy, all the bullshit lies and lost love and heartaches and panic attacks and phone calls. They are ripping their way out of me, bursting out in violent, moaning sobs and snot and tears, and wracking coughs.

I let it all go, knowing I need to say it, try to say it, and it seems ridiculous, because I know she can't hear me, but just fucking say it, Sid—
I'm sorry
. The words like pieces of glass in my throat.

Zoe would tell me not to worry, if she were here, she would say stop acting like an idiot and get back on your feet, and while you're at it, forgive yourself already. They call it an accident for a reason, and that's what this was—an accident. And she's right. And she's not here. It's just me. And after a while I'm just breathing. And I realize it's quiet again.

I am quiet again.

So I slowly stand up, walk over to my car, and get back in. I feel like I should call someone, but I'm not sure who anymore. I realize I've thrown my phone out the window, which is funny because I always promised Natalie I would do that someday. I don't turn my headlights back on because I like it that way, the night stretching on endlessly. I remember this is actually due to the lunar cycle, like Melanie talked about before I decided to run away like a coward.

A point of light catches my eye and floats silently across the sky—a satellite minding its path. I watch it for several seconds as it passes the Big Dipper and fades over the horizon. I journey home by the dark of the new moon.

As I pull in my driveway, I am exhausted. Opening the car door and walking up to the house feel like superhuman tasks. I'm not much of a drinker, but all I really want is some alcohol. I search the house, but there's no beer, no liquor, no wine.

Wait.

I trudge down the basement stairs. Under the dark green army blanket, there it is, the 1967 bottle of Bordeaux. “Sorry Mom,” I announce and hold it up to the light. “Just going to make more room in there for you.”

I rummage through the cupboards for a wine glass. If I'm going to drink forty-year-old wine, I might as well do it right. I find an old corkscrew hidden in the back of the silverware drawer. I peel back the foil and get to work on the cork; a steady pull releases the stopper, and with it the heady aroma of the decades-old wine. I pour it into the glass, watch the purple liquid with a cautious eye. No lilacs sprout forth, no clouds of flowers, no resentful spirits.

“You're free,” I say to Mom, if she's even around, if she's even listening. “My turn,” I say, and drink. It's fruity and bitter. I'm sure it's got hints of nut and vanilla and maybe even persimmon, but hell if I know. That's not really the point now. I swallow
down the rest of the glass and pour another. I drink that too, and keep pouring.

I wonder if I was anywhere near Bordeaux when I visited Paris. I wonder if Zoe wanted to go there too, and if she knows how guilty I feel for having traveled so far. Me, stay-at-home Sid. I also wonder if Melanie will ever forgive me, and how many more glasses this bottle of wine will fill.

The smell of earth is all around me. Slowly, I begin to realize it's because I am in my backyard, or, more accurately, under it. I frown into the noon sun. My face muscles aren't working right; they're sluggish, like I'm covered in an alien film. I attempt to open my mouth, but my skin is taut. Caked-on dirt crumbles away.

I fight my way to a sitting position, get nose-to-nose with the lawn's edge. I try to remember what happened that would put me here. My headache and dry mouth tell me wine was involved. I remember things, but they're foggy—vague notions of people and ghosts, of memories. I climb back up to the surface and head inside, where my answering machine blinks with the number four. Four more than I'm used to. Somehow these unheard messages worry me more than the mystery of last night's activities.

I push the play button. A robot woman's voice says: “Message one.”

“Sid. Pick up. It's your sister. Pick up the phone.”

Beep. “Message two.”

“Sid! Answer the phone. I know you're there. Hello?”

Beep. “Message three.”

“Sid, I'm going to keep calling you and leaving messages until you pick up the damn phone.”

Beep. Robot woman says: “Message four.”

“Okay, you know what? No I'm not. This is my message, so pay attention. I'm sorry for what I said last night. I just thought maybe I could shock you out of whatever you're going through. But it was totally callous. I would be a terrible psychiatrist. I don't know what you're going through. I'm such a bitch, I don't know what's wrong with me. I'm pregnant, okay? It's the hormones. It's no excuse, but if you want to know true suffering, get yourself pregnant.” She laughs a little, then drops her voice a notch. “Okay, that was a joke. I'm also a bad comedian. I'm a terrible matchmaker too. Forget about Melanie.”

“No, that's not—” I say to the answering machine, but she keeps going.

“Do what you gotta do. I'll think of something to tell her. Just call me back, okay? Please?”

After a long pause, I hear sniffles in the background.

“Please,” she says finally, “I'm so sorry. Call me back.”

Beep.

The robot lady says: “You have no more new messages.”

My head starts to pound, and I'm sure there's a tumor at the root of it, but I'm guessing it's nothing any trip in the giant humming machine will cure. Instead, I go to my bedroom and pull out the box of postcards. I carry them to the garage, grab the shovel, walk to the edge of the hole I just climbed out of, and drop them in.

With each throb of my temples, I throw a spadeful of dirt from the mound. I watch the box disappear beneath tosses of earth. I listen to the sounds of digging.
Shk—thump—shk.
One by one. For what seems like hours, I watch the hole fill in, hoping Gerald
won't see me across the yards and offer his help. Eventually the hole becomes level with the yard, and I'm back on even ground.

I drop the shovel and walk back in the house, to the bathroom. I strip, step into the shower, and turn the water on full blast. Mud spirals down the drain in tiny rivers of black, but I don't feel any cleaner. I lather up with my bar of spicy green soap, but I do not feel invigorated like the commercials have assured me I would. I dry off, get dressed, and lie down to take a nap. When I wake, out of habit, I go to the mailbox.

I walk slowly across the lawn in my bare feet and can feel every blade of grass, the ants crawling over my toes. A breeze blows across my face, tosses my hair, cools my neck; I inhale the sweet smell of honeysuckle and pine from the neighbors' yards. All my senses come together, so clear, like this whole past year has come to this moment, to the mailbox, today, because something inside needs to be seen. Something for me.

Mary Jo stands in her yard, her armpit resting firmly on her mailbox. She is not her jovial self. She frowns at the bright sun, and does not brush her hair away when the wind blows it in her eyes. She shakes her head at me, as if she knows what I'm up to, and doesn't like it.

When I open my mailbox, it appears empty, but the sun is casting a strong shadow, so it's hard to tell. I glare at Mary Jo accusingly. Her squinty eyes widen, then narrow again. We study each other for a moment, eyes locked across the asphalt rift of the suburban street. I turn to the mailbox. It seems darker and deeper than its bread-loaf dimensions, like a whole life could be hidden away in there, lost and forgotten. I'm tempted to reach inside but I clap it shut and walk away.