Or Not to Be (12 page)

“Past or present?” she asks.

“Present. Let me see what Eddie’s up to.”

“Still hung up on that man, aren’t you?”

“He’s my kryptonite, I guess. I want to
know if he’s hurting or happy.”

“There you go,” Mom says as she leaves. It feels like maybe
this time she nudged me in the right direction
.

16

Death has numbed
some of the pain of my crumbling marriage. It
was lucky for Eddie that I kicked the bucket and relieved him of the nasty
burden of me.

Now,
he sits alone and quiet on my swing. He looks so formal in his suit and tie and
stiff dress shoes. He also looks sad. I wonder if it’s harder on him that I
died while we were fighting. He was fighting; I was just playing possum and
trying to survive. But he was ready for a fight any minute of any day or night.
Tiptoeing around his moods was exhausting. I went to work on November eleventh
because I needed to get away from him.

While
we were fighting, Eddie and I had an unspoken contest to see who could withhold
attention, and especially eye contact, the longest. For months, I never caught
him looking at me. This made my life as desolate as our lack of touch. When
your best friend won’t spread his gaze over you, you become invisible. Eddie
looked away or down, even during the few times when we spoke. The man was
guilty of something. At first, I played along in self-defense. Eventually, I
became certain that he’d never look at me again, so I began to study him. While
reading, mowing the lawn, paying bills, tucking Joey in bed or watching TV, his
sad eyes and downturned lips revealed his disgust with his life. With me.

I
continue my self-torture and study him still, now from the dead side, trying to
understand this man I used to know as well as I knew myself. I’m not seeing
what I expect. If I’d died last spring, back when he was my prince, I’d expect
him to be devastated. I died during his funk, though, when it was obvious that
Eddie suffered from my mere presence in the room. I expected him to be
relieved, like I feel. But he looks like a man destroyed by the loss of his
wife. This baffles me.

“Yes,
Mr. Ed does looks pathetic, Anna.”

I’m
startled by her voice in my thoughts. “Mom, did I call you?”

“No, dear, it’s like cell phones. I can
call you, too.”

I haven’t
been interrupted by my mom in years. “You never liked Eddie, did you?”

“Not much, no,” she says, point blank and
frank as always. “He took you away.”

“But getting married always takes people
from their parents. What was the big deal with Eddie and me?”

“The big deal was that he changed your
plans so drastically. You were accepted to the doctoral program in physics at
Cornell. How could you turn away from that to become a high school teacher?”

She really didn’t
get us. “Those were
your
plans for me. I was following
along because it was the easiest thing to do. Don’t rock the boat. Don’t make
people mad. I have the same confrontational issues as you. But Eddie fell for
me. Nobody had ever loved me before. Nobody had ever thought I was beautiful
before. I was always the ugly, nerd sister.”

Mom is quiet for a while. “I thought you
were beautiful.”

“That doesn’t
count. You’re my mom; you
have
to think I’m beautiful. You
probably thought so when I was a wrinkled, old-man newborn.”

“I did. But something didn’t feel quite
right with you and that man. It all happened too fast. I wasn’t convinced.
Obviously, you were in love. You were delirious. But you were also
incoherent—so different from my normal, level-headed, capable Anna. Do you
remember what you told me when you said you were marrying this perfect guy? Do
you remember why you were so sure, so soon, that Mr. Ed was the one?”

“I could just feel it. Love might be as
hard to explain as this timelessness that I’m still struggling with.”

“Well, you didn’t express that feeling
very clearly. What you told me and your father was that your fiancé had the perfect
last name.”

“I did?”

“You did. And
that’s about all you offered as justification for marrying Mr. Ed in such a
hurry and for changing all of your—all right—
our
plans.”

I think back to our discussion about
Eddie’s last name. It’s my name now and has been for half my life. I take it
for granted. Then, suddenly, I remember. Mostly I remember the dead silence on
the other end of the phone when I broke my big news to my parents. “I told you
his name was a palindrome, just like ‘Anna,’ didn’t I?”

“Exactly.”

“You know how I love palindromes. Oh! I
remember you argued with me that Wixim wasn’t a palindrome.”

“Yes. And that was my biggest mistake.
Instead of arguing that a palindrome last name is a weak sign that your love
would last forever, I argued that Wixim wasn’t a palindrome, as though
convincing you of that would make you change your mind. Your father watched and
listened in horror from across the kitchen table as I wrote W-I-X-I-M on a
piece of paper and whispered to him that our brilliant daughter was marrying
this strange man named Ed because she thought his name was a palindrome.”

“I
remember. You were going a little bonkers over the phone, yelling that Wixim is
definitely not a palindrome, and then all of a sudden you went silent. I
thought you’d passed out, or we were disconnected.”

“That’s when your dad rotated the paper upside-down to me
and showed me your unique rotational palindrome. What kind of mind notices
these things? I was shocked into silence.”

“That wasn’t the only reason I knew Eddie
was right for me. My feelings were so strong and undeniable, so right and
certain, but, at the same time, I couldn’t explain them. Not with mere words.”

“Do you remember ranting about elevens?”
Mom asks.

“Elevens?” Of course I remember, but I
want to hear her take on it.

“You said Wixim has elevens both ways.
‘Roman elevens! Roman elevens!’ And you loved
elevens.
The time 11:11, the date
November eleventh—you were a bit obsessed. And you insisted that the Roman
numeral eleven ‘both ways’,” she mimics me, “in his last name was the most
perfect married name for you.”

She’s right. I was a little crazy then. I
decided not to remind her of how much I loved my first name back when she first
taught me about element symbols when I was eight years old. I was thrilled that
my palindrome first name was made from the symbol for sodium, Na, frontwards
and backwards. Sodium reacts violently with water, forming explosive hydrogen
gas, sparks, and flames. And, drum roll, please, its atomic number is eleven.
No kidding. My obsession with elevens was my mother’s fault in every way. I’m a
geek, just like her.

With Eddie, though, I lost my head with my
heart. I was just so caught up in being in love. But I did die on November
eleventh, so the elevens of my obsession did turn out to be significant. Was
that a coincidence? I decide not to push this sore spot with my mom anymore
just now. I’m sure I’ll need more of her help, and I don’t want her mad or
distracted. I avoid confrontation in death just like I did in life. Instead, I
try to convince her that Eddie, the guy I almost divorced, was the right guy
way back then.

“But look at him now, Mom. He misses me.
We were fighting two days ago, and now he misses fighting with me.”

“Anna, I watched enough since I died to
see that he loved you. I saw what I couldn’t see while I was living. Alive, I
just knew he had you, so I had to give you up. That’s a hard lesson for a
parent.”

Once again, she’s gone, just like a
dropped cell phone call.

17

Bethany’s cell phone sings
an old Elton John love song and wakes up Joey. She
lets it ring. Joey comes down the stairs in his Superman pajamas, humming
“Rocket Man,” and he goes straight to the bottom cabinet where he digs to find
a big bowl.

“Hey, Joe-boy.” Bethany grabs him to kiss
the top of his head. I miss the sweaty boy smell of the top of his head. “Want
me to make some pancakes?” He wiggles out of her hug.

“Nah. Daddy bought me Fruity Pebbles.” He
climbs up the pantry shelves and
topples
down
the box. After a struggle to rip open the inner bag, he pours the cereal into
the big bowl. He opens the fridge, holding his spoon up like a weapon, and
stares into the bright box for a full minute. Without turning around, he says
into the cold air, “Bethany, will you help with the milk? It’s too heavy. Mommy
used to leave me a cup on the bottom shelf.”

Only a few days ago I left a cup of milk for my son on the
bottom shelf of our fridge and already he’s saying I
used to
do it.

“Sure. Grab me a bowl. I’m having some of
these, too. I haven’t seen sugar in the morning at this house since before you
were born.”

“What was it like before I was born?”

Bethany pours milk in his bowl, snorts,
and says, “Quiet.”
She
eats a spoonful of her cereal and gags.
Kid food. Ick.

After she puts a
bagel into the toaster and pours the sickly sweet cereal down the drain, she
starts a fresh pot of coffee.
I’m gonna need some C
₈
H
₁₀
N
₄
O
₂
to get through this day.

My daughter tells
my son, “Hurry up with that cereal, Joey. We need to get dressed for Mom’s
memorial service.”

My memorial
service. Cripes. I might just need some of that caffeine myself.

| | | |

Eddie
waits
for
the rest of our clan to get ready. He’s all alone outside on my swing, not
swinging. Just sitting still as stone, staring at nothing. Somehow, he found
Joey’s little blue suit and some dark socks and has them ready, all laid out on
his bed to wrestle Joey into. Now, for a few minutes of peace, he just sits in
the sun and lets his thoughts leave again.
Empty-headed is the best way to be.

This time we agree. I wish I could stay
empty-headed.

On the couch in the library, Michelle sips
black coffee. The pile of used tissues beside her tells me she has not managed
to reach Eddie’s empty-headed state. She holds a pen over a page of scribbled notes
and hums. A bowl of half-eaten Fruity Pebbles rests on the floor at her feet.

My family looks pretty good today.
Everyone is awake, getting ready, and even eating.

Mom’s voice answers me. “Yes. It doesn’t
take long. The energy created by matter’s union with antimatter compels life to
continue, even though your family will miss your atoms and your presence every
day.”

“And I’ll miss them every day.”

“Even Mr. Ed?” she challenges.

“Please stop calling him Mr. Ed. Eddie’s a
smart guy. Not at all like a talking horse.”

My Eddie earned his doctorate in
electrical engineering and then went on to medical school and worked as a
pediatric oncologist for a dozen years. After all of this my mother still never
gives him any credit.

“At least you could call him Dr. Ed,” I
say, wondering why I am defending the man.

Mom considers
this. “Hmm, Dr. Ed. D-R-E-D. I kind of like that. Do you think he’d rather be
called Dread than Mr. Ed? I could be like you and endear him by calling him
my
Mr. Ed, if you prefer.”

“Mo-ther,” I moan.

“Sorry, old habits die hard—no pun
intended. Did you know today is your cremation and memorial service?”

“Yes, I saw Eddie write it in purple ink
in my planner.”

“Ooh, purple ink. That sounds serious. He
wrote it in your planner?”

“That’s what Eddie does. He always read my
lists. He liked to check what I did and didn’t finish at the end of the day.
I’d leave my planner out at night so he could look it over after I went to
sleep. Some nights he started my list for the next day before he came to bed.
We were a good match most of the time.”

Again I hear myself defending him. Where
is this coming from? Eddie drove me crazy and broke my heart, but I still
defend him to my mother. After a long silence, she is wise to change the
subject.

“I understand the need to linger nearby,”
she says. “But you will eventually have to make your final choice, Anna. It
could help them all to heal and move on if you let them go and try to depart
soon after the memorial service. Then stay away for a while.”