We Rip the World Apart

Evelyn Toronto

Evelyn

Toronto

2004

On December 27, Evelyn stood outside of an old church with a brick facade and steps leading to two massive wooden doors. She glanced at the flyer in her hand, though she knew this was the right building, right day, right time. She knew, too, that as much as it scared her to step inside, risk people not understanding, risk it not helping—which would mean there was no help left—she had to try. For Kareela.

Evelyn pushed open one of the heavy doors and stepped into a cold foyer.

The steps to the basement led to a large open room, the floor some type of linoleum made to look like tile, the walls wood paneled, the air warm with the scent of cinnamon and coffee. A man approached, his belly hanging so far over his pants Evelyn couldn’t see the buckle. His smile spread, wide and genuine, but with a pain behind his eyes she recognized. “Good evening.” He took her hand with both of his, didn’t shake, but squeezed before releasing. “It’s so great to see you.”

“Oh, uh, thank you.”

He pointed to a circle of chairs, several already occupied. “Take a seat if you like”—he gestured toward the back—“or help yourself to some tea, coffee, or treats.” He leaned in. “I made the cinnamon rolls just this evening. My specialty.”

Evelyn smiled, clutching her hands so they wouldn’t shake, and made her way to the back. She reached for a mint tea, not wanting caffeine to delay those first few—and only—hours of sleep she managed to steal each night, and took a cinnamon roll to keep her hands and mouth busy, each little bite something to focus on, an excuse not to contribute.

“This is a hard time,” said Arthur, the cinnamon roll man, once nine of the twelve chairs were occupied. He chuckled. “All times are a hard time. But Christmas.” He shook his head as others murmured their agreement. “Everywhere around us, reminders of the good days. Of life when it felt like life, instead of struggling to live.” He let out a sigh that transitioned to a chuckle. “I’m sure that’s why you’re here, out on a night like this.”

To Evelyn’s left sat a woman whose son was riding his skateboard and didn’t look before entering the street. Next, a man whose daughter was attacked while walking home from her job late one night. Across from him, a mother whose son was the night manager at a convenience store and had been shot during a mugging. Arthur’s child died in a car accident, when a truck went through a red light and rammed into the side of the family’s car. The others didn’t say. Evelyn didn’t say.

“It’s a complicated grief,” said the convenience store mom. “The suddenness of it. The complexity. I’m not simply grieving my son. I’m dealing with the hate for the person who took him. And for what? A few hundred dollars? My son’s life. That’s what it was worth to this person.” She lowered her head. “And so I try to ask myself why. I try to find sympathy. The shooter was never found. Maybe he…or she…had their own pain. Maybe they needed that few hundred dollars to feed their children. Or for a loved one’s medical expenses. But why shoot? Why not take the money and run?”

“Fear that your son would have called the police?” a man offered. “That they’d have that much less time to get away?”

The woman pivoted her head, glaring.

“I don’t think it was an actual question,” said Arthur softly. “I think Lenora was just expressing.”

“Oh.” The man shrugged.

“I’ve been reading about disenfranchised grief,” said the woman whose son died on a skateboard. “About how there are all these expectations around grief. And I mean, obviously society, the people around me, understand why I’m grieving my son. But not how long. They all want me to move on. That’s why my husband left. He was so angry that I wouldn’t move for his new job. That I kept our son’s room ‘a shrine.’ But how could I change anything? How could I leave? It’s been seven years, and people think I should be over it. Go back to work, they said after a few months, see your friends. Like his death should be some private little sadness I put on a shelf somewhere.”

“Two weeks my work gave me,” said another man. “Like, Oh, that should be enough time to get over the loss of your child, right? My boss even said, when I asked for more time, that it would be good to have something to focus on, to distract me from my grief—work during the day and my remaining two children at home. Focus on what you have, he said. That’ll get you through this. As if I wanted a distraction, as if it were even possible. And my other children, I love them. But—” The man sighed. “I hate them, too—for being the ones to survive—almost as much as I hate myself.”

Evelyn tore a piece of roll, then another.

“I’ve been coming for twelve years,” said one woman. “Twelve years of this meeting one week, AA the next. And it doesn’t get better. Just different. You learn how to live alongside the pain. That’s all I can do.”

Evelyn stood, one hand holding the cinnamon roll and the other the tea, as the eyes in the room shifted toward her. She crouched and set the items on the ground. “Sorry, I…” She shook her head, pulled her purse strap up over her shoulder. “I have to go.”

“Come again!” Arthur called out after her. “Anytime. We’d be happy to—”

Evelyn lifted an arm in farewell. She dashed up the steps, then yanked the wood door as a flurry of snowflakes danced and swirled, her hair caught up in the tumult. She wrenched her toque out of her coat pocket, pulled it onto her head, then swept the rogue strands firmly under her hat.

Twelve years. Hating their children. Living alongside the pain that never got better, only different. She was living alongside the pain already. If that’s all the group would give her, she could figure this out on her own. She would. For Kareela—who was struggling, who was furious at the neglect, but tried so hard to hide it. Evelyn tramped through the accumulating snow. She didn’t hate her daughter. She didn’t wish she had died instead. She wanted both her children. But since Kareela was now all she had, Kareela was who she’d live for, who she’d remember birthdays for.

A car tore around the corner, careening in the slush, fishtailing to correct its path as Evelyn jumped back from the thick wet spray. She stood a moment, breathing, realizing a part of her, for a moment, wished she’d been in the vehicle’s path and all her pain would have ended. But she was still here.

She’d say goodbye to Antony, if that’s what it took to carry on. Evelyn looked both ways, then stepped into the street. With a hand to her brow to block the icy wind and flakes from blurring her vision, she continued on. She’d find a way to live, to get better, to keep her daughter safe.