Inhospitable Seventeen Years Old, Tennessee Grief
Inhospitable
Seventeen Years Old, Tennessee
“Millie,” Dad says, removing his earbuds to pause one of the many history podcasts he streams on his phone. “Let’s take Major on a walk.”
It’s the evening before the first day of my senior year. We finished dinner an hour ago, and we’re all in the living room. A trio of Jeopardy contestants duke it out on TV. I’m penning my schedule, which was emailed this morning by my new guidance counselor, into my current journal, alongside sketches of rulers and apples and fountain pens. Mom absentmindedly murmurs Jeopardy answers—questions, I guess—while ironing. She’s vacillating over what she’ll wear tomorrow for her first day of teaching at East River Elementary. Like a bunch of little kids are going to give a rip about whether she pairs her chambray blazer with charcoal slacks or a black skirt.
“I’ll get the leash,” I say, leaving my journal on the coffee table.
Outside, it’s humid and buggy. The August air smells of barbecue and honeysuckle. Dad’s sporting a Rakkasans T-shirt and running shorts with dorky flip-flops, and I’m wearing a knit cardigan over a tank, with denim cutoffs and Converse that’ve seen better days.
We set off down the block. Dad holds Major’s leash, quiet until we get to our development’s community area: a play structure, a grove of picnic tables, a few charcoal grills, and a basketball court set along the southern end of a retention pond.
Nudging me with an elbow, he says, “Ready for tomorrow?”
“If I tell you I’m not, will you let me ditch?”
He gives me a side-eye smile. “You wish.”
“Then I’m ready as I’ll ever be.”
He hooks an arm over my shoulders like he used to, back when things were better. “You should spend some time with Mom later. Maybe take a crack at the new puzzle.”
For as long as I can remember, no matter where we’re living, we’ve had a puzzle-in-progress spread across the trestle table in our formal dining room. Florals, landscapes, cats sporting hats, hamburgers with all the fixings, Sleeping Beauty’s Disneyland castle, all jigsawed into a thousand pieces. The three of us work one when there’s a family matter to talk over, or independently when the mood strikes, until it’s complete. Then we start all over again, with a new thousand-piece puzzle.
How pointless. How Sisyphean.
I sigh and tell Dad, “I’m tired. Tomorrow’s going to be a lot.”
“You could give her an hour.”
“What if I don’t want to?”
He tugs Major to a stop. The sun is on its way to setting, but there’s enough light to show me the full scope of his sorrow-filled face. “What’s going on between you two?”
I think, You wouldn’t understand.
I say, “Nothing.”
He shakes his head. “It’s brought me a lot of peace over the years, knowing you and Mom have each other, especially when I’m away. Lately, though, the two of you hardly speak. I can’t remember the last time you gave her a hug.”
I can’t either.
“I’m growing up,” I say, flippant enough that his brows pull together. “I don’t need my mom for every little thing anymore.”
“Maybe not, but you should work to maintain relationships with the important people in your life. You haven’t been doing the best job of that lately.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve been out of sorts,” I say, crossing my arms, as if my father, an Army officer of more than two decades, won’t recognize my defensive posture.
A couple months after Beck was laid to rest, Dad went on a mysterious errand.
“He has a meeting in Virginia Beach,” Mom told me when I’d come downstairs and asked where he was. She was sitting on a stool at the kitchen counter, writing lesson plans for the long-term substitute who’d taken over her class for what remained of the school year. “He’ll be home for dinner.”
Back then, I’d wondered why she hadn’t gone to Virginia Beach with him.
Now I know she stayed home because she didn’t trust me to be alone. I was depressed, and not in the romanticized way of movies and novels. I survived as if under a wool blanket: my senses muffled, thoughts muddled, emotions intense and erratic. I was too anxious to sit still, too agitated to sleep, angry as often as I was sad, and fixated, suddenly, on my own mortality. I couldn’t stop thinking about how healthy Beck had been. How vivacious. If his heart could fail, who was to say mine wouldn’t malfunction while attempting to repair its horrific break?
“Have some tea with me?” Mom had asked, pushing her lesson plans aside.
I shook my head and ended up dizzy, swaying on my feet.
Thick with concern, she said, “What did you eat for breakfast?”
I couldn’t remember eating, drinking water, or exercising. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d slept for longer than a couple hours or felt the sun on my skin. It’d been weeks since I’d opened my journal, or put on makeup, or spoken to Macy, my closest friend in Rosebell. Even longer since I’d texted Andi and Anika, the friends I’d made in Colorado Springs. My parents insisted I attend sessions with one of the best grief counselors in Northern Virginia, and they were as supportive as they could be while navigating their own sorrow, but my boyfriend was dead, and I was a ghost.
“Cereal,” I lied.
Mom got up to rummage in the pantry. “I’ll make soup.”
“I don’t want soup.”
“A smoothie, then,” she said, and the blender came out. I watched, detached, as she sliced a banana and then retrieved coconut milk from the fridge. She opened the freezer next, reaching for the bag of frozen strawberries that sat next to six pints of artisan ice cream. That’s when she inhaled sharply, slamming the freezer door shut, strawberries forgotten.
Slowly, she turned to face me, to discern whether I’d seen the offending ice cream, to assess whether I’d be okay.
I had, and I wasn’t.
The day that ice cream arrived, Beck—who’d sent it—ceased to exist.
I crumpled to the floor.
Mom rushed to my side. She pulled me into her arms, and I let her, even though we hadn’t touched since the obligatory hug we shared at Beck’s wake.
I blame her.
Not for his death—
—no, not that.
I blame her for the shock, for the upheaval, for the gut-wrenching agony.
All my life, my mom has spun stories about soulmates, about Beck and me and our happily ever after. I never questioned my destiny. Never doubted my fate. Beck was mine and I was his, and how dare she let me believe forever would be ours?
On the kitchen floor, I wept.
When at last I composed myself, Mom made brownies instead of a smoothie. We ate them out of the pan. They were rich and slightly underbaked, exactly the way I like. She matched me brownie for brownie, and I wondered if someday I might stop holding her decades-old fortune against her.
That night, Dad came home with a twelve-week-old Pointer puppy, who had a stub of a tail, a wet nose, and too-big paws.
I named him Major.
He’s been a glimmer of light through a run of very dark months.
Now, Dad reaches down to scratch the top of his head. Major flicks his tail back and forth. He’s so sweet, so loving. I’ve a feeling Dad thinks the opposite of me lately. His frown lines are pronounced. Silver dapples the hair at his temples—not quite camouflaged by sandy blond. His forehead is lined with concern. As if he doesn’t have enough going on with work, with Mom, and with Connor and Bernie, I’m causing him all sorts of worry.
“You need people, Millie,” he says. “You need community. Beck’s life is over and that’s terrible—just terrible —but you’ve got to go on. He’d want that. You know he would.”
I blink away the threat of tears.
Dad gives Major’s leash a tug, then reaches for my hand and urges me forward. We’re moving again, a slow march down the darkening sidewalk.
My dad has two temperaments: peacetime and wartime. At home, with Mom and me, he’s almost always in peacetime. Relaxed, receptive, funny. During disagreements or times of stress, tonight , he adopts his wartime persona. Serious. Contemplative. Take no shit.
“Tomorrow at school,” he says as we near home, “I want you to try.”
“I always try.”
That’s the truth. I’ve been an Honor Roll student since middle school. Last semester, I flung my whole self into studying and earned my first 4.0.
“I mean socially,” he says. “Smile. Converse. Make a friend.”
“But that feels—”
Like starting over is what I almost say, but starting over is what Dad wants. He’d like me to emerge from the cocoon I’ve been hiding in since November, to test my wings in this new, inhospitable world.
He doesn’t understand that starting over is the same as leaving Beck behind.
“Feels like what?” he asks.
“Just…really hard.”
“Hard isn’t impossible,” he says, giving my shoulder an affectionate jostle. “You’re better for conquering the tough stuff.”
Our house comes into view. Mom’s there, sitting in one of two rocking chairs on the front porch, sipping from a stemless wineglass. She waves when she sees us.
Dad grins and waves back.
Major wags his docked tail.
Look at my family , I tell Beck. Surviving. Thriving, even.
Gaze trained on the sidewalk, I tell Dad, “I’ll try. Tomorrow, I’ll try to make a friend.”
Grief
Shock: A balloon, stuck with a pin. Shallow breath, fuzzy vision. Heart-halting.
Denial: Irrational, immature. Fists clenched. Jaw set.
Pain: A tinny flavor. Split skin, cracked ribs. Gasping, clenching, begging.
Guilt: A last petal, plucked. Retrospect and regret.
Anger: Dynamite, lit. Sizzling, scorching, searing.
Bargaining: This for that. Smells bitter. Tastes spoiled.
Depression: Rain-dark clouds, oily hair, empty belly, forlorn nights. I n f i n i t e.
Reconstruction: A clean bandage. Level ground. A stutter step forward, then another.
Acceptance: Inconceivable.