CHAPTER 8 THE LONGEST GOODBYE
THE LONGEST GOODBYE
“ Gone where? ” I scream. I can’t understand.
“Meka,” Mom says softly. “Noah died.”
I’m not hearing her right. Those words don’t make sense. “No.” I try to pull out of my mom’s grasp, but she won’t let me go. “No. No. No!” My voice creeps up with each denial until I am screaming at the top of my lungs. “NO!”
Blood rushes in my ears, my heart beats furiously as it starts to shatter into a million pieces.
I shove her away from me. I don’t want to be touched.
I take out my phone and call Noah. His ringtone echoes through the hall.
Miss Cliff pulls his phone out of her pocket and holds it in front of her.
A picture of Noah and me with our arms around each other on the carousel at Stewart Park. “Meeks” flashes across the screen.
“No!” I shout. I scream. I wail.
“Baby, please,” my mom sobs. “Baby, listen to me.”
My mom is holding me up now because my body isn’t doing what I need it to do. I can’t breathe or see or hear. I want to disappear but suddenly, I shake free from my mom and run to the front door.
“Oh, Meka,” Miss Cliff says as I brush past her. “Meka, sweetie. Please don’t go.”
I run out into the street. A car lays on its horn and the blaring noise sounds like it’s a mile away. The car swerves around me and turns off my street. The biting cold numbs my skin, but it can’t reach deep enough to numb the agony.
Noah.
My Noah.
Gone.
I stare up at the gray midmorning sky. Somewhere there is wailing, shouting, my dad’s hands on me, pulling me inside. I can’t hear him over the rush in my ears and I want to tell whoever is screaming to shut up. Then I realize it’s me.
The terrible sound is coming from me.
Two days pass in a haze of tears and ragged screams. My throat is sore from it. My eyes are bloodshot, the lids swollen. I can’t eat. I barely get out of bed. Caleb and Cipriana come by, but my mom sends them away. They call me and when I don’t answer, they text.
CALEB: Meka. I love you. I’m here if you need me. I’m so sorry. Please call me.
CIPRIANA: I can’t believe this Meka. I know you’re hurting. We love you.
I read the messages but don’t respond. I just can’t.
It makes no sense that I have to continue on without Noah.
How is that going to work? We’re supposed to be at the movies and meeting up between classes.
We’re supposed to be working up the nerve to say all the things we’re feeling and now it’s too late. There is no time left.
The third day after Noah died—when I realize this is how all my days will be tallied from now on and feel like my chest is going to cave in—I hear a car pull around the side of the house. When I go to the window, Miss Cliff climbs out of the passenger side of the hearse.
I’m downstairs and out the back door before I can think. My bare feet against the freezing concrete is a shock to my system. Everything is more intense than it had been . . . ?before. The cold more biting, the lights brighter, the sound and silence both overwhelming.
My dad slips across the ice as he wraps me up. “Meka, get inside. You can’t see this.”
“He’s here?” I ask. “You brought him here?”
I stare at the hearse. A plain brown coffin made of cardboard sits in the back. It’s the same kind of box we’ve picked up hundreds of guests in over the years but now, Noah is in there.
I push past my dad and fling myself into the glass, pressing my hands and face against it. I let the grief envelop me because there is no stopping it anyway. I sob against the car as my dad tries to comfort me but there is no comfort to be had.
I cry until my face is numb from the cold. My bare feet are probably frostbitten, but it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. My mom comes out and steers me inside. She parks me on the couch in the playroom.
“Stay here,” she says sternly. “I’ll be right back.”
She disappears and I sit as still as I can, trying to hold the broken pieces of myself together.
When the tears ebb, I step out into the hallway.
Through the glass in the back door, I watch my mom and dad load the cardboard coffin onto a gurney and push it toward the basement entrance.
I quickly cut through the kitchen and slink down the butler’s stairs, running directly into my mom.
“You’re not slick,” she says. “What are you doing?”
“I—I need to see him,” I sob.
She stares into my face, then takes my hands in hers. “I’m told there was a small injury to his face from when he fell.” She takes a deep, wavering breath. “Even still, I think you should wait until he’s been prepared. Let Dad get him ready, let me get him dressed.”
I gaze into the preparation room. The table is empty but soon Noah’s body will be on it.
It’s too much to think about, too much to feel.
My legs go out from under me, and I collapse into a heap on the floor.
My mom curls up next to me and holds me as I weep.
She says nothing and I’m glad. I don’t want to hear that it’s going to be okay because it’s not.
I cry until there are no more tears left.
I don’t see Noah this night. Instead, I retreat to my room and bury myself in blankets in hopes of avoiding the terrible reality that Noah’s body lies cold and empty a few floors below me.
As hard as I try, I cannot avoid sleep. I stay awake as long as my body will allow and when I can’t fight it anymore, the nightmare floods my mind.
I see my mother’s broken body on the pavement, the hazy orange light, and I hear the song on the radio.
Then I’m in pain, lying on the pavement, looking up at the stars.
I wake with a start just as the sun is warming the sky and for a moment, I am so relieved to be awake that I almost smile.
Then Noah’s absence falls down around me and my heart breaks all over again.
All this time, I’d been so worried that the dream meant something terrible for my mother but now it’s Noah who is gone.
I should have asked Noah to stay longer that night.
I should have told him to come back, but I didn’t and now I’ll have to live without him for the rest of my life.
Whether sleeping or waking, I’m sad and suffocating. It’s not fair.
“Meka,” my mom says. She’s there suddenly, wearing a black blouse tucked into her jeans, her hair pulled back in a sleek bun at the base of her neck. Her skin is ashen and she looks like she hasn’t slept. I so rarely see her this way, I’m taken aback.
“Baby,” she begins. “I wanted to tell you that your dad and I worked through the night. Noah is prepped. You can see him whenever you’re ready.”
I stare up at her from my seat on the bed. She looks broken. I wonder if I look broken too.
“Why is this happening?” I ask. “Why him?” The tears come in a flood and my mom sits on the bed next to me, holding me like I’m a piece of glass, like she’s afraid I might break. A part of me already has.
“I don’t have an answer, baby,” she says softly.
“I wish I could tell you why these things happen, but I can’t.
Sometimes the people we love are ripped away from us and it’s impossible to understand.
” She rubs my back and traces her fingers along the side of my face.
“I know it hurts and I wish I could take this pain away from you.” She sighs and I melt into her.
“I love you,” she says. “I will be right here with you every step of the way. Even when it hurts. I got you. Understand?”
I nod and try my best to gather myself. “When is the—the funeral?”
She sighs again. “Miss Cliff doesn’t want a big thing. She wants to do a private memorial tomorrow evening. We’ll do the main service here and then she wants a brief graveside ceremony.”
“Tomorrow?” I ask. “No. That’s—that’s too soon.”
Mom puts her hand firmly on my shoulder.
“Baby, no amount of time will make you ready for this. If it’s tomorrow, next week, next year—you will never be ready but we have to move through it.
” She squeezes my hand, then goes to my dresser to pull out clean clothes for me.
“I want you to shower, brush your teeth. You have to take care of yourself, even if it feels like a chore. It won’t actually make things better, but it might make you feel a little more human. ”
“I don’t want to be human,” I say. “I want to be something that can’t feel anything. I want to be numb.”
Mom comes back over and stands in front of me.
She gently takes my face in her hands. “Please don’t say that, Meka.
This feeling,” she touches my chest, right over my heart, “the sadness, is only possible because of the way you love and care for other people. It’s what makes life worth anything at all, even when we grieve, that is an act of love. ”
“Then why does it hurt like this?” I ask. I don’t know if I’m expecting a real answer or not.
My mom kisses me gently on the forehead. “It will get better. You will grow around the grief, I promise.”
She believes she is telling me the truth but I know that’s not the only option. I’ve seen people so broken by grief that I don’t think there is any growing around it for them.
I shower, get myself together, and surprisingly, feel at least a little more real. I stand at the top of the basement steps trying to prepare myself to see Noah. My mom offers to come down with me, but I want to see him alone.
I descend the stairs slowly and stand just outside the preparation room.
Through the small window in the door, I can see the coffin—a sleek mahogany model with an almond velvet interior.
The head end is open. I’d once helped a family pick the exact same coffin for their teenage daughter.
I want to throw up. I swallow hard, pushing the nausea down, and step into the room.