Chapter Twenty-Five Sassy
twenty-five SASSY
Sassy rolled over and eyed the clock on her bedside table: ten thirty-five. The last time she’d looked it was nine twenty. She assumed it was morning, but she didn’t really care. She wanted to stay here forever, wrapped in her rumpled sheets and blankets, the floor littered with scrunched-up tissues. There was no window in her bedroom, so she didn’t know if the sun had come out after all the rain. Her head felt like cement, and her feet were heavier than that. She wasn’t going anywhere, and she didn’t care.
Then it all rushed back; the reason she was here, curled into her sheets like a snail. “ Daddy!” she gasped, and the volcano of emotions erupted through her again, leaving her sobbing, then whimpering when she could catch her breath once more.
It still didn’t seem real. It couldn’t be, her inner voice insisted. He couldn’t be… gone. She would wake up from this nightmare, and her father would be at his desk. He would check his watch and scowl when she came in late. He had to be there. That’s where he belonged.
Not in a grave.
Her mother’s body was probably no more than dust now, she thought absently.
And Joey? Buried among the thick foliage of Vietnam?
She’d thought about that last night, about how alone she was now, about how her whole family was gone. In one desperate moment, she decided she wanted to be with them, so she’d taken all of Marion’s pills at once. When she’d swallowed the last one, she heard a small voice inside of her, breaking through her desolation, reminding her that Joey might be all right! What will he come home to if you’re gone? So she ran to the washroom and stuck her finger down her throat. She’d fallen asleep beside the toilet, then she’d crept back to bed while the rest of the world slept.
She recognized a knock at the door as Marion’s quiet but firm hand. She wanted Marion to come in, but she couldn’t get out of bed.
The apartment door opened, and she remembered that she hadn’t locked it the night before.
“Sassy?” Marion poked her head through the bedroom door and squinted through the darkness. “I brought breakfast.”
“I’m not—” she started to say, then she stopped, unsure. The earthy aroma of coffee seeped through her door and twisted into the air. Had she eaten last night? She couldn’t recall. Didn’t care. Didn’t have the energy to say anything more.
“I made muffins. And coffee. I can make eggs, too, if you want.”
With effort, Sassy peeled back her eyelids and sat up. “Thanks.”
Marion stood at the side of her bed. “Did you sleep?”
“Yeah. Thanks for the pills.”
“You only took one, right?”
“Yeah,” Sassy lied.
She flipped back her sheets and dragged her pyjama-clad legs over the side of the bed. The strangest vibration travelled through her arms and legs, and her hands felt almost like they’d been asleep. She wondered if that came from the pills she hadn’t thrown back up. Before she stood, she looked at Marion and met an awful, sympathetic gaze that tore her apart again. She dissolved into tears, but Marion was there, and that was neither a nightmare nor a dream. Marion was real, and she was not going to leave her. Sassy gripped her tight, needing the stability, and was a little surprised to feel Marion’s body bumping with quiet sobs as well.
“I need a bath,” Sassy muttered, uncomfortably aware of that fact. “How long has it been since the funeral? I probably stink.”
“It’s been a couple of days, but you’re fine,” Marion said, dabbing away a few of her own tears. “Come and eat, then we’ll see about that bath.”
“Oops,” Sassy said as they entered the kitchen. She’d left the pot of chicken soup on the counter last night, untouched. Mrs. Levin had brought it, and Sassy hadn’t had the heart to tell her she wasn’t interested in eating.
Marion covered the pot with a dishcloth. “I’ll look after that. She won’t even know. Go sit. I’ll bring in the muffins.”
The two of them had sat at this table so many times. They’d discussed everything under the sun, from music to politics to food to wine, from television to weather to books to school. They shared stories about their families, both good and bad. Sassy told her about her dreams to become a famous singer, but she’d also admitted that she was interested in learning more about her father’s business. Marion told her she had once thrived in an emergency room, up to her elbows in blood, but Sassy hadn’t been able to picture that. She told Marion about her unexpected attraction to Tom, and Marion had eventually confided in her about Daniel. She said she had never intended to fall for anyone, let alone an emotionally damaged patient recently back from a war zone. But there it was.
At one point at this table, weeks ago, Sassy had broached the topic of sex. Marion had spotted Sassy’s copy of Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller on the table, and she asked what it was about. She passed the book to Marion, saying little, only “Oh, it’s sort of a fictional memoir.” Marion had opened the book at random, and her eyes had popped open with shock. Sassy had dissolved into gales of laughter that eventually had them both gasping for breath.
“All right,” Sassy had said when she could speak again. “He was a tiny bit obsessed with sex.”
Now Marion placed two cups of coffee on the table then slid a plate of oatmeal raisin muffins toward Sassy. “Just baked this morning. They’re still warm.”
“Thank you for being here,” Sassy said, watching her. “I mean it. I wouldn’t be getting up if you weren’t here.”
Marion smiled gently. “You’ll feel stronger once you eat something. Go ahead. I’m a pretty good baker, if I do say so myself.”
She took a bite of the muffin, and the next thing she knew she was dabbing at crumbs and licking them off her finger. Marion went to get more coffee, and Sassy bit into another muffin.
“These are really good,” she said.
“I’ll bake blueberry another day. Those are even better.”
Sassy swallowed, but it was difficult with the lump in her throat always there. “What am I supposed to do now, Marion?”
“You live, Sassy,” her friend said calmly. “One day at a time. You are going through a terrible, traumatic time, and now you have to survive it. You’re not alone. Tom and I are here with you. So are all the neighbours. We all love you, Sassy.”
She felt herself weakening again. “I can’t believe he’s gone.”
“It’s a horrific thing. I am so sorry you’re suffering.”
A thought Sassy had planned to keep to herself for the rest of her life popped to the surface. It came out with more force than she’d thought she had. “I am so angry at him. And I’m ashamed of what he did, because I think it was on purpose. And I know I shouldn’t be angry because he’s dead , but I can’t help it. It hurts so much, what he did. ”
“All your feelings are valid, Sassy. It’s all right to be angry. When he died, he took part of you with him, and there’s no way you could have prepared for that. His death changes everything you knew.” She held Sassy’s gaze. “And it’s all right if you feel ashamed of him, but keep in mind that you don’t truly know what he was thinking. You don’t know the real reason for why this happened. It’s not as if he left you a note detailing his plans.”
“If he’d written me a note, or if he’d told me, I could have stopped him.”
“Could you? I don’t think that’s fair to either you or him.”
“I could have. If I’d told him I needed him…”
“He knew that. He loved you so much, Sassy, but this was about him, not you. If you’re right, and he did it on purpose, it was a last resort. Your father was a complicated man. He was your father, but he was also a decorated war hero. Before he was a dad, before he had any idea what his life might become, he put his life on the line for others, and he saved lives. It doesn’t matter how many medals a man might earn, he isn’t impervious to the pain his experience caused.” She sighed. “He must have been torn apart by everything happening, but he never would have left you alone. Not if he’d been able to think clearly enough to stop himself.”
“I know what you’re talking about,” Sassy said. “You’ve told me about Daniel and your dad, and the things they have to live through. But my dad never had problems like that. He was fine all his life.”
“Some of the men I’ve read about keep their problems buried their whole lives. They hide them away because they’re ashamed, or they don’t want anyone else to know. Or they just want to forget what happened.” Marion lowered her eyes to the empty plate before them. “My dad suffered his whole life after the war, and he’s still suffering. Your dad just kept it contained, I guess. With Joey missing, it might have all come back.”
“Joey.” Thinking of him brought back a whole other level of misery. “I hate feeling this way. I feel like I’m not even here.”
“Grief is the most painful of all human emotions. It’s the price you pay for loving and being loved.”
Sassy took a deep breath and let it out very slowly, fighting exhaustion. How could she still be tired? She’d slept for three days already.
“I don’t remember if I ever grieved my mother’s death,” she admitted. “I didn’t know her.”
“You were so young. You probably went through a lot of confusion rather than typical grief. In a way, you have always grieved her, but her loss helped shape you into the strong person you are now.”
“I have a snapshot in my head of her funeral,” Sassy said, surprising herself. She’d forgotten all about it until this moment. “I remember being with my father and Joey in that big, cold church. So many people were there, all of them wearing black. I had a friend back then—no idea who she was, I just vaguely remember her face—and she was in the row behind us with her family. I remember seeing her little hand in her mother’s. I could almost feel the softness of the woman’s skin as she comforted her daughter, and I remember feeling really, really pissed that she had a mother and I didn’t.” She inhaled, and the air shuddered through her. “Now I’m an orphan.”
Marion’s eyes shone. She took Sassy’s hand in hers and held it between them, pulling Sassy out of the darkness. “But you’re not alone.”