Happy Birthday, Ma
FRANKIE
EMERALD BAY CEMETERY
PRESENT DAY
Humans have funny traditions around grief. We plant flowers for loved ones, scatter ashes in their favorite places, and tattoo their names onto our skin. Hell, we even hold onto random objects, things that remind us of them, even if they weren’t all that important.
My tradition? I still celebrate my mom’s birthday every year, complete with flowers and her favorite foods: PB along the way I just learned to live with this constant ache in my chest, and an emptiness that’s never going away.
Her headstone.
Philippa B. Hughes
July 18, 1967 – October 20, 2012
She died the same day my bike collided with that tree.
Everyone called her Phil.
“Happy birthday, Ma.” I brush away some of the twigs that litter the ground before shrugging off my jacket and setting it down. It’ll do as a makeshift blanket. “Got you your favorites… tulips, cheesecake, and PB&J. I even used that gourmet chunky peanut butter you like.”
I prop the tulips and the card up against the headstone. When I first started visiting her, I never said a word. I was too self-conscious that someone would hear me talking to a really expensive piece of rock sitting on top of a body buried several feet in the ground.
Hell, she’s not even technically in the ground. I scattered her ashes along the shores of the bay, one of the spots where she loved to sit and sketch. Mom’s artwork is all over town, and it’s comforting to know there’s always a chance I’ll see some of it even when I’m just driving around.
Her symptoms started gradually. Drop foot, muscle stiffness, twitches, but mostly she was just exhausted all the time. She went in for test after test as they scoured her body for what felt like every type of illness known to medical science.
By sheer happenstance, a doctor sent her for an electromyography, which, by the way, is just a fancy way of saying they use electricity to see how her muscles and nerves were functioning.
I’m not ashamed to say I had to look the word up to see what the hell the doctor was talking about.
Anyway, a week later, we were sitting in an office holding big stacks of pamphlets on ALS.
The disease worked quickly, and with an unmeasurably practiced cruelty.
It wasn’t long before she started to lose her ability to express herself creatively, which caused her to spiral into a deep depression.
Soon after that, her fine motor skills went to shit, and eventually, she couldn’t get around without a wheelchair.
I stepped up to the plate: washed dishes at a local restaurant on weekends to help cover expenses, drove her to doctor’s appointments, kept the house clean, cooked meals, and pretty much learned everything there was to know about being an in-home nurse.
It was a lot for someone not even out of highschool, but what the hell was I supposed to do? Dad packed his shit barely a month after she got diagnosed, said he couldn’t bear to see her deteriorate.
He was also fucking his dental assistant, so that probably had something to do with it.
“Sorry mom, but I don’t have much of an update this time. I’m not teaching this summer, just doing departmental shit. Still working on that book… haven’t made a hell of a lot of progress though, and before you ask, still no girlfriend, but…”
I pull my phone out and flash a picture of Bugsy, my little orange tabby.
“Not a bad consolation prize, right?”
Mom was always rooting for me to fall in love, settle down, and get married, but that ship has long since sailed.
I never really recovered from discovering the love of my life didn’t quite feel as strongly as I did.
To be fair, we were both young and stupid, but that didn’t make it any easier.
Since then, casual’s been the option for me.
Casual is good.
I pull out my sandwich, half forgotten in my coat pocket, and start chowing down.
“Bugsy used to fit in the palm of my hand, you wouldn’t believe how tiny she was, but now she’s a huge asshole. Only time she’s not complaining or swiping at me is when we watch Love Island together. God, you’d love making fun of everyone on that show.”
The rest of the afternoon goes about as usual: I catch mom up on the garden I planted in the backyard, the shows I’m watching, books I’m reading… all the things we would have talked about before she died.
I always avoid certain topics, though. I’ve never had the heart to tell her about what happened after the accident, about the six surgeries I had to get on my legs to even be able to walk again.
I’ve never mentioned the prescription for those little white pills that took all the pain away. Anything to numb me out.
I haven’t touched Oxy since I was 25, and otherwise live a normal life. I can go to parties, have a drink or two, and that’s it. I know myself and my limits, and more importantly, I’ve built a life with friends I can lean on for anything.
It took me years to understand that it wasn’t the physical pain that made me want to use, it was the loneliness, the regret. My entire life as I knew it was upended and I didn’t know how to live with my guilt.
I shouldn’t have gone out that night.
I should have stayed home and held her hand one last time.
Instead, she slipped away while I was bleeding out on the side of the road, useless to her in every way that mattered.
I sometimes wonder if she was afraid, lost and alone in the dark before it finally ended, but I’d rather believe she welcomed Death warmly, the same way she’d wrap her hands around a mug of tea on a cold morning.
But that’s enough of that.
I finish the rest of my sandwich and grab her slice of cheesecake, pulling a little pink candle from my pocket.
“Now, your favorite part.”
I light the candle, humming a few bars of Birthday by the Beatles. According to mom, it’s the only good birthday song. Every year I find myself agreeing more and more.
“Happy birthday, Ma.”
As I make it back to the front gate, my ritual completed again for another year, I feel my phone buzz. God, why do I keep forgetting to turn these fucking push notifications off? Well, at least it’s not just spam: looks like an email from Dominion, my favorite little kink club in Seattle.
Hey Professor!
James can’t teach the Dungeon Basics workshop this week. Broke his wrist. Any chance you could swoop in to cover him this Friday at 8:00? I know you’re busy, but feedback from your last workshop was really good, and there'll be free drinks. Anyway, it’s $500 for a couple hours work, so let me know!
xxx
Emily
I sigh, shooting back a quick ‘no problem’ before climbing onto my motorcycle.
You’d think my days of riding bikes would be over after what happened, but I wasn’t about to let fear run my life after my accident. I’d lost enough already.
The drive to campus is fairly short, but it’s as gorgeous as ever, zipping through winding back roads as I soak in the warmth of the sun.
Living in Emerald Bay usually means you’ve got to pack a rain jacket everywhere you go, but it seems like nature pulled out all the stops for mom’s special day.
She’d always rave about this kind of weather.
When I arrive, I drive straight over to the campus coffee shop, Déjà Brew.
I’ve got a meeting with a PhD student this afternoon, but I want to squeeze in a few hours of writing before then.
This book I’m working on has been a somewhat secret project of mine, and I’ve been fiddling with it on and off for the last few months.
I’ve always been hesitant to pour myself onto the pages of my own work, even though I constantly tell my students that it’s crucial to make personal experience part of their research.
But one morning I woke up, went for my run, and by the time I got back the book was fully conceptualized in my brain.
It’s not exactly academic, but more of a personal exploration of how kink saved my life.
I guess sometimes you just have to follow your muse.
“What can I get for you?”
A cheerful green-haired barista is smiling patiently at me. I guess I may have spaced out.
“Large Americano, and… do you guys still have those salted caramel donuts?”
“Actually you’re in luck, we just made a fresh batch.”
“Great, two of those then too.”
Once I kicked the drug habit, I searched for other sources to get that same big dopamine hit: exercise, sugar, tobacco, sex…
you name it. Turns out, I landed on sweets.
If I could eat these donuts every day without pissing off my doctor, I would, but I still sneak in a few whenever I can. You only live once, right?
Besides, a couple of donuts aren’t going to kill me.
I pay for my stuff and head for my favorite table in the café.
It’s a little spot right near the window that gives me a great view of the campus.
Emerald Bay University is located on top of a mountain right near the edge of town, surrounded by lush trees and gorgeous hiking trails that are popular with students and staff.
I’ve been studying and working here since I was 18, and haven’t really thought of being anywhere else.
At this point, I don’t know if I even could.
I open up my laptop and check my email one more time before I start writing, just to make sure I don’t have any students in a last-minute panic to deal with. Turns out today’s my lucky day though, because there’s only one email sitting at the top of my inbox:
JOE CARMICHAEL MEMORIAL SERVICE
My heart sinks as I open the message.
Maybe it’s not so lucky after all.
As many of you know, Joe Carmichael passed away last week. He was a pillar of the Emerald Bay community, and his pub The Hi-Dive was a space for everyone to relax, listen to great music, and make new friends.
Fuck, I knew Joe wasn’t doing well. The last time I saw him behind the bar was a few years ago.
Even back then he was a little confused, kept forgetting my name, and there’d be these little blips where he wasn’t quite sure where he was.
Pretty soon, rumors were swirling about Alzheimer’s and then hospice care.
His kids stepped up to the plate to run the bar, but they were spread thin from moment-one, and the place started to fall apart before long.
I’ve heard they’re thinking about selling it.
The Carmichael family would like to extend their invitation to the entire community to come out and share laughter, tears, and stories as they celebrate Joe’s tremendous life. There will be good food, drinks, and even a musical tribute from his granddaughter.
“Shit.”
Daphne.
The last time I saw her, she was climbing into Joe’s pickup truck, bound for New York City. I showed up to say goodbye even though she’d ripped my heart out of my chest just a few nights before. Even gave her a mix CD filled with love songs. Jesus Christ.
There was no big fight, no dramatic ending after that… we just grew apart.
And that’s the bit that hurts like a son of a bitch.
Daphne was pretty, popular, and everybody wanted to be her friend, but she hated this place growing up.
She was a big fish, and Emerald Bay is about the tiniest pond you can imagine.
For some reason very few people could figure out though, she chose to spend most of her time with me, Emerald Bay High’s biggest loser.
From 2003 to 2007 I was a scrawny nerd who loved Lord of the Rings, chain wallets, and convincing everyone I listened to hardcore death metal. In reality? The only thing blaring from my Discman was my scratched-to-shit Michelle Branch CD.
That Everywhere song was absolutely fucking sick.
What most of our classmates didn’t know is that Daphne and I met as kids, our bond already strong long before we met any of them.
We were basically inseparable from the moment she came crashing right into my big block tower, and stayed that way all the way through the horrors of high school.
She even helped get me through the first few years of that shit with my mom, but then… she was just gone.
I still quietly check up on her career, for years now even, but we never talk.
Fuck.
I should go to the memorial.
Joe was a good man, and he was a second father figure to me growing up.
I owe it to him to say goodbye, but… the thought of facing her?
Suddenly, those salted caramel donuts don’t look so appetizing.