Eleven
Eleven
Bunny is seated at the kitchen table when Ellie walks downstairs. She’s writing a list on a small pad from the junk drawer and sipping a fresh mug of terrible coffee. They’ve been home from the hospital for over an hour, and still Ellie doesn’t quite know what is happening. She keeps wondering if she’s dead or dreaming or on one of those prank TV shows, like she’s about to get stormed by a laughing crowd here to explain the day’s many chaotic turns.
“The clock on your stove is still blinking,” Bunny points out, her face cast down on her notepad. “Did you notice the time?” She looks up, directs her eyes to the flashing numbers: 11:11. “Hmm,” says Bunny, leaving her observation at that.
Ellie, disregarding this, notices the dark-gray cardigan Bunny has thrown over her shoulders. “Is that a sweater?” Beyond the window, the sun paints the scene with its buttery warmth. The edge of the yard is lined with a carpet of pale spring flowers. “It’s in the sixties,” she points out, even though Ellie is frequently guilty of committing the same sartorial crime.
Ellie steps farther into the room, feeling slightly human for the first time since this morning. When they arrived home, she’d gone straight upstairs, past Maggie’s still-closed bedroom door, and into her primary suite, where she stripped off her filthy travel clothes and showered, hoping the water might wash away the more bizarre instances of the day. She’d stayed in there until her skin turned lobster red, though she could not relax. Even with the water turned up and the bathroom fan running, she could hear Bunny—who was supposed to be far away in Florida, soaking up her retirement—through the floorboards as she banged around in the kitchen.
“I’m freezing, Ellie,” Bunny announces and then sets down her pen. The overhead black pendant light is off—the generator is still running, the power not yet fully restored—the room illuminated by what Bunny believes is frigid sunlight. “I despise this weather. I hate the cold.” She looks at the notepad before she says the next part, as if she’s unsure she wants her daughter to hear. “I shouldn’t be here in it.”
“Well, Mom,” Ellie replies, noticing her mother has started to unpack, her plastic pillbox now set on the counter, alongside the ziplock bag full of hard butterscotch candies she always carries with her just in case (in case of what, no one is sure). Ellie opens the fridge, thankfully still running from the generator, and pulls out one of her atmosphere-destroying seltzers and a piece of cheese. “At least right now we can agree on that.”
Finally, Ellie wears fresh clothes—a pair of clean jeans, her old low-top tennis sneakers, and a washed T-shirt. Her face looks a touch more alive thanks to some simple makeup, while her hair—wet and smelling like ultraclean floral-based chemicals—is neatly combed from her center part. She embraces this feeling of freshness and enjoys a cold sip of her fizzy water, not quite knowing what to do next.
“By the way ...,” Ellie starts. Opposite the window, she sees that the caravan of power company trucks has returned, a pair of men already ascending upward toward the damaged lines in a sturdy crane. “What are you writing?”
Despite her multiple layers, Bunny shivers like it’s the middle of winter. She gives a little shake, her poof of blond hair making her look like a human Q-tip. “What, this?” She looks down at the notebook. “It’s a list of things I need to tell your father,” she explains. “He never remembers what time to take his medications or how to use the laundry machine.”
Divorce, Ellie recognizes, is strange. For years, you are intimately connected to a person—sharing everything from your medical history to your toilet to your groceries—and then one day you just drive away, even though in all reality only one of you likely knows how to get to the next place you’re going, and the other person is the only one who remembered to fill the car with gas. Ellie watches her mother with her list. It isn’t easy to unlearn the many ways you’ve come to rely upon your spouse. It’s like trying to unbake a cake. How do you fully separate all the ingredients and return them to their original state once they’ve already been mixed?
“Maybe,” Ellie points out to Bunny and sets down her already half-empty seltzer can, “that’s why separating from your husband in your eighties is a bad—”
Pound. Pound. Pound.
Someone knocks at the front door—again. Ellie takes a fast look at her mother. After this morning, she isn’t so sure she wants to know who waits for her on the other side. She inhales deeply, like a free diver preparing to submerge beneath the water for a too-long time, and then takes a step forward. But before she reaches the entryway, the door swings open.
“Your power lines are down!” Frank announces as he boisterously steps inside. “Your generator is running!” He looks like himself—like regular old Frank—except that he’s wearing a casual button-down shirt and closed-toe shoes. In his arms, he gingerly balances a reusable grocery bag. “That was some storm last night, huh?”
Ellie has stopped in the middle of the hallway, as if someone has bordered off the space with an electric fence.
Well then, that’s that, she thinks and concurs with herself that she must be dead. Although she does not remember it, her plane must have been struck by lightning and crashed into the Atlantic in a glorious blaze. Whatever she’s witnessed today is just a distorted first step of the afterlife.
“What are you doing home, by the way, sweetheart?” Frank asks, like the surprise of the morning is that Ellie is the one who is here. He hands his only daughter the bag. She quickly peers inside it, thinking she’ll find a dozen tiny angels flapping their wings. This is heaven, after all—a very dysfunctional version—right? “Don’t you have things to do?” He’s practically shouting, even though he stands a few feet away. “It’s Monday!” he yells while smoothing out the sides of his short white hair.
“I told you she gave herself a little personal day, Frank!” Bunny shouts from the kitchen. “The breakup!” she continues, like Ellie isn’t standing here, more or less between them, as if caught in a game of verbal keep-away. “She’s a real mess this morning!”
“I’m sorry about everything,” Frank says and then kisses Ellie’s cheek. She resists the urge to poke his face to determine if he’s real or maybe animatronic. “Take it from me.” He gestures toward the kitchen. “Heartache is never easy, Ellie. No matter your age.” He drops his voice. “Not that she’ll ever go through with this,” he mumbles to himself, then pulls back. “Bunny!” he exclaims as he takes the reusable bag and marches into the kitchen. “I brought your coffee!”
“Oh, thank God!” Bunny cries out. “The heartburn from this other one! It’s terrible!”
Any amount of freshness Ellie felt is gone, the concaves beneath her underarms dripping with sweat, like her body is a hot spring. She follows her father into the kitchen. He pulls Bunny’s favorite breakfast blend from the bag, as well as three parchment-wrapped submarine-length sandwiches.
“I stopped by the deli and picked up lunch,” Frank adds, laying out his provisions. His drugstore readers sway from the neckline of his shirt with his every move. “Your mother said neither of you ate.”
“Don’t even look in the fridge, Frank,” Bunny announces. She tears her list from the notepad and hands it to him. He nods his understanding. “There’s hardly anything in it.”
“What do you mean ‘the deli’?” Ellie asks.
Frank sneaks a quick bite of his sandwich before he responds. “What are you saying, Ellie?” he asks through a full mouth. “ My deli. The one I’ve owned your whole life!”
Ellie watches her parents unpack the rest of the food, feeling overcome by both shock and extreme calm. Of course her father is here and talking nonsense. Of course her mother is here and doing the same. Because Ellie has somehow turned into Alice and become lost in Wonderland. Because at some point in the last twenty-four hours, her brain has turned into mashed potatoes.
“You sold the deli years ago, Dad,” Ellie recounts in an even tone, now wondering if all three of them are dead, or all battling some highly transmissible, lightning-fast amnesia.
Bunny sucks her teeth, gives Frank a look as she picks apart her sandwich.
Ellie knew when she woke up today—the first real day without Jonah in it—that things would feel different. That life would take on a new, unfamiliar shape. But this feels extreme. She watches her parents. It appears to Ellie that they (or she?) are losing their minds. Other than their separation announcement, however, the two of them don’t seem to notice anything amiss.
“Hey, Dad.” Ellie drags her damp hair off her neck, secures it with her rubber band. “Hypothetically speaking, how would you say you got yourself from your house and over to my house just now?” She pauses like a well-seasoned game show contestant. “In a train. On a bicycle. In a trolley. In an airplane or—”
“An airplane?” Frank nearly chokes on a bite of ham. He coughs, covering his mouth with his age-spotted hand, and offers Bunny an inquisitive glance. “What’s the matter with her?”
Bunny pulls a single fold of turkey from her sandwich. “I told you.”
Ellie closes her eyes, already knowing the answer, the one her father will inexplicably—but inevitably—give her. She doesn’t know why or how it is the answer, but she does know it. “So, I’m guessing that means you ... walked?”
Her mind flashes to Family Feud , the show’s vintage reruns often turned on in the background of her parents’ Floridian home. Survey says: Walked!
“Walked?” Frank’s weathered face lifts into an amused smile. “No, no, I parked my cruise ship out front.” He laughs, playfully swats Bunny’s arm. “Did I walk?”
Ellie gives one firm nod, already reaching for her book bag. “Well, it seems I’m currently spiraling my way through some sort of mental breakdown, so I’m going to scoot out for a bit.” She grabs her car keys. “Oh, one more thing.” She begins to walk backward toward the entryway. “In case I don’t have a chance to say this later, you two really are not very good at splitting up.” Ellie pauses long enough to take one last glance at things, then swiftly turns around to see herself out.
“Oh, Ellie!” Bunny calls before her daughter leaves. “Hang on! There’s one more item to discuss!”
Ellie sucks in a deep breath. She turns her head back over her shoulder, half expecting her mother and father to burst out laughing, or at the very least to explain the inner workings of this very peculiar day. “Yes, Mom?”
“I don’t trust that fridge right now,” Bunny states, her biggest concern. “Wherever it is that you’re going, make a point to stop and pick up some fresh creamer on your way back.”