Chapter 4 #2
The steam clears from the mirror too fast.
A fist bangs on the door. “Dinner’s ready.”
“I’m not hungry.” It’s only half a lie. My belly’s empty, but not growling.
“You need to eat,” Corin yells back.
“I ate at the hotel.”
“One strawberry,” he laughs. “That’s not enough to keep a bird alive, much less a human.”
I rise—because the water is cold, not due to Corin’s nagging—and grab a big bath sheet that wraps all the way around me as I yell, “How do you know? You weren’t even there!”
“Every one of my daughters reported it.”
I’ll have to give the traitors a tongue lashing for that when they next come home from school, admittedly with tongue decidedly in cheek, since they regularly tattle on him to me and Max. Now just me.
“I’ll be down in ten minutes.”
I hear him march down the corridor to his room, thudding all the way.
Back in my room, I ignore the mess on the bed.
Pull on a nightgown of rose-colored cotton with pretty lace insets, from Max, of course—it will be both a pain and treat to finally buy all my own lingerie and nightwear—and a thick terrycloth robe over it.
Feet stuffed into bunny slippers, a gag gift from Caity last birthday that lasted longer than she expected, I shuffle downstairs.
A simple dinner that I had no say in, unasked for, sits on the counter between the bright yellow kitchen and the dining room, with its white-washed walls and long, dark wood table.
Grape leaves stuffed with rice, pita chips, and sliced carrots and peppers with hummus, plus small squares of baklava to the side for dessert.
I settle on a stool at the counter, but can’t bring myself to so much as grab a carrot stick even though this is a favorite meal of mine. Just the kind of thing I’d have asked for or made, if I’d cared.
The blender whirs at the far corner of the kitchen.
Corin stands in front of it, shirt sleeves rolled halfway up his forearms. Other than having taken off his suit jacket he’s still fully dressed.
His scent has settled back to its usual mix.
It’s easy to tell, since he’s the only one around.
The girls’ scents, from earlier today, have mostly faded.
There’s little left of Max’s orange and rum. Shortly after he died, I tucked his last pillowcase into a plastic bag to preserve the smell, then buried it at the back of my closet for a month, three months, a year from now—whenever I most need it again.
Just the two of us in this big, echoing, empty house.
Not talking.
Not on our phones, though, either. I don’t want to face emails, texts, or calls filled with either more condolences or a sharp, hard pivot back to real life, minus Max, with—at most—a hand wave at his having lived and now, being gone.
Some of my friends and family are considerate, not pressing and letting me grieve however I need, but too many others seem to think death and mourning are boxes to be checked, then moved on from.
Though I used to check work email after hours, all the queries and problems that will inevitably pile up can wait until Monday.
Ironic that I want to find something to fill the void, but I shrink from signs of a new normalcy. A few more hours, and I’ll be ready—or not.
The whirring stops and Corin pours a thick green-speckled red liquid into two glasses, one tall and one short.
“Drink it all.” He places the tall one in front of me.
“Trade you.”
The glass he keeps for himself is a third the size of mine.
He lifts his in a toast and drains half down, then licks the residue off his lips. A single drop remains until a second swipe clears it up. “Drink yours, and I won’t comment on how much—or how little—else you consume.”
“Nag.” The mix of fruit and yogurt, likely plus assorted nutritious additions, cools my throat as it goes down. He’s a decent cook, not that I’ll admit it to his face.
“All of it.” He doesn’t bark, but there’s a commanding edge to his voice. Matching shadows tinge his eyes. Or are those questions? He doesn’t ask anything, yet.
We eat in silence.
I clean the kitchen after, since he prepared the food. Fair’s fair.
Then we retreat to the living room, with its comfy, mismatched, overstuffed furniture in every color under the sun, its walls displaying photos of the family in our heyday: when we numbered six, three adults and three growing girls.
A moderate-sized screen hangs on one wall, in case there’s anything worth watching.
The evening passes in a blur. In some ways, it’s the most typical of days—reading, answering emails and returning calls from friends and family who couldn’t make the service, screening a show that I don’t take in at all—and Corin going up to bed earlier than me, and me earlier than Max would have.
The house remains quiet, despite background noise from the screen.
There’s no Max, with his usual dry commentary, sometimes welcome but equally likely interrupting key moments with predictions about what would happen next.
I haven’t heard it for a month, two months, more, since he’d stopped doing it as he started getting fatigued—a sign we should have noticed, that to some degree I did notice and nag him to see a doctor, which he kept putting off.
Max failed to make time for a doctor, but wrote to Dan, along with whatever else he got up to without telling me.
No, time enough to think about that tomorrow or another day, when I’ve got energy again.
When I go upstairs, my bed is still a mess. Pushing the clothes to one side just makes for a different-shaped mess. I try to lie down next to the piles, but they’re so cold and unmoving. The shape is wrong, long and flat, but nonetheless too reminiscent of Max at the end, when his spirit had gone.
He died in our bed, not the one I’m sleeping in now.
Despite blankets heaped atop the sheets and the furnace chugging away in the basement, cold seeps into my limbs, making it hard to sleep.
Max and Dan’s visages, as I last saw them, dance in my brain. Max, pale and waxy, flesh remaining but spirit most definitely fled, versus Dan, full of life, the glint of his alpha flashing in his eyes.
If I were a child, on a night like this, I’d knock on my parents’ door and ask to snuggle. Once Max and I moved in together, we cuddled most nights. Having little interest in sex didn’t mean he lacked desire for hugs, for heads leaning against shoulders—for touch. He loved romance.
Sometimes after Corin and his ex-wife split, he and Max and I would cuddle together, with or without his daughters, forming a big puppy pile. Max bought the biggest bed he could fit in our room just for that purpose, Corin likewise. I think we all slept better those nights. I certainly did.
In the end, I flee from the images of Max and Dan—and from my lonely bed.
Rising, I tiptoe barefoot down the hall, as though trying not to wake the people not sleeping in the house anymore, all the way to Corin’s room.
He’s still awake when I knock, standing by the window, holding the curtain back.
Angled rays from the streetlamp below gleam off his bare chest so that the hair sprinkled across his chest casts shadows. Pajama pants hang from his hips.
“I can’t sleep. Can we have a puppy pile?”
He lets the curtain fall and, for once, doesn’t argue, just guides me to the bed redolent with cedar and apples. We do nothing but lie side by side, only our hands touching, still his nearness warms me, lulling me to sleep.
His presence keeps the ghosts at bay.