Chapter Four Leila #2
“I have three kids, the youngest just started college, so empty nest. A lot of their junk—sports equipment, school projects, etcetera—ends up in here.” Leila looked away for a moment. “My husband died a few years ago; there might still be some of his stuff here.”
Gently, Lindsey said, “Oh I am so, so sorry.”
“Me too,” was all that Jane could think to add.
“Yes, it was unexpected, but you know, time heals.... Anyway, why don’t you both look around.”
“Perfect,” Jane replied.
As she turned to leave, Lelia glanced back at Jane. “That’s such a pretty scarf. I own an Hermès scarf I’ve had since my junior year of college in Paris. They never ever go out of style.”
Jane blushed. There were almost too many things to like about Leila!
The pool house consisted of a generously sized guest bedroom, abutted by a large bathroom stocked with striped towels, matching robes, and bathing suits neatly hung on a row of hooks.
The bedroom, however, had become a dumping ground.
Cartons of books and papers and sports equipment were piled high in a large closet, and more boxes, neatly stacked, sat out in the open.
It was a minor mess and Jane understood why this would unnerve Leila.
Perfectionism was a double-edged sword: if only the side that fostered dedication and achievement could be separated from the other side, which harbored the inevitable feelings that nothing would ever be good enough.
Jane wanted to reassure Leila, “Your problem area isn’t all that problematic!
” Maybe she should make this her own mantra.
Sorting through the boxes, it became obvious this was a household of achievers. The schoolbooks, carefully highlighted and annotated, evidenced lots of Advanced Placement coursework and bore the name of the toniest private school in the city.
Jane had been a straight-A student in high school—well, except for that one nasty ninth grade math teacher who gave her a B-plus. At the time, her English class was assigned The Scarlet Letter, and she began thinking of the B-plus as her own personal Scarlet Letter.
Why, why had she cared so much? These days, she could look back with insight and understand that these good grades were objective markers that demonstrated her worth.
Her father would compliment her on her report card even though her mother never seemed terribly impressed.
Perhaps she thought Jane was showing off a bit; maybe it was rubbing salt into the open, suppurating wound of coping with her severely disabled, cognitively impaired son.
Lindsey was now rummaging through the unruly tangle of sports equipment—tennis rackets, lacrosse sticks, golf clubs, skis, snowboards, something that might be water polo head gear. She swung a tennis racket and sighed. “I wish I could play tennis. I’m not very good at sports.”
“Yeah. Same.” Jane was studying a snowboard, wondering when it had last been used.
“Jane, are you okay? You seem a little... tired maybe?”
“Oh, I’m fine. Just didn’t sleep great last night.”
“Okay, well, if you don’t want to talk...”
“No, it’s—I’m trying to concentrate. Sorry.”
They sorted for two hours, working at a rapid clip, while Lindsey careened from complaints about how her school was really hard—“Why do I need to understand math to be a counselor?”— to mooning over her new love interest, a guy who worked at Trader Joe’s and was always especially eager to give her samples.
“He’s super flirty but he hasn’t asked me out, so I’ll have to take that first step.
God, I hate having to do it, but men are so lame about that stuff.
You are so lucky you had that wingwoman to hook you up with Teddy. ”
Jane brightened. “You know what? Bring me to your Trader Joe’s sometime and I’ll see if I can break the ice.”
Lindsey flushed.
“I hope you’re being serious, because I totally am going to take you up on that.”
“Serious as a heart attack.”
“What?”
“I would be happy to do it, Lindsey. Okay? Now, let’s get Leila and go over this stuff.”
Leila looked pensively at the stacks Jane and Lindsey had made.
“I think this is mostly my kids’ stuff, so I’d like them to have a chance to look it over before tossing things. There might be things they want to hang on to.”
Again, Leila for the win. So thoughtful and considerate!
When Jane went off to college, her room had been turned into an office and everything she had saved over the years—schoolwork, posters, mementos—was gone.
Her mother had taken all her stuff to a dumpster.
It was as if she had thrown away Jane’s childhood.
The memory, still visceral, evoked feelings of sadness, anger, helplessness, nausea.
Maybe Jane had been drawn to decluttering because it was a kind of preemptive strike: if you didn’t own anything with sentimental value, you would never be vulnerable to the heartbreak of losing it.
“We sorted by category—books, schoolwork, art projects,” Jane explained, “and we found some stuff that might be valuable—a stamp collection, a small coin collection, and baseball cards.”
“It’s so hard to know what any of it is worth... or what has sentimental value.... I’ll let the kids decide. They’re all old enough to deal with it.”
“Culling requires maturity, and it’s great that you trust them to do it,” Jane said admiringly.
“What other option is there?” Leila asked.
Jane stifled the impulse to tell her about the dumpster.
“I remember the first time Jimmy got on those skis—I can’t believe we still have them! It’s like saving baby shoes, except they take up more room. It’s hard when your kids leave the nest.”
Lelia walked over to the stack of books and carefully picked up a copy of Infinite Jest . It was as if a cloud suddenly came over her.
“Books can be some of the hardest items to decide about,” Jane said.
Leila seemed frozen.
Lindsey added, “We know it can be difficult. If you need some time...”
Leila smiled, but her eyes looked so sad. “Well, you’re here now and we should get it done. This book—I don’t know if I want to keep it or get rid of it. It was my husband’s favorite novel, but I never could get through it. I have no idea how it ended up here. I just don’t know...”
Jane was unsettled by Leila’s loss of composure.
“Leila, bear in mind, the memories are yours forever. You may not need to keep the object.”
“Honestly, this isn’t the greatest memory. My husband took his own life, so you can understand why this book, and, you know, David Foster Wallace, is upsetting.”
Jane, at a loss for words, simply nodded.
“I am so, so sorry, Leila.” Lindsey did have a skill for consoling.
“You never entirely recover....” Lelia’s eyes had grown moist.
Lindsey nodded in agreement. “I know.” How did she know? A class at Antioch?
Jane was again at a loss as to what to say, but Lindsey was in her element.
“Leila, I know this might seem weird, but—would you like a hug?”
Leila blinked back a tear and smiled.
“That’s not weird, it’s very sweet, thank you.”
Lindsey opened her arms and wrapped Leila in her embrace. She was a natural consoler; perhaps she really would be a good counselor. Jane felt utterly inadequate. She needed to learn.
“Hug me, too?” Jane blurted. Leila looked at her, a gaze that carried both her own sorrows and, somehow, an understanding of Jane’s.
Jane took Leila in her arms, and as she held her tight, Leila murmured, “I just want to remember how happy he made me.”
Jane felt a restless yearning as she drove home, and to her surprise, it seemed to be for Teddy.
The anger and resentment were gone, replaced by something else.
Affection, maybe. Even love? She had texted him before starting her drive home, and they made plans to go out for a make-up dinner that night.
It wasn’t labeled as such, but they both knew that’s what it was.
She reflected on the surprisingly intimate exchange with Leila.
Her husband had been an oncologist, the head of his department and a nationally recognized expert.
It was so tragically ironic that a man who had dedicated his life to saving lives would take his own.
Maybe being around so much death had not only depressed him but also demystified it, made it quotidian, unthreatening, even comforting.
Jane marveled at the persistence of Leila’s love for her husband, even though it was mixed with feelings of anger and betrayal and sorrow.
Perhaps love was the most powerful of all those emotions.
It was what sustained Leila and gave her the strength to keep going.
She had decided to keep Infinite Jest and was going to try once more to read it.
Maybe it would help her assimilate the tragedy of her husband’s suicide.
Their conversation hadn’t lasted more than five minutes, but those were five minutes Jane knew she would never forget.
Waze had Jane take the Golden State Freeway to Forest Lawn Drive, where flower vendors gathered along the perimeter of the Forest Lawn cemetery.
It was dusk, and the cemetery would be closing soon, but at least a dozen of these ad-hoc flower stands were still open for business.
The sellers, immigrants from Mexico and Guatemala and other Central American countries, huddled beneath umbrellas, waving bouquets, garish riots of color, at the passing cars, imploring them to stop and buy.
They staked out their places on the side of the road, respectfully distant from one another to avoid competition, many with spouses or children alongside them, all waiting, ever so patiently.
There was something so courageous about these flower vendors, darting between cars, scraping together a living selling bouquets to honor the dead. It was persistence. It was hope.