Chapter 36
I spend the next few days figuring out a plan.
Absolved of the interview, I have one measly event remaining later in the summer to promote Holiday Island. I’m tempted to cancel it, but I don’t, at least not yet. I need to figure out what I’m going to do for the rest of the next two months. It seems like an impossibly long time.
I’ve been in my own kind of time loop since Aruba, I realize.
Completely stuck. I go to work, come home, grade papers.
I don’t see friends. Don’t go to the gym or practice self-care.
Outside of my weekly therapy sessions, I have very little to look forward to.
I haven’t gone back on any dating apps because the last time ended so badly.
I’m an author. Authors tend to be reclusive.
But that’s only really good during the times when we’re actively working on a project—which, for me, is not the case at the present moment.
I think deep in my heart I know what the issue is.
I don’t have closure.
I live in the apartment I grew up in, only I haven’t opened the door to my mother’s bedroom in more than two years.
She doesn’t live here anymore. A normal person would clean out the space.
Donate her clothes to the Salvation Army.
Maybe renovate. Maybe move. But I just keep living around it. As if by ignoring it, it won’t exist.
It would be wise, I decide, to use these next two months to find some closure.
Mom’s ashes live in the urn on the old credenza in our living room.
She got that piece of furniture from the building’s laundry room.
Sometimes, people would leave things there, paintings or light furnishings, but this heavy mahogany credenza with intricate carvings and curved legs was left behind by an elderly couple after they moved into assisted living when I was about seven years old.
My mom thought it was the most opulent piece of furniture she’d ever seen.
She batted her eyelashes at Charlie, the building’s maintenance man, and got him to deliver it to the apartment via a hand truck.
She set it in the center of the long wall of the living room, and, pleased with herself for scoring such a find, she said, “Check it out, Pretty Girl. We’re fancy now. ”
So, naturally, it only made sense that I would keep her urn there.
The whole time she was sick, we never discussed her dying.
She never indicated what she would want: if she’d rather be buried or cremated, what kind of service, none of it.
I went in blind. But in many cultures, ashes are meant to be scattered, and I think when I chose that route, the idea that I would scatter hers one day was somewhere in the back of my heavily medicated, despondent mind.
Maybe that’s what I need.
To accept that she’s gone and prove to myself that I can move on.
Without her.
In order to do that, I would need to clear out her room and scatter her ashes.
This realization is a seed that takes root in the fertile soil of my healing heart. My therapist says there are five stages of grief, and acceptance is the final one. So maybe the way to move forward is to just accept the past and let go of it.
That thought marinates for about two days. I spend time giving the apartment a nice deep cleaning—the kind where you open up all the windows and scrub to your heart’s content. I keep her door closed still, because I’m not quite sure I’m ready to go in there. There’s something I need to do first.
It’s exactly a week after the incident with Beckett outside the church when I decide that I should go back to Aruba.
Some would say it’s a crazy move. Like, of all places, why would you go there?
But the truth is, that was the happiest I ever saw my mom.
It was our trip. A mother-daughter sojourn down to a glorious tropical island where it seldom rained and everyone was jovial.
She fit there, singing to passersby, offering them leftovers from our table.
She was as bright as the sun, and I owe it to her to celebrate that.
I go online, look up our hotel, and book a nice room. For one this time.
I buy myself a plane ticket through the JetBlue website, marveling at the fact that there was a time not long ago when I swore to myself I would never fly again.
My mom would never want to clip my wings, though.
I give myself some time. I’m not leaving right away.
Two weeks from now, I’ll take her back there.
That gives me two weeks to go through my mom’s bedroom.
And I’ll get back into New York with a week to spare before the bookstore thing in Cape Cod.
I can decide then if I want to keep it or cancel it.
I order a travel urn on —something a little more appropriate than a soup container. I won’t take all of her ashes, only some of them. The remainder will stay on the credenza. I also order a box of black contractor bags.
I wake the next day at sunrise. In the quiet of the apartment, with a pale orange glow radiating through the windows, I walk down the hallway and place my hand on the doorknob to my mother’s bedroom.
“It’s okay, Pretty Girl. I’m right here. You’re fine,” her voice assures me.
I turn the knob and open the door.
It’s just as it always was. A little musty, sure.
The first thing I see is her suitcase from Aruba, which I hastily packed in a fog on January 2, two years ago.
It’s the only sign of mess in the room; Mom was very neat and would never have left for a trip without making sure her home was in order.
The queen-sized bed sits immediately to my left, like it has since I was a baby.
Nightstands on either side are made of wood.
They’re part of the bed frame, which includes a wood headboard and captain’s drawers underneath.
She wasn’t a hoarder by any stretch of the imagination, but my mother was excellent at maximizing small spaces.
Straight ahead of me is her dresser, and up ahead to my right is the chest of drawers.
There are two closets in the room, both modestly sized, and a bathroom with a stand-up shower.
Mom used to call it her “master suite.” Looking at it now as an adult, I suppose that for an apartment in Forest Hills, it is a pretty impressive room.
I don’t want to gut it. The idea is to put whatever items are in here that could continue to live on somewhere else to good use.
I begin methodically. Mom kept her summer wardrobe in one closet and her winter wardrobe in the other.
She had more shoes than I’d ever know what to do with.
Under her bed, she kept costume jewelry; shoeboxes filled with song lyrics; fabrics, yarn, and other crafty items; and photo albums dating all the way back to her singing days.
The dresser and chest of drawers held her underclothes, her T-shirts, tank tops, bulky sweaters, leggings, and still more shoes.
Once I get going, I’m able to develop a bit of a groove.
If it’s in good condition, it goes in a bag that will end up being delivered to the Salvation Army.
If it’s not wearable or it’s too beat up, it goes in a different bag that will end up in the incinerator down the hall.
Once a bag is full, I take it out, either to the back of my Honda or to the trash.
I put on music and allow myself to sing along, trying to make this task as easy and fluid as possible.
After a while, I don’t really feel how quickly the time passes, and since the sun sets late in the summer, I don’t realize that it’s past dinnertime until my stomach starts to growl.
I order Domino’s and grab a quick shower while it’s on its way.
I eat, watch a little television, and go to bed.
The next day, I get up and go back to work in her room.
This continues until Friday. I bring in a box and fill it with things I definitely want to keep: songbooks, a small painting she made of a bowl of fruit, letters she received from old friends many moons ago.
I find that there’s not much by way of clothing that I want to keep, so I allow myself to let it go.
I make trips to the Salvation Army as the back of my car fills up.
I deposit items in the laundry room for others to consider: a lighted mirror, a barely used yoga mat, a lamp, a set of five-pound weights.
I list the furniture on Facebook Marketplace, only because I’ll need people to lift it in order for it to be removed.
Nothing’s worth very much, since it’s all pretty old.
I write in my listings that the best offer can take it.
And for 150 dollars, the following Tuesday, two guys and a college-aged girl come to the apartment, disassemble the furniture, and haul it out of there.
When the room is emptied, I place the box of keepsakes in the back of my closet, and I go to Home Depot.
I don’t know why, but I feel like the space deserves a fresh coat of paint.
I pick two colors—Antique White and Island Blue—and paint three of the walls white and the fourth wall blue.
I repaint all the trim a brighter shade of white.
I use rollers and brushes and an extender pole and a stepladder, and I paint until my shoulders ache.
I finish on Thursday, exactly one day before I’m set to leave for my trip.
There’s just one thing left. The only item left in the room that needs to be sorted out.
Mom’s suitcase.
It’s late in the afternoon on Thursday. I still have to pack my own bag and go through my travel checklist, but I really want to finish this room before I get to any of that.
It’s been more cathartic than I ever dreamed possible, and also a little strange because I haven’t heard my mother’s voice nearly as much as usual during this process.
I just need to get through the suitcase.
I open a fresh black garbage bag.
I crouch down on the floor and unzip the bag. The clothes inside were hastily shoved in there. She had a kitchen trash bag that she filled with laundry from the trip. I’m not going to wash it, I decide. I can let it go. I place it in the black bag.
She’d kept an outfit for her travel day. It’s neatly folded at the bottom of the bag. That can go to the Salvation Army. She also had four pairs of shoes, because she was my mother, lover of all footwear. They all look to be in pretty good shape, so I set them to the side with the travel outfit.
Hairbrush: garbage. Toiletries: garbage. Half-filled bottle of sunscreen: garbage.
Her makeup bag and her purse are the last two items in the suitcase.
I open the makeup bag. In addition to makeup, she has jewelry in there. A beaded necklace she wore at the Cuban restaurant, I remember. A pair of earrings she wore on New Year’s Eve. Something shiny and silver and delicate—oh.
It’s the bracelet Beckett gave her.
I remember how I lost mine somewhere on my last night in Aruba.
I decide to keep hers. I shove it in my pocket.
I take the black bag to the incinerator and the suitcase to the laundry room, hoping maybe someone else can use it. I pack the shoes, remaining jewelry, and travel outfit into a small kitchen garbage bag and put it in my room, since I won’t be able to take it to the Salvation Army until I return.
Now all that’s left is her purse.
I turn it over, emptying the contents onto the floor.
Gum. A pocket mirror. A charger. Hand sanitizer. Chapstick. An old granola bar. A travel-size pack of tissues. A pair of headphones. Hand lotion.
And her cell phone.
Knowing it’ll be dead, I grab the charger and plug it into the wall, then attach the phone to it and let it sit. I toss the granola bar and bring the other items to my bedroom. Now all that remains in Mom’s old room is a charging cell phone, whose service I cut off years ago.
I take a shower and pack my clothes. I run down the list, placing things into my bag and checking them off methodically.
I roll the bag to the foyer, halve the ashes on the credenza and place the travel urn in a tote bag I bought for this trip.
I put my passport in there, along with my wallet, keys, and travel itinerary.
When I’m finished and have changed into my pajamas, I go back into Mom’s room.
It looks great: fresh, clean, and ready for something new.
I have no idea what I’ll use it for. Maybe I’ll start a new exercise regimen.
Maybe I’ll use it as a writing room. The possibilities are endless.
But the whole apartment definitely feels lighter now, and I’m glad for that.
I pick her cell phone up off the floor, unplug it, turn off the light, and head back to my own room. Lying in bed, I power it on.
I punch in her password. 1-2-3-4. “So I’ll never forget it,” she used to say. I smile at the thought.
I tap the icon I’m looking for, and there it is. Just as I hoped it would be.
The very last picture taken of the two of us: the selfie she snapped right before my date with Beckett in Aruba.
“You see, Pretty Girl?” she whispers now, in a voice so soft I can barely hear it. “Look at how happy I was.”
I nod.
“Do you know why?”
“Why what, Mom?” I wonder.
“Why I was so happy?”
“Because you had a great week?” I guess.
“No, baby,” she says. “Because I had a great life.”