Chapter 9
Olivia
Death didn’t frighten me. At least, not in the existential way; I was not afraid of whatever comes next. What did frighten me was grief. Because, in my experience, grief compels you to pick apart every single detail of yourself, and it forces you to confront things you never knew existed.
Hundreds of people attended my mother’s funeral.
It was held in Everston, at the local church.
Its arched windows and time-weathered stones were gray against the blue of the sky.
The wooden pews were filled with mourners: townsfolk, colleagues, friends, and people she had met during her travels.
The church was decorated with hundreds of roses, her casket draped with a huge arrangement of lilies, soft sunlight filtering through the stained-glass windows.
The Everston choir sang songs, and people were invited to place handwritten notes in a box beside her casket.
A slideshow of memorable on-air moments played in the background as guests lit candles for her.
It was an elaborate affair. The flowers had bothered my seasonal allergies, and my eyes watered the entire time.
I used a pack and a half of tissues. At least I looked the part.
My brother, Matty, didn’t come home for it.
That was his choice. Probably one last chance to say, You were never there for me, so I’m not showing up for you.
Good for him. I, however, was tasked with reading the eulogy.
The week before, I had sat down multiple times to write it.
How would I summarize her life? Where would I even begin?
I imagined writing my own eulogy, and the things I would say—would it be possible to squeeze everything I had seen, heard, and felt into such a small space of time?
I mean, can you ever really sum up a life in just three minutes?
As I sat in my living room, the blue light from my computer straining my eyes, I had started and deleted, started and deleted.
When I was fourteen years old, I had been cast as Juliet in our school’s production of Romeo and Juliet.
On the night, the auditorium had been filled with all of my classmates’ parents, beaming up at them.
My mother was two years into her role as anchor at HCB, having been promoted for her coverage of the Indian Ocean tsunami.
By this point, all my friends knew who she was; their parents too.
I had babbled all week about the play, about how I was so excited for her to be there. She had said she wouldn’t miss it.
Well, she did miss it. She wasn’t even there to collect me from the auditorium. Romeo’s parents dropped me home.
On my sixteenth birthday, I blew out the candles in front of all my family and friends, but not my mother. She sent a huge arrangement of flowers and a pretty dress three days later, wishing me a happy birthday. She hadn’t even remembered the date.
When I got the keys to my first apartment, I moved everything in with Josh’s help. My mother had called me from somewhere in California, promising that we were going to go out to celebrate when she returned: a nice dinner and champagne. She returned, but she never made dinner plans.
Of course, I didn’t tell those stories in my eulogy.
I went along with the picture-perfect existence that she had created.
I was the daughter who was successful, but not as successful as her.
I was the daughter who was beautiful, but not as beautiful as her.
Those in attendance believed everything I’d said in the eulogy; including that I was afraid to live in a world that didn’t include Bonnie Piroso.
This wasn’t entirely untrue—I was afraid to live in the world without her, because she had told me who I was supposed to be my entire life.
If she was no longer telling me, then who was I?
Following the service, the whole community spilled into Main Street and lined the road for a procession.
The pallbearers were dressed in crisp black suits, with dark sunglasses and sprigs of evergreen in their pockets.
One of them was Colin. The procession moved slowly through Main Street.
All the shops closed their doors as a mark of respect.
At the wake, people approached me with stories of my mother.
The way she ran coverage for the O. J. Simpson trial, how she saved a boy’s life in Oklahoma during a tornado, how her investigation led to the safe return of another American journalist taken hostage in Libya, the time she was stranded in Alaska during a snowstorm and saved the day.
Or personal stories of her—how she could make an entire room laugh, how inspiring she was, how warm and gracious and full of elegance she was.
There were one hundred different versions of her, and I didn’t know any of them.
The only version of my mother that I knew was the one that was always absent, and so the only version of myself that I knew was the one that was always alone.
This was the most difficult thing about picking myself apart—if I wasn’t honest with those around me, how could I be honest with myself?
And if I wasn’t honest with myself, how could I even begin to heal?
When Henry suggested the idea of a poetry evening, it was immediately clear who was comfortable with the idea of public speaking and who was not.
Winnie seemed rather enthused; so did Gill and Rita.
Bobby seemed uncertain, almost afraid. Emerson looked as though she had been asked to walk a tightrope, and Julian seemed a little confused by the whole picture.
Yet out of everyone, Wren looked the most aghast at the idea.
There was something about Wren that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
She was articulate, but not in a lawyerly or doctorly sort of way.
She had to have been something impressive in New York, and I didn’t know why, but I was so determined to find out what that was.
Winnie sent Henry off to find a cake slicer for the lemon meringue pie, and before I could ask Wren what she did in Manhattan, Winnie had already cornered us both.
“So,” Winnie said. “Bet you’re wondering if talking in circles with strangers makes the dead any less dead.”
Wren looked like she had been smacked.
“Do you like chicken pot pie?” Winnie added brightly, and Wren recovered.
“Yes.”
Winnie smiled. “Emmy always joins me on Friday nights for some chicken pot pie; would you like to join too?”
Wren glanced at me as though she didn’t know what to say.
“Wren is busy fixing up Gill’s place,” I offered.
“You’re welcome, too, Liv,” Winnie said. “Unless you’re working late on all that desk duty you’ve got going on.”
I scowled slightly. “I’ll bring some red, shall I?”
Winnie seemed to approve of this, which meant I didn’t have any other choice.
On Thursday, I realized I’d completely run out of everything.
Milk, eggs, coffee, salad; even those fun little packets with crackers, cheese slices, pastrami pieces, and olives.
And I suddenly had a real craving for pesto pasta.
I normally did my shopping at the Safeway in Norvale after work, but the thought of having to drive thirty minutes there and back didn’t sound appealing.
Pat’s Grocer on Main Street would still be open and would have to do.
I fetched my car keys and a sweater and slid into some Ugg boots.
There was a hand-painted sign that sat on the curb outside the store promoting a sale on mozzarella.
Tempting. The building itself was unassuming, with faded paint and window boxes filled with seasonal blooms. If it weren’t for a row of shopping carts near the entryway, you’d suspect this was someone’s residence.
Although, this was probably the way the owner, Pat, liked it.
Everybody knew Pat. When Pat laughed, it could be heard for miles, one of those hearty laughs that made people turn their heads and often laugh along with her.
The creaky door swung open and a bell announced my entry.
I collected a handbasket from the corner and strolled past the bulletin board crammed with community notices, with no doubt in my mind that Henry had already put up some printout regarding the poetry evening.
The overhead lights warmed the neatly stacked aisles, and I squinted at the various handwritten signs marking every produce section.
I found my way over to the deli counter, considering the half-priced brie for a moment, before deciding that my original thought of pesto pasta was a winner.
I turned around to find the pasta aisle and promptly smacked into something, hard.
A basket flew in the opposite direction, sending apples all over aisle three.
I’d just walked directly into Wren.
“Wren!” I exclaimed. “I’m so sorry!”
“It’s no problem,” she replied, although her voice was muffled as she scrambled to prevent the apples from rolling away.
“I’m so clumsy,” I said, picking up two stray fruits and handing them to her. “You can’t let me loose anywhere.”
“I knocked over a stand of Tupperware in Macy’s once,” she grinned. “This hardly tops that.”
“I slipped on a doormat while interviewing someone once, literally fell on top of him in front of his wife.”
Wren’s eyes crinkled at the corners as she grinned. “Well, perhaps you do have me beat,” she replied.
“Can’t find what you need?” she asked, nodding to my empty basket.
“More like I can’t decide,” I replied. “Although I did leave my apartment with a craving for pasta and basil pesto, but I’m not entirely sure Pat’s will stock the sauce I need.”
Wren hummed to herself. “We can always ask.” She walked up to the checkout area, a small nook with only one wooden counter, slightly worn with age, and a bowl of free peppermints sitting on the edge.
“Do you have any basil pesto?” she asked.