Chapter 8
Who Are You Mad At?
Mr. Fluff is one of those dogs that always has his tongue hanging out and is constantly tugging at the leash, so I wind up jogging for half our walk to keep up with him, even though I read somewhere what I’m really supposed to do is put my foot down and show I’m the leader of the pack.
It’s my first day, and I barely make it back to Ms. Rogers’s house, pushing and dragging and letting him lick up what’s left of an ice cream that fell on the ground. He got to it before I could stop him.
When we arrive, he gobbles up his food and I look around the spacious kitchen with its immaculate white furniture.
I like other people’s homes. Not the houses themselves but the thought that, for a moment, their private lives belong to me.
I could look into the pantry and see what Anne Rogers eats.
I could open her desk drawer. Who knows? The possibilities are endless.
But I don’t. I stay there with Mr. Fluff.
The rest of the day is a succession of hours drawing out into a monotonous week that could be summed up as follows: Dad gone, Mom silent in front of the TV, one or two phone calls from Grandpa, a night out with Taylor and his friends drinking beer, the end.
Thursday is a struggle to wake up under an orange, cloudy sky.
I read Lucy’s note again to convince myself I should really pay attention to it, but if I had her in front of me, I’d tell her a thing or two.
Because she could have written me a moving letter, something special, reminiscing about when we were girls, but instead, what I have is the proof that my sister wants me to keep going to meetings.
I’d like to tell her, “No, no way, it’s a waste of my time,” but she’s dead.
So I can’t argue with her. I just have to accept it.
The only thing she added to her request is this: Remember what the game’s called, Greta.
Imagine a map full of roads, but this time, there’s no right way to go.
Every road leads to a different destiny.
There will be rough patches, but you have to get through them and leave them behind.
Pain is the same way: You can’t go around it—you have to go through it.
And so Will comes to pick me up again that Thursday.
“Ready for a fun afternoon?” There’s a slyness in his tone and his expression is one I haven’t seen before. Almost like a cat playing with a mouse.
I scowl at him and jump into the passenger seat. I’m wearing dark jeans, purple Converse, and a gray sweatshirt that looks like his.
“I know we don’t know each other well, Will Tucker, but it’s my obligation to tell you your sense of humor isn’t your strong point.”
He seems relaxed as he drives, looking at me once in a while when he makes a wide right turn. We haven’t talked all week, but the feeling in the car is agreeable, as if that conversation at the mall had opened up some kind of camaraderie between us.
“Hard week? Problems with your guy?”
Too bad the agreeable feeling only lasts five minutes. “I don’t know what guy you’re talking about.”
“The one who kissed you the other day when I dropped you off at home like he was trying to mark his territory.”
“Ah, him. Right.”
Will gives me a suspicious look. “Are there others?”
“Sometimes,” I reply.
“You don’t like being tied down?”
“Do you actually care?”
“No,” he says.
“Good.”
We ignore each other until he parks. He says he’ll wait in the same coffee shop as the other day, and I nod before getting out.
I walk down the hall. Hear murmurs. Reach the right room.
All those sad eyes turn on me, and I ask myself whether they can see the same unfathomable grief in my stare.
Maybe they can because I’ve always thought my aura was blue: ill-fated, broken, lonely, pale as the sky at dawn on a foggy day before the sun brings the colors to life and makes them shimmer.
Faith smiles at me and tells me to sit down. A woman named Donna, who must be around seventy and has white hair pulled back in a braid, asks me if I want a coffee. No, I say, thanks. Then she tries to give me a lemonade and I finally just accept to keep from seeming mean and ungrateful.
“As I was saying, today Adrian wants to talk about details, those little things that call up devastating memories that you can get completely lost in,” Faith says, beginning the session.
“It was the toaster’s fault,” Adrian says, his baseball cap pulled down tight on his head.
“We went out one time to eat at one of those fancy restaurants with teeny-tiny portions, and we wound up drinking more than we should have. We got home really late and were still hungry, so my wife, Kate, decided to make some toast with peanut butter, and when the bread popped out of the toaster, the sound scared her so much she fell on the floor. We both ended up down there, drunk and with the giggles. It was a great night, really, like going back to our long-lost teenage years. We had fun. So two days ago, on Tuesday, I decided to have a cheese sandwich for dinner, and I took out the toaster and put the bread inside. I’m just doing my thing listening to the radio, and it clicks when the timer ends, the bread jumps out, and the memory of that night hits me like a hurricane.
It was awful. Awful. I couldn’t stop crying. All because of that goddamn toaster.”
Adrian bends over to pull a Kleenex from the box in the middle of the table and everyone applauds him.
And one by one, everyone else opens up.
It’s grotesque and comforting at the same time, however contradictory that seems. It’s crazy to me that they can tell such personal things, talk so freely about loved ones they’ve lost, but as the minutes pass, I realize it’s sometimes easier to do it with a stranger than with your own family.
Isn’t that what I thought when I decided to be straight with Will and open that door that had been closed for years and was covered in cobwebs?
“Anything you’d like to tell us, Greta?”
Faith’s hands are in her lap, her dress has a flowery pattern; it hangs to her knees. She’s so tender, I ask myself how this person could live in Nebraska when she so obviously seems made for somewhere sunny, the seaside, not this place with its tornadoes and snowstorms.
“No, I don’t think so.”
“All right, then…”
“Wait. Yeah. There’s one thing. It doesn’t matter, but since we’re talking about it, about details that seem like they don’t mean anything…
” This stupid impulse got the better of me, and now I have a knot in my throat.
“Lucy and I had nothing in common, even though we were like the same person. But for me, that makes sense. It always did. What I mean is we were a part of each other. I miss talking to her, we had amazing conversations, and honestly, there’s not much in life that’s harder than finding another human being you can talk to for hours and hours without getting bored or feeling like you’re wasting your time.
I loved watching movies with her because we’d always dissect them, whether they were good or bad.
We’d leave the remote between us, and when one of us wanted to say something, we’d hit pause.
Most people hate that because they just want to get to the end, like that’s more important than the journey.
Not us. We also liked to rewatch our favorites and find things we hadn’t noticed the first time or draw new conclusions about them.
We loved the Before trilogy. I don’t know how much time we spent with Jesse and Céline walking through the streets of Vienna, Paris, and Greece.
One time my sister stopped it, though, and rewound to hear this phrase: ‘I see in them little details, so specific to each of them, that move me, and that I miss, and…will always miss. You can never replace anyone because everyone is made of such beautiful specific details.’ And Lucy asked me, ‘Do you think it’s dumb for me to hold on to this idea that I’m still irreplaceable, even if my cells are turning against me and my immune system’s weak? ’”
I swallow and stare at the floor.
“What did you say?” Donna asks.
Everyone’s waiting impatiently, as if I were about to reveal the secret of the universe.
I take a deep breath. I could tell them that it’s ridiculous because, in the immensity of the universe, we’re as insignificant as ants.
But I see hope in their eyes amid that ocean of sorrow.
So I lie, just like I lied to Lucy back then, because I need to believe it as much as they do, and inside that lie is a tiny speck of truth.
Maybe her existence didn’t change the course of history, but it did change all of us who loved her.
“I told her yeah, she was irreplaceable.”
I get up quickly when the session ends. I see Faith coming over to talk to me, and I’m grateful when Adrian gets between us to say something to her. I hurry out. Maybe the better word would be escape.
I walk down the street to the café.
Will is at the same table, book in hand, cup empty.
I watch him through the glass, knowing he won’t look up.
His posture tells me he’s relaxed: his legs outstretched, one arm over the backrest and the other poised, ready to turn the page.
But his furrowed brow tells me this tranquility is just a mirage.
Under the surface, I can sense the raging of a storm.
Those wrinkles in his forehead and the tension in his shoulders—they’re intimidating but alluring.
I can’t even decide if I like him or not, but what I can say is he awakens something in me, something intense, extreme.
He looks away from his book and at the wooden tabletop. Then he notices me. He struggles to smile and only manages a weird grimace.
I go inside and sit down across from him on the burgundy-colored cushion in the booth. I don’t order.
“How was it?”
“It could have been worse, I guess.”
“You’re not the type to see the glass half-full, are you?” Will asks.
“Why, are you an optimist?”