Chapter 61
We graduated two months into the pandemic, not knowing we’d be the last class to walk for two years.
Campus shut down, going online. A few weeks later, the country crawled with protests over the killing of a man named George Floyd.
But we didn’t know him yet. Milan had a mild cough in January, I’d had that fever in March.
We’d beaten the virus, we thought. Our lives wouldn’t have to be lopped off to accommodate this feral, lethal thing lurking in our sneezes, sleeping on the rough skin of our tongues.
On graduation day, Jay, Milan, and I piled into Jay’s car to join our classmates on the football field, screaming as we crossed the stage to a future that wouldn’t exist by the time we turned our tassels, that was gone before we could grasp how gone it was.
We had a joint celebration on the patio of a soul food spot.
It was closed for general dining but open for private events.
Milan and I waded in our matching sundresses through the onslaught of “Congratulations!” tipsy on wine, murmuring about moving to Atlanta.
Or New York. Anywhere, when the pandemic ended.
DC, the setting of our childhoods, was simply a hostel to pass through while we searched for jobs elsewhere.
Jobs that didn’t exist for women’s studies and sociology majors (mine and Milan’s, respectively).
How were we supposed to know we’d wind up working at a grimy sausage restaurant for the next four years?
Jay was teaching elementary school in the fall over Zoom.
(“Like that PBS show from the nineties?” we joked.
No, not like that PBS show from the nineties.) He stood at the front of the patio, tapping his glass with a knife like people did on TV.
It shattered. Blood slipped down the sleeve of his shirt.
Everyone gasped. Like a true politician, he kept going.
“I want to thank everyone who made this trip to Houston to celebrate me, Cat, and Milan. I know many people, understandably, had to stay back. I know these are strange and scary times. But today the sun is out. So let’s bask in it.
We don’t know what lies ahead, and frankly, we never have, have we?
But we have each other now. So let’s celebrate that, more than anything else. ”
Milan leaned into me, “That’s your man up there acting like this is a State of the Union.”
I shoved her. She laughed. Everyone was looking at me. Jay’s eyes were cloudy with feeling. Had he just proposed? No, he wouldn’t do that to me. The room was waiting for me to speak.
Jay waved me to the front, smiling. I stood awkwardly beside him, gripping the stem of my wineglass.
“Hi, everyone. I’m Cat. I mean, you just watched them call my name at graduation so you probably know that.
” I lifted my paper plate, bent with food.
“The chicken’s good. If you haven’t gotten any you… oops, wait, looks like it’s all gone.”
My mom snapped a loud picture with her about-to-be-obsolete iPhone. “It’s okay, baby! Just start over!”
Jay pinched my side. We giggled. I started my speech, stumbling toward the end. “I’m just so thankful. Without Jay—”
My mind snagged on something sharp and unutterable.
“Without Jay” was an incoherent statement, and so nothing coherent could follow.
Pain, real or imagined, could simply climb out of our containers for language and run away.
Jay placed a hand on my shoulder, picking up where I left off as though we planned it.
Milan said, “Bruh, your hand’s bleeding bad.”
Red bloomed on the shoulder of my dress under Jay’s hand. His dad came over, examining the cut. “We need to get you to the hospital.”
It turned out the glass had splintered inside his skin. The doctor had to pick out the pieces with baby tweezers. Jay got stitched and fed antibiotics while our families migrated to the hospital waiting room. High on pills, he petted his shiny “Get Well Soon” and “Congrats, Grad!” balloons.
“You love me!” he slurred, giddy, when I appeared at his bedside.
He looked so happy. I guessed this was why people did drugs.
“I do.” Taking his big, warm hand, I saw this was what it meant to love totally: To fear. To live inside the terror of losing with no way out but to lose.