Page 63 of Love at a Funeral and Other Awkward Conversations

Because I’d ruin it.

Ruin him.

Ruin us.

“I’m sorry,” I tell him, and when he doesn’t respond, save for a tic in his jaw, I ask, “Can’t we just be friends?”

I make sure to look him steadily in the eyes that I can see now as the fireworks light up the sky. Bright white, green, and pink explode, reflecting on Vince’s face.

Boom.

Boom.

Sizzle.

Finally, Vince agrees with, “Yeah, okay. Friends.”

But it feels like an ending. Like the fireworks. The sky quiets and darkens, and so do we.

JULY 14

It’s been over two weeks since July 4th, but I swear I can still feel the thump of fireworks in my body. Growing up, I loved Independence Day, the picnics, sparklers, fireflies, endless days, and warm nights. It represented the best time of the year: summer. It was a marker to look forward to, but then it was over, and we began a different kind of countdown, one to the first day of school. That countdown was much less fun.

Raymond is gone five months today, and each day adds to the running total of how many days we’re without him. For now, it’s a small number, only 151. It seems big. It’s a triple-digit number after all, but eventually, the number will grow to four digits, and then five. It will grow larger than 11,087, the number of days he walked on this giant rock. Eventually we will live without him longer than we lived with him. I am resigned to that fact. And completely gutted.

Sometimes I pick my phone up to text him. I still have things I want to tell him, like how he would really like this new song on the radio or that there was a two-for-one sale on those cheap grocery-store brownies he loves. But my fear is when I stop all that. When I stop thinking of him or can’t remember what he smelled like or the way he cleared his throat before he told a story. What if I forget the sound of his voice or the exact ashy-gold color of his hair? Or the way he said my name, and how he loped when he walked, as if his arms were too long for his body. What if I forget all of this?

What then?

#Grief #Calendar #FinalCountdown

CHAPTER 23

“I’d like to register for a library card,” I tell the small, cardigan-clad woman behind the desk. It’s ninety degrees and rising outside, but the air conditioning works perfectly in the Plainfield Public Library.

“Sure,” she says and hands me a few papers to fill out.

As her fingers clack away on the computer keyboard, the smell of all the books restores my weary soul, while the barely audible sounds—the padding of feet, the turning of papers, the slight crick of a book spine—are a lullaby. I haven’t been to a library since I lived in Brooklyn, but being here feels a little bit like coming home.

I hand the woman the papers, and she hands me the card. “My name’s Trisha, if you need anything.”

“Thank you,” I say, storing the card in my wallet before exploring the stacks.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking this past month—about my brother, my parents, and Vince. It’s been six months since Raymond died, and each of those days has been a surprise. Sometimes the grief is so bad, I sit on the shower floor crying. Other days, it’s as if Raymond never existed; there is no piece of him left to remember, my day too busy to form a picture of him in my mind. Some days my mom does well; some days she doesn’t. Some days my father comes home, and some he doesn’t.

It’s exhausting, living in a perpetual state of the unknown, and it’s becoming more and more obvious to me that Vince was right. Of course.

I have to help myself before I can help anybody else, and that means I need to figure out what I want for myself.

So, I’m here, browsing for a book, something I want. Something I need.

When I can’t decide between the historical fiction about Arthur and Guinevere, the thriller about the woman who takes revenge on her nasty husband, or the contemporary romance with the cartoon cover, I pile up all three under my arm and find a table to fulfill the next step in my plan. I’ve been out of college for six years, but I pull up my email to write Professor Christine Row. With my original dream of being some sort of entertainment journalist—writing snappy pieces on pop culture, reviewing music, or political satire—in the metaphorical shitter, I’ve been wondering if maybe I should write a book.

I haven’t even fully fleshed out the idea, but I ask Professor Row what she thinks. We’d kept in touch for a year or so after I graduated because she always had great advice, and if there is one thing I need now, it’s advice. I fill her in on my life and ask her if she’d be able to direct me in any direction of a job opening or internship. I’d always been opposed to something unpaid—because bills—but if I’m going to shoot my shot, it’s got to be now. Unpaid or not.

Hitting send is gratifying. It’s a relief to finally give in to the voice in the back of my head, the one that sounds a lot like Vince.

My heart sinks a little. We haven’t spoken much since the Fourth of July. He said he’s been working on his house a lot, and I have no reason to think he’s lying. Besides, with the summer winding down, I’m trying to get in as many shifts at Sassie’s as I can before patrons start burrowing away again for the winter. We agreed to be friends, at my request, so that has to be that.

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