Page 43 of Years in the Making

Mom’s laugh was distinct and very loud. I have no problem hearing it. But for how long will it be easy to hear? I have tried to remember what my dad’s father sounded like but can’t. People talk about missing the physical presence of someone, but it’s the forgetting her laugh that has me rolling onto my hands and knees and throwing up my breakfast and lunch.

I hate Will at that moment. I hate that he got to hear her last laugh. I hate that his memory of it will be so fresh in his mind while I sit here not knowing when I heard it last. I don’t know if she was laughing at me or something I said. Or maybe Zoe and I were making fun of someone on a game show. I hadn’t seen her the last two nights because I was with Nellie. I missed her last days because I was too preoccupied with Nellie.My most recent memories are all of her, and I do my best to push them aside, but Mom’s off in the distance.

She’s been gone for a few hours, and she’s already fading from my memory.

When I finally get home, Dad is in the kitchen, sitting alone. A full mug sitting in front of him.

“Dad?” I whisper as I walk over and sit across the table from him.

“Zoe…” I watch as he swallows, trying to finish his sentence. “Your sister is upstairs going through your mom’s clothes. It would be nice if you helped her pick out something for your mom to wear.”

I nearly ask where she’d be wearing the clothes. But of course, there was only one place they’d be worn, never to be removed again. I nod and stand before walking around the table to awkwardly hug him. He pats my arm and then goes back to staring at the mug full of tea.

I find my sister down the hall sitting on my parents’ bed, clothes strewn around her. She’s holding a black dress, the one Mom had worn to her father’s funeral. Zoe looks up at me with red eyes, taking in my shirt and shorts. No doubt smelling the sweat on me.

“Have a good run?” she asks bitterly.

“As a matter of fact, it was shit,” I say, dropping onto the bed beside her.

“Good.”

I reach for the dress in her hands and toss it behind us. “She can’t wear black, Zo.”

She sniffs and leans intome. “I know that.”

“What about that pink one she wore to their anniversary party last summer?” Everyone had complimented Mom when she’d shown up in it.

“It doesn’t have any sleeves,” Zoe says quietly.

“What does that matter?”

“It matters, Teddy… It…” I can hear her start to break, so I put my arm around her and hold her tightly against me as I stare into the closet. “I don’t want her to get cold,” she finally whispers. And that thought, the thought of Mom never feeling again is what cracks me wide open.

The next three days fly by in a blur of planning, arguments, and so many tears that we all seem to have accepted that puffy eyes and red raw cheeks are just part of life now. The current altitude isn’t helping with my permanent headache.

We’re on a plane to British Columbia because that’s where Mom wanted her ashes spread. Half in the mountains and half on the coast just like her parents and grandparents. I haven’t been to BC since I was ten when we came to visit Mom’s parents, who had moved back shortly after Mom and Dad had gotten married. I remember loving it there and begging to go back. If I knew what would take me back, I never would have wanted to return.

“Here,” Will says, holding out a travel-sized bottle of pills. “These’ll help.”

I take the bottle, dump a couple of pills in my hand, and throw them back dry. He says something else, but I’ve already turned my attention back to the clouds passing by out the window.

I’ve never wished to believe in something greater thanmyself until now. The comfort of the belief in Heaven or something more spectacular being out there brings must be nice. Dad said Mom’s wishes were to be reunited with her family, as if it would help me understand why we were making this trip. It just pissed me off more. We’re her family. If she thought throwing her burned existence into the air was going to reunite her with her long-dead ancestors, why wouldn’t she want to stay close tous?

Why the fuck doesn’t she want to stay with the man she’s loved since they were kids?

Why wouldn’t she want to stay with Will, Zoe, and me?

What was the point of us sacrificing our childhoods to care for her if the minute she could leave she could without thinking of us?

I dream of Nellie. Of Swedish Berries and floating beside her in the pool. Her laugh echoes in my mind, bouncing off the grief and confusion that have taken up residence. I keep trying to tell her something but can’t seem to get it out. I’m too distracted by her smile, and I don’t want to do anything that makes it go away, so I just watch her and float.

“Teddy Graham.” Zoe’s jostling me and whispering my name over and over again.

“Ugh, fuck’s sakes, Zoe, what?” I mumble, swinging my arms out to block her from pushing me again. Nellie’s smile fades completely when I open my eyes.

“We landed like fifteen minutes ago, asshole,” she hisses back, causing my eyes to snap open all the way. When I look around, I see it’s just the two of us left at the back of the plane. “Everyone else already got off, let’s go. Unless you want to fly back to Toronto.”

I consider it for a split second but then remember that Mom’s not there either. I drag myself out of the seat and pull my overfull backpack from the overhead bin. I don’t even knowwhat I packed; I opened drawers and pulled stuff out in a fog of grief. Mom was very specific about not wanting anyone in suits or stiff black anything.

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