by Emily Belden
“When my grandpa died, my grandma remarried his best
friend six months later. She said my grandpa would have
wanted her to be with him. Those two went on to have an
amazing, long marriage. Just saying,” a chatty Monica blazes
on as she slings her Chanel bag over her shoulder.
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I don’t know Monica’s grandmother from a fence post,
nor do I condone following along in her footsteps per se—
ask any widow; that’s some sticky territory. But her anecdote
does make me think how impressive it is that Brian and I have
somehow managed to evolve from estranged to friendly given the circumstances. And it makes me wonder what other exceptions to what other rules he might turn out to be if we do
end up hanging out more.
As soon as Monica clears the doorway, I pull the selfie up
on my phone and see it in my feed for myself. We do look
happy. We do look like friends. We do look like everything
in our lives is completely normal and fine.
But a few seconds later, I think back to the last time he up-
loaded a selfie of us and a shiver travels down my spine.
It’s funny how basic things cease to be important when you
suffer a large, personal trauma. I mean, it’s not like I had just blacked out when it came to brushing my teeth, combing my
hair, or restocking the toilet paper—I knew that all of those
things needed attention. It’s just that they became a very low
priority. Suffice to say, the thought of a Target run was com-
parable to running a marathon.
But eventually I did leave my house. It may have only been
two doors down to a hair salon, but it still counted. I just
wanted them to wash my hair for me. But the stylist talked
me into something more: hacking it off and dying it blonde.
Six hours and three hundred dollars later, I had a platinum
pixie cut. And even though my life was not like any normal
twenty-five year old’s, at that moment I couldn’t resist feel-
ing giddy after spinning around in the chair and catching a
glimpse of myself in the mirror. I looked different, but I felt more myself than I had since Decker died.
Later that very same day is when Brian Jackson came over
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to help me pack up my house in preparation for the closing.
Brian must have sensed the bit of momentary confidence the
transformation had given me, and in between topping off our
Jack and Cokes and taping bubble wrap around coffee mugs,
he snapped a photo of us. It was a selfie, just like at the ball game. He uploaded it and tagged me—because that’s just what
you do when you’re a millennial with long arms and your re-
cently widowed friend is actually having a good day.
It started with a text from Debbie. Be cognizant of your
image, Ms. Rosen. Did she not like my hair? Or did Brian tell
her we kissed?
I didn’t have time to process that before one of Brian’s
friends commented on the photo: Wow. New bae? That was
fast! When three people “liked” that person’s comment, I just
about lost it. When I thought about how I just kissed the person who posted this photo, I actually lost it. I uploaded a vague, emotional, messy monologue to my Facebook page warning
people to mind their own business and back off from mine.
Post: public. Comments: disabled. Spell-check: forgotten.
It felt good at first. But then thirty minutes later, I just felt crazy and broken. I realized the only way to combat the ru-mors was to stop showing my cards altogether and distancing
myself from the source of them. So I deleted my post, untagged
myself from the selfie, and unfollowed Brian, tightening my
privacy settings like a belt.
The unofficial life lesson from “Picture-Gate” was to keep
things to myself. Which makes me question, even five years
later, if I should really be this okay with casually hanging out with the guy who unearthed all of that?
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15
After Monica leaves, I determine now is the time to clue my
mother in about both of last week’s deliveries: the matzo and the man. She has Facebook and if Monica has already seen
the newest Brian post, then so has The Jeaner. I’d love to get
ahead of what I know will turn out to be twenty questions.
It’s a day earlier than our standing Sunday morning ap-
pointment, but my mom wastes no time picking up for me,
her favorite (only) child.
“Hi honey, howareya?” she says, nasally as ever.
“Hi, Mom. I’m good. The matzo came. Thanks so much
for sending it, I’ve already had half a box.”
“Save some for the soup. I tell ya, I thought for sure those
dumkopfs at the post service would lose it in the mail.” When Jean Rosen throws out the Yiddish word for idiot, she means
business.
“Well, no worries because it arrived and it’s just as good
as I remember it. But, hey, listen. I’ve go tell you something.
Your matzo wasn’t the only thing to get delivered to me this
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week. Remember that J. Crew box I sent you a photo of with
Leno sniffing it?”
“I sure do. Anything good I should order in my size? You
know I love those colorful high-waisted chinos they sell.”
That fact that I’m about to rip a huge hole in her madras
print dreams weighs heavy on me, but I need to drop this
bomb once and for all.
“It wasn’t actually a package from J. Crew. It was… Deck-
er’s ashes. His urn got shipped back to me from the mauso-
leum and now it’s in my apartment.”
I wince as if I’m bracing for slap to the face.
“What do you mean it’s in your apartment? Decker’s in
your apartment?!” she shrills in reply. I have no choice but
to hold the receiver four inches from my head until it sounds
like she’s calmed down.
“The mausoleum in Pala was in the path of a wildfire.”
“I had no idea the fires were that bad,” she responds.
There’s not a day that the news doesn’t pick up a story about
the spread of this one, the lack of containment on that one, and so on and so forth. Personally, I had determined that when the
fires start to rip across Ventura Boulevard and encroach on my
morning commute to the office, that’d be the point I’d start
paying attention. But clearly it’s too late for that.
“Yeah, and so they returned all the ashes they had there to
the next of kin.”
“Are you sure they can even do that?”
“I don’t know, I never saw a contract or anything. But it’s
a privately owned, ‘boutique mausoleum.’ Do any rules really
even pertain to them?”
“I can’t believe it. They were right in the path of the fires
and didn’t have a back-up plan? What’s the matter with those
people?”
“Dumkopfs,” I say.
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“So, what are you supposed to do now?”
That’s the million-dollar question. In the background, I
hear the ice maker on my mom’s fridge grinding, as well as
cubes bouncing off the bottom of an empty glass. My guess
is that she’s making herself a midday martini. This woman
wastes no time imbibing under stress. I flashback to night one
with Decker’s urn, chugging a bottle of wine in the kitchen,
and realize I am my mother’s daughter in that sense.
“Well, did you tell Debbie?” she continues after a hard swal-
low of her fresh drink.
“Yes, of course.” Although that meeting was stressful, it
feels remarkably freeing to be able to say that I did it.
“And what happened? Did she force you to hand over his
ashes so she could turn them into a clay mask because some
beauty blogger says that’s the key to looking youthful?”
It’s a sharp-tongued statement from my mom, but she of all
people knows full-well how skewed Mrs. Austin’s worldview
is and how it has proven to be more than a little frustrating
to our family over the years.
“No clay mask, but you’re right. She did demand possession
of the urn. She even showed up back at my apartment while
I wasn’t home, trying to fetch it for herself.”
“Of course she did.”
“But I told her I’m hanging on to it.”
“Of course you are.”
“And I’ve been bringing him with me everywhere I go
now so she can’t try to steal him back.”
“Oh. Okay. Well, then,” she pumps the brakes. “Always
good to protect yourself, right?”
I can tell she thinks I may be taking it one step too far,
toting him around with me in my bag like he’s a phone char-
ger. But—
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“I’m just trying to do the right thing by Decker while
avoiding Power Struggle Part II with Debbie. That’s all,” I say.
“Honey, there is no need to explain yourself to me. You are
doing the right thing. Take as much time as you need. And I
know it’s hard for you, but make sure you ask for help when
you need it,” my mom insists.
“I know. I have been. I even had a friend call the insur-
ance broker handling the mausoleum’s claim. That was huge
for me.”
I immediately regret the fact I’m free-flowing my thoughts
like I’m at some weird slam poetry storytelling session.
“Oh, really? That’s good. What friend?”
I tell her his name and it doesn’t ring a bell. When I de-
scribe him as the groomsman from our wedding who looked
like a young Pierce Brosnan, suddenly it clicks.
“Oh. I do remember Brian now that you mention it.” I’m sure she does. “It’s been a while since you’ve seen him, hasn’t it? How’s he doing?”
I’m not about to get into the semantics of early-thirties
Brian Jackson, who literally seems like he’s tailor-made for
any role in a rom-com. So I go with a short and sweet an-
swer instead.
“He’s good. We went to a Dodgers game last night,” I say,
purposefully failing to mention that he kissed me on the cheek
in front of a crowd at said Dodgers game. “And he’s very will-
ing to help me with the urn if I need it.”
“Hmm.”
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing.”
I know a Jean Rosen hmm when I hear one. “What is it,
Mom?” I probe some more.
“Does a part of you feel like he came back into the picture
for a reason?”
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Monica’s visit made me think about this, too. Brian is a
good guy who went aggressively after his dreams. He’s charis-
matic, handsome, and empathetic. He’s great with kids and has
a quirky sense of humor. Maybe I’m not crazy for thinking if
this guy showed up on Tinder, I’d swipe right in a heartbeat.
But Brian isn’t a just a Tinder profile. He’s my late husband’s friend. Widow Code would say it’s a lane I should never swim
in—even though I kind of cannonballed it once before. But
what about now? What about five years later?
“I mean, it’s possible,” I finally say. “Although we have a bit of a past that I wouldn’t mind rewriting.” I leave it at that. My mom doesn’t need to know we made out after Decker died.
“Oh, honey. We’ve been through this with the therapist
before. You can’t rewrite what happened to Decker. You didn’t cause it. It wasn’t your fault. It was an accident, remember?”
Dear lord. My mom was talking about Decker—not Brian.
Maybe I need to pour a drink of my own here soon.
“Yes, I remember,” I say, quelling any concern she may
have that I’m doubting the facts. I’m not statistically culpable for his death, end of story.
“I just mean that you can make his final resting place final
this time. That’s what I meant by him coming back for a rea-
son. And, you know what they say, two brains are better than
one, so let Brian help,” she says with the confidence of a stage mom. “Do you need me and your father to fly in for anything?
Four brains are better than two!”
I definitely do not need my parents taking a red-eye to
Los Angeles to help me sort my complicated life out, but I
appreciate her unwavering support. For now, I think I can
handle things.
Brian texts me and asks if I’m home so that he can drop
Decker off. When I tell him that I am, he follows up by ask-
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ing if I’ve got time for a surprise car ride. He says the air vents have been programmed to smell like chicken nuggets and he’s
got a cold brew with my name on it in a thermos. Clearly, he’s
not hanging on to any baggage from the way I acted lasted
night and I owe him letting go and doing the same. I agree
to be ready in the next twenty minutes.
Once he’s downstairs in his familiar pickup spot, I hop in
the Tesla that smells better than a bag of In-N-Out when hun-
gover and press the button that fastens my seat belt. While
adjusting it, I can’t help but notice there’s a basket with a ba-guette sticking out of it in the back seat. Wait. Is Brian tak-
ing me on a picnic? Is that what this little surprise is all about?
I face forward again in the passenger’s seat. Even though
I’m wearing white leggings, I could go for a Saturday lunch
picnic with Brian, grass stains and all. A smirk purses my lips that I can’t seem to help or deny.
“What are you cheesing about?” Brian asks.
“Nothing,” I say. “Just smiling.”
It’s undeniable how comfortable things are with Brian. I
can’t think of another person who wouldn’t have brought up
my antics from last night by now. I mean this in the best pos-
sib
le way, but he’s like a piece of low-hanging fruit. Brian
represents someone I don’t need to go on five awkward dates
with before we start to get anywhere the least bit emotionally
interesting. He represents someone I don’t have to explain the
complexities of my first marriage to. He isn’t someone I have
to convince that I don’t carry around any heavy “widow bag-
gage.” He’s someone who believes me that I’m truly fine and
ready to get back into the dating pool. And Brian would never
make me choose between hiding my past and having a future.
Next thing I know, Brian pulls off on the exit for Grower
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side what appears to be a construction site. I see nothing but
chain link fence, bulldozers, and piles of dirt and gravel.
“We’re here,” he says, sounding like a giddy dad on a road
trip arriving at a Wisconsin cheese castle. He presses a button and our seat belts automatically retract themselves.
Out of the Tesla, Brian marches to the fence—sans picnic
basket—and puts his fingers through one of the open holes as
he stares out at the vast land. I position myself next to him and look out as well. Although I’m not sure at what specifically.
“So…what do you think?” he asks, as if I’m supposed to
have an opinion about a mound of dirt.
“I think I forgot my sunglasses,” I say, putting my hand
above my eyes to shield against the bright rays. “And also a
blanket.” Forget grass stains, my pants are going to get de-
stroyed by this mud.
“Blanket? Anyhow, this, my friend, is the future site of that
five-story mausoleum you were googling at Alfred’s. After you
told me about it, I looked it up and saw that the Los Angeles
City Council approved plans to add thirty thousand crypts.
Which sounds like a lot, I know, but then I read on and saw
that 75 percent of them were already accounted for. People
are buying up the plots like Elvis is going to be moved here.
Anyhow, at nearly ninety thousand square feet, this is going to be the most iconic resting place in the entire county. Not to
mention, completely bombproof. Wildfires? What wildfires?”
“Well, thanks for the tour of a future grave site,” I say. “Any other fun facts you’d like to share?”
Brian releases his fingers from the fencing and grabs my