Sam: My mom = no faith = ☹
Me: U sure?
Sam: She told me
Me: Oh
Sam: U think God cares?
Me: Yes
Sam: Really?
Me: Yeah
Sam: Then why is the world so screwed up?
Me: Because of us, Sam
Sam: We suck
Sylvia. Goodbye.
IT WAS SUNNY and cold that day.
Sylvia’s body was cremated. She hadn’t wanted a church service. But in the end, for Sam, Dad and Lina decided to have a quiet Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. There weren’t a lot of people there—a few—some of Sylvia’s coworkers, who seemed to be genuinely sad. Lina was there with her husband and her three children, older cousins whom Sam barely knew—but they were very nice and friendly. And Fito was there. I’d texted him about what happened. So he just showed up. He was wearing a tie and a black sports coat. Fito, he had some class, that’s for sure.
Sam wore a black dress and her mother’s pearls.
For a moment I thought she’d suddenly become a woman.
Me, I felt awkward in the suit I was wearing.
The thing that impressed me the most about Sam was that she didn’t fall apart. She sat next to me, and there were times during Mass when she grabbed my arm and I could see the tears running down her cheeks, but she seemed in control of her emotions. Then I thought of the word for the day: dignity.
The Sam I knew was never in control of her emotions.
But on that day she was wearing dignity.
So much more beautiful than pearls.
It was only on the short drive to the house that she leaned into me in the back seat of my dad’s car and sobbed. Like a hurt animal. And then she was calm again.
“I’m a fucking train wreck,” she said.
“You’re not,” I said. “You’re a girl who lost her mom.”
She smiled. “Fito was there. That was really sweet.”
“Yeah.”
“Tell me again why I never liked him.”
There was a small reception at our house. I guess that’s what people do. Not that I knew. Lina told me I was a handsome young man. “Not quite as handsome as your father,” she said. And then she winked. She was a very decent human being. I knew that much. And though I knew she had been angry with her sister, I knew there were reasons behind her anger, because a woman like her, well, she didn’t seem to be an angry person. And she really liked my dad. So I asked her. “How do you know Dad? Through Sylvia?”
“No. Actually, I met your dad years ago at an art gallery in San Francisco. I bought one of his paintings.” She smiled. “Imagine my surprise when I found out that we had Sylvia in common.”
That made me smile. “How close with her were you?” I asked.
“Not very. I didn’t like Sylvia very much. But I loved her anyway. She was my sister.”
Somehow that made sense to me.
“You know, Sal,” she said, “there was a time I threatened to take Samantha away from her.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Your dad. We talked. I knew Samantha would be okay.”
“Because my dad said so.”
“Yes.”
“You trusted him that much?”
“Men like your father are very rare. I hope you know that.”
“I think I do know,” I said. “You don’t mind that Sam’s going to live with us?”
“Why would I mind? I want to be close to her. I’ve always wanted to be close to her. But her mother wouldn’t allow it. If I took her to live with me, she’d begin to hate me—and she’d probably wind up running away. She’d run straight here. She’d run back to what she knows, to what she loves.”
I nodded. “Yeah,” I said. I wanted to tell her that I thought she had a beautiful heart. But I realized there would be time for that. Or maybe I was just scared of saying something like that to an adult I barely knew.
Sam held the urn that contained her mother’s ashes. “What am I supposed to do?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re no help.”
“Nope.”
She finally put the urn in front of the fireplace. We just sort of looked at each other.
Sam and Fito and I sat on the front steps. Sam was staring at a piece of cake as if she didn’t recognize what it was. I was drinking a cup of coffee. Fito was on his third serving of potato salad. I swear that guy just couldn’t get enough to eat.
Then Fito looked at Sam and said, “What about your father?”
“My father? I met him once. He showed up at the door asking Sylvia for some money. A real winner.”
“So why’d your mother marry him?”
“That’s an easy one. He was good-looking.”
“There must have been another reason.”
“My mother wasn’t that complicated.” She laughed. I think she was laughing at herself. “I’m just being mean. My mother wasn’t as shallow as I make her out to be. Yeah, my father must have had some good qualities. Maybe he was smart, who knows? He was broke, that was for sure.”
“Well, at least you met him. That’s something.”
But what? I thought. Why was that something? What?
“You can always look for him, Sam,” Fito said.
“Why would I want to do that?” Sam said. “I’m just not interested.”
“Why?” I asked.
“The day he came over. He wasn’t interested in me. Not at all. Funny thing was, I wasn’t interested in him either. It was just this weird and awkward moment. He didn’t care. And for some reason, it didn’t hurt.”
I wondered about that. I guess Sam and Fito and I had a lot in common. We had this absent-father thing going on. Except that I did have a father who took care of me and loved me. And now Sam and I had this dead-mother thing going on—except that was different. Sam had actually known her mother. And just like the dad thing didn’t hurt her, I guess the mom thing didn’t hurt me. Sam said it did hurt me. But I wasn’t feeling that. I wasn’t.
And then it was like Fito was reading my mind. “You ever think about your mom?”
“Yeah, but it’s weird—since I don’t really remember her.”
“And you’re never gonna look for your bio dad? I mean, you said you think about him sometimes.”
Sam decided to enter the conversation. “Sally, you’ve never told me you thought about your birth father. Not ever.”
“I hadn’t thought about him much. Until recently.”
“How recently? Since the letter?”
“Yeah. Well, maybe a little before.”
“Hmm,” she said. “There’s a lot of things you’re not talking about these days, Sally.”
Fito was just looking at us. “What letter?”
Sam answered his question. Of course she did. “Sally has a letter from his mother. She wrote it before she died. And he’s afraid to open it.”
“Open it, dude. I’d open it. What’s wrong with you?”
“I didn’t say I wasn’t going to open it. I just haven’t done it yet.”
Fito shook his head. “What are you waiting for, dude? Maybe you’ll find out some cool stuff about your parents and shit.”
“I have a dad!”
“And he’s the bomb, dude. But you’re sounding all pissed off and shit—and there is definitely something goin’ on with you.”
“Something’s going on with everybody, Fito.”
Sam kept looking at me. That I’m-studying-you thing she did. And then she smiled. “At least you’ve given me something to think about besides the fact that my mother’s dead.”
Everybody had gone home.
Except Lina.
Lina and Dad were having a glass of wine. Sam and I had gotten out of our funeral getups.
There was a cold drizzle falling, and I wondered if we were going to have a cold winter. Maggie was scratching at the door. I let her in. And then I thought that maybe life was li
ke that—there would always be something scratching at the door. And whatever was scratching would just scratch and scratch until you opened the door.
I sat back down at the kitchen table. What was it about kitchen tables?
Lina looked over at Sam. “I have something for you.”
She reached into her purse, pulled out a ring. She placed it in Sam’s palm.
Sam stared at it. She kept staring and staring. “It’s an engagement ring,” she whispered.
“She was wearing it the night of the accident.”
“She wasn’t wearing it when she left the house.”
Lina nodded. She was wearing a sad smile. “I think your mother got engaged the night she died.”
“To Daniel?”
Lina nodded.
“So she got what she always wanted.”
“Yes, she got what she always wanted.”
“And Daniel?”
“His family took his body to be buried in San Diego.”
Sam kept staring at the ring. She kept nodding. “Then she must have died happy.”
She laid her head on the table and cried.
River
I WAS LYING ON MY BED, thinking about things. I could hear the wind outside. Maggie was on loan to Sam. Not that there was really any lending going on. Maggie seemed to know that Sam was sad. So it was okay. Still, I missed Maggie.
Then I got a text from Sam: The world has changed.
Me: We’ll make it through
Sam: I love u and ur dad. U know that, right?
Me: We love u back
Sam: I won’t cry anymore
Me: Cry all you like
Sam: I didn’t hate her
Me: I know
Sam: Slumber party?
Me: Absolutely
I got out of bed, turned on the lamp, put on my sweatpants. I took my sleeping bag out of the closet. Sam and Maggie came walking through the door. Sam threw herself on my bed. Maggie licked my face before jumping up on the bed.
“Let’s listen to a song, Sally,” Sam said.
“’K,” I said. “What about ‘Stay With Me’?”
“Sam Smith is gay. You do know that?”
“You got something against gay people?”
And there we were, laughing again. What was it with this laughing thing? We were not supposed to be in the laughing mood. But there it all was. Me and Sam laughing.
Whistling in the dark?
Whistling in the dark.
“Give me a song, will you, Sammy?”
“What?”
“I need a song. Give me one.”
I thought a moment. “I got one,” I said. “It’s called ‘River.’”
“Who sings it?”
“Emili Sande.”
“I like her.”
“Me too.”
“’K,” I said. I took out my laptop and found the song on YouTube.
Sam turned off the light.
We lay there in the dark listening to Emili Sande’s voice.
And when the song ended, it seemed that the world had gone completely silent.
Then I heard Sam’s voice in the dark. “So you’ll be my river, Sally?” She was crying again.
“Yeah,” I said. “‘I would do all the running for you.’” I would have sung her the whole song, but I have a not-so-great singing voice.
“And you’ll move the mountains just for me?”
“Yeah,” I whispered.
And then I was crying too. Not out-of-control crying, but crying. Soft, like it was coming from a place inside me that was quiet and soft too, and that was better than the hard place inside me when I made a fist, or wanted to make one.
Maybe the river was made of our tears. Mine and Sam’s.
Maybe the river was made of everybody’s tears. Everybody who had ever lost anybody. All those tears.
Cigarettes
I WOKE EARLY, MY MIND trying to catch up with everything that had happened. Life had always been slow and easy, and all of a sudden I felt like I was living my life in a relay race and there was no one else to hand the baton to. I lay in bed, repeating the names of my uncles and aunts. I’d always done that when I was stressed. And all of a sudden I panicked. School! Oh, shit, school! And then I realized it was Saturday. I’d missed a whole week of school. I wondered if my dad had called the school. Of course he had. I got up. Sam was fast asleep, and Maggie was looking at me like it was time for her to go outside and do her morning thing. Maggie. Her life was simple. I used to think mine was too.
Maggie and I made our way to the kitchen.
My dad was pouring himself a cup of coffee. I opened the back door to let Maggie out. She looked up at me, barked, wagged her tail, and ran out into the yard. Dogs are amazing. They know how to be happy.
My dad took out another cup and poured a coffee for me. I grabbed it and took a sip. Dad made really good coffee.
“How’d you sleep?”
“Good. Sam came over to my room and we had a slumber party.”
“You stay up talking all night?”
“Nah. I think she just didn’t want to be alone. She needed to sleep.”
“Sleep is good,” he said.
“You?”
“Okay. I slept okay.”
He opened the drawer where he kept his cigarettes. He wasn’t storing them in the freezer anymore. “It’s a little cold,” he said. “Wanna grab me a coat?”
I went to the closet in the entryway and put on a coat and grabbed one for my dad.
He handed me his coffee, and I held it as he put on his coat.
“Sometimes I wish we could sleep through all the bad stuff,” I said as we sat down. “You know, like the song. Wake me up, you know, when it’s over. It would be good to sleep until we woke up wiser.”
“I like that song—but it doesn’t work that way, does it, Salvie?”
“Yeah, I know. I don’t like death.”
“I don’t think anyone does. But it’s something we have to live with.” He took a drag from his cigarette and looked at me. “The news isn’t good about Mima.”
I nodded.
“She’s coming home. There’s not much we can do but keep her comfortable.”
“She’s going to die?”
“Yeah, Salvie, I think we’re going to lose her.”
“I hate God.”
“That’s an easy thing to say. Let you in on a little secret, Salvie. Hating God is a lot of work.”
“He doesn’t need her. I do.”
He put out his cigarette and wrapped his arm around me. “All your life I’ve tried to protect you from all the shit in the world, from all the bad things. But I can’t protect you from this. I can’t protect you and I can’t protect Sam. All I have is a shoulder. And that will have to do. When you were a little boy, I used to carry you. I miss those days sometimes. But those days are over. I can walk beside you, Salvie—but I can’t carry you. You get what I’m saying?”
“Yeah,” I whispered. And then I got up. “I’m gonna take a walk.”
“Walking is good, Salvie.”
I was trying not to think about things as I walked. But it was hard to keep my mind blank. So I put in my earphones and listened to music. There was this guy I liked, a singer, Brendan James, and he had this song, “Nothing for Granted,” and I listened to it over and over and sang with him. So I wouldn’t have to think about anything.
But as I was walking back toward the house, the thought occurred to me that I’d like to get drunk. I’d never been drunk. And I thought it might help. If you got drunk, you didn’t think about things, did you? I was thinking stupid thoughts and doing stupid math inside my head. I was going a little crazy.
Sam (Moving In)
JUST AS I reached the front porch, the cold rain started falling. Lina’s car was parked in front of the house. I figured she’d come to visit Sam.
I could smell bacon when I walked inside. Lina and Sam were drinking coffee and talking. Maggie was sitting patiently,
waiting for a crumb to come her way.
It was warm in the kitchen and I felt safe. I kept studying Dad as he served everyone scrambled eggs and bacon. Sam and Lina were talking about heading over to Sam’s house to go through Sylvia’s belongings. “You’ll want to keep some things, Samantha.”
Sam seemed calm enough. Not normal, really, but she wasn’t falling apart, either. I really wanted to know what was going through her head. No, that wasn’t right. I wanted to know what was going through her heart.
I heard my dad’s voice as I chewed on my bacon. “You’re quiet over there.”
“Yeah, don’t have that many words living inside me today.”
Sam smiled. “That’s normal.”
“Yeah,” I said, “normal.”
It was a good thing the spare bedroom was big. And it was an even better thing that it had a big closet. Dad and I cleared the closet of the crap we’d put there. Clothes we no longer wore, miscellaneous stuff we never got around to getting rid of. “Leftovers,” Dad called them. “There are always leftovers in people’s lives.” Dad said it was all going to St. Vincent De Paul, the Catholic version of Goodwill. Yup. Mima would approve of that. She was all about the Catholic thing.
It took all evening to move Sam in. “Too many shoes,” I said. “And too many blouses and skirts and pants and dresses and—”
“Shut up,” she said.
My dad and I went to pick up an antique dresser that had belonged to Sylvia. It had a big mirror attached to the back, and we set the whole thing up in Sam’s room. It was the only piece of furniture she wanted. “You can sit around all day and look at yourself,” I said.
“Shut up,” Sam said.
We kinda joked around all evening. Everything was nice and orderly, as if nothing had happened. Sam was just moving in. No big deal. Life went on. And maybe that was good. Sylvia was dead and Mima was dying, but Sam and Dad and Lina and I, we were alive. And the only thing to do was keep on living. So that’s what we were doing. We were living. Or trying to.
I was happy that Sam was going to live with us. Very happy. But Sam? Maybe she was a long way from happy.
Well, hell, I was a long way from happy too.
The Inexplicable Logic of My Life Page 12