“Frannie! Jesus!” My mother stood in the doorway. “She can hear you.”
“I was just talking to her. The doctors said we should talk to her.”
“Shelly, honey,” she said, laying a blanket over her. “Frannie didn’t mean to yell at you.” She turned to me. “Could you give us a moment here alone, please?”
“Oh, so now you’re the perfect mother, right?” Horrified, my hand flew to my mouth. But my mother wasn’t paying any attention to me.
“I feel like this is somehow my fault, Mom,” I said.
“How could this possibly be your fault?”
“I don’t know. It’s just how I feel. I feel like I should have done something different, you know I feel—”
But my mother cut me off. “It’s no one’s fault, Frannie. Sometimes life just deals a bad hand.” She ushered me out of the room. “Please, Frannie, please stop talking like this. This really isn’t a time to be philosophical.”
On the morning of the third day, it seemed like Shelly was going to rally and they took her off the ventilator. Hanging over the bedrail, my mother yelled, “She said ‘Mom’!” but when we rushed over, we realized she was gasping for air. She got worse by the afternoon, and could hardly breathe at all, even with the machines. And then the doctors asked my parents to consider turning everything off. “I won’t kid you, Marsha.” Chubby put a hand on my mother’s shoulder. “There’s been significant brain damage. They don’t think she’s going to come out of this.” Chubby started to cry. “Marsha, the Shelly we know is dead.”
My mother looked at my father who had his face pressed against the glass. A circle of film appeared where he was breathing. My mom opened her mouth to say something, but all that came out was a croak and the more she tried to speak, the worse off she got. She clutched her throat and waved her arms in the air. I thought she was choking, so I rushed over and lowered her into a chair, pushing her head down between her legs. When she finally calmed down, she tried to speak again, but all that came out was a few raspy sounds. For the next few hours, she and my father communicated by scratching words on the corners of magazines. A week, David, just another week, they can’t ask us to do this, isn’t it against the law?—We’ll sell the house.—Four days, then.—Don’t be so goddamn proud, it’s my sister. We’ll take the money and move Shelly into a long-term facility.—I’m not giving up.—Then you be the one to say it. I can’t do it. It won’t be me.
I brought her tea to soothe her throat and shared cigarettes with my father in the parking lot. I’d never seen him smoke before. When he took a deep drag, he coughed really hard and looked so much like a teenager that I got a lump in my throat and couldn’t swallow. He wouldn’t let himself cry, but I could tell he wanted to because his eyes got wet, and he kept rubbing them, pushing his glasses away from the bridge of his nose. “Damn cigarettes go right to my sinuses,” he said, crunching out the butt with his heel. It was difficult to look at him, but it was even worse to see my mother, hanging over Shelly’s bed, croaking “I love you so much.” My mother never did get her voice back in time to tell the doctors that there was no way she’d turn off the machines, but it didn’t matter. A few days after we were told that Shelly had swallowed all my mother’s tranquilizers and washed them down with rubbing alcohol, my sister was gone.
The funeral was a disaster. It rained so hard, the streets flooded, and when we drove to the cemetery, one of the limos got stuck in the mud and it took fifteen minutes to pull the car out. The rabbi my mother hired got sick at the last minute and sent his brother who was extremely Orthodox and the service lasted ten times longer than we had expected. Then, adding insult to injury, my mother had a panic attack during the service and instead of crying, she burst into such a hysterical, high-pitched cackle, it sounded like she’d gone mad. Ironically, the one person who was sobbing uncontrollably was Lonny Friedman. It was a complete freak show. We are such fuck-ups, we couldn’t even do death right.
Everyone showed up, though; even my father’s brother Edgar, Edgar’s schizophrenic wife, Jeanne, and all Jeanne’s personalities. My mother asked me to say a few words at the service. It was difficult to see through the tears in my eyes, and my throat burned, but I forced myself to speak.
I walked up to the podium clutching the poem I was going to read. I’d chosen a poem by Auden.
I looked at the crowd then lifted the book. “I wanted to read this.” I stopped. The silence in the room was deafening. I coughed, but no one moved. My throat tightened and I had a medicinal taste in my mouth. Panic stained my chest, and I couldn’t catch my breath, convinced that someone in the room had poisoned me and it was taking effect. I need a doctor, I screamed silently. HELP ME! I coughed and blinked and the rushing stopped, and my heartbeat slowed, but I was left with a void in my head and I couldn’t remember where I was.
“I want to read a poem,” I started, “a poem that I saw in a stupid movie.” I started to cry. “A stupid movie that doesn’t have anything to do with today because it doesn’t mean anything because it was just in a stupid movie. It’s not about today, about Shelly, who…who…who…I, you know…” My mother rushed to the podium. She put her arms around me, but I shook my head. “No. Please. I don’t think I knew my sister. Or that’s what she said, and maybe I didn’t.” I heaved sobs, unable to breathe. “But I thought I did. All along I thought that. It’s so difficult to know someone you love, but who can also make you so angry, even if you don’t mean to be. And I wasn’t angry all the time. I loved…love her. I love her. She’s my sister.” I stopped for good. “I’m so sorry,” I kept saying. “I can’t find my words.”
And I ran out of the temple, into the rain, and cried until I was all dried up, ashamed of myself and embarrassed for being alive.
In the limo, I didn’t speak to anyone. My mother sat between me and my cousin Beth, and her head lolled as we rode. Beth, who was more high on coke than my mother was on Valium, kept playing with the automatic windows. It got to be so annoying, I had to reach over my mother to slap Beth’s hand to get her to stop.
“What is your deal, Frannie?” Beth whined, wiping her nose. “I’ve never been in a limo before.”
My mother wasn’t paying attention to either of us, and when she started talking, she was so zoned, I don’t think she realized who was with her. “When Grandma died, I rushed to the airport, but all the flights were booked so I had to wait. Grandpa didn’t tell me she had already died. It’s weird, isn’t it? She’d already died but I didn’t know, so in my mind, she was still alive. I remember how frantic I was, how the strap on my suitcase broke, and I had to tie it in a knot to make the wheels go, rushing like a maniac, still thinking I had time. But she was already dead. So why does it matter to me that I wasn’t there in time, when it didn’t make a damn bit of difference?” She looked at Beth, who shrugged, hit the button, and the window went down.
By the time we got to the cemetery, my father was already there. He tried to help Beth, and had to lean his entire body in to wrench her out. When I opened my door, Johnny Bennet was waiting to give me a hand. “You’re a terrific woman, Frannie,” Johnny said as I turned to help my mother. “I wish I had a daughter like you.” I started to cry, thinking at the time that he was such a sweet man. I hugged him and he helped lift my mother out of the car. Between her and Beth, we were a traveling Betty Ford relapse clinic.
My father didn’t say much, but he held my mother through the entire service which got me all choked up. I was very moved by how nice everyone was. Until I saw Daniel Reynolds without his wife. “Why is he here?” I hissed at my mother.
It took her a few long seconds to lift her head. “Who?”
“Him.” I pointed at Daniel, who wore a perfectly cut black suit and a rose-colored tie.
“To pay his respects, Frannie. Don’t do this to me. Please, Frannie,” she begged.
“I hate him, Mom. I hate him so much, I think I could kill him. I could take a gun and shoot his fucking head off.” I felt wildly ou
t of control. “I could. I could just kill him.”
“Frannie!” I could tell she was about to get hysterical and I tried to back off. I walked over to Aunt Lillian and Uncle Monte who were huddled with my father. Beth was pulling flowers out of the ground.
Aunt Lillian put her arms around me. She didn’t say anything, she just kept hugging me until I thought I would pass out. Over and over she said, “It’s not fair, it’s just not fair.” Uncle Monte kept snorting and patting my head. “You come see us in Arizona, honey. Anytime,” he told me. “Come in the spring. The cacti are beautiful, especially when the sun’s setting and you capture them right in the shadows. It’s religious, Frannie, I’m telling you.” He sniffled and I couldn’t tell if he was feeling sadness for his dead niece or reverence for the Arizona vegetation.
“Your mother needs you, Frannie,” Aunt Lillian was saying. “No matter what she says, remember that. Try to be good to her, okay?” And she turned away, tears streaming.
Seeing her cry made me feel guilty about how obnoxious I was, so when I got back to the house, I rushed around, desperate to find my mother. I heard her sobbing in my father’s office, and stood outside, wondering if I should knock. I was nervous, positive she was crying because of me, so I pushed the door lightly. I heard a man’s voice. He was whispering so I couldn’t make out who it was.
“I love you, Marsha. I want to help you through this.”
Stunned, I glanced into the kitchen and saw Daniel leaning against the cabinets, talking to Abby. She was smiling, her boobs straining against the material of her dress.
“I told you before. I can’t give you what you want,” my mother whispered, her voice thick with tears. “I just lost a daughter, Johnny. Give me some room to breathe here.”
Holy shit. Johnny Bennet. All this time, my mother’s been having an affair with the fattest man in Lindsey Point. What kind of idiot am I? I looked up to see my father beckoning. I gave a half-wave, went into the bathroom, took off my clothes, and got into the shower, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. I turned the water on as hot as I could stand it. Curled on the shower floor, I let the water rain down, wishing I could hear my skin sizzle and that I could melt away like butter.
The first few weeks after the funeral, my mother wouldn’t get out of bed. There is some truth, I think, to the idea that people are never the same after they’ve lost a child. My mother, always distracted to begin with, became detached, almost catatonic as she stared into space. She was quiet and her eyes had a glazed, hypnotic quality. I kept wishing she would break down and scream, but she barely moved.
Even though it scared the hell out of me, I couldn’t stop watching her. For days, I didn’t do anything but follow her around the house and analyze everything she said and did, trying to learn from her how I should act. I made her my focal point, thinking that if I was patient, she’d give me a sign and I’d know what to do, but the moment never came. Instead, she went to see Chubby and got a second wind. She started working sixty hours a week, leaving my father, my grandfather, and me alone in the dark living room where we stared at the flickering television. I wanted her to stay at home, that’s what people do when they grieve. But she didn’t. I kept waiting for her to explain what I was feeling, what I should do with myself now that Shelly was dead. But she wouldn’t. She just got up in the morning, had toast with sugar-free jelly, and went to work every day as if our lives were totally normal.
I couldn’t do much. I hung out with my grandfather, made all his meals, took him to the doctor, and watched television with him for hours. I wasn’t ready to resurrect my job search, so I swallowed my pride and went back to Rascals. Paulie was very understanding when I confessed that Shelly didn’t have a baby, she had died of a rare bone cancer. He got quiet. “Stop it, Frannie honey. I know the truth.” He cleared his throat. “You could have told me, though. I didn’t have to hear it from Artie.” And he went out of his way to give me three moneymaking shifts a week.
Eventually, my dad abandoned our television vigil in the den and began traveling again. Since my mother was working late and I was back at Rascals, there was no one around to sit with my grandfather. I heard my parents fighting once, and stood outside their door to listen. I was amazed by their sudden willingness to confront each other. Consumed with rage, I stormed into the bedroom. “STOP IT, STOP IT, STOP IT NOW. MAYBE IF YOU’D TAKEN THE TIME TO TALK TO EACH OTHER ABOUT SHELLY, SHE WOULDN’T BE DEAD!” Jolted, they both stared at me. “OhmyGod,” I muttered. “I can’t believe I just said that.” I tried to apologize, but they both turned away, from me as well as from each other.
Finally, I cornered my mother in the kitchen. “Grandpa can’t sit around here by himself, Mom,” I said. “He needs someone to talk to. I’m sure he just wants to die. Don’t you have any feelings? He’s so lonely.” I started to cry.
“Frannie, Frannie, honey, I know you’re hurting, believe me, I know…”
“I’m talking about GRANDPA!”
“Okay, calm down. I know Grandpa’s hurting, but it makes me crazy to sit around. Don’t you understand? I have to do something. Why don’t you come to the office with me? You may feel better. I’ll hire a nurse for Grandpa, a babysitter, someone to sit with him while we’re at work.”
“So I can see you hanging all over Johnny Bennet?” I held my breath, watching her mouth shrivel like a dried flower. “It’s true, isn’t it? I know, you know.” She raised her hand and I flinched, but she just made a fist and walked upstairs. When I saw her the next evening, I mumbled an apology, but we didn’t make up. I bet it was our fight that drove her away.
She sat me down a few days later. “I’ve been thinking about what you said, Frannie. Grandpa does need professional help.” I started to cut her off, but she wouldn’t let me. “Frannie, listen, we can’t help him anymore.” Her eyes filled. “This is too much for all of us.” She took a deep breath. “Your father and I have decided to put Grandpa in the Jewish Home. It’s very close.” She looked away. “And I’m moving into my own apartment.”
I panicked. “I didn’t mean what I said about Johnny.”
“Frannie, this has nothing to do with him or with you. I have to do this for myself.”
“But what about me? You can’t just leave me here.”
“Frannie, you need help. We all do. I talked to Marilyn and she said she’d see you.”
I screeched, “I’m not going to see Chubby. She’s so…so…FAT! This is all her fault. If it wasn’t for her, Shelly would be alive and we’d have our own place, and everything would be normal. You know it’s true, Mom. You don’t like her. You never did.” I ached for her to agree, but instead, she started to cry. “You can come see me anytime you want, Frannie. I’m not moving far, I promise.” She reached out for me, but I walked away, and vowed I would never speak to her again.
I roll over, pick up the phone to call Abby, then put it back. I start to get up, but overcome with a wave of exhaustion, I lie back, stare at the ceiling, and wait.
I calculated the other day that I am asleep more hours a day than I am awake. It’s been this way since the morning my mother moved out. When I heard the garage door close, I went downstairs to the empty kitchen. There was a spoon in the sink with a blob of jelly still on it, and I just stared at the jelly sitting in a pool of water until my eyes blurred. A wave of anxiety hit me and I clutched the counter to hold myself up, afraid I was suffocating. When I finally caught my breath, the sun was still shining and the floor was still sticky but when I looked around, it was as if something suddenly shifted and the seams that held the world together were slowly unraveling. Rather than watch the wallpaper melt and all the pastel flowers run together, I went upstairs, got into my bed, and closed my eyes. Since no one was around to wake me up, I just stayed there.
The phone rings, but I let the answering machine get it. I’m sure it’s my mother, calling to prod me again about seeing a shrink. “I’m not going to give up on you, Frannie. You can’t get through this by yourself,”
she said the other day. When I didn’t answer, she started interrogating me about my father.
“If you’re so interested…” I paused. “…call him yourself.” Then I hung up without saying goodbye.
As I lie here, I kick myself for not telling her that my father’s doing great, that he’s happy she’s gone, that he joined a bereavement group at some church and now he’s thinking of dating.
“I talked about it in group,” he said a few nights ago. I lay in my bed and stared at the wall. “We have to compartmentalize our grief and move on. Remain among the living. How does that make you feel, Frannie?”
I knew he was trying to—quote, unquote—reach out, but my rage and my silence are the only things that I have left.
I heard his pitiful, pleading tone, but I refused to acknowledge him. “I asked you a question, Frannie. How does that make you feel? We should think about clearing out the extra bedroom. To move forward. It’s important to move forward.”
I slowly turned over. “Which extra bedroom, Daddy? Which bedroom are you referring to?”
“Uh, your sister’s. I’ve said this before.”
The only reason I talk to him at all is because he lives here. Some days I don’t talk just to see if people notice. Other days, it’s because I can’t stop the silence. The silence comforts me. If I don’t speak, I can make believe I don’t exist. The way Shelly believed. You destroy the voice, you destroy the desire, you destroy the need, you destroy the girl. The Me.
Right now I need relief. I can’t breathe because my heart is tight inside my chest, I can’t speak because my throat burns like it’s on fire, and I can’t see because my eyes always fill with tears. I feel empty, carved out, like a canoe floating downstream.
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