The Letting Go

by Deborah Markus

  Maybe that’s why he lashes out sometimes.

  I could understand a god like that. I could even kind of like him.

  But if he’s out there, either he doesn’t feel like talking or he can’t find my phone number.

  They say that “Time

  assuages”—

  Time never did assuage—

  An actual suffering

  strengthens

  As Sinews do, with Age—

  M has backed off a bit, which ought to make things easier, but everyone else is obliviously awful.

  That Stephen James event is coming up and no one but M can stop talking about it. Every meal, all breakfast and lunch and dinnertime long: Are you going? Should I go? I don’t know if I want to go. I don’t know if any of us should go. I think all of us should go.

  On and on and on, like little songbirds from hell.

  I wish I could just stay in my room forever. I’d rather dine on dust and cobwebs than try and fail to eat Hawthorne’s lovely repasts while my sister-students chirp on about death and death and death.

  But I can’t just close my door and shut it all out. Rules are rules. Or, since we’re talking about Hawthorne, that one rule is still the rule.

  “I’m officially horrible,” Brianna said at lunch today. “I think I really want to go now.”

  M looked at her in mocking, wide-eyed fascination. “Let the sky rain potatoes,” she said.

  “Please shut up,” Brianna explained politely.

  “Only if you tell me what brought this on.”

  Brianna sighed. “I’m morbidly curious,” she said. “Literally. I want to see what his work’s like. I want to know who this guy is. Was.”

  “I don’t think that’s so horrible,” M said. “Give me a dollar and I won’t even call you a hypocrite.”

  “Except I’m also kind of afraid,” Brianna said.

  “Because … ?”

  “If he’s really good, it’ll be that much worse that he’s dead, you know? It’s a loss to the whole world. But then I’m really afraid that—” She lowered her voice and looked around uncomfortably. “What if I think his paintings suck?”

  “Definitely keep that opinion to yourself,” M recommended. “At least until you get back to Hawthorne.”

  “I do know that much, thank you. I just mean—it’ll be depressing to think that this guy never got the chance to be really good.”

  “It’ll be depressing no matter what,” M pointed out.

  “Yeah.” Brianna sighed.

  “Don’t overthink it,” Natasha-the-playwright said. “Go, since you might want to. If you get there and it feels wrong, just spend the day at the library. Or go shopping.”

  “That seems shallow,” Brianna said.

  “Shop for something deep and meaningful,” M suggested.

  Brianna snickered. I hoped hopelessly that the conversation would now turn to local shopping opportunities.

  Of course not. Anxious Girl was at the table.

  “I’m scared to go,” she almost whimpered.

  God. Here we go again.

  “There’s nothing to be scared of,” Lucy said. As annoying as she can be at times, at least she doesn’t indulge in A.G.’s style of stupidity.

  “But it’s—him,” Anxious Girl whispered.

  “It’s not,” Lucy said positively. “It’s his work. It’s his art. His friends will be there. There’s going to be music and food—”

  “I know, I know.” Anxious Girl was not convinced by Lucy’s forceful optimism. “I know I’m supposed to think about his life. I just—I can’t stop thinking about what happened to him.”

  So none of the rest of us gets to stop thinking about it, either. Thanks.

  “You have to stop thinking about that,” Lucy commanded.

  I’d kind of love it if Lucy decided to become a therapist. If anyone can verbally bludgeon the world into a state of timid sanity, it’ll be Lucy.

  “But—”

  “Look,” Lucy said, setting her fork down. “First of all, his legacy is what’s important now. His—creations.”

  I could practically hear M trying not to gag.

  “And second,” practical Lucy continued, “if you absolutely have to think about it—and you shouldn’t—you should focus on the fact that his death must have been quick and painless.”

  She sounded so certain. So scientific. Almost triumphant in her rightness.

  I think that was what pushed me over—how fond she was of her own opinion, which she never called that because she was too busy finding room for it on a shelf marked ABSOLUTE TRUTH.

  At any rate: one second I was sitting there tying my cloth napkin in knots and wishing I could risk a bite of cinnamon-apple kugel, and the next I was up and shouting.

  “How the hell would you know?”

  I heard a few gasps, and a little muffled shriek. Probably Madison.

  Poor Ms. Lurie is getting quite the workout lately, what with constantly leaping to her feet and calming things down at my table.

  Lucy was gaping at me.

  “Where the hell do you get off saying something like that?” I went on. “How can you possibly know—”

  “Emily,” Ms. Lurie said. She was standing next to me, and even at a moment like that she knew better than to touch me. “You have to calm down. Right now.”

  M’s face was completely white. Her eyes were huge.

  I didn’t know she could ever look like that about anyone.

  “Do you need something to drink?” Ms. Lurie asked. She was speaking softly, but in the absolute silence of the dining room she might as well have been screaming. “Come with me to the kitchen and we’ll get some ice water.”

  I shook my head mutely. My hands were shaking so hard, if it had been anyone else I’d have sworn they were faking it.

  “Maybe you should lie down for a little while, then,” Ms. Lurie said even more quietly. “All right?” She glanced at my untouched plate. “I’ll bring you up a tray in a little while. Something fresh, don’t worry. Miss Miller mentioned she’d like to do some baking this afternoon.”

  Her words were like a spell. I clung to the soothing ordinariness of what she described, to the idea of a quiet world where overexcited young ladies are sent to rest and wait for warm whole-wheat cinnamon rolls to be left outside their doors on covered plates.

  I still couldn’t talk, but I could breathe again. I could make myself walk past all those gaping girls, past M who looked as if she were clinging to her chair to keep from jumping up to go with me, and to my quiet room. Where I did indeed lie down on my made bed until my hands started to behave themselves and I could write away some of my nerviness.

  I can’t believe I shouted like that.

  But I absolutely hate it when people say things they can’t know about someone’s last moments.

  Even a lobster deserves the dignity of deciding for himself if being dropped into a pot of boiling water hurts.

  Anyone who wants to argue that point should try it out or shut up.

  I feel bad about leaving my dishes. Somebody’s going to have to take them in for me.

  At Dickinson’s boarding school, she had to clear up the knives after breakfast and lunch and then wash and dry them. She said so in a letter.

  That seemed like an odd division of chores to me, but apparently all the students did a little something in the way of kitchen chores. That way they didn’t have to hire as many servants, so the fees were cheaper.

  Fees are not cheap at Hawthorne, but we all bus our own dishes anyway. Ms. Lurie says that’s the kind of thing it’s important to do for yourself—something about human dignity. We also rinse them off, usually to the tune of an improving lecture about how there shouldn’t be any need to “scrape” dishes after a meal since you should never take more food than you plan to eat.

  I keep planning to eat, and then everyone keeps talking about Stephen James and my throat closes up.

  The worst part of it is, I do still feel hungry
. Ravenous. I just can’t do anything about it.

  Today was supposed to be my turn to wipe the counters in the kitchen after lunch.

  Lucy might not believe this, but I feel bad about leaving that for someone else to do.

  Maybe she’ll volunteer to cover for me. She’d enjoy earning the extra righteousness points.

  Ms. Lurie has pretty quilted placemats set out for breakfast and lunch, and then tablecloths are laid for dinner. Every night one girl per table takes off the cloth, shakes it, and then either folds it and puts it on a special shelf in the kitchen linen cupboard or (if it’s Friday, or the tablecloth is badly marked with a food spill) tosses it into the kitchen hamper.

  I find this all very soothing.

  I want to go back to being able to think about those stupid little details of life at Hawthorne.

  Instead I have to keep thinking about Stephen James.

  Did it hurt?

  Just because Lucy can be arrogant and tactless doesn’t mean she’s always wrong.

  A bullet to the back of the head means he never saw it coming in one sense; but was he really surprised? Did the killer tell him to turn around, and use the gun to menace him into doing so?

  And whether or not it was a surprise—even if his death was “instantaneous” (another word people like to use when they’re not the ones doing the dying), wouldn’t there have to be a moment of pain?

  My father died from a bullet, too, but it was lower and it took a long time to kill him. The books all agree on that.

  My mother’s death involved no bullets at all and was much less tidy. It had to have hurt.

  Was that the point? Not just to make her die, but to make her suffer?

  It’s the only thing that makes sense. Nobody ends up in that many pieces by accident.

  Why? What had she ever done to deserve such a thing?

  What did I ever do to attract this kind of follower?

  I was four when it happened. Almost five, but still. It would have been physically, temporally impossible for me to have done something terrible enough to merit this kind of punishment.

  I wish this week were over.

  I wish Stephen James would go back to being someone none of us had ever heard of.

  There has been a menagerie here this week…. Almost all the girls went; and I enjoyed the solitude finely.

  I couldn’t decide if Ms. Lurie would expect me to come to the dinner table and smooth things over, or if she expected me to stay away and give everyone the chance to talk about me, so I went with my own preferences and stayed in my room for the night.

  I didn’t feel up to pretending to be even my strange shade of normal. And if I have to not eat, I’d rather be alone than do it as a spectator sport.

  If I’d known I was going to be relying so heavily on the supplies I could lay in, I’d have shopped a little harder the last time I joined a field trip into town.

  At least tonight turned out all right food-wise. Ms. Lurie was as good as her word so far as the baked goods went. Unfortunately, she didn’t just want to leave the promised tray outside my door.

  I opened the door when she knocked, and she smiled and looked around to see where she could put her burden down. My desk was covered with books and papers, so she set the tray down on my bed.

  “Careful,” she cautioned. “There are breakables and spillables in here.”

  She lifted the lid of the tray—it was like something you’d see a butler bringing to the indisposed lady of the house. There was a plate covered with all kinds of dainty little baked offerings, a tiny glass cup of artfully whipped butter, a couple of heavy cloth napkins, and a single-serving teapot nesting in a matching cup.

  “Miss Miller was feeling inspired,” Ms. Lurie said. “She wasn’t sure what you’d like, so she went all out. These are orange biscuits, and here are honey-wheat gems, and—I think those are called jam thumbprints.”

  I was starving and terrified at the same time. “She did all this for me?”

  “Not exactly,” Ms. Lurie said reassuringly. “She felt like baking anyway, as I said. The rest of us will get our share of the spoils, don’t worry.” Deftly, without spilling a drop, she poured me a cup of tea.

  I waited for Ms. Lurie to ask me to apologize to Lucy for shrieking at her. At the very least, I figured she’d insist on hearing what had prompted me to make such a scene.

  She didn’t. “Eat something,” she urged gently, and smiled. “Some of these are still warm. This is the kind of precious moment that has to be seized.”

  The orange biscuits looked gooey, so I clumsily speared a bite with a fork. My stomach roared approval, and I forgot to feel self-conscious, instead launching an all-out assault on the tray’s contents.

  While I chewed, Ms. Lurie made small talk about how old the tree just outside my window was and how the winter birds were arriving early this year and she was afraid they’d be disappointed at how much rain we were sure to have soon. It had been too dry for much too long in our state, but the weather prophets were predicting that soon the clouds would finally remember what their job was.

  She went on like this for a bit even after I’d demolished Miss Miller’s masterpieces. I sat back at last, sipping the tea she’d poured me.

  “Sugar?” she asked belatedly.

  I shook my head, feeling guilty. I wished she’d brought another teacup. It seemed piggish and antisocial to be drinking tea in front of someone without at least trying to share. But all I had was my toothbrush glass, and I couldn’t exactly offer her that.

  She’d have been gracious if I did, though.

  She was still sitting cozily at the foot of my bed, still murmuring about inconsequentials, and I knew this was about more than just waiting for me to empty the tray so she could bring it back downstairs.

  “Okay,” I said, in the next pause.

  Ms. Lurie smiled. “Okay,” she repeated, and then her smile faded. “I know there’s been—well, a mixed response to the idea of going to the Stephen James celebration.” She looked sad. “There’s certainly been a mixed response to calling it a celebration, but it’s difficult to find a short way of saying that we’d like to honor his memory and focus on his life and work.”

  “A tribute?” I suggested.

  She smiled again. “That’s perfect,” she said. “It’s too late for them to change the flyers, but that’s the word I’ll be using from now on.”

  We sat together quietly for a minute. “At any rate,” she went on. “I was wondering if you plan on going.”

  Something in her voice stopped me from giving the blunt, truthful “Good God, no” I would have. “Do you want me to?” I asked cautiously instead.

  Ms. Lurie hesitated. “Ordinarily, I’d say it’s up to you—and of course it is,” she amended quickly. “I don’t mean I’m going to ask you to do something you don’t want to do.”

  “But?”

  She paused again. “I know you don’t generally like to go on our field trips into town, even on normal occasions,” she began.

  Not exactly true, though of course she couldn’t know that. The times I have gone, I’ve liked it quite a bit. Or rather I’ve registered a great deal to like—so many things I’d love to like, carelessly, if I were someone who’s allowed to enjoy ordinary treats.

  As Ms. Lurie has gently pointed out to me, the library in town is significantly bigger than Hawthorne’s. And (she adds) I may not be a big shopper, but it can still be fun to poke around now and then, even if only to laugh at the sort of things people can make a living selling to wide-eyed, loose-walleted tourists.

  Obviously I can’t tell her how terrifying it is for me to be out in the open the way I am in town—even such a small town. I jump a mile at every accidental touch or slight noise.

  So I tend to just say, like Dickinson sitting out the menagerie, that I like the quiet when everyone’s gone.

  Ms. Lurie always smiles a little sadly. “I can understand that,” she says. “But really, it’s not as if the Haw
thorne girls are a terribly loud bunch.”

  “It’s not the volume,” I say. “It’s—I just like how it feels to be alone now and then.” I’m ashamed of how easily the lie comes. Although it’s not completely a lie. The school does feel different when it’s empty of people, and it is rather nice.

  “I worry about you being cooped up so much,” Ms. Lurie went on this time.

  “I’m not—” I began, and then thought better of arguing. “I like it here,” I said instead. “Hawthorne doesn’t feel like a coop.”

  Ms. Lurie smiled. “I’m glad. It’s my own favorite place, as you may have noticed. But—I think it’s easier to appreciate a house if you get out of it now and then.”

  I said nothing because suddenly I wanted more than anything to crawl into her lap and tell her everything and beg her to save me, to make this all stop.

  But she can’t, and even if she wanted to, she’d probably die trying. So I just kept quiet and wondered when I’d become so weak.

  “And there are different ways of being cooped up,” Ms. Lurie went on, smoothly enough that we could both pretend she’d paused for breath rather than a response. “It’s not just that you spend so much of your time inside. You shut yourself away. Your inner self. Your feelings. Your gifts.”

  I put my cup down in its saucer so I’d have an excuse to look at it.

  There was a poem I saw once in a textbook that I had thought must be by Dickinson, but it wasn’t. It was by Christina Rossetti, who didn’t much approve of Dickinson’s writing—not pure and religious enough—but who actually had a lot in common with the poet of Amherst. They were both unmarried and both had beloved brothers who got into big, dramatic trouble with women. And they both wrote poems that can slip effortlessly into your memory.

  Some of the lines from that Rossetti poem flickered through my head:

  All others are outside myself;

  I lock my door and bar them out …

  I lock my door upon myself,

  And bar them out; but who shall wall

  Self from myself, most loathed of all?

  “—more than ever now,” Ms. Lurie said, and I couldn’t tell if this was the end of just a single sentence I’d missed, or a whole paragraph.