A Taxonomy of Love

by Rachael Allen

  This is the horror that lurks between me and an entire tray of coconut fudge. This is what every day for the rest of my life is going to be like.

  “Excuse me.” I squeeze past and grab a piece of fudge, bumping Dean a little as I do because they haven’t left me any room.

  “What’s your problem, man?”

  “Nothing. Just. Do you guys have to be everywhere?”

  I stomp out of the kitchen. I was managing a second ago, and now I feel like the world is exploding. But only inside my head, and it'll take every piece of me when it goes. I chew on my block of fudge, but it doesn’t even taste good right now. What the fuck is wrong with my life that I can’t enjoy coconut fudge?

  “Spencer,” Hope says in a mom voice.

  I turn, and she’s got her arms crossed over her chest like, “Didn’t we just talk about this?” Dean and his stupid face are right behind her.

  I throw up my hands. “I can’t do this right now.”

  Everything is caving in. I don’t want to be me anymore. I would give anything to get out of my brain for just one minute.

  “Spence?” She’s scared now. Uncertain.

  Her voice comes to me through fog, and I see her like she’s standing behind a shower curtain. I can’t do this. I can’t. I’d rather it all be over.

  Pam joins Hope behind the shower curtain, wiping her hands on her pants. “Spencer, are you okay?”

  I hate all the pity in their voices. Hate it.

  “Everybody leave me alone! I just want to die!”

  It seems like a good idea when I say it. The only idea. I walk straight to my dad’s gun safe. Kick the wood-burning kit aside. Enter the combination. I can see it playing out inside my head. I turn the handle.

  There are strong arms around me like iron bars, pulling me away, holding me back. I fight against my brother, but the guy’s got at least forty pounds on me, and he’s not going anywhere. He stays. And he stays. And he stays. And after a couple minutes, his arms stop feeling like a wrestling hold and start feeling a lot like a hug. I hug him back. I think I’m crying.

  “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about it, man. We’re gonna figure this out.”

  And then Pam is there, closing the safe, joining the hug. Hope hugs me, too, so pretty much everyone is hugging and crying at this point. Everything is kind of a blur, and before I know it, I’m in the car, and Pam is whisking me to a special Saturday doctor’s appointment.

  “You don’t have to do this,” I say. “I feel fine. My tics are so much better.”

  “You’re not fine. You haven’t been fine for weeks. I don’t want to hear it.” She grips the steering wheel harder, and I know it’s useless to argue.

  When we get to the office, we have to wait until Dr. Davenport comes to open it up just for us. Pam explains what happened, while I sit there feeling embarrassed.

  Dr. Davenport does not necessarily agree with her assessment. “You know, a lot of kids his age have these kinds of mood swings.”

  But Pam has already gone full-on Mama Bear. “Well, my kid doesn’t. This isn’t him, and you’re going to find something else to give him so he can still be him.”

  The doctor agrees. (A wise decision if he values his life.)

  It takes eight days before I agree with Pam about the meds. Eight days when my tics get bigger and more frequent and the full-body tics start up again. But also eight days that make me feel like someone is slowly sucking the poison out of my soul. It was impossible for me to realize how bad things had gotten until things started to get better, and I could say, “Oh, wow, this is what life is supposed to feel like.”

  They’re gonna try me on another med, but not until we’re sure this one’s out of my system. Pam already has big plans to watch me like a hawk. Not that she doesn’t already.

  I walk into the trophy/weapon/craft room, and try not to think about what happened there eight days ago. There’s a new lock on the gun safe now, and it only opens with my dad’s fingerprint. “I think I’m gonna go ride bikes, okay?”

  Pam’s hawk eyes switch on. “Are you sure?”

  I haven’t really left the house except to go to school since it happened. “I’m fine. I’ll get Hope to go, too.”

  It’s a lie. I’m still avoiding her, because I don’t know what to say, but I don’t have to tell Pam that.

  Pam’s eyes downgrade from hawk to peregrine falcon. “Okay. But come right back after. And call me if you get into trouble.”

  I hold in a sigh. “I will.”

  “Is your phone charged?”

  “It’s charged.” I leave before she can think of anything else to ask, like if I know the number for 911.

  I grab my bike from the garage and wheel it down my driveway. I’m about to hop on when I hear a voice from behind me.

  “Hey!” Hope is running down her front stairs with a book in her hands. She was probably reading on her porch swing again.

  “Hi.” I scuff my toe against the asphalt.

  “Do you maybe want company?” she asks.

  I smile. “Slushies?”

  “Slushies. Let me just get my shoes.”

  She starts back toward her house, but before she can get to the driveway, I call out, “Hope?”

  She turns. “Yeah.”

  “Thanks for still being my friend. After, you know, everything.”

  Her eyes get kind of blinky and red. She comes over and gives me a hug, and she whispers, “We’re always going to be friends.”

  March 4, 7:57 PM

  Hope: AHHH!!! Only three more days till you get home!!! I can’t believe you’re bringing a boy this time! I can’t wait to meet Nolan, and don’t worry, I will totally help you out with Mom and Dad.

  March 5, 11:18 PM

  Hope: Two more days!!! We’re going to eat catfish and go peach picking and watch every musical ever, and I’m so excited for you to meet Dean! I mean, I know you’ve already met Dean, but that was when he was hot, mysterious, and, okay, slightly douchey, Boy-Next-Door Dean, and now he’s Boyfriend Dean, and you’re going to love him, J, you really are.

  March 7, 9:06 AM

  Hope: I know you’re on a plane now, and you can’t see this, but I’m following your trip home because I can’t. Freaking. Wait. I want to hear everything about Samoa!

  March 7, 11:44 AM

  Hope: We’re in the car! On the way to Atlanta! To pick you up at the airport! There aren’t enough exclamation points in the world to convey how excited I am! But I’ll try: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!

  March 7, 1:02 PM

  Hope: We may or may not be waiting just past the security checkpoint. With a huge, embarrassing sign. And balloons. And Dad’s cookies.

  March 7, 1:26 PM

  Hope: Squeee!!! Your plane just landed! Counting down the minutes.

  March 7, 2:11 PM

  Hope: So . . . you’re still not here. Did you miss the part about the cookies because I really thought that would do it?

  March 7, 2:23 PM

  Hope: C’mon, Janie. Throw some elbows. I want to see you!

  March 7, 2:39 PM

  Hope: Oh my gosh, they’re saying a woman collapsed on your plane. That must have been so scary.

  Hope: That’s probably where you are. You’re probably helping her.

  March 7, 3:14 PM

  Hope: Janie, just hurry up and get here, okay? I’m starting to get a bad feeling.

  Mar 9

  Some things that suck about funerals:

  1) You have to be the center of attention during one of the worst days of your entire life. You have to talk to a bunch of people (most of whom you barely know), when really all you want is to be alone. But you can’t because there’s the afterthing at your house, and before that, the burial and the funeral and the receiving line and the wake.

  2) And while we’re on the subject, who the hell thought it would be a good idea to call it a wake? Because it’s not like she’s going to wake up. But every time s
omeone says the word “wake,” all I can think is, “Wouldn’t it be the best thing in the world if she just woke up right now?”

  3) Not being able to cry.

  I know that sounds weird. All you do at funerals is cry.

  I listened to a podcast one time about how different grieving is in other countries. In Haiti, they believe the dead are always with you—that people are a part of your story even after they die. They mourn their dead, fully, intensely, and then they celebrate them. The part I can’t forget is this clip they played of women at a funeral. And these women, they were wailing. Not crying or even sobbing—this was something different from all that. These were air-rending, gut-clenching sounds. Shrieks with the power to rip through anything—air, hearts, the illusions we create to make ourselves feel better. These women were offering up an earnest sacrifice and grabbing clawfuls of solace in return.

  It struck me that no one in America cries like that. Not even at funerals. And it struck me again at Janie’s funeral. Maybe we should. Maybe being forced to stand up tall, all shiny haired and pink cheeked, and say profound, beautiful words about someone you can’t find the will to function without, to be so fucking poetic in front of everybody—maybe all of that is a terrible idea. Maybe if we weren’t trying so hard to stay strong, be cool, cry pretty, we’d all be a lot better off.

  Now that she’s gone, I think I’d much rather wipe my pretty tears, tear my speech in half, and scream at the heavens until my throat bleeds. The shocked church ladies would be thrown back against their pews, stapled by the arrows coming out of my mouth. They’d get how it feels.

  4) People who think the Janie-size hole in my heart can be filled with casserole. Which brings me to why I started writing this in the first place: I can’t do this. I can’t sit downstairs with well-meaning people, who think casseroles and hugs can put any kind of dent in how I’m feeling. Who want to tell stories like they know anything about Janie, and who keep telling me how great my speech was at her funeral. I don’t have the energy for their arm pats and hugs—to make them feel better by letting them feel like they’re making me feel better.

  So, I ditched. I grabbed the cheesiest-looking lasagna, and I carried the whole effing thing upstairs, and yes, I did see you, Mrs. Fontaine from across the street, and you can wipe that judgey look off your face. I locked my door and flopped on the floor of my closet (gently, because lasagna), and then I burst into tears because I realized I’d grabbed two spoons.

  If Janie weren’t dead, she’d think this was the best idea ever, and she’d be in this closet with me, stuffing lasagna in our faces and giggling like crazy about how this was so much better than being downstairs. That’s when I decided to break out the notebook she got me for my fifteenth birthday. I still can’t wrap my head around the fact that she won’t be here for my sixteenth.

  How can it be real that we’ll never get to do stuff together again? A movie montage, like the kind from a cheesy Lifetime movie, plays in my head—Hope and Janie, the highlights. Singing into our hairbrushes while making terrible music videos, spending every second of summer at the community pool, watching musicals until four in the morning, poring over maps with the seriousness of UN delegates.

  It’s that last thought that really guts me. It sets off a vision in my head of the whole world, and each person Janie touched is a tiny light, and then Janie’s light just—poof—winks out. And then so do the others, like dominoes. And now I’m not just missing Janie for me. I’m missing her for everyone else. My parents, her boyfriend, the friends she’ll never make and the children she’ll never have. And nameless people all over the world. Faces that stare out at me from my walls, drawn with my sister’s careful fingers.

  Sometimes one bright spot in a sea of crap can be the thing that gets you through. My sister was that bright spot for so many people. And now that she’s gone—what are those people going to do now? What am I going to do?

  I don’t understand how she could be so vibrant—so her—while she had this darkness growing inside of her. How did I not see it? If it was taking her over, shouldn’t there have been some kind of sign, like her blue eyes turning gray? How could a tumor kill someone like Janie? It reminds me of when we used to read Harry Potter chapter by chapter before bed. The part where Hagrid is outraged, saying a car crash couldn’t kill Harry’s parents.

  Well, a tumor couldn’t kill my sister.

  It’s not dramatic enough. She should have been mauled by a tiger in Sudan or taken out by a rogue bullet in a Russian mafia showdown. Not that I wanted any of that to happen. But she’s that kind of magical. And my life felt like it had been brushed with magic when she was in it. Any minute now, I keep thinking someone’s going to say, “Janie’s alive. She had to fake her death as part of a multinational conspiracy.” Or maybe even, “Yer a wizard, Hope.”

  But none of that happens. And after I saw the body, I stopped waiting for it.

  She wasn’t supposed to be so still. Janie is motion. There’s no potential energy. Every ounce of her is kinetic. Using everything she has right now. Never saving anything for later. Which is good, I guess, because she didn’t get a later.

  The lasagna I’m eating tastes suspiciously healthy, like maybe someone snuck in some eggplant or the noodles are made out of quinoa. Someone is knocking on the door, but I’m not going to get it, so they can just keep knocking.

  “I’m leaving something for you.” It’s Spencer’s voice.

  And now he’s shuffling away. Hang on, I’m gonna peek out. There’s something wrapped in stupidly cheery napkins (side note: who thought napkins with tulips and daisies were a good idea?) that he’s stuffed through the crack under the door. I guess I should go see what it is.

  Okay, I’m back.

  I snaked my way over, careful not to flip the lasagna onto my shoe rack, and retrieved Spencer’s mystery gift. Written on the napkin in his messy boy handwriting were the words: In case you want dessert.

  He left me cookies, Pam’s Peanut Butter Blossoms, which he knows are my favorite.

  I think I’ve changed my mind.

  The food and stuff? Sometimes it can help.

  FROM: hopetacular2000@gmail.com

  TO: janie.m.birdsong@gmail.com

  DATE: Apr 27, 11:18 PM

  SUBJECT: grief

  You’re in a dark tunnel. In the distance, there’s the faintest circle of light, so you know it’s possible to feel good again someday, but at the same time, it feels like you’ll never get there. All the steps are made with such painful slowness, that maybe you don’t even want to try. Maybe you want to curl up in the middle of the tunnel and stay there. Maybe forever.

  May 12

  Hey Janie,

  It’s been two months, since, well, you know. I don’t even know why I keep writing like this because I know you can’t read it, but I could really use some sisterly advice right now, okay? If you were here, you’d know exactly what to do. But you’re not here. I feel like that summer when you taught me how to swim without floaties, and anytime I started to sink, you’d be there, pushing me up, and I knew there was nothing to be afraid of. Now I’m in the deep end all alone, and I’m floundering. I mean, I really have no idea what I’m doing, and I am so, so afraid.

  There are a million things you’ll never get to do. That’s the thought that consumes me. That you could have all these dreams and plans and then, poof, it’s over. If I think about it for too long, my lungs won’t let me take a full breath and my heart starts beating in my ears. It’s better not to think about it.

  So, I chase the things that keep my mind empty. Don’t make plans beyond the next hour. Don’t build fantasy worlds where good things happen to good people and sisters live. Real life is no place for a dreamer.

  Sometimes I turn over all the picture frames with you in them. I squirrel away everything that reminds me of you in dresser drawers and the darkest corners of my closet, so I don’t have to see it. And sometimes I take all the photos out and cry over them for hours because
it hurts more not to look. Last night was one of those nights with the crying and the looking. Someone at the foundation sent us all this stuff of yours, and a bunch of information about the work you were doing and how great you were. Which is nice, truly, but it sent Mom into one of those moods, and she kept crying and hugging me, long past the point where it stopped feeling normal. So, I pulled away and said, “I miss her, too.” And she smiled and touched my cheek and said, “I’ll be okay. God made sure you’d be here to finish what she started.”

  And I know she meant it as a kindness, but it just felt awful. I ran upstairs and pulled out all my pictures from that trip we took to New Orleans. I needed to feel your arms around me so badly and hear you laugh. The lack of it was killing me by degrees. I needed more than just photos. I needed you. And the emptiness was more than I could bear.

  So, I climbed through Dean’s window.

  I know. I know. I said I would never do it. But I did do it, and it’s too late now for your lectures from beyond the grave.

  I tiptoed out of the house in a T-shirt and my bare feet. The ground was cold, and it almost made me turn back. If it had been just a little colder, maybe I wouldn’t have done it. If Dean had slept through me knocking on his window. Because I knocked like a coward or like someone who wanted the fates to decide what happened next. The fates thought it would be a good idea for Dean to show up at the window shirtless and with TV-commercial sleepy hair. Clearly, they are pro people getting laid, these fates.

  Dean opened the window and ran a hand across his exhausted eyes like maybe he was too tired to be seeing clearly. “Hope?”

  “Hey,” I whispered. And then I climbed through the window and into his bed.

  He reached out a hand to steady me. “I never thought I’d see you do that.”

  “I don’t want to be alone.”

  And I was so stupid, Janie. I curled up against him under the covers like I didn’t know what was going to happen. But I did know.

  I knew from the first second he started kissing me. I could have said no so many times, but I didn’t because I knew he would have stopped, and I didn’t want him to. I wanted to feel something.