Goodbye for Now: A Novel

by Laurie Frankel

  “No,” said Sam.

  “You’re the one who thinks RePose is such a miracle. You’re the one who thinks it’s helping people. You’re getting rich off this wretched service. I will pay you anything you want. I will be a client. I will sign the release forms. I will do whatever you have people do. Let me see her, Sam. Let me talk to her.”

  “No,” said Sam quietly. “I’m sorry. But no. I understand. I do. I understand. But it’s not for you.”

  “Why not?”

  “Remember her the way she was.”

  “Isn’t that what this thing does?”

  “Remember her in your head. Remember her in your heart. Remember her from your memories.”

  “It’s not enough.”

  “I know.”

  “It’s not.”

  “I know.”

  “You talk to her.”

  “I do.” Sam had to concede this point. Sam had to concede all her points really. “But it’s different for me.”

  “Why?” Julia was still angry but seemed to have switched tactics to arguing nastily in order to trap Sam in some kind of logical fallacy.

  “Because I understand what RePose is, and you don’t.”

  “Show me how.”

  “When I talk to her, no matter how real it looks, no matter how alive she seems, I never forget that she—”

  “You think I do? You think I could ever forget that she died? Every minute, Sam. Every goddamn minute it is all I remember.”

  “That’s not what I mean. When you saw Livvie that time, you begged me to turn it off. You begged us to make it stop.”

  “That was different.”

  “No it wasn’t. You thought it was sick. You thought it was wrong.”

  “I need to see her.”

  “She’s gone.”

  “No she isn’t. You have her.”

  “I don’t. Believe me, I don’t.” By this point, they were both in tears, and not the gentle, graceful, Mary-Mother-of-God kind that slip quietly down holy cheeks and would have been appropriate for the occasion. More like the end of King Lear. “And besides, I think you were right,” Sam added when he was able. “The idea was to help people say goodbye, but they don’t; they stay. The idea was to help people mourn, help them get over it a little faster, but in fact RePose prevents them from mourning, prevents them from getting over it, healing, moving on. Remembering should hurt. It should be painful. We’re depriving people of that torment and its tonic.” He squeegeed his face with the palms of his hands. “Suffice it to say, when you were clear and sane and whole, you thought it was a horrible idea, and I’m not going to let you do it now.”

  By this time, Dash had grown worried and came down to investigate why Sam hadn’t come upstairs yet. “Aunt Julia!” He faked enthusiasm to see her, but like Sam, he knew instantly why she was there.

  She turned to her nephew, wiped angrily at her eyes and nose. “Do you talk to her, too?”

  “Occasionally,” said Dash, as if he’d actually been present for the preceding scene. “Not very much. It’s so not the same. It sounds stupid to say that because of course it’s not the same, but it’s just not very gratifying. It doesn’t touch the ache of missing her.” He shrugged. “RePose works better for some people than others. For Meredith and me, it’s just not our thing. It wouldn’t work very well for you anyway. You didn’t video chat enough with her in life. Even if Sam said yes, it wouldn’t be any good.”

  “I need to tell her I love her.” Julia knew she’d lost but couldn’t stop fighting anyway.

  “She knew,” said Dash.

  “I need to tell her I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “For not supporting her new life. For what I said about RePose.”

  “Why?” said Sam. “You were right.”

  FOR AULD LANG SYNE

  They closed the salon between Christmas and New Year’s. Users went home to be with their families. Dash went to L.A. to be with his clothes. Julia went home to suffer with Kyle. Penny’s kids and their kids came for the week. And Sam retired to the bedroom to be alone with Meredith.

  Jamie called midweek and asked him to go skiing, but he declined.

  “Mountain air might do you good,” Jamie said.

  “No, thank you.”

  “Little bit of exercise?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “What if I won’t take ‘no thank you’ for an answer?”

  “The alternative is not affirmative,” said Sam. “It’s just less polite.”

  Jamie thought about it. “Okay, Sam. For the moment, I am giving you space. Don’t mistake that for not giving a toss.”

  “I won’t,” Sam assured him. “Really.”

  “Don’t think it’s going to last forever either. Starting next week, I’ll badger you until you relent.”

  “Looking forward to it,” said Sam.

  Penny’s daughter Katie came up to invite him to lunch with them, but he declined that too. Avery Fitzgerald was taking her kids to Vancouver for Boxing Day celebrations and wondered if he wanted to tag along, but he didn’t. Meredith asked three times during the week if he wanted to see a movie tonight. That was the only one he would have said yes to.

  Dash messaged to tell him to leave the bedroom.

  “What makes you think I haven’t?” wrote Sam.

  “I know you,” Dash texted back.

  “I’m fine,” wrote Sam.

  “You need contact with real people, not virtual people,” said Dash.

  “You’re giving me this lecture via text message,” wrote Sam.

  “Only because I’m not there,” wrote Dash.

  “How many hours did you spend on Facebook today?” asked Sam. “And how many hanging out with actual friends?”

  “Not the point,” wrote Dash.

  “Yes it is,” wrote Sam.

  He called Meredith.

  “Happy New Year,” she said when she picked up.

  “Almost,” said Sam. He meant almost the New Year. It wasn’t even close to happy.

  “How was Christmas?”

  “It was okay. I saw your mom.”

  “Really? How is she?”

  “She misses you.”

  “I miss her too. And you.”

  “She wants to talk to you. RePose with you. But I told her no. Remember how much she freaked out when she found out about Livvie in the first place?”

  Meredith thought about it for a bit. “I’m sorry, love, I—”

  Sam cut her off. “Suffice it to say she was not amused.”

  “I’m not surprised. Mom’s not that big into technology. I doubt we have enough electronic archive between us to RePose anyway.”

  “She was really mad. Really mad. I was just trying to protect her. It wouldn’t be good for her.”

  “Is it good for you?” asked Meredith.

  “It’s all I’ve got.”

  “Does it make it better?”

  “Nothing can make it better, Merde. Nothing. At this point I’m more hole than anything else. I’m hole with a tiny bit of Sam clinging to the flaming rim.”

  “Maybe you need real people. Instead of just me.”

  “Dash said the same thing. Everyone says the same thing. I’m not getting the distinction though. I don’t even know what anyone means by ‘real.’ It’s not just me—everyone spends most of their time with virtual friends these days. Everyone spends more time on Facebook than out with people, more time clicking through profiles than going on dates, more time playing video game tennis than actual tennis and video game guitar than actual guitar. Social media just isn’t that social. Really it’s isolating. Really it’s being alone. So at least I’m not that, right? At least I have you.”

  “No, Sam,” said Meredith. “Really you’re being alone.”

  On New Year’s Eve, Josh Annapist called, and though Sam was intent on declining his invitation as he had everyone else’s, Josh’s turned out to be less optional than all that.

  “I know i
t’s New Year’s Eve,” Josh began when he called, “but I figured maybe you didn’t have big plans, so I wondered if you wanted to hang tonight and—”

  “I’m really just wanting to be alone,” Sam interrupted.

  “—come visit me in the hospital,” Josh finished.

  “Oh shit,” said Sam. “What happened?”

  “I have leukemia,” said Josh.

  “I meant this week. You were fine Christmas Eve.” Sam recalled even as he said this that it wasn’t exactly true.

  “They don’t know,” Josh reported. “Could be my liver. Could be my lungs. Could be the beating my kidneys have taken from the cyclosporine. I’ve been feeling like shit for a while now. Anyway, they admitted me to St. Giles last night and—”

  Sam didn’t even wait for the end of the sentence. Whatever it was, it didn’t matter. “I’ll be right over.”

  Josh looked like shit in addition to feeling like shit, and it was rainy and freezing out, but he wanted fresh air and to see the fireworks over the Space Needle.

  “We’ll get in trouble,” said Sam.

  “It’s New Year’s Eve. Everyone stuck on duty tonight is new. You can take ’em.”

  “It’s too cold for you.”

  “You’re worried I’ll get sick?” said Josh.

  “Maybe sicker,” said Sam.

  “Almost not possible,” said Josh.

  “Still …”

  “This is my last New Year’s Eve,” said Josh. “My last new year. I think I’d better see the fireworks.”

  The roof had an amazing view of the Space Needle. Sam snagged a wheelchair from the hallway and extra blankets from a closet in the empty room next door, wound Josh up like a mummy (“I’m not dead yet,” he protested, “and I’m not an Egyptian priest anyway”), and brought him up. There was a little garden up there and a bench—surprising but Sam supposed something along these lines must be lots of people’s late wishes. They watched the fireworks, and they watched their breath.

  “So what’s your wish on the new year?” Sam asked about fifteen minutes into it.

  “That it be fast. Over quickly,” said Josh after a long while. “I can’t believe I’m saying that, but it’s true. When I was first diagnosed, all I wanted to do was fight. I was sure I’d beat it. I didn’t even know what that meant, but I was sure I’d do it anyway. I had no doubt. At some point, they wanted me to do a living will. You know, decide about a DNR and all that, and I was all, ‘No need, man. I always want to be resuscitated. No matter what.’ Now I’m tired and I feel like shit all the time and I’m tired of feeling like shit all the time. And I know it’s basically over. Drawing it out is torture. So maybe that’s leukemia’s last blessing. Only blessing. It gets so fucking bad, you don’t mind dying. Christ, I’m a downer tonight, huh?”

  “That’s okay,” said Sam.

  “It’s just that so much of my family and friends are remote, so we e-mail; we video chat; they keep track of my progress on Facebook and stuff. So I can’t talk about any of this with them because I don’t want my projection to talk about it after I’m gone. I don’t want to make my mom spend the rest of her life talking to me about dying. That’s why I needed someone who could come in person.”

  “Glad to do it,” said Sam. “I mean, sorry I have to, but glad I could help. Really.”

  “Anyway, what about you?” said Josh. “What’s your wish on the new year?”

  “Same,” said Sam. “That it be over quickly.”

  “I don’t know, man. I don’t have to make plans for the new year, but you do. You may feel like you’re dying, but you’re going to wake up every morning anyway. What are you going to do with it?”

  “Work. Sleep. Get through it.”

  “I wish I were going to be around. I like you,” said Josh. “But other people like you too, you know.”

  “I don’t really want company.”

  “Yeah, but they want you. You don’t have to do this alone. You don’t get to do this alone. And not because you invented a way to talk to Meredith. Because you invented a family. Support groups aren’t my thing. Too depressing. Too defined by being sad and left. But your users, man? They’re proactive. They’re defined by drastic measures. They’re not wallowers; they’re risk takers. They’re not people left behind; they’re people brand-new. They’ve got your back, first because they owe you but second because they like you. They like you and they understand you. They’ll be good company. They’ll take good care of you.”

  Sam shrugged like that didn’t matter. “And who will take care of you?”

  “You will,” said Josh. “You’ll talk to me after I’m gone, won’t you?”

  “Do you want me to?”

  “I do, yeah, because I won’t be nearly so much of a downer as I am now.”

  “If you want me to I will. Of course I will,” said Sam. “Send everyone else by too—your folks and friends and family—I’ll set everyone up right away. On the house.”

  “Thanks, man. And you’ll tell Noel too?”

  “Sure.”

  “Do you tell him I died? Or do you tell him I got better?”

  “Which would give you more peace?”

  “Neither. There is no peace. That bird flew long ago.” He was quiet for a bit. Then he added, “In some ways, Sam, Meredith was lucky.” Sam’s eyes filled instantly, but he was listening. “Crushed by a roof is a hell of a way to go. Too early for sure, but she never saw it coming at least, didn’t hurt, didn’t have to spend her last years and years sick and exhausted. She missed the fear, the regret, the sadness in everyone else’s eyes all the time, and that’s the worst part. Everything I do, I’m haunted. This is the last time I’ll ever whatever. My mom is going to have that look on her face always. I’ll never feel well again. It’s so sad all the time, every minute. It’s awful to live with. It’s awful to die by. Crushed by a roof is much better than leukemia.”

  “And life after your girlfriend is crushed by a roof?”

  “I don’t know,” said Josh. “Seems much, much worse.”

  LOVE LETTER

  Dear Merde,

  For a while, at the beginning, I thought we’d phase out e-mail. Video chat was just so much more powerful, more immediate and real. More present. Now that I’m a user, I realize that video chat is as much absence as presence, maybe more, but e-mails are all present, all right here. They’re longer, more savorable. I get to say all the things I long to say in exactly the perfect words, and then you write back, also full of love and longing, something to read and reread and treasure, a thread I can spool out as much as I wish whenever its tether wears thin.

  I’ve been chatting with Livvie. She calls looking for you, of course. I tell her you’re at yoga achieving spiritual enlightenment which for all I know might be at least a little bit true. At first, she couldn’t understand why you were always out, why you’d gone from calling so often to never calling at all. I know she isn’t real, and yet I can’t bear to tell her why you’ve stopped calling. I know she isn’t real, but you would insist on not leaving her—it—to wonder. I thought about just shutting her down—I know she isn’t real—but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

  And yet, it’s killing me, Merde, because three, four, five times a week I have to talk to your grandmother, promise her you’re well, report that nothing’s new here, it’s just same old same old, quiet and wonderful, with a new business going swimmingly and a fabulous life spread out before us and you’ve made time for yoga and you’re taking care of yourself and you come home tired but happy and limber and stress-free and you’re sure to walk in the door any second now and I’ll give you the message and you’ll call her back and we’ll make time soon, really soon, to take some time off and go visit her in Florida together. I promise her this, and she hangs up satisfied, and then we do it all again the next night and the one after that, and in between I wander around her empty apartment, our empty apartment, and know, know, that I could go out with Jamie or Dash or Josh or one of our other use
rs or take Penny to dinner, but I would still be all alone.

  That is why e-mail is better than video chat. That is why video chat is more absence than anything else.

  Love,

  Sam

  DYING ISN’T DEAD

  January is a hard time of year in Seattle. It’s true that every day there are a few more minutes of daylight, but absent the light and lights of the holidays, it feels very dark indeed. Night falls around four thirty in the afternoon and stays until eight or so the next morning, and since the sun never gets much above the horizon and since the total cloud cover and incessant rain mean you wouldn’t see it anyway, they are days shrouded and vague. Sam was starting to conclude that Jamie was right to prefer the British response to such conditions—pint over latte. The dim cornery closeness and numbing sedation promised by a pub seemed a much better approach than the cheery bustle and stimulant of the every-corner coffee shops. What was so great it warranted waking up and getting stimulated for anyway? Sam was depressed, but every Seattleite who could chose indoors and back-to-bed as well. Livvie was quite cheerful, but she was the only one. And she was in Florida. Not to mention dead.

  RePosers stayed home too. It was the darkness and the wet. It was the exhaustion of holidays without loved ones, of having made it through only to discover on the other side a whole life alone and missing stretching out ahead. Or they came, but the wonder of RePose was wearing thin, wearing off, wearing on them all. They tired of having the same conversations again and again. They tired of avoiding the same topics, of shaping their conversations about only the past, never what happened next. They tired of only ever being the person they were, never the one they were becoming. They couldn’t give it up, but it wasn’t the elation it once had been either. David Elliot wondered whether, like a drug, they should do it more and more in order to maintain the same high as before. Avery Fitzgerald suspected David might have missed the point of his drug education programs.