Just a Normal Tuesday

by Kim Turrisi

  So many lights.

  So many people.

  The vehicles are all parked haphazardly in the middle of the street outside the busted-in door of Jen’s tiny one-bedroom place. No order whatsoever. Car doors left wide open. I leap out of the Jeep before it rolls to a complete stop. I’m blinded by the need to get to my sister and help her. My legs start running and one of the police officers stops me with his extended forearm. I struggle to get away.

  “My sister is in there!” I yell. I shove and flail. I have to get to her.

  “Your parents are on the way,” he offers.

  “How? What?” Nothing is computing.

  “We found your father’s office number in her phone. It was on her nightstand. I’m so sorry,” I hear him say through the fog that has rolled into my head.

  TJ sprints toward me but not before I break free from the police officer’s arms.

  I rush through my sister’s living room, dodging the ottoman, blowing by her oversize leather chair, passing through throngs of uniformed officers, into her bedroom.

  Then everything stops.

  Chapter 2

  Time stands still.

  There she is, smack in front of me, my beautiful sister lounging in her king-size bed, wearing her favorite worn plaid pajama bottoms and Florida State Fear the Spear T-shirt.

  She’s surrounded by pillows in various shades of purple, her favorite color. Purple everything.

  I notice a notepad, the one she must have used to write my letter, right next to a book of stamps and an endless pile of family photographs. She looks so peaceful, like she’s crashed out. It reminds me of all our sleepovers. We’d give each other mani-pedis, we’d order Hawaiian pizza with jalapeños and she’d counsel me on our parents. They don’t really get me. She’s going to run interference when I tell them about my gap year.

  Was going to.

  My eye catches the photo frame of Duke’s paw print I made for her a few birthdays back. It took me almost an hour to get him to sit still for that.

  “She was already gone when we got here,” a voice near me says, snapping me out of what used to be.

  I slam back into my body.

  There’s extreme pain, like a four-alarm fire, raging inside my chest. My sister isn’t surrounded by nail polish or a pizza box. Instead, a wineglass lies on its side.

  Dead like her.

  Empty pill bottles pepper the nightstand, right next to her dog-eared copy of On the Road by Jack Kerouac. I flick off a hand that tries to stop me from getting to her side. “She’s my fucking sister, get away from me.” Some demon inside just hisses at the poor guy in my path to Jen. I bodycheck him to get to her. No one else makes the mistake of trying to stop me.

  I need to hold her, touch her. One more time. But I freeze, stuck to the muted purple-and-gray area rug next to her bed.

  I drop to my knees, swallow hard and take her hand in mine. It’s so cold, like gripping an ice cube. So still. I reach for the blanket neatly folded at the foot of the bed to cover her hand and mine.

  I shift closer to her bedside table, my eyes on the pill bottles. Lots of colors, names. Where did these come from? She never went to the doctor.

  Like, never.

  It was Eastern medicine for her all the way, homeopathic everything. Until this. Making sense of the senseless.

  The dark-rinse blue jeans and rumpled shirt she wore two short days ago, only forty-eight hours, lie in a heap where she must have left them after Sunday dinner at our house.

  I grab the soft chambray shirt from the floor, drawing it close to my face to breathe in her scent. Kiehl’s Musk, her signature smell. I wrap the shirt around me tightly, wishing her arms were in the empty sleeves, holding me. Soothing me. My whole body is shaking.

  I can’t stop staring at her face. Her soft, light chestnut hair, lying delicately around her face. The long eyelashes that never needed mascara. A lone beauty mark on her right cheek, small but noticeable in a movie star kind of way. A light blue tint taking over her usual fair skin.

  What if I forget what she looks like?

  A torrent follows, forcing me to drop my forehead on the edge of the bed. “Miss,” a voice whispers, “I think you should come into the living room and wait for your parents.”

  I have to talk to Jen. I lean closer to her ear and ask, “How could you do this? I don’t understand.”

  Then I force myself to back away though the last thing I want to do is to leave her.

  In the living room of her tiny apartment, everything looks precisely the same as when I last visited her for our monthly movie date. The chocolate-colored Restoration Hardware chenille throw Mom bought her as a housewarming gift draped at the end of her couch. The June issue of Rolling Stone magazine with “Top Ten Summer Concerts” on the cover, black Sharpie circling Ed Sheeran. Jen’s iPad tossed next to her distressed-leather backpack.

  I vaguely hear the drone of familiar voices and whip around to see my parents in conversation with the police officer who tried to stop me when I first walked in. My dad’s Windsor knot is cockeyed, his face pale, radiating heartbreak. My mother’s agony runs a marathon down her face.

  “Where’s my daughter?” my father says, his worried eyes scanning the room as he rushes through the uniforms to my side. “Oh, Kai.” He reels me in close. When my father’s salty tears land on my face, I realize it’s the first time in my life I’ve ever seen him show any emotion at all, let alone cry.

  Over my father’s shoulder, I see my mother collapse, inconsolable as her worst fear is confirmed by a stranger in a dark blue uniform. Paramedics rush to her aid, handing her water and tissues. I could stand to replace the liquids that have left my body in the last half hour. “No! No! No!” My mom keeps repeating that over and over. I was stuck on repeat with please, she’s stuck on no.

  Suddenly I want to be let loose. I jerk back away from my father’s embrace. “What took you so long?” I snap at him. “I left you a bunch of messages, you never called me back.”

  Dad grimaces, sniffling. “Oh, Kai, I never got to them. I’m so sorry. I hurried over here as soon as the police called my office. I picked your mom up on the way. All they said was there’d been an accident and we rushed right here and … and …” He stops. It doesn’t matter anyway.

  “It wasn’t an accident,” I mutter.

  I try to focus.

  “She wrote to me — to all of us — about what she had done, what she was doing. I called 911. It happened so fast. TJ drove me. I got here as soon as I could but I was too late. I couldn’t save her.” I know I’m rambling but, God, I’ve just seen my only sister’s lifeless body with my own shattered eyes. My mom makes her way to us just as I get out the only words that really matter.

  “She killed herself.”

  Those three words shake me to my core.

  “It was an accident,” Mom says. “They said there was an accident.”

  She keeps insisting.

  “An accident, Kai.”

  “They lied,” I tell her. I mean, I just say it flat out.

  The misery on my mother’s face is palpable. I hate the words as I’m saying them. I start to cry softly but march on. I have to. It’s on me. Jen put it all on me. Christ.

  “Suicide, Mom.”

  She reaches for my dad.

  “In my letter. She said she couldn’t take the pain anymore. I don’t understand. Everything was okay on Sunday, wasn’t it?”

  “I thought so.” I barely recognize the slight voice that’s coming out of my mom’s mouth. Her shoulders start to shudder; she’s whimpering like a child.

  “Mr. Sheehan,” a man in a suit with a badge on his belt interrupts, “Detective Daly.” He shakes my dad’s hand. “I’m sorry, we’ll have to ask you a few questions. Just routine paperwork.”

  Nothing is routine about a twenty-two-year-old k
illing herself on a random Tuesday.

  Mom and I hang on to each other like we’re clinging on for dear life while my father answers questions that no longer matter.

  “What was your daughter’s full name, sir?”

  “Jennifer Leigh Sheehan.”

  “How old was she, sir?”

  “Twenty-two.” That crushes me once more. My dad’s sheet-white skin accents the black stubble on his cheeks. Random thoughts keep popping into my head. We were supposed to learn how to surf. We have tickets to the Fleetwood Mac reunion concert in Orlando at the end of the summer, our entire road trip planned. Jen used to play “Landslide” on her guitar to lull me to sleep when I was six. I still listen to it when I have insomnia. She was supposed to move me into my dorm at Florida State after my gap year; she wouldn’t even entertain the idea of me not being a Seminole. I was going to be her maid of honor someday.

  She was supposed to be here.

  “Sir, the paramedics think she’s been dead for some time.When was the last time you saw Jennifer?”

  “Jen,” I correct him. It seems important.

  “Sunday. At dinner,” Dad says.

  “We had spaghetti and meatballs,” I say. Not that it matters.

  He scribbles the unimportant information on a small notepad. I edge closer to my father.

  “Sir, I have to ask, is there anyone who might want to hurt your daughter?”

  I step up. “She killed herself.”

  Detective Daly stops writing, turning all his attention in my direction.

  I continue, “She wrote letters. I got mine when I came home from school.”

  The agony that traces my mom’s face stabs at me.

  “Thank you. I’m so very sorry for your loss,” he says. He runs his hand through his hair and turns to my dad. “Those are all the questions I have. The medical examiner is here for your daughter’s body.”

  “Medical examiner?” my dad asks.

  “We have to dispatch them for anything that might be a homicide, but since she left a suicide note, there’s no need for an autopsy. Unless you’d like one.”

  I can’t hold back. “No one is cutting my sister.” Jesus Christ.

  The detective powers on. It’s all part of the routine. “They can coordinate with the funeral home. Who would you like them to call?”

  You could almost hear a pin drop. My dad’s face is blank, glazed over. My mom and I are on mute.

  Officer Daly turns to my father. “Sir?”

  “I have no idea.” John Sheehan always has the answers. He is the master of the courtroom, never at a loss for words. His ability to make truth out of words is his moneymaker.

  Just not today.

  “I want to see my daughter,” he says with an anguished crack in his voice.

  “I’ll take you back to her,” Detective Daly states.

  Dad reaches for Mom’s hand, gently placing it in his, their fingers twining together. They move toward Jen’s room at the pace of molasses. I fall back on the tapestry ottoman that once resided in my grandma Sheehan’s condo and cradle one of the throw pillows to my chest; I just can’t go back to her bedroom and see them see her.

  I silently wish I had some weed or maybe a shooter of vodka. Actually, a handle of vodka is more like it. Anything to dull the throbbing in my head.

  TJ and I began a weekend diet of both after my ugly breakup sophomore year and it became part of our routine. If Jen knew, she would have killed me. The beers we shared were fine, the rest she would not have approved of. At all.

  So ironic.

  I start to text Emily, my closest girlfriend — her family lives five McMansions down from us. Then I realize this is one of those god-awful moments you are forced to say words out loud. I can’t send a text. I’m going to have to call.

  As soon as she answers, my eyes well up and I stumble over my words. “Jen’s gone.” That’s all I manage to say, two words. One of the milling police officers offers me some water, not vodka, and I chug it, almost choking. I hear Emily calling for her mom, who takes the phone from her.

  “Kai, what’s happened? Emily said Jen’s gone. Gone where?”

  She’s not getting it either.

  “She died, Mrs. Lancaster.” That makes six times already that I’ve told that to someone. TJ, the 911 operator, my two parents, now my second family, Emily and her mom. I could go a lifetime without ever uttering those words again. Mrs. Lancaster starts to weep.

  “Oh my God, what happened?”

  “She’s … just … I can’t … dead.” Nothing makes sense. Not Jen dying or the words I attempt.

  Mrs. Lancaster says something about bringing food. As if anyone wants to eat.

  “Okay.” There’s really no other response. I hang up and return to my parents.

  My mother, father and I reluctantly leave the professionals to do what they do best: clean up someone’s mess. Though no one will ever be able to fix this one.

  I whip my aviator sunglasses out of my purse before we head outside, my eyes feeling swollen and surely bloodred. The ache in my heart consumes every inch of me. The humidity of the early Florida evening fogs up my lenses and I don’t bother wiping them off. The last thing I need is a clearer picture of what’s in front of me.

  When my mother takes a startled breath, I slide the sunglasses down my nose just enough to see what she’s looking at. A stretcher is being hauled out of a stark white vehicle. A hearse? No. I see the words MEDICAL EXAMINER in bold blue letters. A woman with a badge affixed to her shirt pocket removes a black body bag from the back, and catches me staring. I manage to clear the lump that’s settled in my throat.

  “Please don’t zip her in that bag,” I say. Not Jen. “She’s claustrophobic.”

  The medical examiner pushes the bag aside, her face drawn with sorrow. “I’m so sorry for your loss.” Her voice reminds me of my sister’s.

  I glance over at my mother, who’s wiping away her distress. One of her diamond droplet earrings has been lost in the melee. Along with one daughter.

  We are silent in the car. Mom pops a tiny orange pill into her mouth. I glance over my shoulder and watch my sister’s apartment disappear through my tears.

  Chapter 3

  The second we get home we all retreat to our separate corners of the house. The mound of mail is on my desk exactly where I left it, and I know what I have to do next whether I like it or not. There’s no easy way out of this. One letter open, two still sealed.

  Again, it’s on me.

  I trudge into the steel-and-granite kitchen, finding my mom at the breakfast island, hunched over a picture of our former family. She hasn’t bothered to reapply her makeup, and my mother is always, I mean always, on point with her image. Lawn signs with her face decorate some of the wealthiest streets in the Fort Lauderdale Beach area. Sheehan Realty, Mom’s thriving business, was built on her reputation and appearance. “I don’t know what happened,” Mom says. “She was fine on Sunday when she was here for dinner. It was all so sudden. What if it was an accidental overdose?”

  A convenient tsunami of Catholic denial just sucked in the entire McMansion, dog and all. She doesn’t even sound like she remotely believes her own words as they tumble out of her mouth. Still, I can’t listen to her lie this away. “Give me a break, Mom.”

  I plow on through.

  “You saw all the pill bottles, the empty wineglass? And she sent me a letter, Mom. She sent you one, too.” I show it to her. “In mine, she killed herself. She wasn’t at some party mixing Jack Daniel’s and Molly. She sat alone in her apartment, wrote us all goodbye letters and ended her life. On purpose.”

  The sting of my words is written all over my mom’s fatigued face. But I am pissed.

  “Please stop saying that,” she pleads.

  “She was worried we would be embarrassed. I can’t believe s
he thought that. You aren’t, are you?”

  Her hesitation answers me. I can’t even look at her. I set the letter down next to her glass of vodka, no ice, and wonder if she’d notice me pouring a drink for myself. “Are you going to read it?” I ask.

  “I’d like to read it alone,” she replies, void of emotion.

  With the final letter to deliver, I find Dad tucked inside our tech-heavy family room — complete with two flat-screen TVs on the wall so Dad and his buddies can watch two games at once — draped over the wrought-iron-and-marble bar he bought in Italy on a business trip. He’s pouring three fingers of Johnnie Walker Blue into a crystal cocktail glass with one oversize cube of ice. He takes a long pull from it, then plants himself in his leather recliner, cradling the scotch glass like it’s a baby.

  I offer him the envelope and explain, though I doubt this needs an explanation. “I picked up the mail like you asked us to do. First one home gets the mail. Jen sent each one of us a letter. One for me, one for you, one for Mom. I only read mine. Here’s yours.”

  I thrust it into his hand.

  He stares at it but can’t look at me. Or maybe it’s just that he won’t. I wish he would just open it. Right here, in front of me. Instead, he grips it tightly in his left hand, draining the scotch in his right.

  “Dad?” I know I sound small. “I need to know more. Maybe your letter will explain.” Sharing is not a Sheehan trait.

  “I can’t, Kai.”

  We’re the perfect family, always the life of the party at any public event. But once those double doors slam shut, so do the feelings.

  First phone calls, now letters. I’m the messenger of death. Defeated, I shuffle into the dining room, retreating to the home of my sister’s chair. I’m hanging on to anything and everything Jen. The Sheehans sit in the same chairs for every meal, always have. Dad and Mom at the two ends of the table. Me across from my sister. Just close enough that we can kick each other under the table and roll our eyes about our parents. Now what do we do with her spot at the table?