by Pamela Ribon
He paid his taxes. He owned his house. He raised a family. We never starved. We always had clothing. We even had cable. He was good at his job, a job he never really bothered to explain to all of us. He was good at being a husband, a job my mother never really bragged about. My father was a man who did the things in life you’re supposed to do.
Looking around this place he left behind—at my younger sisters all grown up, starting their own lives with determination and self-esteem, at my mother who doesn’t have to worry about how to pay for the house or pay the bills, or me, his oldest daughter, who lives on her own over a thousand miles away—I’m starting to realize why he was so quiet those last few years.
He was testing us. He wanted to make sure we’d be okay without him.
He didn’t want a funeral. He didn’t want a group of people gathered in his memory. I’m writing this at the risk of disobeying him, but I wanted to tell the world that he existed. I want everyone to know that I had a father and I’m very sad that he is gone. And this is my diary. If I didn’t write about it, I’d be saying it wasn’t important to me. And reading back over these words, for the first time now this all feels very real. It’s all sinking in. I’m telling myself as I’m telling all of you. My father is gone.
Hey, Dad. I don’t know that much about the Internet, but I have an incredible hope that these electronic waves are made out of some of the same particles you’re made of now. I know we didn’t get a chance to formally say good-bye, but maybe you can feel these words and feel all of the love I’m shoving into them. I’m packing them tight with all of the things we never got to say.
Thank you for being a good dad.
Make sure they let you mow the lawn in heaven every once in a while. I know how much it’d mean to you.
Love forever,
Anna K
000044.
Subject: Condolences
Anna K,
Having lost my father three years ago, I know what you’re going through is hard. I don’t even want to say that I know what you’re going through because this is a very personal journey you’re about to embark on. Just know that so many people love you and we’re patiently waiting your return. Take good care of yourself.
Travis Robinson
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Subject: Prayers are with you
anna k i am really sorry about your dad i hope everything gets better for you soon happy thanksgiving and spend it with your family who love you we’ll be here when you are back bye from mexico
-goosie123
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Subject: I’m so sorry.
Anna K,
I’m very sorry. About everything. About what I did to you. You have to know that I meant everything I said in the nicest way. I admire you, that’s all.
None of that matters right now. You take care of yourself. I’m sorry you had to suffer such a loss this holiday season. You’re in my thoughts and prayers.
Love, Tess
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Subject: Loss
Anna,
There is nothing I can say to make it better. I want you to know that everyone feels your loss because when you’re sad, we’re sad. We love you and our thoughts and prayers are with you. Take care.
-Michelle
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There were at least fifty e-mails when I checked a few hours after posting my entry. All from people I didn’t know. All from people saying they were praying for me. They were sorry for my pain. So many people from all over the world stopping for a moment to pay tribute to my father, a man they’d never met. A man who knew nothing about them.
By Friday evening the house was too quiet for me. People had stopped coming by earlier that afternoon. Our fridge was full of food we didn’t feel like eating. Shannon decided to go out and see a movie by herself. Mom retreated back to her room. Meredith went to her apartment.
It was only ten.
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Subject: Sad.
AK
Oh, Anna. I just read. Again, I’m here. For anything. I’m so sorry.
-LD
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Subject: re: Sad.
LD-
203.555.4302
-AK
p.s.: hurry.
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The phone rang three minutes later.
“Hello?” Did I sound nervous?
“Hi, can I speak to Anna, please?”
“This is she.” Why was I being so formal?
And then it was quiet. His voice was deeper than I thought it would be. I put on my coat and walked out back with the cordless phone to sit on the steps.
“How are you?”
“I don’t know,” I said. I laughed. “I guess I’m okay. Am I allowed to be okay?”
“Are you at your Mom’s house?”
“Yeah.” I lit a cigarette. “Everyone’s doing something and I felt weird being all by myself. I want to go home.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah—me, too.”
“Is Ian there?”
“No.” It wasn’t a lie.
It was quiet. I could hear his breath. The muffled sound of a television.
“So, I guess you’re a real person,” I said.
“Looks like it. You’re not a man, which was my biggest fear.”
“You don’t know. I could have a high voice.”
“Well, it’s a nice voice. For a man or a woman.”
He listened to me complain about how strange it was being at home, about my problems with Meredith and how Shannon had been reading my website. I told him about those final moments at the hospital. I talked until the sound of sirens on the other line stopped me.
“Sorry,” he said when they died down. “Go on.”
“Are you in an ambulance? Did I bore you to death?” Death. Too soon for that word.
“I live very close to a hospital.” Too soon for that word, too.
Another siren on his end of the phone snapped me back. “That’s so loud,” I said.
“You get used to it.”
My fingers were freezing, but my face was warm from blushing. I couldn’t believe I was speaking to him for the first time in my life.
“Can I ask you something?” I asked.
“You can,” he said.
“What the hell’s your name?”
He laughed. How absurd that all of this had happened without us learning each other’s names. “It’s Kurt. Kurt Worschauser.”
“Well, hello, Kurt Worschauser. I’m Anna Koval.”
“Nice to meet you.”
“We’ll cover learning how to spell your last name the next time we e-mail.”
We talked about the painting he was working on. He had found an old picture of his great-great-grandparents, and he was doing something with that. I understood the words composition and balance, but that was pretty much it.
“Where are you?” I asked him.
“I was going to stay at my sister’s, but I had to leave. Arial was screaming. My niece. I can’t stand it after a few hours.”
He told me about the snow outside his window, and I told him about the ice crunching under my feet as I wandered to the swing set. He told me to take my cold ass inside. I went in briefly, but Shannon was back from seeing a movie, and she wanted me to get off the phone to keep her company. I asked her to give me another ten minutes.
“You’re like my imaginary girlfriend who’s away at camp,” Kurt said before we hung up. “I only have to read your letters when I’m bored, and I write back when I feel like it. We don’t argue because we never see each other.”
“Plus,” I said, “we don’t go on dates that cost you cash, and we don’t have an anniversary where you have to buy me presents. We never have to argue about where we’re sleeping. I don’t know if you’re a shitty driver or a bad tipper.”
“I might be a bad tipper.”
“I might be a shitty driver. It doesn’t matter.”
“How perfect are we?”
“Perfect,” I
smiled. “As long as we never, ever meet.”
“It would ruin everything.”
Later that night, I couldn’t sleep. I went back out into the backyard and smoked cigarette after cigarette, wondering what I was doing. I could tell Kurt was interested in me and I was very much interested in talking to him, but I was too scared to tell him who I really was. He liked Anna K. He might not like me. What did I think was going to happen? Why, of all the people in my life, did I want to talk to Kurt, whose name I didn’t even know until he called?
As I stubbed out my last cigarette, I decided I shouldn’t talk to him on the phone anymore. I didn’t want to have my heart yearning for someone I couldn’t have.
000045.
The next afternoon, I was happy to be tucked into Dad’s old reading chair with a blanket around my legs. I was in my parents’ bedroom, which was now just my mom’s room. Nothing belonged to Dad anymore, I reminded myself. It was so cold outside I could hear it ringing in my ears. I was very comfortable upstairs in the heated room. I instinctively looked for Taylor to curl up with. I yearned for the comforts of home again and wanted to be back in my apartment. The sadness started seeping into me, stinging my eyes, making me wish the days would speed up so I could fly back home.
“Anna!” I heard Shannon shout. “It’s for you!” I hadn’t heard a phone or a doorbell. “Someone’s here for you!” she shouted again.
Wiping my tears, I quickly fantasized that Kurt somehow figured out where I lived and had driven here from Pittsburgh to see me in the flesh. I pushed my blanket to the floor and rested my book beside it.
“Dude!” Shannon’s head poked in the door. “I called you. What’s your problem? You’ve got company.”
“Shut up.” Again my stomach fluttered and I felt myself grow hot. I didn’t want to fall for one of Shannon’s tricks. But how did Kurt do it? How did he find me here? He might just have been as perfect as I’d been hoping.
“Here he is.” Shannon beamed as she backed out of the door. Another body filled her place.
Ian. Clean-shaven, wide-eyed, Oxford-shirted Ian. He held a cup of coffee and wore a look of absolute compassion I hadn’t seen since the time I sprained my ankle on a camping trip. Ian had carried me all the way down from the top of the cliff with that same stoic look on his face. Ian the Protector.
“Hey, baby,” he said.
“I’ll leave y’all alone,” Shannon said as she shut the door.
“What are you doing here?”
He squatted on the floor in front of me. “I thought you might like some company.”
“How did you get here?” I asked him.
“A plane. I got a new credit card. That’s what new credit cards are for. Trips you can’t afford but need to take.”
He pulled me into his arms. I fell forward, off the chair and into him, my blanket tangling around my feet. I was surprised at how easily I fit back into his chest. How comforting the smell of him was in my head. My face felt warm against the cotton of his shirt. I could hear his heartbeat. I didn’t know how much I had needed physical attention. My hands found his belt loops, and I hooked my fingertips in them. My eyes closed and I felt my body relax. “Thank you,” I whispered.
We spent most of the day with Shannon and my mom. Ian was good at fixing things, so Mom had him do a few things around the house that Dad never got a chance to do. He was fixing the garage door when my mother called me into the living room.
“Are you two back together?” she asked, her smile taking up her entire face.
“No, Ma.”
“He’s obviously here because he loves you.”
“Just because he’s here doesn’t mean that he loves me.”
“Oh, you know he loves you. Just like you love him.”
“Mom.”
“Why don’t you two just get back together?”
“It’s not that easy.”
Mom jumped forward toward me suddenly.
“What’s wrong?” I asked her.
“Did you see how close I was standing to The Tommyknockers? Lord, how scary.”
The rest of the day my mother conspired to get Ian and me alone. Mom and Shannon decided to eat dinner at Meredith’s, and Mom told us that there wasn’t enough food for the two of us. It was so lame that we had to pretend to understand so we didn’t have to talk about how my mom was trying to get her daughter back with her ex. I was embarrassed for both Ian and myself. Shannon had whispered “Hang in there” into my ear before she left. Mom actually winked and gave me a thumbs-up as she closed the front door.
We watched television in the living room with me on one side of the couch and Ian on the other. He pulled my feet into his lap and started rubbing them.
“You don’t have to do that,” I said.
“I know. I want to. Is that okay?”
I nodded.
We kept our focus on the television. Ian didn’t so much rub my feet as he just held them in his hands. He’d absently squeeze them every few minutes, but it wasn’t anything like a foot massage. Eventually the whole thing felt forced, so I pulled my feet away. He quickly grabbed them again.
“Is something wrong?” he asked.
“No, I just feel like I’m making you do that.”
“I asked to do it.”
“I know, but…you’re not even rubbing them.”
“Sorry,” he scoffed, and started squeezing them tight. “You shouldn’t complain about a free foot massage.” He pinched my pinkie toe too hard.
“I’m not complaining,” I said as I sat up straight and pulled my feet out of his lap. “I’m saying you don’t have to do anything. Any of this.”
“I know I don’t.”
I sighed and looked up at him. “Why are you here?”
“I thought you might need somebody.” He said it to the television and not to me.
“Why are you really here?”
He turned away and looked down.
“I don’t know,” he said.
I just stared at him, waiting for him to continue.
“Susan and I broke up,” he mumbled.
“I know. Does that mean you want to get back together?”
“Does it have to mean that?” Finally he was looking at me.
“I don’t know! I’m following your train of thought here. I thought that’s why you told me.”
“No, I was just telling you!”
I was sitting up straight, but Ian was sinking further and further back into the couch, like I was berating him. I hated when he did that. I hated feeling like a mother punishing a child.
“Sit up.”
“Sorry.”
Sorry, Mommy.
“Or don’t sit up. I don’t care. Shit.” My hands were trembling.
“I’m sorry, Anna. I don’t know. I thought you’d be sad. I wanted to be here to make you feel better. I thought you might need someone. I know how your family gets at times like this.”
“I’m sorry my mother is trying to make us get back together.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, it’s embarrassing.”
He grabbed my hand. He was sitting closer to me now. “It’s understandable. We were good together.”
“Were we, Ian?”
He had pulled my hand into his lap and his fingers were tracing the inside of my arm. “I thought so. Didn’t you think so? I still do.”
“See? What does that mean?”
“Why does it have to mean something? Why can’t I say that and have it be something I said?”
There wasn’t any logic in that sentence. I knew that. But at the time it made sense to both of us, and it was the logic we followed all the way until our mouths found each other and we made out on my mother’s couch that Meredith hates. We kept following that logic until we moved into the guest bedroom, where we made love for the first time in a very long time.
It wasn’t too fast. It wasn’t too hard. It wasn’t rushed. We moved together. We never spoke a word. We just kept breathing
and moving, holding each other. We kissed and touched. It was dark, so dark I couldn’t see his face. He felt thinner in parts, wider in others. I wondered if I felt different to him. He held my breasts more than he used to. He kissed harder than he used to. Then my feet twined with his like they always used to as he grabbed me by the hips and pulled me in just like he used to and we made love just like we used to. Like we were used to. There was an incredible comfort in that.
Afterward he fell right asleep, just like always. I stayed up, which was different. I listened to his breathing in the dark and tried to push myself back in time. I pushed myself back two years ago. I was in bed with Ian and it was dark and we had just made love, but it was two years ago. I tried to see if I was happy. I wanted to see if anything was different.
There was a change. I was feeling guilty. I kept thinking of LDobler, or Kurt, I guess. I felt like I was betraying him. I pushed those thoughts out of my head and snuggled in tighter with Ian. In his sleep he lifted his arm and put his hand around my waist, just like he used to. I felt his skin against my cheek and inhaled the smell of him. He smelled like home.
I reminded myself that Kurt was a man I’d never met who thought I was right where I was at that moment—in the arms of Ian. At least I wasn’t lying to him anymore.
000046.
Quickly
25 NOVEMBER
Thanks to everyone who has sent very nice words of condolences about my father. My family is doing okay and I’m touched that so many of you stopped your day to think of me.
Love until later,
Anna K
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Subject: Hi.
Anna,
I’ve been staying away because the last thing in the world you need to deal with is me, but I haven’t been able to sleep thinking about what I did to you. I’m so sorry to have abused your trust. I never meant to hurt you. My therapist says it was just because I was excited to meet you, is all. She says I wanted to brag to others to prove my existence worthy. Or something like that. Anyway, I hate not being able to write to you or talk to you. You’ve become one of my best friends, as stupid as that sounds.