Like the banks of a raging river, Kira’s eyes threatened to release a deluge of tears, but she fought them. This was not the fairytale ending she’d expected. The script she’d auditioned for included the nice house in the suburbs where they’d entertain friends, take ski trips, and maybe, although she hadn’t thought much about it, have a family. And their upcoming honeymoon, they were newlyweds after all; she’d just graduated college, they were so young. Death was not supposed to happen so early on. It wasn’t part of her plan. She weakly struggled with the fact that this was the end.
She rolled over, tucked into a ball, and willed herself back to sleep.
***
Days wove dully in and out of one another. Kira ignored the voice in her head that suggested she turn on her phone, answer the door, or eat.
Her body ached from despair, from disbelief, and loneliness. Finally, she reached for her cell phone and powered it up. She hoped Jeremy had left a message. As she flipped through an assortment of missed calls from her sister, Nicole, Jeremy’s parents, and a host of friends, she realized with clarity that she wouldn’t find a call from him. There was no mistake; their last words to each other were good night. It was almost the same as goodbye, but not quite.
She couldn’t bear to listen to the messages. She watched the numbers on the clock change until they blurred green.
When she woke again, it was morning. She opened the curtains halfway, the light stinging her eyes. She took a deep breath, flooding her body with the memory of energy, vitality.
Kira steadied herself on the stairs, faint with hunger. She returned to bed, nibbling on dry crackers, and idly checked her email. Distressingly, the first displayed was a confirmation from the hotel she’d booked in Paris next month, having diligently planned almost every detail of the honeymoon.
Kira sunk back into the feather pillow, closed her eyes, and waited. Waited to fall asleep again, waited to wake up, waited for someone to pop out from behind the armoire and shout something ridiculous like, “You’re on candid camera.” As she lay there, all was silent except for the dull sound of someone’s dog barking in the distance.
Her stomach growled, but she wasn’t hungry, only thirsty, and lonely. She rolled over. Her half-filled glass of wine, from several nights ago, sat on the side table like a sanguine punctuation mark, before and after.
Aching, she got up and picked up the glass to refill it. Someone knocked on the door. Peeking downstairs, the familiar face of her best friend, Nicole, peered in through the etched glass. Kira slowly descended.
With windblown hair, and shirt askew, revealing she’d driven directly from Manhattan, Nicole pulled Kira into her arms. Kira held onto her like a life raft. Nicole weathered Kira through the passing of her father and her mother’s subsequent exodus. In times of crises, Kira required order, cleanliness, and the semblance of normalcy. Most of all, she wanted quiet; not the kind that crushed her with grief, but that silenced the despairing thoughts of loss with nowhere to land except on her heart. Kira drifted in and out of sleep, comforted in Nicole’s arms.
Nicole and Kira had come from different worlds. Nicole’s family was rife with educated deans, chairs, and CEOs. On the other end of the spectrum, to Kira’s chagrin, she hailed from a hippie commune via an ashram. Her parents did little more than contrive ways to avoid responsibility.
They’d found each other, bursting to get out of the same small town, and built their friendship upon the desire to see the world and break some rules, namely the ones their respective families set out for them. Kira accomplished her goal; instead of illegally growing hemp and practicing free love, she obtained an education and a career. She imagined they’d switch roles and Nicole would drop out and hook up with a hippie band on tour, but she graduated college just as her family dictated.
When the sun’s cloud-muted light shone through the east-facing window, Kira woke. She met the gentleness in Nicole’s eyes, inviting her to be quiet, talk, or do whatever she needed.
“Kira, I’m so sorry,” Nicole said, her face flushed with tears.
“Thank you for coming,” she said softly.
“Of course,” Nicole answered.
Through glassy eyes, Kira dimly looked around the house she’d always wanted. “This,” she said pointing to the high ceilings, the polished wooden bannister, and large windows, “it means nothing now. There’s no future. Lilac Court, so quaint, so perfect, it’s meaningless.” Kira sniffled. “What am I going to do?”
She knew Nicole didn’t have an answer. Reclining on the couch, Kira closed her eyes wishing for something different.
Nicole rubbed her back. Before she drifted off to sleep, Nicole whispered, “Time.”
When Kira woke, it was dark.
“Would you like to shower? I’ll get you some clean clothes,” Nicole said working as Kira’s conduit to order.
Afterward, feeling somewhat refreshed, Kira knew Nicole had to return to Manhattan soon, but she wasn’t ready to be alone again. Yet, she didn’t know how else to be. The sting of loss pierced her ability to speak. It gripped her in a way that made it hard to move. All she could do was just be.
Later, they listened to the voicemails on Kira’s cell phone. Nicole skillfully and diplomatically guided her through each one, noting numbers, times, and actions; she didn’t work in foreign policy for nothing.
Nicole ordered take-out and made sure Kira ate, tidied up around the house, and left her a list of what she needed to do Monday morning. Afterward, Kira held Nicole in a long hug, afraid to let go.
“Call me any time, day, or night. I’m only a phone call away if you need to talk.”
Nicole departed, and with her went Kira’s grip on her emotions. The house suddenly felt shrouded in silence, not the tranquil quiet Nicole created, but the lonely, viscous silence that left Kira thick with desolation.
She reluctantly extracted herself from her divot on the couch, went up to her room, and noted Nicole had made the bed. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to get in and disturb its decorative pillows and the smooth duvet. It seemed like a raw and vulnerable place to be. However, the invisible heaviness pushed down on her, and she slunk into Jeremy’s spot. She slept until, preset, her alarm woke her for work.
Going to the office wasn’t an option.
“Widow,” Kira said, gazing at the ceiling. The word stuck in her throat as she caught sight of the photo of Jeremy she kept on her dresser. It drew Kira into a daze. The light through the transom windows grew bright as the sun tried to find an opening in the cloud cover.
Eventually, Kira plodded downstairs to the list Nicole had made for her. Among the items written in Nicole’s slanted script was a reminder to return to the hospital for Jeremy’s effects and a series of difficult phone calls to make such funeral arrangements, tax matters, and his will.
Uninterested in doing any of those things or anything that resembled activity at all, Kira showered again. She let the routine act of soaping, brushing, and dressing provide distance from her grief. Order, cleanliness, and a semblance of normalcy chorused in her mind like a refrain. Realizing she’d left her car at the hospital, she called a cab.
When Kira approached the sliding doors at Mass General, they whooshed open, and the antiseptic smell unique to hospitals bit her nose. Paralyzed, she couldn’t make herself go in. Imagining reliving the footsteps she took in the early hours Saturday agonized her. She backed away, gave the valet the ticket to her Mercedes, and sped home.
Still on autopilot, she arranged Jeremy’s funeral for the coming weekend near the Annandale family home on the Cape. She pressed talk on her phone, reluctantly making the call to his mother.
“After the funeral we’ll have a gathering at our home,” Mrs. Annandale said crisply. “I will inform the guests of these arrangements.”
Kira tried to interject, but Jeremy’s mother steamrolled on. “He elected for cremation. As the widow, you’ll receive the ashes.”
“I—” Kira wanted to offer condolence. She long
ed to hear comforting words. To have a mother tell her everything was going to be okay, to promise her that she’d pull out of this.
“We had a lifetime of memories with our son, and because you intended to create a lifetime of memories together, let’s consider it a kindness for you to keep them.” The older woman finally paused for a breath allowing Kira to consider how this was both crushing and comforting.
It was yet another indication that her fairy tale dreams had ended. Jeremy was gone.
Mrs. Annandale concluded the call with several more details that Kira hardly retained; her thoughts were awash in turbid waters between longing and misery.
***
The week blurred by, Kira alternatingly sleeping at odd hours, tending to widow-related matters, and endlessly organizing her house. She shuffled and sorted closets and drawers, scrubbed and polished everything with a surface, reorganized the books by category, then alphabetically, and then by color. The domestic creativity did nothing to brighten her spirits as it ordinarily did. Even the garage was not immune to her voracious and meticulous hands.
All too soon, on a drizzly, cloud-smeared day, Kira found herself seated in the front row at the funeral home with her in-laws, Jeremy’s three brothers, and their wives. For a bizarre instant, she felt as if she were only in the room in body, and her mind had ventured elsewhere, somewhere happy, free of pain and sadness. She felt disconnected from the gentle hugs, pats on the arm, and condolences, yet the gravitas of the day pressed on her from the inside where no one could see.
Kira returned to the empty house on Lilac Court with the remains of Jeremy in a burnished black metallic urn. She ventured from the kitchen to the wine-cabinet, and then upstairs, leaving the urn on the mantel.
Once back in bed, although exhausted, Kira tossed and turned, Jeremy’s ashes downstairs leaving her unsettled. She didn’t receive specific instructions about what to do with them; ultimately, it was up to her. She wondered why she and Jeremy had never talked about death or anything having to do with the future. Then again, they were young, healthy, and had their best years ahead of them. Kira supposed he could remain on the mantel indefinitely, but that didn’t feel right, either. Maybe it was her earthy-crunchy-hippy heritage, but remaining in that black container for all eternity didn’t seem right.
She crept out of Jeremy’s side of the bed and went downstairs. Kira quietly whispered, “Where would you like to rest?”
The dim moonlight made the dark urn look almost sinister. She rubbed goose bumps off her arms.
Next thing, Kira heard a crash and rushed to the hall closet, where the umbrella she’d used earlier appeared to have opened and fallen. As she picked it up to refasten the snap, the shiny white and buff surfboard Jeremy had used all summer stood like a beacon leaning on the wall in the closet.
She ran her fingers over its smooth surface, imagined him paddling out, and riding a wave. She’d never actually seen him surf; he knew she didn’t like the beach and its unkempt landscape. She preferred pools to fresh or salt water, and even that stretched her far beyond her comfort zone. Kira preferred the certainty of dry land. She imagined Jeremy’s tousled, wet hair and sly grin as he rode a wave triumphantly to shore.
He took up the sport last summer, gone for long weekends. Like so often, his repeated absence irked her, but now she would give nearly anything to get those moments back. Loss chewed her up, spit her out, and then trampled her heart.
Nevertheless, in that moment, Kira knew the ocean was the place to bring Jeremy’s ashes. It wasn’t a place they’d shared in common, but given how much he went over the summer and the glow he had when he returned, she knew it must have been special to him. He grew up by the beach on the Cape and paddled the Charles with crew; he belonged back in the water.
Resolved, Kira leaned the surfboard on the wall by the door. Taking a deep breath, a single tear fell. She let it run down her face, and plop onto her shirt. Another followed, and another, until she could taste the salt in her mouth.
Chapter Three
Another sleepless night haunted Kira with memories. Like pages in a scrapbook, images of the past flooded her mind, including Jeremy and his fraternity brothers teasing and jesting, nights studying side by side, frat parties, and a trip to the stacks on the fourth floor of the library, where he convinced her to have sex. Then the feeling of pride that Jeremy picked her over countless girls who were crazy for him, along with sleepy breakfasts, café lunches, and dinners.
She recalled a ski trip to Vermont, where she matched him on the slopes in ability. Kira watched in slow-motion the graduation party, walking down the aisle to Jeremy’s side, their night in Nantucket. Then there were hours spent touring houses and sending him photos from her phone, finally signing the deed, trips to home goods stores with his credit card encouraging her to buy the entire line of Martha Stewart innovative organizational products, followed by unpacking and decorating. All the while, ceaseless pain snaked its way into each image.
The memories marched on as the tears ran relentlessly down Kira’s face, and then the deluge abruptly stopped. She realized there weren’t any more memories unless she counted pale mornings waking up beside Jeremy, dashing off to work, and waiting for him to come home, but falling asleep before he returned. Her curtailed marriage forced further sobs to sweep through her.
She went to the shower. Like a stream converging with a river, tears ran into the warm water as it rained down from overhead. This time the tears weren’t about the past, they were about the lost future.
Kira returned to the edge of the bed, wrapped in a robe, and stared out into the predawn darkness. An early bird chirped outside, signaling a moratorium on Kira’s doleful thoughts, and a plan formed in her mind.
Cradling the black urn in the crook of one arm, Kira took the sleek surfboard in the other. As she exited, she caught a breath of crisp night air on her way to the black Mercedes.
The surfboard didn’t fit into the back of the SUV without blocking her rearview. She found ties in the garage, and managed to get the thing on the roof. How someone navigated the slippery, awkward thing in the water, never mind on land, was beyond her.
As the sibilant GPS guided her to the ocean, a subdued ginger glow peeked above the horizon where a blaze of sun should have been.
Kira pulled into the parking lot adjacent to a broadly spanning beach at high tide. Far off, a black figure stretched and then dashed into the water with a surfboard.
The water rhythmically ebbed and flowed. Her lip quivered. Tears welled and poured from her eyes as if they were attracted to the salty water of the ocean beyond.
The sun tried to present itself up over the horizon, but the misty clouds and fog muted its light. More figures in sleek, black wetsuits scaled the short wall dividing the parking lot from the beach. She imagined Jeremy joining their ranks.
Kira sat in the parking lot, the urn resting beside her like a passenger. The stiff wind aggravated the waves as they fought their way to shore. She sat frozen, unable to get out of the car and proceed with part two of her plan. Part one was to get herself to the ocean, a place she’d avoided because of the itchy sand, the hair-ruffling breeze, and its wild unpredictability. Part two was to walk toward the sea, and part three—she hadn’t yet penned the thought in her mind. She knew what she had to do, but becoming a widow came with its particular challenges, like meeting reality on a daily basis, never mind getting out of bed. So part three was more of an abstract theory. Letting go. How could she let go?
A dark-haired surfer settled on the partition wall in Kira’s line of sight as the waves rolled in and out. He set his board across his lap, applied what looked like a bar of soap, and then leaned the board on the wall in the sand in front of him. He lifted his chin and watched the waves. A seagull landed a few feet to his left and gazed in the same direction. The three of them watched the foggy and foamy ocean intently, each for their own purposes.
As the waves crashed relentlessly into the sand, Kira felt as if they came
down upon her in the form of sadness, loneliness, loss, fear, and longing, each in turn. She couldn’t bear life without Jeremy, which made getting out of the car and releasing his ashes impossible.
Seconds after she turned the key in the ignition, the seagull took flight, and the surfer on the wall watched it dip and glide for a few moments. Then he glanced over his shoulder as Kira started to back out of the parking spot, the urn resting safely beside her. She couldn’t let go. She couldn’t do it. Not yet.
Upon returning to Lilac Court, Kira retreated to her room, drew the shades, and lay down. Behind her closed eyes, as if burned into her retinas, the pulsation of the waves flashed and sprayed. Sleep eluded her, and the scent of Jeremy on the pillow had dissipated. She craved both with a feeble yearning.
Kira pulled up on the screen of her Mac and looked at her email. Condolences, ads, spam, and a confirmation reminder from the hotel in Paris were stacked chronologically. She knew she should cancel the hotel reservation, but couldn’t bring her finger to the keypad. Acknowledging it was another way to make losing Jeremy final.
She closed her eyes, trying to remember his voice when he said goodnight that last time. The sound and smell of him, the way he moved, and his laugh, faded in her mind. Sobbing, she tried to wish it all back.
Through her tears, the glow on the computer screen blurred. Kira reached for the glass of water on her nightstand. Her fingers, weak from clenching them tightly to her chest, lost her grasp on the glass. It poured, almost in slow motion, onto the laptop keyboard.
With helpless frustration, she managed more tears as she set the computer, in a soupy mess, on the floor, and went to fetch a towel.
Later that afternoon, her phone jingled. The caller was Frank Brinkman, the senior account executive at Henniker, who oversaw the Foster-Davis project that Kira had been working on prior to her bereavement leave. She considered not answering it. She’d extended her leave and then arranged to telecommute, though for the first time in her adult life, she had no interest in work or fulfilling her responsibilities. Then she thought of Alice, kind and hardworking, her project partner, managing it alone. She pressed answer.
To the Sea (Follow your Bliss) Page 2