by Janis Thomas
She slides her arms around my waist and holds me tightly. “It’s okay, Mom. I understand.”
“I love you so much, Katie.”
“I love you, too, Mom.”
Jesse and Parker have made their way to Colin, and the three of them flank Owen. The teenagers look like they’re itching for a brawl. Owen senses it.
“Leave me alone. I’m going,” he says.
Colin puffs out his chest. “We’re getting a restraining order against you, Owen. Stay the hell away from my family.”
Owen smirks snidely, then glances meaningfully over at Eliza. “It’s not really your family anymore, is it, Colin?”
Colin looks at me. I turn and lead Katie to the limo.
The reception is a blur. I don’t talk to anyone. I don’t sit down. I wander from room to room, stalking Katie. I can’t let her out of my sight. The only times I lose track of her are when I have to excuse myself to the upstairs bathroom to vomit, three times in total.
The wish replays in my head. Each time I hear the echo of those awful words, my heart contracts and my stomach spasms. I try to tell myself that the wishes are over. That Josh was the ultimate punishment for my sins. How could the fates be so cruel as to deprive me of my daughter, too? It won’t happen. It can’t happen. I won’t allow it.
I begin to pinch myself with my fingernails every time that terrible wish comes to mind. Within an hour welts cover my left forearm from wrist to elbow. I pull at my hair to stop the words. Enough strands come loose in my hand to make a wig.
By the time the guests and the caterers leave, I’m in such a frenzy, I’m afraid I will terrify Katie and Colin by going completely mad. I change into jeans and a long-sleeved sweater to hide the welts. I pull my hair into a ponytail. I force myself to take one of the Xanax that Lettie prescribed. One doesn’t help. I take another.
Katie wants to go to Simone’s and I forbid her. I need her, I say. I need her close to me. I don’t think I can get through this horrible day without her. She can go to Simone’s tomorrow.
Please, Katie. Please stay with me. We can talk about Josh. We can look at pictures and share stories. I don’t have any stories you’ll recognize. Let’s talk about you instead. Let’s talk about your birthday. It’s only a week away.
She looks at me then like I have gone mad. She doesn’t want to talk about her birthday on the same day we buried her brother. That’s okay, I tell her. We can talk about anything she wants. We don’t have to talk at all. Just please stay.
She understands and acquiesces. We agree to spend the remainder of the evening watching Josh’s favorite movies: Die Hard, the original Point Break, The Fast and the Furious. Katie offers to go to his room to find the DVDs. I’m grateful. I don’t think I’m capable of entering his room. Not yet. I know I will have to eventually, to sort through his things and pack them away. I imagine I will uncover many mysteries about the Josh I never knew, the Josh with whom I was only given one short day. But that can wait.
Colin decides to stay through the weekend, if that’s okay with me. I nod mutely then watch him walk Eliza to her car. I have a sudden recollection of the night he walked Lena to her car. The memory surprises me, as I thought it had faded. When he returns, he checks to see that Katie isn’t downstairs then faces me. I have the irrational notion that if I reach out to touch him, my hand will pass right through his chest. He speaks just above a whisper, and his words come to me as if from the far end of a long tunnel.
“I’ll call the lawyer on Monday about the restraining order. We need to do it. The man is unstable.”
Owen is a thousand times saner than me at this moment.
“It’s not true what he said, you know,” Colin says. “You and Katie are my family. No matter what, you always will be.”
The Xanax, my terror at the possibility of losing Kate, my grief over Josh, the fact that Colin seems as insubstantial as ether—whatever the reason, I don’t have a reply. Colin gazes at me for a moment.
“I think I’ll pass on the movies.” He touches me softly on the cheek. I feel his fingertips. They are like ice. He pulls his hand away, then walks down the hall to his office. He goes in but doesn’t close the door all the way.
Katie and I sit side by side on the couch. The screen looms large before us.
I make sure that a part of me is touching her. By nine o’clock, neither of us can keep our eyes open. I grab the flesh of my upper thigh and squeeze violently. I can’t go to sleep. I can’t let myself fall asleep.
I tell my daughter I’ll meet her upstairs.
“Should I sleep in my own bed tonight, Mom?” she asks.
“No!”
She flinches. “I just thought maybe you’d sleep better without me there?”
I don’t want to sleep better. I don’t want to sleep at all.
“I sleep just fine with you there,” I assure her.
She nods, then pushes herself off the couch and shuffles to the stairs. I go into the kitchen and make myself a quick cup of instant coffee, drink it down like a shot; the liquid scalds my mouth, my throat, but I don’t care. I go upstairs and into the master bedroom. Katie is already half-asleep. She mumbles a good night as I discard my clothes and don a nightshirt. By the time I pull back the covers and climb in next to her, she is snoring softly.
I write in my journal. Not about my wish, but about my Katie. I stop when I can no longer see the page through my tears.
I hide the journal then lie down, put my arm around Katie, and pull her close.
I won’t let you have her, I think. She’s mine. Haven’t you taken enough from me?
But it’s my fault. I’m the one who took everything away. How could I have been so careless with my wishes? I was given powers and I abused them. I didn’t need them in the first place. I didn’t have to wish a dog or a tree away. Not even a horrible boss. I could have reported Richard. I could have quit. I could have gotten a job anywhere. And Josh? My darling love. What was I thinking? He was perfect as he was.
I could have dealt with my life, faced it, embraced it instead of wishing it away.
If Katie is gone when I wake . . . No. No! I won’t let you have her!
I pull her closer. She stirs but doesn’t wake up. The coffee swirls around in my stomach, but the caffeine is doing nothing to stave off the heaviness of my eyelids. Twice, I get up to splash cold water on my face. I try to think of stimulating subject matter to keep my brain sharp and awake. Nothing is working.
I cry again, my tears dampening my pillowcase, as I cling to Katie for dear life.
Sunday, August 14
I jerk awake. I don’t have to open my eyes. I already know. Colin’s side of the bed is empty.
No. No. No.
I scramble out from under the covers and run out of the bedroom, down the hall toward Katie’s closed door. I turn the knob and push the door open. And a part of me dies.
There are no posters on the walls, no twin bed with the pink floral duvet, no white desk with teenage clutter and jewelry boxes and books, no clothing poking out of the dresser drawers, because there is no longer a dresser. As I look around at the unfamiliar room, with the small beige convertible couch and IKEA side tables and small flat-screen TV, I hear a loud keening wail. I realize the sound is coming from me, and I slap my hand over my mouth.
No.
I slam the door shut, as though closing off the sight of the room will make it cease to be what it has become.
“Katie!” I backtrack to Josh’s room, peer in. “Katie!” I know she isn’t there. She isn’t anywhere. I know it, but I can’t help myself, can’t stop screaming out her name.
“Katie!” I take the stairs two at a time. “Katie!”
No. No. No!
I don’t go into the living room. Her pictures will be gone, and I can’t bear to face the actuality of their absence. Instead, I go to the kitchen. That’s where she is. That’s where she’ll be. It’s breakfast time. She’s eating her toast or an English muffin or cereal. Please, Go
d, she must be there. People don’t suddenly cease to exist. Wishes don’t come true.
But she isn’t there. “Katie, Katie!”
Colin rushes from the living room, where he’s been camping out. His hair is askew and his pajamas are disheveled.
“Emma, what’s wrong?”
“No, no, no.” I wrap my arms around my middle to keep myself from blowing apart. “This isn’t happening. This can’t be happening. Where is she? Where is Katie?” I can’t breathe. My heart beats too fast. Black-and-red-and-white spots appear in my vision.
Colin hurries over to me and grabs my shoulders. His expression remains calm, but his eyes belie his concern.
“Who is Katie, Em?”
“Katie!” I’m laughing now, a strangled wheeze. “My daughter, Katie. Where is she?”
“Emma, you don’t have a daughter.”
“I do, I do, I do.” My body shakes violently with my hysterical laughter. The laughter turns to sobs then back to laughter again. The madness has finally come for me. I scream, a bloodcurdling, throat-shredding shriek that fetters me to reality. Colin’s concern turns to alarm.
“Emma! We had a son. His name was Josh. We buried him yesterday.”
I swing my head from side to side and pull away from him. I stagger to the family room and stumble to my desk, bang my knee hard against the chair. I yank open the top right drawer then tear through the contents. My hand closes around the small package I hid there . . . when? When was that? I can’t recall. I reach into the bag and withdraw the necklace, then hold it up in front of me. The lion pendant sparkles.
“Katie, Katie!” Breathe. “I had a daughter.” Breathe. “Her name was Katie.”
Colin has followed me and approaches me as one might approach a wild animal. I shrink away from him until my back hits the wall. I double over, hiccupping, laughing, sobbing, retching. I vomit bile onto the floor.
Images, pictures of Katie flash before my eyes, from her first wailing breath through every stage of her life. One by one, each image, each precious recollection is plucked from my memory, like a virus destroying a hard drive.
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
“You have to get ahold of yourself!” Colin is shouting. He is genuinely frightened now. “This is grief, Em. You’re out of your mind with grief over Josh. You had a dream, honey. Listen to me! This is about Josh. I’m going to call the doctor, okay?” He reaches for my hand and I lash out, punching him with my fists until he backs away.
“Go away, Colin. Just go away. I wish you would go away. I wish I was anywhere but here.”
I squeeze my eyes shut and slide down the wall to the floor. My bare calves land on the puddle of bile. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters.
Clutching the pendant to my chest, I fall onto the tile and weep.
THIRTY-SIX
I wake up in a state of complete disorientation. I have no idea where I am, nor who I am. I only know I have come undone.
I raise myself into a seated position and look around. My stomach yawns with hunger or nausea, I can’t decide which. My eyes feel like I have crushed glass beneath my lids.
I have never seen this place before, but it feels familiar, as though, in this new incarnation of my life, I’ve been here for a while. The bed is smaller than my bed at home, a full with a puffy white comforter and starched white sheets. The room is tiny with bare walls. The double window is half the size of my old bedroom window. Half of the window is covered by an air-conditioning unit, cranked to high. The other side has thick black bars crisscrossing over the glass. There are no blinds or curtains, but the sun is blocked by the redbrick siding of the building next door. The floors are scuffed hardwood. Boxes are piled in the corners of the white walls.
I wear white cotton pajamas and socks on my feet. I test my legs before standing. An open door leads to another room, and I walk through it into a den and dining room combo. There is a couch on one side with a coffee table and side table in front of and next to it. Beyond the den area is an alcove with a small round table for eating with two matching chairs. My computer sits on the tabletop. Beyond the dining area is a galley kitchen with white Formica countertops and aged appliances.
More windows with bars. More boxes. Little decor. No pictures of a family or a boy or a girl on any surface. No art hanging on the walls. No splash of color. This is a railroad apartment, but it feels more like a way station.
I cross to the window and look out and am not surprised when I see Main Street beyond the fire escape. This is one of the second-floor brownstones downtown. Across the street is Paw-Tastic Pets and the smoothie shop and the antiques store and a therapist’s office, which means I am either above Mimi’s or the comic book shop.
I walk into the kitchen, dragging my feet, stoop shouldered, like an old woman. An open box of crackers lies on its side on the counter. A glass of water, half-drunk, sits by the sink. Bread and water. Staples of a prison.
My cell phone is plugged into a charger. I swipe the screen and see a text from Val. I don’t open it.
I move slowly back down the invisible railroad tracks to the bedroom and sit on the white comforter. I gaze at the windows, at the thick black bars that disallow entrance to intruders. I feel nothing. I cannot call up a single emotion. I have been wrung dry. I am an empty shell.
For a long while, I stare into space. How strange to be sitting alone in an empty apartment. No one needs me. I have no duties to fulfill, no obligations, no cries for my attention, no demands on my time. No noise, laughter, tears. No touch.
Fragments of memories like puzzle pieces assemble and disassemble in my head.
I don’t know which pieces are real. I only know I had a life. I had love. I had a husband and two children, each of them flawed, but no more so than I. Less flawed than I. But instead of accepting them for the gifts they were, instead of letting them in and allowing them to love me, I saw them as challenges to endure, hardships to survive, encumbrances that dragged me under. I wanted a life with no burdens, no conflicts, no struggles. And now I see the cost. Too high.
Now I have nothing.
And now the feelings come. A tide of shame rises up. A wave of remorse crashes over me.
I am drowning.
To exist is all I know. And yet. I’ve learned.
I rise to the surface of my regret, dry my eyes, breathe, straighten my shoulders. I find jeans and a T-shirt in one of the boxes in the bedroom and pull them on. The jeans are loose and the T-shirt hangs limply on my frame. I throw on some sneakers I wore in another life then find my purse in a heap by the front door and leave the apartment.
The sun almost blinds me. I reach into my purse for sunglasses but find none.
Mimi’s is open for business. Through the front window, I see Devi skipping across the floor of the waiting area, passing ladies skimming through fashion magazines or glancing at their watches or twirling locks of hair that may soon be on the floor. The comic book store isn’t open yet, but a couple of teenagers hang out at the curb, talking and laughing and fist bumping.
I cross the street and head for Paw-Tastic Pets, gaining speed the nearer I get to the store. A part of me wants to stop at the window of the antiques shop, but I suppress the urge. I know my mission this morning. The antiques shop and Dolores and the miniature house are for another time. I don’t know when. Perhaps today, perhaps next week or next year. I only know that I am not yet ready for the reckoning. And I have something else I need to do.
The door of the pet store is heavier than I remember, or I’ve become less effectual. I bypass the counter, my pace quickening as I move through the aisles, the shelves of pet food and dog toys and urine pads and kitty litter. The girl, the employee I know—what is her name? Did I ever know it?—restocks a shelf with fish food. She sees me and starts to say hello, but I pretend not to notice her.
My heart pounds. What if he isn’t here? What if he’s been sent away already, sent to the needle? I pray that I haven’t erased another being with my greed. If
he is gone, I, too, will be gone. One final wish will be easy to make.
I reach the back of the store and scan the kennels. I don’t see him. My throat tightens as I continue to search. Lab puppies, spaniels, a bulldog, two Chihuahuas, calico kittens, an albino bunny, and . . . there! There he is in the corner kennel, curled up against the side of the cage, unmoving. My breath whooshes from my chest.
The girl comes up next to me. “Can I help you?” she asks.
“I want him,” I say, my eyes never leaving Charlemagne.
“I knew you’d come back,” she says.
Charlemagne isn’t sick. And as with most dogs, his broken heart heals quickly in my care. I don’t believe that this little ball of fur can mend my broken heart. Nothing can. I broke it myself. But I do allow him to rule my thoughts, and this keeps me from thinking about everything else—how horribly I went wrong, how I threw away my life, how I erased people, both beloved and despised. He saves me from being suffocated by the weight of my sins.
Images, thoughts, reprimands, recriminations press against my mind, but Charlemagne obscures them. He is here and now. He is my present tense. His demands on my time and attention are welcome distractions. I give over to him fully.
The apartment is like a wonderland for a creature that has spent his life in a two-by-two-foot cell. He romps around and barks furiously at the pigeons on the fire escape and chews on the couch cushions. I don’t stop him.
He pees on the urine pads, as he has been trained to do, but I take him out for bowel movements, as he refuses to do that inside. The constant walks are good for me. The fresh air revives me. After the first day of walking him, I experience hunger and know it for what it is. I satiate my hunger with the crackers because I have no other food. It only takes a few of the salty squares to fill me. I can’t taste them.
By nine o’clock, Charlemagne is exhausted. He curls up by my feet as I sit at the kitchen table in the minuscule alcove off the tiny den. I wait as my computer boots. As soon as the cursor stops spinning, I click onto Facebook. I don’t know what to expect in this new reality. I don’t know if former communications still apply. But when I click on the tab at the top of the page, Dante’s message is still there, awaiting a reply.