The Sleepy Hollow Family Almanac

by Kris D'Agostino

  I float through the proceedings. I touch things. A chair, the wall, sheets on my bed, doorknobs, towels in the bathroom, the scar on my shoulder. I stand in front of the mirror and comb my hair. I do this for my mother. Not for tradition or appearance, not for any reason other than for her. I wear a tie and I stand in our living room and I talk to people. At the church I feel arms around me and I talk to people. They put their arms around me. There is a disconnect, though, as if nothing has any significance. Wally and David come by after the service. Doug M. turns up. Aunts and uncles. Cousins. Neighbors. The Hillmans. Everyone comes by. They put their arms around me. People bring food and flowers and cards and it all piles up in the dining room. A note in the mail from the John W. Manley School signed by Ceci and Georgie and most of the children. I can barely look anyone in the eye. I say little. I go to my room and stay there for long periods of time. I close the door. I listen to records through headphones. I pick certain songs, put them on repeat.

  Our house makes noises. It always has. The walls creak and settle. I listen to the pipes.

  “YOU ARE SAFE,” Brigitte says. “Close your eyes now and say, ‘I am safe.’ ”

  I close my eyes. “I am safe.”

  “You are safe,” Brigitte says again.

  “I am safe.”

  “You are safe in this place. This room. You are safe in your body,” Brigitte says.

  “I am safe.”

  “Picture this thing I am telling you. You are standing at a lake. Can you see it?”

  “Yes.”

  “What does it look like?”

  “It’s big,” I say. “I can barely see the other side. There are trees, rocks, and—I don’t know—blue skies overhead. Something like that.”

  “What are you wearing?” Brigitte asks.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “A bathing suit.”

  “Who else is there?”

  “I’m alone.”

  “Good. Excellent. Now, as I count to three, I want you to dive into that lake. Are you ready? One. Two. Three. Dive into that lake. Swim to the bottom. Imagine you can hold your breath forever. It is not a problem. Swim down. Dive.”

  “I’m swimming,” I say. “I’m diving.”

  I hear her clap her hands together.

  “What do you see at the bottom?”

  “Darkness,” I say. My eyes are still closed. “It’s very dark. There are some tree trunks, fallen tree trunks. Mud. Murk.”

  “Okay. Okay,” Brigitte says. “Now I want you to take off your bathing suit. Imagine that you are naked there.”

  I shift in the chair. I wring my hands together.

  “You are naked and it is only you who is there in this lake bottom,” Brigitte goes on. “Look at yourself, your nakedness.”

  “Okay,” I say. I swallow hard. Feel a knot rise up in my stomach.

  “Breathe in, please,” Brigitte says. “Fill your stomach with breath. Imagine there is a lion in your stomach and fill that lion with air until it is too big to fit inside you.”

  I do this. I breathe through my nose, thinking about a lion. I breathe and breathe until I am all air.

  “Good,” Brigitte says. “Hold it. Hold it. And now . . . open the lion’s mouth in your stomach and breathe out through the lion’s mouth, breathe out through your stomach.”

  I exhale. I feel myself relax slightly.

  “Open your eyes,” Brigitte says.

  I open my eyes, rub my hands against them, get used to the light in her living room. We are alone in this place. Brigitte’s house. I came because I didn’t know what else to do.

  “Tell me, how do you feel?” she asks.

  “I feel angry. I feel confused.”

  “What do those feelings look like?”

  “Like my sister. Like James Jr.”

  “What color is your anger?”

  “Purple?”

  “Good. This is good.”

  “It feels horrible.”

  “I want you to use this. Use these feelings. Stay in the moment. Imagine the worst, the saddest moment you’ve had these last weeks. And go there and stand there and be in that feeling.”

  “I’m there. I’m there all the time.”

  “And what are you doing there?”

  “I’m holding Baby James.”

  “Where is your sister?”

  “Gone.”

  I’m crying, but it’s a soft crying that I keep just barely in check. It’s inside.

  “What have you been doing with yourself to deal with this?”

  “I’ve been going to the woods more.”

  “What’s in the woods?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You are looking for something. We’ll explore this.”

  “Okay.”

  “What do you see when you are there?”

  “It depends on what drugs I’ve taken.”

  She looks at me as if she doesn’t understand.

  “It depends on the mood I’m in,” I say. I wipe my eyes.

  “Okay,” Brigitte says. “Okay. That’s enough for today.”

  “I want to be honest with you,” I say.

  “I would appreciate that.”

  “I don’t know how much of this I buy into. This aura stuff. Spirits or whatever.”

  “It doesn’t matter. We’re not talking about spirits now. We’re talking about you.”

  “Just wanted to say that.”

  “I want you to do something for me.”

  “Okay.”

  “Try to visualize things. See everything first in your mind. When images come to you, when they come to your mind, be they good or sad or happy or scary, don’t push them away. Make them into what you want. Hold on to them. And when you are ready, I promise, you’ll see all is well. All will be well. You are safe.”

  Brigitte stands and so I stand. The walls here are lined with tribal masks and bells and paintings of forests and wind chimes and it smells of Nag Champa and I can hear my heartbeat and she tells me that love is all around me and that the people I care about are all around me. No one has gone away. And then I leave. And I don’t feel silly. I don’t feel like talking with her was a waste of time. I feel strangely at ease for a moment. If only for a moment.

  IT’S THE TIME of day when all the light is gone, but it still isn’t dark yet. The time of transition, when sadness is most aware of its own power. I go to Elissa’s room. I do that thing where I stand and look at the posters on her wall because it’s my understanding that this is a thing you do when someone dies. I sit on her bed, with all her stuff. The blanket folded near her pillows. The green one she used to wrap herself in when she was cold. Her CDs and books, stacked neatly on the shelf, and a bandanna draped over the lamp on her night table, throwing red shadows onto the walls and floor. The crib. I stay for a while. No one walks by, and I’m glad for this. I’m not sure what I would say to anyone who saw me in here.

  Grief is disappointment. Grief is failure. Grief is dealing with. It’s moving on or not moving on. It’s my father’s mustache. That way he smiles, then immediately frowns. It’s the dirt we threw in the hole over Tanis, the parakeet. It’s little James. James Jr. It’s his eyes when he opens them, his face when he’s asleep. It’s all of us pulling together to take care of him. It’s Chip heating up formula at the kitchen stove to feed him. It’s my father rocking him in the middle of the night to stop him from screaming. It’s my mother holding him and humming softly, his tiny hand curling around her finger, Emma lounging at her feet. It’s all of this and it’s none of it.

  I’m getting by. I’m visualizing. Doing what Brigitte suggested. Or at least trying. I’m seeing things the way I want them to be. I’m not rushing anything. Or at least I’m trying not to rush anything. I am here. I am in the now. I am not trying to figure it all out at once. I am taking it step by step. I am getting by.

  I SIT AT the kitchen table eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I’m eating it with little heart. Hardly any enjoyment. My mother wanders
in and gathers things from the counter—her pocketbook, her scarf, her keys. I see that she looks so tired. It’s present in her body, her posture. All the weariness and dread and grief and anxiety boiled down to some giant kernel of blame and stuffed in her pocket. My mother is sad. She walks out the back door without putting her coat on. I sit for a while, chewing. When I don’t hear the car start, I go after her.

  It is cold. The coldness you feel accompanying confusion. A tight sensation in the spine. Things turning off inside you.

  I find her standing in the driveway, crying. She has one hand against the side of the house, bracing herself. Her other hand is gripping her pocketbook.

  “Come inside, Mom.”

  “We’re out of toilet paper.”

  “Well, the car’s back that way,” I say.

  “What?” she asks.

  “Chip’ll go,” I say. “I’ll go. It doesn’t matter.”

  “I should never have let her.”

  “How were you going to stop her?”

  “I could have stopped it.”

  “Elissa always went against the grain,” I say. “She wanted that baby. You can’t do that to yourself.”

  “We should have known better. All this time, we thought it was your father we were losing.”

  She looks at me, but I can’t meet her gaze. I stare at the shrubs she’s planted where the driveway ends. Where the pavement curls away to grass.

  “I couldn’t take care of her,” she says. “How can I take care of him now?”

  “He needs to take care of himself,” I say. “He’s coming around. Look, he stopped wearing the bathrobe. That’s a big deal and you helped him get there. You stayed on top of him.”

  My mother wipes her eyes with the back of her hand. She stops crying. She sniffles. I take a step toward her, as if maybe I want to hug her. But I don’t.

  “We should have looked out for her more,” she says. Her voice is small, throaty. “You did everything right.”

  At this, she starts to cry again. As quickly as she stopped, it turns back on.

  “The house is gone,” she tells me, and it’s hard for her to get the words out.

  She composes herself a bit. Her nose is running. I feel like crawling into a hole.

  “When?”

  “We accepted a bid yesterday.”

  “I mean, how long do we have?”

  “Who knows? Depending on what the bank does? Sixty days.”

  “Have you told Chip?”

  “He’s taking me to sign papers at the end of the week. It’s over.”

  I open my mouth, but I can’t think of anything to say.

  << 35 >>

  She is slow to decorate the house. Slow to bring down the boxes from the attic. She moves about with a long-instilled sense of purpose. Automatic routine. She drapes tinsel and garland. She arranges nutcrackers. She ties mistletoe to the dining room chandelier, where until only recently a piece of paper inscribed with a giant letter S had hung. I help her wrap the front bushes in lights. A wreath goes up on the front door. My father drives into town and returns with a modest tree from the guy selling them out of a parking lot. I help him put it in the stand. Chip comes home from work and all four of us hang decorations. I stand on a stepladder and place a star at the very top. When we’re done, we sit in the living room and admire our work. No one says anything.

  It will be James Jr.’s first Christmas. I feel like buying him as many presents as I can afford. I feel like showering him with gifts.

  ON THE SECOND Monday of December I’m in the teachers’ lounge getting my lunch when Ceci comes in. She’s wearing a white button-down and jeans. I can see just enough of her tits.

  “How you holding up?” she says. She grabs a mug out of the cabinet and fills it with lukewarm coffee. She stirs in a packet of sugar.

  “Okay, I guess.” I move past her. As I open the fridge, my hand brushes against her leg. “Sorry,” I say. I take out the cheese sandwich I brought with me.

  “I bet you’re looking forward to the break,” she says. “Be good to be around your family.”

  “I guess. Yeah,” I say. “It’s gonna be weird, though.”

  “I know,” Ceci says. She sips her coffee. “I’m sorry. I don’t really know what to say.”

  “It’s okay,” I say. “There’s nothing to say.” She leans against the side of the fridge, slouching into it, her back arched slightly, pushing her breasts forward against her shirt. She looks suddenly and openly vulnerable. She wants to be held. She wants me to hold her. She is making an inviting face. She leans against the side of the fridge. She looks like she wants to be kissed. I’m suddenly very close to her. I lean in quickly and put my lips on hers. She steps back, away from me. She lets go of her coffee mug and it clatters to the ground. It doesn’t break, but coffee goes everywhere.

  “Fuck,” I say. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

  She doesn’t say anything. For a while she stands holding her hand to her mouth. She looks at the mug, the pool of coffee spreading on the tile. She leaves the lounge abruptly, the door slamming behind her. I grab paper towels and clean up the mess.

  I don’t see her for the rest of the day. At three thirty, I take Arham down the hill to bus number 52. I make sure he gets his favorite seat near the front. I rub his head.

  “Hug,” he says. I hug him. I wave good-bye from the curb and watch as the bus drives off. For a few minutes I sit outside in the cold at the red picnic table. I look at my breath in the air. I visualize everything in my head. Walk myself through it. And then I go to Ceci’s office. I knock softly. Through the window in the door, I can see her sitting at her desk. She’s on the phone, but she hangs up quickly and waves me in.

  “Can we talk?” I say, as I open the door.

  “Sure,” she says. We barely make eye contact.

  I step in. I sit in one of the chairs near her desk. It’s green and soft and I slump into it. I look outside mostly. A few of the school buses have yet to depart. I see Angela helping Hendrick across the lawn. Georgie is saying good-bye to Shaynequa.

  “I don’t know what came over me,” I say.

  “You’ve got a lot going on,” Ceci says. “I realize that.”

  “If you wanna fire me, I would completely understand. I think you should.”

  “I’m not going to fire you, Calvin.”

  “You should. I want you to.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “Yes, I do. I can’t work here anymore.”

  “Look, I understand,” Ceci says. “You’ve been through a lot. I’d be behaving strangely, too, if I were in your position.”

  “It’s more than that,” I say. “I’m not going to come back after the break.” I look at the floor. I look at Ceci. She frowns. She leans back in her chair. She swivels forward, moving closer to me. She straightens her ponytail.

  “Because of what happened in the lounge?”

  “It’s something I’ve been thinking about doing for a while,” I say. “I need to figure out some family stuff and I need time to do that.”

  “So take some time,” she says. “Use the holidays to think about it. I’d hate to lose you. Don’t do anything rash, not until you’ve thought it through.”

  “I have thought it through.”

  “So you’re just going to give up?” she asks. “Everything we worked out? The whole thing?”

  “I don’t know that my heart was ever in it to begin with,” I say. “I’m sorry.”

  “What about Arham?”

  “You can’t do that to me,” I say. “I’ve got enough people to worry about without taking him on, too.”

  “He’s come so far with you.”

  “I know. And he’ll go further with someone else. Someone who actually wants to do this.”

  “You don’t want to be a teacher?”

  “No,” I say. “Listen, I love working here. This has been an amazing experience for me and I’ve learned so much. And I’ll miss that little guy and I won’t forge
t him or any of these kids anytime soon, but when I close my eyes, this isn’t what I see myself doing.”

  “What do you see yourself doing?”

  “I have no idea,” I say. “Right now I need to be home. I have to help out if I can. There’s a baby to look after.”

  “I wish you’d change your mind,” Ceci says. She puts her hands on the table and plays with her engagement ring, spinning it around and around.

  “I’m sorry to spring this on you,” I say. “It’s a shitty thing to do, I know.”

  What about going back to school?”

  “It’s not for me.”

  “What can I say?” Ceci says. “I’m disappointed.”

  “I’m sorry I disappointed you.”

  Ceci throws up her hands. “All right. Finish out the month. Type up a letter.”

  There isn’t anything left for us to talk about, and silence settles in. I am slow to get up from the soft green chair. I am slow to leave her office.

  I GO OUT to the hatchback.

  I want to start the engine and drive. Just keep driving. Cross the Tappan Zee and head north until there’s no more road. As long as I keep going, everything will be fine. Perpetual motion is the answer. It keeps everything outside the car at bay. If I can somehow stay inside that cocoon forever, there will be no problems. As long as I never get where I’m going, it will all be okay. It will be manageable.

  Instead, I drive to a spot I know, on Van Wart Avenue. I park. The bridge is in the short distance. Sloping hills dotted with quiet houses on the western bank of the Hudson. Cars coming and going, a certain order of motion, of other people’s lives, not my own. Where they are going, who they love, what their lives look like, I have no idea.

  It would be something, if I could do it, if I could just turn my back and leave.

  The hatchback idles shakily, the engine humming.

  I’m done at the John W. Manley School. That much I’m certain of. No grad school. No Pace University. I’m walking away.

  The murky, uncertain future is a scary thing to contemplate and I can’t really see the path before me. I miss her.

  I release the emergency brake and put the hatchback in gear.