Life and Other Near-Death Experiences

by Camille Pagán

  No, I did not, I told him, as I glanced around for a window to jump out of, never mind that the door was right behind me; rational thinking was now a distant, almost unfathomable memory, like a land before e-mail.

  “It’s true!” Ty enthused. “And with Shea at the helm, Broderick Media has funneled nearly a hundred thousand dollars to the city’s most effective literacy program. I mean, it’s just astounding.” He tilted his head back, regarding me like I was a rescue puppy wagging my tail and begging him to pick me. Which was not entirely off base. “You should come work for us, Libby.”

  Us. I wanted to throw us in a bonfire. I wanted to stuff us in a bottle and toss it into the Gulf of Mexico during hurricane season.

  Instead, I plastered on a deranged smile. “You know, I’d love to, but I just quit on Jackie to start my own nonprofit. For, um, children who’ve lost parents to cancer. That’s why I’m here, actually. I was hoping you and Shea could give me some pointers,” I fibbed, as though I hadn’t just learned that in addition to running one of the few profitable publishing companies in Chicago, Ty’s secret wife just happened to have a heart of gold.

  “Mentoring is one of my core competencies!” said Shea. “I’d love to chat more, but right now, baby Broderick-Oshira is starving! You know how that is.”

  I did not.

  “Do you have a card you could leave, Lizzy?” she asked sweetly.

  Again, I did not, and Ty didn’t tell Shea that she had just mangled my name. He seemed relieved that I was about to exit his personal Eden. “Well, I should be able to look you up,” he said, extending his hand.

  It was cold as I shook it. “Yes, I’m easy to find online,” I told him. Just search the obituaries.

  EIGHT

  The thing about life is, you think it’s going to go on forever, that there couldn’t possibly be an end to your story, at least not in the foreseeable future. But then around the time you—and by you, I mean me—should be having the stirrings of a midlife crisis, a stranger in a white coat tells you that you are no longer a member of the general population and do not have another forty-five-and-a-half years to warm up to the idea of dying.

  Cue my end-of-life crisis.

  Really, crisis is a kind way to describe what I was going through; it was more like a full-blown meltdown, although at the time I thought I was being quite reasonable. And while I would like to blame the cancer and Tom’s untimely outing, or even Cool Hand Ty and the Rejections (which would be my band name in my next life, I decided), it was really Shea who hurtled me to the front line of my emotional Chernobyl.

  Because Shea, with her company and charitable donations and mother-fracking fertility, was the embodiment of everything I was not, had never been, and would never, ever get a chance to be.

  What have I done that has made a real impact? I wondered as I sat shivering on my deck, which overlooked row after row of condos and a malodorous McDonald’s. I sent the occasional hundred dollars to my local public radio station. There was the time in tenth grade that I successfully petitioned for my high school to stop dissecting fetal cats in the biology lab. Last year, I teamed up with the IT department to create a shared network that allowed my colleagues to access one another’s files from any location, leading to fewer vacation- and illness-related workflow interruptions. Being chained to my desk most days, I didn’t have the opportunity to use the network myself, but I was told it was a lovely innovation.

  Nothing, I concluded. Unlike Shea, I had not done a damn thing to crow about, let alone be privately proud of, and that was far more awful than learning that my supposed life partner had relinquished his role.

  I contemplated taking another sleeping pill or seven, but called Paul instead. He picked up on the first ring. There were people in the background, lots of them, and they sounded shmacked.

  “Where are you?”

  “A bar. I’m out with some of my coworkers. Market’s closed for the week, remember?”

  “Uh, yeah,” I said, only then recalling that it was Friday. “Well, can you put on your money goggles for a few more minutes?”

  He laughed. “They never come off, Libs. Is this about divorce lawyers? Because I already looked into it. It’ll run you about twenty-three thousand, give or take a few. Mediation’s a fraction of that, but if you want to take Tom to the cleaners, I suggest spending more up front.”

  “He’s worth nothing.”

  “You can say that again, sister.”

  I blinked hard, trying to keep the tears at bay. It was pointless; Paul could smell my sob from eight hundred miles away. “Oh, Libby. I know you don’t like it, but I’m sending you a psychic hug right now. Mmm-mmm! Okay, now hold on, I’m going outside so I can hear you better.”

  When the commotion died down, I asked him how much money I would need to live on for a year. I probably wouldn’t last that long, but just in case, I didn’t want to be a burden, not even to Paul, who had roughly a trazillion dollars tied up in investments and property but who also had two children to care for.

  “Are you taking a year off?” he said with a mix of delight and horror. Paul became comatose when he wasn’t working, and had two smartphones on his person at all times. But he liked the idea of downtime and was constantly telling me to take a break.

  “Affirmative.”

  “What are you going to do with yourself?”

  “I’m going on vacation. Then maybe I’ll come see you and spend some time with Dad,” I said vaguely. If our mother’s ovarian cancer was any indication, I would also lose half my body weight, pretend not to be in horrific pain, and compensate by sleeping for fifteen to twenty hours at a time. But Paul would learn this soon enough.

  “Perfect! The twins will be so happy to see you, and we can do career brainstorming while you’re here. I think you would make a brilliant hedge fund manager.”

  “If that was true, I wouldn’t be calling you to figure out how much cash I need.”

  “I do see your point. So . . .” He muttered a few numbers to himself, then rattled off a figure that was higher than I was expecting. “I want to double-check this when I have my computer in front of me, but I’m assuming you’ll need to front your own health coverage and will end up paying the entire mortgage on your own. You’ve been following my plan, haven’t you?” he asked, referring to the budget he created for Tom and me several years ago.

  “Of course. Paul?”

  “Hit me.”

  “Wh—”

  “Ow!” he exclaimed, and in spite of myself, I laughed; I’d been falling for that stupid joke since we were kids.

  “Seriously, though. What if I sell the condo?”

  “And come live with me for a while? I could turn the whole bottom floor of the brownstone into a private apartment for you.”

  “Maybe,” I said vaguely, as I had no intention of actually moving in with him. “How much would I need then?” I wanted to liquidate as many assets as possible. Also, the idea of Tom being homeless was appealing.

  Paul gave me another number, one that was much lower.

  “Awesome. One last question. I want to give, um, some money away. You know, try to boost my karma and lower my taxes for the year,” I said, asking God to forgive me for this and the many fibs I’d had to tell over the past several days. “How would I find a good charity?”

  “Check out Charity Navigator. They have a full rundown of who’s legit. Look for an organization that has at least a B-plus rating.”

  “You know everything,” I said. I was starting to see the light again.

  “It’s a burden, I tell you.”

  “I love you the most, Paul.”

  An hour later, I emptied half my savings. I would’ve unloaded the entire account, but since there was a chance I’d have to split it with Tom if I lived long enough to legally divorce him, I stuck the other half in a cash deposit.

  I cou
ldn’t find a well-established charity specifically for children who had lost parents to cancer; and while I briefly contemplated turning the lie I told Ty and Shea into truth by forming some sort of foundation for that purpose, I ultimately decided my money would be better off with people who knew what they were doing. So I chose two nonprofits dedicated to cancer research—Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital—and sent each one a check far larger than any I had ever written before, specifying that the donations were in memory of Charlotte Ross, my mother.

  Which got me thinking. Though I was prone to prayer and put my faith in God, I could not say with absolute certainty that I believed in the afterlife—although I sure as hell hoped it existed. I wasn’t so much interested in meeting my maker as I was in seeing my mother again. As this possibility drew nearer, however, I was getting a tad panicky. Had she been watching my life from afar? What would she say about my choices? The two donations seemed inconsequential. Surely I could pay tribute to my mother in an even bigger and more meaningful way.

  Yes. Yes I could. And I would do so by ridding myself of all the treasures I would not be storing up in heaven.

  I went on Craigslist and placed an ad:

  DIVORCE SALE! MID-CENTURY FURNITURE! LIGHT SCULPTURES! MODERN ART! DIRT CHEAP PRICES—EVERYTHING MUST GO!

  Then I called my Realtor friend. “Libby?” he said curiously. I’d already reached out to him about the condo, but he probably was not expecting me to contact him at nine on a Friday night, especially as we hadn’t seen each other since a mutual friend’s engagement party a few years ago.

  “Raj, I want to move forward. Can you still sell the apartment for me?”

  He perked right up. “So you’re going to go through with it! How soon?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “How much do you want?”

  “Enough to make the mortgage disappear,” I said, and told him what I still owed.

  He whistled. “Nice. You guys bought before the height of the market, so you’ll probably pocket close to a hundred.”

  “Dollars?”

  “Thousand, Libby. A hundred thousand.”

  I exhaled. “Tell me more.”

  “I can get it listed this week, but you’re going to have to make sure the place is as clean and clutter-free as possible.”

  “Not a problem. It’ll be all but empty, and I’ll be out of town for the next month.”

  Raj and I were friends online, and he’d seen my recent status update about being single. “Libby, I hate to ask, but—”

  “Tom’s not happy about it, although I’ve paid for ninety-eight percent of this place. Even so, he’s on board.” I’d have to get the locks changed and forge Tom’s signature. That was regrettable.

  On the other hand, I was going to make it rain for kids with cancer. Heck, by the time the condo was unloaded, Shea’s measly literacy donation would look like a lemonade stand.

  More important, I would no longer be a worthless chunk of carbon, but rather a daughter who had done at least a little something to show that her mother’s death had not been entirely in vain.

  NINE

  “Mary and Joseph, Libby. Have you lost your mind?” said Jess. She glanced around my apartment, which was barren. I had planned to hold the Death and Divorce Sale all day, but an interior designer armed with a moving van and a couple of beefy guys showed up first thing that morning and nearly cleared me out. “This is really yours?” the designer kept asking; apparently putting Salvation Army prices on Scandinavian furniture makes it appear as though you’re not doing business on the up-and-up. Though my initial goal had been to unload everything as quickly as possible, I realized the designer had the ability to pad my charity fund, and I tacked an extra thousand bucks onto her bill. She didn’t open her trap again.

  I wouldn’t have buzzed Jess up if I had known it was her, but I thought she was another buyer swinging by.

  “Seriously,” she said, aghast. “I think you should see a professional. Like, today.”

  I followed Jess’s eyes to the dust bunnies clustered where the cream sectional had been not an hour before. “Maybe,” I allowed. I examined her outfit du jour. “Then again, I’m not the one wearing a feather in my hair without a hint of irony and carrying a bag made from llama foreskins.”

  “It’s ostrich.” She sniffed. “And I’ve been calling you. I’m sorry about the other night, but avoiding me isn’t going to make this better.”

  “I’m not trying to make anything better.”

  Now it was her turn to regard me skeptically. “While I find that hard to believe in theory, the state of your apartment says you’re telling the truth. Where’s your furniture?”

  “I’m redecorating,” I said, unable to suppress my smile.

  “Libby, that is not nice. That furniture meant a lot to Tom.”

  “A shame the same could not be said of our wedding vows.” I laughed, but it came out hollow. “Besides, you and I both know that I paid for nearly every single thing here. Er, that was here. I believe I’m entitled to do as I please with it.”

  “I suppose you are.”

  “Is Tom staying with you guys?” I asked.

  “Yeah. For a little while.” She looked around for a place to sit, but the only options were the coffee table—a long glass number that was both ugly and unstable—and the floor. “You want to go outside for a smoke?”

  “Sure.”

  I hadn’t sold the patio set yet, so we sat on wicker love seats facing each other, Jess puffing away. She’d been trying to quit for years, mostly because O’Reilly hated the smell, but she still had a few a day and reasoned that she would kick the habit for good when she got pregnant. Jess had been putting off pregnancy for as long as I could remember, and she was two years older than me.

  “So you knew for a long time,” I said.

  She exhaled a thin plume of smoke. “No. I only found out last week. But I did wonder.”

  I winced. Jess had suspected it. Why hadn’t I?

  “Oh, Libby, don’t make that face,” she said, pressing her half-finished cigarette into the small glass dish I kept out for her. She didn’t like to smoke them all the way down; too gauche or something. “It’s not like I caught him sneaking into a gay club.”

  “Then what? What was it?” I said. I was starting to cry again, which was annoying.

  “To be honest, I don’t know. I just felt like . . .” She stared at the golden arches peeking over the condo garage. “I always felt like he was a little in love with Michael,” she said, meaning O’Reilly.

  “You did?” I said, wiping my eyes with the back of my hand.

  “Um, yeah.” She laughed. “I mentioned it to Michael once, and he was really upset with me, so I never said anything ever again, but I think he secretly agrees with me. He was so shook up when Tom came out to him. I mean, if you were in the dark, then Michael was at the bottom of a cave with a fully functioning flashlight that he refused to turn on. I’m not saying he’s homophobic,” she added quickly, probably thinking about Paul.

  “I know,” I assured her. “And trust me. I get it. You think you know someone . . .”

  “And then you find out you really don’t. Not at all,” she said, and reached into her bag for another cigarette.

  I almost blurted it out. Part of me wanted to unload the horrible thing that was pressing down on my chest like an anvil. But I wouldn’t want Jess to tell anyone, and that would be asking her to lie quietly under the anvil with me.

  “Jess, I would say we should stay friends, but I’m planning on leaving Chicago, and I don’t think I’ll be coming back for a very long time.”

  Jess was about to lift a match to her cigarette, but she put it on the table and came over to sit next to me. “Libby, I love you, but I worry about you sometimes.”

  “Why is everyone al
ways saying that?”

  “Well, why on earth would you think geography will end our friendship? We’ve been friends for, how long is it now?”

  I counted in my head. “At least twelve years.”

  “Exactly.” She put her arm around me and I tried not to stiffen; like I mentioned, I wasn’t crazy about people other than Tom touching me. “The weirdness will pass, you know. One day you’ll wake up and you won’t feel like showing up at Tom’s work and making a fool of yourself.”

  I scowled. “I didn’t make a fool of myself. I just wanted him to know our marriage was officially over.”

  “Whatever you need to tell yourself to get through this,” she said jokingly, then gave me another sideways hug. “But really. Things will start looking up. I just know it.”

  “That’s very sweet, Jess.” I was losing steam again. “I only wish it was true.”

  After Jess left, I started boxing up what was left of the apartment, which was mostly in piles on the floor (although the contents of our bedroom remained untouched; I couldn’t bring myself to let anyone in there, and besides, I needed a place to sleep until I flew to Mexico). I would mail a few things to Paul’s. The rest would go in the trash or would be donated.

  I shouldn’t have, but I found myself sprawled across the bed, flipping through our wedding album. Tom, in his spiffy suit that he had no business buying on a credit card that would take two years to pay off; me in my mother’s wedding dress, which had to be let out significantly but was gorgeous all the same. We were both grinning wildly, faces plump in the way that gave us away as closer to twenty than forty.

  Paul was right: we were too young to be making such a major life decision. And while I may have been too foolish to know better, somewhere in his soul, Tom must have—he just must have—known he would one day betray me with his truth, and yet he went and married me anyway. I’ll be honest: when I thought about this, I literally wanted to kill him, in the most grammatically accurate rendition of the phrase.