“It’s new, this place, off the beaten path. My father had it built before we moved here.” He shrugs.
I stare at the entryway, which opens to the living room, the kitchen, dining room, and formal dining room. A wall of windows overlooks a meadow.
“Should I take off my shoes?” I ask, already in motion.
He laughs. “We have stone floors, Livia, so I doubt you’ll ruin the floor. But do what makes you comfortable.”
I stare up at the vaulted ceilings made of redwood. Up above the living room and kitchen is a huge loft, which looks like another living room, or game room.
“Would you like to go upstairs?” he asks.
Yes, yes, I would. Is it a good decision? No. Probably not, but my inhibitions are no longer here.
Daniel smiles. “But”—he runs his hand through his hair—“I’m afraid you’ll have to take my hand. We’ll pass by the dragon quarters, and sometimes, people get a bit spooked.”
“I’ve wrestled dragons before, Daniel; don’t worry about me. It’s an Olympic sport in America.”
The stoic face I’m managing to hold is not only surprising to me, but to Daniel, too.
He shakes his finger in the air as my hand slips into his. My fingers slide between his.
Simon’s hands don’t feel like this, and my heart doesn’t do the strange things it’s doing right now when I’m with Simon, not any boy for that matter.
I have a flashback.
Dr. Elizabeth made me visualize my grief as a dragon. She said, as her mole pulled to the left, “What do you need to tell the dragon?” She said, “Use this time to be honest with the dragon. Come on, let it all out.” But my personal favorite was, “Do you feel the dragon roar? Do you feel his fire?”
When I left her office that day, I was more confused than when I had gone in.
That was the last time I went to Dr. Elizabeth. I haven’t told Tracy yet. She still thinks I’m sitting with the dragon on a weekly basis, and it’s been two weeks. When Tracy asks, I lie about it because it seems I’m good at that now.
“Livia?” Daniel asks. “Are you all right?”
I nod as he leads me upstairs to a whole new level of big. Vast. Large. Expansive. Oil paintings hang, representing the Elizabethan era well. Men and women in formal wear, their collars like cones you see on dogs and cats treated at the vet. They don’t look comfortable either. Smiling seemed to be against the law back then, or nobody was happy because each painting we pass is something drab, less enthusiastic, and sad than the painting before.
“Who are these people?” I ask as I feel Daniel’s thumb slightly rub against my hand while the butterflies begin to flutter, making my hands sweat.
“Family.” He stops in front of one particular painting of a man who is sitting. He looks miserable.
“Who is he?” I whisper as I trace the word envious against my leg.
“My great-great-great-great-grandfather. This was done after his wife’s funeral.” He pronounces grandfather as if there is an O in place of the A in father.
I stare into the eyes of the man. “Looks jealous.”
Daniel stares into the eyes of the painting and then back at me. “How so?”
“Well, he looks to me as if he wanted to go first. As if it were prearranged—that he would die first and his wife would die second.”
“One stare?” He pauses and turns to me, my hand still in his and my body still facing the painting, tilting my head to one side.
“Absolutely.”
It’s as if the pills allow me to reach a deeper level of thinking, creatively touching places I’ve never touched before. Perhaps a deeper psyche. A psyche newer to me, built on the lies I tell myself when I use.
“Huh.”
We walk past several doors down the large hallway, and we stop at the end of the hall, facing a door.
“I’d like you to meet my mother. Would that be all right?”
I question why his mother is behind a door in a room and not in the kitchen. The feeling this gives me is not a good one. Why isn’t she in a living room, reading Pride and Prejudice, or in the backyard in some sort of organic garden she’s created from scratch? Because I bet that’s what Mrs. Pearson does.
“What’s your mother’s name?” My hands noticeably grow sweatier, so I not so casually pull away from Daniel’s.
Caught off guard, he responds, “She’s my mother, not the Queen of England, Livia.”
I rub my hands on my jeans, attempting to be nonchalant, trying to wipe away any evidence of nerves. “No, I know. I just…” I swallow my gum on accident.
He reaches down and takes my hand anyway, pulling me closer to where my ear meets his mouth. “Rose. My mum’s name,” he whispers.
I count the seconds his breath is against my ear, so it will distract my impure thoughts of heavy breathing. Sex even.
“You shouldn’t swallow your gum, Livia. It’s bad for you, so says my father. Blocks your intestines.” The way he pronounces swallow is as if the A is actually an O, and he says it as if his lips are pulled tight, which they aren’t, but it sounds like they are.
I panic because his breath on my neck makes me sweat even more, like I’m a sweaty cesspool, dripping away, melting.
Get it together, Liv, I tell myself.
“I didn’t know your father was the leading authority on gum-swallowing.”
“Indeed.”
He pulls open the door to a massive bedroom, full of windows that show a path through the giant redwoods, beautiful curtains, antiques, antebellum curtains, wallpaper of pink flowers to be exact, and remnants of time travel. As if we’d traveled back in time. The room or ballroom—I’m not sure which because it’s so big—smells antiseptically clean.
A voice calls out—a feeble one, cracked, full of breaths that break up the words—“Daniel, is that you?”
Daniel, wide-eyed, looks back at me, and a slow grin appears across his face. “Yes, Mum.”
Smack dab in the middle of the room full of natural light but protected by the redwoods that sit just outside the windows is a hospital bed. Her back is to us, slanted up.
My stomach drops. I try to pull my hand from Daniel’s, but he doesn’t let me, and this makes my heart pick up pace as he leads us to her bedside.
Withering in the bed before us is a frail woman, though her thinness must be a direct result of her condition, making her look years older than she is. Her eyes are gray with a slight twinkle when she catches mine.
The beanie covers her head. It looks like the one Daniel wore on the day Cao and I passed him when he was walking up the Gulch. I think about telling her the ramifications of her son walking on Highway 36 and the deadliness that the curvy road provides, but I don’t because she speaks first.
“Ah,” she breathes, “you must be Livia.” She carefully reaches for my hand.
He’s made no mention of his mother, except for the fact that she is sick. And I wasn’t sure if it was cold sick or flu sick, but not this sick.
“Rose, it is nice to meet you.” I’m thankful the pills are still taking the edge off.
Her hands are cold, her fingers thin, weak, her skin almost transparent with blue veins leading to hidden places.
“I’ve heard a lot about you.” She speaks just like Daniel. The way she moves her mouth. “Did my son offer you tea, Livia?”
“I did not, Mum.” He turns and walks to a cart located in the back of the room.
“Your home is beautiful, Rose. And your view…” I glance out the wall of windows to the redwood forest.
“It is.” She takes in a deep breath. “God’s country. Isn’t this what they call Humboldt County?” Her head rests at an angle against the hospital bed.
I try not to stare, but through the corner of my eye, I see pill bottles blanketing the top of a makeshift nightstand.
“I’m very sorry,” she whispers, either from lack of oxygen or fatigue, “about your brother.”
My insides twist and move in an uncom
fortable display of inner turmoil, only visualized by God. If only someone could see inside my brain, they wouldn’t apologize. If she knew the things I did to cope, she’d tell her son to run in the opposite direction.
“Thank you,” is all I manage, trying not to trip over my words with my tongue.
Rose closes her eyes and takes in a deep breath. She’s peaceful in this moment, and I wonder if this is our sign to leave.
I glance back at Daniel again. He doesn’t move, so I don’t either.
A minute passes and then another. Rose’s eyes remain closed.
Is she dying? She doesn’t look well, but would she just up and die the moment I got here?
Her hands are warm. Dead people have cold hands.
Poppy chimes in, “She’s not dead. Just listen.”
To what? I answer Poppy in my head. Rose’s eyes are closed. Her lips aren’t moving, Poppy.
Daniel waits.
I cock my head to Daniel, as if to say, What gives?
Rose stirs. And her eyes flutter open, as if she were napping. “You know, Livia, I had to let go of a lot in my short life.” She pauses to catch her breath. “Just accept situations for what they are. We come into this life with nothing.” She pauses again. “And we leave this life with nothing but our character.” She weakly adjusts her head. “I don’t think God will be waiting for me in heaven, a clipboard in hand,” she breathes, “asking what my annual income was, what make of car I drove, my career”—Rose pauses to cough—“if I had everything I wanted in life. I think he’ll ask if I was kind to everyone I met. Patient. Tolerant. Loving.” She pauses one last time. “When I faced tragedy, adversity, did I change as a human being, or did I carry my character all the way through? One of love, patience, and kindness.” Rose coughs into her tissue, this time pulling away a little bit of blood. She wraps up the tissue to conceal her hurt. She looks at me dead in the eyes. “When life gives you the ultimate test, how will you handle it?”
I can’t breathe.
I want to run away.
It’s easier, softer than facing life on life’s terms.
Rose’s hand is still in mine, her fingers tightening around mine. She winks.
Rose nods, breathing.
Breathing is good, Rose. Breathing is good.
“He says, ‘Stop sitting on my shoes.’” Rose laughs hoarsely, almost a crazed laugh as it continues.
My heart stops beating because she and I are the only ones who know what this means. And I’m not sure whether I’ll laugh or cry or both. I want Rose to stop and continue, all at the same time. I want to get lost in her words. Roll in them. And push them away and leave them in the dark by themselves to find their own way out.
Breathe, I tell myself.
My throat constricts.
Now, I want, more than ever, for the pills to just take me away from my body. I want to hear Rose’s words, I do, but I don’t want to feel what I’m feeling right now.
And my tears fall one by one, staining my cheeks, creating dark spots of wet on my T-shirt.
I nod.
She pulls her hand from mine and tells me to lean forward. “I’ll be with Jasper, watching over him. Keeping him safe.” Rose reaches for the pendant that my dad had made after Jasper passed. After Rose is done examining the necklace, she slowly drops her hand back to her side with a pat on my hand. Her body looks exhausted. Rose closes her eyes again for a long time this time.
Daniel takes my hand and leads me toward the door. “She gets a bit crazy in the head when the pain medication kicks in. Says things that are off.”
He takes me to the kitchen, lets go of my hand, and leans against the massive island in the middle of the kitchen. He folds his arms against his chest.
I don’t say anything. I don’t think I can.
Daniel bites his lip. And does the go-to-speak, hold-back, and-then-speak look. “Grief is grief, Livia. We all carry it. Varies with different people. Some mask it. Some live in it. Some run from it.”
I try to remember all the reasons I came here. To explain my grief, as if making excuses? Condone my own behavior? To who? Why? Give every excuse why I need to act upon my physical need for affection from someone? But all of these excuses—because that’s what they are—don’t seem much like reasons anymore, not after meeting Rose. I chew on each excuse—trying to rationalize why behavior is functional, reasonable, the only option—but I can’t.
So, instead, I ask Daniel about his mother, “Is your mother dying?” I probably should have worded this question differently. A million different ways would have been better, but I didn’t.
“Diagnosed with stage four breast cancer. My father won’t allow hospice, so he and I split the duties. A lot more me than him.”
I pause before I ask the next question. “What’s your relationship like with your dad?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Complicated is my life. When was she diagnosed?” I’m standing two feet away from him.
“When I was thirteen. On my birthday actually.” He smiles, most likely at a memory that has come up in his mind.
I do that, too, with a good memory. Not a bad one.
“When is your birthday?” I want to keep the smile on his face for as long as he’ll have it there.
“October 8.”
I choke out a cough.
“Livia?”
“Ours,” is all I manage to say as I try to collect the pieces of fate that are seemingly falling from wherever fate comes from. “That’s our birthday.” Mine now. Just mine. Jasper stopped having birthdays on October 1.
“Your birthday is October 8?” Daniel tries to soothe the mistake I’ve just made with my words, and all I want is to take his mom’s cancer away.
I begin chewing on my thumbnail to refrain from taking my hand and touching his lips in my best attempt to hold his smile there.
Carefully, he leans over and pulls my thumb from my mouth, and his fingers linger in mine. “We’re doomed.” His smile grows beneath his sadness.
Jasper and Livia, Sharing a Room, Age 8 ½
“Jasper? Are you awake?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you have both arms out of your covers?”
“Just one.”
“Which arm?”
“Left.” Jasper lets out a sigh. “Go to sleep, Mimi.”
Silence.
“What about your legs?”
“Both of them are under the covers.”
“Okay.”
I adjust myself by reluctantly moving my left arm from the safety of my covers, keeping my right arm and legs nestled beneath the protection of the dark.
Daniel reaches for the butter behind me, his arm brushing my hip, his face inches from mine. “Are you hungry?” he asks.
I’m not sure, I want to say because the explosion of butterflies in my stomach is hiding any hunger pangs that I might have.
I nod to be polite.
“It looks as though your thumb doesn’t deserve the abuse you’re giving it.” Daniel finally moves away from me, away from the kissing space he’s created. He releases my thumb, my hand, before he turns and walks to the one-thousand-burner stove. Whatever it is, it’s huge. Maybe not one thousand burners. Ten maybe. But it’s big.
I attempt to put my thumbnail in my mouth again, but I think twice and shove my hands behind my back. “What did Rose’s doctor say?”
“Wait for her to die.” He laughs.
I don’t laugh.
Daniel turns his head, resting his chin on his shoulder. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t funny.”
But I understand where he’s coming from. The humor in death, there isn’t any. But the human response to death can be morbid. I wonder how long Daniel has been grieving.
Slowly, I walk to the gigantic stove and lean against the counter, so I’m facing him as he cooks. “How long have you had to do this?”
“Cook? Or watch my mother die?” He doesn’t make eye contact and adjusts the flame, as if trying to p
ut off the answer.
When I don’t respond, he knows what I’m getting at.
“Well, she was diagnosed when I turned thirteen. Went into remission when I was fifteen. And then it came back when I was sixteen—with no hope and no cure.” Daniel shrugs, as if he’s shrugging off the world. As if it might be easier to cope in his own way for now. “My father read through her diagnosis, labs, etcetera, etcetera. There was no need for a second opinion. That’s when we moved here. So, my long-winded answer to your initial question is: since as far back as I can remember.” And he says remember like it ends with an A and not an R. “I’m making a bacon sarnie. You’ll have one. It tastes much better than a thumb.” Daniel walks to the refrigerator and grabs bacon.
I can tell he wants to change the conversation.
“Has Rose always had the gift to communicate with…well, you know?”
Daniel walks back to me with the bacon and bread. “She’s always known she’s different. When she told her parents, they admitted her to a nuthouse.” He pulls the bacon apart and puts it into the frying pan. “I guess they were trying to scare the spirits out of her. My mum knew she wasn’t crazy, so in order to get out, she played along.”
There’s a long pause as the bacon sizzle fills the void.
Daniel turns so that he’s facing me. “She moved out when she was eighteen and never spoke to her parents again.”
“You’ve never met your grandparents?”
“Would you like tommy sauce or brown sauce?” Daniel puts the bread in the toaster, trying to keep himself busy.
I slowly tilt my head to the left in curiosity, not knowing what either of my options are.
Daniel clarifies, “My apologies. Tommy sauce, uh, catsup, I think you call it. And brown sauce is like catsup but tangier.”
“Tommy sauce,” I say because it’s what I know. Many years I’ve spent looking at Jasper for the answers to questions about life. I need to try something different this time. “No. Wait. I’ll try the brown sauce actually, please.”
He covers the toast with brown sauce, layers several pieces of bacon on the bread, and closes it up with the top piece of bread, also covered in brown sauce.
Standing Sideways Page 11