Goodbye, Sweet Girl

by Kelly Sundberg

  “What happened?” I asked the night clerk in the lobby.

  “Someone just OD’d,” she said with a shrug, as though people regularly committed suicide at the Avoca Motel 6.

  I walked my dog out to a patch of grass, the din of vehicles on the interstate rushing by. The sun was setting, and the Iowa sky—so large—loomed in front of me. Nearly the same red and blue as the color of the ambulance lights swept across the skyline, and it was so heartbreakingly beautiful and at the same time so much like a bruise that I broke down crying in that parking lot. A trucker who had been working on his truck scurried off when I started sobbing.

  A couple of years earlier, one of my high school friends had lost both her husband and child in a tragic car accident. Later Jeannie sent me a Facebook message and told me to look up “Orchid Leona Sun.”

  I typed in the name and saw the face of my friend, who now had blond hair instead of the brown hair I remembered her having in high school. She’d begun wearing hippie dresses, and she was a midwife. From what I could gather, she had completely changed her name and her life.

  “She seems happy,” I said when Jeannie asked me what I thought of the change.

  Jeannie, who was a counselor, hesitated before replying. “I don’t think it’s good,” she finally said. “I mean, wherever you go, there you are. You can’t escape your past.” She was right. Our friend had changed her name, her dress, her job, and what seemed like her whole damn life, but there would always be a part of her that was still the person I went to high school with, still the person with brown hair who remembered her lost husband and child, and grieved for them.

  Wherever I went, there I was. There I was. There I was. There I was.

  SHORTLY BEFORE I left Idaho in August, Emily and I went down to a beach where we put little floating chairs in the water and watched the sun set together. We talked as though we would never run out of things to say. It was our last night together, and our speech was urgent, as if we knew that we could never return to that moment, to the newness of our friendship, to the magic of that connection, to the commonality of our grief.

  I told her about the first night that I saw Bearded Man again, how I sat with him on a dock and looked at the stars. “I don’t remember the last time I saw the Big Dipper,” I told him. “I’m not sure why I stopped looking at the stars.”

  He had snorted in disbelief, and I realized how much of myself I had lost in the years of my marriage.

  Emily told me about her family, her parents’ divorce and her quiet suffering, her love for her brother-in-law and her worry that she hadn’t been good enough to him while he was alive. She also told me about her feeling that he forgave her. That he was always watching over her with love.

  I told her that I didn’t miss Caleb anymore, at least not all of the time. “I was like an open wound when I got here,” I said.

  “You’re a completely different person now than you were when you arrived,” she said. She paused, and then spoke again. “My husband asked me if I’ve told you how much you mean to me right now. You’ve been so important to me this summer. I just want you to know.”

  “I know,” I said.

  I sat next to her, floating in the water, watching the sun dip behind the canyon, and I tried memorizing everything about that moment. I wanted to always remember the cool dark water of the Salmon River, the warm sand, the smell of pine, the sky so large, canopied with stars. It was the first time that I felt that I could be happy again. Caleb was nowhere nearby, and he never would be again, but my friend was there. And I was there.

  WHEN I WAS in the fourth grade, my teacher chartered a small plane. So many Idahoans, she said, would never get a chance to ride an airplane. I was thrilled as I boarded the plane. I was the lucky one to ride in the front seat. As we rose into the air, the pilot made a large sweep over the valley, the tiny houses receding into the distance, the dark river slicing through green pastures, flanked by steep mountains. I knew that I would never be the same as I glided in that immensity. It was as though I could see the girl who I had been standing in that valley, waving furiously back at me. Goodbye, sweet girl, I thought.

  Eight years later, when I had dropped out of college and was flying to Europe, I looked down into the shadowy depths of the ocean and thought I saw myself reflected in the water. Five years after that, I gripped the door handle of a two-seater as it sliced up the stark Salmon River canyon and dropped me off at a tiny dirt airstrip at Indian Creek. As the plane flew away, and I prepared myself to spend weeks alone in the wilderness for the first time, it was as though I could see the girl I had been flying away in that plane.

  Five years after that, I flew with Reed and Joanne to my new home in West Virginia, where I was meeting Caleb, and as the Idaho skyline disappeared behind me into vast reaches of blue, I could see myself disappearing too.

  Now, six years later, I stood staring at that wide, open Iowa sky, surrounded by nothing but chain restaurants, a potential suicide, and a funeral home. An airplane streaked by, leaving a white tail in its wake. I thought about sitting by the river with Emily and savored the details I had willed myself to remember. I saw the bruised woman who I had been cradled in that cool water, still recovering from her Caleb life. But now I saw her as a memory, and I could finally say to her, “Goodbye, sweet girl.”

  Epilogue

  The House in the Hollow

  WHEN WE ARRIVED in Ohio, Reed and I first moved into a sterile apartment run by student housing. I carried my groceries up six flights of metal stairs. I carried my dog down the stairs to go potty when the steps were too cold for his paws.

  I missed Reed desperately when he was away at school or visiting his dad.

  Still, when we moved into that tiny apartment, Reed and I found a cute little blue table that we fit around perfectly.

  And slowly, I found beauty in this town.

  A YEAR LATER, I found a little house in the hollow. It’s a tiny house, but it has skylights that let rainbows of light inside, and a loft office where I can write and Reed can call up to me when he needs me. We are surrounded by woods—thick green trees that change color in the autumn—and my father, the forester, gasped when he saw the beautiful English maple in the yard. Our neighbors are kind, and my landlord, who lives behind us, plays soccer outside with his own son and Reed.

  It hasn’t been easy, and I’m tired, but I’m tired because I’m getting better. I’m tired because my heart is no longer a tight little fist that can’t even recognize it’s lonely. I don’t want my heart to be a tight little fist. I want my heart to be an open hand, reaching out.

  THERE WAS A day when I was home for Christmas, and Reed, my mom, and I were making sugar cookies. I rolled out the dough. “I’m grateful that Reed isn’t like I was when I was a kid,” I said. “He’s such a great kid.”

  My mom looked up in surprise. “You were a great kid,” she said.

  I was confused. “But I was always in trouble,” I said.

  “Sure,” she said, “but just for stuff like not cleaning your room. You never lied, and you were never mean. You were so kind to other children. Your father and I always knew that you were a good kid.”

  I stood there, an adult—on the other side of a kitchen island from my aging mother—and the distance between us suddenly lessened.

  I wanted to say, Why did it take you so long to tell me this?

  I wanted to say, Thank you.

  But I said nothing and rolled out a cookie instead. I handed a sugary Santa to Reed. “Everyone says that I’m a lot like my mom,” he said as he stretched the cold dough out on the baking sheet.

  THERE WAS ANOTHER day when my mother followed me into the laundry room at her house. She hugged me and said, “We know how much you’ve been through, and we are so proud of you and who you have become.” I broke down into tears then, and this time I said it: “Thank you, Mama.”

  I remembered that night before my wedding shower when my mother and I walked in the dark canyon with the howling wol
ves. She hadn’t seemed scared at all, but I was terrified. I was scared of that night, of my future, of those wolves, of spending the night in a car the day before I met my future in-laws for the first time, of being married, and most of all, of the child in my womb. I wasn’t ready for any of it, but she took my arm and guided me back to that car. My mother was tough. If the wolves had circled us then, she would have stared them down, but I would have run.

  BUT NOW? NOW, I would stare down the wolves too. Writing is my way of staring down the wolves.

  I STARTED RUNNING on the treadmill after I left Caleb. I was trying to create enough physical pain to obliterate the emotional pain. A pop song came on, the lyrics saying, “What doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger.”

  I thought, I am not stronger. I am not stronger because of what he did to me.

  But I am stronger. And I was strong before I met him. And I was strong during the abuse.

  IT WAS MY strength that gave me the integrity to try and do what I thought was best for our child, who loved his father, even though I was suffering personally. It was my strength that told me to make the demands that I did make: that he would need to get counseling, that he would need to quit drinking, that he would need to go to anger management, that he would need to take medication. It was my strength that made me adaptable enough to survive while he tried these different strategies. It was my strength that made me eventually realize that these strategies were not going to work. And it was my ultimate strength when I gave up.

  I still run on the treadmill, but now I enjoy it. The other night I went to pick Reed up from my landlord’s house. I didn’t realize that Reed had run over there in his bare feet. It was getting late, and the ground was getting cold, so I gave him a piggyback ride home. He said, “Even my dad can’t carry me on his back anymore.”

  He said, “Mom, you are getting so strong.”

  I STILL HAVE that blue table in our little house in the hollow, and Reed and I still fit perfectly at that table, but we also share that table now with our many friends.

  Spring in the new home is beautiful. The hum of the bugs. The moan of the toads. The rain on the skylights. We moved into this home in spring, and on our first day here, Reed and I swung together in the hammock in the backyard.

  Reed curled up next to me and said, “Everything is just better now, isn’t it?”

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you to my editor Gail Winston who has tirelessly supported me through each stage of this book. I am grateful for her keen editorial eye, but also for her kind heart. This was a difficult book to write, and I could not have asked for a better editor to navigate me through this process.

  Thank you to my agent, Joy Tutela. Like Gail, she has guided me with kindness, and I feel fortunate to consider her not only my best professional ally but also a generous and thoughtful friend. Thank you, also, to Susan Raihoffer, foreign rights agent extraordinaire.

  Thank you to everyone at HarperCollins who has touched this book in some way—Sofia Groopman, Mary Gaule, Susan Amster, Miranda Otewell, and anyone else I may have forgotten.

  Thank you to my mentors Dinty W. Moore and Kevin Oderman. Good men are out there, and I know this because of them.

  Thank you to the generous faculty members and educators who nurtured this project and helped me to grow as a writer: Mark Brazaitis, Eric LeMay, Ghirmai Negash, and Joan Connor.

  Thank you to Helen Bertram for telling a shy, awkward, and insecure teenager that she could be a writer.

  Thank you to Rebecca Solnit for telling a shy, awkward, and insecure adult that she could be a writer.

  Thank you to my fairy godsisters who have supported or shared my work in some way: Barbara Jones, Katherine Dykstra, Lisa Lucas, Melanie Bishop, Ariel Levy, Roxane Gay, Ashley Cassandra Ford, Christa Parravani, Megan Stielstra, Amy Butcher, Maggie Smith, Lisa Nikolidakis, Mo Daviau, Rene Denfeld, Cheryl Strayed, Lindy West, and so many others. None of this would have been possible without the support of other women writers, editors, and publishers, and I am so grateful.

  Thank you to Michael Archer, Hillary Brenhouse, Rachel Riederer, and all of the good people at Guernica magazine. You’re family to me now.

  Thank you to Celia Blue Johnson and Maria Gagliano at Slice magazine. You launched my career, and you’ve generously become my friends.

  Thank you to the many first-readers of this (or parts of this) manuscript, particularly Todd Gleason, Jenny Respress, Heather Frese-Sanchez, Rebecca Schwab-Cuthbert, Keema Waterfield, Christian Exoo, Patri Thompson, Shane Stricker, and others.

  Thank you to the people who gave me the space and/or funding to make this book possible: Dickinson House Writer’s Residency, Rebecca Solnit, Karen and Doug Sholes, Vermont Studio Center, The Mineral School, The National Endowment for the Arts, Ohio University, Oddfellows Bakery, and the Village Bakery.

  Thank you to my therapist, Liz Gilchrist, who I called on the day that I left Caleb. I told her that I had left Caleb, and she said, “I am going to treat you for free for a while. I don’t want you to stop seeing me because you’re worried about money.” Liz hasn’t charged me since, but she has been there whenever I’ve needed her. Every day, I’m overwhelmed with the generosity of others, and Liz is a pioneer in generosity.

  Thank you to Christine Schneider from West Virginia Legal Aid. Without her help, I might never have left the state, and I might never have escaped.

  Oh goodness, how to thank my friends? I have been blessed with so many good and steadfast friends, and I couldn’t possibly name them all here, so I have decided not to name any of them. If you’re reading this, and you’re my friend, please know that I appreciate you, and your name is written on this page in invisible ink.

  It takes a village to raise a child, and this is even truer for single parents. Thank you to my Athens village, particularly Erin Perko, Mary Kate Hurley, Alison Stine, and Renita Romasco.

  Thank you to my best friend and my brother, Glen. I’m sorry that I ruined your Christmas when I was born, but I hope that I’ve been making your days better ever since.

  Thank you to my parents who have lovingly grown with me throughout this process. I know that this book was not easy on them, and I know that the process of me writing this book was not easy on them, but their kindness, fairness, and genuine love for Reed and me has made all of this possible, and I will never forget that.

  Finally—though he is not allowed to read this book until he’s older—thank you to my son, Reed. My favorite person. My silly tween who makes me laugh. My boy who is so proud that his mama wrote a book. My boy who let me write on Saturdays and snow days. My boy who said, “You should just let me read your book because I pretty much know it all already.” My boy who was wrong about that, but who knows enough about what’s in these pages that I’ve never struggled with whether I should write this book or not.

  My boy who once said to me, “I’m glad that you left my dad because you are so nice, and I don’t know if I ever would have gotten to know your niceness when my dad was around.”

  Single parenting is hard, but single parenting a child like Reed is easy. He is the best thing that has ever happened to me. I will not say that I’m grateful for what Caleb did to me, but what I will say is that I would do it all again if I ended up in this exact place again—Reed and me sitting on the couch laughing, eating dinner, and watching Bob’s Burgers.

  I jumped, I took him with me, and I’ve never regretted that decision.

  To all of the women out there who are thinking about leaving, do it.

  Jump.

  About the Author

  KELLY SUNDBERG’s essays have appeared in Guernica, Gulf Coast, The Rumpus, Denver Quarterly, Slice, and others. Her essay “It Will Look Like a Sunset” was selected for inclusion in The Best American Essays 2015, and other essays have been listed as notables in the same series. She has a PhD in creative nonfiction from Ohio University and has been the recipient of fellowships or grants from Vermont Studio Center, A Room of Her Own Foun
dation, Dickinson House, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

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  Copyright

  The events and experiences that I write about are all true and have been faithfully rendered as I remember them. In some places, I’ve changed the names, identities, and other specifics of individuals who have played a role in my life in order to protect their privacy. The conversations I re-create come from my clear recollections of them, though they are not written to represent word-for-word transcripts. In all instances, I’ve retold them in a way that evokes the feeling and meaning of what was said, always keeping with the true essence of the exchanges.

  GOODBYE, SWEET GIRL. Copyright © 2018 by Kelly Sundberg. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  Material adapted from “It Will Look Like a Sunset,” originally published by Guernica, April 2014.

  Grateful acknowledgment is made to Nick Flynn for permission to reprint lines from “forgetting something,” copyright © 2011 by Nick Flynn. Reprinted from The Captain Asks for a Show of Hands and used with permission of the author and Graywolf Press. All rights reserved.