by Jill Barnett
Since Mike’s death, I had worked very hard at making my time with them as normal as our lives could be now. They never saw me sobbing on my bed. They didn’t see my red, swollen eyes when I woke up at three a.m., and they were in their own homes or at work and school during those times when I sat in a cotton field of wadded up Kleenexes.
But it was later that morning when I had another bone-chilling moment of seeing Mike in our bedroom. For that to happen twice was tough on my sanity and pretend-strength, especially when I was so unprepared.
This time I was coming out of the bathroom soaking wet and wrapped in a towel and thought I saw him walking across the room to our dresser. I screamed his name, as if screaming could make him stay. My towel slipped from my hand and I was standing half-wet and naked.
But he wasn’t there. Another wavering shadow from the tree outside swept over the carpet, and I swore I would cut that blasted tree down before I went completely mad. I was feeling so unhinged that I put on one of Mike shirts, buttoned it down the front like I had when we were first married. Perhaps I thought holding onto something of his would help me. But I just stood there until my hands weren’t in tight fists and I could breathe evenly.
There is a solitude that comes with loss, an aloneness that wraps itself around you and makes you feel as if you are drifting through time like a helium balloon with no one left to hold the string.
I had been alone in our home for years, since Mike had always worked weekdays. But now, the house was my whole world and it was empty, even when people were there. That aloneness had settled into my bones and blood and I carried it with me all the time even though I didn’t want to feel that way. I wanted to do the opposite of everything I was feeling. I wanted to laugh. I wanted to sing. I wanted to live.
I’ve always played music too loud, and not to cover up loneliness. I’ve known it was too loud but I was still a child of the Sixties who liked to feel the music and lose myself in it, so most days I kept the house sound system tuned to a local rock station as background.
But now a raspy-voice Mick Jagger was singing about shadows, so I turned the volume up until the wall speakers were throbbing and I couldn’t stand still any longer. I sang as loud as my voice could sing about shadows and I danced in front of the French doors as if I were trying to exorcise Mike’s ghost, the shadows of him haunting me. Right outside was the stupid damned tree that was trying to drive me insane. I turned around and around, arms in the air as I sang, spinning around the room until I was dizzy.
The song ended and I stopped, stumbled a few feet and fell onto the bed, hoarse, half laughing, half crying. I was curled around the Kleenex box when my sobs finally dropped to whimpers of self-pity.
“Mom? I just picked up the keys for Tahoe. I’ve got a photo shoot this weekend and I—”
I sat up, horrified, but was too late to hide. I was sitting in the middle of a hundred wadded up tissues, wearing Mike’s shirt and still half-sobbing and trying to catch my breath.
Molly stood in the doorway of the bedroom. My daughter had never looked at me that way.
“Molly,” I choked out her name. “Darling . . . ”
She turned and ran away from me as if I were the devil incarnate. Oh, God, what have I done? By the time I was almost down the stairs, I heard the front door slam shut. Outside, on the front porch, I saw her car back up too fast, whip around as I chased after her, but she sped through the green light at the corner.
A cable car went rattling by. Someone let out a catcall. A horn honked. I stood there on the sidewalk of the crookedest street in the world, wearing only Mike’s shirt and telling myself it was not hatred I saw in my daughter’s eyes.
Chapter Fourteen
I called Molly again and again, but there was no answer, and when I called Stone Morgan, I was told she had left to do a photo shoot in the mountains and wouldn’t be back until early next week. Chasing her down was not an option, and again I wasn’t really up to a confrontation. Frankly, I was afraid of what she would say to me after that look. When it comes to working things out with my daughter, I was a coward.
I decided I needed something to do besides hallucinating, shopping for purses (I’d bought two Gucci bags that week) and feeling sorry for myself, and I wanted to take charge of something and feel as if I were capable. Making my life appear as normal as possible became my single-minded goal.
Without warning anyone, I walked into Cantrell, Inc for the first time since the week we’d lost Mike and met head on those looks of pity and helplessness I hated. Everyone at the company loved him and had no idea what to say to me. Some famous philosopher once said that life doesn’t exist without death, and without a moment of life, there can be no death. But the truth about death is: no one knows what to say.
There isn’t anything you can say, really, except for the one sage friend who warned me people would say the stupidest things to me. While it seemed like odd advice at first, I found out pretty quickly that she was right. In their need to say something soothing or to be of help, people say the exact wrong thing.
Perhaps the clear knowledge I would be facing those looks and condolences was one of the reasons I decided to not let anyone know I was coming. From the house, I drove straight to the offices, lived up to my name and marched right in like a lion at eight A.M., and went to work in the graphics department, calling in my managers and assistants to schedule a meeting that afternoon, before I asked to see the final art concepts for the next season. I caused a bit of commotion, but that kept everyone’s focus on work instead of what to say.
The number of image files on the computer was huge. Apparently, because in my absence, everyone had an opinion and no one wanted to make the final decisions, so the designs were not cohesive and we had some of everything. Still, all the new graphic designs for this winter’s lines of boards and skis had to be ready and in place before the end of April.
A few years back, Mike and I had made the decision to keep the graphics department as was—a single department within the company to work on all the lines, boards and skis, along with the clothing end of the company, which was expanding fast. So I spent most of the morning going through a computer slideshow of sample graphic images, before I printed out a stack of proof sheets, sipped my coffee and ex’d out the weaker images with a black marker.
Because I was behind, it was imperative that I narrow down the number of images by almost eighty percent immediately, and I made some notes to discuss color changes and adjustments in imaging, before I met with the graphic designers that afternoon to hash out the top designs.
I had a real problem when I returned to the computer and called up the SKISTAR art; it was dated in my opinion, and not as graphically dynamic as today’s winter sports enthusiasts and youth demanded. I fully intended to send everyone back to the drawing board. The exception was a separate file I found with two of the most amazing image designs for the new Spider O line of high-tech alpine skis, and a really incredibly sharp logo—a bright orange O shadowed in silver gray with a stylized black spider inside of it.
“Wow . . . ” I muttered and picked up the phone. “Phillip. This logo for Spider’s line is amazing.”
“Mom? What are you doing here?”
“Working. The same thing I’ve been doing for thirty years.
“I’ll be right there.” He hung up.
I stared at the phone in my hand, then quickly called the graphics manager for the SKISTAR division, and told him I wanted to see more from the artist who designed the Spider O images.
“What Spider O images?”
“They’re in a file under Olsen. I have them on my computer. I’ll email them to you.”
“I’ll take care of it,” he said and hung up, just as Phil came through the door.
“I don’t think you should be here,” my son said to me. “You don’t have to do this, Mom. We can handle it.”
“Sit, please. Based on the designs I’ve just seen for your next season, I do need to be here.” I pushed t
he SKISTAR proof sheets across my desk. “These are abysmal.”
Phil agreed.
“But the new Spider O line is a winner, especially this logo. Whoever did this has the best eye I’ve seen in a long time. I want this logo on the tips of every ski in that line. And see how it’s elongated in the face of the ski? Perfect. You don’t have problem with them, do you?”
“No, I wouldn’t question you on this. You’ll just remind me I’m color blind.” He laughed, but I still thought something was bothering him. “As I remember it, Spider has approval in his contract,” Phil said absently.
“Oh, he’ll approve these. Trust me. He’s not blind. These images are exactly what we need. They’re night and day from the rest, which look too much like SkiStar’s old designs, from a good decade ago. I want the colors amped up, at least two with some dark comic graphics, and completely different color combinations from our board lines. With this relaunch and the new sales and marketing campaign, I want to make certain your skis are the ones the buyer’s eyes go to first. I’m going to have graphics to redo everything, but this Spider O grouping.”
Phil checked his watch. “It’s almost noon. Let me steal you away. You can come to lunch with Scott and me. He doesn’t know you’re here, right?”
“I didn’t tell him. He’d just try to discourage me, like you did,” I said and walked over to my son who had the good sense to at least look embarrassed. “Let’s go surprise him.”
We passed by Mike’s office on the way to Scott’s. Part of me thought he should have moved in there by now, but I kept silent. Inside his own office, my oldest son was standing with his foot on a chair, while he buffed his shoes, his father’s wooden shoe shine kit open next to him. I stopped because he looked so much like his dad just then. Phil was taller and lankier, and Mickey was the tallest and still trying to grow into his bony feet and hands, but my oldest son and his dad wore the same shoe size, carried the same kind of build, and were the same height and weight.
Not were. Had been. Among other things, death changed your verb tenses.
“Look what the cat dragged in,” Phil said as he walked past me and helped himself to a chair.
“Mom? What are you doing here?”
How did I suddenly become such a pariah? I was one of the people who built this company. I had every right to be there. “I’ll tell you the same thing I told your brother. I work here.”
“Do you think you should be here?” Scott asked tentatively.
“She’s been here working all morning,” Phil said quickly and before I could say anything. “I figure you and I should kidnap her and take her to lunch. By the way, you’re buying.”
“The graphic designs have to get settled. Stop worrying about me, please. Both of you. I really need to be here.” I paused, sitting down on Scott’s desk as I had a moment’s flashback of Mike holding that same shoe brush over the years and another image of Scott when he was six or seven. “I remember when your dad used to give you a dime to shine his shoes. You’d have thought he’d hung the moon.”
Scott set down the horsehair brush. “A few years ago I gave him a hard time about using me as child labor back then. And on being a cheapskate.” He laughed quietly. “Hell . . . you couldn’t even buy a pack of gum for a dime.”
“The money wasn’t the point, although saving might have been. Your dad was determined not to be like his father, so that ritual became bonding time each weekday for just you and your dad. It was important to him that you felt you were special.”
“We needed to feel special to someone. We were traumatized because we could never get you to pick a favorite,” Phil said to me.
“Yes, I know. I was a cruel, cruel mother.”
“And you were just a geeky, shoe-shining kid, Big Brother.”
“You wouldn’t understand, asswipe, since you can’t shine canvas.”
“I stopped wearing hightops after my wedding.”
Scott laughed then. “Only because of your wife.”
“What kind of little kid actually wants to shine shoes?” Phil said, showing as little interest now as he had all those years ago. Phil and Mike had had their bonding moments over washing the cars.
“Some little kid who isn’t color blind,” Scott said. “When you’re wearing a pink shirt and a red tie with brown pants, Phil, everyone has to refocus their eyes again before they can even try to look down at your scuffed shoes.”
Phillip swung his big feet up on Scott’s desk. “Look at these. My shoes are brown. They’re unscuffed and match my pants.”
Scott pulled open a drawer to get his keys, and I placed my hand on his to stop him from closing it. “Is that your father’s wallet?”
My son’s face paled somewhat. I remembered that Scott had picked up Mike belongings when he went to the morgue. “I kept it here because I needed to cut up his credit cards. I keep forgetting,” he said, clearly not admitting the truth. He handed it to me.
Inside, Mike’s face stared back at me from a holographic California driver’s license. “Hand me the scissors, Scott, and we’ll cut them up now.” As I pulled out the credit cards, a hundred dollar bill Mike always carried behind his license fell out and there were smaller bills inside the billfold, along with the ticket stub from his flight to Reno and a business card from some ranch in Sparks, Nevada. Folded in half was a blue Post-it note and a yellow credit card receipt. I opened the Post-it to a list in Mike’s handwriting:
Batteries
drill bit
¼ inch trim
2-penny nails
Bug lite
The receipt was from Ming’s in Chinatown, dated the week before Mike went to Tahoe, and a small, thin green piece of paper was stuck in the crevice of the wallet; it was a fortune from a fortune cookie, and it read:
You will gain admiration from your pears.
There was a heartbeat of silence, and then I burst out laughing. “Look at this.” Of course Mike would keep that fortune with his sense of humor. My boys each put their arm around me and we shared a good laugh
I learned something important about death. You have to remember who and what the person was to you, and to others, and celebrate their uniqueness in this crazy and pain-filled world. Surprisingly, you could still grab something joyous about them even after they were gone, and maybe in that joy, came an instant of peace. I handed the wallet to Scott. “You can keep this.”
“I don’t know, Mom.” He paused, then realizing he did want it, said, “You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
Phil winked at me. We both knew why Scott had the wallet in his desk.
“I’m hungry. Let’s go eat,” Phillip said, and he began to pull me toward the door.
“Wait. Where are we going?” I stopped in the hallway.
Phil looked at Scott and at the exact same time both my sons said, “I feel like Chinese food.”
Out the blue, my grief hit me like a two-by-four when I was at Cummings’ market, standing in the cracker aisle. How could a yellow box of Wheat Thins destroy you? One moment I was okay and the next I was crying so hard I couldn’t catch my breath.
A woman stopped, reached across her cart, and handed me a Kleenex. I took it and when the woman asked if she could help, I shook my head and held up my hand, unable to say, No thank you. You’re sweet but . . . Go away and just let me cry. The woman turned, unfortunately not before I caught that look, the one of pity and confusion and if-only-I-could-help-you. The look of “you poor thing.”
The crying went on for a long time, the tectonic-deep sorrow that shuddered through me like a 7.0 earthquake, all because Mike could polish off a box of Wheat Thins in one sitting.
Some employees from the store stopped, talking quietly about twenty feet away, near the “Ten for Ten Dollars” end caps. Two women started down the aisle, took a look at me crying like crazy, and turned their carts around. It might have been funny if I could have stopped.
A young mother bravely powered down the aisle with a little
boy and a toddler in the cart seat. She pulled down cereal and oatmeal boxes from the opposite shelves, tossing them in her cart as fast as she could and not looking at me.
“Why is that lady crying, Mommy?” The dark-haired little boy asked. He looked like he should be singing about his baloney first name.
“Shhh, Michael,” she said.
The sound that came from me was the kind you made when someone hit you in the stomach. His name was Michael.
His small hand tugged on my shirttail the same way my boys used to do when they wanted my attention. “Why are you crying lady? Are you out of Froot Loops, too?”
I half-laughed, but it came out like a sob and I looked at the frazzled young mother whose shirt was buttoned wrong, (there were jelly fingerprints on it and it wasn’t ironed) clearly embarrassed, both of us, and I tried in the poignant silence to plaster a smile on my hot, burning face, then I nodded to this little Michael.
As the mother hurried them away, the toddler began to whine and the little boy was looking worriedly over his shoulder.
I grabbed two huge boxes of Froot Loops, held them up so he could see, and dropped them in my cart.
I wasn’t out of Froot Loops. I was Froot Loops.
Eventually I went to the small restroom behind the swinging gray doors in the back of the vegetable section, splashed cold water on my face, blew my red nose until I could smell the pine cleaner they’d used in the bathroom. How long could I stand there?
Someone knocked on the door. I quickly rummaged through my purse. Dark sunglasses on, I headed for the checkout, where an elderly woman was counting out her total grocery bill in coins, and the next woman in front of me decided to talk to the clerk about organic cantaloupe, before she actually stopped and handwrote a check, taking her time to thumb slowly through her check register and list the check amount.