Grieve Yourself - A Novel

PART TWO

February-June 2018

TO: khwasserman11@gmail.com

FROM: mackenzadams1377@gmail.com

SUBJECT: hi

SENT February 2, 2018 1:06:07 AM PST

kev, you can delete this if you hate me now. for what it’s worth i sort of hate me now. i read that letter from my dad, which was a bad idea and has made everything worse, but it made me want to write to you and say i’m sorry. it was nice to see you, and i know you were only trying to help, and a lot of that stuff was years ago, and some of it isn’t even your fault… i don’t know. i guess it’s just, i don’t know how to rewind things, and it started to feel like my entire past was coming back to haunt me at the same time. and i wanted to think i’d sort of made my peace with everything and moved on but actually seeing you, on top of everything else… well. you were there. obviously, it went super well. everything about this is harder than it was ever supposed to be. also, people keep sending flowers to my apartment with little notes about how they’re sorry to hear about my dad, and then i just have to watch the flowers die too. anyway, i’m sorry i said you were the emergency like i’m not. i am. and people in glass houses should shut the fuck up or whatever. so, i’m sorry. really, really sorry. i don’t know if we’re still allowed to say this to each other or not, but i love you. honestly, i’m not even sure that means anything coming from me, but it’s not the worst thing someone can write to tell you. unless it is.

- mack

*

February 7th

Alice Facetimed me on Wednesday so I could be part of the champagne toast for Charlotte’s promotion.

I didn’t go back to work on the first.

I didn’t even get out of bed or turn off my alarm. I let it go off every fifteen minutes until my phone died, which took until 4:30 PM.

I have been demoted to occasional contract work (there wasn’t a champagne toast for this announcement), which really means that I will keep writing horoscopes from my bed. Mom called yesterday to tell me again that my behavior is unacceptable, and she is insisting that I come to her house this afternoon, “to discuss my future options.” She says it is fine to be depressed as long as you’re functional.

“And you are becoming dysfunctional, sweetie. Do you know what I mean by that? What I mean by that is that you are no longer acting like the educated adult woman that you are. I’m not trying to be insensitive, dear. It’s just that—you know. Well, you must know this can’t continue. And it’s not that—It’s not that we don’t miss Gerald. Of course, we all miss your father… and we’ve taken time to honor our grief. But, Christ, we have to remain functional. I mean, for the love of God, Mackenzie. You don’t think I’d like to throw in the towel sometimes? Because, of course, I would! But I don’t. I do not. I look myself in the face, and I say, ‘Elizabeth. You are a strong, educated adult woman with all the potential in the world. And today, you have to keep going.’ You know that’s the mantra that Alice and I created together a hundred years ago. And it really helps me… to remind myself of that. It helps me to keep myself functional. Have you thought about a mantra at all? Did you get my email about those? I think it might be helpful to you. Getting on your feet again. Because, I mean, have you thought about what you’re going to do for rent money? Have you considered that at all? Because, you know, we’ve turned your room into Jimmy’s home office, you know that. And, I suppose, there’s the futon in my pottery studio, but, no. Mackenzie. You’re going to be twenty-five. Two, five. That’s a quarter of a century. Is this what you envisioned for yourself?”

I said I would come over.

Winter is no longer pretending at crispness. February’s streets are full of brown sludge and littered paper cups from Starbucks in sickly shades of red and pink, festive. I remember that, of course, Valentine’s Day has not been canceled.

My first bus is twenty minutes behind schedule, and when it comes, there is only room to stand and drip on strangers.

I take this bus and then another and finally a third to get to a few blocks from my mom’s house. On the last bus, I sit next to a hairy-eared businessman in a three-piece suit who is listening to his Katy Perry Pandora station on his phone. He stares at me until I smile at him, and then he keeps staring. When I lean to pull the cord, he tells me in a raspy whisper that I smell like springtime, and it makes me so angry that I laugh. Functional people are a myth.

Mom is all business. She has taken the day off of work to look for jobs with me. She makes no secret of the fact that this is her “going out of her way.” I nod and say thank you, but don’t mean it.

She has the dining room set up with her laptop and Jimmy’s sitting across from each other, each with a legal pad next to them, and a large whiteboard at one end of the table, which she tells me is for brainstorming and for sketching my “life map.”

“I emailed you the top ten postings I’ve found so far, sweetie. Do you want coffee? There’s a Costa Rican blend regular and Jimmy swears by this Venezuelan decaf he got from that new, hip place on Market.”

“Costa Rican is fine, thanks.”

Four hours later, I’ve applied for two junior copy-editing positions for local tech companies, even though I’m totally underqualified for both. And then a series of jobs listed under “miscellaneous.” Miscellaneous is a bunch of stuff that’s so vague it makes you think you’d be qualified, but just detailed enough to convince you it’s not a scam.

Mom is not satisfied.

“Maybe you should take resumes around to a few places, sweetie. You know, restaurants and things. Somewhere probably needs a hostess. Or maybe they could train you to do some cooking. You might be surprised. Maybe you could be a chef. At least that would be something.”

I tell her I want to get going before I get stuck in too much traffic.

I’m getting my coat on when she says what she really means—what I suspect she always means. “I’m sorry if I’m pressuring you too much, sweetie. It’s just—you know I watched your father give up on himself for so many years. And I did my best to support him, but I—well, I’m hardly eager to do that again, am I.”

On the ride home, I scrutinize the faces of children and their parents. Try to pick apart which feature came from where. Wonder how their personalities line up.

Sometimes, in the flicker of a burnt-out light bulb, I think Gerald and I are almost twins. Same nose, same strong, clumsy jaw. His eyes were smaller, thinner, and a brown that looked black too often. I got Mom’s fat, doe eyes in an only vaguely more inhabited shade of brown, but still. The bones of Gerald are all there.

I know it’s not a good sign that more than anything, this makes me want to drink.

February 20th

“Hey, so guess who came in yesterday?” Mel is juicing carrots and beet greens and listening to Sheryl Crow like she’s starring in a commercial for herself.

“I don’t know. Who?”

“Guess.”

I never want to play this game. If I would ever actually be able to guess, then she wouldn’t be asking me to guess. I jump down off the counter, where I’d perched, and get out a countertop spray from under the sink. I wipe down every open surface I can find, going over some places twice.

“Would you not do that when I’m cooking, Kenz? I hate the idea of getting those cleaning chemicals in my food.” I want to ask her why it was that we had to switch to organic, probably totally ineffective, cleaning solvents if she’s still so afraid of their chemicals. But I don’t.

“I don’t want to guess. Just tell me. Who came in yesterday?”

“Ugh, you’re no fun,” she sulks, and I think this is a very obvious thing for her to say. “It was Cute Neil.”

I say nothing but, without thinking, start in with the counters again.

“Kenz, seriously. Chemicals.”

I put the spray back under the counter and then lay down some paper towels before jumping up again, sitting next to the sink.

“Anyway, he asked me about you, wanted to know how you were doing and everything.” Mel has this smile on her face like I should be really over-the-moon about this news.

“Cool,” I say, even though it isn’t.

“I think you must have really made an impression on him,” she smirks.

Of course, I made an impression. I know that. I also happen to know that the impression had practically nothing to do with me. It’s not every day you sleep with someone and see their naked, dead dad all in one go. It would make an impression on anyone.

But Melanie keeps talking. “So, obviously, I told him you’re doing a lot better, and that he should call you sometime.”

“What? No. Not ‘obviously.’ Why would you say that?”

“Because,” she gets a little glass off the shelf and tastes her juice concoction. Her face twists up, dissatisfied, and she goes to the fridge for the agave nectar, “you deserve for something nice to happen.” She licks some nectar off her finger and closes her eyes like it’s the most delicious thing ever to happen. Refined sugar would blow her mind.

“Did he and Sadie break up?”

Mel’s face twists again, this time at me. “Sadie?”

“Super...