Read Online Good Grief by Lolly Winston - Free Book Online
Authors: Lolly Winston
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anyone’s missing, right?
I try the middle.
The sheets remain cold and indifferent.
I give up and drag the covers to the living room, inflate our camping air mattress, and push it against the wall where the couch used to be. Without furniture, the living room rug is as expansive as a lawn and there are little things that fell underneath the sofa: a dime, a Frito, a Scrabble tile with the letter O.
Oh. Friday night. Two more days of this dreaded four-day holiday weekend. I remove the key to the house from the realtor’s lockbox, so Melanie can’t get in for her drive-by showings, which are like scary surprise parties. I should take my medication and wash my hair and rescue the pies from my trunk and find a place that rents living room furniture. Instead, I curl up on the air mattress with a blanket, stick my legs in the sleeves of Ethan’s down parka for extra warmth, and turn on the TV.
It would be better if my mother were here. When I was home sick from school, she’d fix a tray with soup and crackers, a Pyrex cup of Junket custard, ginger ale, and two tiny orange aspirin tablets. We’d curl up on my bed and watch
Perry Mason.
I remember the swell of her breasts against my back and how the tickly down on her cheeks was as supple as tennis ball fuzz.
The blanket is as soft as an animal, and I pull it over my head and knead the nubby fabric between my fingers. I would like to touch someone. It seems the last time someone touched me was a few weeks ago when I went to the dentist and he had to wrap his arms around my head to check my fillings. He patted my chin and cheeks and asked me to say
ahh.
I liked the comforting curve of the chair and the sweet, soapy smell of his hands and my eyes teared up and he asked if he hit a nerve and I nodded yes.
On a TV program called
Cops,
a shirtless man strung out on something called sherm stick beats down an old girlfriend’s door to reclaim a box spring. There’s a channel that’s showing a weekend marathon of
Cops
episodes, and now I see the attraction of the show: It makes your own life seem pretty together.
Mother would insist that I turn off the TV, shower, get dressed, eat a piece of fruit, and call to rejoin the grief group.
I will call Ruth and then the hospital to find out when the next group meets. I
would
call, if I could get to the phone. But my limbs are weak and heavy and won’t go. My brain says,
Get up,
and my body says,
Screw you, I’m watching
Cops.
If Ethan were here with his annoying habit of clicking through the stations, I wouldn’t be stuck on
Cops.
A police officer on the TV talks over the backseat of his patrol car to the camera. He says, “Some folks don’t know how to stay out of trouble.”
Instead of showering, I build a fire. The reindeer lawn ornament makes excellent firewood. You don’t even need a saw. You can just break him apart like Ramen noodles and toss him into the flames. I forget to take off his nose, though, and it pops and oozes, melting like a candied apple.
The phone rings and the answering machine picks up. I hear Melanie leaving a message, asking if I’ve had a change of heart about selling the house. Even though it’s nighttime, she’s still working. Her voice is tinny on her cellular phone. It sounds as though she’s calling from another world: the land of the capable.
Over the weekend, my sleeping schedule moves around the clock because I can’t sleep at night and I can’t stay awake during the day, and pretty soon I seem to be missing daylight altogether.
One morning (
what morning?
) a garbage truck (
Tuesday morning!
) screeches and roars down the street, and then I am awake, floating on the air mattress through the middle of the living room. The good news is that the four-day Thanksgiving weekend is finally over. The bad news is that I forgot to take out the garbage and I’m at least a day late for work. I hear my neighbor’s car door slam as he pulls out of the driveway.
The grief is up already. It
I try the middle.
The sheets remain cold and indifferent.
I give up and drag the covers to the living room, inflate our camping air mattress, and push it against the wall where the couch used to be. Without furniture, the living room rug is as expansive as a lawn and there are little things that fell underneath the sofa: a dime, a Frito, a Scrabble tile with the letter O.
Oh. Friday night. Two more days of this dreaded four-day holiday weekend. I remove the key to the house from the realtor’s lockbox, so Melanie can’t get in for her drive-by showings, which are like scary surprise parties. I should take my medication and wash my hair and rescue the pies from my trunk and find a place that rents living room furniture. Instead, I curl up on the air mattress with a blanket, stick my legs in the sleeves of Ethan’s down parka for extra warmth, and turn on the TV.
It would be better if my mother were here. When I was home sick from school, she’d fix a tray with soup and crackers, a Pyrex cup of Junket custard, ginger ale, and two tiny orange aspirin tablets. We’d curl up on my bed and watch
Perry Mason.
I remember the swell of her breasts against my back and how the tickly down on her cheeks was as supple as tennis ball fuzz.
The blanket is as soft as an animal, and I pull it over my head and knead the nubby fabric between my fingers. I would like to touch someone. It seems the last time someone touched me was a few weeks ago when I went to the dentist and he had to wrap his arms around my head to check my fillings. He patted my chin and cheeks and asked me to say
ahh.
I liked the comforting curve of the chair and the sweet, soapy smell of his hands and my eyes teared up and he asked if he hit a nerve and I nodded yes.
On a TV program called
Cops,
a shirtless man strung out on something called sherm stick beats down an old girlfriend’s door to reclaim a box spring. There’s a channel that’s showing a weekend marathon of
Cops
episodes, and now I see the attraction of the show: It makes your own life seem pretty together.
Mother would insist that I turn off the TV, shower, get dressed, eat a piece of fruit, and call to rejoin the grief group.
I will call Ruth and then the hospital to find out when the next group meets. I
would
call, if I could get to the phone. But my limbs are weak and heavy and won’t go. My brain says,
Get up,
and my body says,
Screw you, I’m watching
Cops.
If Ethan were here with his annoying habit of clicking through the stations, I wouldn’t be stuck on
Cops.
A police officer on the TV talks over the backseat of his patrol car to the camera. He says, “Some folks don’t know how to stay out of trouble.”
Instead of showering, I build a fire. The reindeer lawn ornament makes excellent firewood. You don’t even need a saw. You can just break him apart like Ramen noodles and toss him into the flames. I forget to take off his nose, though, and it pops and oozes, melting like a candied apple.
The phone rings and the answering machine picks up. I hear Melanie leaving a message, asking if I’ve had a change of heart about selling the house. Even though it’s nighttime, she’s still working. Her voice is tinny on her cellular phone. It sounds as though she’s calling from another world: the land of the capable.
Over the weekend, my sleeping schedule moves around the clock because I can’t sleep at night and I can’t stay awake during the day, and pretty soon I seem to be missing daylight altogether.
One morning (
what morning?
) a garbage truck (
Tuesday morning!
) screeches and roars down the street, and then I am awake, floating on the air mattress through the middle of the living room. The good news is that the four-day Thanksgiving weekend is finally over. The bad news is that I forgot to take out the garbage and I’m at least a day late for work. I hear my neighbor’s car door slam as he pulls out of the driveway.
The grief is up already. It
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