Read Online Good Grief by Lolly Winston - Free Book Online Page A

is an early riser, waiting with its gummy arms wrapped around my neck, its hot, sour breath in my ear. Now it follows me down the hall to the bathroom, tapping my shoulder the whole way.
Try to pick up your toothbrush,
it says.
    I clutch the edge of the sink and stare at the drain. A spooky
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea
monster that’s all dark circles and chapped lips peers out from the bathroom mirror.
    I’m sure that the toothbrush is as heavy as a hammer. My hand won’t go, won’t pick it up.
    My skin itches, probably because I haven’t showered all weekend. Sticky dribbles of ice cream are caked to my pajama top. Instead of showering and dressing for work, I carry the tube of toothpaste back to the air mattress. I rub a little across my teeth as a guy on
Cops
in a Firebird screeches away from the police, speeding the wrong way down an exit ramp. They shoot out his tires, but he keeps driving on the rims, sparks spraying everywhere, oncoming cars spinning out and crashing into the guardrail, and then I am asleep again.
    When I awaken again there’s a square of sunshine on the carpet and I hear the mailman’s feet shuffling on the porch. I resist the urge to throw open the door and embrace him.
A J. Crew catalog. You shouldn’t have!
    Instead, I creep to the kitchen and root for carbohydrates. I stack a plate with toasted frozen waffles and pull a carton of Cherry Garcia from the freezer. I know I should be eating fruits and vegetables, but they don’t carry produce at 7-Eleven.
    Tomorrow will be different. Tomorrow I’ll start a high-protein, low-fat diet and sign up for yoga, as Dr. Rupert suggested, and start walking thirty minutes a day. Order that light box. I will overcome my fear of the produce section. Speaking of tomorrow, I scan the kitchen calendar, trying to find today. Here it is: Tuesday, November 27. Ethan’s birthday. You are here. I swallow a bland, dry lump of waffle.
    The night Ethan died I wasn’t even
with him.
I went home around eleven to get clean clothes and a book of Thurber essays that were the last thing that made him laugh. Even though he hadn’t spoken for two days, and he lay so still that you couldn’t tell if he was breathing unless you stared straight at the little snowflakes on his hospital gown and made sure they were rising and falling, I read to him. Because they say hearing’s the last thing to go, even when you’re on morphine. So like an idiot I went home for a shower and the book. Marion stayed at the hospital with her cup of Sanka and her knitting, the steady
click-click-click
of the needles filling the room. I was packing jeans and a sweatshirt into a paper bag when she called.
    “We lost him,” she said.
    We’ll find him, then,
I thought.
    Christmas is coming,
the calendar says now.
What are your plans for Christmas?
It is a bossy gardening calendar that wants me to start a mulch pile and stock my pantry with pretty jars for impromptu floral arrangements. I do not have a pantry. I rip the thing off the wall and stuff it into the overflowing garbage. A tuna fish can clatters across the floor.
    I
see
myself bending over to pick up the can. I
see
myself taking out the garbage and rinsing off the lid, which has smudges of food all over it. I
see
myself loading the stack of dirty dishes in the sink into the dishwasher and showering and ironing something to wear to work. But I don’t do these things. Instead, I call our department secretary and tell her I’ve got the flu. She reminds me to get a flu shot; it might not be too late. It could be, but she’s not sure. I tell her that I will put that on my to-do list.
    Taking a shower is a good thing. I know this, but I can’t seem to turn on the water. I’m staring at the insanely busy scallop-shell pattern on the shower curtain when the phone rings. The answering machine picks up and Marion’s voice echoes through the house. She says that she tried my office and cell phone, and she wants to know where I am and