time to be what Mom would’ve wanted you to be. If you’re not going to do it for yourself or because it’s the right thing to do, then do it for her.”
“I am doing it for her,” she said, with a rare edge to her voice.
We stayed like that, mentally circling each other, until the sound of an overburdened vehicle made it past my black fog. I burned my mouth chugging down the coffee, then slid out of the booth gripping my bag, the backs of my legs sticking a little to the seat.
“Stay here,” I said, looking down at my sister. “I have to tend to the bus, all right?”
She stared off into the seat I’d vacated without a word of acknowledgment.
“Olivia?”
Silence.
“Fine, be a bitch,” I said.
I strode toward the door and somehow slammed right into the waitress, which loosed the metal coffeepot in her hand. It fell as if in slow motion, raining acid all over the pristine black-and-white floor.
I took a seat in Jim’s office to wait for the official word. The stone-and-glass room was air-conditioned, which might’ve made it easier for me to cool off, figuratively as well as literally, and think through what to do next. My bus sat in the lot outside. Though Jim hadn’t had time for a full diagnosis, he thought the problem might be a bad axle shaft caused by the collision with the deer.
But you never know , he’d said. Sometimes a thing—after it’s been around the block a couple hundred times—gets tired .
I’d nodded and looked at the bus—long since the bane of my existence—but my mind was on my mother.
My mother, bent over her story in the kitchen.
My mother, fallen asleep while making dinner, while driving.
My mother, in the casket at the funeral home.
I remembered the day the ambulance arrived in Tramp, how I’d followed it a stone’s throw from Babka’s to find it stopped and silent in front of our house. Olivia sat near it on the withered grass, not wearing a coat despite the season. There was something about her fractured expression and the way her eyes twitched around that told me all I needed to know. That’s when the earth began to spin the other way on its axis.
And not just for Olivia.
Was that what was bothering me? Was Olivia’s need to deny our mother’s suicide another example of her highlighting her experience, as if her grief was deeper and more significant than anyoneelse’s? I pressed my palm hard against my forehead. It did feel sometimes—compared with her and my father—that my grief was nothing, that there wasn’t any time for it. Just because my feelings were complicated, though, didn’t mean they didn’t exist. I’d lost her, too. Sometimes I felt that I’d lost the most when she died. Another thing I might not understand.
Not suicide?
What would’ve made Olivia say that? Did she believe it? Denial was a part of grief, I knew. I’d read all about that in a pamphlet I picked up at the funeral home the day I accepted the job from Emilia Bryce. But still. I eyed the bag at my feet. There was something inside my canvas sack that would put an end to my sister’s delusions, if I cared to share it with her. If I cared to share it with anyone.
No, I didn’t think that was the answer, even if I didn’t know what was. I couldn’t avoid her forever, though. And I knew I should probably apologize for calling her a bitch.
Good daughter .
As much as I didn’t like it, as unfair as it might be, as difficult as it would remain, I’d have to find a way to do better. Olivia was family, my legally blind sister. I would need to be there for her and try harder to identify with her. In many ways, we were all each other had left.
The phone rang, and I leaped up, but Jim was inside by the second ring.
“How’s the bus?” I asked, before he even reached the phone.
“Hang on,” he said, then picked up the receiver. “Jim’s.”
I walked over to the window as he made cursory remarks to the caller—“Yepper. Huh, that’s odd. Sure, gotta
“I am doing it for her,” she said, with a rare edge to her voice.
We stayed like that, mentally circling each other, until the sound of an overburdened vehicle made it past my black fog. I burned my mouth chugging down the coffee, then slid out of the booth gripping my bag, the backs of my legs sticking a little to the seat.
“Stay here,” I said, looking down at my sister. “I have to tend to the bus, all right?”
She stared off into the seat I’d vacated without a word of acknowledgment.
“Olivia?”
Silence.
“Fine, be a bitch,” I said.
I strode toward the door and somehow slammed right into the waitress, which loosed the metal coffeepot in her hand. It fell as if in slow motion, raining acid all over the pristine black-and-white floor.
I took a seat in Jim’s office to wait for the official word. The stone-and-glass room was air-conditioned, which might’ve made it easier for me to cool off, figuratively as well as literally, and think through what to do next. My bus sat in the lot outside. Though Jim hadn’t had time for a full diagnosis, he thought the problem might be a bad axle shaft caused by the collision with the deer.
But you never know , he’d said. Sometimes a thing—after it’s been around the block a couple hundred times—gets tired .
I’d nodded and looked at the bus—long since the bane of my existence—but my mind was on my mother.
My mother, bent over her story in the kitchen.
My mother, fallen asleep while making dinner, while driving.
My mother, in the casket at the funeral home.
I remembered the day the ambulance arrived in Tramp, how I’d followed it a stone’s throw from Babka’s to find it stopped and silent in front of our house. Olivia sat near it on the withered grass, not wearing a coat despite the season. There was something about her fractured expression and the way her eyes twitched around that told me all I needed to know. That’s when the earth began to spin the other way on its axis.
And not just for Olivia.
Was that what was bothering me? Was Olivia’s need to deny our mother’s suicide another example of her highlighting her experience, as if her grief was deeper and more significant than anyoneelse’s? I pressed my palm hard against my forehead. It did feel sometimes—compared with her and my father—that my grief was nothing, that there wasn’t any time for it. Just because my feelings were complicated, though, didn’t mean they didn’t exist. I’d lost her, too. Sometimes I felt that I’d lost the most when she died. Another thing I might not understand.
Not suicide?
What would’ve made Olivia say that? Did she believe it? Denial was a part of grief, I knew. I’d read all about that in a pamphlet I picked up at the funeral home the day I accepted the job from Emilia Bryce. But still. I eyed the bag at my feet. There was something inside my canvas sack that would put an end to my sister’s delusions, if I cared to share it with her. If I cared to share it with anyone.
No, I didn’t think that was the answer, even if I didn’t know what was. I couldn’t avoid her forever, though. And I knew I should probably apologize for calling her a bitch.
Good daughter .
As much as I didn’t like it, as unfair as it might be, as difficult as it would remain, I’d have to find a way to do better. Olivia was family, my legally blind sister. I would need to be there for her and try harder to identify with her. In many ways, we were all each other had left.
The phone rang, and I leaped up, but Jim was inside by the second ring.
“How’s the bus?” I asked, before he even reached the phone.
“Hang on,” he said, then picked up the receiver. “Jim’s.”
I walked over to the window as he made cursory remarks to the caller—“Yepper. Huh, that’s odd. Sure, gotta
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