Natural Disaster

A Story by Madrykson

It's about grief, but don't let that turn you off to it. Just give it a try.

Natural Disasters

Your happiness is grey like the coat you wear. It hangs raggedly on your shoulders even with the tag still on it. You slouch, an ancient cathedral statue, trapped in your movement, rather than liberated by it. Still though, you force a slight smile. The bench by the doors beckons; you sit, trying to convince yourself that it’s not over. It doesn’t feel over. Not to you. I see it in the way you strain in the cold, crisp sunlight to freeze your muscles, I hear you tell yourself the little lies meant to ease your wound: He would have wanted it this way, even though he probably didn’t want the prolonged internment, complete with catheters and I.V. drips. You had all those years together, but there still wasn’t enough time. So, be happy for the time you had? I cringe inwardly, chastising myself for the lie I murmured as we left him; it’ll be all right, he’ll be fine. I don’t know what you might be thinking - I can only wring my hands and lean against the wall, crunching the snow underneath my foot, trying not to seem as uncomfortable as I feel. Everything began in the flurry of that phone call, your demure and simple request... You crane your neck backwards, so that your face can embrace the sky. The shadows fall into the crevasses of your face, emboldening the lines to trace your history - you’re smiling, angry, laughing, and broken with your empty stare into the azure abyss. The sun catches the grey and gold flecks of your hair which sparkle wisely. I never thought anything could sparkle wisely, but the sun reflects that bold sense of maturation, of years absorbed into crow’s feet and laugh lines. Perhaps too many. [1]

- Mrs. Sorenson?

You turn your head down. The light shifts; the wisdom vanishes with the cloud cover, replaced by an ache resonating deep within you. You can read every dreaded word in the doctor’s face. You can see what she’s going to say, but the doctor pulls you from the bench anyway. Whispers. You laugh a small laugh, a courageous attempt at denial; your mouth smiles hopefully but your eyes frown. As the doctor walks back into building our eyes meet. That glance tells me that she’s finally informed you; the news has finally come. It bends you first at your knees, and then your shoulders sag. The weight that should have been lifted pushes you to the concrete. You brace against the wall to ease your fall. Your face strains with the loss, every fiber and muscle stiffens with devastation. Your voice is dry and hoarse when you speak to me, the moisture having escaped your eyes. It streams down your cheeks, turning the whites of your eyes a betrayed crimson. Your despairing stare finds me.

- He’s gone.

I place my hand on your shoulder - I’m sorry, but I don’t know how to comfort you. I ask if you want to go back inside. I don’t know if you hear me - you’re shaking with wild disbelieving eyes. What the mind had known and understood, your heart rejects and refuses to accept. You mutter his name in a string of pleas to a god you do not define and denials to the cold, calculating organ between your ears. You are so small and frail beneath my hand, like an antique china-doll. At last, you nod fervently and fearfully, resolved to see it for yourself. It can’t be true. It can’t be true, your eyes cry and scream to the city block, to anyone or anything that will listen. We return to the hospital.

The elevator climbs to the fifth floor where the doors open. Rhythmic heartbeats replace the elevator music and the chilly corridor opens to us. We cross the hall to a separate room, an annex to a quieter place: a place for the dying. It smells sterile and I feel filthy with the dirt under my fingernails. A hallway of mechanized hearts, lungs, and kidneys beeps a greeting to us. We stand outside the door. His door. Horace lies stiffly on his bed, the pillows cushioning a corpse. He looks nothing like the man I’d see tending his flowers with a weather worn smile creasing his face. He and I had only spoken a handful of times - but lying on the bed like that, his face looks so slack. Inanimate, limp with loss of consciousness. Of life.

- He’s just like that when he’s asleep.

You begin your statement smoothly, but your throat clenches mid-sentence and your words shrivel - the image of him now taints the memory of peaceful repose forever. Your attempted smile turns into a grimace and the silent stream of tears you managed in the elevator bursts into broken, terribly distinct sobs. You fall to the bed, wailing. I don’t really hear your cries. I’m lost in the imagery of you cast in the striated shadow of the blinds. The sun cuts through the window, glinting on the silver in your hair, on his and your rings, knocked together as you intertwine your fingers with his.

Through the doorway, I glance around the room, awkwardly. I feel as though I shouldn’t have seen this moment; my eyes were welcome, but uninvited, guests. I shift my gaze away from the despondent scene and look around the room. Anything to let you grieve alone without being left alone, again. The heart monitor has been turned off by a considerate nurse, but the flowers remain on the nightstand. I suppose they do a well enough job of concealing the stench of the hospital, or the loss.

It strikes me how untouched this little room is - when they come to collect his body, there won’t be any sign that he had ever been here at all, save for some small note on his chart. People bustle through the corridor behind me. I like to think I block some of the sound with my body in the doorway, but I don’t know. I don’t think you can hear anything above the outcry of your grief.

I drive you home in the afternoon, after forms were signed, after arrangements were made. After the rain clouds had rolled in. Strangeness consumes me. Without these moments, without the phone call, without his death, our lives would have never intersected beyond a neighborly wave, occasionally asking you to watch my son, bringing your trash cans to the end of the driveway, and can-you-water-the-flowers-while-we’re-at-the-beach? I wonder if I’d prefer it that way. I walk you to your porch and I turn away once you have opened your door. You thank me for being at the hospital with you. I lie and say that it was no trouble and tell you to call if you ever needed anything. I reminded you that I’d always be right next door.

- I’m so sorry for your loss.

It’s an obliged statement, but you only nod and close the door.

Charlotte is inside when I pull into the drive next door. I greet her in the living room and just hold her. She’s wearing the perfume that I like and her hair is soft as I bury my face into its tresses. Our anniversary is coming up in a few weeks. Five years. A mere fraction of yours and Horace’s marriage. I fear that she and I might not make it that long - fifty-five years? It sounds impossible. Who knows? Maybe it is.

The funeral is mostly planned by a slightly younger portly woman. She bustles around assuring you of this or that: ‘Yes ... I promise we’ll have lilies ... no ... we didn’t get the plot underneath the oak ... well ... because there’s someone in it already!’ I see her usually as she walks you to and from the car and hear the small, one-sided segments of the phone conversations when I’m outside, tossing a whiffle ball with Max.

I don’t go to the service, so I don’t know which plot he lies in. I don’t know if you’re crying right now, standing over that hole, releasing a handful of soil, hearing the hollow patter-patter as it lands. The day she arrived, the portly woman invited me to the reception at your house, ‘it would just mean so much to her if you were there.’ I don’t know if I believe her, but I dress Max in his little suit and my wife dons a simple black dress. My tie is choking me. Max is only two, and he’s adorable. All the old biddies fawn at him, pinch his cheeks and say those older women things in that older women tone, ‘isn’t he just darling with that little tie!’ Last year, you and your husband watched Max for us every Friday. Those date-nights probably saved our marriage. Max waddles around, giggling at things we can’t see with our grown-up eyes. People smile, and hastily shift their gazes back to their tea cups, reminding themselves that this is a sober occasion. No levity allowed.

You disappear into the wallpaper. It is too long before anyone realizes you’ve left the room. I find you in your bedroom, sitting at a table by the window. You have a box of old photos in your lap, your fingers hold the pictures by the edge so as not to ruin the images.

- Mrs. Sorenson? Are you all right?

What a stupid thing to ask. You’re mourning. Of course you’re not all right. You don’t respond, and maybe you didn’t hear me, so far, it doesn’t seem as if you’ve noticed me yet. I enter the room anyway and sit in the chair opposite you.

- I’m so scared.

I wait in silence. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how anything I could say would make a difference. You dab your eyes and glance out of the window for a long time before speaking again.

- I’m so scared for him.

These are softer, spent sobs. Your body reacts to the grief but you have no more tears to shed and your abdomen is sore from the wracking muscle spasms. Now, you weep, an elegant act for inelegant pain. I’m not a man who thinks much about God or Heaven or Hell. I grew up with an average family who celebrated Christmas and Easter but never really believed in anything beyond Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the consistency of American commercialism. I try to say some line about how he’s in a better place, or that he’s no longer in pain, but there’s no conviction to support the words.

- He was always so afraid. So afraid of the end. And now, he’s there. Alone.

Mrs. Sorenson, please don’t cry. Mrs. Sorenson, it’ll be all right. Mrs. Sorenson, he’s not alone. The thoughts run through my head, but every word sounds less sincere than the last, so I don’t say anything. There’s a small tumble at the door. I look up but your eyes remain fixed on the photographs. Max has regressed to crawling. I smile, and beckon him closer. He has an impressive string of snot running from his nose and down his chin. I tell him fondly that he’s a mess, take out a tissue, and wipe the shine from his face. He giggles and gurgles something in toddler-speak. You still don’t look at him, even as he squirms in my lap. Suddenly, I remember and inwardly flinch at my indelicate behavior. I put Max on his feet and tell him to Go Find Mommy. After a moment of comprehension, he toddles off. The sounds of a child’s feet don’t belong here. I don’t think it has for a long time.

- This is my boy.

You show me pictures of a tow-headed little boy playing catch with his father. Of a teenager and his date. Of a smartly outfitted military man. He will always be twenty-one, frozen in the frame. I don’t know what to say. When did he die? How did he die? Was he shot down or shot up? Do you miss him even now? Is his room the same as he left it, waiting for him to come home? Do you sometimes think that knock at the door is him, coming back after all these years?

I can’t say anything. I just hand the picture back to you, receiving another one. This one is more recent, but still old and out of date. You smile softly before you show it to me. I assume the man is Horace, with hair. You’re holding hands with him in the picture. Neither of you look at the camera. Your eyes are fixed on one another, laughing intimately.

- You look very happy.

- Oh. Yes. We are ... were.

The glimmer of a smile fades and the tears well up again, but I can only mutter a weak attempt at consolation.

- I’m sorry.

You howl and the sounds of light, sober conversations cease as they listen to your wracking grief.

- Mrs. Sorenson, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.

Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Good Christ! Please stop crying! I only extend my hand across the table and I hold your tapering fingers in a practiced motion of consolation. Your skin feels like paper; frail, written upon, crumpled up, discarded and then retrieved from the wastebasket, smoothed out and rewritten. Your fingers are soft and old, but vital enough to squeeze mine until the tips are purple. The portly woman saves me. She rushes in and embraces you. You release my hand and clutch to her shoulders. She glances to me forgivingly as you wail.

- Angela!

The portly woman tells me that I am released, that she will console you for now. I flee the room and breathe the refreshing air of the hallway. The guests there greet me with confused and judgmental stares. Yes, it was me. I made the grieving widow cry! Just go back to your hors d’oeuvres and coffee.

It’s chilly outside, cold for this time of year. Winter nips at the heels of a hesitant spring, almost as if to tell it to hurry. I watch the evanescent clouds of my breath disappear into the breeze. Hurry. My wife joins me on the back deck and asks me if everything is alright. It’s not, but I say that it is. No, really dear, I’m fine. Something like that. The portly woman, Angela, she[2] has asked me to keep an eye on you, to go over and check on you every now and again, ‘just since I’m so far away otherwise I’d do it myself.’ I’ve been trying to, really.

You[3] barely notice me when I’m there, anyway. You sit in an antique wing-backed chair with your wedding album, or the vacation album, or just a box of photos you were planning on scrap-booking. You look at them fondly, then angrily as though the memories confined to the glossy page had betrayed you somehow. And, inevitably, you begin to cry. That’s what I can’t stand the most. The little tears drip down your face, sliding in your wrinkles, curving their way down your cheeks until they abandon your face and plunge to the pictures. As you set them down, I wipe off your tears, figuring the salt in them will damage the photos. Several hours of weeping and wiping pass by until I mutter something about being late for dinner. I make a hasty exit, but you don’t even look up.

From the deck I hear the phone ring. My wife answers it, and then comes back outside with the receiver.

- Hi there, Angela - Yes, I saw her today in fact - Um, no, no change - I mean, I guess she’s depressed - Oh, well, I wouldn’t think that - Well, yes, it’s been a few weeks, but I thought it’s a normal part of grieving - I guess I haven’t noticed - Angela, I won’t go through your sister’s medicine cabinet - Well, no but because that’s her business - I’m just her neighbor! - No, I don’t think I can do that - Because it’s an invasion of her privacy! - What exactly do you mean by that? - I’m being ‘insensitive to the issue’? What issue? - Alright, well, thank you for your apology - Yes, I see - I’m no expert, but I don’t think she needs that kind of.... help - Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t make that kind of decision - No, I think she can only be self-committed - No. I’m sorry, I won’t do that - Because I don’t think she needs to be in any kind of institution - The house is clean, she cooks for herself - She’s not just going to snap back to her old self. She’s lost her husband and her only remaining family is over a thousand miles away. Let the woman be sad - Uh huh - How about this: I’ll suggest that she talk to someone. I’ll look up some grief counselors and maybe she’ll feel like talking to one of them. But I’m not going to try to convince her to commit herself - Good - Yes, I’ll keep you posted - Bye.

I push the END button angrily and slam the receiver down on the deck railing. No one gives me a headache quite the way your sister does. I started screening her calls when the weekly update became daily. My wife kisses me on the cheek and tells me that I’m a good man for doing this for you. I just hug her back, but I don’t even know what I’m doing, or if it’s doing any good.

At work, I flick my eyes impatiently from the the screen to my watch, waiting for the day to be over. There are fewer students in the auditorium than normal. That’s what happens when a professor announces a movie ahead of time. Oh yes, there’s definitely going to be a pop quiz. The film is a documentary on the 2004 tsunami, complete with all the amateur footage. I try not to let the light snores behind me annoy me, but he opens his mouth and the snores become sonorous. I turn around and smack his propped up feet with my clip board. He shifts and strains forward with a feigned expression of renewed dedication to the film. I roll my eyes and pivot around in my seat. As I do, I see a Sinhalese girl a few rows back. She’s one of those good, bright students who raises her hand, completes her work on time, arrives punctually, has never missed a lecture, says Yes, sir and No, sir. She makes herself distinct through her academic prowess and tries to become invisible in her quiet nature. Her cheeks are shining and her expression is that of strained impassivity. I get the sense that she has mastered the silent cry, so as not to draw attention to herself. Her lip trembles when they show the lists of the missing people, the vain efforts of UNICEF to piece back together broken, swept away families. Some of the more sensitive ones in the class are glassy-eyed as well, but they wear expressions of horror and confusion. They ask, how could this have happened? with their hands covering their mouths and eye-lids pulled back. But the Sinhalese girl, she’s different. At the part where a rare family is reunited, she demurely stands and exits the row, sniffling and wiping her eyes as she passes through. She slips out the side door. I follow.

- Are you all right, Vedhika?

- Yes, sir. I am fine. I do not mean to disrupt the class. I am fine.

I hesitate with my reply. She’s not fine. She’s clearly a wreck, leaning against the hallway wall, arms wrapping around herself, droplets of moisture dripping off her chin. The corners of her mouth stretch across her face, revealing commercial-white gritted teeth.

- Are you sure?

She turns away at the question. Her eyes look beyond, through the opposite wall, I guess all the way back to the shores of Sri Lanka. Whatever she’s seeing causes her more pain - she grimaces and hides her face in her hands.

- Does it ever stop hurting, sir?

- I ... I don’t know.

- The waves took them. All of them. I have never seen them again. My little brothers and sisters. They are gone.

I feel like I’m at your husband’s funeral reception again: wordless and incapable. I understand her grief, like I understand yours. I can even find hers in an award winning documentary where it has been spliced up and edited for maximum effect, but I don’t know what do with it now that it’s standing in front of me.

- Take all the time you need.

I whisper empty consolations in the equally empty corridor and escape into the dark classroom. No, no pop quiz on the film, I decide, returning to my seat. The giant screen broadcasts an array of images. Brown-skinned children and white-skinned tourists, pieces of them poke up through the currents. An arm here, a leg there, oh! That might have even been a head, up for a last breath of air. The waters rips through resorts and thatched roof huts and the debris is pulled back out to sea. The debris, the bodies, and the struggling swimmers. I try not to be so jaded to the devastation, but it seems like I’ve already seen it a hundred times.

Your grief councilor’s office is only a few minutes drive away. I take you there for an hour on Friday afternoons. You try to excuse your dependency and tell me that Horace always drove you around, that you never really got the hang of it anyway. Your every step bears trepidation and your hesitation is palpable as I we walk into the cozy home-office. He leads a stoic father and son out the door before acknowledging us. I’m a little disappointed in how he presents: he looks so Freudian. I really hope he’s not one of those types to tell you that you’re only grieving because you’ve lost your only connection to a penis. He gives us a standard greeting and I hastily mention that I’m your neighbor before he can suppose me for your son. Before that watering-can could be turned upside down again.

I drive around while you’re in his office, listening to the hum of the engine at stop lights. I keep thinking about Vedhika and the tsunami video. Maybe I shouldn’t have shown it. Does it ever stop hurting, sir? I guess not. I pick you up from your fifth appointment with Freud and you are still sullen and puffy-eyed. You’re usually quiet as I drive you back home, but today, for a reason I can’t imagine, you look up from your folded hands and start talking.

- Do you think it’s natural?

- Do I think what is natural? I answer, having spaced out on the road.

- Horace dying.

- I guess. It was a heart-attack, right?

- Yes. That’s what the doctor tells me. Horace died naturally. He says that it’s foolish to be sad for so long because it was natural. He tells me that at my age, I can’t afford to spend so much energy grieving. That the sooner I accept what happened, the better I’ll be able “to enjoy life again”. But I’m not sure that I want to enjoy life again. I don’t think I can. Not without Horace. Not without my boy. Horace was the only thing in this world that kept me alive after our boy passed. And now that he’s gone, natural or not, I just don’t think I can do it.

I don’t know what to tell you. I rehash the talk-show host monologues about how people still love you, they still want you here. It’s a simple Dr. Phil answer to your problem, and you don’t reply. We drive in silence until I pull up to your house. I help you inside, and, as I turn to walk out the door, you stop me.

- You know, I don’t think I’ve ever thanked you properly. Thank you.

- Oh, it’s no problem, Mrs. Sorenson. I’ll see you on Tuesday, then?

You nod and I think I see a faint smile. Yes, the slight curve of the mouth, upward for once. I smile too, wave goodbye as I close the door.

I have an early Tuesday morning lecture and we’re discussing the movie from last week. I hate starting class discussions. Once they’ve started, they’re usually pretty good, and if I’m lucky, some voices get raised and I can really see the passion in the students. The beginning, though, has the atmosphere of a dentist’s office and drawing out those initial opinions has a lot in common with pulling teeth. Even the most outgoing students get shy, wary of judgment of their peers. I’d like to tell them to get over it, but I understand their hesitation. Privately, I don’t abide by the “there’s no such thing as a stupid question” mantra. Of course there is! I just wish the students would go ahead and accept that they’re going to say something extremely dim-witted every now and again. Not everyone gets to be an Einstein. The students banter now and I absentmindedly monitor the fledgling debate. They argue politics and the virtues of foreign aid - I notice Vedhika is characteristically silent and I leave her be - without focusing on a specific topic for more than a few moments before jumping to the next one. The snorer is surprisingly opinionated. He’s spouting off bits about how the only reason the 2004 tsunami had so much publicity was because Oprah’s friend’s boyfriend was swept out to sea and no one pays attention to the man-made atrocities in Africa or Afghanistan or any of the other conflict ridden places in the wide warring world.

- People only pay attention to national disaster stories because they don’t have to deal with their guilt! You know how many violent insurgencies that turned into violent dictatorships our government has funded over the past century?

- Hey! Just because it’s natural doesn’t make it any less devastating!

The other student sits next to Vedhika (who is diligently taking notes on a debate she won’t be tested on) and he’s on his feet now. The snorer and the other student start to shout and finally I step in to quiet them. They finally settle, glaring at one another from across the little auditorium. I glance at the clock on the back wall. A few minutes early, but why not?

- Alright. You guys can go.

A rush of books slamming shut and notebooks being jammed into backpacks and the room in empty. I walk over to the white board, where I had written: What did you THINK? All capitals with the underlining was probably a bit much, but after a quick swish of the eraser, it’s gone forever.

I drive home to pick you up. Tuesday afternoons are cemetery days. You have two little bouquets of hydrangeas from your garden in your hand and you look like you’re going to church. They’re little blue flowers bursting in a great spheres of petals and stems. You’ve never taken the same kind of flower twice. I think the first bouquets were marigolds. I help you into the passenger seat and you mutter a polite thank-you. I say that you’re very welcome (and you are), but I’m a little surprised. We’ve done this routine several times without so much as a hello.

He’s buried pretty far from town, but if I had to die right now, I’d be buried here too. I don’t drive with the radio on because I don’t know what you listen to. It seems like such an awkward and trivial thing to ask you when we’re going to a cemetery so you can put flowers on your late son’s and husband’s grave. So we continue in silence. After forty-minutes on the highway, I pull off onto an unmarked exit and turn right. There’s a small town here, sustained by the trucker stop and the aptly placed Wendy’s. The cemetery is beyond them both, down a long sloping stretch of roads that sway beneath the car. Trees line the road, obscuring the houses behind them. And then, suddenly, it’s as if there’s a magical break in the line of oaks and maples. I turn left onto an unassuming road which winds in between small hills peppered with stone in neat rows along the road. There are trees and flowers everywhere. I suppose that if a relative doesn’t maintain the grave themselves, the groundskeeper does. I guess that explains why the previous week’s flowers are always removed. We drive about a half mile deep into the complex before I park and ease you from the car. The sun catches your hair the way it did the day Horace died. Except there’s more grey than gold this time. His death sucked the color from you in a lot of ways, I suppose.

Your son and Horace are buried next to each other just outside the shade of a giant oak tree. There’s an old bench that you sit on. It’s placed directly in front of your son’s tombstone, approximately seven feet away. I suppose you and Horace had it put there when he died. I guess that’s why you insisted on Tuesday afternoons - you had been putting those flowers on his grave for thirty years, always Tuesday afternoons. No reason to change the routine now that your husband lies next to him too. You sit quietly on the bench, flowers in hand and stare at the tombstones.

The blue sky and the bright sun make the grass look greener than normal. It’s silent, not even the wind rustles through the branches of the trees, but it’s peaceful - utterly restful. I wonder if you’ve arranged for your own little box to nestle next to Horace, or if your arrangements will be handled state-side, a stone grey crematorium and then a small brass box. I like this place for you, the rolling hills, the flowers, the trees. Even the tombstones seem natural. All part of landscape. It’s beautiful.

You’re not crying. That’s odd, but good I suppose. You’re sitting on the bench gazing fondly at the names etched in granite. Fondly, this time, the anger in your eyes, it seems, has finally withered away. Progress? You stand and gingerly place the bundle of flowers at the base of their markers and then turn to me.

- I think, young man, I finally understand what that nice doctor has been saying.

Nice doctor? I manage to stifle my reactionary scoff. When I pick you up from your appointments, if you’re not glaring, you’re cursing him under your breath as you walk to the car. When did he get “nice”?

- What’s that, Mrs. Sorenson?

- He’s been suggesting that I let go - simply let go of the anger. I think I’m ready to do that. I think I’m ready to let go of a lot of things.

- I’m happy for you.

For once, I might have said something to make you smile. You don’t look at me, but I think I can see it in your eyes. Or, at least, there’s something positive there, whether or not I had anything to do with it. You kiss your hand and gracefully bear it to your son’s tombstone, and do the same for Horace. Your movements become elegiac but poised, refined and resolved. Your steps are light, barely bending the grass as you walk away. I glance back at the tombs on the hill; there’s light shining on them. The shadow of your grief has finally left them.

I still have to finish writing the final exams. Truthfully, I only write one, but I mix up all the answers and questions to prevent answer pass-backs between classes. My wife comes up to me as I’m pounding the letters on the keyboard. She leans close and whispers into my ear.

- Do you hear anything?

- No, why?

I sound too loud, and I realize, I really don’t hear anything, No little toddler feet trotting through the kitchen, no teletubbies (bee-bah?) in the living room, no tantrums or I-no-wanna-go-bed. Nothing except the pure golden silence and the sleeping breaths of our son. Charlotte smiles coyly and entices me from my computer to the bedroom. It’s been a while for us. Between Max’s unreal amount of energy and both our jobs, there’s usually not enough gusto left for us at the end of the day. We have to take advantage of times like these. I kiss her sweaty forehead and turn out the lights.

I finish writing the exam early in the morning. She’s very peaceful when she’s asleep, my wife. She has a slight smile in her dreams. I want to wake her up and tell her that but I let I let her sleep, and instead go to the computer and finish the dreaded litany of questions for my students.

I’m running late. I break a few traffic laws on my way to the university and manage to walk into class as soon as the snorer does (he’s usually the last one in anyway). The students are fervently reviewing their notes, asking hushed questions to one another: ‘Did he say that was going to be on the test’; ‘I still don’t understand what he’s been saying this whole time’; and ‘Man, I’m going to get so drunk after this.’ I grin a little evilly and tell them to put everything away, pencils out, the exam has started. As they begin to scribble, I rummage through my satchel for my book and curse under my breath when I see it’s not there. I didn’t bring my laptop (because I thought I would have my book), so I sit at the desk, drumming impatiently on the faux-wood finish.

It occurs to me, after the second exam, that I didn’t see you this morning. Normally, you’re weeding the garden or clipping the hedges. You like to do it early when it’s not so hot. Usually, I see you on my way to work. But I guess it’s because I was running late this morning.

Your house looks the same, everything seems normal when I pull into my driveway. I walk inside and call my wife, asking if she’s seen you at all today. She says no. The nanny seems anxious to leave, but I ask her to stay just a little bit longer. She’s irate, but doesn’t say anything. I don’t know what she’s complaining about - two hours a day and picking Max up from day-care is a really sweet deal compared to actually raising the little tyke. I love my son, but I think at some point, every parent thinks their child conspires to kill them through exhaustion, physical or otherwise.

I walk up to your front door, but hesitate. I knock first, but there is no answer. Maybe I’m crazy - maybe a friend picked you up and you’ve gone off to Vegas or something. Maybe you had someone drive you to the grocery store. I knock again, wondering what poor excuse I’ll have when you open the door. Oh, Mrs. Sorenson, uh, your trash cans were knocked over, do you want me to pick them up? Something like that. Something brutally transparent like that. I rap my knuckles too hard on your door for the fifth time and now they’re stinging. I give up and flip the welcome mat up, revealing a copy of your house key. Horace told me where to find it. ‘For just-in-case things’ he had said. I slide the key into the lock. It’s rusty and stiff, the tumblers turn unwillingly under the pressure of the key. It opens with a final twist and I slip into your home. I’ve been here many times over the past year, but I’ve never really looked at it. There’s no time now. I hear music from your bedroom. Sinatra? No, too stereotypical. It is a soulful voice, though, smooth and sweet. I follow it around the corner to the door beyond your kitchen.

- Mrs. Sorenson?

I knock softly on your bedroom door and it swings open slightly with the tap. Pale light illuminates the room, washing away the sharp corners of the furniture and picture frames. You’re asleep in your wing-backed chair - the same one you were sitting in when I made you cry at the reception - with yet another photo album in your lap. All the gold in your hair has vanished and now it looks like ash. Your hair falls like a veil over your face, having escaped from your bun. Gravity reaches its fingers into your laughs lines and drags them down. I kneel at your side and whisper.

- Mrs. Sorenson?

I rest my hand gently on your shoulder but you do not stir, ever so deep in your sleep. I say your name louder and shake you slightly. Your head wobbles on your neck limply and rests with eerie stillness against the chair. Your eyes are half open, staring emptily into the pages of the photo album.

- Mrs. Sorenson!

There’s a glass of water at your side. I wonder, but I don’t want to know. I don’t want to think that your sister could be right. I leave you in your chair and take the glass into the kitchen. I rinse it out and place it in the dishwasher. I go back to you and now I see it, now I see it in clear pale light filtering in through gossamer curtains.

I’m going to throw up. My stomach churns and I can taste the bile in the back of my throat. I keep my mouth closed despite the internal lurches. I run out of your house, across the yard and burst into mine. The nanny holds Max and looks at me, bewildered.

The 911 dispatcher is calm and collected. She tells me to calm down, that everything will be all right. She tells me to stop yelling. I’m yelling? The nanny looks frightened and Max squirms in her arms. My heart hammers wildly, I feel it as I rub the back of my neck. I drop my voice and the dispatcher continues to assure me that help is on the way. Why am I so upset? Help? What help? She doesn’t get it. You’re beyond help, sitting in your chair like that, staring off like that, being so still like that. Like that. Your husband and your son, just like that.

The dispatcher lets me off the line, and I take Max from the nanny who departs hastily. I jounce him to calm him but it doesn’t really work. I don’t really know why bouncing a kid up and down is supposed to make them relax. I hold him close though and can feel his warm toddler-breath in my ear. Sshh, sshh.

Max has stopped crying by the time the ambulance arrives, forty-five minutes later. They probably don’t put on the sirens when they know that their would-be patient is already gone. No, wait, it’s not an ambulance. It’s a coroner’s truck. I step out on the porch and watch them enter your home. I’m on the phone with your sister. It’s a conversation steeped in silence. The shock (the relief?) quiets her and when she does speak, she asks softly and politely, has the ambulance arrived yet? I tell her yes, that it’s pulling in right now. Where are the sirens? I tell her they turned them off. I don’t think you’d want your sister to know you were being carted away so unceremoniously. She asks me to make sure that you’re taken care of, handled gently, and lets me off the line after I promise.

The ground feels spongey under my shoes as I walk into your yard. They have unloaded the gurney from the vehicle and are wheeling it into your foyer, there’s a black bag folded on top. Some of your plants are trod upon and I wince for you. One of the guys pulls me aside. I can see it coming: he’s going to ask me about the glass, about what chemical remains could still be found in your stomach, in your unmoving blood. I’m waiting for it, the accusation, the police, the tampering with evidence charge - something worthy of a prime-time drama.

- I know some places that’ll take real good care o’ her.

My eyes flutter with surprise - Oh, so you won’t turn me in? - and the man gives me an odd look. He shoves a brochure into my hand and says you’ll be at the city morgue.

I pick your sister up from the airport a few hours later. She really must have dropped everything to be here. She stays in your house as she plans the funeral and the idea feels like a cold stream of water pouring down my spine. I couldn’t sleep there.

It always amazes me how quickly funerals are turned around. Three days, and here you are, dressed in an old-lady’s dress, young woman lipstick on your lips and a shade of blush you never would have picked for yourself. Or maybe your sister showed the mortician some of your photos from the 80s. I want to linger at your side, but the line at the wake pushes me forward and I depart your mahogany cage. My wife and Max are with me and I’m grateful that I’m not demonstrating the same hysterics as when I found you. I don’t pay attention to the service. I inanely rise when so ordered by the priest, sing some somber tune from the hymn book, but I’m not really there. I’m already at the burial plot and you’re sitting on the bench, that small, even peaceful smile playing on your lips. I suppose that’s the image of you I want to keep. There’s a portrait next to your casket, one of those professional ones, but I barely recognize you. You’re a young woman, very pretty and cast in a classic 1940s vignette. The monotone hides the shine in your eyes though, that’s unfortunate.

It’s another one of those radiantly beautiful days - I think you’d appreciate it in your quiet way. The sky so blue and the grass so green, it seems perverse to bury you. I think of how people used to bury their loved ones with bells or whistles, so that just in case they had been buried alive, they could alert them from underground. The casket is poised above the hole. I want to throw my cell phone under your lid. I don’t know if it would work from six-feet under ground, but I wonder. The bouquet of flowers is stereotypically funeral. Maybe I should have clipped some marigolds, tulips, or hydrangeas from your garden. Would that have been all right by you?

The groundskeepers are ready to seal you in the vault, so your decomposition doesn’t contaminate the water supply. But before they place the big black box over you, your sister takes your favorite album - the one with pictures of your wedding and your son’s first steps, laughs, and runs. She places it on top of your casket and then you’re sealed away. This modern sarcophagus strains the ropes as they lower it in. It’s not real. This just isn’t real. You’re closer to son now than you’ve been in thirty some-odd years. I know that makes you happy, whether in the box or floating overhead somehow; you’re glad to be with them both again. I want to watch them put the dirt back in, how they fill it in around you, but the gathering is dispersing, and I don’t linger.

The mourners gather in the church’s dining hall. I’m glad it’s not back in your house. I don’t think I would be here if it were there. At the reception, your sister thanks me for all that I had done. Your doctor is there as well, but he stands awkwardly in the corner staring into his coffee. He thought you were having a breakthrough, he just didn’t imagine it would be this kind. Max is a more confident runner than he was at your husband’s reception. The little legs sprung out from under him over the last year, so he’s more of a handful than ever. There’s more laughter here, but I don’t think it’s because your friends and family miss you any less. Your sister howls at a memory with her children and then turns around a corner to regain her composure and dry her eyes. I feel wrong now for disliking her so much. My family and I slip out unnoticed and drive back home. I don’t look at your house as we pass it. I don’t look at it when I unbuckle Max from his car seat, or when I turn around and close the garage door.

The for-sale sign goes up quickly, but I don’t give it much thought. That’s how things need to be done. There’s an enormous garage-sale (estate-sale, when everything must go) and people pick through your random possessions. I don’t think you would have minded so much either. I think your sister saved what was most important to you and the rest could all be sold.

I’ve figured something out. I’m sitting on the bench in front of your son’s grave, with his parents resting on either side of him. Max dangles his feet off the bench and he hops off - he thinks he’s seen a grasshopper. Katrina is asleep in my arms, so still the way newborns are. It’s a Tuesday afternoon, a warm day for winter, and I have flowers for you - sunflowers this week. I don’t grow them, I pick them up from a flower shop that’s near here. I stand and place one at the base of each tombstone. I never met your son, and barely knew your husband, but I’m here for you, so why shouldn’t someone be here for them, as well? I realized it when I picked up the flowers today. Katrina was anxious to get out into the world, I think. She arrived two weeks earlier than expected. Eight and half months after conception, on a warm night in May, three days before your funeral.

She’s beautiful, and you would love her, a doe-eyed winter child. I have the same fascination with her that I had with Max when he was this young (when he would sit still long enough for me to hold him). It seems so strange that something this beautiful is the product of an insatiable instinct. I smile and kiss her nose. Just because it’s natural, doesn’t make it any less miraculous.