Grief Girl (15 page)

I love Mrs. Stockbridge. She's the only adult I don't pretend with. She understands the way no other adult does. Sometimes I like to pretend I'm the only person in the world for her. We just click. I wish everyone else would just go away.

I say something and Merril turns and says to Mrs. C-J, “Very Youngian, don't you think?”

I have no idea what they're talking about, but I'm nodding anyway. They start going on about how Young says this about consciousness and Young says that about dreams, and I'm nodding as if I know what the hell they're talking about. I know it's something intellectual, because their voices have shifted to la-di-da intellectual mode. I feel uneducated and stupid. I hate when I don't know something I should.

Mrs. Stockbridge seems to know, and for some reason she's growing even more angry. “Now, back to Erin, the reason we're all here,” she says firmly, and they stop with the Young talk.

So the adults keep talking and all that is resolved is that Mrs. Stockbridge and I should see less of each other. No more lunchtime chats.

“Okay,” we both say on the way out.

In a way I feel closer to Mrs. Stockbridge than ever. It feels like it's us against them. I don't know what's wrong with someone's helping me as much as Mrs. Stockbridge is.

“I know this is stupid, but who's Young?” I ask Mrs. Stockbridge later that day when I get to science class. I'm early. I wanted to see what she really thought of the meeting.

“They were talking above your head on purpose. God, that makes me mad! Carl Jung,
J-U-N-G,
is a famous psychoanalyst with certain theories about dreams and coincidence and other things. No one your age knows, or needs to know, who he is.”

“What's he got to do with me?”

“For the purpose of today, absolutely nothing!”

I've never seen her this angry.

“Oh, Erin, it really wasn't about you, they were showing off with each other. Merril isn't even a real psychologist. She's a bloody school counselor!”

I'm shocked. Merril isn't even qualified to “take me back in time”? She isn't even qualified to talk to me?

I'm an experiment! A practice subject! A lab rat! I thought they were above all that at their ages. Why do Mrs. C-J and Merril need to show off? Maybe they're the ones who need counseling.

“Mrs. Stockbridge, can I still come and talk to you at lunchtime and stuff? I understand if I can't.”

“Of course you can. I enjoy our chats too, you know. We'll just have to be very quiet about it. Okay?” She smiles.

“Okay.”

August 1984

R
onald just called to tell us that he and Peter are moving. They've both got job opportunities in Western Australia. That's the other side of the country.

They're moving to Kalgoorlie, an opal-and gold-mining town. Maybe that's why Ronald wanted Dad's gold-panning machine.

I call Peter. “I thought you liked the job you've got,” I say.

“I do, but it's time for something different.”

“Can't you please stay and get something different not so far away?”

“If you went any further you'd end up in the ocean,”
I feel like saying.

“Don't worry, we'll still just be a phone call away, just like we are now,” Peter says.

I don't understand this of Peter. Ronald, maybe, but not Peter. What's happened to him? He was always so sweet and caring. I guess it's all just too much for him.

So they're off. No party, no farewell, they just go and that's that.

Maybe they need to get away from all the sadness. They lost their dad when they were younger, then their mother, and now their sister.

That's one more than I've lost.

         

We all have to get up in social studies class and tell an interesting story. It can be about absolutely anything, our teacher says, as long as it holds the class's attention.

Lisa's the first to get up, as she says she's got a story we'll all love. It's about her dad's job. I really like Lisa. She's a rebel in her own quiet way. I wish I had a bit of what she's got.

“My dad works at a funeral parlor doing up the corpses. He makes up the dead bodies for viewings,” Lisa says, standing at the front of the class.

Do I want to hear this?

“He gets bodies ready for funerals. First they wheel them in on a table, all bloated and hard. And get this—my dad cuts into their stomachs to let the gases out, and it stinks like you wouldn't believe.”

People grimace, wrinkling their noses.

“I'm not joking. It's disgusting. And this yellow stuff oozes out of them and sometimes he has to pull the intestines out.”

I feel queasy. I don't want to know this stuff, but I don't want to make a scene either. I can't run out of the room, plus I don't know that I want to. Part of me is curious. I've heard that a person's hair and nails keep growing after they're dead. I wonder if that happened to Mum and Dad.

But are these people complete morons? Both of my parents just got cut up like this. Don't they think that maybe this is just a little creepy for me? I can't believe my teacher is letting her go on. Maybe they've forgotten or they think I'm over it by now. People seem to think this grief thing is something you “get over” quickly.

I'm trying to act fascinated like everyone else, but it's not quite the same.

Lisa continues. “After that they get the makeover. Especially if there's going to be an open casket. Their skin is always gray or white, so he has to paint their faces skin color again. The skin is tight, so it's easy. Then he has to add color to the cheeks. I did that on a body while I was there. It was fun.”

“Didn't it make you sick?” someone asks.

“No, they all joke and laugh about it while they're doing it. It's just like painting a doll.”

Great. My parents were buried as Barbie and Ken Vincent.

“They put lipstick on the men, too, to make their lips look alive again. Sometimes they have to sew their lips up first so nothing oozes out of their mouths.”

I'm laughing and oohing, but I can't take much more of this. It's so insensitive.

People just don't get it.

“Oh, and you know how some people put jewelry and stuff in the coffins of their loved ones? Well, they shouldn't, because it gets stolen.” Lisa stops for a moment. “Well, my dad would never do that, but he knows people who do.”

Mum's ring and Nanny's bracelet aren't there with her? Some blue eye shadow–wearing funeral parlor beautician has them on her thieving hands?

Lisa lowers her voice. “Even the clothes don't always make it on the dead people. A man who works with Dad has some pretty nice suits from dead guys.”

The whole class is engrossed and I'm just grossed out.

So Mum's in the casket naked? How awful death must have been for her. Her body which she tried so hard to hide in life, totally exposed and humiliated in death. Oh, Lisa, this is all so entertaining. What a fine public speaker you make. And what a great choice of topic for this crowd. You've really worked the room.

I try to tell myself it's only their bodies. People say it's the spirit that's important. It's just so hard to detach myself from their bodies. Bodies are what we love and see and hug every day. I love you because I see you there. The body does matter. The body is what the soul's wrapped up in. When I think of my parents, I don't think of misty spirits flying through the air. I think of what they looked like. Their eyes, their noses, their hair, their hands, their bodies.

I feel like I have neither—no body, no spirit. No signs from above, no visitations. Mum was into that otherworldly stuff, so why doesn't she give me a sign? Hey, Mum, if you're there, just come and make a candle flicker.

No answered prayers. Can you believe I still try when I feel really desperate?

So don't tell me how they were destroyed, cut open, prodded, and painted. Don't tell me her body wasn't sacred. We all like to believe that it is.

Sure, the girls are all laughing, but I'll bet they won't be laughing when their husband dies in a plane crash or their child drowns in a pool.

Because these things can happen to anyone.

         

Mrs. Stockbridge is leaving Beverly Hills Girls' High. She's not meant to tell me the reason, but we're closer than that.

“They suggested very strongly that I leave because you and I have gotten too close,” she says at lunchtime. We're sitting in her lab.

“That's none of their business!” I yell.

I refused to go to a different school, so they're sending her instead.

“I've gone against student-teacher policy and they don't like it. Technically, they're right. I've done the wrong thing.”

“What, it's a crime to be a caring person? You've been there for me. I wouldn't have gotten this far without you.”

I'm trying not to cry. Being my friend is turning out to be a bad thing. She's been at the school much longer than I have. It's not fair.

“You've helped me too, Erin. But I'm a teacher and I'm not meant to get so close to students.”

“I'm so sorry. It's my fault,” I cry.

“It's not your fault. I knew what I was doing. It's going to be miserable if I stay…they'll make it that way. I'm going to miss you so much. I love you like family, you know that.”

She loves me? My heart feels the warmest it's felt since the accident, and the source of the feeling is about to be taken away from me. I know she's a mother figure and I know what the psychologists would say about that being unhealthy, but what's wrong with having someone to lean on, to care about me? She's a teacher and I'm a student. So what? If I met her anywhere else, it would be okay to be friends.

I hate that they can do this. But really, I suppose I also hate that she's not my mother, she's my teacher.

Well, not even that for much longer.

It's hard loving people.

I wish I didn't love Trent as much as I do. I'm so scared of losing him that I can't stop taking photos of him.

“Trent, pick up the phone.” I've lifted him up and put him on one of Dad's barstools.

“Pretend you're speaking to someone.”

And he does. He looks so grown-up. As grown-up as a three-foot-tall person can.

I help him get down.

“Hey, Trent, put these on.”

I'm dressing Trent up to look like a little man. He's wearing a gray tracksuit, tan Ugg boots, and Mum's big sixties-style sunglasses.

His face is dirty from playing outside. It's perfect. He looks like he has stubble around his tiny, pointy chin.

“Now sit on the sofa with this can of beer.”

I feel bad for using him like this, but we're both giggling uncontrollably, so I know he's loving this too. “Now give me a thumbs-up.”

And
snap,
I've got it.

Trent the man.

         

I've just come home from a rotten day at school. Mrs. Stockbridge has only been gone a few days and I'm miserable. To add to my misery, I just went out to put the trash in the backyard only to discover that Chris has bought a dog. He's always wanted one and couldn't have one when he lived at home with his parents, so now we're stuck with it. A great big German shepherd. Shouldn't we all have discussed it first?

In two days, our beautiful yard, Dad's pride and joy, has turned to shit.

The dog keeps tipping the trash can over, tearing up the bags, and throwing garbage all over the place. It's so dirty and depressing, especially now that it's winter. Dirty diapers, torn paper, and food scraps wet with dog saliva cover the grass. I've picked it all up a few times now, and I've had enough. The grass is so long that you can't see the dog poop hiding in it until you've stepped on it. I wish I never had to go out there, but I have to hang my washing on the line (because the dryer is too expensive to run), which the dog then proceeds to tear down. I have to make sure my clothes don't actually hang where the dog can reach them. And the pool is a mess. There's so much green stuff floating on the surface of the water, you can't see the bottom. Even the big lemon tree out back has given up. All the lemons have fallen to the ground.

         

The dog won't stop barking. He's just torn up all the rubbish again and has my jeans in his mouth. Chris won't do anything to stop him because he doesn't think it's a big deal. When I ask him to do something, he just says that's what pups do. In other words,
“Just deal with it, Erin.”
After seeing his family's messy yard, I understand why he doesn't care.

“Stop barking!” I yell at the dog through the sliding glass door that leads to the backyard. “Be quiet!”

I'll just tap the door lightly with my bare foot and see if that scares him into silence. The glass wobbles slightly and he keeps barking at me.

“Stop it, stop it, stop it, please!” I feel like one of those mothers who scream for their baby to stop crying before they shake it to death.

“I hate you!” Now I feel like a crazy person. “Stop it!”

Crash!

Shit! I didn't think I could do that. I've just put my foot through the glass door and it's shattered. And now the dog's running into the house…not exactly what I had in mind. What am I going to do? Tracy and Chris are going to kill me!

Too bad I didn't kill myself with a shard of glass going through the wrong vein. Then they'd feel really bad about the dog ruining my life. But all I've done is get a few cuts. God, I'm an idiot. I've just made everything worse.

“Come here, you stupid motherfucker of a dog.”

I've got to get him out of here, but how? Now he's going to tear everything up inside the house as well as outside.

The car's just pulled up in the driveway. Tracy, Chris, and Trent are home.

“Tracy, I'm so, so sorry. The dog was barking like crazy and I got so mad I kicked not realizing the door was closed”—what a liar—“it was so clean”—what a brown-noser—“and it smashed everywhere.”

Tracy's just glaring at me.

Trent is standing too close to the glass, so I quickly pick him up and tell him to play in his room for a while so he doesn't get hurt.

I run back out and Chris is calm but angry. He puts the dog in the garage, where he gets some wood to make a barrier in the doorway.

I start to pick up the glass.

“Oh, Erin, just get lost, will you?” Tracy screams.

“But I did it. I want to fix it.”

“You're going to get cut,” she says, looking like she's going to stab me with one of the pieces of glass. “Just go to your room.”

Then Chris comes back in and glares at me. He tells me the same thing.

I walk away and grab the phone, sneaking around the corner where they can't see me. I call and beg Ronald for some of our money to pay for the glass. I haven't tried the begging thing with him yet.

“Please, Ronald. Please. Tracy and Chris are furious. This would help things a lot.”

“What the hell were you doing kicking a door in?” Ronald says.

“I was just so frustrated and upset.”

“Well, you'll just have to live with it, won't you?”

“You don't think living without Mum and Dad is enough? I have to suffer more because you won't give us our own goddamned money! God, Ronald. When did you become such an asshole?”