The Mourning After (6 page)

Her eyes settle on the house next door.  “What’s going on over there?”

At first he wavers, though the words slip out, “Somebody died.”

“Somebody died?”

“Yes.”

She is appalled.

Lucy walks toward the fence that separates the two homes.  George follows behind her and immediately begins to bark.

“Quiet, George.”

The home next door to the Bells is two story, like theirs, but Mediterranean in style.  Lucy finds it fortunate that she could have Italy and the Mediterranean all on the same block.  She is sure the house across the street has a distinct Art Deco flair.  The diversity attracts her.  Lucy peers through a crack in the wooden fence and spots a bicycle resting alongside the house, a boy’s bike.  She knows it at once.  The windows are drawn. The inclination to peek through is fettered by black-out drapes.  Lucy’s wild imagination is left to wander aimlessly about her new neighbors.

“Did he live here,” she calls out to her father, “the person who died?”

He is attempting to roll the garden hose back into its plastic covering, which looks about as easy as folding a fitted sheet. George is growling and braying at a spot in the bushes, nudging the wooden fence with his nose and scratching at something that isn’t there.

She repeats the question.  Either he doesn’t want to tell her or he can’t hear her above the cacophony of George’s snarling.

“That sucks,” she says.

This is what I know. This is my truth: I will miss David every day of my life. 

Better to stick with the truth.  I keep telling myself that, keep telling myself.

I haven’t written in a few days. Everything has changed.  Today, I buried my brother. I kept looking around, waiting for him to walk up to the casket and tell us it was a sick-and-twisted joke. A crazy thought because I know better than anyone that he is gone.

I want to write down the truth since I find I’m caught up in lies.  Truth.  What exactly does that word mean?  Is it what I believe?  Or is that perception?  And isn’t perception merely what I want to see, what I want to be true, not what’s actually in front of me? 

I was there that night.  What I saw will remain embedded in my memory, written with permanent black marker, the ones my mother forbade me to use, especially near her white walls and floors.  Marked in indelible ink is the memory of David’s demanding eyes, David’s lifeless body.  I can’t seem to shake seeing him.  It obstructs everything else.  When I try to think about the future, life without David, the images that come to mind are no longer in color, only in black and white.  Like how when you take a picture with your camera and your finger gets in the way of the lens, and you see the developed print with a blurry shape in the way of the image you meant to shoot, the details obscured.  That’s how the future comes to me, in fits of grainy shadows.  I don’t think I’ll ever get past that night; I don’t think I’ll ever get past that smudge that’s impeding me from focusing and seeing a clear picture. 

This morning I listened to Rabbi Adler talk about David and all his accomplishments—everything we know and loved about him—and I couldn’t help think about the things the rabbi didn’t say, the things about that night that play in my mind. I can’t rewind them, undo them, hit erase.  Mom keeps asking me for details.  Dad can’t handle any more.  I heard him in the bathroom with the door closed.  He was crying.  He was moaning in a way I’d never heard before.  I’ve let them down in so many ways, but more than anything, I know this one truth: I’ve let myself down.

Rebecca was at the house today.  I inhaled her when she gave me that feeble attempt at a hug, and her smell stayed with me the rest of the day.  I kept sniffing my shirt like a lovesick puppy until the scent disappeared entirely, taking with it everything but the lingering look of her eyes, the unspoken question I know was on her tongue.  Maybe I will call her tomorrow.  Maybe I will ask her if she wants to go to a movie.  We were the closest to David.  It wouldn’t be unusual for us to gravitate toward one another in our time of sorrow, kiss longingly, and fall in love.

David, I don’t know if you can hear me.  My thoughts, they’re so loud I think you must.  Or maybe you’re reading this over my shoulder.

Why did you have to leave me here to think lecherous thoughts about your girlfriend? Is there even a name for a widowed girlfriend? A bold and brash word for someone left behind? You were always there for me, always, and look how my being there for you has destroyed everything.  Who will get me through this shitty time? And don’t go laughing at my use of the word “shitty” even though we’ve always agreed that people resort to curse words when they have limited vocabularies.  I’m a wordsmith for God’s sake.  I study thesauruses and dictionaries like I plow through bestsellers.  Why can’t I find a word that encompasses this sick, broken feeling inside?  Seems there’s no word for my suffering and pain. I am so sorry, David.  I’m so sorry for you.

Change is all around us. The new neighbors moved in, and I am sitting outside listening to their voices.  They are talking about us and the death that has crept onto their property.  Their dog must have spotted me through the holes in the fence because he has positioned himself on the opposite side of where I am sitting and has begun to bark incessantly.  Can you hear it, David? Can you smell his animal scent? Can you see his drooling jowls?

I’ve always wanted a dog, and Mom with her litany of excuses—Chloe, allergies, the shedding, unexplained odors—has diminished significantly the odds of our ever getting one.  It’s about as probable as Rebecca noticing me as someone other than her boyfriend’s younger brother. 

Did I mention fat? 

Well, I meant to say her boyfriend’s younger, fat brother.  Not to be confused with the skinny, younger brother that doesn’t exist.  Since the accident, I’ve done nothing but gorge myself on cookies and cold cuts from Arnie and Richies.  I must have gained five pounds in as many days, and the excess weight has stripped me of my last shred of dignity.

I just stole a peek at the mutt’s face through a hole in the fence, and he’s pretty cute in a gangly, yellowy, sloppy puppy dog kind of way.  He sniffed so close I think I felt the wet of his nose on my cheek.  I caught a glimpse of our new neighbor.  Her face is hidden by the small opening in our adjoining fence, so what I see are her legs that go on for miles.  She is moving from one length of the backyard to the next in hurried strides. My eyes zero in on a tattoo on her right ankle.  It looks like Chinese.  What it means, I’m not sure, though I’m copying it down so I can look it up later on the Internet.  She’s yelling at George the dog to quiet down and stop barking.  Her voice sounds like music.  She sings her words, even the insistent chastising.  Then she says, “That sucks,” and the words manage to float above our dividing wall and land in my lap.  I cling onto them with both hands. 

As she moves farther away from my spot on the grass, I am able to see more.  Her back is to the fence, and I observe the long blonde hair, the way it tumbles in tune with her words, falling in a playful rhythm.  Shit, it’s starting to rain.  The skies have opened and a sunshower is coating the block with a glistening moisture.  Is that you, David?  Out there crying?  Something tells me it’s not.  You’re never coming back.  I keep reminding myself of that.

The girl is mindful of the drops landing in her hair and face, though she doesn’t seem to care. Instead of running inside, she frolics along the grass, swaying her arms and swerving her hips.  I follow her movements and try to make out the color of her eyes; I’m sure they match the lightness of her hair.  Her lips curve into a wide smile, and I can almost hear a giggle escape her mouth.  I know by the fluidity of her arms and the grace in her stride that that’s what I want to feel inside—everything this girl is portraying on the outside.  She is lit from within, and that’s the person I long to be.

“
Lucy,” her father calls out.

Lucy.

Levon remembered the day he found the yellow-covered pads of paper in his mother’s closet. They were stashed inside a large cardboard box with other school supplies.  Lifting the front flap of the one that sat on top, Levon was drawn to the blank pages.  An urge to write stirred within.

Grabbing a pen from the drawer and racing off with the pad tucked under his arm, Levon entered into his sunlight-colored room.  And without any intention of starting a ritual that would last the course of weeks, months, and years, he began to write.  At first, what he wrote was mundane: the weather outside (always grueling), a grade for each day at its finale (usually B’s and C’s), what he ate (various things that his mother need not know about).  After a few entries, he noticed a pattern: the days lengthened into an accumulation of nothingness. 

The transcribing of data progressed to all kinds of superfluous lists: far-fetched fantasies, people he strives to be like, people he does not, recent crushes, and so forth.  There was a compulsion that led him to the pages of the pad each night that made any pen or pencil a missile for criticism and complaint.  It was a habit that once begun, he couldn’t stop.  The thought of ending this memorializing of useless data scared Levon, even had him believing that the failure to record insignificant details would mean he would no longer exist.

Over the years, the illogical inventory ripened into sensible sentences and private paragraphs.  Levon trusted the white paper with its cerulean lines for thoughts he never dared speak aloud.  With the exposed pages, there was always the chance that someone would stumble on his secret stash of revelation and confession; nevertheless, he wouldn’t deviate from the standard-lined pads he took from his mother’s drawer.  Levon had amassed stacks of journals that traced the beginning roots of his expansive writing ability.  The journal had matured from a basic keeper of monotonous facts to a complex, richly woven story that deftly described Levon’s young, impressionable life.  It was there, at thirteen, that he wrote his first poem:

To lie awake in the cold swelling night,

I hear the darkness, smell its impervious scent

And then I realize

It is morning

And the only chill is of my heart.

There were other poems over the years, scattered thoughts and secret streams of consciousness.  Their watery rivers of association drift from page to page.  These private writings gleaned from Levon’s sadness, their themes irrefutably the same. It was therapeutic for Levon to share his fears and thoughts and truths with a confidante who didn’t criticize or pass judgment, and so the
Annals of Awareness
, as Levon had so aptly named them, became the source for private, untouched feelings.

David found it thoroughly amusing that his brother kept a journal.  When Levon’s parents finally put a lock on his desk drawer, it was in response to David having stumbled on one of his earlier editions.  Like a trained editor for his novice writer, he redlined his edits with commentary:
“Levon, your diary is pretty damn interesting.  Ask Jack if Casey Schwartz is a good kisser.” 
This in response to Levon’s depiction of the night he witnessed the prettiest and most popular girl in the sixth grade kiss Jack Kaplan during a game of truth or dare.  Levon had a huge crush on Casey that year—evidenced by her name listed successively at the top of each page of his journal entries for weeks. Levon’s portrayal of their first kiss was youthful and desirous all at the same time.

David’s commentary bounced off Levon.  Even in the breach of confidence, Levon giggled at his big brother’s sense of humor.  After that, Levon used the desk drawer with its own special key to safeguard his secrets.  The remaining pads, having evolved into college-lined notebooks with five hundred pages of scribing, were locked in their storage unit in Hollywood.  They marked the years of profound passages—both written and of time—of a gifted writer hidden from sight.

“Whatcha doin’?” comes the voice from the hallway.  As an afterthought, she knocks lightly.

Levon is lying across his bed, sprawled on his stomach with his feet swaying in the air.  He looks up to find Rebecca standing in his doorway.  Closing the journal, he abruptly rises, tucking his polo into his jeans.

“Nothing,” shoots out of his mouth.

It is the last day of shiva, the seventh day since they buried David.  He thought everyone had left; the house is frighteningly quiet.  The two stand there silently in their shared sorrow.

“That goes on your right,” she says, pointing to the black ribbon that has been cut by the rabbi and Levon has pinned to his shirt.  “The tear should be on the left for a parent—over the heart so you can see it—and on the right for siblings, children, and spouses.”  She pauses before adding, “…And it doesn’t need to be visible, if you don’t want it to be.”

“How do you know so much about this stuff?” he asks.

Her hair is pulled back today, showing off a pallid, sullen face. A wisp of brown escapes its roots and she is twirling it around her finger.  “I don’t know.”  There is reluctance in her voice, which slows her words and makes sentences stilted.  “I’m trying to make sense of it all,” she adds.

Levon is on a similar journey.  Imagining Rebecca Blake sitting at a computer googling their traditions and customs so that she can properly mourn and honor the boy she loved, moves him.  Their searches might have surely crossed paths on the information super-highway with Levon busily looking up Chinese symbols of the girl who lives next door. 

Throughout the last week of shiva, he had seen her a number of times walking her clumsy dog down their street.  Something about the tattoo simultaneously pacified and baffled him. He had already drawn the following tacit conclusions: Her parents must be super cool (how else could she get away with a tattoo?); she is somewhere near his age; she has the propensity to talk to herself in an animated, cheerful way; she favors wearing white.  This preference in color he found particularly intriguing.  Having studied her comings and goings in the early morning and again when she returns from school and before bed, it is evident that white is the hue of choice for her entire wardrobe.