The Weight of Heaven (29 page)

their new weekend ritual—driving long distances to go to places

where nobody knew their name, where expressions of pity and sympathy didn’t greet them on the streets and in the grocery stores.

In this way, they got through the first four months of their new

life.

Chapter 18

She wanted him to laugh. But that seemed impossible. So she wanted

him to cry. Crying would be healthy, she thought. Crying would be

a prelude to talking, the first step toward getting Frank back.

Benny had been dead for four months. And Frank had glided

away from her as silently as a cloud in the sky. Ellie felt acutely the

loss of both men in her life. The last time Frank had broken down

in her presence, had let her see the depth of his anguish, was the afternoon she had shattered the dishes. Since then he had built a shell

around his body, a shell so hard and brittle that if she so much as

touched it with her finger, it gave off a white dust. It made her feel

lonely, more lonely than she’d felt the morning in the hospital before

the first of family members had arrived, more lonely than she’d felt

at the funeral where she’d heard the kind words of the mourners as

if they were speaking to her from the other side of a glass door. And

because she knew something about that deadness of the spirit, that

numbness that could spread like a drop of iodine on the tongue, she

was worried about Frank. The new Frank, she’d taken to calling

him. The new Frank was guarded, secretive, almost shy around her.

She had hoped for a comrade, a fellow traveler who could help her

navigate this new continent of grief. Instead, she was dealing with a

Th e We i g h t o f H e av e n 2 0 9

stranger, or worse, an adversary, who planted his harvest of pain on

his own plot of land, and seemed resentful when the borders of her

sorrow brushed up against his. And because of this, Ellie felt that

permission for her to cry and break down in his presence had also

been withdrawn.

Last night they had made love for the first time in four months.

And it had been terrible. There was a tentativeness, a formality, to

their lovemaking that was alien and new. She had tried to tell herself

that Frank was being tender, solicitous, but she knew what he really

was—watchful.

She had initiated the lovemaking. Turned to him in the middle of

the night and pressed herself upon him. Taken his hand and placed

it on her breasts and later, between her thighs. Kissed him on his

lips with a mounting desperation that she pretended was lust. And

he had responded. Had kissed her back passionately. Their bodies

worked their way toward each other as effortlessly as they always

did. But Ellie sensed some reserve on Frank’s part, a hesitation, a

missed beat. She had intended their lovemaking to be a cleansing,

an act of oblivion. She had wanted to cry, to break down, to claw at

the veil of an uncaring universe. To dissolve in a mess of sweat and

tears. Had wanted to seek and deliver forgiveness, to replace this

hard, cold silence between them with something alive and affirmative. Had wanted the friction of skin to warm their frozen blood.

Instead, Frank rolled away after she climaxed, back to his corner

of the bed. Instead, she lay there for the longest time, feeling more

alone than she had ever felt before. Instead, she stared into the darkness, feeling more distant from her husband than she had the last

four months.

She woke up the next morning with a new kind of resolution.

Instead of worrying about Frank, she was now worried about herself. She recognized how close to the edge she had walked these past

few months and knew herself well enough to know that she could

not sustain that degree of misery. That she wanted to belong again

2 1 0 Th r i t y U m r i g a r

to the world and wanted to be made large by her grief, not shrunk

by it. That she didn’t want to use the tragedy that had befallen her

as a crutch, or worse, as a stick to beat up others with. Rather, she

wanted to be softened by her grief, made more human. Even if it

meant opening herself up to new wounds, new vulnerabilities. She

felt capable of this now, felt a new willingness to give up the soft

gauze of numbness from which she had peered at the world for the

last several months. She would not shrivel, would not become a snail

living in her shell, like Frank. And most important, she would not

let herself believe that grief was a tribute to her dead son, that she

was honoring his memory by not living a full life. How often she had

seen her clients fall to the lure of this sweet myth—women who did

not date for decades after a divorce, adult children who would never

touch ice cream again because their elderly mothers had craved it

on their deathbeds, women who had been left by their husbands

making a virtue out of celibacy. As if misery was ever the antidote

to misery. No, the best way to honor the dead was by living. They

had failed Benny these past few months. If their sunny, joyous son

was indeed in heaven looking down at them, he would not recognize

the people they had become.

She was determined to change that. She didn’t see her first client

until one o’clock today, and so there was time to drive to the florist

and come home armed with a large bouquet of flowers. She arranged

them in a large red vase that she placed on the kitchen table.

On the drive to work, she allowed herself to roll down the window

and let in the beauty of the world. For the first time in months, she

noticed how delicious the sun felt against the skin of her forearm,

how delicate the afternoon breeze felt as it slipped into her car, observed the tinkling loveliness of the tiny yellow and blue wildflowers along the side of the freeway. By the time she got into work, her

face was flushed with heat and life.

As luck would have it, her first client was Amy Florentine. Amy

was a retired schoolteacher, a tall, gruff woman in her late sixties.

Th e We i g h t o f H e av e n 2 1 1

She and her longtime husband, Fred, had first come to Ellie four

years ago to work through some marital problems. Long after they’d

quit couples counseling, Amy had taken to stopping in three or four

times a year, for what she referred to as her tune-up sessions.

But this was the first time that Amy had been back since Benny’s death, and Ellie wondered if her client had heard the news. She

didn’t have to wonder for long, though, because as soon as Amy

walked into Ellie’s office, she extended her hand and said how sorry

she was.

“Thank you,” Ellie said. They sat facing each other, and Ellie

fought the urge to pull the blinds so that Amy couldn’t see the motorcade of emotions that crossed her face at the mere mention of her

son.

“Well, how have you been?” she started but Amy cut her off.

“You remember I lost my son Jim almost twenty-five years ago,”

she said. “And I tell you honey, there’s days when it’s still real hard.

So be real gentle with yourself.”

Ellie did remember. A diving accident where Jim jumped into a

lagoon and hit his head on a rock. Fred and Amy had mentioned it

to her during their very first session, and Fred had reached over and

held his wife’s hand all the while they were talking about it. She had

liked them immediately, but had been amazed that a couple who had

gone through so much together could still have marital problems in

their late sixties. Now she knew better.

She also knew better than to lay her burden at a client’s feet. But

Amy’s face was luminous with sympathy and understanding, so different from the faces of those whose lives had been untouched by tragedy, who made all the right sounds and murmured their condolences

and then hurried back into the bright lights of their good fortune. And

so she found herself asking, “Does it ever get any easier?”

Amy Florentine looked at her for the longest time. Then she

shook her head. “You’re asking the wrong question. What you’re

trying to do, Ellie—what we all do—is you’re trying to salvage

2 1 2 Th r i t y U m r i g a r

something of your past life. But it doesn’t work that way. What

the death of a child does is that it wipes everything out. Clears the

decks. The plain truth is, honey, what you once had is gone. So what

you have to do is build a new life. From scratch. And the bitch of it

is, you’re not left with much. So you gather in every miserable twig

and leaf that you can find and you build with that.”

“I still get tricked all the time,” Ellie said. “Every morning I

wake up, and my first thought is, Benny’s gonna be late for school,

or Damn, I forgot to pack Ben his lunch. And then I remember, and

it’s like dying a little bit all over again.”

“That part will go away,” Amy said. “But I’ll tell you something

right now, Ellie, that nobody else is gonna tell you—the pain will

never go away. It’s always there, even years and years later. And

there’s so much pressure to bury it. It’s just the way our culture is—

even grief comes with an expiration date, you know? You’re supposed

to nod and smile because raw emotion embarrasses other people.”

“I sense it already,” Ellie whispered. “I ran into Benny’s old

teacher at the store the other night, and when she asked how I was

doing, I told her the truth. Not good, I said. And she immediately

changed the subject.”

“I know. My Jim was twenty when he died. All his friends who

were with him that night at the lagoon, boys who practically grew

up in my house—nothing. They all turn their heads away when I

approach.” She fixed her gaze on Ellie. “I’m telling you all this so

that you won’t take it personally when it happens to you. It’s just

human nature, honey. They don’t mean anything by it.”

Ellie smiled. “I feel like I should be paying you for this session.”

“Nonsense,” Amy said immediately. “Fred and I came to you in

the first place because we’d heard you were a real person. Not one of

those know-it-all, theory-sprouting robots who call themselves therapists.” She rolled her eyes. “Oh, honey, don’t make me name names.”

“I know what you mean,” Ellie said. “I went to school with some

of them.”

Th e We i g h t o f H e av e n 2 1 3

She didn’t get done until six that evening, but she walked into

the house charged with a new feeling of resolution. Frank was already home and was sitting on the couch sipping a glass of wine. She

went and sat beside him. “That looks nice.” She sighed, eyeing his

wineglass. The old Frank would’ve immediately offered her a sip

from his glass. The new Frank jumped off the couch and got up to

pour her her own glass. She made herself not notice the difference.

“Thanks, hon.” She smiled. “How was your day?”

He shrugged. “Nothing special. Same old, same old.” He didn’t

ask her how her day had been. She made herself not notice.

She finished her wine and then got off the couch. “Cyndi Sheehan is speaking on campus tonight. I was thinking of going after

supper. I don’t suppose you would want to go?”

He stared at her. “What’re you talking about?”

“You know who she is, right? She’s the peace activist who lost

her son in Iraq?”

“I know who she is, Ellie. Obviously. What I don’t understand is

why you would want to subject yourself to more sad stories when we

are barely—” He cut himself off. “Forget it.”

“No, finish what you were saying.”

He turned to face her, his eyes shiny with anger. “I’m finished.”

“What are you so mad about? Why are you treating me like

this?”

“Don’t start on me, Ellie. You’ve been itching for a fight since the

moment you walked in. From before that, even.”

He was giving her a headache. “Frank, what the hell are you talking about? I was actually in a good mood when I came in today.”

“I see that,” he yelled. “I noticed. As if anyone could miss the red

vase in the kitchen. And the goddamn flowers.”

Ellie looked at Frank, fearful for his sanity. “That’s what’s set

you off? The fact that I bought flowers? I was just trying to cheer

myself up.”

“Cheer yourself up by making the house look like a goddamn

2 1 4 Th r i t y U m r i g a r

funeral home? It’s been four months since we buried our boy, and I

still see him in his coffin every night. And you, you . . .”

She flew back to the couch and threw her arms around him. “Oh,

honey. That was the last thing on my mind. Oh, God, Frank. I can’t

live like this. I can’t live in a home where flowers remind us of death

instead of life. Please, babe.”

He leaned into her for a moment, and then he stiffened. “Just

leave me alone,” he mumbled. “I—I just have to deal with this in

my own way.” He reached for his wineglass, using the movement to

get out of her arms.

“Can’t we just talk?” she tried, but his aloof expression when he

turned to face her was the answer she needed.

They sat on the couch in silence for a minute, and then Ellie

pushed herself off. “Listen,” she said. “I don’t feel like cooking

supper tonight. How about if we both manage on our own? There’s

leftovers in the fridge.”