Losing Control(89)
She was ready to go as soon as she learned that her remission state was over. She told me so on the stairs after the first appointment with Dr. Chen.
I can’t make it.
And maybe if Ian hadn't come along she would have clung longer for me, but she was ready and saw his entrance into our lives as a sign that I wouldn’t be alone.
I can’t really begrudge her that. Not when it was her suffering that would end. My pain is a selfish thing. I realize that now.
But oh my heart is empty. The sun has been snuffed out and inside me there is only vacant hallways and rooms through which the wind gusts endlessly from one barren corner to another. The frost is building up, the vortex of feeling being wiped away. And in the void, I am cold but the piercing pain is gone. And for now, that is good enough.
I remain numb throughout the parade of nurses and doctors who have come to say they are sorry. For what? Not saving her? It's with little interest that I watch Malcolm and Ian pretend to get along while arranging for my mother's interment. I am able to tell Ian that my father is buried in Flushing Cemetery. He stops bothering me about the details after the third day. I dress myself for the funeral in a black knee-length shift that Ian must have bought for me. It’s sunny out, which makes me weirdly offended—as if the clouds should be crying instead of smiling. But I’m not crying either. I can’t. I’m afraid if I start, I’ll never stop.
“I’m sorry, Victoria.” Malcolm’s mother has arrived. She looks worn out and old—far older than her fifty-some years. The skin under her eyes is dark and wrinkled. Her face is heavily lined and she smells like a tar factory. I feel nothing but pity for her.
“Thank you,” I say. It is the first of a thousand thank yous I dispense that day in return for the thousand I’m sorrys. Through it all, Ian stands by my side. He’s my spine today. Without him I wouldn’t be upright.
I wish I had something inside myself to give to him. At the end of the service and after the burial is over, I find that even with Ian beside me I cannot stand. He catches me before I collapse on the dirt. Cradling me in his arms, he carries me to the Bentley. I’m glad. I think of the Maybach and its little folded leg rests as my mother’s car, and I wouldn’t be able to ride in it today—maybe not ever.
“I can’t help you with Richard anymore.”
“Forget it. It’s unimportant.”
It’s not, but I can’t bring myself to care at the moment. I want to stop caring about everything right now.
Chapter 30
THAT NIGHT, IAN DRAWS ME into his arms but makes no effort to have sex with me. I wonder if he’ll leave soon. If I conjured up my future mate, he’d be someone who drove a delivery truck like my dad. Or maybe he’d be a construction worker. Some kind of blue collar guy who didn’t make much money and spent his time watching the Mets and cursing the Jets. Someone like Malcolm, without the drug dealing and the pimping. Ordinary. And if I were asked what kind of woman Ian would end up with, I’d say rich, beautiful, smart. A lawyer or a banker. Or the daughter of some super smart investor. Not a semi-illiterate, learning disabled bike courier.
It’s not a reality I’m ready to face, so I sleep for a very long time where the painless void awaits me.
After we buried Mom, I didn’t want to get out of bed. I didn’t want to eat, dream, work. I especially did not want to make love to Ian. I didn’t want to be happy. The spring days of late April and May mock me with non-stop sunshine.
All around me there are advertisements for Mother’s Day so I’ve stopped leaving the apartment until that Sunday morning. Ian wants to take me out but I refuse. Instead I lock myself in the bedroom and stare at the wall. I’m empty inside. I don’t have anything to give him, not anymore.
When I hear the front door of the apartment open and then close, I get up. I pull on a pair of tennis shoes and shorts and a ratty t-shirt. Downstairs the concierge produces my bike and I get on and ride. I ride down Fifth Avenue, swerving in and out of traffic as if the cars are traffic cones and I’m taking a road test. I give a cop the finger when he honks at me but I’m able to speed away before he can catch me. His police car is stuck in Mother’s Day traffic and my bike is too nimble for him. I ride north along Harlem River Drive and up the Saw Mill River Parkway until the city falls away and there’s nothing but long stretches of pavement and forest. I cross over and head east toward North Street and then down south.
I keep riding until my legs feel like jelly and the sweat is soaking my shirt and shorts. The burn in my body is easing the ache in my chest so I keep going until I’m not even conscious of what my body is doing. Until I can’t see for the veil of mist or water sluicing down my face, obscuring my vision. Until I fall off my bike, crashing into the sidewalk. I collapse then puke up what little I have inside me.