Push(103)
“Okay. Hey, at least he’s doing what you asked,” he says with understanding. “I’ll text him to let him know you’re all right.”
“No, don’t,” I say. “I’ll text him myself. I didn’t think he’d be worried.”
Matt nods and puts his hands into his pockets. “So, does that mean I’ll see you at the game tonight?”
“Nah,” I say. “I don’t think so.”
“Can I at least convince you to join me and Brent for lunch in the cafeteria?”
“Sure,” I say, standing up to grab my purse. “I’ll be down in a second. Let me text David first.” Matt heads down the hallway, calling for Brent as he passes his cubicle.
I flip open my phone.
Hi.
His reply is instantaneous.
Hi back.
Wanted to let u know I’m ok. Matt said u asked.
Douche bag wasn’t supposed to say anything to u.
Well he did.
Glad u r ok.
Yep.
Will you come tonight?
I don’t think so.
Do you hate me?
His words hit me hard. I think he made a really fucking bad choice, but I don’t hate him for it.
It’s lying I hate. Not u. Don’t do it again.
I won’t.
Good.
Two minutes pass with no reply, so I flip my phone closed and head to the cafeteria. On my way it buzzes with a new message.
I would do it again, though, if it meant u were safe.
I know. Because u r insane.
Like an outta control circus freak.
I smile at his duplication of my own texted words of reassurance from yesterday afternoon. When I read it, I know that we are going to be all right. I know because each of us consists of half lunacy and half absurdity—and neither one of us is fit to be with anyone else.
Two of the same.
After I press send, I enter the cafeteria to let Matt know that everything is just fine.
* * *
At the end of the work day, I head home and make myself dinner. I finish washing the dishes and watch some television. I put my feet up on the coffee table and lay back into the sofa. In one hand, I have the remote. And in the other, a big glass of white wine. It is sweet and crisp and the perfect Tuesday night companion. I am watching an old episode of The Big Bang Theory and laughing at Sheldon as he swims around in a ball pit organizing the colored balls into molecules. Then there is a knock on my apartment door.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Emma—Age 18
I sit in the pew behind Michael looking at how all the small, dark hairs on the nape of his neck are standing on end. His back and shoulders are rigid, and he keeps lifting his white handkerchief to swipe at his face. He is not crying. He is sweating. The minister looks over at Michael from his place on the pulpit every time the handkerchief rises up to meet Michael’s brow. I can’t help but think of how much the motion suggests surrender, raising the white flag. It isn’t surrender, though; of that I am sure. It is nothing more than a repulsive, greasy man trying to wipe the slate clean. Trying to wipe away his rotten conscience. Trying to erase my mother. He knows that he’s the reason she’s up there in that casket. We all know it. And yet no one is saying a word. We are all just sitting here, half listening to the minister and thinking to ourselves about how my mother would have never gotten into that car to drive to the airport if Michael hadn’t made her. If Michael had done what he was supposed to do. If he had put his own vile self into that Cadillac instead of sending her. He should be the one in the casket. Not my mother.
The minister is reading a verse from the Bible, and as his words tumble out, I look up at the colored window behind him. I hated the sight of that window when I was a girl because it reminded me of my father’s funeral. And now it will remind me of my mother’s, too. It is the same church. The same minister. The same service. Michael doesn’t know it, but I do. I know that when my mother picked out my father’s casket, she said it had to be lined with dark gray satin. She chose the Bible verses and the songs and the poetry for his ceremony. She buried my father in his favorite red tie, the one I picked out for him on his birthday. I wonder if Ricky and Evan remember. It doesn’t matter, though, because I do. And when Michael set me the task of arranging my mother’s funeral because he “had a business to run,” I picked a casket lined with dark gray satin. I picked the exact same Bible verses and songs and poetry that we heard twelve years ago. I am burying my mother in the red shawl my father gave her, and she is wearing the small gold band he slid on to her finger on their wedding day. I put the gaudy diamond ring she got from Michael in a homeless man’s collection cup.