I Liked My Life
Abby Fabiaschi
For my father, Michael Anthony Fabiaschi
1955–2008
He had the gift of stopping time and listening well
so that it was easy to hear who we could become.
—Brian Andreas
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support women and children’s charities around the globe.
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CHAPTER ONE
Madeline
I found the perfect wife for my husband. She won’t be as traditional as I was, which is good. She won’t be as intelligent either, but Brady endured twenty years of my unending intelligence. Under my tutelage he learned that kale lowers cholesterol, a little girl wanting to marry her daddy is normal, and no matter how many times you look up at the road, emailing while driving is no safer than drinking and driving. These insights were valuable at the time, but useless given our present circumstance.
It’s humbling, really. I spent my life hell-bent on not turning weak like my mother, who let jugs of Gallo wine make most of her decisions, and yet what Brady needs now is someone softer than me. Not fluffy, not gooey—he’d never fall for a ditzy or fickle woman—but not so damn right all the time either. Someone who won’t be irritated by the intermittent pauses he takes in the middle of a sentence. A good listener, a sleeper-inner, a nonscorekeeping woman naturally inclined to nurture our daughter Eve.
Recruitment is the least I can do.
I focused on elementary teachers, knowing it takes the unique combination of enthusiasm and patience to choose a profession where you spend most of the day reasoning with six-year-olds. The demoralized state of my family won’t be a turn-on to the easily deterred. I was at first disheartened to find almost every teacher accessorized with a wedding ring. It’s as though men know how tiresome they are and set out to marry women proficient at putting up with baloney. The available pool was so picked over that the few remaining were bitter about it, but as I readied to move on to nurses, I spotted Rory. She was on bus duty, sporting large, circular sunglasses and rhinestone-studded flip-flops. She somehow managed to look cool at forty, hopefully by not having kids. Brady and Eve have no room for additional baggage; there can be no blending of families in their future. Rory’s brown hair was pulled back in a loose braid, every inch of exposed skin covered in freckles. She remained all smiles, even when a shot of snot from a passing boy landed on her skirt.
She’s in the grocery store now. I’m taking in particulars to make sure my instinct is correct. You’d think intuitive faculties heighten after death, a sort of cosmic prize for crossing the finish line, but so far they have not. The Last World sits unceremoniously like a movie screen below me. There’s no spirit offering guidance. I’m not gracefully soaring above in white satin gleaning insight on the existential questions that once kept me awake at night. People think of ghosts as haunting, but it’s the other way around. You all haunt me. My life is now a delicious dessert just out of reach.
Perhaps I’m in purgatory. If I had known I’d cross the finish line in my forties, I might have given formal religion more consideration. Brady’s parents were big into it, and there were a couple years during adolescence when my mom dropped Meg and me off at catechism, leveraging the church as a sort of free babysitting. She got the idea at an AA meeting, which I assumed was where one went to learn new places to hide booze, since after she came home from AA she always relocated her stash.
What did that young nun tell us? I strain to recall the details. Evil souls go to hell, pure Catholics go to heaven, and souls destined for heaven but in time-out for reasons that are now a blur go to purgatory. I’m certain she said one couldn’t go from purgatory to hell or stay in purgatory forever, because I remember finding it odd there were such defined, well-documented rules. Did someone have a direct line with God and, if so, could we kindly request more willpower for our mother?
I do sense there’s more to the spiritual world than my current purview detects but see no path to get there. For me, there’s nothing but space and time. That I put myself here makes it that much more agonizing. I won’t find peace until I make things right for my family.
It pleases me when Rory selects a beautiful cut of veal. Brady would never fall for a vegetarian. Her choices suggest she’s a good cook—pancetta, scallions, artichokes, capers—ingredients you’d avoid if you didn’t know what you were doing. My replacement needs to know her way around a kitchen. Growing up, my mother leveraged the same ten ingredients for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Our menu recycled like the school cafeteria’s. Steak and potatoes from the night before became steak and hash browns for breakfast, steak sandwiches for lunch, and beef stew for dinner. Mayonnaise was duct tape in her kitchen; there was nothing it couldn’t fix. Too dry? Spicy? Soupy? Thank God for Hellmann’s. By the time I had my own kitchen I was desperate for variety, leaving Brady spoiled. With me gone he’s lost weight, too much weight. I notice it especially in his face, where his skin suddenly hangs to his cheekbones for dear life.
Dinners were a big event in our house. We ate late to accommodate Brady’s work schedule. I gave Eve a sizable after-school snack and she never complained. We all looked forward to the hour together. Every night, I set the table with clean linens and our gold-rimmed wedding china. The china was mostly to tease my sister, Meghan, who claimed registering for it was a waste. “You’ll never use it, Maddy,” she warned. “No one ever does.” I’d call her sometimes as I set out the plates and we’d laugh.