I Liked My Life(18)

“She’s a tough young lady. No one else got hurt, but there was heavy drinking involved. The boy who was driving—Jim? John?—will definitely be charged. Your daughter might too, for underage consumption, although with your family’s recent struggles, I wouldn’t be surprised if they let it go. That’s what I intend to recommend.”

If he expects a thoughtful response, mine will come up short. “Okay. Can we go?”

He seems ready to repeat his speech, assuming a miscommunication of some sort, but instead yawns. “I’ll send a nurse to give care instructions. The staples in her head are going to hurt once all the medicine and booze wears off.”

I linger in the room. I haven’t prayed in years. As a kid my knees were permanently scuffed from all the kneeling we did as a family, but Maddy and Eve weren’t into it, and my hectic schedule left me content to drop the extra obligation. I have no right to ask for anything, but I make a pledge. I intertwine my hands, still standing, and say, “Thank you, God, for keeping my baby girl alive. I’ll do better.”

When I return to Eve, she’s asking the nurse about John. “He’ll be fine,” she assures. Eve asks if she can see him, but the nurse says, “I’m sorry. I really am. He asked the same thing and his parents forbid it.”

Eve’s expression is unmistakably grateful. We’ve become loners. Maddy was our spark. When we get in the car our words are short and to the point.

“I’m sorry, Dad.”

“Me too, Eve.”

Sorry for her. Sorry for me. Sorry for Maddy.





CHAPTER FOUR

Madeline

The worst part of watching the cars collide was Eve’s eerie calm. Her eyes were wide, not with panic, but acceptance. She’s become comfortable with tragedy having a seat at her table. The lesson she’s pulling from all this is that misfortune is commonplace; chaos lurks everywhere; no one can be trusted. It pains me—those were the realities of my childhood. I worked tirelessly to give Eve a different start, and yet here she is, arriving at the same conclusions.

I was helpless in that moment, desperate to transcend the invisible boundary that separates us. Eve isn’t done yet. She still needs to find her true voice and chase down a passion and get married and have children who will no doubt expand her perspective like she did mine. She needs time. Decades more time. As metal crunched into what sounded like a cacophony of death, I pleaded, Oh God, please, please, no, please don’t take her. An unexpected calm warmed me like a slow-burning fire that carried with it the knowledge Eve would live. More than live. Eve would prosper. And then a peculiar thing happened: my position in the universe, which hadn’t budged since death, shifted higher. A slight but discernable rise. After the noise ended and Eve was still in one piece, I questioned what transpired. My plea was more a wish than a prayer—I didn’t realize I had an audience—but the response was authentic, spiritual. Thank you, I said. Thank you, God. My gratitude pushed me up higher still, and Eve’s promising future stayed rooted as a fact in my soul, not something crafted for comfort, but the truth, offered as a gift.

So maybe I haven’t been abandoned after all. I didn’t acknowledge my unease until hope presented itself, but I’ve had a nagging fear about what will become of my spirit after Eve is grown and Brady remarries. Today I’m a ghost with a purpose, but if I’m successful, at some point I’ll be reduced to a plain old ghost. Bored and frightening. The possibility that I’m still on some cosmic radar is a tremendous relief.

Eve’s apathy at death’s door also made me realize that Brady should show her my journal. Not all of it, but pieces. Enough to prove that in many ways I am who she remembers me to be. She needs reassurance that my happiness was real to affirm that happiness is possible. I distill my request to two simple sentences. Show Eve the journal. It documents Maddy’s love. I match Brady’s communication style because, secretly, everyone is their own biggest fan. I wouldn’t use the word document and love in the same sentence, but Brady would. He once wrote in an attempted love letter that he was “nearly certain” I was the love of his life. He was confused by my disappointment. “It’s the most anyone can hope for,” he said in earnest, “since nothing in life is an absolute guarantee.” Clearly I married a pragmatic man.

I start during his commute, but even at seven in the morning Brady’s subconscious offers fierce competition. I chant, Show Eve the journal. It documents Maddy’s love, while he sings a song to the tune of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” that goes Maddy’s dead.… She killed herself.… And now I’m stuck all alone. It’s rather hilarious. His thumbs tap the steering wheel to the beat for the entire thirty-minute ride.

When Brady gets to the office, the song is pushed aside and work takes over. He poses questions to himself formally, then answers as though he’s presenting to an audience. His process is methodical enough to border on disturbing. What are the risks of outsourcing development to India? Well, quality for one, management for another. You don’t save money if you spend as much time fixing code as you would to develop it in the first place. On and on he goes. Paige is easy to infiltrate. I said, Grab a condom for Eve one time; she smiled and stopped at the pharmacy on the way to our house. Brady isn’t as malleable, but I stick with my plan. Show Eve the journal. It documents Maddy’s love. Show Eve the journal. It documents Maddy’s love.