I Liked My Life(26)

Eve,

I know this birthday will be unforgettable in the most negative sense. It’s unfair that grief doesn’t take time off. I’m a poor substitute, but I promise we’ll make it—you and me. Our grief will mature. Although in despair, I cherish your life today, as I do every day.

There was a saying your mom used to quote by Adrienne Rich: “If we could learn to learn from pain even as it grasps us…” I hope this journal helps you do that.

Happy birthday,

Dad

The note is proof that out of freaking nowhere, it’s no longer me versus him; it’s us versus them, where them is everyone who didn’t lose Her. We’re a team. A totally dysfunctional team, but still.

“Remember the Clean Plate Club?” I ask.

“Remember it? I invented it.” He looks down and sees my food is gone. “Nice work.”

I eye the three-quarters of a pancake still on his plate. “I think we should reinstate the Clean Plate Club.”

He folds his arms. “I disagree.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t like playing games I won’t win. Any other questions, Chatty McGee?”

He’s right. I’m not usually this talkative, but I don’t want breakfast to end. The second it does, his laptop will come out, his office door will close, and I’ll be left alone with my ghost of a mother. “Yeah, actually…” I draw out the words while I think of a question. “Why did you guys name me Eve?”

He wiggles his jaw to find the memory. “Umm, your mother picked it. It means ‘life giving’ and she loved the idea of that. But Eve had been a favorite of hers even before we looked through those crazy name books. A friend of Gram’s was named Eve. Mom talked about her quite a lot when we were first dating.”

“Who was she?”

“She was the one who turned your mom into such a bookworm. Highly intelligent. Men proposed right and left, but Eve balked at the whole idea of it. If memory serves, she was one of the first women to get a law degree from Boston College.”

“Did I meet her?”

“No,” he says, “and neither did I. She died while Mom was in college, before we met. Lung cancer, I think. She was a big smoker.”

I grin. “I was named after a dead woman you never met who smoked a lot?”

He frowns. “It’s all in the details you pick. Mom would say you were named after the most inspiring, independent woman she knew. That’s what she wanted for you, you know? She believed everyone had the right to create their own life, so she was inherently wary of people who told her how to live.”

“What if I choose to be a belly dancer?”

I mean it as a joke, but Dad keeps it serious. “Whenever we were around parents who had black-and-white goals for their children, your mother felt sorry for the whole family—the parents because they’d be perpetually disappointed, and the kids because they’d always feel nothing was good enough. She believed there was nothing worse a parent could pass on to a child than guilt.”

I have to ask the obvious question, even if it ruins the moment. “If that’s true, why’d she do it?”

He takes a long sip of coffee and looks out at the garden. “She must not have considered it that way.”

I give him a moment, then ask why she never told me I had a namesake. I’m surprised when he has an answer. “She was saving it, I think. For when you needed to hear it.”

“And that’s today?”

“I don’t know, Eve. I’m sure I’m hosing the timing, but you asked, and let’s be honest, it’s not like I’ll remember it at the perfect moment anyway.”

I double-check I’m talking to my dad. He never admits things like that. Maybe he’s on antidepressants.

“What about Mom and Gram? Did they get along?” I only saw Gram once a year. She used to slip me Rolaids as candy.

Dad chuckles. “Not so much. Gram subscribed to the guilt-ridden formula of motherhood. That’s probably why Mom was so conscious of it.”

“Like how?”

He takes a huge bite of his pancake and holds up an index finger. I watch the bite travel down his throat. He’s the world’s slowest eater. It drove Mom batshit.

“Gram struggled,” he finally says. “She wasn’t comfortable in her own skin, you know?”

I stick out my tongue. “That’s weak. I want examples.”

“Really taking advantage of your birthday clout, huh?”

“Oh, come on,” I push. “What could you possibly have to be hush-hush about now? I’m seventeen and they’re both dead.” He grimaces. “Sorry,” I whisper. “I didn’t mean to say it like that.”

His head hangs. I assume I’ve lost him, that he’s about to get up and leave me with the plates to bring in, but after a minute he says, “Secrets clearly aren’t the way to go. We need to learn to learn from pain, right?” I nod. “Gram was a drunk.”

My face contorts. “What?”

“She sobered up once a year so Mom would let her see you.”

This conversation is as interesting as her journal. Why didn’t I think to ask these questions sooner? “So what, like, she passed out every night?”

“Eh. It was more substantial than that. Things soured between her and your grandfather, and Gram just sort of holed up with a bottle. She wasn’t abusive or anything, but there was a lot of chaos in the house. Neglect. I think that’s why Mom needed everything perfect all the time.”