I Liked My Life(35)

“Camp.”

“Fine. How about we go on vacation when camp ends?”

“Ha-ha-ha, very funny. You never want to go on vacation.”

Brady looks wounded. He didn’t need to be reminded of our fights. “I’m serious,” he says. “You can bring a friend.”

Eve waves off the offer. “I’m in for vacation, but pass on the friend.”

Brady wipes his mouth with a napkin. “It might be nice to spend time with Lindsey or someone before you leave for school. Just don’t pick Kara. She’s too much, and I’d go nuts figuring out logistics with Todd and Christie.” In truth he doesn’t want a repeat of homecoming night.

Eve pretends to gag again. “We don’t even speak. It’s like she’s mad at me that my mom died.” Eve looks down at her half-eaten gyro. “I’ve sort of figured out that I don’t really, like, have any friends.” She holds her hand up in a preemptive defense. “I don’t want to talk about it. I’m not upset or anything. It’s just so totally obvious that no one gets me right now.”

Let it be, I suggest. To Eve’s relief, Brady does. “Okay … so vacation for you and me?”

“’Kay. Where?”

“Anywhere we’ve never been.”

Eve snorts. “So that rules out … Florida.”

Brady concedes the point. His mind’s eye scours the globe. “How about Paris?”

Eve slaps the table. “Paris? For real?”

He inhales her eagerness like the drug it is. “Paris for real.”

“Oh my God. Seriously?” She’s out of her chair now.

“Seriously,” he repeats in his best teenage-girl imitation.

I urged him to suggest vacation; he’s been thinking about it since a journal entry documenting our semiannual fights, but I was not expecting Paris. I’d have relished an opportunity to vacation in Europe. If Brady had ever given the slightest inclination he’d go for it, I’d have planned the perfect trip. “Touring cities isn’t relaxing,” he always said. “Trust me.” And with that weak reasoning I was relegated to Naples.

I’m jealous. Not a cute, envious-from-afar jealous, but a raging this-is-total-bullshit jealous. How ironic: I’m dead and we’re still having the same damn fight, only this time arguing opposite sides.

While Eve leaves the table to look at places online, and Brady tosses the wrappers from dinner, I vent. Paris, now? I’ve had to beg you to take even a couple days off to go to Florida for the past twenty years, and suddenly you’re game to gallivant across Europe? I’m ranting, not even thinking I can get through his noise with my thoughts, when suddenly he fights back.

Yes, Paris, he thinks. And you don’t get to be upset, Maddy. There were other ways to get me to change besides taking your life. You wanted to send a message? You wanted to demonstrate that I wasn’t engaged? Grateful? That work isn’t everything? Well, message fucking received. And the prize for sending it so dramatically is that you’re not here to enjoy it.

It’s the first fight Brady’s won in a long time.

Eve

Reading Mom’s journal is total crack. I can’t stop. The selections Dad deems Eve-appropriate are the lame ones where she’s all Mary Poppins. The ones I read while Dad is at work are her, the real her, uncut. She was tired of serving our every whim without any recognition. It’s all right there:

December 14, 2014

Even my wrists are tired from this day. Eve’s school had winter festival, and I got roped into baking ten dozen cookies, which would’ve been fine if I didn’t also agree to individually wrap each one in a red cellophane baggie with a ribbon. When will I take Brady’s advice and learn to say no? I was up until two a.m. tying the damn things.

I awoke with a cold coming on. In between sneezes, Brady casually mentioned his boss Jack leaves tomorrow for the holidays, so he needed a gift today. I went from the festival to the liquor store, which was completely insane, and bought a bottle of Dom. The stupid carrying case alone was thirty bucks, but whatever, it got the job done. I dropped it off at Brady’s office and made it back to school in time to watch Eve’s talent show, which took forever because some kid on an oboe thought it’d be a riot to see how long he could play before someone made him get off the stage.

Brady and Eve came fluttering in tonight, starving as usual, and after dinner, as I cleaned the kitchen alone, I realized that my mother never did anything for anybody and Meg and I turned out fine. So who’s the crazy one—the lady who spent her life doing whatever the hell she damn well pleased or the one running errands full-time for two people who don’t even appreciate it?

I remember the day because I was annoyed Mom didn’t videotape the lame lip sync I did with Lindsey and Kara. “I reminded you this morning to bring the camera,” I scolded. She mumbled something about the only predictable thing in life being human imperfection. Reading the day from her point of view I see she was a punching bag and my dad and I gave her a daily workout. I’m starting to wonder why she didn’t jump sooner. I’m never getting married or having kids. We suck.

I return the journal to the nightstand, depressed, and head to my first therapy appointment. The conversation is totally pointless.

“Keep in mind, Eve,” the counselor says, uncrossing and recrossing her legs for the hundreth time, “time heals all wounds.”