I Liked My Life(7)

I take another sip of bourbon. Is this my second glass? Third? I open the drawer and stare at the journal, curiosity fighting pride. When the glass is empty, I grab it with such force that my knuckles scrape against the bottom of the drawer. “Damn it,” I mutter to the empty room. If Maddy were here she’d say something crafty like, “The drawer is winning, huh?” Of course, if Maddy were here I wouldn’t be awake after midnight, drunk, pillaging her most personal thoughts.

I count the entries, an occupational hazard from my days as an accountant. There are just under three hundred spanning two years’ time. If I read an entry a day, it’ll last until after New Year’s. It’s unclear whether the ritual will be a source of torture or a gift. I pour another bourbon since no one is here to keep track. A small perk.

June 10, 2013

All I need is a unicorn on the cover and a heart-shaped key and I’ll be seven all over again. As far as journals go, mine will be a bore. My life has been drama-free since my mom sucked back her last jug of wine with a handful of Klonopin. More on that later, I’m sure. Even dead she occasionally manages to be the center of attention.

Let me introduce the people I’ll write about. My husband is Brady. He’s short, 5'8", but I had a tall boyfriend once and spent a lot of time looking at nose hair. He’s the CFO for HT (a company that makes software I don’t fully understand). I refer to HT as Husband Thief, but I’m not allowed to be bitter about his working hours because we live a good life off his sweat.

Since my daughter landed her first serious boyfriend it’s gotten a bit lonely—hence this pathetic journal. Eve turns fifteen next week. She’s currently more a pain in my ass than the love of my life, but there is a bright light at the end of this teenage tunnel that keeps me warm. I can overlook that she says “like” every other word because she’s bright and bold in a way that suggests her life will be fun to watch.

Today, she came home from school and declared, “I’m, like, so dropping out of confirmation class.” She wanted me to be shocked, so I stayed silent. It’s Brady’s side that’s invested in church. After I’d put away all the dishes without responding, she said, “You know what it is, Mom? They claim it’s wrong to be on birth control, and then they teach everyone the rhythm method. But the rhythm method is birth control—it just, like, sucks. Why would I want to be part of an institution that totally sets people up?”

She’s fifteen! I couldn’t help but ask if she needs to be on birth control. Her face contorted with disgust. “You don’t get me at all,” she said. But she was wrong. I admired her point; I just had to be a mother for a second before continuing the conversation. But, being a mother for a second abruptly ended the conversation.

That’s it. A book report. It’s what I wanted—confirmation we were normal—but now I’m irritated. Blame doesn’t stick well to the deceased; they can’t fight back. I need Maddy to have a skeleton big enough to exonerate me, like a stash of cocaine in the laundry room, or a lover threatening to expose the affair. Something I played no part in, an offense larger than my offenses.

I’m haunted by her laugh. The first time I heard it was when the hospital receptionist requested my name and I blanked. I could describe Maddy’s lemony smell. I could recall that her favorite color was yellow, her favorite movie was Revenge of the Nerds, and her favorite pair of socks were old and torn with little pigs jumping over the moon and jealous cows looking up from a field below, but I could not remember my goddamn name.

“Not trying to trip you up here,” the receptionist said, giggling. Then Maddy joined, her laughter echoing in my mind. They hadn’t yet discharged her body from the morgue but she was already with me. I cupped my hands over my ears to focus on the sound. This confirmed for the receptionist I was crazy. It was Eve who ultimately answered.

The second time I heard Maddy laugh was when Susan Dundel stopped over with a casserole after the funeral wearing a tight Red Sox tee that read BAT GIRL over the chest. Susan is a shameless flirt. At a neighborhood gathering when we first moved to Wellesley over a decade ago, Susan cornered Maddy and said, “You better take care of him. He’ll have plenty of takers in this town, myself included.” That same night Todd Anderson made a bizarre comment about how hot Maddy was—in front of his daughter Kara—then added he sometimes wished marriages had short time-outs. Maddy and I were shocked by their audacity, and she joked I should consider Susan a prime suspect if she ever mysteriously disappeared.

When Susan showed up at the door, it crossed my mind that she had something to do with Maddy’s death. The thought triggered Maddy’s casual laugh. It was exactly the sort of paranoid conspiracy theory she always teased me for. The sound of her laughter left me flustered, and I dropped Susan’s dish onto the large Spanish tile Maddy redid a couple months ago. It shattered, spewing sticky chicken everywhere, the perfect excuse for Susan to come inside. She headed straight for the kitchen, grabbing a roll of paper towels and disappearing under the sink to collect cleaner and a trash bag. Susan looked so comfortable, like she’d staked out our kitchen with this exact scenario in mind. Soon she was splayed in front of me, collecting the mess. She looked up and in an absurd attempt at a seductive voice said, “Brady, you and Eve need a woman around to help with your grief or you’ll become overwhelmed by it.” I couldn’t muster a response, so I walked out the front door and kept going, a move I’ve resorted to a few times with Eve.