What to Say Next(21)

“What do you care?” I ask. I’m a little too eager to engage and take them down. Which is stupid. They are my friends, sort of. This is not what I do.

“Of course we don’t care,” Jessica says, and laughs. And it’s true. I’m sure she doesn’t care.

“He got in your car today, though,” Willow says. “I saw him.” I decide suddenly that I hate Willow the most. She was born with more than her fair share of the same magic Lauren Drucker has, but without the warmth.

“Like I said: We’re friends. He’s pretty interesting, actually.”

“Interesting?” Gabriel asks, though it’s in no way a question. Leave it to Gabriel to always go for the easiest response: reflexive, empty sarcasm.

My anger deflates. It’s not real anyway. It’s just a stupid stage in a stupid article. That’s how desperate my mom and I are. We look for guidance from Oprah.com. Too bad there’s another step they forgot to list: the sudden onset of not-giving-a-crap-about-anything-ness. What I now think of as astronaut helmet syndrome.

Suddenly I look around and see everyone talking and laughing, no less than two feet in front of me, and they feel miles away. We are all strangers to each other in the end.

Turns out grief not only morphs time, but space too. Somehow increases the distance between you and other people. I should ask David if there’s any science behind that idea.

“Whatever. Let’s talk about much more important things,” Jessica says.

“Right. One word,” Willow says.

“Prom,” Abby finishes.

Annie quickly glances at Gabriel, but if he notices her looking at him, he doesn’t show it.

—

“Gross,” my mom says as she shovels the Weight Watchers version of fettuccine Alfredo into her mouth. Lately, during dinner, we talk in single-word sentences, a shorthand we’ve adopted because we’re too tired for anything more. When I close my eyes at night, the projector in my brain flips on and there it is, right on the ceiling: a repeat loop of a bird’s-eye view of the crash. Like it’s fun for me watching this imaginary horror film. To stand by and watch the other car—a navy-blue Ford Explorer—plow into my father, on repeat, again and then again. I smell rubber and smoke. Metallic blood, so sharp and recognizable it can’t be anything other than what it is. A taste and a smell in one.

Life and its opposite.

I attempt to figure out at what point a foot would have needed to touch the brake for there never to have been a crash at all. As if high-school-level math could, just this once, come in handy.

When I finally do fall asleep, I have a dream about Newton’s third law: For every action, there is an equal and opposing reaction. Force against force. The car crushed and disposed of like an empty potato chip bag. Snap, crackle, pop.

Here now, though, it’s just my mom and me and the sad sounds of us chewing. And then, inexplicably, there’s a key in the lock.

Could the doctor have been right and my dad was just lost? Momentarily misplaced? He will waltz in the door and ruffle my hair and call me Kitty Cat.

Of course that doesn’t happen. My dad has not risen from the dead. Even David’s ridiculous theory of consciousness doesn’t allow for that.

It’s just Uncle Jack, the only other living person who has a key to our home. Right. Much more logical.

“What are you doing here?” my mom asks. Her tone is sharp and betrays her disappointment.

It’s okay, I want to say. I thought it was going to be Dad too.

Normally my mom would be happy to see Jack. When he first got divorced, it was my mother’s idea to invite him to stay over at our house on the weekends his boys were with Aunt Katie. He was sad then too, and my mom cooked him hearty, comforting breakfasts. Pancakes and eggs and bacon and the good coffee.

“The cure for a broken heart,” she’d say. She would serve the food on our good platters, and then the three of them, my mom, Dad, and Jack, would sit at the dining table passing around sections of The New York Times while I played with my phone.

“This right here is my definition of heaven,” my dad used to say. “My best friend and my two girls and the paper of record.”

“You’re not answering your cell and I was…worried,” Jack says, and looks at my mother, but she stares at her gelatinous noodles. Jack’s tall and bald and lanky. He wears glasses, big plastic ones that are both dorky and cool at the same time, and swanky suits that look imported from England. He’s not good-looking—his nose is too big for his face, his eyes are a little squinty behind his frames, he’s a little pasty—but there’s something familiar and comforting about him.

“Want some dinner?” I ask, and jump up to check the freezer. “We have a Lean Cuisine.”

“You do realize that’s not real food, right?” He keeps his tone light, so much lighter than the feeling in the room.

“How about a glass of wine?” my mom asks, suddenly unfreezing, as if her play button has been pushed, and she busies herself getting a bottle out, opening it up, and pouring herself a large glass. She gulps it down. Only then does she pour out two more: another for her and one for Jack.

“Ice cream too,” I say, tossing him the pint of mint chocolate chip I find in the freezer. He grabs a spoon from the drawer and digs right in to the container. Uncle Jack hasn’t bothered to shave, and his almost-beard is dotted with gray hairs. He looks about as depressed as my mother and I feel.