After the End(79)

“I was with Kucher Consulting till last fall, then I took a break to relocate from the UK to Chicago.” I sound more confident than I feel.

“We’ll get back to you.”

They don’t. Nor does anyone else.

“The depression might be an issue,” says a slick recruitment adviser with a loud tie.

“Stress,” I correct, although I don’t know which sounds worse. “But it wasn’t work related. My son died.”

“Right.” He taps at his keyboard. “That might be better, I suppose. Even so, unscheduled time out is suspicious to a prospective employer, especially when you didn’t leave your last job by choice.”

I asked Chester if he could make it look as though I’d resigned, but it was too late.

“We had to show Schulman we meant business, that we’d taken action after you left the account hanging.” I’d been sacrificed to keep a client.

I have several interviews, but nothing comes of them. As spring arrives, I drift back into my sweatpants. I get an email from Pip, and my heart leaps, but she’s just telling me we finally have an offer on the house, and it’s fifteen under the asking price but should we accept so we can both move on. I laugh bitterly. Some of us are a long way from moving on. But I can’t keep paying a mortgage on a house I don’t live in.

In April I go with Mom to a fund-raiser at Happy Village, where she introduces me to new friends, and says You remember so-and-so about people I have no recollection of. The place hasn’t changed in all the years we’ve been going—the black-and-white checkered floor, the stools at the dimly lit bar, where locals chew the fat over an Old Style. We sit outside, in the tent-covered garden, on white plastic chairs around white plastic tables.

Mom’s invited Blair, who sits silently next to me, no doubt wishing she didn’t come. She’s brought her kids, Brianna and Logan, and she watches them over on the other side, leaning into the pond to count the goldfish. They’re eleven and nine respectively, well mannered, well dressed. As perfect as their mom. I feel a burst of irritation.

“How are you doing?” Blair says suddenly, like she can read my mind.

I shrug. “I’m good. I’m only here for Mom—this isn’t really my scene.” I look around the beer garden. I loved it here, when I was a kid. Barbecues, music, begging my folks for another bag of chips. I got too cool pretty quick, of course—wanted to head to Wicker Park for more excitement, more action—but when I was Logan’s age, Happy Village was where it was at.

“I don’t mean now. Here. I mean: after your son. How are you doing?” Some people ask like they don’t want to know the answer. They’re relieved when you say Fine, good, yup—not bad, thanks. Question asked, duty done. But Blair holds my gaze and I find I can’t look away. Can’t brush off her question.

“Pretty bad.” I wonder if my honesty surprises her as much as it does me. “I wake up sometimes and I’ve forgotten.” She nods, her face serious as she waits for me to say more. After a while, I do. “I see the sky outside and everything feels OK. Like I’m just away with work, and later I’ll FaceTime Pip, and Dylan will push his face close to the camera like he can climb right into her phone. Then I remember.” There’s a paper cloth covering the table, and I pick at the edge, dropping crescent-shaped confetti onto the floor. “And it’s a double whammy. Like I’m losing him all over again, only with a side-helping of guilt, because I forgot. Because his death wasn’t the first thing in my head when I woke. And then I fall apart.”

There are people coming around with trash bags, tossing in our paper plates and asking Are you done with this? Blair waits until they’ve gone before she answers. “I think it’s OK to fall apart.”

I think about being told to man up on the sports field, about the way we laughed at Corey Chambers in fourth grade because he cried like a girl. I think about when Dylan got sick, about the people who’d clap me on the back and tell me to look after that poor wife of yours. How can it be OK to fall apart?

“In fact, I think it would be really strange if you didn’t.” Blair’s tearing the tablecloth too. Around our feet is a little circle of confetti. Across the garden, Mom’s waving at me to come say hello to another neighbor I don’t remember. “You’ve spent years being strong for other people. For your wife, for Dylan.” Blair says his name without hesitation, without pity, and instead of hurting it feels good to hear it in this noisy, busy bar, full of music and chatter. “You stayed strong all that time, and then suddenly you didn’t have to be strong anymore.” She looks at me. “You ever get a cold the second you go on vacation? It’s like that. You hold it together and you hold it together and you hold it together, and then BAM. You get sick. Our bodies are really good at working when they have to, but they need a break.” She taps the side of her head. “So does this.” Then she suddenly smiles. “Give yourself a break—you’re not doing so bad.”

“Max!” Mom gives up on the waving and hollers instead. “You remember the Nowackis?”

Blair suppresses a laugh. “I think we’d better go say hello to the Nowackis.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me—Walt Nowacki spits when he talks.”