Aftermath of Dreaming(118)

“My daddy died.”

“Oh, God. I’m so sorry, when?”

I explain how I found out and what Suzanne told me.

“And you hadn’t seen him at all since he took off, had you?”

“No.”

“How are you doing about it?”

“Umm.” Tears form in my eyes, and I realize that I haven’t let them out to anyone since it happened. While I cry, Andrew’s silence holds me like his strong arms. “It’s…hard sometimes. Some hours I just lie on the floor and listen to music because I’m too exhausted to do anything else, and I can’t think about anything else except that I have no idea where he is, not that I have for sixteen years, but this is worse because when he was in Florida, I could imagine getting a private detective and finding him, or going there myself. Something. But now…And then I’ll be fine and I can work and do stuff, then it hits me again. And I’m not sleeping much at night. It’s like that.”

“Yeah, I remember. When my daddy died it was the summer before I went to Malaysia for a film.”

“Right before we met.”

“You’re kidding.” We are quiet for a moment as if that time in our lives has come into the rooms with us. “Yeah, I guess it was. Well, the way Lily acted, you would have thought the Chinese food hadn’t arrived. She couldn’t understand why I was so upset. She was annoyed it affected me.”

“Wow, that’s pretty harsh.”

“I think about him every day,” Andrew says. “Mostly small things. How he always drank his orange juice after his breakfast—not with the meal. How he’d fold his newspaper like he was riding a train when he was sitting on the couch. That’s what comes back. Not the big moments you were sure mattered.”

“I think about mine every day, too, but it’s not comforting. It’s hard for me to feel that his spirit is benevolent toward me.”

“That will change. Give it a while. Your relationship with him isn’t over just because he’s dead. It continues and gets better, that’s what I’ve found. If anything, now it can be what it never was. I bet in a few months, you’ll feel that he’s with you all the time in a way you never could feel before.”

“I hope that’s true.” I am silent for a moment as I try to imagine what it’d be like to feel my father with me, to finally have that emptiness filled. “God, it’s good talking to you. I’ve been wanting to tell you.”

“You, too, sweet-y-vette. I’m glad you called. I’ve got some people in the next room waiting for me. Give me your number and I’ll call you later, okay, honey?”

After I hang up, Andrew’s words about my father take on their own life and are routing themselves to the place inside me where the grief has lived. They attach themselves to it, softening its hard, jagged edges with their presence. My grief is no longer alone. It will always hold Andrew’s experience and words of comfort, so that when its sadness hits, it will be tempered by this hope and nonaloneness I finally feel.



My eyes are open wide staring at a large man dressed in black standing over me in my living room. His arms are reaching out, about to grab and attack, then it stops. My scream continues after the image fades, then the nightmare is truly over. The man has disappeared like a special effect in a film, but a horror film I produce and project in the air next to me, no screen needed, the imagined intruder’s body blocking out the real wall behind him, until he poofs goodbye as magically as he appeared.



“None of your jewelry sold in those other stores,” Linda Beckman says, peering over her glasses at me as she sits behind her cluttered and significant desk. “Though I guess you know that. Well, let’s see the new line.”

There’s a nice opening for this sales call, but I refuse to let her words shake me. I pull the samples out of my bag that is on the floor next to me in Linda’s extremely cream office. “I’m working in jet now,” I say as I place the trays in front of her. “But still with gold and semiprecious stones. It’s a similar concept to the pearls, just a different material.”

Linda pushes the glasses up her nose and begins lifting jewelry out of the trays. She holds a piece up, scrutinizes it, puts it back, and continues that way for a while. Her expression is inscrutable as she sorts through the trays like it’s so much overripe fruit.

I am about to say, “Well, thanks for looking; maybe my next line,” when Linda picks up a bracelet and puts it on. She holds her arm out briefly in front of her, then earrings, a necklace, and a pin join her outfit. She stands up and walks over to one of the framed black-and-white catalogue photographs, checking her reflection in the glass. I wonder why she doesn’t just buy a mirror.

“Love them,” she says, spinning around and facing me. “The jet is very fresh this way. I love that you’re using it for fall and not that black-and-white-for-summer look; I’m so sick of that. Okay, we’ll do an order for this store, and if it’s a hit, we’ll do a shipment to New York. And that one you’d get paid for.”

I look at her in confusion.

“It’s a charge back. We already paid you for the stock that sat in our stores, so you’ll get it back and we’ll get your new line in exchange for our money that you’ve kept. The old stuff will be shipped to you; you should get it next week. And we’ll need a check from you for P and A for this line. I want these samples rushed over for the shoot.”