The Vanishing Year(87)
I shake my head, nothing about that made sense. I remember that spastic little estate lawyer and his tiny closet office. He said they disposed of her ashes. “What? You’re crazy, Lydia. Evelyn died more than five years ago . . . Anyway, they said that wasn’t true. Most funeral homes’ policy is a few weeks. I talked to a lawyer at the time . . .”
“It doesn’t matter. I talked to the funeral home director. He said he has metal boxes in his basement from the seventies. They can’t bring themselves to dispose of them, although they have every legal right to do so. He said most funeral homes have a basement full of ashes. Which is so sad, when you think about it. But Zoe,” her eyes were shining, bright blue, “they have one labeled Evelyn Lawlor.”
My heart stops, time itself stops. The idea that I could go back, fix the worst thing I ever did . . . I can’t even wrap my head around it. “There has to be a mistake. I don’t even know what funeral home she was sent to.”
“I just called every funeral parlor in the Bay area. It wasn’t that difficult. I think it was maybe the eleventh one I called?” She scrunches up her face, eyes to the ceiling in thought, then shrugs. “It doesn’t matter, the point is, she’s there.” She extends a piece of notebook paper with a name, address, and telephone number. Howey Funeral Service. I stare at it. I could have a memorial for Evelyn. My mom. The only one I’ve ever known. I could think about her without this hollow, empty feeling in my stomach.
“Would you come with me?” I ask softly.
“Of course.” Lydia hugs me, her metal bangle bracelets clattering against the back of my neck. My hair is short again. Some kind of emotional protest. Truthfully, I miss the length.
I’ve become someone else yet again, although Dr. Thorpe—my psychologist—agrees this is what should happen. I can never be my pre-Henry self, but Henry has changed who I would have become. She assures me that this is what life is: a sum of experiences. That I cannot grieve for the woman who may have existed had Henry not come into my life. Or rather, if I had not let him in. She assures me that I will be whole again, that a person cannot simply vanish because of one traumatic year. I’m convinced I have. She assures me that I will heal. And that is, for now, enough.
I am not without my scars: I have wretched nightmares, night terrors really, where I’m asleep but am wandering the house, screaming, terrified, sweating, until Lydia finds me trying to cut off imaginary plastic handcuffs with pinking shears from the kitchen. I’d be terrified to live alone.
I went to the dentist not that long ago and had a panic attack at the sight of the Novocain needle. Yes, there are remnants. Dr. Thorpe, whom I see three, sometimes four times a week, says I have post-traumatic stress disorder, which is often medically treated with antidepressants. Since I won’t take any medication, we use a combination of hypnosis and cognitive therapy, and I do think it’s helping. It’s hard to say. I don’t make a move lately without consulting Dr. Thorpe, caught once again in this limbo between the person I was, and the person I might be should I ever find my way back to her.
Most of my sessions revolve around two topics: Evelyn and Henry. I have guilt about Evelyn, of course. My issues with Henry are layered and complex. Sometimes, in the early morning space between sleep and consciousness, I miss him. I miss his vacation hair and his large, capable hands. I miss the way he took charge, dealt with complications for me: money and finances, bank issues, insurance. I’m grieving for the Henry I thought I knew. I’m grieving for the caretaker I’ve lost. Then I alternate between self-loathing and frustration.
When I tell her about Evelyn, she clucks her tongue once and says, “Zoe, I think that’d be lovely.” Dr. Thorpe is the kind of person who uses the word “lovely” freely, usually in combination with the word simply. She’s also the kind of person who wears slacks and blouses. Her burgundy acrylic nails tap rhythmically on her notebook. Her teeth are capped and her gold hoop earrings glimmer as she shakes her head.
“Do you think the plane will be hard?” I ask her. If she says yes, I’ll have a panic attack. The people. Ironically, I have a hard time with crowds. I see Henry’s face, or Jared’s, and sometimes I shake so bad I can’t see, my teeth clatter and my vision swims.
“Do you think the plane will be hard?” She drums her pen against her watch, a subtle time-is-almost-up signal. I don’t know what to say.
? ? ?
Lake Tahoe in the fall is a rainbow of colors: the leaves a shock of red and yellow against the cerulean blue of the lake. The air is crisp and clean, and our New York lungs are a little shocked from it, high, like we’ve been sucking pure oxygen. The canoe bobs and wheezes in the water, aimless; the weight of all three of us may be too much for it. Lydia pulls her life jacket around her, checking and rechecking buckles. Cash eyes me, wary and nervous.
Sometimes I catch him looking at me when he’s not wary, not nervous and all I see is love. In those moments I can see myself loving him back. One day. For now, I mostly feel guilt that he’s fallen for someone so ruined. Most of the time, I’m a fragile bird to him. He is gentle and scared and loving and skittish. I don’t know when it happened, when he fell in love with me. Somewhere between the diner and the hospital room. One day, I’d like to ask him.
He paddles us out to the middle of the lake, until the shore is a simple hazy line on the horizon, white sand and yellow trees, the lights of our resort glittering in the sunset. Evelyn would have loved this place. Oh, the money! I imagine her in my ornate room, with the plush carpeting, the high-rise view of the lake from our wooden balcony, the large, looming gas fireplace that comes to life with the flick of a button. She’d dance around barefoot, scrunching the deep pile between her toes.