Your Perfect Year(95)
“Leave it alone!” she yelled as she sat up. A mistake. Her head immediately exploded in staccato stabs of pain; she had moved far too quickly.
“Hangover?” Lisa waved at the empty red-wine bottle at the foot of the bed.
“Terrible,” Hannah sighed, scratching her head.
“That’s what comes of staying in and celebrating your birthday on your own. Your thirtieth, too!” Lisa leaned forward as if to whisper a secret. “That kind of thing only leads to trouble. And a headache.”
“You could hardly call it ‘celebrating,’” Hannah replied with a groan, putting a hand to her temple. “I fell more or less straight into a coma last night.”
“Yes, that’s what it sounded like.”
Hannah looked at her in shock. “Did we speak on the phone?”
Lisa nodded. “Yes, we did. Three times.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really.”
“I can’t remember a thing about it.” Hannah felt her cheeks turn bright red.
“Nothing to worry about,” Lisa said. “You only said the same thing you’ve been going on about for weeks. Well, it was actually more like mumbling than saying.”
“What did I say?”
“That you don’t know how you can go on without Simon, that nothing makes any sense, and on top of it all he’s a self-centered bastard for killing himself without asking you first. Something along those lines.”
“Shit!” Hannah fell back onto the bed with a loud sigh. “I really had hoped that was all a dream and I was just waking up from it.”
Lisa sat down beside her on the bed and took her hand. “I’m sorry, my dear, it’s all still true.”
“Shit,” Hannah said again as the tears sprang to her eyes. Every morning had been the same since Simon’s death. She woke, a little confused and bewildered by her dreams at first, and then, as she gradually came to her senses, she was filled with this dreadful despair and hopelessness, which tightened like a band of iron around her chest so she could hardly breathe, and refused to let her go until she fell, completely exhausted, into bed late the following night.
Her days had followed the same pattern for two months, and things weren’t getting any better. If time really did heal all wounds, it was doing it at a snail’s pace that Hannah doubted would bring much relief in her lifetime. On the contrary, the more time went by since Simon’s death, the deeper she seemed to sink into this black hole of sadness and rage, and the worse were the nightmares and fears that hounded her.
Her intention of returning to Little Rascals as soon as possible, to dispel all her gloomy thoughts and restore her everyday life, had been abandoned within the first ten minutes of setting foot in the place, when she was suddenly struck by such a massive panic attack that it had pulled the ground from beneath her feet.
She had stood there surrounded by noisy children, unable to move a muscle or utter a word. She’d been frozen by shock, incapable of a single clear thought apart from a few dreadful phrases that played over and over in an endless loop in her head: We all have to die sometime. Even these children will die sometime; these sweet, innocent little children will be dead sometime. And their children, and theirs, and theirs, and theirs . . . It’s all meaningless, meaningless, meaningless! We only live to move toward death. Each day brings us a little nearer to the end.
Her mother, Sybille, had finally driven the crying and shaking Hannah home, bundled her daughter into bed, and called a doctor, who diagnosed posttraumatic stress disorder and prescribed complete rest. Hannah had followed these instructions—more than that, she had cut herself off completely. She now set foot outside her apartment only when it could no longer be avoided—and a variety of pizza-delivery services and the corner convenience store that delivered the essentials to her door meant this hadn’t been for quite some time. She had dug herself in, wanting to be alone with her sadness and her pain.
The evening before had, of course, been particularly awful, for instead of celebrating her special birthday with Simon, she had curled up in her bed weeping, flipping aimlessly through the channels on her bedroom TV, and draining a bottle of wine all by herself.
It was only now, with Lisa sitting next to her, that Hannah could vaguely recall the telephone conversation during which Lisa had used all her powers of persuasion to invite herself over. Hannah declined straight out, saying she didn’t want to see anyone, not even on her birthday—but, she now realized, Lisa had simply brushed her order aside.
“I think it’s high time you got up, took a shower, and came out with me.” Lisa’s voice was gentle but firm. “Your parents think the same, if you’re at all interested. Sybille’s putting in an extra shift at Little Rascals to make sure I’ve got all the time I need for you.”
“But I don’t want to go out!”
“Of course you do! The sun’s shining. It’s a beautiful day.”
“The day can’t possibly be beautiful,” Hannah retorted sulkily, challenging Lisa with her eyes. “Anyway, the doctor said I need complete rest.”
“That may be. But I don’t think he meant you should mope around the house getting drunk, and”—she leaned forward, reached under the bed, and pulled out two pizza boxes—“eating nothing but this crap.” Lisa opened one of the boxes and made a face at the sight of the dried-up pizza remains.