I'm Glad My Mom Died(55)

after





56.


WE EACH SAY OUR GOODBYES, WHICH just involve us staring numbly at Mom’s dead body. The nurse wheels Mom’s hospital bed out and into the hospice van.

Dad asks us what we should do and suggests we get out of the house, go somewhere. None of us respond. He pitches the South Coast Plaza, a luxury shopping mall about twenty minutes away. We pile into the car.

I need an iPhone case, so we head into the Apple store. A small, upbeat employee with white teeth and a receding hairline approaches us.

“Well hey there, how’s your day goin’?” He flashes a smile. We meet him with blank stares. Reading the room, Apple guy drops the smile and redirects. I appreciate this about him.

“Anything I can help you guys with today?”

I get my phone case and we’re out of there in five minutes. We head to a small café on the same level for lunch. I order a salad, dressing on the side to make Mom proud. I don’t eat a single bite of it. I feel lucky, grateful even, that trauma has finally resulted in my lack of hunger. Sure, Mom died, but at least I’m not eating. At least I feel thin and valuable and good about my body, my smallness. I look like a kid again. I’m determined to keep this up. I’m honoring Mom.

That night, I get home to my big lonely house. Billy and his guys left all their tools out since they’re returning tomorrow. Tarps cover the living room furniture. I sit on one of the tarps and look around. I think I might hate this house.

I fidget. The tarp crinkles and makes an annoyingly loud sound. I don’t know what to do with myself. I open a bottle of whiskey and drink a few gulps straight from the bottle, then text Colton and a few other friends to see if they’ll keep me company.

We all head to Little Tokyo and sit down at a sushi place for dinner. I down a bottle of sake. The menus are passed around. I want everything. I want to eat all of it.

I’m so confused. This past month, I haven’t been able to even think about food. Every day, I’ve been living off whiskey, Coke Zeros, and two individual bags of barbeque Baked Lay’s. What the fuck is happening? I’m starving. Ravenous.

I haven’t been engaged in a single second of the ten-minute conversation. I’m sure everyone has mistaken my silence for grief. But this isn’t grief. This is my secret food obsession.

By the time the waitress comes around, I can’t decide what to order, but I’m drunk enough that I just choose the first thing I see—the teriyaki bowl. I tell myself I’ll just eat the steamed cabbage on the side, maybe a few bites of steamed rice, but by the time the piping-hot bowl is placed in front of me, I can’t hold back. I devour every bite as quickly as I can. I order another bottle of sake, another side of steamed rice, some egg rolls, and a bowl of ice cream for dessert. I drink the full bottle and eat every bite of the food.

We get back to my place and my head is spinning from the alcohol. We play a board game and listen to music, but I’m just going through the motions. My mind is only on one thing—the amount of food I ate and what I’m going to do about it.

I try and rush everyone out of my house as quickly as possible, which is a hard thing to do when you’re the one who invited them on the day of your mother’s death to keep you company. As each person leaves, they double-check that I don’t need anyone to stay overnight with me.

As soon as they’re all gone, I race up my stairs and into my master bathroom. Billy’s equipment is all sprawled out, so I tiptoe around the piles to get to the toilet. I lift the lid, crouch down onto my knees, and shove my fingers down my throat.

Nothing. Fuck. I try again, harder. Ow. I poke my throat and taste a little blood. I must’ve scratched it raw. Oh well. I’m making this happen. I take a steady breath, shove my fingers back as far as I can, as hard as I can, and finally vomit spews up and out of my mouth, landing in the toilet. I look down at it, at the little chunks of rice and chicken and the frothy melted ice cream. I feel victorious.

So what if I fucked up and ate? So what if I failed? So fucking what? All I have to do is shove my fingers down my throat and watch my mistake be undone. This is the start of something good.





57.


I’M LOOKING AT MYSELF IN the mirror while I do my hair and makeup for Mom’s service. I’m doing everything she liked best, which also happen to be the things that I like least—hot curling my hair, overlining a bold red lip, and scraping eyeliner along my sensitive tear ducts. The end result is a bit more severe than I would’ve hoped, but I don’t have time to redo it so this will have to do.

I pull on my black dress robotically, zip it up, and throw on a pair of heels. Marcus, who’s been staying with me this week, drives. His wife Elizabeth sits shotgun. I’m in the back. I use the hour-and-a-half ride down to make up my mind. It’s a big decision, and it deserves a chunk of dedicated thought.

The ride down is hell. Bumper-to-bumper traffic, and Sara Bareilles’s “Brave” is the biggest song on the radio right now, so it blares from the speakers every third song. On a regular day, Sara’s fine, but the last thing I want to hear on the day of my mother’s funeral is how much Sara Bareilles wants to see me be brave. I try to ignore it. I shut my eyes to focus, trying hard to find an answer.

Am I or am I not going to sing “Wind Beneath My Wings” at Mom’s funeral?