The Beautiful Between - Alyssa B. Sheinmel [61]
“Why?”
“At least if he’d left things a mess, I could have believed that he’d lost control somehow. But he planned it all perfectly, just like he did everything else.” She presses her hair back from her forehead. Her eyes are very bright, but she keeps talking to me. “Connelly, you know, I just loved him so much. I thought I made him happy. I hated being apart from him even for a day—I always wanted to be near him. I thought he felt the same way about us. I was so mad that you and I weren’t enough for him to live for.”
She sighs; traces her lips with her finger, thinking; and her voice is different, softer, when she continues. “But eventually you stop being mad; eventually you realize that being mad is worse than what he did. Eventually you understand that he tried his best to live and he couldn’t.”
I’m not entirely sure she believes what she’s saying. It sounds too much like something you’d read in a book about how to get over your husband’s suicide. And I can’t help noticing that it’s ironic that I invented a father who abandoned us, because she was scared that if I knew the truth, I would always think that my father did abandon us.
“But I didn’t think you could understand. You’re still so young, and you didn’t know him like I did. And I just didn’t want you to think that your father didn’t love us, didn’t love you, enough.”
“I don’t think that.”
“Not yet.” She exhales slowly. “But you will. You’ll be angry soon, just like I was. But when you are angry, I want you to remember what I’m about to tell you: He loved you more than anything. This thing inside him killed him the same as the cancer might have. If he could have survived it, he would have.” This time, I know she means what she’s saying, and I believe her. I know that she’s right; I know that she’s telling the truth.
And then she hugs me, tight. I can’t remember the last time we hugged like this, but I must have been younger, because now I notice that my mother is small—smaller, in fact, than I am. I can feel how skinny she is: I can feel the bones in her arms and hands pressing hard around my ribs. She holds me so tight that it hurts, but I don’t mind. Instead, I wonder that someone this thin and this small can be so strong. And I do feel—if only for a second—anger at the man who left her alone, who left us alone together. I recognize that this small piece of anger has just found its way inside my body, where it will dig in under my skin and try to grow stronger. I know that whether or not it was the right thing to do, my mother wanted to protect me from this anger. But I feel ready to begin the work of overcoming it.
When she releases her grasp and looks at me, she holds my hands. And I wonder if she and my father had liked holding hands, or if they were one of those couples that would never do that in public. And now I know that I will ask her someday.
She hugs me again before we retreat into our rooms, the opposite ends of the apartment that maybe don’t seem so far apart now. I take off the clothes from the funeral, taking care to put everything back in its place. It’s only four in the afternoon, but I’m getting ready for bed. I think this is the most tired I have ever been in my entire life. When I climb into bed, the sheets are smooth and I fall asleep fast. I wake up later to the ringing of the phone, and I know that Jeremy is waiting for me downstairs.
“Were you sleeping?” he asks as I step off the elevator.
I nod. “I’ve been sleeping all day.”
“I’m jealous. I’m so tired, but there are all these people at our house, all waiting to talk to me or feed me or see if I need anything. I thought everyone would be gone by now, but there’s a bunch of guys smoking cigars in my father’s study. I had to sneak out.