“Why would you say that?”
“I just told you,” she says. “He clearly did not care enough to tell me he was getting married, or moving in with you, or whatever you two were to each other. And I . . . ” She wipes a tear away with a tissue, delicately and with purpose. She shakes her head to clear it. “Elsie. I don’t care to discuss this with you. You have a list of things to do. All I ask is that you inform me as to when the service will be and what will be done with his ashes.”
“Ben wanted to be buried,” I say. “He told me he wanted to be buried in sweatpants and a T-shirt so he’d be comfortable.”
At the time, when he told me, I thought this was sweet. It didn’t occur to me that I wouldn’t be senile by the time he passed away, that it would be within months of that very conversation.
Her face scrunches itself around her eyes and mouth, and I can tell she’s mad. The lines around her mouth become pronounced, and for the first time I can see evidence that she is an older woman. Does my mom have these lines? It’s been so long since I’ve seen her, I don’t know.
Maybe Susan doesn’t realize what she’s doing. Maybe she thinks she’s strong enough to cut off her nose to spite her face here, to give me this funeral arranging as a punishment, but she’s not. And she’s already bothered.
“Everyone in our family has been cremated, Elsie. I never heard Ben say he wanted otherwise. Just tell me what is going to be done with the ashes.” She looks down at the table and sighs, blowing air out of her mouth and onto her lap. “I should be going.” She gets up from the table and leaves, not looking back at me, not acknowledging my existence.
I grab the binder and head toward the lobby, where Ana is waiting patiently. She drives us home and I walk right up the front steps to my door. When I realize I’ve left my keys inside, I turn around and start crying. Ana soothes me as she pulls my spare key off her key ring and hands it to me. She hands it to me as if it will make everything okay, as if the only reason I’m crying is I can’t get into the apartment.
JANUARY
I woke up the morning after meeting Ben to a text message from him.
“Rise and Shine, Elsie Porter. Can I take you to lunch?”
I jumped out of bed, shrieked like an idiot, and hopped in place compulsively for at least ten seconds. There was so much energy in my body I had no other way of getting it out.
“Sure. Where to?” I texted back. I stared at the phone until it lit up again.
“I’ll come pick you up. Twelve thirty. What’s your address?”
I sent him my address and then ran into the shower as if it was urgent. But it wasn’t urgent. I was ready to go by 11:45 and I felt entirely pathetic about that. I put my hair up in a high ponytail and shimmied into my favorite jeans and most flattering T-shirt. Sitting around my house for forty-five minutes dressed and ready to go made me feel silly, so I decided to get out of my house and go for a walk. And in all of my glee and excitement, I locked myself out.
My heart started beating so fast I couldn’t think straight. I’d left everything inside, my phone, my wallet. Ana had my spare key, but that wasn’t going to do me much good without a phone to call her. I walked up and down the street looking for change so that I could ultimately call her on a pay phone, but it turns out, people don’t really leave quarters on the ground. You’d think they would because quarters are small and sort of meaningless most of the time, but when you really need one, you realize just how ubiquitous they aren’t. Then I decided to find a pay phone anyway since maybe I could rig it to call for free or there’d be a quarter stuck in the little change box. After scouring the neighborhood, I couldn’t find a single one. Which left me no viable option I could think of other than breaking into my own apartment.