I try to keep this moment for Rory, but envy seeps in. I’m pretty sure I left the world screaming, Oh shit. Hollywood taught me that one’s last seconds are spent looping through life’s biggest moments, but all I remember is the wind carrying snot back up my face and thinking how disgusting it felt.
My own mother’s death was no better. During our last conversation she called me a selfish martyr. Her mind was already going. I found it an amusing oxymoron, but later I uncovered a cruel truth in her words. Did I need to be needed? Did I use sacrifice to inflate my self-worth? My mother died the next day, alone and drunk. They found her covered in vomit. At the time I assumed she did it so Meg and I would regret the boundaries we set to protect our children from her drunken chaos, but later I came to see that was unfair, almost narcissistic. Her death had nothing to do with me. She just saw no reason to keep on keeping on.
Linda’s death is exponentially more profound. She leaves in phases, willfully, as if someone is there, talking her through the steps. I didn’t have that—no light, no escort, nothing. I was simply spit back into the atmosphere. I try to extract the guidance Linda receives for my own benefit, but the conversation is encrypted. Even before her last breath, life leaves her. I sense she’s now nearer to me than Rory, not in the dimension I’m in, but closer, higher. I shudder at the idea I’ve been bypassed. I assume Linda is in heaven, so where the hell am I? As if in answer to that question, my spirit ascends, furthering the distance between the world I left and me faster than the times before. When the ride stops, I look down, terrified they won’t still be there, but they are.
*
Brian arrives as they wheel away Linda’s covered body. He sobs, the way guilty grievers do, hugging Rory almost violently.
She stands there, letting him pull strength from her. When he pauses to catch his breath, she gently moves away. “She was ready.”
He’s incredulous. “How can you say that? Why aren’t you crying?”
She finds his audacity comical in that delirious way only very sad things can be to very tired people. She holds back the raw chuckle she feels. “I want Mom to be comfortable more than I want her here for me.”
“But I didn’t get to say good-bye.”
Rory looks at her younger brother, deciding whether to let the comment slide. “No,” she says, “you’d have to have been here for that.”
“I came as soon as I could. You can’t just bail on a court date.”
Rory rests an arm around his shoulder, rubbing his back the way their mother would have. “Death doesn’t wait to be convenient. And when you’re older, you’ll look back and see that life doesn’t either.”
He stiffens. “I have a great life.”
“You have a busy life, where you make a lot of money and eat dinner alone.” She hadn’t meant to be so pointed. “I’m sorry, I’m exhausted. I’ll call tonight so we can make arrangements.”
I present Rory’s subconscious with the hypocrisy of her words as she walks to her car. Rory doesn’t make a lot of money, but she eats dinner alone. As her mother so eloquently pointed out, she, too, is closed to the world. If work is Brian’s vice, grief is Rory’s. I need her to recognize this as a flaw—the only one I’ve sussed after months of stalking—so she’ll take her mother’s parting advice seriously. Rory needs Eve and Brady as much as they need her. Our goals are colliding.
When she gets home it doesn’t seem possible she’s only been gone half a day. The twelve hours at the hospital spanned a week in her heart. Greta sits patiently on the couch, honored to be Linda’s messenger. “Your mom gave me this weeks ago,” she says, handing Rory an envelope.
Rory offers a wearied smile, unsurprised. Her mom was a schemer. “Thanks.”
“Just so you know, honey”—Greta presses her hand against her heart—“your mom had a lot of clarity yesterday while you were tutoring. We talked about her childhood, her dancing, her labor with you. Did you know she picked Rory because it sounded powerful?”
“Yeah, she told me that.”
“Well, yesterday, she called you her lion and I realized why she thought of Rory as a powerful name—Roar-y.” Greta giggles. “Only your mom would think of that. She was quite a lady.”
Rory embraces Greta with ostensible gratitude. “Thank you … so much, for, well, for everything.”
“I’m going to miss her. And you. Stay in touch?”
Rory nods. Greta and Linda were the same age, both widows. They grew so close over the past few years that Rory had come to consider Greta part of the family. That she doesn’t intend to disappear with her last paycheck is a relief to Rory.
Greta collects her things and goes. Rory sits on her mom’s cot and opens the letter. There’s no greeting, just Linda’s distinctive script.
Don’t put me in a coffin like your father. I have no desire to continue taking up space in this world (or to be consumed by maggots, for that matter). Have me cremated and buried in our plot. No wake … No death dress or makeup … No postfuneral potluck. I’m not beholden to any religious rules—I am myself a spiritual being. If you have a memorial, make it a celebration. This is not a tragic death. I’m ready.
And Rory, me leaving should give you time to focus on you. Enough already with the pain and guilt. You’ll see Emma again, when the time is right. Until then, I’ll watch over her. You’re here with a purpose. Ana?s Nin wrote, “Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage,” or something like that, and she’s right.
I’ll be sending love, Mom
Rory’s mind explodes with images and recollections. The way she said “God bless you” right before you sneezed. Her hard laughter the day I put lines all over my body with permanent marker because I wanted to be a tiger. When she spoke at Emma’s funeral and said that nothing will ever make sense again, but we still need to seek goodness wherever we go.
She sits in the room her mom faded in, enjoying her scent, reading the note again and again, weeping. When she finishes, Rory dries her eyes with a lightness any mourner would covet. Rory did right by Linda; she won’t suffer the way I did.
When I told Meg last Christmas I felt somewhat responsible for our mother’s death, she laughed it off, saying, “Mom dug her grave one drink at a time.”
True enough, but it wasn’t always that way. I have three years on Meg; I remember things she doesn’t. Before the zany jogging suits and hallway puke and everything else, she was a middle-class socialite, if there is such a thing. She attracted strong personalities like her friend Eve and my father. The hostess with the mostess, everyone agreed.
At eleven, I was the only one unimpressed.