Bitter Sweet (2 page)
He stood before the vacant chair, opened his jaws wide and ran both palms down his beard.
He drew a deep breath, looked at the floor, then at the hair.
‘I’m going to say good-bye once and for all to my cigarettes. I gave you up over two years ago but I still reach towards my breast pocket for you, so I’ve put you in that chair and to you I say, so long, Dorals. I’m going to make myself happier in the future by giving up my resentment at quitting smoking. From now on, every time I reach for my pocket, instead of silently cursing because I find it empty, I’m going to silently thank myself for the gift I’ve given me.’ He wasted at the chair. ‘Good-bye, Dorals.’
He moved back to his own place and sat.
The tears were gone from the faces around him. In their place was candid introspection.
‘Claire?’ Dr Feidstein said softly.
Claire sat a full minute without moving. No one spoke a word. Finally she rose and faced the chair.
When no words came, Dr Feldstein asked, ‘Who’s in the chair, Claire?’
‘My daughter, Jessica,’ she managed.
‘And what would you like to say to Jessica?’
Claire wiped her hands on her thighs and swallowed. Everyone waited. At length she began.
“I miss you a lot, Jess, but after this I’m not going to let it control my life anymore. I’ve got a lot of years left, and I need to make me happy before your dad and your sister can be happy, too. And the thing I’m going to do to start is to go home and take your clothes out of your closet and give them to the Goodwill. $o this is good-bye, Jess.’ She headed for her chair, then turned back. ‘Oh, and I’m also going to forgive you for not wearing your helmet that day because I know now that’s been getting in the way of my getting well, too.’ She raised a hand. ‘Bye, Jess.’
Maggie felt her eyes sting and watched through a blur as Claire sat down and Diane took her place.
‘The person in the chair is my husband, Tim.’ Diane wiped her eyes hard with a tissue. She opened her mouth, closed it and dropped her head into one hand. ‘This is so hard,’ she whispered.
‘Would you rather wait?’ Dr Feldstein asked.
Again she swabbed her eyes with stubborn determination. ‘No. I want to do it.” She fixed her gaze on the chair, hardened her chin and began. ‘I’ve been really pissed off at you, Tim, for dying. I mean, you and I went together since high school, and I’d planned on another fifty years, you know?’ The Kleenex hit her eyes once more. ‘Well, I just want you to know I’m not pissed
Off anymore, because you probably planned on fifty, too, so what right have I got, huh? And what I’m going to do...’ She opened one palm wide and scratched at it with the opposite thumbnail, then looked up. ‘... what I’m going to do to make myself better is to take the kids and go up to our cabin on Whidbey this weekend. They’ve been begging to go and I keep saying no, but now I will, because until I’m better, how can they be happy? So, bye, Tim. Hang loose, huh, guy?” She hurried to her place and sat down.
Everyone around the circle dried their eyes. ‘Cliff?.’ Dr Feldstein invited.
‘I want to pass,’ Cliff whispered, looking at his lap.
‘Fine. Nelda?’
Nelda said, ‘I said my good-byes to Carl a long time a go. i’ll pass.’
‘Maggie?’
Maggie rose slowly and approached the chair. Upon it sat Phillip, with the ten extra pounds he could never seem to lose after reaching age thirty, with his green eyes that bordered on brown and his sandy hair in need of cutting (as it had been when he’d got on that plane) and his favourite Seahawks sweatshirt that she hadn’t washed yet but occasionally took from the hook in the closet and smelled. She felt terrified of giving up her grief, terrified that when it left there’d be nothing in its stead and she’d be an apathetic shell incapable of feeling in any way at all. She rested an open hand on the top oak rung of the chair and drew an unsteady breath. ‘Well, Phillip,’ she began, ‘it’s been a whole year, so it’s time. I’m like Diane, I guess, a little pissed off because you went on that plane for such a stupid reason-a gambling junket, when your gambling was the only thing I ever resented. No, that’s not true.
I’ve also resented the fact that you died just when Katy was about to graduate from high school and we could start travelling more and enjoying our freedom. But I promise I’ll get over that and start travelling without you. Soon.
Also, I’m going to stop thinking of the insurance money as blood money so I can enjoy it a little more, and I’m going to try again with Mother because I think I’m going to need her now that Katy will be gone.’ She stepped back and fanned an open hand. ‘So, good-bye, Phillip. I loved you.’
After Maggie was finished they sat a long time in silence. Finally Dr Feldstein asked, ‘How do you feel?’ It took some time before they answered. ‘Tired,’ Diane said. ‘Better,’ Claire admitted. “Relieved,’ Maggie said.
Dr Feldstein gave them a moment to acclimatize to these feelings before leaning forward and speaking in his rich, resonant voice. ‘They’re bygones now, all those old feelings that you’ve been carrying around long enough, that have been keeping you from getting better.
Remember that. I think, without them, you’re going to be happier, more receptive to healthy thoughts.’
He sat back.
‘In spite of all that, it’s not going to be an easy week. you’re going to worry about Tammi, and that worry is going to mean state-into depression, so I’m going to give you another prescription for when that happens. This is what I want you to do. Look up old friends, the older the better, friends you’ve lost touch with - call them, write to them, try to get together with them.’
‘You mean high school friends?’ Maggie inquired. ‘Sure. Talk about old times, laugh about the ridiculous things you did when you were too young to have more sense. Those days represent a time in life when most of us were at our most carefree. All we had to do, basically, was go to school, pull fairly respectable grades, handle a part time job maybe, and have, a lot of fun. By going back into the past we can often pull our present into perspective. Try it and see how you feel.’ He glanced at his watch. “Then we’ll talk about it at our next session. Okay?’
The room became filled with the soft shuffle of movement signalling the end of the hour.
People stretched and hitched themselves to the edges of their chairs and tucked away their sodden Kleenexes. ‘We’ve covered a lot of ground today,’ Dr Feldstein said, rising. ‘I think we did very well.’
Maggie walked to the elevator with Nelda. She felt closer to her than to any of the others, for their situations were most similar. Nelda could be a bit twittery and vacant at times, but she had a heart of gold and an unfailing sense of humour.
‘Have you kept in touch with friends from that long ago?’ Nelda asked.
‘No, it’s been a while. Have you?’
‘Lord, girl, I’m sixty-two years old. I’m not even sure I can find some of mine anymore.’
‘Do you intend to try?’
‘I might. I’ll see.’ In the lobby they paused to adjust their rain gear and Nelda reached up for a parting hug. ‘Now you remember what I said. When your daughter leaves, you just give me a call.’
‘I will. I promise.’
Outside, the rain drummed heavily, lifting miniature explosions in the puddles on the street.
Maggie snapped open her umbrella and headed for her car. By the tine she reached it her feet were wet, her raincoat streaming, and she was chilled clear through. She started the engine and sat a minute, her hands folded between her knees, watching her breath condense on the windows before the defroster could clear it.
It had been a particularly draining session. So much to think about: Tammi, her good-bye to Phillip, how she was going to carry out the promises she’d made, Katy’s leaving - she hadn’t even had a chance to bring it up, but it loomed w, vc au other concerns, threatening to undo each bit of progress she’d made in the past year.
The weather didn’t help any. Lord, she got so tired of the rain.
But Katy was still home and they had two more suppers together. Maybe tonight she’d make Katy’s favourite, spaghetti and meatballs, and afterward they could build a fire in the fireplace and make plans for Thanksgiving when Katy would come home on break.
Maggie turned on the windshield wipers and headed home, out across
Redmond
. As the car began climbing into the foothills, the sharp, resinous scent of pines was drawn inside by the ventilation system. She passed the entrance to Bear Creek Country Club, where she and Phillip had been members for years, where, since his death, more than one of their married male friends had made advances towards her. The country club had lost its appeal in more than one way since Phillip’s death.
On
Gone shopping with Smitty, and to pick up a few more empty boxes. Don’t fix supper for me. Love, K.
Stifling her disappointment, Maggie removed her coat and hung it in the front closet. She wandered down the hall and stopped in the doorway of Katy’s room. Clothing lay everywhere, stacked, boxed, thrown across half-filled suitcases.
Two giant black plastic bags, plump with discards, lay between the bifold closet doors. A pile of jeans and another of brightly coloured sweatshirts waited at the foot of the bed to be laundered, only the top half of the dresser mirror showed; the lower portion was hidden behind a stack of Seventeen magazines and a laundry basket filled with neatly folded towels and new bed linens, still in their plastic wrappers, waiting to make the move to Chicago. Strewn across the floor, separated only by narrow paths, lay seventeen years’ worth of memories: a pile of portfolios fat with old school papers, their top sides covered with graffiti; a softball cap and a mitt for a twelve-year-old hand; two corsages, one dried and yellowed, the other with tea roses still pink; a dusty poster of Bruce Springsteen; a shoebox full of graduation cards and unused thank-you notes; another of perfume bottles; a bill-cap full of tangled earrings and cheap plastic rope beads; a pile of stuffed animals; a French horn case; a mauve basket holding recent correspondence from Northwestern University. Northwestern, her and Phillip’s alma mater, halfway across
America
. Why hadn’t Katy chosen the U here instead? To get away from a mother who hadn’t been the most cheerful company during the past year?
Feeling tears build in her throat, Maggie turned away, determined to make it through the remainder of the day without breaking down. In her own bedroom she avoided glancing at the queen-sized bed and the memories it evoked. Marching straight to the mirrored closet, she slid open a door, pulled out Phillip’s Seahawks sweatshirt and returned to Katy’s room where she buried it in one of the bags of discards.
Back in her own room she pulled on an oversized set of red-and-white Pepsi sweats, then marched into the adjacent bathroom where she found a miniature pot of makeup and began dabbing some on the purple shadows beneath her eyes.
Midway through the task, tears began to build and her hands dropped. Who was she kidding? She looked like a forty-year-old scarecrow. Since Phillip’s death she’d dropped from a size 12,- to a size 8, lost a full bra size, and her auburn hair had lost its lustre because she never ate right anymore. She didn’t give a damn about cooking, or going back to work, or cleaning the house, or dressing decently. She did it because she knew she had to and because shedidn’t want to end up like Tammi.
She stared at the mirror.
I miss him and I want so damned badly, to cry.
After fifteen seconds of self-pity she slammed the makeup into a drawer, switched off the light and spun from the room.
In the kitchen she wet a dishcloth and wiped up Katy’s muffin crumbs. But on her way to the garbage disposal she made the mistake of taking a bite of the cold muffin. The taste of cinnamon and raisin spread with peanut butter- a favourite of both Katy and her father- keyed a reaction too powerful to fight any longer. Once more the dreaded tears came - hot, burning.
She threw the muffin into the sink with such force it ricocheted off the opposite side and landed beside the flour canister. She gripped the edge of the counter and doubled forward at the waist.
Damn you, Phillip, why did you go on that plane? You should be here now. We should be going through this together.
But Phillip was gone. And Katy soon would be. And what then? A lifetime of suppers alone?
Two days later Maggie stood in the driveway beside Katy’s car, watching her daughter stuff one last tote bag behind the seat. The predawn air was chill, and mist formed a nimbus around the garage lights. Katy’s car was new, expensive, a convertible with every conceivable option, paid for with a minute fraction of the insurance money from Phillip’s death: a consolation prize from the airline for Katy’s having to go fatherless for the remainder of her life.