Grief Girl (7 page)

December 1983

T
hey
say God helps at a time like this.
They
say we're praying for you. You smile and tell them thank you, as though you really believe what
they
want to believe.
They
want to believe God can help you because
they
know
they
can't.

It's a big business, this grief thing.

They
say God is a comfort to all those who mourn.

How can you be a comfort to those you've made suffer? What manipulation! It's like having your wounds dressed by the person who hurt you. It's like the kidnapped girl thanking her kidnapper for feeding her and not killing her.

No, sorry, you're a bit late, God.

He's useless. He's a fraud. No, he's nonexistent.

God is hard of hearing.

Either that or he's like a child who only hears what he wants to hear.

I love you, God.

Bless you, my child, for I am mighty.

I can't see you but I know you're there.

I am here, Erin.

Please, God, look after my mum and dad.

Pardon me?

Please, God, don't let anything happen to them. It's all I ask.

Can you repeat that?

Dear God, please keep my family safe.

I think we have a bad connection….

Dear God, please watch over my parents!

BEEEEEEEP!
You have been disconnected. If you want to make a call, please hang up and try again.

         

Chris is moving in with us. Well, actually, he's hardly left since the accident. I probably should mind, but I don't. I'd hate to imagine what it would be like without him here. Just Tracy and me on our own after Trent has gone to bed. Scary stuff. I don't like to be alone with her if I can help it, and I think she feels the same. We don't know how to act around each other. I try to talk to her about the accident, but she refuses to acknowledge that it's even happened.

I sure hope Chris doesn't change his mind about Tracy. About us.

It's time for Ronald, Peter, Gai, and Frances to go home. Again. They all live near the cemetery. It must be hard to drive along the same road, past the same fruit stand that Mum and Dad were walking to that night.

When we wave them off in their big red truck, it's like a final goodbye to Mum and Dad and the events of the past month.

A few moments later I hear a knock at the door. They must have forgotten something.

“I'll get it!” I yell.

But when I open the door it's not Ronald or Peter. It's two men: a fat one with a notepad and a sporty-looking one with a camera.

“We're so sorry to hear of your loss,” the fat one says.

I love how people say that, like we've just misplaced our parents and we'll find them when we clean out our closets.

“Thanks.” Now I should just slam the door in their faces—that's what Dad said to do to the Jehovahs—but I don't have the energy.

“We're from the
Daily Telegraph
newspaper,” Fat Guy says while the other one stands smiling behind him.

“Yeah, what do you want?” Now I'm angry.

“We were wondering if we could have a few words with you about your parents.”

How dare they? Are they kidding?

“We really care, you know. It's not just because we want to sell newspapers. It's not because we get a kick out of this stuff and want a front-page story with our names on it!”

“Like what? What do you want me to say?”

“Can we maybe come in for a moment?” The photographer moves forward.

“No.”

“Can you tell us how you're feeling about your parents' deaths?”

“No.”

“Is there anyone else inside we could talk to?”

“No.”

I'm starting to enjoy this. I, and I alone, have the power.

“Look, we don't want to intrude, but it would be wonderful if we could get some photos of your family. Help people relate to what's happened,” Fat Guy says, all full of fake understanding.

Oh, how tragic! They want some family photos so the world can know what tragedy looks like. What difference does it make? Does it make it sadder or something?

“Oh, look at the poor little boy with the sweet face who doesn't have a mummy and daddy now because they died being thrown into the air and then crushed by a speeding tow truck! Oh, and look at that teenage girl, look at how she's smiling in this photo. I'll bet she's not smiling like that now. And that gorgeous eighteen-year-old girl with the pretty hair. I wonder how she looks now? Poor things.”

“No, sorry, this is a bad time,” I say as I finally muster up the guts to slam the door.

I wonder what would have happened if I had let them in. Would it have felt good to tell them all about it? Would I have enjoyed having it in the paper for everyone to see? Maybe it would have been a positive thing. Don't people want to be in the paper? Don't I want to be famous? Maybe not that way.

         

It's two weeks since Dad died.

It's early morning, and our driveway and grassy front yard are filling up with cars. Everybody's here to help us get rid of the past. It's for the best, they say. “They” being Mum and Dad's friends, Chris's parents, and Ronald and Peter, who have come back for the weekend to help out.

Tracy and I are still walking around the house in a complete daze most of the time. Trent is playing at Auntie Connie's. We don't want him to see what's going on.

So they're all here and I don't care what they do, as long as they stay out of Mum and Dad's bedroom.

It's like a garage sale.

“Erin, do you want this?” someone says.

I'm too tired to look up, so I just say, “No, take it. I don't care.” So they take it.

Ronald is in the garage talking to Tracy. “The garage is so cluttered. Let me take your dad's boat off your hands,” he says.

“Fine. Whatever,” she says, and walks back in the house.

But Dad loved that boat! I'm thinking.

“Ronald, I feel funny about the boat going,” I say.

“Look, you'll never use it, and it will just get in the way and rust up. I don't think your dad would like that,” he says with his hand on my shoulder.

I suppose he knows best. He's also taking Dad's gold-panning machine and plans to try his luck. I hope he has better luck than Dad. I don't know what we'd do without him and Peter. He's probably going to quietly sell the boat to save us the hassle, and send us a check. I don't like the idea of selling Dad's boat, but I don't want it to die a rusty death either.

People have brought trucks and station wagons to clear stuff out. We don't even want to know about it.

“Take what you want,” Tracy says. We're just too tired to care.

It takes the whole weekend with people coming and going. We're oblivious after a while. We're too busy trying to get through each hour. We're walking around like we don't know what's hit us.

It's nice to have people here. They're all so positive and helpful.

By the time everyone's gone, we're free from a lot of memories.

Some things are only gone temporarily. We've lent out some furniture to some friends of Mum and Dad's, thinking we might like the pieces back someday when we decide we want to remember.

“Don't worry. We'll look after it, and the minute you want it back, just let us know,” they say.

Everyone drives off with their cars full, and then Dad's parents arrive. We go outside on the front lawn, hoping they won't want to come in.

“You girls have no idea of
our
suffering. You lost your parents, sure, but we lost our only child!” Grandma dramatically howls.

She then tells us they want Trent to live with them. Anyone would think Trent's a doll we've outgrown. I could understand if they were here for a piece of furniture…but Trent?

“You can't take care of him. He needs us,” Grandpa says in his usual yell while his stupid white poodle barks from his car.

What, so you can beat him up the way you did Dad? I think. Mum once told me that they were the reason Dad found it hard trying not to get angry all the time.

“He's staying with us!” Tracy says.

“Not if we can help it. You don't know how to bring up a child!” Grandma snaps.

“Yeah, just try taking him away,” I say, feeling tough and strong and ready to fight.

“He should be with us,” Grandma says. “And he will be. The courts would choose us over you kids. We'll prove you're unfit!” Grandma says.

Tracy is crying, so Chris steps down from the verandah. He normally tries to stay out of family matters.

“I think you should go,” Chris says. “Now's not the time to talk about this. Everyone's too emotional.”

“We'll be back!” Grandpa yells before whistling at the dog and yelling at Grandma to get in the car.

They drive away.

“They can't take Trent, can they?” I'm in a panic.

Tracy turns to Chris. “Assholes! Shit! I'll have to go and sign legal custody papers first thing Monday. I should have done it already!”

Mum would die a second death if she knew Trent was going to be brought up by Grandma and Grandpa. They always hated Mum, thinking she wasn't good enough, and always tried to get Dad to leave her. Actually, I think they hate everyone but Trent…but give them time. Why did we have to get such horrible, weird grandparents?

I'll never forget the time Mum tried to put on a fancy lunch for them in an attempt to make family relations better.

Right before lunch, Grandpa went to the backyard, in the heat of the day, and with his bare hands picked up his dog's bubbling, blistering poop.

He then walked in without washing his hands and sat at the table for lunch. We all just sat there as he reached into the bread basket with his filthy, smelly hands.

“Looks like we're having Nutella with our bread today,” I said, trying not to laugh.

I never understood why Dad, all six feet two and two hundred and fifty pounds of him, said nothing. Said nothing when Grandpa was rude to Mum, Tracy and me. Our dad, who could yell and scream at the slightest thing, just sat there in his own home while it was being smeared with shit.

Going to their house was even worse.

It was always a fight between Tracy and me as to who would have the misfortune of knocking on the door and being greeted first. As the younger (before Trent was born), I was usually stuck with it.

“Just give the old bugger a kiss and you'll get some pocket money,” Mum would whisper with a smirk.

“Yuck. No way.” Then he'd open the locked white metal screen door and I'd think of the roller skates I so desperately wanted.

“Yeah, come in, then!” Grandpa would yell before I'd plunge toward him, close my eyes, and hold my breath to kiss him on his dirty, stubbly cheek with food crumbs stuck to it.

“Here's a bit of something for you to spend,” he'd say, handing me some coins from his dirty hands.

Mum and Dad would wink and Tracy would feign puking, having decided years before that for fifty cents it just wasn't worth it.

Then it was lunchtime. I'd get dry heaves throughout the meal imagining what I was ingesting off their dirty plates while watching Grandpa ingest boogers.

With Mum and Dad there I could eat the way I liked, with my fork in my right hand and my knife in my left. But when it was just me and the doting grandparents, it was “Ya right 'anded, so eat right 'anded,” followed by a whack on the back of the head.

The worst part of the visit was going to the bathroom. Although they have lots of money, they use newspaper instead of toilet paper because of the Depression and the war. They were a long time ago, but Grandma still blames them for everything. The murky pink bathroom tiles definitely look like they're from the war.

“Back when we had nothing…in our day…we struggled, you know…. You don't know how lucky you are.”

“But you have money now,” I'd say.

“No, we don't. Who told you that?” Grandma would snap.

But they do. They own their house and have hundreds of thousands in the bank and lots of cash buried in socks around the house and in the backyard. Despite this, they don't flush the toilet every time, as “It's a waste of water and water costs money, you know.”

There's also a metal potty next to the toilet that you can take into your room at night if you want. Lucky for me, I've only ever been there in daylight. There's no way I'd sleep on one of their dirty, smelly mattresses.

Now, is that the kind of household Trent should grow up in?

         

Trent's going to die before his time.

He's going to go outside and be hit by a car. He's going to be kidnapped while we're shopping at the mall. He'll be on a school trip, run away from the preoccupied teacher, and fall off a cliff. He'll be eating his lunch and fatally choke on it because we thoughtlessly bought crunchy instead of smooth peanut butter and a peanut got caught in his throat.

If we're not careful, we might just kill him, and if we don't, the world will. It's just waiting for him.

I wish he never had to leave our sight. I wish he really were a toy and we could take out his batteries and put him in his box when we've finished playing with him for the day.

I can't let him walk ahead of me and turn a corner before I get there, because in that split second he'll be gone. If I'm tired, he can't go for a swim at the beach—what if I blink too slowly and miss the wave that's going to take him away, or the shark lurking, waiting for a midmorning snack? Trent's not big enough to be a full meal just yet.

Oh God, why do I think such horrible things?

I wish he were dead so I didn't have to worry about his dying. Did I just think that?