Grief, As Usual

Rebecca Hanauer

Morning begins with coffee. The spoon scrapes the bottom of the mug, circles lazy and slow. Outside, the birds chatter, oblivious. I sit at the kitchen table, palms flat, waiting for silence to settle. In the corner of the room, something shifts—only the curtain in the breeze.

My son thunders through the kitchen. His mouth is full of war sounds. A secret battle. My thoughts are not my own anymore. He quizzes me on the names of Pokémon characters and dinosaurs. I sip my coffee between his questions.

When I asked my mother what she wanted, the words boiled up and out of her. Hot coffee.

What I heard her say was different, May I please feel something normal? Familiar? Can we sit on the back porch?

With the sun in our eyes, the plants drinking in the air, and the cat prowling, idle through the grass. Make it hot, steaming, with sugar and cream. If we’re lucky, we can finish off the cheesecake from the night before.

I had just given her a theoretical drop of iced coffee on her tongue from a syringe. I never imagined I’d be dripping a sample of coffee into my mother’s mouth like a baby bird, but she was past the threshold of needing food or even holding a cup for herself.

Someone’s tires squeal and startle me as we drive to school. My brother started out slowly and obeyed the laws of physics and the road. He weaved around corners and circled the building. Then, suddenly possessed of that ornery brotherly duty, he drove as fast as he could while I screamed. He turned his head and smiled at me.

He continued driving at the speed of light, my scream streaming behind us. The grass was brown, and the sky like a foggy mirror. Little birds clung to the wiry fence, their thin bodies taut against the wind, as if there was no other place to take shelter.

I wave as my son scrambles out of the car, his breath thin and quick. The grassy scent of springtime-morning fills the car. I continue to watch him as he hurries and catches up with a friend. His gait like my brother’s, his blonde hair and long legs.

I reach for an apple, and one slips, knocking into another, an avalanche of apples falls at my feet. Pins and needles in my hands, I rub them against my thighs. It’s probably nothing, my mother said. Maybe a mini-stroke, maybe a pinched nerve. I feel that grip around my throat. They said there’s a mass in my brain, her voice shook, but they won’t speculate on what it is.

I imagine the cells of her brain sitting on a pew, standing again—drinking tiny sips of blood, kneeling in prayer. Murmuring to themselves, and also with you.

The lights in the store are too bright. My eyes water and burn from the dry air. The hum from the refrigerators, from the air pushing through the vents, from the shuffle of too many feet grows inside me. Someone bumps into my shoulder, and I yelp. I want to run.

The woman in the stall next to me is talking on her phone while she pees. Her voice is too loud, and it echoes off the yellowing walls. Something about someone being in the hospital. Something about needing to sign papers. The light was flickering over my brother, his face alternating between bright and dull. Here and there.

Which do you think is worse, I asked him, to lose someone suddenly or to know they are dying? I was struggling with the idea of losing my mother. A few women in blue scrubs marched by in unison.

You never know what the person who dies suddenly was suffering from, he nodded.

Water dribbles as I pour it into the soil of my mother’s fiddle. It’s tall and lush, brought back from the brink of death by an invasive fungus—a result of overwatering. She would be proud.

I think about wiping each of the leaves with a wet paper cloth, but wilt at the idea—at the tediousness of it. A swift knock at the door. My heart hammers.

My husband and I looked at each other. That’s weird, I think I said. We stood from my mother’s couch and looked through the peephole, through the side window. Opened the door wide. No one was there, so we stepped out onto the welcome mat. Stepped lightly across the front porch and down the steps.

I heard the scroop of a gate and the sound of leaves running down the street like a little paper army. We could only see the brazen Christmas lights blinking from the houses that lined the empty street.

Through the sheer curtain, I see the delivery person walking away. A package left at my door.

I sit at my desk and shuffle the pile of papers, arranging pens at the side. I open my laptop and stare at the screen. My password is his name. I shuffle icons across my desktop. Anything to stretch out time before I have to start writing again. My wrists ache. I rub my thumb across the other wrist. Does it feel numb? It might feel numb. My heart kicks up. I think I feel the room slant sideways, but that can’t be right.

Everything okay? I asked my husband.

No, he replied. He stood in the doorway, and the light behind him illuminated his form. My eyes were foggy from sleep. My voice still vacant.

I thought he said my brother died. But that can’t be right. I pulled the sheets off my legs. My hands were sweaty.

I thought he said he took his life. But it must be a mistake. Someone else. I threw up in the toilet until the only thing left was bile. Until I dry heaved.

Still had his boots on. I drifted.

There was a note. Unmoored.

We sat stunned in the front room, like a circle of stones. I thought I could see the stars glowing through the ceiling, but it must have been an artifact from the Christmas lights. The calm wind blew through my hair, but no windows were open. I saw an opaque shadow move behind the tree.

There was a ringing in my ears, and my head felt hollow. The loamy carpet seemed to have sprouted wild grass around me. My mother was still asleep, still recovering from surgery, and I tiptoed like a child into her room.

Wake up, Mama. It was dark in her room, but the light from a streetlamp illuminated her wide eyes. I still remember the look on her face when we told her. Palms on her cheeks. Her silent scream.

The sparks that left her body looked like fireflies moving through the grass of my childhood. I saw his ghost run by us then. Three years old with hair of gold. He smiled so big, running his hands through the tall grass around us.

A piercing ring from my phone splits through my mind. My father calls me, sometimes, just to let our grief mingle with one another. We don’t have to say much. Our words have an accent now, one that only fellow mourners can understand.

I remember I still have a full cup of coffee somewhere, cold now. I watch it rotate in the microwave, wondering if the radiation is piercing my brain the way the Gamma Knife pierced my mother’s brain. We joked that she’d have superpowers. Night vision. Telepathy. Time travel.

Maybe it happened because she smoked cigarettes for so many years. Maybe she didn’t quit soon enough. Maybe it was all the Dr. Pepper she drank. Or all the moving around we did—the inconsistencies.

Maybe it was those words I said. When I didn’t know it was our last conversation as we stood in the cold outside the hospital, and he smoked a cigarette. The condensed smoke of my breath mirrored his as we talked. Maybe it happened because I didn’t notice the obscure sadness that covered his face.

I splash my cheeks with cold water, letting it run over my hands. My thoughts are too quick, too jumbled. I step into the sunshine. Face to the sky. A bird flits by, too close, and sits on a branch nearby. I watch as it preens its feathers. I wonder if it notices me.

The giant clock on the wall says three o’clock. I bought an analog clock so my son would learn how to read it. Too much screen time. Three o’clock in the afternoon is my least favorite time of day. It’s that awkward stretch when I feel neither here nor there. The hour when light leans, and the world pauses, waiting for nothing in particular.

The day will soon be done, and I’ll have nothing to show for it. The lights flicker. Or at least, I think they flickered. I settle into a book, trying to distract my mind. Stuffed at the back of the book is a picture of my brother and me. My fingers tremble.

His smile is genuine, and mine reaches all the way to my eyes. Why did you have to go? I wonder. The box was still warm when we received his ashes. I felt small as I held it. The ever-increasing weight pulled at my arms. My hands go numb. I can’t feel the steering wheel.

As I drive away—I wonder if I left the garage door open—I turn my car around and drive by the house again—the clouds are dark, rolling, boiling—I keep looking in the rearview mirror as I drive away to make sure it closed—I call my husband, but he doesn’t answer—maybe I should call the hospital—if something has happened, who would I call first—I can’t remember if I left my coffee in the microwave—I don’t know if it’s been too long—maybe the cream has spoiled—my friend knew someone who went to play a game of baseball and came home too hot—stuck his head in the freezer to cool off, and fell over, dead, from heatstroke—what if what I said to him is why he did what he did—I drive by the house again to make sure the garage door is shut and keep looking in the rearview mirror to be sure—

Palms on my cheeks. I breathe in, one, two, three, four. Breathe out, one, two, three, four. My fingers drum against the steering wheel as I wait in the school pick-up line. I sat, knitting, next to my mother. I think they call it sitting vigil. After—after she died—I stood by the glowing forsythia, breathing in the sky.

My son is all jittery from stimulation and sitting still for too long. Words pour out of his mouth like a stream. A never-ending current. Picking up from where he left off. My mind struggles with his questions and the need to ruminate.

After dinner, we take a walk. My husband leading the pack. In my mind, I count everything that could go wrong: the cliff is too steep, the grass is still wet, the road too curvy—there’s no guardrails.

As we walk, I linger on the inside of the path. I watch the cliff's edge, watch as my son’s foot slips through the bright green grass, his fingers spread out wide as he reaches for me—the betrayed look in his eyes as he falls away.

I press the heels of my hands to my eyelids and rub the intrusive image away as my son continues chittering along the trail. The evening sunshine mixes in his hair like honey, and my fear tastes like moonlight.

I find my coffee cup not in the place I expected. Its weight is a comfort. Nighttime is the best time of day. When everyone is home and safe. I check on my son, palm to his warm cheek.

My husband is tucked into bed, propped against pillows, book open in his lap, his head lolling. A breeze tugs at the curtain, but I don’t check the window.

I tuck the picture of my brother and me in the back of the book again, continuing to read. I hear my mother’s voice, What’s that one about?

Rebecca Hanauer is a poet and writer. She lives in Northern Virginia with her husband, their son, and a lazy labradoodle. Her first publication was an obituary.