“He’s fine.”
“I haven’t seen him in a while.”
“He’s been working a lot. So have I.”
“I’m not getting any younger, Emily. Grandchildren would be nice at some point.”
“Yes, well, Daniel and I should probably get married first.”
My mother shook her head, absently pushing a strand of graying hair behind her ear.
“I don’t know what you’re waiting on. You’ve been engaged for four years.”
Technically it had been three and a half, but I didn’t blame her for rounding up. It was a sore subject. My father had passed away three months before Daniel and I were supposed to get married. Because of his death, because we’d suddenly needed to plan a funeral on top of a wedding, I had convinced Daniel that we should wait a bit, and he of course agreed. And then . . . we just never settled on another wedding date.
Daniel had never known his birth parents, having grown up in the system, moving from foster home to foster home, so it wasn’t as if he had anyone breathing down his neck. There was only my mother, and truth be told, she had laid off the guilt trips after about a year, only bringing it up every once in a while to test my patience.
To change the subject, I said, “So what exactly happened to Olivia Campbell?”
My mother closed her eyes, all at once somber. “Yes, it’s terrible, isn’t it? She was your age.”
If I remembered correctly, Olivia was five months older. In the seventh grade, the year before everything changed, she’d had her birthday party at the local roller-skating rink. During couples’ skate, Jimmy Klay had asked her to skate, and his hand had been so clammy, she later told us, that he kept wiping it on his jeans as they circled the rink to “I Want It That Way” by the Backstreet Boys.
“How do you know she died?”
“I read about it on Facebook.”
“But how did you come across it?”
“Beth Norris sent me a message. She remembered you’d gone to school with Olivia. She said her daughter Leslie graduated with you. Do you remember her?”
My graduating class had 119 students. The name Leslie Norris didn’t ring a bell.
“Beth’s friends with Olivia’s mother on Facebook. Speaking of which, I really wish you’d sign up for an account. I want to tag you in the old photos I upload.”
“Mom, we’ve been over this. Because of my job—”
“Yes, yes. You need to be private because you work with a bunch of kids who will try to friend you or learn about your outside life. I understand.”
That was the reason I gave everybody when they asked, and while that certainly had something to do with it, the real reason was that I didn’t want to have a social media presence. Once you did, people tried to connect with you. Not just coworkers and family, but friends. Old friends. Friends you might not have seen or talked to in years. Friends who would remind you of all the terrible things you’d done, once upon a time.
“Mom, tell me about Olivia. When did this happen?”
She picked up her iPad, swiped and tapped at the screen.
“Do you know what happened to your yearbooks? I thought they were in the basement. I looked for them earlier but can’t seem to find them anywhere.”
“Last I saw them, they were down there in some box.”
Actually, the last I saw my yearbooks was when I’d sneaked them out of my bedroom right before college and tossed them in the trash cans out on the street, just before the garbagemen came rattling by in their truck. But my mother didn’t need to know this.
Mom nodded as if to herself and then handed me the tablet. I wasn’t sure what I’d expected to see, but I most certainly wasn’t expecting Olivia Campbell’s mother’s Facebook page.
My mother had centered on a rather succinct status update written five days ago. Olivia’s mother had said that God had called her baby girl home, and that, oh Lord, she’d had no idea Olivia was in so much pain, but she hoped her daughter was in a better place now.
The post had over three hundred reactions, mostly hearts and sad-face emojis, as well as more than one hundred comments offering condolences.
My mother took a sip of her tea and gently set the cup back down on the china plate.
“I sent Olivia’s mother a friend request and message this morning, telling her how sorry I was to hear what happened. I wasn’t sure I would get a reply—I haven’t spoken to her since you and Olivia had your falling-out and they moved away to Harrisburg—but she wrote back two hours later thanking me for my condolences. She told me the viewing and the funeral are this Saturday. I told her I would talk to you about going.”
“What?” My tone shocked my mother almost as much as it did me. “Why would you tell her that?”
“Despite what may have happened in middle school, you were once best friends with Olivia.”
I shook my head, at a complete loss for words. Then something occurred to me.
“Wait—I thought you said Olivia killed herself.”
“She did.”
“But there’s no mention of it on the Facebook post.”
“No, of course not. Olivia’s mother wouldn’t want to make that widely known.”
Patience, I had to remind myself, was a virtue.
“Then how exactly do you know about it?”
“I told you: Beth Norris. She told me Olivia had taken her own life. It’s just so”—my mother paused, shook her head again—“it’s just so awful.”
“I wish you wouldn’t have told Mrs. Campbell I might go. Daniel might already have something planned for this Saturday.”
Daniel didn’t have anything planned for this Saturday, at least as far as I knew, but using him as an excuse felt like the best course of action.
“I’m sure he’ll understand if those plans need to be changed.”
“Honestly, Mom, I don’t want to go.”
“If the tables were turned, wouldn’t you want Olivia to come to your funeral?”
“You know, if I was dead, I don’t think I would give a shit.”
My mother gave me another glare. She could stop rush-hour traffic with that glare.
“It would mean a lot to Olivia’s mother if you went.”
My elbows on the countertop, I dropped my head into my hands and tried not to scream.
My mother’s voice dipped to a soft whisper.
“I know all I went through with your father’s passing, God bless his soul, but at least he was in his late fifties. Olivia? She was just a young woman. I can’t even—”
She paused again, and I glanced up in time to see her wipe a tear from her eye.
“But it doesn’t matter. If you don’t want to go, Emily, you don’t have to go. I certainly can’t make you.”
Great. The guilt-trip angle.
My mother, maybe sensing my hesitation, said, “If you do decide to go, Olivia’s mother gave me the address of the funeral parlor. It’s maybe a forty-minute drive, depending on traffic.”
“I don’t think Daniel will want to go.”
“Then don’t take him. I already have plans that day, unfortunately. Otherwise I would be happy to go with you. In fact, if you’d like, I’ll change my plans . . .”