“You want me to put it in the office?”
See? I should be stronger. I should be able to say, no, I can do it. But I wasn’t that strong. Not yet. I nodded, and my sister took the box of paperwork to my husband’s office. A room I hadn’t been in since he died and, truthfully, if I had my way, I would never go into again.
I made tea and strengthened my case for Zilla to get back to her life.
We argued that night and for another week, but finally I won and Zilla packed her bags.The day she was leaving, she came into the kitchen with her roller bag, and I knew what she was going to say before she said it.
“Don’t,” I told her, thinking I might cut her off. But no one got in the way of Zilla and what she wanted to say.
“Hear me out. You said you wanted independence, and the only person you’ve kept is your driver. Let me teach you how to drive and you can fire him, too! You like firing people.” Her eyebrows were cocked, the devil in her bright eyes. “We can cut your hair. Get drunk. Like really smashed. We haven’t done that. Oh!” she said like she suddenly had a great idea. “Getting laid. How about that? A little rebound action with some random at a bar. I’ll be your wingman. Doesn’t that sound good?”
“No. Not at all.”
“Okay, you can be my wingman.”
“I would be a terrible wingman.”
“It’s true. But I’m willing to give you a try.”
I laughed until it caught on a sob.
“I can stay,” Zilla said, her voice soft. “I want to stay. My course load this semester is light, and I can take it all online, right here from your kitchen. Let me take care of you. We don’t have to do anything.” She stroked back my hair. “Except get your hair back to its natural color. This blonde is so Stepford wife I can’t take it. Or! Let’s leave. You’re rich now. Let’s go meet randoms in a bar in Tahiti?”
I pulled Zilla into a fierce hug, holding her so hard hoping maybe to absorb some of her fire, hoping maybe she would absorb some of my calm. “I’m all right. I am. I haven’t been alone in years, Zilla. Let me just . . . be alone. Please,” I said. “I will call you if that changes.”
“It feels so bad to leave you, though.”
“I know. I do. But, trust me, please, this is what I want.”
“You promise?”
“I promise. But are you going to be okay?”
“Oh my god, you have hit peak, Poppy. Worrying about me? Now?”
“Habit.”
“I’ll be fine. I’ll be worrying about you.”
Theo, my driver, the only employee I had left, opened the front door. He’d taken Zilla’s car to gas it up and top up the fluids. He didn’t say anything or do anything. But I knew by the nearly inaudible scrape of his shoe on the tile. The sudden change in the air. The chill up my spine that said I wasn’t alone.
When was that going to end?
Would it?
I swallowed back my sob and let my sister walk out the door.
And in the quiet she left behind, I immediately felt something like panic. Like . . .emotion. Like a scream I couldn’t scream. I grabbed the tools I used to help work on the house, and I went to the pool deck and finally finished the shower by the pool.
It took so much less time than I thought it would. Too little time, really. I needed it to take hours. A month. But within forty-five minutes I pulled the chain and water poured out of the rain showerhead I’d picked out months ago.
I let go of the chain, and it stopped. The water disappearing down the black drain.
It worked. I built a shower.
This was another skill I could add to the application for the catering company.
Experience: eating canapes, mitigating the physical pain my husband wanted to inflict on me, and making outdoor showers.
“Who wouldn’t hire me?” I joked out loud. If Zilla was here, she would laugh. But she wasn’t, so I just sounded like a crazy woman.
I pulled the chain again, and water came pouring out, splashing over my flipflops and the legs of my pants. I did it. I could still do things. I had enough small power inside of me to make something happen. Even this little thing.
He had not taken everything away from me.
Oh, he’d taken plenty. Some things he’d taken in great handfuls. Giant pieces. My dreams of being a teacher. My education. My autonomy. And some I’d simply handed him, learning quickly that my dignity meant more to him than it did to me. And now I owned this house. Everything that had been his. Everything he’d taken from me, I had a chance to get back.
How? How does someone do that? Like, in what drawer would I find my ambition? My confidence? Was my faith on a bookshelf in his office? I imagined finding those things, putting them on like jewelry. Too-big rings that would fall off my fingers.
Who the fuck am I anymore?
Fully dressed, I stepped into the shower, letting the warm water pour over me until something in me thawed. The ice I’d formed around myself melted.
And then I sobbed bitter angry tears. My husband had been sick and scared and in pain, and he’d killed himself with a gun I didn’t know he had.
Then I cried more, because he’d turned me into someone I didn’t recognize.
Because I was just so relieved he was gone.
And happy. I was so happy I laughed through my tears. I was howling with laughter and sobs. A total mess.
This was why I needed my sister to go live her life. Because I needed to lose my mind a little.
The hot water ran out, and the early spring night was freezing.
Dripping wet and steaming into the cooler air, I stepped out of the shower across the pool deck through the sliding glass doors into the kitchen. This – dripping puddles across the floor would have enraged the senator. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d made a decision born of my own desires rather than just reacting to him. Reacting to fear.
My phone on the edge of the counter, which had gone completely dark a week after the funeral, was bright again with an incoming message.
From Caroline.
Come to my office tomorrow in the city. We have much to discuss.
Thank god, I thought, and braced myself against the counter.
Something to do.
5
The next morning, I got dressed and put on makeup and my sharp black suit with the grey silk shell, and I sat in the backseat of my husband’s town car that I now owned as I was driven into New York City to see Caroline.
And I was excited. Excited by the drive from the rolling green lawns and the mansions of Bishop’s Landing down the interstate into Manhattan. Excited to do something.
It started to rain, and the umbrellas sprouted on street corners, and the air got that smell of wet cement. We stopped at a red light, and kids were streaming out of a school, jumping over puddles.
Even through the glass of the window I could hear them laughing.
I should get a hot dog. From one of those carts. I hadn’t had one of those in years. And perhaps after the meeting a short stroll through Central Park. No, it was raining, and the senator would want me back . . .
The senator was dead, and I could do whatever the hell I wanted.
What did I want? Lord, the thought was paralyzing. I could feel my heart start to pound in my neck. The reality of my freedom making me short of breath. Sweat bloomed along my hairline. Two years with him. Three months with his memory, and I had no idea who I was anymore.