23
Mel dies twodays later in the middle of the night in the guest room of her house. Her nurse is just outside the room, but she’s not in a hospital and there are no doctors around. When she was still well enough, she’d made specific arrangements so she could die in her own house.
I’m asleep at home, my home, and I’m tossing and turning, the way I have been since she went into a coma, but I don’t feel anything. I don’t feel a jolt or an earthquake or an absence in the world. Maybe that’s because I felt the jolt the day she told us that her doctor suspected something but it was probably nothing. Maybe I felt the earthquake on the day she told Ro and Luke and Naomi the news, but not me, because I was not family and Ro didn’t want me to see him cry. And maybe the absence has been there, growing deeper and deeper every day with each piece of her that was stolen by the Big Bad.
Maybe, maybe not.
Dr. Cohen flies back for her funeral, which Naomi says would irritate Mel, but at least he doesn’t bring his new wife, which Naomi says would make Mel die all over again.
I’m glad, though, that he’s here for Luke. Luke, who no longer has any other family in the world but the father he hates so much. Luke, who I hurt over and over and over again, who I haven’t spoken to since the first night I came to visit Mel after she came home from the hospital. He was in the living room, talking with Bobby, Naomi’s husband, and he said “hey” when I walked in and I said “hey,” and that was it.
The second night when I came, he was upstairs on the phone. Probably with Courtney. And I hate that I’m petty enough to think that even now. He deserves someone who didn’t break his heart, who didn’t let his brother drive drunk, who didn’t leave his bed in the middle of the night.
The funeral is beautiful. Naomi asks me if I’d like to say a few words, but I refuse. Then she asks me to choose one of Mel’s favorite jazz songs for the ceremony. Apparently Mel said in her instructions that I would “know.”
I don’t know, but I pick “Detour Ahead” by Ella Fitzgerald, and I hope that’s okay.
Naomi makes me and my parents sit two seats behind the family row. I’ve refused to sit any closer. When my mother takes my hand and leads me into the church, I let her. The day Mel passed away, my mother was at my side constantly, running her hands through my hair and asking if I needed anything. I wanted to repeat what I’d said to her—that it was too late, it was already so, so late, but I didn’t have the energy for words. And anyway, I no longer know if it is true.
Luke is a pallbearer.
Again, Luke is a pallbearer.
He walks with his head down, takes long, sad steps that look all wrong on him.
The pastor reads from Psalm 23. I guess Mel decided it wasn’t too cliché after all.
I cry through the whole ceremony and all through the ride back to Mel’s for the wake.
I almost throw up when I step into the house.
It smells like baked goods and food, and it sounds like conversation and life, and it makes me realize that for the last few months the Cohen house smelled and sounded like death and loneliness.
When my parents get caught up talking to one of Mel’s neighbors, I can’t take it. I can’t take the past tense or the sadness, the way they sum her up in simple words.
A “good” lady. A “brave” battle. A “strong” spirit. A “wonderful” mom.
No no no no.
I see his head moving above everyone else’s, watch as he says something to his father, and Dr. Cohen pats him on the back and moves aside so Luke can go. Luke starts up the stairs, and before I can stop myself, I’m following after him, squeezing through people’s circles.
I watch him from the second step, see the way he exhales and lets his head fall before pushing into the bathroom he and Rowan shared. I pad upstairs behind him, knowing I should let him grieve in peace, knowing I’ve done enough damage, but needing to be near him.
I knock once on the door.
“Just a minute,” he calls back over the sound of running water, and even with a door between us, he sounds broken and lost and afraid.
A couple of seconds later, the door swings open. Luke’s face is wet, like he just washed it.
“Sorry, there’s a ...” His voice trails off as he sees me. He just stands there, lets me slip around him into the bathroom.
He shuts the door and looks at me.
I walk back toward him and throw my arms around him. I feel him shaking in my arms and then I’m crying and it’s hard to say who is holding who up. All I want is to make this better for him, so I kiss the side of his jaw. He turns so his lips are facing me, and I kiss them too. He kisses me back, and our mouths taste like tears and grief and anger. He presses my back against the vanity, and I untuck his dress shirt from his slacks. His kisses grow wild now and desperate, and he hikes up the skirt of my new black dress. I match his desperation and undo his fly. He reaches above us and opens a medicine cabinet, pulls a box from it and a foil packet. As we get louder, I reach back behind me to open the tap, letting the water drown us out. We hold tight to each other and kiss and cry and fill each other for as long as we can. We stay that way, breathless, for several minutes after, and then he lets go and starts to get dressed again. I watch him, my dress still up around my stomach.
He doesn’t say anything before he leaves the room, but he looks back once, and our eyes hold.
When he’s gone, I slide down to the floor, pull my knees up to my chest, and sob.
