fourteen
When I’m alone, I contemplate my new life. Or my new temporary life.
Is making a good omelet my greatest achievement? Is destroying a bathroom and a fireplace my greatest low? What is even going on with my life?
I take my iPad out to the creek side of the porch and sit and try to breathe. There has to be something else that I can do well. Something that I can take on. Some way to prove that I am not nothing.
Then, an idea hits me. It seems so stupid, but I still spend two hours on YouTube. And I write lists and instructions and tips. And then I replay videos, measure things, and type out notes for myself.
The fireplace and the bathroom tiles that I destroyed? I might be great at destruction, but maybe I can be as talented at rebuilding.
After extensive research, I now have info about mortars and drills with various attachments, subfloors and backer board, rubber mallets and spacers. Grout, rubber gloves. How to cut and seal the tiles. I have to figure out what to do with all of this information. How to order it into something that makes some kind of sense.
After a million more video watches and notes, I think I get it. I think I can do this.
Tiling requires a solid amount of math, and while I might have flunked out of community college, I wasn’t awful at math in high school. I like calculations, numbers, angles, measurements, and all that.
Maybe I can do this?
No, I can do this.
I roll up my pants and hop from the deck into the creek. The water is icy and wonderful, and bursts of sharp chill encourage me to hop from stone to stone. When I land on a few particularly solid rocks, with two feet unwavering, I raise my arms in the air.
“Yes!” My scream is stupidly and unrealistically triumphant, but I unleash it nonetheless.
I step down and enjoy how it feels to stand in this wonderfully cold creek. The water that moves beneath me is rhythmic and hypnotic. Reassuring.
It’s just tile. I can do this.
I inhale and exhale.
Or maybe I can’t. Maybe I try, and I fail. It only matters that I try. That I take a damn risk.
I hop more stones, moving the way of the creek until I reach the lake, and then I decidedly run in full force, diving well under the surface.
The water is damn freezing, but I love how it’s harsh and biting against my skin and love even more how it feels to break the lake’s surface. How I can breathe again. How my body is both frozen and ignited.
It’s less than a minute until I am back on my porch, panting and celebrating all at once. I strip off most of my clothing, still laughing as I lurch inside and locate towels and dry clothes.
By early evening, when I’m not lake-soaked and I’m in sweatpants and a T-shirt, I realize that I’m starving. And I decide to cook dinner for myself.
Our old oven takes its sweet time heating up, but that’s okay because I need that time to locate something resembling a roasting pan, which I finally do. After reading and rereading the recipe, I manage to stuff an herb-and-oil mixture and tons of butter under the skin of my stupidly talked-about spatchcock chicken. Garlic cloves and red onion go into the pan, and after I set this into the oven, all I can do is sit back and hope this isn’t awful. And stare at the meat thermometer until it hits the right temperature.
It’s so dumb that I’m making this huge meal for myself, but still, I make a salad. My dad used to make an awesome one, a salad I haven’t had in years. So, I mince green and kalamata olives with parsley, hearts of palm, artichoke hearts, and toss that up with chopped plum tomatoes and Boston lettuce. The dressing, as I remember, is glugs of olive oil, Dijon mustard, chopped garlic, lemon juice, and salt and pepper. My dad knew when he had the right amounts by the smell, so I take a whiff.
“More salt and pepper?” I ask myself. “Yes. A bit more.”
When my meat thermometer beeps, I take out the chicken and follow instructions for making gravy.
Nobody cries over chicken and salad, which is weird. And yet I do. Because when I plate my food and sit down, I don’t expect much.
But I made a real dinner, for myself. A delicious dinner.
It’s a small feat for most people, but it’s a big damn feat for me. And as embarrassed as I am by how silly this is, I’m going to be happy about it, so I text Marlena a picture.She replies with a thousand emojis and words of enthusiastic support.
I text my mom the same picture and tell her that I made this dinner on my own.
She replies, but I wish she hadn’t.
