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“Seriously. Actually do it this time. I’m gonna check in two hours.”
I rolled my eyes, glad that she couldn’t see me. “Fine, fine.”
“Okay. Look, I know it’s been…tough. With your dad and everything. How’s he doing?”
“He’s fine,” I said automatically. “Everything’s great.”
“Good. All the more reason to get back on the dating horse.”
“Sure. Look, Lyn, I gotta go and do this restocking so I can get out of here on time. I’ll talk to you later, okay?”
“Okay. I love you, you know that?”
I smiled. “Of course. I love you, too. Talk to you later.”
“Bye, girl.”
“Bye.”
When she hung up, I felt my shoulders relax. Talking to my best friend was great and all, but it also reminded me of all the things I hadn’t done, all the things I hadn’t experienced because I took care of my dad during one of the worst times of his life.
Six months ago, just as I was starting to apply to animation programs, my Aunty Virginia—Mom’s sister—died. She and my father were close, bonded by their grief from my mom’s death. Though Mom died when I was seven, my dad never recovered. Losing Aunty was yet another devastating blow.
It was up to me to make sure my dad was okay, but now that he seemed to be coming out of his bout of depression, I could venture farther from home and live out my dream.
Another draw to the New Jersey animation program was that Brooklyn lived in New York City, so we would be able to see each other more often. We had even discussed living together to cut down on costs. The thought of getting lost in a new city was exciting, refreshing. And I would be close to one of two people who loved me in this world.
It sounded amazing.
As I put more items on the shelves and settled into a rhythm, I turned up the volume of the music I had been playing in the background. I had always enjoyed listening to Evanescence, a band from the late nineties into the early 2000s, pretending to be Amy Lee when I was finishing up for the night at the store. It was my guilty pleasure that even Brooklyn didn’t know about. I would never be in a rock band because I wasn’t musically inclined, but I always liked to quote the lyrics to myself, playing out all the parts and even singing any hooks or bridges that were in the songs.
I choseCall Me When You’re Soberas my clean-up music that night. I needed something relatively fast, and it was the perfect tempo to get me through the rest of my shift. As I belted out the lyrics to the bridge, I thought about the money sitting in my bank account and smiled. I wasn’t too far away from my goal.Only a little more to go. Then, I can live my dream.
ChapterTwo
NATHAN
Much of the rest of the weekend was spent divvying up the work of handling what my mother left behind.
When I had returned to the house to be with my family, Dad and I divided up the things that needed to be done. He promised to take care of the funeral arrangements, and I fully stepped into my role as the head of the family. This involved reviewing all of the documents that outlined our family’s estate with our lawyers—how our money was managed, how each child’s wealth allotment was to be handled. At one point, I had to let the lawyers take over completely because it was too much for me while still trying to process my mom’s death. Our family’s assets were tied to several moving parts, and unlike my own company, it wasn’t exactly straightforward.
Between handling estate paperwork and running my own company, I found myself with not a lot of grieving time before the funeral. I put on a good face for my dad and siblings, but it was the quiet moments that would get me. Grief was its own entity that taunted me in my waking and sleeping moments. As I sat at my mom’s desk, her laughter echoed around me, or I would catch a whiff of her unique perfume—lemons and honey. I would close my eyes as I felt the ghost of her touch on my cheek, of her hands that were always cold, even in the summer. I would remember the way she always had a kind word, even when she was demanding my very best, while I held back tears and let them burn my throat instead.
I couldn’t afford to fall apart; I had a family to hold together.
Everything came together by the end of the following week. All of us children found time to spend with each other, checking in and making sure we were all okay—or as okay as we could be, given the circumstances—and I was also able to get through the bulk of the urgent matters with the estate and my own business. Things were looking up. Mostly.
Then, everything came to a grinding halt.
We held the funeral and repass on a Saturday, a full week after she died. The whole town shut down, given that my mother was such a prominent figure. Not only was she part of the town council, but she was also involved in many other volunteer activities—toy drives for families in need all over the Metrowest area, lending a helping hand, for free, in the town garden, et cetera—to the point where she had touched everyone’s lives in a meaningful way at some point in her career and life as a Hemingway. There were three hundred reported guests coming to the funeral, and that was just the ones we knew of. Though we ended up having the funeral at Hemingway Community Church, we also had an overflow room that was filled to the brim.
Most of the day passed in a blur, with me receiving condolences without taking anything in. I sat in a bubble of sorts, nothing permeating its surface, sounds and colors dulled.
Though my uncle did the eulogy, we all said a few words about Mom. And then came the repass.
Because the church was in the town square, we decided to have the repass at Town Hall—the building right next door—to save everyone from trekking to my parents’ house. Even though I was in the immediate surviving family, I was lucky that Mack cut the line to get me a plate—otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to see any of the food, let alone eat it. I found a chair in the corner and carved out what I thought would be a peaceful moment in the chaos, but as I balanced the flimsy paper plate on my knee, Harold, one of our youngest lawyers and my best friend, came to sit by me.
“Ay man,” he said by way of greeting. “You got a minute? It’s urgent.”
