Something Has Happened

With my iced tea lightly sweetened and a small bag containing two truffles stowed in my purse, I strolled to the exit of the choclate shop and checked my phone. There was a message from a number I didn’t recognize so before stepping back out onto Michigan Avenue, I dialed in to see what I had missed. Turns out the case of wine I had ordered from the state liquor store was in. It was a reminder that I stop by and retrieve it sooner rather than later. I called my mom.

“Hey, are you heading out at all today?” I asked when she answered the phone back in Philly.

“Yes,” my mom answered in an unusually calm voice.

“Well, remember that Vouvray I brought to your birthday dinner? I ordered a case for you guys and it’s at the liquor store near Trader Joe’s. Apparently it’s been there a week and I already paid for it. Since I’m in Chicago and you, well, aren’t I was wondering if you could pick it up?” I asked, my last word swallowed down with a sip of my iced tea.

“No, I won’t be going that way,” my mom answered with a stilted politeness.

I knew something was wrong. I knew from the tone of her voice, the tremble of her breath, the slowness of her words. I knew that if my mother was heading out on a Sunday but couldn’t manage to stop someplace located within two miles of home, something wasn’t right. I remained quiet and waited for my mom to continue.

“PJ, something has happened,” she said, her voice cracking just a little so as to separate the last word into two distinct sections.

My dad, I thought. Fuck. Motherfuckerfuck. Something happened to my dad. He was in the hospital. He was sick. Or sicker. I locked my knees, steadied the weight of my body against the metal bar running the length of the door and I slowly pushed my shoulder against the glass so the warm air drifting up the Avenue could embrace me.

“I didn’t want to tell you. I didn’t want to ruin your weekend in Chicago. But Morty fell yesterday,” she announced.

I exhaled. I felt calmness replace fear when I learned that something-bad-has-happened didn’t relate to my dad being unexpectedly hooked up to tubes and machines. It’s the selfish relief known only by the child of a sick parent. A relief that balances the fatigue that comes with waiting for the other shoe to drop. In a distorted way that the bible surely tsk-tsks, I felt comforted that someone else was the one in peril. Someone close, someone who acted like the grandfather I never had, but also someone removed just enough that the immediate fear and anxiety was beyond arms length.

“His lip wouldn’t stop bleeding so they ultimately went to the hospital. He was doing okay but they admitted him just to be sure. Half an hour later they called the family back. He slipped into a coma and he’s on life support.”

“What? That makes no sense. Did he have another stroke? Are they bringing him back to Philly? I mean, the hospitals down the shore are horrible. He’d get better care in a third world country.”

“No, there’s no point. PJ, he isn’t going to make it. Dad and I are going down the shore to say goodbye. That’s why I can’t go to the liquor store.”

I’m not sure why my mom felt a need to bring the statement full circle to the wine. Six bottles of Vouvray had nothing to do with anything. I don’t know. Maybe ending the conversation with wine softened the reality of it all. Because libations sounded less sad than the imminent death of a warm and gentle man with piercing blue eyes and an insatiable fondness for ice cream who lovingly folded everyone into his world.

When the call ended, I stepped out onto the street and in a composed manner walked toward the river. With the pedestrian signal offering a glaring red hand, I joined a clutter of tourists on the corner and waited for the light to turn. The summer sun cascaded over my face. The heat rose up from the cement. Strangers around me giggled and talked and mingled in their perfect world. And that’s when the selfish relief about my dad evaporated.

As the light turned, I slipped into a hazy daze of moving without thought. My sneaker clad feet carried me off the curb without intent or effort. The movement and sounds of the city felt like a choreographed dance that I was merely passing through. I ended up across the street. I ended up on a boat listening to a portly woman excitedly identify the architecture dotting the river. I checked in at the airport, passing my bag off to someone wearing a polyester uniform. I stood at the gate and watched a little boy refuse to sit in his stroller. I buckled the belt on my assigned seat, curled tight to the right and leaned my head against the hard plastic wall encasing the window. I cried.

Putting It On The Shelf

We stepped off the dirt path and worked our way next to the edge of a stream. Balancing on the stones, I took everything in. My eyes traced the edge of the mountains in the distance as they pushed against the sky. My lungs filled with fragrant Alaskan air. My heart beat to the pace of rushing waters bubbling over craggy rocks. A few feet downstream, he positioned himself sideways and with a graceful effort sliced flat stones through the air. Their smooth edges danced across the water before disappearing within the rush of the current.

“That one’s pretty,” I said as we joined together to work our way back to the path.

“This one?” he asked as he bent down and presented me with a rusty orange and faded gray rock about the size of a walnut.

I plucked it from his open palm, the pad of my thumb running across the surface before stowing the stone in my pocket. Every so often, as we continued on the trail, I slipped my hand into my shorts. I pushed the stone against my thigh, only a thin layer of fabric separating the rounded edges from my flesh. Other times I tucked it tight within a clenched fist. When we got back to the car, I dropped the rock in my bag. That was May. Next week will be August. The stone is still in my purse. I haven’t intentionally kept it close but I have intentionally refrained from putting it elsewhere.

This weekend I made a last minute trip to Atlanta to visit Leslie. And as I stood in her kitchen rifling through my purse, I saw the stone. I immediately paused my efforts, reached down to the dark depths of my bag and pulled it free. I quietly observed the details, the pebble reminding me of a time and a place and a feeling. When the slide-show of still shot memories stopped flipping through my head, I held up the rock for Leslie to see. I told her where it was from and then I gently placed it back in my bag.

“I think I need to put that stone on my bookshelf. Next to the other rocks I gathered over the years,” I said as I opened the refrigerator door to peruse my options.

“I have a bunch of rocks from Rocky Beach,” Leslie said with a reminiscent smile.

“Actually, I don’t think that stone is the only thing from Alaska I need to shelve,” I said, my words followed by a loud exhale.

The next morning, while the kids were spaced out to Wonder Pets and Leslie was upstairs getting ready, I slipped onto a tall ladder back chair in the kitchen and penned an email. Just after I clicked send, Leslie came down the stairs.

“Who’re you emailing?”

“GAP Adventures. To book a trip.”

“To?” Leslie asked as she pulled a mug from the cabinet and poured herself some coffee.

“The Galapagos. I’m going to see Blue Footed Boobies and turtles and seals and lots of other naturey things,” I excitedly announced.

“That’s great. When did you decide?”

“This morning,” I answered as I hopped off the chair.

“You were hoping he’d turn a corner - I know that’s why you’ve held off on making any plans.”

I just quietly nodded my head in agreement.

“I’m proud of you, Boogie,” Leslie said as she stepped forward and folded me into her arms.

“Thanks,” I blankly answered.

“And in case you don’t know this, you’ve been beyond patient and understanding and caring. But only he can undo it all. Ugh, I just want to pin him down and ask him what the fuck he’s doing walking away from you.”

“Get in line,” I said with a chuckle as I pulled free from her grasp and leaned my lower back against the cold granite counter. “This is so fucked up. All of it. But I’m tired. I can’t do this any more. I’m vulnerable while he shelters himself. I’m giving all of me and I get a mere fraction of him in return. All I know is that last night, I didn’t want to go away because it felt like moving on. This morning it felt like, well, moving forward. And moving forward feels more right than standing still,” I said, a warm comfort washing over me. “Olivia, come here, I want to tell you a secret,” I said in the direction of the television.

Pushing herself to an upright position via downward dog, Olivia tootled over to where I was standing. I squatted down as she got closer so that my face was even with hers.

“Whahht?” Olivia asked with a breathy and excited curiosity before leaning forward with her hands on her knees and pressing her little nose against my cheek. Close enough.

“I’m going to see Blue Footed Boobies!”

A Whole Lot of Something

What if I said I had nothing? That when I flip open my laptop and click the button, my head is empty. That when the screen blinks and the hard drive hums, there isn’t a single thought worthy of repeating. That any time I attempt to fill the whiteness of the monitor with words, I end up tapping the backspace button. I write about Olivia with her pink crocs on the wrong feet and how she only wears her purple butterfly sunglasses upside down. Delete. I write about Anders locking himself in the bathroom at the park and Leslie negotiating the door, screaming instructions about a button and a handle. Delete. I write about my plans to attend a blogirl conference and my random luck of landing a silly cool writer as my roommate. Delete. I write. I delete. With my hand curled into a fist and a sole finger extended, I erase one letter at a time. And I am back to nothing.

Or maybe it isn’t a moment of nothing but a stretch of too much something. Maybe there are thoughts in my head. Just more than I can manage. They collide and bounce and slam against each other as they fight for relevance. Maybe everything is just confused. Clutter that lacks meaning or has meaning but I’m too scattered to decipher it all. Maybe there are wants and needs and all I’m doing is trying to keep it even. Because if one thing stands out something else will be shadowed. And I have no fucking idea what should be front and center and what should be waiting in the wings.

I fill my time with distractions. Bess joined me for dinner at Tinto. John suggested a morning workout at Valley Green. Leslie took me shopping. Elyssa, Caralyn, Samantha, Hope, Carol, Theresa and Joe have left messages motivated by the obvious. And they all politely sidestepped the actual words. They know that being vague lets me keep it at a safe distance. Because I’m not alone in what I’m going through. They’ve been there. Everyone has been where I am. I know that. So I sampled the beef and lobster skewers with Bess. I pedaled the earthen terrain next to John. I slipped in and out of clothes in a communal fitting room with Leslie looking on. And I still have nothing.

Wait. I’m wrong. I do have something - I have a different pattern to my days. I now get up at six. Awake. Not groggy or begging for more time to remain horizontal. I turn off the alarm clock a good two hours before it is set to signal. I get up. I pee. I brush my teeth while staring at my reflection in the mirror. I pull on lycra, I lace my sneakers and I get on my treadmill. I sweat, I pant and I pay attention to the television. After I shower and dress, I go to work. I get in early. Earlier than I ever arrived before. And then I force down some yogurt. It clashes with the sour taste lingering in my mouth. But I eat it. Because I’ve already lost eight pounds and I know it’s for all of the wrong reasons. When I stood naked on the scale this morning, I cried. Not because I was happy to see the dial settle in at a lower number but because I got to that lower number for a reason I hate.

The one thing that hasn’t changed is my dislike of gray. That middle color that blends crisp white with haunting black. We still talk. We still send messages. I lock up my feelings. I try to fix it all. If I do this will it help? Will it help him? Will it hurt me? Do any of my predictions matter in the end? I look for meaning where there isn’t any. My jaw tenses, my heart races and my throat tightens. I still have nothing. Or not nothing. I have the opposite of nothing. Although it isn’t that I have everything. I had everything before. Now I have a pile of everything after it pours out the other side of a shredder. And I’m sprawled on the floor with some scotch tape and my patience and my urge to piece it back together. I have a corner repaired. And a middle part that I put together. I know he taped some back too. But the rest, everything else strewn across the floor is a tumble of pieces.

So I guess I’m wrong. I don’t have nothing. I have a whole lot of something. Just not sure what to do with it all.

According to the Bossman

I leaned into my dad’s office carefully balancing a pile of boxes, my wallet precariously perched on top. My car key was clutched in one hand and my cell phone was in the other.

“I need to run to the post office,” I said, refraining from announcing the real reason for my sudden departure. I needed to leave simply to avoid crying at my desk. Again.

My dad looked up from what he was doing and glanced at the clock sitting on his bookshelf. I followed his eyes. To him it was numbers on a dial. To me it was a reminder of what fell apart a few days earlier. The hands perfectly marked the time my now ex had been scheduled to touch down in Philadelphia. I was supposed to be standing on the other side of security waiting for him to arrive. We were supposed to be heading north up the highway to fetch lunch at Rouge. Or maybe we were supposed to be heading south down I95 to roam amongst the flowers at Longwood Gardens. Either way, I wasn't supposed to be standing in front of my dad with a pile of boxes.

“Okay. Wait, PJ, come in here for a second,” my dad instructed.

I was already struggling to keep my composure. According to my emotional stopwatch, I had exactly twenty-three seconds before the tears started streaming. I reluctantly stepped into his office, bit down on my lip and hoped for the best.

“Can you pick me up some lunch? Maybe a salad from Wholefoods? Ooh, and grab me a box of those pecan shortbread cookies. And some cut up watermelon. Wait, no. Forget the watermelon, if you want Rita’s, my treat!” he said with a guilty grin.

I slowly placed the boxes on the empty chair next to his desk. Then I kicked the door closed and dropped to the floor. Those twenty-three seconds had officially expired and no matter how hard I tried to be distracted by my dad’s culinary quest for sustenance, I couldn’t keep it in any longer.

“I’m sorry,” I sputtered out between gasps for air, my knees pulled tight against my chest.

I looked up and through my teary eyes I could see my dad watching me, his face twisted with pain. I thought he might cry too.

“I want to fix this,” he said as he composed himself. “It hurts to see you in so much pain.”

“Time. It’ll take time,” I said, the rational words lacking meaning or relevance as I curled more into myself.

“I’d come over there an hug you but it’d take me at least half an hour to get from here to there.”

I laughed. The chuckle allowing a warm calmness to replace the deep sadness tugging at my heart. I released my arms from around my knees, my legs dropping lazily outward. The tears stopped falling from my salty eyes. My breathing settled back to a normal pace. After a long exhale, I pulled myself to my feet and ran my palms down over my crinkled skirt. As if this simple gesture might straighten everything out.

“Here,” my dad said as he pushed a twenty dollar bill and a tissue across his desk.

I tucked the money in my pocket and neatly folded the tissue so I could dab a crisp edge against the corner of my eye. Before opening the office door, before stepping back out into the world, I turned back to my dad.

“Good thing you’re my father. Can you imagine if I had collapsed in a sobbing heap in front of any old boss?”

“Yeah, well, any old boss could never love you as much as I do.”

“Buttering me up for some Rita’s, eh?”

“Cherry, please,” he said with a warm smile. “And PJ?”

“What?” I asked, the word riding the wave of a playful sigh.

“You’re a great kid. Don’t ever forget it.”