“I have to work,” I say, even though everyone knows that I walked away from my show.
“Yeah,” Marah says. “Cuz, like, having you come would make it fun, so natch you’re
not coming.”
I untangle myself from the boys and go to Marah, who is standing by herself, doing
something on her phone. “Cut your old man some slack. You’re too young to know about
true love, but they found it, and now she’s gone.”
“And, like,
sand
is going to help?”
“Marah—”
“Can I stay with you?”
I want it so badly I feel sick, and although I am notoriously self-centered—in fights,
Kate often called me narcissistic—I know a bone-crushing fall when I see it. This
is not about me. And Johnny is in no mood for this. I can see it. “No, Marah. Not
this time. You need to be with your family.”
“I thought you were part of the family.”
Have fun
is all I can manage.
“Whatever.”
As I watch them walk away, I feel scaldingly, achingly alone. None of them looks back
at me.
Margie moves closer and touches my face. Her soft, lined palm presses against my cheek.
I smell the citrusy hand lotion she loves; that and the barest hint of menthol cigarettes.
“They need this,” she says quietly. I hear the raspy sound of her voice and know how
tired she is—to her bones. “Are you okay?”
Her daughter is dead and she is worried about me. I close my eyes, wishing I could
be stronger.
Then I hear her crying; it is a sound as soft as a feather falling, almost lost in
the airport noise. She has been strong for so long, strong for her daughter and everyone.
I know there are no words, so I offer none. I just pull her into my arms and hold
her close. Finally, she lets go and steps back.
“You want to come home with us?”
I don’t want to be alone, but I can’t go to the house on Firefly Lane. Not yet. “I
can’t,” I say, and I see that she understands.
After that, we go our separate ways.
* * *
At home, I pace the rooms of my high-rise condominium. It has never been a home, this
place. No one has ever lived here except me, and I have really only resided here.
There are few personal mementos or knickknacks. My designer pretty much chose everything
and apparently she liked ivory. Everything is some shade of off-white: marble floors,
nubby winter-white furniture, and stone and glass tables.
It is beautiful in its way, and looks like the home of a woman who has it all. But
here I am, forty-six, and alone.
Work.
My career has been my choice, over and over. As far back as I can remember, I’ve had
dreams with a capital
D
. It began in the house on Firefly Lane, with Kate, when we were fourteen years old.
I remember the day as if it were yesterday; it is a story I’ve told in a dozen interviews
over the years. How Katie and I were in her house, and Margie and Bud were watching
the news and Margie turned to me and said, “Jean Enerson is changing the world. She’s
one of the first women to anchor the nightly news.”
And I said, “I’m going to be a reporter.”
It had been as natural as breathing, saying that. I wanted to become a woman the whole
world admired. I did it by paring away every single dream except one: I needed success
like a fish needed water. Without it, who would I be? Just a girl with no family who
was easy to leave behind and put aside.
It is what I have in life—fame and money and success.
At that, I know. It is time for me to go back to work.
That’s
how I will get through this grief. I will do what I’ve always done. I’ll look strong
and pretend. I’ll let the adoration of strangers soothe me.
I go into my walk-in closet and exchange the brightly colored jersey dress for a pair
of black pants and a blouse. This is when I realize I have gained weight. The pants
are so tight I can’t get them zipped.
I frown. How is it that I didn’t notice gaining weight in the last few months? I grab
a knit skirt and put it on instead, noticing the bulge of my belly and the widening
of my hips.
Great
. Something else to worry about: weight gain in a high-def world. I grab my purse
and head out, ignoring the pile of mail the building manager has placed on my kitchen
counter.
It is only a handful of blocks to my studio, and usually I have a driver pick me up,
but today, in honor of the widening of my ass, I decide to walk. It is a gorgeous
fall day in Seattle, one of those sunshine masterpieces that turn this city into one
of the prettiest in the country. The tourists have gone home and so the sidewalks
are quiet, populated by locals who rush to and fro without making eye contact.
I come to the large, warehouse-type building that houses my production company. Firefly,
Inc. The space is absurdly expensive, located as it is in Pioneer Square, less than
a block from the blue shores of Elliott Bay, but what do I care about cost? The show
I produce makes millions.
I unlock the door and go inside. The halls are dark and empty, a stark reminder that
I walked away and never looked back. Shadows collect in corners and hide in hallways.
As I walk toward the studio, I feel my heartbeat speed up. Sweat breaks out along
my forehead, itches. My palms turn damp.
And then I am there, standing at the red curtain that separates backstage from my
world. I push the curtain aside.
The last time I was on this stage, I’d told my audience about Katie, how she’d been
diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer, and I’d talked about the warning signs,
and then I signed off. Now I would have to talk about what had happened, explain how
it felt to sit by my best friend’s bed and hold her hand and tell her it would be
okay long past the time when that was true. Or how it felt to gather up her pills
and pour out the last of the water in the pitcher by her empty bed.
I grab the stanchion beside me. It feels cold and unforgiving in my grip, but it keeps
me standing.
I can’t do it. Not yet. I can’t talk about Katie, and if I can’t talk about her, I
can’t stride back into my old life, onto my stage, and be the Tully Hart of daytime
TV.
For the first time in forever, I don’t know who I am. I need a little time to myself,
so that I can find my balance again.
* * *
When I step back out onto the street, it is raining. The weather in Seattle is like
that: quicksilver. I clutch my handbag and lumber up the slick sidewalk, surprised
to find that I am out of breath when I get to my building.
There, I come to a stop.
What now?
I go up to my penthouse and I walk idly into the kitchen, where mail is piled in a
huge number of stacks. It’s funny, in all my months away, I never really thought about
the nuts and bolts of my other life. I didn’t check messages or open my bills or even
think much about any of it. I counted on the machinery of my life—agents, managers,
accountants, stockbrokers—to keep me on track.
I know I need to dive back in, to take charge again and reclaim my life, but honestly,
the thought of going through all this mail is daunting. Instead, I call my business
manager, Frank. I will hand off the responsibility to him. It’s what I pay him for:
to pay my bills and invest my money and make my life easier. I need that now.
The number rings repeatedly and then goes to voice mail. I don’t bother to leave a
message. Is it Saturday?
Maybe a nap will help. Mrs. Mularkey used to say that a good night’s sleep could change
everything, and I need to be changed. So I go into my room, pull the curtains shut,
and crawl into bed. For the next five days, I do almost nothing except eat too much
and sleep poorly. Each morning when I wake up, I think this is it, this is the day
I will be able to climb out of this grief and be me again, and each night I drink
until I can’t remember the sound of my best friend’s voice.
And then it comes to me, on the sixth day after Kate’s funeral. An idea so grand and
perfect that I can’t believe I haven’t considered it before.
I need closure. That’s how I will put all this dark sadness away and go on, that’s
how I will heal. I need to look this grief in the heart and say goodbye. I need to
help Johnny and the kids, too.
Suddenly, I know how to do it.
* * *
It is nightfall when I pull up into the Ryans’ driveway and park. Stars litter the
charcoal and purple sky, a faint autumn-scented breeze ruffles the green skirts of
the cedar trees that line the property. I struggle to lift the flattened cardboard
moving boxes out of my small, sleek Mercedes and carry them across the wild front
yard, which is strewn with kids’ toys and overrun with weeds. In the past year, yard
work and maintenance have hardly been on anyone’s list.
Inside, the house is dark and quieter than I can ever remember it being.
I come to a stop and think,
I can’t do it
. What have I been thinking?
Closure
.
And there is more, something else. I remember our last night together, Katie’s and
mine. She had made up her mind; we all knew it. The decision had weighed us down,
so that we moved more slowly, talked in whispers. We had one last hour alone, just
the two of us. I’d wanted to climb into bed with her, to hold her matchstick body
close, but even with her pain cocktail, the time for that had passed. Every breath
hurt her, and by extension, me, too.
Take care of them,
she’d whispered, clutching my hand in hers.
I’ve done everything for them
. At this she laughed; it was a crinkling, breathy release of air.
They won’t know how to start without me. Help them.
And I had said,
Who will help me?
The shame of that washes over me, tightens my stomach.
I’ll always be with you,
she’d lied, and that had been the end of it. She’d asked for Johnny and the kids
then.
And I’d known.
I tighten my hold on the boxes and trudge up the stairs, ignoring the way the cardboard
edges bang into the worn, scuffed risers. In Kate and Johnny’s bedroom, I pause, feeling
reluctant suddenly to intrude.
Help them
.
What had Johnny said to me the last time we spoke?
Every time I look at the clothes in her closet …
I swallow hard and go into their walk-in closet, turning on the light. Johnny’s clothes
are on the right side, neatly organized. Kate’s are on the left.
At the sight of her things, I almost lose my nerve; my knees buckle. Unsteady on my
feet, I unfold one of the boxes and tape the ends and set it beside me. I grab an
armful of hangered clothes and sit down on the cold hardwood floor.
Sweaters. Cardigans and turtlenecks and V-necks. I fold each one carefully, reverently,
breathing in the last, lingering scent of her—lavender and citrus.
I do okay until I come to a worn, stretched-out-of-shape gray UW sweatshirt, soft
from years of washing.
A memory washes over me: We are in Kate’s bedroom, packing to go off to college together.
A couple of eighteen-year-old girls who have imagined this moment for years, talked
about it all summer, polished our dream until it is shiny. We are going to join the
same sorority and become famous journalists.
They’ll want you,
Kate had said quietly. I’d known she was feeling afraid, the unpopular girl her classmates
had called Kootie all those years ago.
You know I won’t join a sorority unless we’re in it together, right?
That was what Kate had never understood, or at least hadn’t believed: of the two of
us, I needed her more than she needed me.
I fold up the sweatshirt and set it aside. I will take it home with me.
For the rest of that night, I sit in my best friend’s closet, remembering our friendship
and boxing up her life. At first I try to be strong, and the trying gives me a terrible
headache.
Her clothes are like a scrapbook of our lives.
At last, I come to a jacket that hasn’t been in style since the late eighties. I bought
it for her on her birthday, with the first big paycheck I ever earned. There are honest-to-God
sparkles on the shoulder pads.
You can’t afford this,
she’d said when she pulled the purple double-breasted suit from the box.
I’m on my way
.
She’d laughed.
Yeah. You. I’m knocked up and getting fat.
You’ll come to New York to see me after the baby is born and you’ll need something
totally rad to wear …
I get to my feet. Holding the jacket to my chest, I go downstairs and pour myself
another glass of wine. Madonna’s voice comes at me through the living room speakers.
As I stop to listen, it occurs to me that I’ve left my lunch dishes on the counter
and the takeout boxes from my dinner should really go in the garbage, but how can
I think of that when the music is in me again, taking me back?
Vogue.
We’d danced to the music in suits just like this one. I go to the CD player and crank
the volume so I can hear it upstairs. For just a moment, I close my eyes and dance,
holding her jacket, and I imagine her here, hip-bumping me and laughing. Then I go
back to work.
* * *
I wake up on the floor of her closet, wearing a pair of her black sweatpants and the
old UW sweatshirt. The wineglass beside me has fallen on its side and broken into
pieces. The bottle is empty. No wonder I feel terrible.
I struggle to sit up, pushing the hair out of my eyes. It is my second night here,
and I am almost done packing Kate’s things away. Her side of the closet is completely
empty and there are six boxes stacked beneath the silver rod.
On the floor next to my broken wineglass is Kate’s journal, the one she wrote in the
last months of her life.
Marah will come looking for me one day,
Kate had said, pressing the journal into my hands.
Be with her when she reads it
.
And my boys … show them these words when they can’t remember me.