Two Kisses for Maddy: A Memoir of Loss & Love (20 page)

When we got home from New York a few days later, it was after midnight and the street was just as quiet as when we had left. The car was gone. I looked at the inscriptions on my inner wrists—it was as if Liz had scribbled on me just that morning with a Sharpie. I had decided to get the numbers that represented the two most important dates of my life inscribed on my skin a few months earlier: 24 on the left, 25 on the right. I hadn’t even pondered it for very long; it was a random idea that felt so right that I headed out to get them almost immediately. When I walked outside and saw Liz’s car parked behind mine that day, the idea crystallized in my mind, and I realized that the numbers had to be in Liz’s handwriting.

I found a sheet of paper in the drawer of her bedside table with equations she had scribbled, trying to calculate how long she could make her maternity leave last. I scanned the page and found crisp examples of a 2, a 4, and a 5, with her distinctive and elegantly looping cursive. They were the two most significant dates in my life, and they were the very first symbols that ever meant enough for me to have etched onto my body.

Even though I was beginning to let go of these tangible objects, I knew that I would never lose my connection to Liz. Sometimes I had to let logic overrule emotion—it didn’t make any sense to hang on to a rusty razor or a shirt she had given me that no longer fit. But I had memories, and I had Madeline. And thanks to these tattoos, I had a permanent reminder of my wife.

Chapter 23

we were excited to

show off the small

bump she had

and to visit

with friends and family.

we talked about

how fun it

would be to go

back to the mn

for future holidays

with our kid.

here i was,

one year later

with that kid we

were so fucking

excited to show off,

but it was

two of us rather

than three

getting on the plane.

T
ime was passing so much more quickly than I had anticipated. I found myself constantly flashing back to what Liz and I had been doing exactly a year earlier—it was impossible not to. As much as I loved thinking about the trips we’d taken and the fun we’d had together during our time together, it hurt so much more to remember what it had been like just the year before: our
last
vacation, birthday, whatever, together, and without our knowing. It was shitty to think about how happy and full of hope we had been. Now the holiday season approached, and I knew I was about to enter a minefield of memories.

Minnesota during the holidays had always been a pain in the ass. Liz and I had to run from my dad’s house to my mom’s house to her parents’ house—it was exhausting. But this year, our first year without Liz, our holidays would become a true family affair. We were all going to gather together: my dad and his wife, and my mom and my stepdad—they would all come over to Tom and Candee’s to mix with their huge families. It made my life a hell of a lot easier because I wouldn’t have to run around with an eight-month old. Everyone excited to see—and spoil—Madeline would be in one place. Everyone but Liz.

In the present, I kept thinking that everything had been perfect when we were eighteen, but I hadn’t known it. Sure, there had been big challenges facing us, but they were like a Brat Pack movie: where to go to college, what to wear to prom, and how to deal with the idiots at Liz’s preppy high school who didn’t like the kid with the beat-up truck coming by to pick up their princess and drive her to the other side of the tracks every day. Really, we usually just went back to Liz’s.

After school we would tumble out of my truck and into the kitchen, grabbing some food and drinks to take into the living room, just doing mundane shit. I had a memory of Liz asking me to help her hang up the giant photo collage we had put together for her graduation party in her bedroom. After pounding a few nails into the drywall, the board was up and we stood back to admire it. It was like a testament to her life so far, with pictures of her with her friends and photos of us, all pinned to a corkboard. There was a photo of two of her high school friends making out on the trampoline in someone’s backyard, and another of Josh and me out at his cousin’s farm, standing near the ostrich pen. And my favorite, sweet little Liz and her huge smile, holding a rifle and a winner’s certificate—turns out the prissy girl from the suburbs was one hell of a shot.

Those times seemed so far away now. Since we had been teenagers hanging out poolside in her parents’ backyard, I had experienced so much of the world. When I was growing up, the people around me were all from Minnesota and tended to stay in Minnesota. Liz encouraged me to cast my glance across the country—across the oceans. She encouraged me to make my world larger, and she did so with me. I wondered now what it would be like to go back to our hometown for a holiday with our families, but without her.

When we arrived at the Goodmans’ house, I felt hyperaware that Liz was dead. There had been so many of these holiday events during our twelve years together, and she was by my side during every single one of them. I felt like I was going to sink without her.

I wanted her memory to be present, even if she couldn’t be. Not in any sort of creepy way—we didn’t set aside a plate of food or a spot at the table for her—but I made sure to talk about her and to let our families know that I wanted them to feel comfortable talking about her. Sure, it was for my own sanity, but it was also for Maddy’s sake, and it was something I did all the time. When we would pass by Blush Salon, and I would tell my baby that it had been her mom’s favorite. I would dress her in something blue and tell her that her mom had looked beautiful in that color. I would point at the photos hanging on the wall, and tell Madeline stories about what Liz was doing in each scene. I didn’t think my daughter really had any comprehension at this point, but soon she would. And I wanted her earliest memories to include stories of her mom; I wanted her to feel close to Liz even though they’d never really met.

Tom grabbed our luggage from the car and ushered us into the house. “We set Liz’s old room up for you and Maddy,” he said. Liz and I always stayed in there on our visits.

We walked in to set our stuff down, and my heart sank into my shoes. Everything was different. The walls were still light brown, but all of the furniture—save a foldout couch—had been removed to make space for a crib. The collage that Liz and I had hung up was gone. The closet door was open, displaying not Liz’s old clothes but new clothes for our baby. The bookshelves that once held the dried corsages and awkward photos from our prom were now filled with diapers, wipes, and toys.

Reeling, I handed Maddy to Tom and headed for Candee, who was in the kitchen.

“The room,” I said to her. I was crying by now, and I expected her to do what she always did: to be the rock, to tell me it was going to be okay, to hold me. Instead, her face crumpled, too, and she started to sob. I had seen Candee cry before, but in their house, I had thought of Tom as the softy. He could always be counted on to tear up when it came to his girls, especially when he was happy or proud of them. Until I had my own daughter, I never understood it. But Candee—she was the strong one. She was the one who held everybody else up, who kept her back straight even when she wanted to fall apart. The only time I had really seen her lose it was in the moment after Liz died and during her funerals.

In Banff, her silence and composure had confused me. I hadn’t realized that these nonactions were the lid on the pressure cooker, a thin piece of steel holding a deluge of emotion in place. Now, her anguish pierced the surface, and I caught just a glimpse of the mother whose child had died.

Candee and I stood there and held each other for a long time, grieving openly—finally. Grieving together. And this time, I was the one who said, “It’s going to be okay.”

That experience moved me like few others had. Instead of feeling like I was the only one who missed Liz, I was now certain that I was mourning with somebody, somebody who truly felt her absence as keenly as I did. I knew that everyone was hurting, but sometimes I needed to watch somebody else completely break down to really feel it. As fucked up as it may sound, seeing Candee like this gave me a lot of hope. I could now see a future that had us—all of us—sharing our stories and emotions with Madeline, keeping Liz’s memory alive. And it helped me believe that I’d be able to make it through this holiday without completely losing my shit.

Thursday afternoon, the entire extended family—close to one hundred people—gathered to share a twenty-pound, deep-fried turkey, Auntie Penny’s hash brown potatoes, Nana’s gravy, Auntie Pam’s sweet potatoes with marshmallows and brown sugar on top, and a million other dishes. My mom helped me situate Madeline in her high chair, and my dad brought over a small plate of food. She ate some of Auntie Mary’s vegetable medley and drank a cup of milk. Always thinking about the awesome photo op, I grabbed a turkey leg from the platter, handed it to her, and started snapping pictures. The rest of the family made their way into the kitchen, and we all laughed together as Madeline hit herself in the face a couple of times trying to get the thing into her mouth. I looked over at Candee and gave her a wink. Just yesterday we had stood in this same spot, crying about what was missing from our lives. And today, well, today we were thankful for what we had.

The weekend following the holiday, I had plans to meet up with Rachel so that we could make another donation from the money that had been raised for Madeline and me during the 5K. I had already sent a two-thousand-dollar check to Jackie and given one thousand in cash to the receptionist at Dr. Nelson’s office, whose boyfriend died when she was a few months pregnant. Giving the money away provided me with an enormous sense of pride and convinced me that we could do so much more to help people in situations similar to mine—worse than mine. Liz would have been proud and happy to know what was being done that weekend in her memory, but honestly, she would have been in disbelief that I was the one behind it. She’d be more than a little surprised that I was not only doing a bang-up job of taking care of our kid, but that I was taking time to help others as well.

I picked Rachel up on Saturday morning, and we drove into the Minnesota countryside with Maddy asleep in the back. We were having a rare moment of quiet, though I was sure that as soon as she opened her eyes, we would once again be treated to a steady stream of baby babble. I was actually excited. We were on our way to see Bob, whose mother had approached me at the 5K a few months earlier. We wanted to fulfill the promise I had made to her: that I would help however I could.

Driving toward his home in the small town of Albertville, Minnesota, I had no idea how he would react to our visit or to the fact that we were bringing him a check for one thousand dollars, no strings attached. I knew he could use the money, but still, I didn’t know whether he would be okay with a pair of strangers stopping by his house. It might be completely fucking awkward for all of us, but I felt confident that the good we were trying to do would be recognized and welcomed.

When we arrived, Bob’s mother-in-law answered the door; he was standing behind her. As soon as Rachel and I introduced ourselves, this woman’s anger became obvious—not just about her daughter’s death, but about everything. She went on and on about the hospital and the doctors who “killed” her daughter, saying there was “nothing good in the world” now that her daughter was dead. I wanted to point out that she had a grandson who was proof that there was some good in the world, but I’m not one to lecture anyone on how they should feel pain. Their situation was different than mine, and since I didn’t have all the details, I just nodded in agreement and attempted to talk to Bob. Besides, I had definitely learned since Liz died that everyone grieves differently.

When I got Bob away from her, his entire demeanor changed. He went from quiet and withdrawn to talking vivaciously about the woman he loved who had died not long after giving birth to their child. Our kids played in his living room, and he walked me around his house, showing me photos of his wife, telling me bittersweet stories of their time together, and talking lovingly about his son. He was so much different than I had pictured him after meeting his mother in September. I assumed he’d be sullen and angry, but despite his circumstances he actually seemed pretty happy. And he was unabashedly grateful for the money that we brought to him. He thanked us, and as he walked us out he offered to help us in any way that he could in getting the foundation off the ground.

I felt pretty fucking good as we drove away from Bob’s house. “This is your mother’s legacy,” I would be able to tell Maddy later. “This is how we will honor her.”

Madeline was asleep when we arrived at the house. After an emotional Thanksgiving trip home and now a late-night arrival, I was thrilled to finally be back in Los Angeles. I gently placed her on the floor next to the couch and did my usual inspection. I went from room to room, checking out the cleaning our friend Elizabeth had done while were away. I walked into Madeline’s room and saw three huge plastic bags filled with clothes that no longer fit her. More donations, I thought. I couldn’t believe how big my kid was getting. There was a time when I thought she’d never outgrow her clothes—never grow
into
them—but here I was, reminded of the fact that life goes on, whether or not we expect it to.

I stood in her doorway, staring down the hallway at the photos of my life with Liz that lined the wall to my right. I looked to my left. This wall was completely empty; I was waiting to paint it before I started covering it with memories, too. The door to my bedroom was closed, just as it had been for the past five and a half months. I’d managed to almost completely avoid stepping foot inside since returning from our trip to Minnesota in June. I looked down at the multicolored paper cranes that had been hanging from a string on the doorknob since the day of Liz’s funeral, and I decided that tonight was the night. It was time to move from the couch; it was time to go back to my bed.

Holding my breath and closing my eyes, I opened the door to the bedroom. I breathed the room in for the first time in months, smelling the mixture of Liz’s perfumes. The individual scents of Beautiful by Estée Lauder, Glamorous by Ralph Lauren, and that Marc Jacobs perfume without the name. I opened my eyes, and the room was just as I’d left it five months ago. Her closet door was cracked open, but I avoided looking inside, unwilling to lay my eyes on her piles of dirty laundry or the bags of clothes back from the dry cleaners waiting for her to jump into them.