The Hunchback of Neiman Marcus (16 page)

I will miss her more

than fireflies miss summer,

more than the drum

misses the drummer,

more than the wave

misses the shore,

more than the songs

miss the troubadour.

She's been my hip hip

and
my hooray.

I will miss her

more than a poem can say.

For seventeen years

there have been three of us—

enough to fill a whole row.

Now,

there's an empty seat

between my husband and me.

A Grand Canyon

between my husband

and me.

For the rest of our lives

it'll just be

the two of us.

Just we two.

Just

us.

Michael and I

trudge up the front walk,

lugging our suitcases

and our dread behind us.

The darkened windows of our house

watch us with gloomy eyes.

Even the roses

look glum.

I turn the key in the lock

and shove open the door,

bracing

for the ringing silence.

But instead—

I hear Alice's voice

wafting in from the speaker

on our answering machine.

“…he was so stupefyingly boring that I fell

asleep in my soup and nearly drowned!

And then he wanted to have sex with me,

can you
imagine?

…Anyhow, I want to hear all about

what it's like in that empty nest of yours.

But you guys are probably

doing it on the kitchen table right now,

so I'll let you go…

Call me when you're done!”

Michael and I

would be laughing right now

if we weren't

so unspeakably bleak.

Root rot

got her.

But I can't bring myself

to ask Michael to cut her down.

She stands

outside my office window,

the breeze sighing

in her skeletal branches,

her feathery leaves

long gone.

She's dead, but her brittle arms

still yearn toward the sun,

latticeworking the yard

with a sad spindly shade.

Michael's been spending hours

sitting out in the yard, sketching her.

How can I ask him to chop her down

and cram her bones into plastic bags?

How can I ask him

to grind her stump?

How can I ask him

to remove every trace

of she who once held

my daughter in her lap?

I walk down the hall

and pass by her room,

then take a step back

and open the door.

Omigod!

What's happened here?

Where's all the stuff

that should be on the floor?

Gone the scattered books and papers.

Gone the heaps of dirty clothes.

Gone the mounds of soggy towels—

who would have thought I'd ever miss those?

All those years

I spent complaining,

nagging her

to clean it all…

Why do I suddenly

yearn for the chaos

that used to drive me

up the wall?

I reach for a bag of Ruffles.

Then stop myself.

Now that Samantha's gone,

who will eat them?

I trudge from aisle to aisle

not
putting things into my cart—

no Hershey's Syrup, no extra-crunchy Skippy,

no Honey Bunches of Oats.

I round a corner

and nearly collide with Jane.

She's taking a break from shopping

to tickle Madison,

whose plump feet

dangle like happy bells

from the seat at the front

of her overstuffed cart.

“Oh!” I say. “Hello, you two.”

“Hi, Howwy!” Madison cries, in that adorable

I-can't-pronounce-my-Ls way of hers.

Jane greets me with a radiant smile.

I glance down at her belly

and suddenly realize she's pregnant.

Very
pregnant.

How could I not have noticed this before…?

I look down into my own cart—

my crater, my chasm.

Nothing in it

but one lonely onion,

the only onion

that was ever able

to make me cry

before
I cut into it.

I spent half the morning

reading every word

of Samantha's college newspaper online,

and the other half bouncing around

her school's website, reading

the “Advice for Freshman Parents” pages,

and compulsively Googling

the weather back east in a bizarre attempt

to feel connected to my child.

Now it's three o'clock in the afternoon

and I'm still wearing

my ratty old nightgown.

I haven't brushed my teeth or showered

or combed what's left of my hair

or eaten my breakfast or my lunch.

Or written

one single

word.

I'm as hollow as an empty womb,

as flattened as a mammogrammed breast,

as dark as a house that's blown every fuse.

I've got a mean case

of the post-daughter-um

depart-um blues.

I suck in a breath.

Could it be Samantha?

My fingers itch to answer it.

But what if it's Roxie calling

to ask me to give her back

my advance money?

Or maybe it's my mother calling

to spew her roid rage at me

like pepper spray…

Or Dr. Hack calling

to chuckle in my ear

and tell me more bad news…

So I let Michael answer it.

And when he tells me it's Samantha,

I dash down the hall to pick up the extension.

Then both of us listen breathlessly as she

tells us about the midnight walk by the river

that she took with her new friends.

She tells us

they sat together on the bridge

and couldn't believe how beautiful it was—

how the full moon

winked at them

like the moon in an old cartoon.

She tells us

they all felt so jolly

that they started singing Christmas songs…

Christmas songs in September…

in the moonlight…

by the river…

Something like relief floods through me—

something like relief mixed with joy

mixed with heartache.

Michael leaves the room,

and a few minutes later

he strolls back in

whistling “We Wish You a Merry Christmas,”

holding a leafy little branch

over his head.

“What's that?” I ask.

“Mistletoe…?” he says.

I cross the room

and kiss him on the cheek.

Then I rest my forehead against his

and heave a sigh.

Wouldn't you just know it?

Now that we have the house all to ourselves,

I'm too miserable

to take advantage of it.

I can't seem to step out my front door

without running smack into

another one of them,

as though all of us

are cruising around

in bereaved bumper cars.

Wendy's mother,

wandering through the mall,

looking oddly lost.

Laura's mother,

lurking in the stacks

at the library,

sneaking stricken glances

at the mothers

reading to their toddlers.

Brandy,

sitting alone at Ben & Jerry's,

staring down into her untouched banana split.

Each time I encounter another one of these

kindred crumpled spirits,

I force a smile and stop to chat,

thinking to myself,

“If her
eyes don't tear up,

then
mine
won't.”

But,

of course,

hers
do
tear up.

And we fall into each others' arms,

like a couple of old rag dolls

who've long since lost their stuffing.

So I'm getting ready for our “date.”

But even though I wash it,

twice,

with shampoo that's especially formulated

with essential fatty acids

derived from natural botanic oils

to replace valuable lipids

and restore the emollients necessary

for the hair to become thicker

and more supple

with a healthy lustrous shine,

and even though I remove

the excess moisture from my hair

and evenly distribute a small amount

of instant reconstructor and detangler

to enhance strength and manageability,

and even though

I work it through to the ends,

leaving it on for three minutes

and then rinse thoroughly before adding

the revolutionary polymerized

electrolytic moisture potion

that actually repairs split ends

while providing flexible styling control

by infusing the roots with twenty-three

essential provitamins,

and even though I massage it in

to make my hair feel instantly fuller,

with added shaping power,

and then rinse again

with lukewarm water,

towel dry and apply the desired amount

of styling gel to the palm of my hand,

and then comb it through

and blow it dry,

it still looks pathetic.

Dining together

at a table for two.

Just me.

Just you.

All around us,

young husbands and wives

appear to be having

the time of their lives.

But you've
heard
all my stories.

And I've heard all yours.

So we sit here in silence—

a couple of bores.

Wendy's mom calls to tell me

that Laura's parents are getting a divorce.

Apparently, neither one of them

caught the other one cheating,

but the day after Laura left for college

they realized that the only thing

they'd had in common

all these years

was

Laura.

I hang up the phone,

and notice

that I'm finding it strangely hard

to breathe.

How does a wife

reach the point

when she knows

that she wants a divorce?

Does she simply drift

from being happily married

to being a little

less happily married

to waking up one day

feeling as if her marriage

is a pillow pressing down

over her face?

God. I don't know

what's the matter with me.

I feel so dizzy

all of a sudden.

But,

on the way there,

I trip over Michael's slippers—

the ones I'm
always
tripping over

because he forgets to put them in the closet

where they belong.

My big toe crashes into the nightstand.

And—Jesus!

I'm bleeding!

I limp

to the bathroom

to search for the Neosporin.

And I'm
still
searching for it

a few minutes later,

when Michael walks in, whistling.

“Hey,” he says, “you're bleeding!”

“Brilliant observation,” I grumble.

“What's
your
problem?” he asks.

“You're
my problem,” I growl.

“Why don't you
ever
put anything back

where it goes after you use it?”

“I do,” he says, crossing his arms over his chest.

I go back to rifling through the cabinet,

and manage to locate a box of Band-Aids.

But,

naturally,

it's empty.

I gnash my teeth.

“When you use the last Band-Aid,” I hiss,

“you're supposed to throw out the box.”

“I do,” he says again, clearing his throat.

“No. You don't,” I snap. “Which is why

I didn't know we'd run out of them.”

“Maybe
you
used the last Band-Aid,” he says.

“I did not use the last Band-Aid!” I shout.

“Well, neither did I!” he shouts back.

Michael stomps out of the bathroom,

muttering under his breath.

I slam the door shut behind him.

Then I wash off my toe,

wrap a tissue around it,

crawl into bed,

and pull

the covers up

over my head.