She nods again. “I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t have, but I didn’t want to make her look bad.” Mel’s lip trembles, but there’s something defiant in her expression. “I’m sorry, Anna.” She looks out at me, tearful. “I didn’t want to think that you could do it. But I have to tell the truth.”
“She’s lying!” I can’t stop myself. I yell out, rising to my feet. “Can’t you see it? She’s lying!” I feel hands grabbing me—Gates, or Lee, I don’t know—but I struggle against them. “Why are you doing this to me?” I scream at Mel as they drag me from the room. “Why won’t you tell them the truth?!”
THE FUNERAL
My mom dies on a Wednesday, the week before Christmas.
Any other year, there would be parties and holiday dinners, cards and twinkling lights, and holly wreaths hanging from the mantel. We would bake sugar cookies from a box mix and decorate the tree, playing carols and old Frank Sinatra songs. But instead, I sit at her bedside, watching her die.
It’s not like the movies. She doesn’t pull me close and whisper inspirational words—about how I’m brave and strong, and she’ll always be with me—before gently closing her eyes and drifting away. No, my mother dies slowly. Angry. She falls away, then claws her way back with a gasp and a groan, clinging to the edge of the world with brittle, cracked nails and wheezing breaths. She spits and babbles, furious that this isn’t the peaceful slide into oblivion she was promised. It was her decision all along, but still, her body fights death—betraying her all over again as she begs for an end, and it keeps holding on.
It takes the whole day for my mother to die. I sit there, clutching her cold hand, watching every minute of it.
“Anna?” The voice comes in the dark, hesitant. I look up numbly to find Elise, silhouetted in the light from the hallway. “Anna, baby, it’s time to get ready.”
I don’t reply. I’m on the floor at the foot of my bed, my legs folded beneath me; a half-empty bottle of vodka at my side. I don’t remember how I got here, or how long I’ve been huddled under my comforter. It’s days since Mom finally sucked in her last desperate breath and ceased to exist; they’ve slipped past in a dark blur of sympathy and hushed voices, and strangers traipsing in and out of the house; my dad’s blank stare, and the welcoming cocoon of my bedroom and the black burn of alcohol in my veins.
“I’ll pick you out something to wear.” Elise pries the bottle from my limp hand, then crosses the room to open my drapes. I flinch from the light that floods in from outside: gray clouds and snowy winter skies. “Did you eat something?” She crouches beside me. “Anna? Can you remember when you last had something to eat?”
I stare at her blankly.
“Okay, I’ll go fix you something.” Elise strokes my hair softly. “People have been bringing casseroles, there’s all kinds of stuff. You get in the shower.” She takes me by the shoulders and pulls me slowly to my feet.
I sag against her, my head on her shoulder. I’m empty, too numb to even try. She holds me up. “Come on, Anna. You have to.”
I shake my head. “I can’t.”
“I know, but it’s just today; you just have to get through today.”
I stay there, clinging on to her like she’s the only thing keeping me from going under. And maybe she is. Our fight before break is nothing now—it was swept aside the minute I found out about Mom’s plan to end treatment. I called Elise right away, hyperventilating through my tears, and she was on my doorstep within the hour. We drove all night, just circling the city, the neon lights blurring through my tears as I huddled there in the passenger’s seat beside her and tried to understand. But I can’t—not then, and not now either.
Finally, Elise pulls away. She cradles my face. “I know you don’t want to do this, but I’m here, okay? I’ll be right by you, the whole time. I’m not going anywhere.”
I manage a nod.
“Let’s get this over with, then.”
I let her steer me to the bathroom and into the shower. I barely notice as Elise undresses me, I just stand, dumb, under the hot jets of water, while she bends me like a doll to rub shampoo into my scalp and carefully rinse the suds away. Back in the bedroom, she feeds me lasagna from a Tupperware dish, then dresses me—fresh underwear, thick tights, a plain black dress she or my dad must have bought, because she lifts it, fresh, from tissue paper in a crisp paper bag by the door. She brushes my hair out and braids it, damp against my neck, then paints my face with concealer and blush.
It’s soothing, in a way; her soft hands against my skin. She puts me back together, like broken pieces, and slowly, the haze of drunken grief slips from me. I wake up.
“There,” she murmurs, stepping back to examine her work.
I stare at my reflection: pale skin, almost as pale as my mom’s. “I look like someone died.”
Elise’s eyes widen, then a faint smile tugs at the edge of her lips. “You’re right,” she agrees. “Anyone would think we’re going to a funeral.”
I feel a laugh rise in me, bitter and bleak. I reach for the red lipstick on the edge of my bureau, then slowly paint my mouth until it’s a vivid scarlet slash across the pale plains of my face. I tilt my head, assessing. “Better.”
Elise takes it from me and quickly does her own. Matching. She blots her lips together, meeting my gaze in the mirror. “I’m right here,” she says again quietly, taking my hand. “I won’t let go.”
• • •
She doesn’t. Not through the service, sat on the hard pews of the cold, echoing church. Not through the receiving line, as Mom’s friends and survivors’ group supporters envelop me in a never-ending parade of hugs and cooing sympathy condolence. And not as we sit in the back of the car, driving slowly through the cemetery to a fresh grave near the top of the hill.
The wind is icy, and it whips around us as I get out of the car. I see the others assemble at the graveside: Chelsea, Max, AK, Lamar, and Mel, all wearing matching dark coats and expressions of sympathy. There’s one face missing.
“Did you talk to Tate?” I ask, unsteady in the black pumps she picked out.
“He’s still in Aspen.” Something stiffens in Elise’s expression. “He says they’ll be back on Sunday.”
“It’s not his fault,” I defend him weakly. “It’s the holidays; it’s hard to switch flights.”