One Day

The tips of the trees were whipping back and forth in the winter wind. The sky was perfectly blue. No clouds. She imagined the creaking and cracking song the trees sang as they swayed.

“Emma? Emma, are you listening?”

Emma turned her head to look at the therapist, “yes.” The therapist continued to stare at her. Oh, she thought. I’m supposed to answer the question. “Well, I dropped my brother off at school this morning, like I always do. We were early because he had band practice.” She smiled slightly, thinking of Max holding his saxophone tight explaining the dynamics of band social politics. “He was happy today.”

“Max was?”

“Yes. About band.”

“You were happy that he was happy?”

“Of course, I was.” She felt a flare of anger inside her. Hot tears immediately raced to her eyes. She looked back out the window. Why would she have said that?

“Okay, and then what happened?”

“I don’t know,” she could feel the therapist’s eyes on her. The trees were almost still at that very moment. Just for a second while the wind breathed. “I don’t know what happened. I just started to drive. I wasn’t really thinking about where I was going. I honestly completely forgot I even had to go to school.” She closed her eyes. The road came up in her memory. A cracked, old street that she had driven a thousand times. Ridden down as a passenger a thousand times more. All the bushes and trees were dead now, but in summer the leaves hung over the road and the bright green reflected a hazy summer glow. The bushes were alive and vibrant with flowers that smelled of honey and strawberries. The windows were rolled down to let in the sticky summer air. She looked over to the driver’s side, and there she was, laughing at a joke that was undoubtedly not funny.

“Emma…?”

“Sorry. I was just thinking.”

“About what?”

Emma paused, weighing her answer thoughtfully. The wrong answer could create more questions. Questions she didn’t want to be asked. “The last time I drove down that road with my mother.”

“Which road is that?”

“The road to Compton Beach.”

“Ah. Your mother’s favorite beach?”

Emma continued to stare out the window.

“Is that where you went today instead of school?

“Yes.” She waited for the inevitable, ‘why did you go there’ question, but there was just silence. She turned to look at the therapist. She was wearing a lovely royal blue sweater today with a simple gold necklace. She wondered where the sweater was from. It was probably expensive. She lifted her eyes to meet the therapist’s, bracing herself for judgment. But there was none. Just a probing stare. Not pity or empathy. Maybe curiosity. The therapist didn’t seem to be waiting to ask any questions at all. “I just ended up there. And I sat on the beach. I thought I was only there for a little bit, but I guess it was hours. By the time I realized it, I didn’t want to deal with going to school and explaining it to five different adults who will all stare at me with the sad eyes.”

“The sad eyes?”

“Yeah, you know. The ones that look at you like you’re sick or dying.”

“Maybe they are trying to understand.”

“I’d say it’s impossible to understand unless they’re me, and I can assure you, they’re not.”

“Mmm, yes, that’s definitely true.” The therapist nodded slowly. “Emotions can be exhausting, but it’s also exhausting to pretend that you can hide them all the time.”

Emma looked down at her hands. But she was so good at pretending.

“Emma, have you gone through anymore of your mother’s things lately?”

“That’s not what provoked this, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“That’s not what I’m thinking at all. I am just wondering if you’ve made it back up to the attic at all?”

“No. I haven’t in probably over a month.” She thought of the last box she had opened. It had been full of her mom’s clothes. White and baby pink cardigans and sweaters that had small little roses sewn in the center. Her mom had loved those little flowers. Had loved the soft pinks and white. Always white. Emma hated those colors. She felt it again. The knot in her chest. The bubble in her throat. The sting in her eyes.

“It’s okay to cry.”

“I know.” She clenched her jaw.

“It’s okay to be sad. All the time.”

“I know.” She held her breath.

“It’s okay to be angry.”

Emma stared at her skirt. Her fingers squeezed the fabric tightly. She begged her body to stop. But she couldn’t halt what felt like a tidal wave of emotion from spilling out of her. She covered her face as the tears welled over her eyes. She hated every fiber of how she felt. “I hate this. I hate everything!”

She drove home in a daze. The exhaustion from her emotional meltdown weighed heavily. Usually after school, she would go with friends to get coffee or food. Her friends seemed to want to do this even more now that her mom was gone. They would dance around her like she was a delicate china bowl. Her cracks clearly visible, ready to fall apart at any moment. It was infuriating. Her therapist had told her that people don’t know how to handle grief. It’s uncomfortable and scary. Emma agreed.

When she arrived home the house was still. Perfect, she thought. She laid on her bed, eyes closed, trying hard to think of absolutely nothing. But the heaviness kept creeping in. When would this go away? Why did this happen to us? How am I going to live the rest of my life without her?

She got out of bed and walked into the hall and stopped at the door to the attic. She stared. She wanted to walk away, but her hand reached for the knob. The stairs loomed upwards. She climbed. It had once been dusty and full of old toys and keepsakes, but now…

The boxes were everywhere. After she had died, her father just boxed everything up and put it in the attic. He didn’t even try to get rid of any of it. He didn’t speak of it either. She was sure that, if it were up to him, these boxes would be here until he left the house, whether voluntarily or death. One box, she thought. Her therapist’s “homework” for her echoed loudly. She had used the word homework purposefully, digging into Emma’s innate desire to complete all tasks given her. “I want you to go through one box. And I want you to feel everything, don’t hold back. There will be no one there. Just you and your mom.”

She crawled around the stack of boxes in front. She wanted to be intentional, yet none of the boxes were labeled. She felt awkwardly aware of herself. She landed on a box that was laying alone next to the small rounded window of the attic. Her hands shook as she unfolded it. She immediately regretted it. It was a “knick-knack” box. A box full of trinkets from travels, vacations, memorable parties, anything that her mom had thought worth treasuring. Mugs from various vacations. Old Mother’s Day cards. And then she saw it. A little black book.

She reached and lifted it out. It felt thick, like every last page had been crammed with words, yet the outside felt smooth, unopened and stiff. She brushed her hand against the cover. She could smell the fresh leather. She opened it. Her heart began to pound. A one-hundred-dollar bill lay on the first page. Beneath it was a folded piece of paper. She flipped to the next page. Another bill. She flipped again and again, and each page held another one hundred bill. Her heart was racing. She turned back to the first page. She pulled the folded piece of paper out. Her mother’s messy script filled the page.

“For my beautiful daughter:

First things first, your father is completely aware of this money and this book, so don’t get any ideas of giving this to him thinking you’re returning what’s his. This book is for YOU, Emma. And so is the money. I will never forget holding you in my arms for the first time. I knew you were everything I had ever wanted right then and there. You will always be my perfect little girl, even if you are not so little anymore. Don’t get confused into thinking you’re perfect; you’re not. But I have loved you, just as you are. You were made perfectly. I could write a novel on all the ways I love you. There could be an entire half of the novel detailing out all my dreams I had for you. Dreams that we had planned together. I could talk about how sad we both are that I will be missing all of these plans. But I don’t want to write about that. We’ve talked it to death already (get it?). I want you to know these three things.

1. I am with you, always.

2. It is NOT your job to take care of your father and brother.

3. There is a $100 bill on every page of this book. 200 pages. $20,000. You are only to use this money as detailed out below:

The first two items are self-explanatory. However, in the case of the second item, I know you are prone to responsibility and wisdom. SO, your father is a grown man and an adult (despite what he may say to contradict this) and is perfectly able to behave as one. Most of the time. But please do remind him that he now has a responsibility to the PTA, and that yes, they do require monetary donations. Having gotten that out of the way, your terms of the money are these:

I dreamed that we would celebrate your high school graduation with a summer in Europe. We would go EVERYWHERE. Eat our way around the world. Climb mountains and walk old cobblestoned streets. We would create memories together that we could share together for the next fifty years. But most importantly, we would have had that time together. Just the two of us. I know we’ve been robbed of that. So, when you go to use this money, I want you to use it to live life. I’m not saying go skydiving or go on an exotic vacation (though that does sound nice). I am saying to remind yourself to live your life with joy. I know you are sad, but that doesn’t mean you cannot have joy, even right now. And when you use this money to find joy, I want you to write it down. Write down the small things because those are what matter. You’ll always remember the big adventures and those life-changing moments, but you might forget the small details that make life beautiful. A cup of coffee shared with a close friend; late-night conversations about life and hopes and dreams; a quiet morning alone remembering me. You can be sad but have joy, for I am with you always.

Love forever,

Mom xoxo”

Emma read it again. And again. She missed her mom. She couldn’t breathe she missed her so much. She closed the book and rubbed the cover with her hand. She closed her eyes and held it tight to her chest. “I will see you again one day.” She crawled to the stairs and exited the attic. Back to her room, still holding the book tight. She sat down at her desk, opened the drawer and pulled out a pen. She wrote the date on the first page. She started to write.