After Birth by Elisa Albert Read Free Book Online

you .
    Then, bam , a matter of months after Astrid disappears, Norman runs into a woman he remembers vaguely from high school in the Bronx, and wow, they’ve reconnected and hey, isn’t it amazing how life brings you back around to people and Arlene’s separated with a sixteen-year-old daughter, Lindsay. They took us to lunch at Rumpelmayer’s in the spring. Seriously, I shit you not at all: Rumpelmayer’s . For ice cream sundaes with cherries on top, though we were both already wearing tampons, and Lindsay was rehearsing her first fellatio.
    I like your sweatshirt , she said.
    The translation of which, if you aren’t fluent in Girl, is: I won’t try to ruin your life if you won’t try to ruin mine.
    Thanks. Cool shoes.
    Deal.
    Arlene and Norman beamed, pretended to examine their menus. That love story lasted about six months before Arlene decided to get back together with her husband, Lindsay’s father. Lindsay said they pretend the whole thing never happened.
    Then came a few years of the saddest dating you’ve ever seen. Then the Internet came along and at last he found Sheryl. The Internet! Palace of miracles. They seem happy. I’m glad. She’s got two greasy forty-something sons in Westchester I’ve met like three times total; I get their wives and kids mixed up. One’s Lauren, one’s Fiona. And they have little Cayden Hayden Jaden Braedons.
    Sheryl insists they get on the road before dark. Sheryl hates coming up here, hates driving, is convinced that driving in the dark is akin to putting a loaded gun in your mouth.
    Love you, Daddy.
    Think about Thanksgiving.
    I will.
    Maybe we’ll come up next weekend.
    No, Norm, dinner with Jody and Harry next weekend.
    Tomorrow, incidentally, is seventeen years since we buried my mother. My father doesn’t mention it. I can’t tell if he thinks about it and won’t talk about it or if in fact he doesn’t think about it at all. And I don’t say anything about it either, so.
     
    You okay? Paul asks. Unspooling floss. He knows he’s required to ask when he senses that I am, in fact, not. It’s sort of cute, how jumpy and tentative he gets when he has to inquire about my emotional state, like I’m the possible explosive device and he’s the military German shepherd.
    I spit toothpaste into the sink. Anniversary.
    It’d be creepy if he kept track, but I’m weirdly hurt he’s unaware. Comes around every year, and we’ve been together for what, now, three? It’s like, don’t make me say it, okay? Just stick your proverbial tit in my proverbial mouth, make me feel better. Curl up next to me like a faithful pet, stay close, breathe. Tell me a joke, bring me chocolate and some tea, kiss me, rub my back, make me laugh, wrap your arms around me good and tight, shut up and stay close.
    It dawns on him. Your mom . He approaches with his arms open. Oh, babe .
    It’s fine , I say, because it’s not like I’m reminded she’s dead or newly sad she’s dead or anything as simple as that. She’s always dead, and time does a pretty good job on whatever the hell that means. It’s more like I get yanked back into the shit, forever eleven, twelve, thirteen, caught in the fray. Not logical. No explaining it.
    It’s a spiral , I tell him. It’s the eye of the tornado. It’s time and space inverted in a nightmare. It’s being trapped in a mine.
    Of course he doesn’t get it. How could he? His hundred-and-two-year-old grandfather just got upgraded to the wing of the nursing home from which you leave in a bag, and that’s the worst of it in his family so far.
    He gives me that look, the one he always gets just before he suggests I go get a massage or treat myself to a day of galleries and boutiques in Hudson or maybe it’s time to see someone, Ari; maybe you need some help .
    Useless.
     
    Wonder if Mina’s given birth. Maybe I’ll knock on her door with a plate of baked goods—vegan pear almond cinnamon, say, though I’ve never successfully baked jack in my life.