Chapter Eight

JULY 15TH, 2006

I dreamed about you last night, but I couldn’t see your face. It was frustrating. Calder was there too. He was lost to me, receding into a snowstorm. He still feels lost to me even now that I’m awake.

I heard Calder’s skateboard and glanced over the computer screen and saw him – hair flying, no helmet – hurtling down the hill outside. I leapt up and tore out the door, yelling his name. He turned toward my voice and missed seeing a bump in the pavement, causing him to take a flying leap off the board and land on his knees. It took me a minute to reach him. His lips squeezed together as he held back tears and clasped his leg, a rip in his jeans exposing a scrape just beginning to bubble with dots of blood.

“Oh, Calder. Not again! And you’re not wearing your helmet. I’ve told you again and again that you have to wear your helmet. That’s it. No more skateboard!”

“Mama! Noooo!”

“Let’s get you bandaged up.” I worked to keep my voice neutral and calm like the therapist taught me.

Be consistent, she said. And in heightened moments of emotion, try to stay calm and keep your voice calm. The moment you get pulled into his emotion, you’re sunk.

I picked Calder up off the sidewalk, my hands in his armpits while he bent over to keep a tight grip on his knee, and hobbled him toward the house as he hopped along on one foot.

Inside, I dabbed his scrape with a wet paper towel, applied Neosporin and a wide, square Band-Aid, bought in bulk at Costco. The grey glue from the last bandage had barely worn off.

“Calder, your skateboarding is seriously dangerous. You not wearing a helmet is a big problem and if you can’t play by the rules, then you will lose the privilege of skateboarding at all.”

“Please Mama, I’ll wear my helmet from now on!”

“No skateboarding for three days.”

“Mama!!”

“Shall I make it four?”

Howling, he flung himself onto the floor. I walked away. “It’s almost time for your drum lesson. You need to wipe up your tears and change your jeans.”

Calder cried louder.

“Now!” I yelled. I left the room, but heard him get up and sniffle his way upstairs.

An hour later, I sat in a dingy basement on a dilapidated couch, the banging of Calder on the drums barely muffled behind an unpainted, hollow wooden door. There were long pauses accented by low voices, mostly that of the college student teacher, Brandon. Upon first meeting, Calder had been intimidated by the kid’s tight skinny black jeans belted with chains, his long, badly black-dyed stringy hair and ripped black t-shirt, but he’d given Calder a cool-guy nod and from the first lesson, Calder worshipped him. And had stopped allowing me to comb his hair. We toured every downtown department store looking for black skinny jeans in size 8, which were almost impossible to find. I finally found a pair online and Calder had barely taken them off, until today. I would have to buy another pair or patch the ones that were now ripped.

As I waited for the lesson to be over, I continued my letter to Jay in my journal.

The first lesson, Brandon had Calder pounding out rhythms and beats on a bongo drum. Now when he gets home from school, he dashes up the stairs two at a time to get onto his drum set. His face takes on a transcendental look, serene, angelic – that childish expression of glee, like the one he had when you gave him underdogs on the swing, and those giggles? I can’t remember the last time I heard him giggle. I wish you were here to help me, Jay. You would know what to do or say to make him laugh. Although, thinking back, those giggles stopped before you died. Did he stop laughing or did you?

I envy him. I once knew that feeling of losing yourself in something you love and I want desperately to lose myself in that way again. To forget this world for a few minutes, and go back to living the life that someone else who looks like me is still living in some parallel universe. A life where you’re still alive. I want to go there, and not be adorned with this heavy yoke of single parent widowhood that you have bestowed upon me. It’s too much to bear. Maybe it’s time to start painting again, but something about it makes me feel sad - a reminder of my old life that I so desperately yearn for.

Things weren’t great between us when you died. I’m sorry for that, Jay. I’ll live with that guilt forever, worrying that the problems in our marriage were my fault, that I nagged too much, always fighting for your time, your attention, your love. You hid a big piece of yourself from me, right from the beginning of our relationship, from the day of your dad’s death, even. You shut me out. I tried to be there for you, but your father’s death changed you. You never spoke of it. Will Calder grow up with the same malaise? Has he too been sentenced to a life of underlying sadness? I can’t let that happen, Jay. I could never truly reach you, but I can still reach Calder. Maybe you can still reach him too. Help him, Jay. Show him the contentment you never found. I need to tell you about Marcus, but I’m not ready yet. How do I ask a dead man to forgive the unforgivable?

The door opened, and a flushed Calder walked out. I quickly shoved my journal and pen back into my purse.

“Next week, Dude,” Brandon said. He winked at me and I was horrified when I blushed.

“Don’t forget to practice that scale I taught you, K?” Calder nodded.

“You’re doing great. You’ve got talent, kid. Just make sure you practice.”

Calder smiled as he walked out the door in front of me.