HOW TO SAY THE RIGHT THING WHEN THERE'S NO RIGHT THING TO SAY

for T.

YOUR FRIEND IS going through something hard, and you don’t know what to say. There are words and there are words and there are words.

Stop saying them. Stop trying.

Instead, pick her up in your Jeep. Don’t worry if you don’t have one. This is your imagination; you get to have cool stuff. You get to drive a Jeep and wear Marc Jacobs and super cool aviator sunglasses, even though you don’t usually wear sunglasses because you sunburn easily (one time in college, you got a bitch of a sunburn around your sunglasses, which left weird raccoon circles on your face for months, so now you just squint). Your friend, Sheila—we’ll call her Sheila—has on a black vinyl catsuit—think Trinity—and one of those Marilyn Monroe scarves around her head so that her shiny, perfect hair doesn’t get mussed in the wind—because, of course, the top is down, and you’re driving super-fast, like Action Movie Chase Scene fast, so fast you left your infant son at home because, even in your imagination, it’s irresponsible to drive that fast with a kid in the car, which is why in real life you have one of those baby on board signs suction-cupped to the back window of your Honda, because drivers in Chicago have a lot of road rage—yes they do—and you don’t want anybody fucking around when your kid’s in the car. So you hung that sign because that’ll make them drive nice, right?

You and Sheila hang your hands out the zipped-down windows, your palms pushing against the wind, and in your other hand you have an extra-large, extra-caffeinated Frappuccino with bourbon because yum. But this means you don’t have any hands on the wheel, so, okay then, it’s a magic Jeep, and you can drive it with your mind. Or maybe the Jeep can talk! Like Kitt, from Knight Rider! Maybe the Jeep is Kitt from Knight Rider, except a Jeep instead of a Trans Am, and you can talk to it or think at it, thus keeping your hands free for the wind against your fingers and caffeinated alcoholic beverages, which in real life you’re not currently drinking because you’re breastfeeding, but zomfg you would so totally kill for a Maker’s Mark right now.

So anyhow, you’re driving these precarious winding trails through the mountains, passing ginormous valleys and snow-capped peaks. After a while, the road starts running parallel to a train because, in your mind, all trains are on windy tracks through the mountains, like duh. You briefly consider hijacking it—getting the Jeep right alongside and then jumping onboard with some of that Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon shit, saving whoever’s being held against their will or stealing back the medicine that someone very corrupt stole from dying villagers because wouldn’t that be awesome?—but then, you look at Sheila, your beautiful friend who is right now trying to slay a dragon so huge and deadly it could engulf a whole city with a single exhale.

Sheila doesn’t need to hijack a train right now.

What she needs is a friend.

“Go faster,” you say to Kitt the Jeep.

“Faster.”

“Go faster than this train.”

The tires are screeching now, burning into the asphalt. Sheila’s scarf comes loose and whips away, but it’s okay because you own Neiman Marcus and you’ll get her another tomorrow. Right now you’re chasing the train, passing the train, ahead of the train, way ahead of the train, far enough ahead to pull over, grab Sheila by the hand, run to the side of the tracks, and—

Wait.

You’ll feel it coming first, the ground trembling beneath your shoes.

Next, you’ll hear it: the whistle, the wheels churning on the tracks.

Then, it’s there: the enormous front engine, car after car behind it for miles, curling behind the winding track. It’s coming closer, faster, getting louder, louder, louder. you can’t hear anything over the immensity of sound. You’re so close to the tracks, your toes a few feet from the hammered metal, and when it passes you, you scream.

At first, Sheila looks at you like you’re crazy which, frankly, isn’t anything new. She’s been looking at you that way since you were both kids in OshKosh B’Gosh in the mud in Southeast Michigan. Then in college, shaking her head in disgust as you poured Everclear into the Kool-Aid. And now, screaming your head off over the relentless roar of a passing train. And okay, fine, whatever, maybe you are crazy, but sometimes crazy is the only way to get through.

Sheila shuts her eyes, then opens her mouth, and now she’s screaming, too—both of you screaming holy hell as the train pounds past, car after car. And you scream and you scream ‘cause there’s so much inside that needs to get out—anger and longing and no sleep and time moving too fast and sorrow and fear. You scream so long, so loud, it’s like your throats are bleeding, rubbed raw on the inside. And by the time the last car passes, it’s all been drained, like you’re sponges squeezed dry. You sit on the ground, exhausted by the energy it takes to let go, and lay backwards in the grass. The sun shines on your faces. The backs of your eyelids glow red. There’s a breeze, and the grass is soft, and you move your arms and legs to make snow angels even though there’s no snow. It feels nice to be so deliciously empty, so open for new things, like spring and laughter and the future and new memories and newly remembered experiences and all the things you’ve been lucky enough to do, and the knowledge that you still have, at the very least, this single, perfect day to live.

After a long time, you get up. You hold out your hand to help Sheila to her feet—she is, after all, wearing a catsuit, and that shit’s hard to navigate. Her face is dripping mascara from crying, but underneath that, she’s smiling.

It’s wonderful to see her smile.

It’s the most wonderful thing in the universe.

You go back to the Jeep, except it’s not a jeep anymore; it’s something more practical, but still edgy. Maybe an Element? or a RAV4? In the backseat, your infant son is strapped in his car seat, laughing in his sleep. You and Sheila change into comfy clothes because couture and catsuits are, sadly, not for R&R, and you drive back down the mountain, still with your arms out the windows, but now the wind pushes the backs of your hands instead of the palms. After a while, you pass a little cafe with outdoor seating. You order wine. You watch the sun set over those snowcapped peaks, color exploding over the sky: yellow to red to midnight blue. That’s when you tell her how sorry you are, how your thoughts are with her and her family. You tell her it sucks, sucks, sucks, and nothing is fair and that sucks. You say words like strength and time, even though you know how many others have told her those same words, told her anything and everything in the hope it’s the right thing to say.

But it’s not.

There isn’t any right thing to say.

So you just stop talking. You hand her your son. He wraps his tiny fists around her thumbs, and the three of you watch the stars. Out here, they’re for real, not like in the city where you can only see one or two but thousands, millions, millions of millions, and they’re all so goddamn beautiful.