I hurt. All the time. I can’t believe how much it actually hurts. I look in the mirror and try to make a face that shows how surprised I am at the pain. I think to Karen, Can you believe how much this hurts? If she were here, she would ask me what it felt like. I’d have to think about that. Then I’d tell her it feels like a punch in the throat and a hand ripping through your chest and squeezing your heart till it pops. The sort of thing that would happen if I was a spy and I was captured by the enemy and tortured. They’d have to take out what was left of my heart, and I’d survive. The first person ever to survive without a heart. Then I’d quit the spy business and say, “I don’t know, boss, my heart’s just not in it anymore.” Karen would laugh at that and throw something at me.
I can always tell when someone else in the house is with Karen in their mind, remembering something. They get perfectly still, except for their face. Their face makes whatever expressions they are making in their memory. So I’ll see Aunt Janice or Uncle Dan or Amanda or Dad or Mom, and they’ll look like they’ve lost a game of freeze tag, standing or sitting completely frozen except they are smiling or frowning or furrowing their brows or mouthing angry words or happy words or looking at her in awe and in love. I do the same thing. When we’re in our memories, Karen is very, very alive. It’s always a disappointment to come out of it.
I can’t stop thinking about the way Karen’s neck looked when she left for the hospital the second time. I know how to get the picture out of my head. I’ll take a tour of the house. I’ve done this a bunch of times in the past few days. It passes the time. I imagine that Karen’s listening to my silent narration when I do it, that she’s learning what life is like here without her.
Let’s start upstairs. This is the door to Mom’s room. Dad would say it’s his door too, but we won’t get into that now. The snuffling you hear is Mom. She just finished crying. She’ll start again soon. It’s how I know she’s still alive in there. The other way I know she’s still alive is that Janice makes her open the door five times a day and tries to make her eat. Aunt Janice should have been a nurse. She has the voice down pat. “Diane, it’s time to eat your dinner. I know you’re not asleep. Sit up. Do you want tea or coffee? I brought you both. No, you have to have one of them.” She loses the nurse’s voice when she talks to Mom about Karen. I can’t listen when they talk about that. Mom’s pain is the same as mine but so different I can’t listen to it.
This open door goes to my room. Only half the crap on the floor is mine. The other half is Bobby’s. That’s his sleeping bag wrinkled up in the middle of the floor. Aunt Janice finally made him take a shower because the smell in my room was starting to waft into the hall. “That’s what music smells like, Ma!” He smiled when he said it, and she swatted him on the butt.
This closed door is to Karen’s room. We all pretend like we don’t go in there. Dad’s in there now. He talks to Karen all night long. I can hear him through my bedroom wall. I try not to listen, but I can hear him tell her about what she was like when she was a kid, what he was like when he was a kid, and how he’s really, really sorry. Everyone else just opens the door, steps in for a second, and then goes out and closes the door behind them. I do that.
Let’s go downstairs and into the kitchen. Oh, look, here’s Amanda and Aunt Janice in the kitchen, “taking care of things.” That means calling the church and telling them to bring the flowers from the service to a nursing home, freezing half the food the neighbors bring over, and telling everyone who calls that Mom isn’t talking to anyone but she thanks them for calling. They make a really good team. Amanda told Aunt Janice about how her mom left when she was a kid, and Aunt Janice made those cooing noises we used to make fun of her for, but Amanda totally eats it up. They’re like best friends now. As soon as they see me, one of them puts a plate of food in the microwave for me. I always wander off before it’s done. There’s lots of time to eat. There’s just lots of time in general.
Let’s follow the horrible screeching noise that’s coming from the basement. There’s Bobby, playing what appears to be a ninety-eight-minute-long song on the guitar he carted in his parents’ trunk all the way from Illinois. If he’s not down here, he’s out back getting high or in the den playing Dad’s old records and making me and Amanda mix CDs of what he thinks we should listen to. Let’s leave before he starts jumping on the old baby furniture and doing scissor kicks in the air. Don’t worry, it won’t hurt his feelings. He knows I’ll come back down soon.
Ready for some air? In the car pulling out of the driveway are Dad and Uncle Dan. Dad must be taking a break from Karen’s room. They are always pulling out of the driveway or pulling back in. When they get back from one of their trips, Dad wanders up to Karen’s room and Aunt Janice asks Uncle Dan in a low voice where they went. He says they just drive around and stop a lot for hamburgers and ice cream. Aunt Janice rubs Uncle Dan’s belly, and he kisses her. He’s got a sensitive stomach.
Bobby finds me standing on the front steps. He hands me my jacket and says, “Let’s go for a ride.” He has good timing. He can always tell when I’m about to jump out of my skin. We go for rides about as much as I give myself tours of the house. Sometimes Amanda comes, sometimes not. Bobby drives and talks about his band and college and politics. He’s smart. The pot hasn’t made him dumber, it just takes longer for the smart to come out. He teaches me how to drive in an office parking lot. I’m bad at it, but neither of us cares. There’s a lot of squealing tires. We go home to get Amanda to show her what I’ve learned. She yells at Bobby and then teaches me to drive all over again.