Sometimes I’m sad about everything: the way my grilled cheese sandwich tastes, how nice my socks feel, a song John is playing in the kitchen. One time he puts on this goofy Loudon Wainwright song that was on a mix tape I used to listen to during my commute from the boys’ school in Bethesda back into the District when we were newly married and everything was about to begin and it makes me burst into tears about the shortness of everything.
Freddy finds me crying on my bed up in my room—and I make no real effort to hide it.
“What’s going on?” he says, climbing up next to me and patting my shoulder. “What are you so sad about?”
“The idea of dying,” I say, not at all sure this is what you’re supposed to say to your nine-year-old. “And how much I love you.”
“Jeez. That’s pretty heavy-duty stuff, Mom,” he says. “When I feel that kind of sad I play my drums. You should try it sometime. I go in my room all sad and mad and when I’m done I feel like a new person.”
“That’s really awesome,” I say, wiping my cheeks, thrilled that we have destroyed our neighbors Josie and Joe’s baby’s first year of sleep for a decent reason. “I should give it a whirl one of these days. I bet I’d like it.”
In the movie version of my life, one day one of these waves of obliteration sweeps over me while John is at work and the kids are in school and I peek into Freddy’s room and give the drums a go and sob and play and find peace. I know I’ll probably never do that, but I like imagining it now whenever I look in his room. Like Natalie Portman or some other gorgeous girl whose nose doesn’t swell when she cries, bent over the drum kit sobbing and raging at the universe until she can’t anymore.