18.“Oh no! I’m destroyed. I’m just a wreck.”
Iris Below sighed to her friend Esther Leiberman over the phone. Only minutes ago, Iris had received the news that her favorite neighbor, Felicia Fingerhut’s, daughter, Danielle Fingerhut, had died.
“Esther! She was only thirty-eight. So young. A baby.” Iris couldn’t believe it. It didn’t matter how many times the reality of death was mercilessly shoved in her face. It didn’t shake the incomprehensibility of this tragic incident. How could someone so young be taken? It wasn’t just that she was taken. It was how she was taken. Suicide. That’s right. Iris Below’s favorite neighbor, Felicia Fingerhut’s, daughter, Danielle Fingerhut, had taken her own life. It had been a long while (but not long enough. It could never be long enough) since Iris had to face a suicide.
In truth, Danielle Fingerhut didn’t actually kill herself, “but she meant to and that’s the same thing!” Iris Below screeched. “She tried to hang herself in the garage. But, and I shouldn’t be saying this, I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but the truth is she was a little heavy. And by a little heavy, I mean very heavy. So the beam she put the rope around—actually I think it was her father’s necktie—couldn’t hold her body and the whole beam broke and when the beam came down it gave her a real knock on the head.”
Esther listened to the grisly details as she sat on her favorite sofa, half watching her favorite soap opera Love Hospital and tugging at a cuticle that had been bothering her for a week now.
Iris continued. “That’s right. A real knock on the head. And as soon as she came to her senses—whatever senses there were to begin with—she walked into the kitchen, feeling lightheaded, naturally, thinking that she should maybe eat something to boost her blood sugar, and grabbing what she thought was a bag of dried cranberries, but Esther . . . it wasn’t cranberries . . .”
Esther realized her “bothersome” cuticle was somewhat infected, and started to have a minor anxiety attack that if she fussed with it too much it might become a bad infection. Her second cousin Carol once had a strange blood infection from an infected cuticle, and almost died from sepsis, which was the last thing Esther needed right now. However, Esther couldn’t just hop off the phone in the middle of her friend’s remorseful hysterics. That wouldn’t be the right thing to do. And Esther prided herself on always doing the right thing.
Iris pressed on. “Yes, it wasn’t a bag of cranberries at all. Danielle couldn’t see on account of her head was bleeding into her eyes and grabbed a bag of peanuts, and guess who’s deathly allergic to peanuts? She was, that’s who!”
Esther’s cuticle pain was making her eyes water almost to the point that she couldn’t see. But she didn’t want to reveal it to Iris. The last thing she’d want is to be high maintenance and make the moment about herself in the midst of her friend’s time of grief.
Iris sighed. “That’s right. DEATHLY ALLERGIC. Doesn’t matter how fat she was. No one could ever call her an elephant. And you know why that is? Because elephants love peanuts, and maybe Danielle would have loved peanuts, too, who knows? But no one will ever know because she was so allergic. She couldn’t even have one. And here she put a whole handful in her mouth. Before she even tasted that these peanuts weren’t cranberries her throat had closed. That’s when Felicia walked in and saw her daughter collapse on the floor, and Felicia, well, I like Felicia very much, I don’t know her too well but I like her, but even though I don’t really know her, what I do know about her is that she’s never been one to deal well with pressure. Those are her words. She sat there as her daughter lay dying, all puffy, in her arms as Danielle used her last breaths to tell Felicia the whole story of what had just happened. As soon as Felicia realized she probably should stop listening to the story and call an ambulance, it was too late. Again, Felicia doesn’t respond well under pressure. Those are her words. To be fair, though, she always said her daughter was an exceptional storyteller. So, I guess, it makes a little bit of sense that Felicia would get sucked into listening to the story, rather than seek medical attention.”
Esther didn’t even know what she was listening to anymore. The pain from the cuticle was unbearable and had shot up her arm, down the side of her body, and straight into her abdomen. Pins, needles, knives, and the occasional swordlike stabbing. Esther wanted to be a good audience. She valued that quality in herself. Especially (at least up until this point) with Iris, for she knew that her friend did not have a lot of . . . well . . . friends. Iris was alone, and so was Esther, but Esther was more at peace with her solitude. She certainly didn’t have the need to start half-assed relationships with neighbors. She was content to be by herself if that’s the way it had to be. But in this moment she admitted it would have been nice to have someone there. Someone to help her deal with this godforsaken cuticle. Her body was sweating worse than on her walks, and on her walks Esther sweated buckets.
“I mean Danielle could have waited to tell Felicia the whole story, at least till after Felicia had called an ambulance. At the same time, Felicia could have told her to wait and not just sat there and listened to it.”
At this Esther shot out a question. More to test her own ability to still speak, despite the pain, than out of a place of interest. “Iris, how well did you know Danielle Fingerhut? Is this a person that was in your life?”
“Well, let me see . . . I was never officially introduced—something, truth be told, I always thought was strange—but I’d see her in Felicia’s driveway, and we’d make eye contact—I think—but I wouldn’t wave to her because I don’t like to put that on people I’ve never officially met—you never know if someone is in the mood to meet you or not. But, come to think of it, I did smile, and she didn’t really smile back but her eyes kind of smiled, I think. She certainly didn’t have mean eyes. Who knows . . . maybe if I said something we could have become friends. I could have shown her a little light no one else in her life could. Maybe there was nothing to be done, though. Felicia is certainly a nice lady. Again, I don’t know her very well, but we talk and sometimes she’ll come over and have a glass of water. Not that I don’t offer other things, but that’s all Felicia ever wants. She apparently has problems with dehydration.”
“What does Felicia do for a living?” Esther asked, as she felt a deep nausea wash over her.
Iris then took the longest pause she had since she had called Esther. But it wasn’t a long pause. Iris wasn’t capable of not talking for very long. It was just the longest pause, compared to the total lack of pauses that had not occurred leading up to this pause. “She’s a pretty busy lady. I think she’s some kind of businessperson. She’s always on the phone. I mean people are always on their phones, but she is really always on her phone. And it’s not social calls because I can hear her telling people to do things. She’s obviously some kind of boss. Who knows, maybe with how hard she works she wasn’t really there for her daughter. That’s a horrible thing to say, maybe, but how can I not think it? And really, and I shouldn’t be saying this, either, but really what was Felicia doing with peanuts in the cabinet, to begin with. Even if I loved peanuts. Even if I couldn’t be without them. Even if not having them might kill me, if I knew that they might kill my child. OUT THEY GO! But Felicia is Felicia. She’s hard to figure out. She’s hot and cold. I’ve been trying to have dinner with her for months. She only ever wants to have lunch. I want dinner so we can have some wine. I’m not French. I don’t have wine with lunch. But lunch is all she’ll do. Maybe she didn’t want dinner because she wanted to stay home to keep an eye on her daughter. Maybe she thought her daughter was more likely to hurt herself during dinnertime than lunchtime. Maybe she saw this coming. But if she saw it coming I would think she would have hidden the peanuts. That bag of peanuts was the same thing as having a loaded gun in the house.”
Esther plucked the cuticle and, in so doing, accidentally ripped off a sizable chunk of skin. The pain should have dissipated with this. There would still be pain due to the loss of skin, but it wouldn’t be so great, and would be more concentrated. What was going on? Her body was on fire and on top of that there was blood everywhere.
“Esther, I’m so sad. This has really wrecked me. And wow, you know what I just realized? Oh my God, guess what I just realized, Esther.”
Esther’s vision began to blur. “What, Iris? What did you just realize?”
“I just realized I don’t even know what Danielle’s voice sounds like. That makes everything even more upsetting, doesn’t it? To not know someone’s voice, but know their face and now they’re dead? I’ll be honest: it was not a nice face, not that she was ugly. No. She wasn’t pretty but she wasn’t ugly, either. But the face wasn’t nice. Poor Felicia. I picture myself in Felicia’s situation. I always like to put myself in other people’s shoes. It’s a little thing I like to do. When I was younger and we learned about the American Revolution, I would think about what it would be like to be Paul Revere. Riding from house to house. Warning everyone. I bet that made him feel good about himself. Not only that he warned everyone but how he warned everyone. ‘The British are coming! The British are coming!’ Simple, yet poetic, and so true, because the British were coming. He must have been so nervous but also brave. And I think of Paul Revere, and I can put myself in his shoes. I just think, I’m Paul Revere. And I feel nervous, and I also feel brave. Why am I talking about this? What’s wrong with me, Esther? My neighbor’s daughter killed herself by almost hanging and peanut poisoning, and I’m talking about the American Revolution. There’s so much death. I know eighteen people who died this year. Well, not personally, but last year I only knew sixteen. Or was it nineteen? Maybe it was more last year. Regardless, that’s a lot. Why so much? Maybe it’s just getting older and knowing more people? When am I gonna go? Oy, why am I even asking that question? I guess that question’s always in the air, isn’t it? Death can come any sort of way, at any time. Kind of like gas. Ha. That’s funny. That would be a funny condolence card. ‘Death is always in the air. Kind of like gas.’ I should have been a greeting-card writer. I should have been a lot of things. Not that I’m unhappy with what I am. I love who I am. Plus my son is alive, and that’s a big relief. And doing so well. Anyway, since it happened I’ve been lying to Felicia, and pretending that things are going really badly for me. I don’t want her to feel that my life is so much better than hers, even though it is. I want everyone to have a great life. Especially you, Esther. You are just the greatest. By the way, how are you? How are you? Esther? Esther, you still there?”
Esther was there, but also wasn’t there. In the midst of Iris’s endless story about her favorite neighbor Felicia Fingerhut’s daughter Danielle Fingerhut’s suicide, one of Iris’s only remaining friends Esther Leiberman had a heart attack while on her favorite sofa, with her favorite soap opera Love Hospital softly playing in the background.
Esther Leiberman was dead, just like Danielle Fingerhut, and so many more.