My instincts were right. Something has happened to my daughter.
Through the peephole, I spot Isaac standing on my porch, eyes bloodshot. I try to convince myself that it’s minor, a benign lump in her breast or a ruptured spleen, a car accident that gave her a concussion, possibly a broken leg, knowing that none of these small tragedies would bring my ex-husband to my front door.
Any momentary disbelief is sucked from my body as Isaac reports what happened. He keeps his distance across my porch, detailing the impossible story to my slippered feet. I lean against my house, certain I can feel the world spinning. How is the world still spinning when Regina is dead? Why did the police call Isaac instead of me, her mother?
“What do you mean, she drowned?” I cut Isaac off. In high school, Regina was on the swim team. She lifeguarded in the summers. She knew CPR. How could she have drowned?
“The officer said it will take weeks for the toxicology report to come back. They think she must have been pretty out of it.”
“Out of it?”
Isaac’s expression implores me not to make him elaborate. I’m genuinely confused. During our stay at Shutters, Regina opened up to me about her journey to sobriety. She told me about twelfth grade, when she wouldbring a water bottle of vodka to class. College, when she took a semester off for her first try at rehab, then another failed attempt when she was twenty-five. And the last time at twenty-eight, a final chance that would either save or kill her. She chose life. It wasn’t easy, but over the last seven years, abstaining from alcohol had become second nature. Her sobriety was her identity. I know, as much as I know anything, that she would never have endangered that.
I start pacing, collecting my thoughts. “We spoke yesterday. She seemed fine. Busy, but fine. She was headed to a meeting. There’s no way Regina would—” I can’t give the thought the weight of spoken words. I can’t make this a possibility. “They must have made a mistake, overlooked something.”
“Barb, I know this is hard—”
“You said the LAPD called?” I cut him off again. “Why would the LAPD call if she died in Venice? Isn’t it its own city?”
I’m determined to disprove her death with a loophole, a technicality. If I can find the fault lines in his story, I can crack it apart, fracture his account until it can’t be put whole again.
“Anna asked the same thing.” Isaac pronounces her name like she was born in Hungary instead of New Jersey, like she’s worldly instead of regional. Anna. She knew about my daughter before I did. “It’s part of LA, at least as far as police jurisdictions are concerned.”
“Who called the police? Who found her?”
“Barb,” he pleads. I can’t remember the last time he’s engaged me like this, wanting so much from me—only his need is the most devastating kind. “We’ll know for certain after the toxicology report, but she’s gone. Our Regina—” His voice cracks and then he starts to sob. I’ve seen Isaac mean. I’ve seen him angry, disappointed, frustrated, road raging. I’ve never seen him broken before. He puts his face in his hands, his shoulders and upper back convulsing. I envelop his body in mine. His grief is physical. It enters me, suffocating my confusion and denial until I surrender to it, until I am as distraught as he is.
We stand on the porch, holding each other until we run out of tears. I still can’t fathom what’s happened. I know Regina is gone. A mother can always feel her child. At least I could always feel Regina. Even when she wasn’t speaking to me, I always sensed she was okay. Four years ago, before she emailed to make sure I was wearing a mask and staying home, I felt a buzzing through me. This morning, when I woke in a panic, my entire being was empty.
My stomach grumbles. I don’t want to be hungry when Regina can never eat again. Isaac hears it rumble and pulls away.
“Do you want to come stay with us? You don’t have to go through this alone.”
He assumes because I don’t have an Anna, I’m alone.
“I’ll be fine.”
He nods, relieved that I didn’t take him up on this offer. “We’ll see you for the shiva?”
The shiva? That’s what he’s thinking about right now?
Once, when Regina lamented the bleak dating prospects in LA, I suggested she join a singles group at a synagogue. Linda’s daughter and Susanna’s son both met their future spouses through Shabbat meetups.I don’t think I’ll meet the kind of person I want to be with at temple,she teased. I took this to be less about the kind of person she was attracted to and more about her thoughts on religion. Regina wouldn’t have wanted us to sit shiva for her. This shiva isn’t for her, though. It’s for Isaac.
“There was no fighting them on the autopsy,” Isaac adds. My surprise morphs into disbelief. He would risk not finding out what happened to our daughter for the sake of tradition, of keeping her body sacred? I stop myself. It’s not Isaac I’m mad at. “The officer seems like a good guy, though. He’s doing everything he can to get her back to us quickly.”
“Do you have the police officer’s number?” I ask.
“Barb.” It’s too much, hearing him say my name like this again. I lean against my house, trying to steady my breath, to cocoon myselffrom my ex-husband, who’s studying me, deciding whether to oblige my request.
“Please. I need to talk to him myself.”
We stare at each other, near strangers who have shared so much of this life even after we were done with each other, who can finally have the full separation we craved decades ago, now that our Regina is gone. Isaac reaches into his back pocket for his phone. He finds the number for Steve Gonzales at the Pacific Community station. I’ll call this Steve Gonzales. I’ll make him realize he’s wrong. Regina’s death was not a drunken accident.
Isaac hugs me again. “I’ll call you the minute I hear anything.”
I have the officer’s name and number. I don’t need to wait for Isaac to tell me anything.
He waves as he pulls out of my driveway, and I’m alone again. Only it isn’t the same. It will never be the same, because Regina is dead.
