I don’t allow myself to think about anything.
I brush my teeth, take a swig of mouthwash, pull my hair back into a high ponytail, scrub away the tears that had dried in streams across my cheeks and down my neck before applying a generous layer of moisturizer, sunscreen and a quick swipe of lip balm, all while avoiding my broken mossy-green gaze.
It was all I could bring myself to do; to feel a semblance of normalcy again. But I knew I was a far cry from the teenager I had been. Before the car ride, before our attacker, before the gunshots and my best friend’s assault and murder, my parent’s suicides. Before Chase…disappeared.
I step back, keep my chin to my chest. I didn’t need to be reminded of the darkened pool that sat at the rims of my eyes, or the entanglement of red capillaries that weaved in webs of anguish and terror and fear. I knew how I looked, how I felt, how alone I truly was.
I let go of my breath, clench my jaw, then move back toward the room, snatching up my tote bag, along with my phone before heading for the kitchen.
Nan spins around when I drag one of the mismatched embroidered chairs back, the screech is loud in the room. She is quick to smile, quicker to grab the glass beside her, plonking the orange juice in front of me.
“Thanks,” I whisper around a smile, snatching up the frosted glass and taking a sip, chewing on the pulp. The taste is terrible after brushing my teeth, but that's the least of my worries.
I turn and look at the urn perched on the windowsill. My mother was facing the sun, wrapped in a snow queen cascading pothos. She had been directly cremated, and we had finally got her home.
“I’ve made some oatmeal,” Nan says, returning to the stove, turning off the burner.
She separates the pot of cooked oats into two small ceramic bowls painted with limbed tulips in purples, pinks and oranges. She adds a generous drizzle of maple syrup, sliced strawberries that she must have prepared earlier, and chopped walnuts crumbled over the top.
Placing it in front of me with her practiced and dutiful warning, she says, “It’s very hot.”
I smile because it feels familiar now, like a new routine, a new normal.
“Thanks, Nan.” I curl my fingers around the metal spoon and bring a strawberry to my mouth.
“How are you feeling about today?” she asks, taking the chair to my left, resting the small cup of black coffee at her wrinkled bottom lip, blowing away steam as she cradles the ceramic in the palms of her velvety hands.
I drop my eyes and twist the spoon into the middle of the oatmeal, creating some kind of centered whirlpool I wish I could fall and disappear into.
She reaches for my hand, the one beside my bowl, and delicately places her palm over the top of mine.
“It’s okay to be afraid, sweetheart.”
And with her reassurance, a tear, the one I had been battling with earlier, dripped down my cheek and off the ledge of my chin.
I raise my eyes to hers and the matching green of my mother’s, of mine, stares back at me.
“I’m scared,” I admit and it’s the first time I truly feel a weight lifting from my shoulders, as though my spoken words have taken the pressure with them. “I have no one. Jade and I were it; it was just me and her, we never needed or wanted anyone else.”
She grasps onto my hand, her other reaching out and cradling it between both palms. “You girls were the closest I’ve seen to sisters without sharing the same blood.”
My heart feels as if it shatters inside my chest at her evaluation, because we were,we really were.
“I don’t know if I can do this without her,” I whisper, my voice so low I barely hear it crash and fall.
Nan squeezes my hand between hers.
“You know what I know?” And when I don’t look up, she lifts my hand off the table a little, shaking it, a silent cry for me to make my way back to her. I let my eyes touch her wrinkled face, though I can barely see her through the film of tears at the surface. “That Jade will be with you, even if you can’t see her. Look for her in the places you both cherished, pay attention to the way the wind moves, and the way the sun wraps around your skin. That’s where Jade is…she is always with you, a breath away, you just have to find her.”
Tears are a waterfall down my cheeks, dripping into my bowl of oatmeal that Nan kindly moves to the side. She guides a handkerchief from her navy slacks and dabs at my cheeks for me, then takes the small piece of fabric to her own, before returning it to her pants.
I lift my chin, a cry trembling at my bottom lip. “Is that what you do, Nan…with Mom a-a-and Gramps?” I stutter.
She had lost Gramps long before I was born, in an accident at work. He had been a roofer. He had fallen to his death. He wasn’t wearing a harness, because back then, there weren’t any workplace safety regulations, just men that had done it a thousand times before.
It was a tragedy.
She squeezes my hand a little tighter and smiles. “Every minute of every day, sweetheart.”
