“Joe?” you said.
“Morning.”
“You’re still here.”
“Of course I am.”
You said it was the kindest thing anyone ever did for you—fuck that stupid grassy dollhouse roof—and it’s been almost two weeks. You’re in mourning, still guilt ridden. And I get it. Your separation was a secret and it’s complicated but you texted me that you forgot to buy toilet paper—it’s always something—and I went to the store and bought you toilet paper and you’re tearing the plastic.
“Huh.”
“What?”
“This is the right kind.”
I know because I’ve spent a lot of time in your house and I shrug. “It’s the best kind, so of course it’s your kind.”
I make a note in my head: Buy Mary Kay’s overpriced toilet paper before she comes to my house and then the sliding door opens and it’s Shortus, who’s somehow become my unworthy rival in this irritating episode of our Cedar Cove life. He cracks his knuckles and he cracks his back and sighs. “Your gutters are officially clean, MK.”
You’re a grieving widow and obliged to your Friends—Thank you, Seamus, you’re a godsend—and you rummage around the refrigerator. “Okay, boys,” you say, as if I am your son and Shortus is a friend I brought home from school. “Who’s hungry?”
He plops into a chair and he is not a man, he is a fourth-grade boy. “I burned a lot of calories out there, MK. I can eat!”
I wish he would go away. He’s different since RIP Phil died. It’s like one of those fucking reality shows where the loser thinks he has a shot because the guy in the lead pulled a muscle and backed out of the race. Shortus is actively competing with me to be the man of this house and that’s not what I’m doing. I love you. I miss being inside of you and I am your boyfriend but he’s a lonely CrossBore, a real patriarchal sexist who acts like you need us menfolk and what bullshit, Mary Kay. You don’t need men. You need me.
I pull The North Water out of my bag and set it on the table. “Almost forgot,” I say to you, not him. “This is that book I was telling you about.”
In other words, GET OUT, SHORTUS, and he huffs. “Jeez, Joe, I don’t think the woman can read right now. We’re still reeling, ya know?”
He didn’t even like your husband but I can’t fight with him because he’s your friend and if he wasn’t here, we would be talking about Ian McGuire, but he is here so you just smile at the book—Thanks, Joe—and then you’re on your feet, dealing with the casserole. This is a critical time for us. You’re processing so many emotions and we need to get Closer and I’m not stupid, Mary Kay. I know you want a buffer. That’s why you let Shortus come over and have an open-door policy for the semi-Melandas who “pop by” with casseroles—No one likes that shit when they’re alive, why would they want it after someone died?—and Shortus jumps up and pulls a chair out for you.
“Young lady, I insist that you take a load off and sit.”
He is the patriarchy and I want to smash him and where is RIP Melanda when you need her? You don’t want to sit. You shovel lasagna onto his plate and he passes the plate to me. “That’s way too much for me, MK. Let’s give this to the bookworm, see if he can’t get some meat on those bones!”
You like my body just the way it is and Nomi hesitates in the hallway. “What’s that smell?”
“Casserole,” you say. “You want some?”
She groans. “I’m going to Seattle.”
“Nomi…”
“I wanna see Uncle Don and Aunt Peg.”
I met Don and Peg at the wake. They’re Nomi’s surrogate ex-hippie grandparents and they own a guitar store and you told me about them the day we walked to the diner, the day you almost told me about Phil. You pick at your lip. “But honey, you’ve been over there a lot.”
Nomi is unmoved. “So?”
“So maybe you could hang out here… with us.”
Nomi grabs at the straps on her backpack. “Are they sick of me or something?”
“Nomi, no, I just think it might be nice for you to be at home a little more.”
“Mom,” she says, and we’re all thinking the same thing right now. That the rat died in this house. That Nomi found the rat.
You hug your Meerkat and Shortus scoops a heap of lasagna that’s actually bigger than my portion and you walk Nomi to the door and he chews on the lasagna with his mouth wide open, like a bachelor, like a pig, and you’ll never know that he ate more than me and now you’re outside. There’s another fucking Friend popping by and I don’t blame Nomi for jumping on that ferry every day. You come back glum, holding a cheesecake.
“MK,” Seamus says. “Do you do that tracking thing on E’s phone?”
You dig into the cheesecake, right into the center. We haven’t had sex since Fort Ward and you’re going crazy, too. “Huh?”
“You know,” he says. “Just so you can know where she is.”
You dig your fork into the cheesecake and that’s my girl. “I don’t stalk my daughter, Seamus, if that’s what you mean.”
“Well, you can never be too careful. Do you know what she’s up to? Do you even know that she’s in Seattle?”
Do it, Shortus! Piss her off with your Father Knows Best passive aggression.
You are seething. “Honestly, Seamus, if there’s one thing we did right, it’s Nomi. She’s always liked to get away and spend a night or two with Peggy and Don.”
He runs his paws over his Cooley Hardware shirt and adjusts his Cooley Hardware hat and how was I ever “friends” with this guy? “I’m just trying to help, MK. My shop’s covered. I got a workout in this morning… so it’s no skin off my back if you want me to see where she’s at.”
You just lost your husband and he makes it all about him as if he’s the saint and you pat his arm. “I appreciate it, but we’re fine.”
I might spit up my lasagna and he pats your arm back. “I know you are, MK.”
“Honestly, I don’t blame her for getting away. It’s been like Grand Central in here and the memories…”
And it really is Grand Fucking Central because there’s a dog barking and another intruder. You jump out of your chair to greet the latest Friend and lo and behold it’s the fecal-eyed monster mommy. Finally, we are properly introduced and her hand is a dead fish and her yellow Lab still loves me and see that, Mary Kay? Dogs know good people.
Fecal-Eyed Nancy is fresh from a hike and she can’t stay long and you offer her cheesecake and she makes a face, as if you have cooties, as if the widow doesn’t have a right to stick a fork in her own cheesecake.
Fecal Eyes repeats herself—We just popped by, I can’t stay—and you clear a chair for her and she sits. “Should I ask or should I leave it alone?”
The dog rests her head on my lap. I pet her and you sigh. “I haven’t heard from her,” you say. “But like I told you, we had a falling-out.”
Shortus turns his Cooley Hardware hat backwards. “Oh man,” he says. “I didn’t know how to tell ya.”