Unlocking the phone, I see my home screen with my email and social media apps, all dog-eared with dozens of notifications. Twitter alone has ninety-nine plus alerts.
A knot tightens in my stomach.
I rarely even use Facebook, Twitter seemed an efficient way to follow the news, and I got Instagram due to peer pressure to keep up with bunk-mates from summer camps whom I no longer remember.
My thumb hovers over Twitter, and I know I shouldn’t look. I’m not ready to face things.
But I tap the app on my screen anyway, the notification feed updating.
Condolences for your loss… says one person.
I scroll through the notifications, some of them direct tweets of sympathies and some of them where I’m tagged in the conversation.
Brave girl. Stay strong, writes RowdyRed.
And another directly to me. How does a mother decide to abandon her child for her husband? I’m so sorry. You deserved better.
Shut up! comes someone else’s response to that tweet. You have no idea what they were going through…
I scan tweet after tweet, and it doesn’t take long for me to lose what little interest I had in checking my DMs.
People yelling at me, because they can’t yell at my parents. People yelling at each other in conversation.
Suicide is self-murder. Murder is the gravest of sins.
Your body belongs to God. Taking your life away from him is stealing!
At least your mother made her contribution to the world, writes one asshole, captioning a nearly nude picture of my mother from one of her earlier films.
I close my eyes and don’t open them again until I’ve scrolled past.
And it just gets uglier as they carry on their conversation, either oblivious or too callous to care that I’m being tagged in everything they say.
She hasn’t even made a statement. I think she has like Asperger’s or something.
Yeah, have you seen pictures of her? It’s like emotion doesn’t register.
And then ‘Deep State’ Tom chimes in with his gem of wisdom: Asperger’s is the modern-day pussy’s excuse for what we called back in my day being a cold bitch.
I’m not cold.
And, of course, others are worried about my father’s unfinished projects: Who’s finishing the Sun Hunter trilogy with de Haas gone now?
I feel like I should say something. One tweet or whatever, even though I don’t think it’s important for these people to hear me, but I feel compelled to remind them that a human is here, and I…
I shake my head, closing my eyes again.
I don’t want them to think I didn’t love my parents.
Even though I’m not sure I did.
I swallow and start typing out a tweet.
Thank you for all the support, everyone, as I…
As I what? Mourn their loss? I stop, my fingers hovering over the letters before I backspace and delete what I wrote.
I try again. Thank you for the thoughts and prayers during this difficult…
Nope. Delete. Everything I write feels insincere. I’m not emotional, especially publicly.
I wish I could express myself. I wish this were easier. I wish I was different and…
I wish… I type.
But nothing comes.
I hesitate a moment, the urge to speak there but not the courage, and I discard the draft, closing out the app.
Pressing my thumb to the Twitter icon, I drag it to the trash and do the same with my Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and email. Going into the app store, I uninstall each one, cutting myself off. I want to speak, but I’m not ready to deal with the response to whatever I say, so I take away the torture. The accounts still exist, just not my immediate access to them.
Plugging my phone back into the charger and far away from my person, I spend the next hour unpacking my suitcases and rearranging the room, despite myself. I never actually decided I would stay, but I know I’m not leaving today, and I need something to do that keeps me away from them.
Underthings in the top drawer, then night clothes, workout clothes, and T-shirts. I hang up everything else—jackets, blouses, shirts, pants, jeans… Left to right, dark to light.
I arrange all of my shoes on the floor of the closet, knowing my heels won’t see the light of day here, but I expected as much. No one to dress for sounds fine to me.
I stick the few magazines and books I’d brought on the empty built-in bookshelf and set my make-up cases, hair dryer, and irons neatly next to the desk and then walk my shampoo and conditioner into the bathroom. I set my soaps on the edge of the tub before pulling out my toothbrush and swiping some toothpaste across the bristles.
Finishing my teeth, I secure my toothbrush back inside its travel tube and take that and my toothpaste back into my bedroom, setting them both on the bedside table. I always kept my toothbrush in my bathroom back home, but only because I was the only one to use the bathroom.