Olivia J. Bennett
This isn’t my story to tell. It simply isn’t, but since I was there, I feel that I share a slice in it. That’s how it is, I guess. We all share in each other’s stories, at least a little bit, simply because our orbits cross and intersect. Only months after my grandmother died, I found my orbit crossing the path of grief again.
August sixth, twenty twenty-one. Around eleven at night, I found myself sitting on the front lawn of the Hawthorne residence. A place I had been many times before. I got into my first fender-bender here, after Alyssa’s sixteenth birthday party. I had listened to the rain from the front porch, between a haze of smoke and incense.
But now, I sat on the front lawn, on the fuzzy maroon blanket I always keep in my car. At this point, it was littered with leaves and small sticks and smelled of campfire smoke, but it came with me everywhere.
Picking the stray burrs and bits of nature out of it, I turned to face the house when Ed finally came out of the house. He didn’t make eye contact with anyone, just walked to the patch of grass where his friends all sat—Genevieve, Robbie, Ben, and I. Watching as Genevieve wrapped her arms around him, he buried his face in her shoulder, disappearing behind his fluffy blond hair that he hadn’t cut since Quarantine began.
It’s always strange seeing grown men cry. It makes my stomach churn sometimes , because you know it’s bad when a grown man cries. They don’t cry over small things like us women do. Not that that’s a bad thing; being in touch with one’s emotions indicates maturity and a deep sense of self. But a room goes silent when a man cries, sobs. The sound seems to shake the ground.
Afterwards, Ed peeled himself off Genevieve, sniffing. He hadn’t acknowledged any of us, except Genevieve, his girlfriend at the time. “Does anyone have a Kleenex?” she asked, digging through her bag and looking around. “I’ll go inside and ask your mom—”
“I’ve got some,” I said, pulling one of those on-the-go tissue packs out of my purse. “Here you go.” I handed them to Genevieve, because Ed was a statue at that point, boring holes into the grass in front of him.
Eventually, a police car with its lights off pulled into the driveway, followed by an EMS truck. Two police came out, but I only remember the woman, who spoke to Ed for a bit. No matter how much I strained my ears, I couldn’t make out anything they were saying. We were all underwater. I know I shared a few words with Genevieve, but I don’t remember what they were. I know my partner Robbie was trying to lighten the mood, show me something funny on his phone, but I can’t remember what it was.
When Ed was done speaking to the policewoman, he and Genevieve shared a few words. Somebody decided we were going on a walk around the block. I clutched my maroon fuzzy blanket in front of me, folded over my arms. It was a beautiful night, it really was. Early August always comes with a lasting heat wave, but it was nearing midnight, and the darkness had a cool-breath breeze that made the air balmy and pleasant. Robbie and I took up the rear, and I held onto his hand so tightly, as we squeezed through the tight sidewalks, weeds and pockets of grass growing through the untamed cracks. In the darkness, I had to keep looking at my feet, peering over my folded-up blanket so I wouldn’t trip on concrete, displaced over the years by water and weather and time.
We passed the town square, lit up with orange streetlights. The town was quiet—not dead but asleep. A few cars circled around, their headlights exposing our small group as we walked around and around. When we approached the house again, we saw that the police and emergency services weren’t done yet, so we kept walking. Ed, who had been leading the pack previously, sped up. I could hear his feet pounding against the concrete, and all of us struggled to keep up, preferring a leisurely pace at this unholy hour.
They carried his father out in a black body bag. At least, that’s what I think I remember. Memory is funny that way. I’m still not entirely sure if I saw what I did, or if I even saw anything. It was on our second loop around the neighborhood, and in our attempt to catch up with Ed, all I could do was peer through the darkness at the islands of light behind me.
* * *
I’ve never really heard Ed talk about it. It remains as something very real but unsaid. Everything I’ve heard about it has been through Genevieve. It’s like a large, gray elephant of grief that can appear at any time, and we all must never acknowledge it. We step around it with silent toes, slinking our bodies and our words past the great behemoth of pain Ed carries with him. I know it’s real though, because after that, Ed became kind of obsessed with his heart health. Which, I mean, makes sense when your father dies suddenly of a heart attack. He got himself and Genevieve heart monitors attached to their Apple watches. But other than that, Ed remains such a mystery. I’ve never heard him mention what happened in passing, other than referring to his dad in the past tense. I guess he doesn’t owe anyone his feelings about it, but emotional vulnerability is something I’ve gotten used to and appreciate in friendships. It just feels strange to me that he’s never really been honest or vulnerable with us, not even when Robbie and I became his roommates.
* * *
But there is one instance I can think of. One evening when Robbie and I were in our room, watching a tv show and laughing about it, we heard a small knock on our door. At first, we thought it was one of the cats trying to get in, but when it happened again, followed by a small “hey guys,” we paused the show and opened our door.
Ed was standing there, shadowed by the white light of the open bathroom door behind him. “Can you guys just come and hang out with me out here for a little bit?”
“Sure,” Robbie said.
We sat criss-cross applesauce in our small hallway, more of an alcove than anything, underneath the dim overhead light, warm-toned and on the lowest setting this late in the evening. Robbie sat closest to the bathroom, while I sat in between our room and the office, and Ed sat up against his bedroom door. He had a hand on his chest and was breathing heavily. Every few seconds, he’d check his watch.
“What’s up?” I said.
“I just got really lightheaded. Heart started going really fast,” he said.
“What do you think’s going on?”
His eyes slid closed and leaned his head back onto the wall. “Panic attack or something.”
Robbie, ever the crisis counselor, began telling us about something funny or interesting—again, memory fails. I can’t quite remember what it was now. But soon enough, we were smiling and laughing, and everything was alright.
In the conversation, our cat, Blue, peeked his little head around the corner, followed by his sister Birdy.
“We’ve got the whole gang here,” I said. Blue flopped over, exposing his fluffy, white belly for pets.
“It’s a party,” Ed said with a small smile.
Eventually, the moment passed. Ed said he was alright now, and we stood up, unwinding our legs as the cats scampered back downstairs. He said thanks, and then we returned to our respective corners of the house.
I know that was real.
* * *
In the months following Ed’s father’s death, two of my close friends lost their dads to COVID-19. My dad got COVID over Thanksgiving of 2020, and even had a heart attack a few months prior. Why did he survive, when so many others didn’t? Not that I wished ill on my father, but something about it felt unfair. Strange . . . confusing. What did it all mean? It didn’t—doesn’t—make sense that some people get to stay, and others don’t. Why was my dad able to survive his heart attack (he didn’t end up going to the hospital until 48 hours after), when Ed’ father just fell over one evening, gone in moments, left to live inside memory?
Both Madi and Cole, the two friends whose fathers died during the pandemic, were forthright in their grief over losing their fathers. While I hadn’t known Madi’s father that well, Cole’s father was a man I’d known all my life, simply because I’d known Cole all my life. I had watched his father and their family change. I knew him in many stages, in many seasons, and I missed his visitation. Nobody told me about it, and I was already at work. I would never have been able to make it in time.
All of this seems to intersect with my feelings about my own father. I’ve always taken after him. I’ve always looked like him. We speak each other’s silent language. It goes without saying that once we reach adulthood, there are always some holes to fill when it comes to parental relationships. The yearning maw of growing up is so great that two people cannot possibly be expected to fill those gaps, for I recognize now they are growing up too. But those two things can be true at the same time, in conflict with one another. You did your best, and it was still not good enough.
I have hated my father for all the ways he hurt me, with reactions bigger than necessary, a yell that could be heard throughout the house. The holes in the basement wall. All the ways he taught me to cope unintentionally with the pain of life. He felt smothering, sometimes. Domineering. It’s always been his way or the highway, and I was a houseplant that had outgrown its pot, withering in the dim sunlight that came in through the front window, overwatered with rhetoric I had tried to swim away from.
So I moved out, crawled my roots into a bigger pot, hoping that might improve my relationship with my father. In a way, it did. When I made the time to be with him, I appreciated the time we spent together, but was still able to breathe easier when he left. Our townhouse isn’t big enough for him and his personality.
Then why do I feel the way I do? Why can I see my friends grieving, and feel jealous, relieved? Why am I simultaneously afraid that my dad is going to die of another heart attack, but can hardly bear to spend any meaningful amount of time with him?
* * *
Because when dads are dead, they can’t disappoint you anymore.
What a horrible, awful thing of me to say. Three of my friends don’t even have dads anymore! My cousin doesn’t have a dad either! Jesus Christ, Olivia, could you be any more selfish? Probably not. You should be goddamn grateful you have a dad to spend any time with, because you will regret it later.
Yes, I probably will.
It didn’t matter how much my grandma had hurt all of us, because she’s dead now. And I suppose it won’t matter how much my dad hurt me when he’s dead . . . when we’re all dead.
But how much of my peace am I willing to sacrifice for a relationship? How much of him will I remember, and how much of him will I forget? And how much of him will live on inside me?