The Careful Undressing of Love Read online

  I’ve never told Mom that California’s more her dream than mine. I’ve never told her about my idea of Future Lorna: making pasta for Delilah and Jack, buying new underwear for new guys, wearing sunglasses on gray days, and not noticing the looks people give us anymore.

  Staying right here.

  When Dad died, Mom would have punched anyone who suggested we move away from our home to heal. “The best thing about this street,” she said one night when we’d been silently eating dinner for twenty minutes and I was wondering how pink was too pink for a chicken breast to be, “is that no one tells you to move on. No one’s telling us to donate Dad’s shirts to some Dress for Success charity. No one will ever tell me to try online dating or pick up knitting or yoga or to say good-bye. You know what a relief that is, Lorna?”

  I shrugged. She slept with Dad’s shirts most nights and that freaked me out. I didn’t want her to be like Angelika—shrouded in a cloud of Dad’s cologne, his wedding ring stuck around her finger, the house an unofficial shrine to the days behind us.

  On Devonairre Street we don’t throw away our memories. We hang on to them forever, as reminders of what we’ve done.

  People on other streets let go of the past.

  I have to let go of the future.

  The picture of Future me, Jack, and Delilah fades, and there’s nothing to replace it with. I miss their love already.

  I keep staring at the spot where Jack stood the other night, wishing we could gate it off and preserve the air he breathed.

  Mom clangs around the kitchen and stops talking about California or selling our home, and I work on pretending she never said it. “It’s raining, sweetie,” she says after a few minutes. “Do we really need the windows open?”

  “Everyone else’s windows are open and what if—”

  “At least it sounds nice,” Mom says, like she doesn’t want me to finish the sentence. And it does sound nice—raindrops pinging on air-conditioning units and windows and rustling through the leaves of the tree outside our building. It smells nice, too—like fresh dirt and damp flowers and that something else that comes from a wet sidewalk. It’s almost enough to make me forget about the sirens and honking cars and jackhammers on the street behind us, where Jack used to be.

  • • •

  We listen to the rain together in silence before Owen comes over. He’s checking in on me a lot, which is nice, but I wouldn’t have minded more hours alone with my mother and the open window.

  We have a pot of lavender tea and matching headaches. Owen makes us eggs but we don’t eat them, only in part because they’re browned on the bottoms, overcooked, and cheese-less.

  “Saad and Hiba,” Mom says. “We never talk about Saad and Hiba. They’re in love. They’re fine. They’re not—”

  “Mom,” I say. I can see her jaw clench on the word. Owen says nothing. I can hear the rain again. Whenever the word comes up in conversation, Owen looks at his feet and gets quiet. This time, I don’t mind the silence.

  Owen knew about Devonairre Street before he met us all, of course. People from neighboring streets have always known about our Curse, and now Cruz and Isla and I are known for our dead fathers. We are Affected. Kids learn our names in school. We get free coffee at most coffee shops and free pasta at seven different Italian restaurants.

  I’d rather have my father.

  “There’s been too much focus on the mystery of who attacked,” everyone heard the president say at the third anniversary. “This is our history now, something we have to teach our children. We can’t teach them why it happened or who made it happen. We don’t have those answers. But what we do know is who was affected. And we should care about those lives, too. Those lives are an important part of history. The History of the Affected.”

  Mom likes to joke that her generation had the “new math” but my generation has the “new history.” The History of the Affected. It’s more sprawling, harder to test, but maybe a little more beautiful, too. I know the names of individual Holocaust victims. I’m required to read about families of soldiers who died in the Gulf War, and families of Iraqi men and women who died, too. Last week, we memorized names of children who had been killed in school shootings—we know their ages, favorite colors, what they wanted to be when they grew up. We’ll need to know about their families, too—we’ll read stories of their grief and follow the years after the tragedy that Affected them.

  The new textbooks don’t say much about the people who did the shootings or why the wars took place. That’s not as important anymore. It can’t be, since we never were able to learn those facts about the Bombing.

  “We were doing it backward,” the president said, “giving fame to the perpetrators of violence and never knowing the brave souls who died or survived. We are fixing that now.”

  Mom says this new history is all wrong. “We don’t need any more attention,” she says. Being known has always been a problem for her. When she practiced in Brooklyn, no one wanted to go to a therapist from Devonairre Street. So she moved to Manhattan where fewer people had heard about our eccentric little community. Then the Bombing happened. Now no one wants a therapist who is also a Bombing widow.

  We can’t seem to escape ourselves.

  • • •

  “I didn’t say you believe in the Curse.” Mom finally blurts out the word. “I just wanted to talk about Saad and Hiba. It’s been a hard week. It can’t hurt to remember all the love in the world. And on the street. Those two love each other. It’s a beautiful thing, the way they watch each other all day. That’s all I’m saying.”

  Mom is practicing the History of the Unaffected.

  We scrape our forks against our plates and eat tiny bites of crappy eggs.

  “I like the name Saad,” Owen says. Then we are quiet again. I remember this from when my father died, too. First there is noise and chaos and this choking sound in the back of your throat and muffled screams into your pillow. Then there is this awful quiet. There’s nothing to say except half-formed sadnesses: fuck I can’t believe and I miss and I feel like my heart is and I don’t know how. And after a while you can’t say those things anymore, either, so you say nothing and wish there were a third option, in between sound and silence.

  We can’t find it, so we settle for silence.

  I was in this kitchen not even two days ago, leaning against this counter, smiling at the way Delilah bops her head like a little kid when she dances.

  “Cruz and Charlotte,” I say. “They’re in love, too.” I thought I didn’t want to play Mom’s game of Reasons Not to Believe in the Curse, but apparently I do.

  “Saad and Hiba have been married for fifteen years,” Mom says. “Don’t tell me they don’t love each other. I mean honestly. Angelika can’t just ignore the people on the street who are in love and completely fine. It’s ridiculous and it’s always been ridiculous and can we please shut the windows?”

  “Leave one open?” I whisper, and she leaves the biggest one open like an act of love. The sound of the rain changes a little, with only the one window open. It’s a more contained sound, more manageable.

  “Esther and Aaron. They died at a nice old age. Together,” Mom says.

  We don’t want to say Jack’s name out loud, so we’re saying these other names, like they can fill up that space.

  My face tightens and my eyes fill. “Dammit,” I say. “Funerals should be the day after—What are we supposed to do while we wait? This is awful. Isn’t this awful? Are we supposed to talk about him all day? Or sit in silence? What do I do with my hands?”

  “You should both be in school,” Mom says. On top she’s herself—a pale blue blouse hangs from her skinny frame and her tiny diamond studs are glinting. Her hair is in its low bun, but I think it’s from yesterday’s effort.

  “We’ll go back next week,” I say. “I don’t want to go back until Delilah goes back.” />
  Owen sighs loud and hard like it’s something he’s been holding in for days.

  “I can’t even think about school,” he says.

  “Have you cried, Owen?” Mom says. “You should cry. I know boys don’t always feel like they can, but it’s an important part of grieving.” The bottom half of Mom is not normal Dr. Emily Ryder. She has on huge red sweatpants that I didn’t even know she owned and thick socks with holes in the toes. Grief and worry have literally split her in two.

  “Yeah, Dr. Ryder,” Owen says, never calling her Emily although she’s asked him to over and over again. “I’ve cried.”

  I try not to react. Owen and I haven’t cried around each other yet. And the mention of it is worse than people talking about sex when you’re a virgin. It feels like this huge unspoken thing between us that we’re being asked to be ready for. But I’m not ready.

  I don’t cry in front of people, except for Cruz and Delilah and even then I do it behind my sunglasses. And I don’t watch other people cry.

  It’s another Devonairre Street tradition. We’re supposed to look away from tears. Angelika says looking at them invites more pain.

  “I’ve heard there’s a girl named Anna in Bed-Stuy,” Mom says at last. “She lived on Devonairre for a few years. And she’s living with a young man now. People say—”

  “The more you talk about how this Curse thing can’t be real,” Owen interrupts, “the more it feels real.”

  “Bad things happen,” Mom says. “They happen without Curses.”

  “Tell me about Saad and Hiba.” Owen wants to know he’s safe. I want to know he’s safe, too. I try to feel around inside me and see if there’s love in there.

  “They own the deli,” I say. “The one that sells carnations and sketchy milk but really good sandwiches.”

  I’ve always liked Saad and Hiba. Dad did, too. He’d go out to grab a jar of pasta sauce and not come back for an hour, getting lost in conversation with the two of them at the counter.

  Mom takes our mugs to the sink.

  “Hiba loves Saad,” Mom says a little too loudly. “She does. She smiles whenever I ask about him. As if the love is so deep down inside of her she is surprised that other people are even allowed to say his name. It’s lovely. It’s the loveliest look she gets on her face.”

  “I’ve seen them fight,” I say.

  “I’ve heard them fight,” Mom says.

  “People fight when they’re in love,” I explain to Owen. He and I have never had a fight before. What’s there to fight about?

  “It’s true,” Mom says. “Dad and I once fought about what we would name a dog neither of us wanted to get. I went hoarse from yelling. He left for three hours to cool down. That’s love.”

  “Huh,” Owen says, and I’m not sure it’s really enough to quell whatever nightmare must be rolling through his head right now.

  “What’d Dad want to the name the dog?” I ask.

  “Horace,” Mom says. “I liked King.” I file the information away under Memories About My Father and think that if we got a dog I’d name him Horace for sure. “Not the worst fight we ever had,” she says, looking out the window like the worst fight they ever had is out there somewhere, playing on a loop for only her, “but close.”

  “What was the worst one?” I ask, and I know she won’t answer.

  “I want to be clear about something,” Mom says. “Jack was drunk. He was walking in the middle of the street. That’s why he died. Anything else is magical thinking.”

  “Of course,” Owen says, and I think maybe it’s me that’s needed convincing this whole time, not Owen. I don’t want to stop talking about Saad and Hiba but I don’t know them well enough to be able to think of anything else to say about them. Or about love. Right now I can only feel the ache of Jack being gone and Delilah not returning my calls and the vague worry about an eleven-year-old girl who is now fatherless somewhere in Chicago. Love might be underneath all that, the way the earth gets buried under snow every winter, flowers blooming when the ice is cleared away. You’d never know what’s going to be in the garden in June when you’re looking at it in January.

  I stare out the open window, over the messy rooftops that people try and fail to make glamorous. Almost every roof on our street has a rusting lawn chair and a half garden and flimsy railing to keep people from falling off. Ours does, too—I miss having my own garden, my own roof to watch the rest of the world from. At some point everyone gave up on the rooftops and settled for the community garden. But the lawn chairs and cracked pots remain above the neighborhood. They’re the kinds of things you don’t notice until you do, and today I do.

  I wonder if people stopped going to their rooftops because Angelika got nervous about boys falling off. Every once in a while a neighborhood tradition I didn’t know about reveals itself, and I have a feeling this might be one.

  I’m going to ask Mom about it, but she speaks first.

  “I’m seeing someone.” She says it fast, like she’s been keeping it in for ages.

  My mom hasn’t dated since my father.

  Devonairre Street widows don’t date.

  There’s a hit of pain, picturing her looking at someone else the way she used to look at Dad. And relief, too, that I might catch sight of her smiling the way she used to. It’s hard to know which feeling matters more.

  “I’ve been meaning to tell you.” The stools at the counter feel unusually hard. “I’m telling you so you don’t worry. I’m telling you because I’m not scared and your father was never scared and we play the game and do the traditions and stay sweet with Angelika because she’s been so, so good to us, but that doesn’t mean we believe.”

  I hear her heartbeat. It’s fast. It’s getting faster, still.

  First California, now this. My brain is crowded enough, trying to piece together how Jack is gone. Mom keeps adding new complications to the mix, and I can’t keep up.

  “Lorna. It’s okay.”

  “Do you love him?” I look at my mother’s face on Angelika’s behalf. I see new wrinkles near her eyes and that her lips are an impossibly pale pink.

  I don’t see love or not-love. I see my mother exactly as she is—sad and strong, tense and trying.

  Owen leans forward, like it means something, her answer.

  “We can fall in love,” Mom says, louder than is necessary given that we are all sharing a tiny space.

  “Angelika says—” I stop myself. I know better than to begin a sentence that way. I can’t let her get to me.

  “I’m done with Angelika says!” Mom snaps, our thoughts intersecting as they often do. She goes to the kitchen drawer where we keep random shit. She’s too worked up, though, and the drawer comes all the way out. Pencils and stamps and receipts and chopsticks and a red shoelace of my father’s that we can’t stand to throw away—it all goes flying. She doesn’t care. She knows what she’s looking for. And when she finds it, she stands right up in the chaos she’s created.

  She brings the scissors to her hair. We haven’t cut it in years. But with trembling hands, my mother cuts her hair, right here in the kitchen, in big uneven chunks that fall to the ground like embers from a fire that have floated up and are flickering down.

  Mom’s hair—long and silver-blond like mine—shines all the way to the floor.

  I listen to her heart beat and the scissors snap and Owen’s fingertips play a tap-tap-tap song on his thigh.

  She cuts her hair until it’s all the way up to her chin. Anyone looking in on us would see something violent and unrestrained. They’d worry at the glint of the scissors and the look in Mom’s eyes. Their eyes would grow wide at the way she stands still in a mess of her own making, at the strange new shape of her hair.

  These things don’t happen in other people’s kitchens.

  “See?” she says, and she has never been less like Dr.
Emily Ryder. If this is love, I know for sure I don’t have it and I don’t want it. Love is insanity, apparently. There’s a strip of sweat across her forehead and a rosy flush to her face. “See?” she says again, getting her voice back under her control. She clears her throat, returning to her usual self. Trying to. “Everything is fine. There’s nothing to be scared of.”

  But staring at the silvery pile on the floor and the way my mother touches the new jagged edges of her hair, I’m sure the exact opposite is true.

  8.

  We aren’t welcome at Jack’s funeral.

  We stand outside the church near Jack’s brother, Michael, and when we wave hello he scowls.

  “Ridiculous,” we hear him tell someone else who believes they loved Jack as much as we did. I wish I could shield Delilah from the word.

  We’re all in black wool—Cruz and Owen in suits—me, Delilah, Isla, and Charlotte in ugly dresses. Delilah has three lemons in her purse and eyeliner to distract from the just-cried look of her eyes. I keep trying to hold her hand and she keeps pulling it away.

  This is another awful truth of losing people you love: everyone needs something different. And the needs almost never match up. It’s like a bundle of spare socks and none finding their mates.

  “We shouldn’t have come as a group,” Delilah says. “You know how it looks.”

  “It looks like you have people who care about you,” Charlotte says, but I see what Delilah’s seeing. Scrunched noses. Pursed lips. Shaking heads. In this part of Brooklyn we are the Devonairre Street Girls, and we are as ridiculous as Jack’s brother proclaimed us to be.

  For a moment the six of us stay circled on the sidewalk in front of the church. I think that after our initial impact, we’ll fade right back in. We are other, sure, but we’re in black and we’re being quiet. Smelling like lavender and lemons shouldn’t alarm anyone.

  Delilah keeps her head down and Isla glares at anyone who looks our way. The rest of us hold hands and focus on looking serious and small.

  But Jack’s brother won’t leave it alone. Michael’s always been more into the family name and all it means than Jack ever was. He has a straight back and straight teeth and a heavy brow and tattoo-less knuckles and a crisp suit. He isn’t afraid of us at all.