Things I'm Seeing Without You Read online

  A bug spattered against the windshield. Dad turned on the wipers, but all it did was smear a streak across the glass. He looked straight ahead.

  ‘You think I want to bury pets for the rest of my life?’ he said. ‘I just kind of fell into that when nothing else was happening. Give me a little credit, Tess.’

  He sighed.

  ‘This was supposed to be my first big break.’

  We were walking down the trail now into some dense woods. The obituary in the paper said that both Maxine’s burial and service would take place here, but still, we saw no evidence of mourners. There were no markers or headstones along the path. No music in the air. Still we kept trudging forward, listening to the whirring of insects and the watery chirps of darting swallows. I watched my father’s disconsolate march, and somewhere in my frosty, shattered heart I felt a small pang of something.

  ‘What were you going to do?’ I asked.

  ‘For the funeral?’

  I nodded.

  ‘If you’re just going to make fun of me,’ he said, ‘I’d rather not discuss it.’

  We tromped onward.

  ‘I’m genuinely curious,’ I said. ‘You’re famous for doing this crazy stuff, right? So lay it on me. What was your plan for Maxine the human?’

  I could tell he was still pissed at me, but he smiled in spite of himself.

  ‘It was going to be a marathon.’

  He was quiet for a moment, but when he started talking again, it was in a fast, excited voice.

  ‘Maxine Harp was a ninety-year-old runner. She started at the age of seventy, and kept at it. Each year she ran the New York Marathon and then she was interviewed by the Today Show. She always said she wanted to die in her running shoes. So, her service was going to be an honorary run.’

  His eyes widened.

  ‘I’m talking torches. Engraved medals. T-shirts. Starting pistols. And chauffeurs for people who wanted to watch from a limo. Then, at the end: another marathon. Of food this time. All her favourites to replace the calories burnt in her honour! It was going to be epic! A trek to honour her life’s journey in the …’

  He tripped suddenly and went stumbling shoulder-first into the dirt of the trail.

  ‘Ow,’ he said. ‘Dammit.’

  ‘Whoa, Dad. Are you OK?’

  He got up, wincing. The entire left side of his suit was wet and dirty. He tried his best to dust himself clean.

  ‘What happened?’ I asked.

  Instead of answering, he just knelt down and pushed aside some brush from the side of the trail. Underneath it was a cream-coloured stone with something engraved on it. I knelt beside him. It read, Ella Olson, 1965–2012. A gravestone. Beneath Ella’s name it read: ‘From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them and that is eternity.’

  ‘Edvard Munch,’ I said right away.

  My dad looked at me, surprised.

  ‘I studied him in art class.’

  He got up and started walking again.

  ‘I guess this is a cemetery after all,’ he said.

  Now that we were looking down, we spotted stones in other places. They were flat and unobtrusive, scattered here and there like the last remains of an old civilization.

  ‘Hey,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry.’

  My dad broke his stare at the ground.

  ‘For what?’ he said, his voice a little shaky.

  ‘Your funeral. It sounded cool. I’m sure it would have been great.’

  He took a long breath and then nodded.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said.

  And as we made our way through the grass, and over a small dribbling creek, we eventually caught the sound of a voice coming from the top of a hill. When we looked up, there were a few wisps of white smoke in the air. We could just make out a sparse crowd, their heads all cocked in the same direction. My dad looked at me with a ‘what now?’ kind of glance.

  ‘Now we hike,’ I said.

  No one was dressed in black.

  That’s what I noticed first. Instead the mourners wore earth tones. Loose khaki pants. Gore-tex hiking boots. Like they were on a death safari or something. And they were all gathered around a simple hole in the ground.

  The dirt was piled to the side, and surrounding the opening there were wild flowers scattered in a loose border. Just to the right of the grave was a body wrapped in a bright-white shroud. Maxine was small and tied up like a birthday present with more flowers under one of the lowering straps.

  We made our way to the back of the crowd. No one paid us much notice. The service was coming to an end. A man in a tweed coat burnt sage while an older woman in a billowy cotton dress spoke in a lilting voice.

  ‘. . . although she has created a rupture in our lives, she is nourishing the trees and the grasses and the flowers the way she nourished her family. And just as she preserved the optimism of so many women of advanced age, she will now preserve wildlife with the nutrients of her body.’

  Two younger guys walked over to the body.

  ‘Her sons,’ my dad whispered to me.

  They lifted their mother’s shroud over the grave’s opening. She hovered beneath their strained wrists like she was levitating.

  ‘Earth to earth,’ began the woman in the robe. ‘Ashes to ashes.’

  Hand over hand, a foot at a time, the boys slowly lowered the shroud-enclosed body into the ground until Maxine Harp disappeared.

  ‘Dust to dust.’

  Nobody moved. Except one of the Harp boys, who walked solemnly over to the pile of dirt and unearthed a digging shovel. He stuck it into the small hill and pulled up a shovelful. Then he carried it back to the grave, and let the soil tumble back into the place where it came from.

  He wasn’t crying, but it looked like he might start any minute. His brother came up behind him and took the shovel from his hands. He, too, walked to the pile, scooped and unloaded his dirt. A sister came next, and one by one, all Maxine’s children and grandchildren took turns filling in the grave. When the last shovelful of dirt hit home, my dad turned away from the ceremony and began to walk away.

  ‘Where are you going?’ I asked. ‘Don’t you want to talk to these guys?’

  He picked up his pace.

  ‘We’re not supposed to be here,’ he said.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I said. ‘These people screwed you over.’

  He shook his head.

  ‘I was hired to do a job,’ he said. ‘And then I was fired. This is a service industry. We’re not here for the right reasons.’

  We were almost back over the hill when a voice came from behind us.

  ‘Duncan,’ it said. ‘Is that you?’

  It was one of the Harp boys, jogging towards us, his large hand reaching out like he was flagging a cab.

  ‘I thought it was you,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah,’ said my dad, ‘I just . . .’

  ‘It was big of you to come,’ said the large guy. Up close, he looked like a giant, though he was probably only an inch or two taller than my dad.

  ‘That was a lovely ceremony,’ my dad said.

  And I was surprised to hear his voice give out at the end. The Harp boy clapped a hand down on my dad’s shoulder.

  ‘I wanted to invite you,’ he said, ‘but my brother said we shouldn’t since we . . . went in another direction.’

  He looked down and his grin fell away.

  ‘Look, Duncan, I’m not going to tell you that the news about your deal in Nantucket didn’t have an effect on our decision. But, Mom loved the outdoors. And then she met this woman with a green burial company, who told her about this place. No coffins. No embalming. No chemicals. Just nature and stuff. Mom changed everything at the last minute. This was what she wanted.’

  ‘I see,’ said Dad.

  ‘That’s her by the way,’ said the giant, squinting into the sun. ‘The gal in the beige.’

  I looked up towards the grave and felt something in me drop.

  ‘That’s . . . who?’ I asked.

 
; He looked down at me, startled. I’m not sure he had even seen me until now.

  ‘The lady with the company. Greener Pastures. That’s her.’

  ‘Greener Pastures,’ I said.

  She was waving to us now, the woman in beige. Her light-blonde hair was pulled up into a clip, loose strands spilling down her neck. Her nose and forehead, even at this distance, were darkened with freckles and flushed from the sun.

  ‘Her name’s Grace,’ he said. ‘Would you like to meet her?’

  I looked at my dad. He looked back at me. We started walking straight towards her. At the last minute, she caught sight of us and smiled.

  ‘Duncan,’ she said. ‘Tess! I wondered if I might see you again. Welcome to Maxine’s planting.’

  Grace the Traitor.

  This time she was wearing a tunic dress over tights, with a shawl draped across her shoulders. No make-up. In her earth tones, she looked like a forest nymph. A traitorous forest nymph.

  ‘Planting?’ I said.

  ‘That’s what we call them, Tess.’

  ‘Is her body going to grow into a field of corn?’

  Grace looked around to see if anyone was in earshot.

  ‘You’re upset about something.’

  My dad stared at the ground.

  ‘You’re right,’ I said. ‘We’re just a teensy bit upset about the fact that you poached a goddamn funeral from us, Grace. You double-crossing hippie!’

  ‘I didn’t even know you were in the business,’ my dad said, more to himself than to her.

  Grace looked at me for a minute. Her voice shifted to a stressed whisper.

  ‘I didn’t poach anything. I met a family that needed my services, and I happily provided them. I assume that’s a lot like what your dad does.’

  I took a step towards Grace.

  ‘And I’m sure you had no idea that someone else had already agreed to plant Ms Harp.’

  Grace adjusted her shawl and swept a lock of hair away from her eyes.

  ‘They might have mentioned something . . .’

  The crowd was dispersing around us, friends and family members tromping over the preserve, pointing out the pastoral beauty to one another.

  ‘I’ve met enough liars lately,’ I said, ‘to know when I’m looking at one.’

  I grabbed my dad’s arm.

  ‘C’mon, Dad,’ I said. ‘Grace, enjoy your planting. I hope the harvest is bountiful.’

  I managed to yank him forward, and we started to walk away.

  ‘Hold on,’ said Grace. ‘Wait a second. Will you, Tess?’

  I don’t know why I turned back, but when I did, she looked chastened.

  ‘What?’ I said. ‘What is it?’

  Her lips were slightly pursed.

  ‘How are you doing?’ she asked.

  My hands flexed in my pockets. I thought about my last week, the way I had been duped and crushed over and over again.

  ‘I’ve been watching a lot of television,’ I said. ‘Thanks for asking.’

  Grace fiddled with a button on her dress.

  ‘Duncan,’ she said, ‘can you give us a minute?’

  My dad didn’t protest. He turned around and looked out over the preserve, taking it all in.

  ‘Have you told your father yet?’ Grace asked.

  ‘Told him what?’

  ‘How bad things really were that day?’

  ‘How bad were they?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Grace. ‘Only you can answer that . . .’

  I looked at her face, and beneath the tan and the freckles, there were rings under her eyes.

  ‘. . . but it seemed pretty bad.’

  ‘Really? And what would you know about it?’ I asked. ‘Are you a high school guidance counsellor? Have you read some really good self-help books that you want to recommend to me?’

  ‘No,’ said Grace. ‘Nothing like that.’

  For a moment it seemed like this was maybe going to be the end of our conversation. Then she spoke again.

  ‘But I have been so depressed that I didn’t leave my house for a month. So there’s that. And I’ve ruined a marriage because of my own personal misery. And I’ve thought of doing things much more irrational than jumping off a dock. It’s OK if you don’t want to hear this from me. I get it. But the reason I know about you, Tess, is that I’ve been you.’

  I wanted to yell at her, to flip her off and leave. But I was rooted in place.

  ‘I’m sorry I lied,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know your father was the competition. If you ever want to talk to me when you’re not so angry, you can contact me here.’

  She handed me a card, and I held it between my thumb and forefinger. My instinct was to drop it on the ground, let it biodegrade the way it was probably meant to. But, I didn’t do that. Instead, I slipped it into the pocket of my real pants, and then I walked back to the car and drove home with my sulking father.

  I saw this news story a couple of years ago about a guy who loved someone for ten years and then discovered she didn’t exist. For an entire decade he thought he was dating a fitness model in LA, this spandex-clad girl next door with a blonde ponytail and perky boobs. In reality, he was being duped by a bored housewife in West Virginia. His true love was just a digital collage of images from posters and videos, fused into a Facebook Frankenstein’s monster.

  In the news segment I watched, they showed all his emails: thousands of pages piled on his desk like the longest romance novel ever written. There were boxes, too, stacked crates of gifts, photos, and tokens from their relationship. He even had a tattoo of her face on his right shoulder.

  I still remember the look on his face when the reporter asked him how he could have possibly fallen for the scam. How could he really not have known it was a hoax all that time? Ten years! His face had turned red at first, but then he looked defiant, his wet eyes full of life.

  ‘I was in love,’ he said.

  And what could the reporter really say after that?

  I understand that look now.

  Since my contact with Daniel the fake, I’d pretty much felt all of the feelings there are to feel. Rage and self-pity? Check. Astonishment with a hint of denial? Check. Short bouts of hopelessness ending with the occasional manic laughing fit? Yep.

  There was so much that I had to rethink. So many moments that weren’t what I thought they were. It felt like I was living them all over again. Memories came back and I had to completely re-evaluate them.

  The video of the starlings, for instance. Even something small like that. Just a snippet of footage with tiny black birds flying in pulsing patterns over a pastel sky. A ‘murmuration’ it’s called. Along with this video file, there was accompanying text.

  This is what my body feels like when I think about you.

  Who sent it? It had arrived in my inbox right around the two-month mark.

  No-man’s-land.

  But it’s important because I responded, at the time, by sending the first naked picture of myself I’d ever taken. I know. I get it. Spare me your judgements. It just seemed right at the time. I let my dress fall to the floor along with my tights, bra, and underwear, and I snapped the picture by holding a phone to the mirror on my closet door.

  I made no attempt to hide the stuff about my body I hate. My outie belly button. The constellation of moles on my right thigh. A half-moon scar over my hip from a bicycle accident. My noticeably uneven breasts. I wrote back:

  This is what my body looks like when you think about it.

  I knew I shouldn’t be sending it even as I did it. I’d heard all the warnings. But what no one ever tells you is that the risk itself is the point; it’s the thrill of making a mistake on purpose. The only problem is that I thought I was making that mistake for someone in particular. Someone I knew.

  Honestly, though, the sex stuff didn’t bother me as much as I thought. Worse were the things I told him. Stuff I hadn’t told anyone else. The way I used to shoot baskets in my parents’ driveway in junior h
igh, telling myself that if I could just hit ten free throws in a row, I would no longer be ugly. My fear of the dark, all the way into high school, and the way I used to leave my blinds open so I could see the light from the neighbours’ TV.

  The time I got my first period at a pool party and had to call my mom to bring me home. The time I watched all my friends make fun of an overweight girl in gym class until they brought her to tears, and I did nothing to stop them. And the admission, absolutely true, that I’d never had a boyfriend until him.

  Some of these things made it to Jonah, I know. We spoke on the phone occasionally at first, and I remember his low voice saying ‘it’s OK,’ and ‘but you were just a kid.’ He hardly ever returned the favour, though. He wasn’t good at revealing. The only time I can remember clearly was when he told me about being hospitalized for a weekend when he was sixteen.

  ‘All I can tell you, Tess, is that I felt worse than I ever had in my life. And I wasn’t sure what I was going to do if I was left alone. My mom found me staring into the knife drawer in the kitchen, and when she asked me why, I couldn’t answer. She called my doctor and he helped make the arrangements at a place nearby.’

  I asked him if he’d ever felt that way again.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘But I have to take a pill every day. Probably for the rest of my life.’

  It might have been the last real thing I found out about him. Soon after that, he wasn’t interested in the phone as much. He wanted to text and chat, claiming he felt ‘more like himself’ that way. And who was I to deny him? I liked the way he sounded in writing. I imagined us as a famous intellectual couple from history, exchanging ‘correspondence’. I had still never read anything as sexy and strange as Flaubert’s letter to Louise Colet in 1846.

  Mr Barthold had mentioned something about these letters when we were reading Madame Bovary for Advanced English, and I had quickly looked them up. What I found was better than I could have imagined.

  ‘I will cover you with love when next I see you, with caresses, with ecstasy. I want to gorge you with all the joys of the flesh, so that you faint and die . . . When you are old, I want you to recall those few hours, I want your dry bones to quiver with joy when you think of them.’