I buy the report even though it won’t be groundbreaking news. You died of a heroin overdose: case closed. But reading all of the online commentary about you brings it all back to that first week after you died. Having to see the tragedy unfold in public the first time was hard enough. I don’t want to do this again.
• • •
When the big, yellow envelope arrives in the mail one week later, I set it on the counter where it sits all night underneath an Anthropologie catalogue while Mike and I drink a bottle of wine with a friend. Just glancing over at it makes my heart bang around in my chest and my hands shake, and I want to throw it away or send it back or pretend it never came. But I can’t. When our friend leaves and Mike steps outside to walk the dog, I finally have a quiet moment to sit alone on the bed and spill my tears onto a fourteen-page report over your dead body.
From the anatomic findings and pertinent history I ascribe the death to:
Acute heroin intoxication.
Anatomical Summary:
Pulmonary edema.
Focal 5—10% atherosclerosis of the LAD coronary artery. Other coronaries are clean.
There are many medical terms I have to Google.
There are several diagrams, one outlining the rigor mortis scale of various body parts during the detective’s investigation. The scale is from 0 (Absent/Negative) to 4 (Extreme Degree). You were at a 2 across the board.
There are checklists and columns of body parts and organs that were “dissected,” their respective weights (in grams), and whether or not they were within normal limits.
Right lung: 655 grams
Left lung: 675 grams
Spleen: 340 grams
Liver: 1750 grams
Right kidney: 130 grams
Left kidney: 130 grams
Heart: 325 grams
Brain: 1350 grams
There is a toxicology report: Opiates. All opiates.
There is a case report with stuff like “911 was dialed and LAFD pronounced death on scene at 1200 hours without medical intervention” and “No foul play was suspected.”
There is a detailed report of how your body was positioned on the floor and where abrasions, punctures, and bruises were found, along with a description of the “scene” (they call it a scene) that reads like stage directions from a play. There’s something almost poetic about it.
The scene was the living room in a northwestern area of a single-story residence. The decedent was observed supine on a rug adjacent to an L-shaped sofa. A white paramedic sheet was partially covering the decedent. A lighter was grasped in his right hand. A backpack on the floor of the living room contained a ‘Narcotics Anonymous’ book.
There was no evidence of end of life activity or suicidal notes.
He had short brown hair, brown eyes, beard, mustache, and natural teeth. He was clad in a white t-shirt, brown pants, blue socks, and a brown belt. Blood was emitting from the nose and mouth. His jaw was clenched with the tip of his tongue between his teeth.
His jaw was clenched with the tip of his tongue between his teeth.
On 2/19/2015 at 1515 hours I notified the decedent’s sister, Stephanie Wittels, of the death via telephone.
16 Six Months, One Week
Despite how shitty I feel, life events keep happening as life events do. Not long after the autopsy report is released to the public, we move out of our tiny, cursed, ceiling-falling, foundation-shifting, mold-inducing, rodent-infested house. The new house is significantly bigger and newer and generally nicer. I’m not afraid to walk into the kitchen at night in bare feet. I’m hoping we’ll have a fresh start. The attic has been converted into a third-floor playroom that we will soon paint from floor to ceiling with giant jungle animals. There’s a place to put all of Iris’s things. There’s a place to put all our things. We finally clean out the storage unit, and now there’s a place to put all your things.
The gorgeous, mid-century modern chest of drawers that sat in your entryway now lives in my dining room. The bottom-right drawer is stuffed with all of Iris’s artwork from her little Montessori preschool. I keep thinking I need to do something more with it, but I’m not crafty, so there it sits. Iris pulls all of it out to show Momo and Bapa whenever they come over. She’s proud of her work. She calls it her “work.” Montessori lingo is adorable.
Your two cushiony, vintage chairs that spin around and swallow you up sit in our living room on top of the enormous shaggy rug where you lay dead six months ago. I thought about throwing it out, but I just couldn’t part with it. It’s not even particularly nice. I actually think you got it at IKEA. But it was yours. And I like to be surrounded by you. Sometimes I lay on it, too.
Upstairs in our bedroom are two more mid-century modern chests of drawers and the epic, wood-grained lamps that hugged either side of your bed. The TV in our bedroom sits on the same piece of furniture you used.
We are surrounded by you.
Most of the art that hung in your house now hangs in ours:
1. The giant painting of the boat sailing through choppy ocean waters that hung above your fireplace now hangs in our foyer.
2. The colorful ink drawing with all the little triangles and swirls and dotted lines and geometric shapes hangs across from the painting of the boat.
3. The large Johnny Carson painting is above our kitchen table. I imagine that you got it from a yard sale. It has a very yard-sale vibe. Johnny Carson obviously looks nothing like Mike, who has dark brown hair and a full beard, but Iris always looks at the painting while we eat and says, “Daddy!”
4. Above the stove hangs the hand-carved, wooden State of Indiana with the
