Harris’s plan was to go to rehab for thirty days, then come back to Houston for a while, see the baby, and regroup. But toward the end of treatment, he changed his mind. When we talked about it over the phone, he blamed it on my dad. He said he still felt a lot of shame and didn’t want to put his recovery in jeopardy, so he would just go back to LA. Where he started shooting heroin in the first place.
After he served his time, he checked out and spent the night in the hotel with my mom. She reported back to me that it felt different than the last time he got out. His vibe wasn’t particularly open or communicative or refreshed. He was impatient and on edge. He seemed as closed off as he was when he arrived a month ago. Sobriety had lost its luster.
Once she got back to Houston, my mom started attending regular Al-Anon meetings. She’d always been willing to do anything for her children, whether it be chaperoning a field trip or going to an Al-Anon meeting. She was always a good and loving mother. Now she was a good and loving mother who woke up every day worried that it would be her son’s last.
18 Seven Months
You always said you’d take Mom to the Emmys someday, and here we are—she and I—standing in a large dressing room with cheap maroon carpet, staring into a mirror, draped in gowns strewn with beads and sparkles and rhinestones. I’ve never worn a gown like this. It’s so heavy. I imagine I’ll have to wear shapewear. I hate shapewear. I hate you for putting me in this position.
This is not how any of us imagined this would play out. In the future fantasy scenario, Mom is your date. You’d strut the red carpet together, hobnobbing with celebs as she clung proudly to your arm. You’d thank her in your acceptance speech as the camera panned over to her, dabbing her wet eyes with a tissue. Dad and I would proudly watch it all unfold on TV back in Houston. I would be wearing an elastic waistband, not a gown.
In three weeks, Mom and I are going to the Emmys without you. Parks and Recreation is nominated for Best Comedy Series, and you will be honored in the In Memoriam segment. An invite showed up in Mom’s in-box late August. She forwarded it to me with the overly exuberant message: “Please go with me!!!!!!!!!” She still composes emails in Comic Sans, which just adds to my frustration about the entire ordeal.
I was at work. I audibly grumbled. There was no way to get out of this.
The timing is terrible. My students just got back from summer break. We just moved into our new house a week ago. There are so many tchotchkes to shelve. I don’t want to leave my family for three days. I don’t want to take a day off work. I don’t want to fly to Los Angeles ever again. I don’t want to go to an awards ceremony in honor of my dead brother. Once again, why can’t Dad go? Why can’t he play the part of supportive husband? It’s landed on my desk since you died, and I never applied for the job.
I explain all my reasons to Mom but end the email saying I’ll go if it’s really important to her. As you know, she brings that out in people.
“It’s really important to me!!!!!!!” Again with the fucking exclamation marks. It’s too much punctuation with which to argue.
We book the tickets and buy the gowns. I go with one that has zero beading but plenty of flare. The top is silver and shiny like a fashionable suit of armor. The bottom part is a floor-length chiffon skirt with big silver and white horizontal stripes. Describing it makes it sound hideous, but it was quite beautiful. The only thing I’ve ever worn that comes close to this level of formality was my wedding dress. Mom goes for a white Monique Lhuillier beaded gown. I assume she’ll have to pay extra for luggage. It’s so fucking heavy.
The day before we leave for LA, Mom gets an email from Universal inviting us to an NBC pre-party on Saturday night. As much as I don’t want to go the Emmys, I really don’t want to go to this. None of this feels like a party. Plus, you hated these sorts of things. Mom, of course, feels otherwise and wants to see “famous people.”
She also feels it necessary to remind me several times to pack my dress and my shoes like I’m a fucking five-year-old. My frustration with her is reaching levels only experienced as an angsty teen living under the same roof. She is genuinely excited about the weekend. It is off-putting. She seems to have lost sight of the fact that we are going because you died.
We’re walking to the gate at the airport on Saturday afternoon when she says, “I am just so excited that you finally get a little vacation. You never get to relax!” The invisible tape I’ve put over my mouth out of respect for our grieving mother finally rips off. “Mom, we’re going to the Emmys because Harris died. Nothing about this is relaxing. I don’t even want to go.”
She’s stunned. Silence steals the space between us. We wait for the plane in silence, board the plane in silence, take off in silence. I can tell that she is genuinely hurt and throwing a silent temper tantrum of
