Meanwhile, I had an urge to cross my legs in defiance. Where was Dr. Rosen’s magic trick for me? What had I stashed in my closet that I could bring to group and voilà! I’d be ready for intimacy and closeness? Marty and I had started on the same day, and now he was lapping me. I’d come to Dr. Rosen wishing for death because I was chronically and fundamentally alone, but Marty had cyanide pills in his bedside table. And somehow he was leaping forward? I let the jealousy and anger rise, but said nothing.
With only fifteen minutes left in the session, Dr. Rosen turned his attention to Marty’s tin. “Pick someone to hold that for you.” I gazed at the splotchy carpet as Marty scanned the room. Surely he would pick Patrice, the Mama Bear of the group.
“Christie.”
Holy flaming Freud balls. I narrowed my eyes at Marty, afraid and annoyed that he picked me to hold a baby who never got to grow up, whose flesh and bones were now sealed up in a silver tin. I scowled at Dr. Rosen for orchestrating this whole morbid affair. I wanted to stand up and beat my head with my fists and scream until my throat was shredded: “I’m not here for death and bones and ashes! I’m here for life! I WANT TO LIVE!”
How did it make sense that I, a random woman from Marty’s therapy group, was suddenly the custodian of this tin? Didn’t the baby deserve to be in the hands of someone who loved him or his parents dearly? The randomness was unbearable.
Dr. Rosen directed Marty to look at me and ask if I would take the tin. When Marty and I locked eyes, I saw his pain but couldn’t bear it. I turned to Dr. Rosen.
“How about I take Marty’s cyanide pills?”
“I don’t think so,” said Dr. Rosen. A pause. Then, “You don’t have to do that, you know.”
“What?”
“Make a joke when you’re scared or upset or angry. Deflect.”
“How’s this? Fuck you, Dr. Rosen.” Dr. Rosen rubbed his heart with his palm, a gesture I’d seen before. He once explained that when someone shared their anger with him directly, it was a sign of love that he folded into his heart as a blessing.
“Better.”
“Okay,” I whispered, chastened. I asked Marty what the baby’s name was.
“Jeremiah.”
I couldn’t abandon Baby Jeremiah. Some part of that beloved child was still in that tin, and I wouldn’t turn my back on him. I was selfish and self-absorbed, but I was not a total monster. My outstretched arms reached for the tin.
Dr. Rosen passed the tin to Patrice, who handed it to me. I took it into my hands and held it perfectly still. I did not want to feel the contents inside. As I lowered the tin into my lap, I imagined it filled with tiny seashells. I tried really hard not to think about bones. An image of me rocking and sobbing, while cradling the tin, flashed through my mind, but a plume of anger at Dr. Rosen snuffed out the tender grief.
“Question,” I said to Dr. Rosen. “Marty gets closer to Janeen if he lets Jeremiah go, but what happens to me if I take him?”
After uttering a few mmms and umms at the ceiling, he said, “For you, these ashes represent your attachment to this group. You need the group’s support to lean into death, to stop running from it.” He leaned forward as if he was afraid I couldn’t hear him. “You want to move forward? Start feeling.”
“I don’t know.” My shaking hands gripped the tin.
“You don’t know what?”
“How to do it. Or if I can.”
“Mamaleh, it’s already happening.”
Two weeks later, Marty pulled out an envelope and presented it to Dr. Rosen.
“My pills,” Marty said. He poured the yellow disks into his palm and offered them to Dr. Rosen, who stood up and said, “We’re going to have a funeral.” We followed Dr. Rosen to the small bathroom just outside the group room. Rory held Marty’s hand until he was ready to let them go. Dr. Rosen announced that he would now recite the Mourner’s Kaddish.
“What are we mourning?” I asked.
“The death of Marty’s suicidality.”
“L’chaim,” Carlos said.
“That means ‘to life,’ ” the Colonel said to me, putting a gnarled hand on my shoulder.
“I’ve seen Fiddler on the Roof,” I said, moving his hand off me.
“L’chaim indeed,” Dr. Rosen said, glowing at Marty, who dropped the pills into the toilet and watched them swirl until they disappeared.
After we flushed Marty’s pills, we took our seats back in the group room. Dr. Rosen stared at me.
“You ready?” he said.
“For what?”
“You know what.”
“I don’t.”
“I think you do.”
Of course I did.
11
My luggage tag read “Christie Tate-Ramon.” When Jenni’s dad, David, handed it to me, he said, “I’ve always wanted two daughters.” He hugged me, and then shooed me and Jenni into the taxi idling in the driveway. There were five of us: Jenni, her dad David, her mom Sandy, her brother Sebastian, and me. Freshman year of high school was six weeks away.
When we landed in Honolulu, everyone at the airport wore flowered shirts and greeted us with “Mahalo.” On the drive to the hotel, we repeated it over and over like a blessing.
For three days, we explored the lush main island, stopping on the side of the road to marvel at waterfalls sprouting from the wall of a mountain, eating macadamia nuts, and snapping pictures of black sand beaches. The second night we attended an obligatory luau, where we all poked at the poi and wore fresh orchid leis.
On the fourth day, just after lunch, David loaded us kids into the rental sedan, along with towels and boogie boards. We were headed to a secluded black beach at the end of the highway, which we had seen during our first day of sightseeing. Sandy stayed at the condo to do laundry.
“Surf, surf,
