“I wish we could have done more. I’m sure she appreciates you being here. Even when they can’t respond, like she can’t, they still appreciate it.
That’s what they say, anyway.” I realize for the first time that he’s shaking my hand.
I spend the night in her room, listening to her breathe until I fall asleep in a chair. I repeat the same ritual for the rest of the week, waking up in the chair each morning, catching the train, and filing in and out of the city like the rest of the clockpunchers. Each night I return to my bedside vigil, watching my mother slip closer and closer to the finish line.
“AT LEAST SHE DIDN’T SUFFER LONG,” says Dottie, apparently disregarding the twenty-two years my mother was married to my father, who seems as numb and detached during her funeral as he’d been during her life. Not that anyone shows much life during the solemn and humorless service.
My dad’s temperament or lack thereof matches the demeanor of my mom’s stoic relations, several of whom have flown in from the Midwest.
The obvious exception to the emotional void is Tana, an absolute wreck before, during, and after the service. When the service ends, she grabs me in a hug. “I’m so sorry,” she says.
“Walk with me while I smoke,” I say. By unspoken agreement my father and I have avoided lighting up in front of my mother’s family, so as not to remind them of the lung cancer that killed their nonsmoking relation.
“It’s weird,” I say upon reaching a thicket of trees that offers some privacy. “I think I always saw her as a two-dimensional character — you know, Mom.
She lived a whole life inside of her mind that I never gave her credit for. That I’ll never know. I guess it’s true what they say: We all die alone.”
“What the hell is wrong with you guys?” Tana asks.
“That depends on what you mean by ‘you guys.’”
“Men. You all say the same stupid shit. ‘The world is meaningless. We all die alone. Nothing means anything.’”
“If anything meant anything,” I say, “my mother wouldn’t have died of somebody else’s disease.”
“My point is that she didn’t die alone,” says Tana, staring at the mourners filing out of the cemetery. “Maybe we’re all out there, floating by ourselves in some big black void. But we build connections, you know? We build our own worlds with the people we love. Your mom didn’t die alone.
She had friends and she had family, and even when they let her down, she always felt like she had a home.”
Tana is bawling again. I hug her again. “I’m sorry,” I whis-per into her ear.
“Me too,” she replies. “But let’s not fucking dwell on it.”
I hold Tana tight, two lone figures surrounded by trees.
A FEW DAYS LATER, I RETURN TO THE Chelsea Hotel for what will be the last time. I skirt past Herman without his noticing me and sprint upstairs to my room. The locks have been changed.
“Deh you ah,” says Herman when I return to the lobby.
“Hi. I seem to be having some trouble with my key.”
“Ya seem ta have a little trubble widda rent as well.”
“Yeah, about that …”
“I also tawkt to a friend at the New Yawkah. Dey nevah hudda ya.” Herman grins and holds up his key ring. Except instead of leading me upstairs, he unlocks a supply closet behind him. My duffel and typewriter are inside. “Tanks fah stayin’ widdus.
Besta luck widda poetry.”
I’m lugging my stuff through the front door when Nate holds it open for me. “Weed Man!” he yells.
“Where the hell have you been?” I look at K., who’s standing next to him. She seems more interested in something on the floor. “You’re not leaving us, are you?”
“Moving out,” I say.
“Well, good luck and all that.”
K. finally speaks. “We should buy you a drink.”
“I can’t, baby,” says Nate. “I told that reporteress from Rolling Stone I’d call her back an hour ago.
What time is it, anyway?”
“Well then I should buy you a drink,” says K.
K. and I wander into the restaurant next door.
Just a month ago, it was the birthplace of our relationship; now it will host our postmortem. “What happened to you?” she asks as the drinks arrive.
“I went to Korea to see you.”
Her blue eyes play emotional hopscotch, starting on confusion, then bouncing through guilt, remorse, and sadness before returning to the starting point.
“You came to Korea? Why didn’t you …”
“Nate.”
She looks back at the floor. “I swear to you I had no idea he was going to be there. He just, you know, showed up.”
“With a lot of flowers, I’m told. And jewelry.” My eyes dart toward a string of diamonds sparkling around her neck.
“This is my fault,” she says. “I think I might have given you the impression that Nate and I … that things were a lot more settled than they were.”
“You think?”
“I know. I feel horrible. We were … You were great. You are great and you deserve so much—” I hold up a hand to stop her. “First of all, spare me the breakup speech. I’ve delivered enough of them to know how you’re feeling.”
“You don’t know how I’m feeling. …”
“Second, I have to say, I kind of got what I deserved.”
She pauses before continuing. “I was just so confused. And then when I got back, you were gone. No note, no phone call.”
“It’s been a little crazy.”
“Your mom?” she asks. I nod and leave it at that.
K. looks at me sympathetically. “You must hate me.”
“I don’t hate you,” I reply, mostly meaning it. “So how about Nate? Rolling Stone? He’s the real deal.”
“Maybe. For now. Who knows what the future might bring?” I can see she’s opening the door for me. Offering me a glimmer of hope.
“Who knows?”
We hug good-bye. I struggle with the bag and the type-writer for a block before setting both down in an alleyway. I walk to the station empty-handed and catch the first train back to Levittown.
I COMMUTE TO WORK FROM THE ISLAND for a couple of weeks, until I’m summoned by the Pontiff to the apartment on the Lower East Side. He tells me that it’s a downturn in the economic climate, maybe just seasonal, and that business is dropping for all of the Faces. But he’s got a copy of the Post open next to him, a lurid story detailing the first day of the State of New York v. Daniel Carr, and I know the real reason why I’m being fired. I love the Motorola too much to smash it against the stairwell, so I hand it to Billy on the way out.
My father and I turn out to be pretty good housemates, in that we stay out of each other’s way and keep the place relatively clean. We’re too sad or superstitious to smoke inside anymore, so instead we fill coffee cans with butts outside, near the part of the house that remains scorched from Daphne’s adventure with fire.
I visit her a few days later. She’s finally trimmed the dye out of her hair, which has grown down to her shoulders. Her eyes, which moisten with tears when I tell her about my mother, have regained their sparkle. When my own eyes burst like a dam, she holds me and whispers in my ear, “It’s all going to be okay.”
