It’s okay

Her phone is ringing. Again. She’s sitting next to her mother in the living room of her childhood home. The vibrations are somehow louder than the sitcom reruns playing on the T.V. She knows who is calling, the subject of the call is sitting next to her. Staring at the screen blankly, the same way she has been for weeks.  

“Mom. Mom? Mom!” Her mother slowly turns her head, not all the way facing her but in her general direction.

“I’m going on the porch to take a call.” Her mother nods just as slowly as she turns her head but still says nothing. 

As she walks down the hallway she takes note of all the pictures – moments frozen in time. They show a progression– siblings, a family, growing together and eventually apart. Pictures have been added over the years in no real order. It wasn’t until her 16th birthday that a picture from her 3rd birthday was added to the wall. Just this week new pictures of him were added. 

As she steps out onto the porch, she pulls out her phone. 4 missed calls. 

“Hello?” the hard edge of the voice on the other end lets her know that the caller has been drinking. 

“What’s up?”

“What’s your mom doing?”

“Watching TV. What are you doin’?”

“Having a drink –“ She says in unison with the voice on the other side. Just like their mom, she’s been in a cycle for the past few weeks. “I’m a grown-up! I can drink whenever I want.” Her sister, the voice on the other side of the phone, says indignantly.

“ I didn’t say anything.”

“I know you never say anything-“her sister pauses taking a loud sip of what is probably wine either from a bottle or a glass. “You need to say something to your mom. She hasn’t left the house in weeks.”

“I know.”

“ You know everything, huh?” her sister demands angrily.

“ I don’t,” she says with a sigh. She knows more than she says but she doesn’t know everything. If she did she would know how to fix this, how to fix them. “ Did you go to work today?” she knows this one.

“No- I couldn’t do it. I wanted to spend some time with the kids. Everything feels so temporary. I wanted to make some new good memories.”

“ I get it.” She says and she means it. “How are the kids?”

“They’re okay I think, the youngest is too little. I think she only knows that I’m sad. The oldest is confused more than anything. He’s old enough to understand but he’s not talking about it at least not to me.”

“He’ll come to you eventually,” she replies. This is something else she knows. She's been texting the oldest for weeks, since that day. He's hurting – a lot. Struggling to put his thoughts into words just like everybody else. He’s working on it and eventually, he’ll talk to his mom about it. ‘You're the best aunt ever,’ he had said, ‘but I think I need to talk to my mom about this.’

“What did you do today?” How’re you feeling?” her sister questions. She freezes. She's fine, it's fine, everything is okay she thinks frantically.

“I'm alright. I went to the store today to get our mom some groceries. I made a new bag.”

“Another bag?! That’s four this week!”

“Five. I couldn’t sleep last night. I can’t fly with the edibles so I’m trying to ween myself off.”

“When do you go back again?”

“Sunday. I have work on Monday.”

“ You can't stay longer?” She can but she doesn’t want to. She really doesn’t want to. Stay here. With them. An outsider would think that she doesn’t like her family, they would be wrong. 

“No, I don’t have enough PTO,” she does. “We’ll both be back in a month or so for vacation.” The added person being her husband who she left in another state to rush back home for this.

“I wish I could go back with you,” she means it. Her sister has a way of pausing time. She checks out for a few weeks and time goes with her. When she’s ready to come back time starts back up again, no consequences. She’s never been able to do that. Whenever she checks out and pauses, time only stops for her. The rest of the world seems to move at double speed and when she checks back in, she’s just stuck playing catch up. “Are you sure you’re okay to go back? This is a lot to deal with.”

She freezes again. She’s okay, everything is okay. Everything will be okay. Even if it's not. “I’ll be fine. I have Wayne and, some space will help.” She immediately feels guilty for saying that. Why does she get to have space when everyone else must drown in sadness? “I mean- “. She rushes to fix it— to make her sister understand that that’s not what she meant.

“I get it,” her sister says this time. She hopes she means it. “This is hard,” she hears her sister starts to sniffle. There’s a familiar pressure behind her eyes and a tightness in her chest that she’s felt almost endlessly since getting that call weeks ago. “He should still be here and he’s not and it sucks.” Her sister is crying, and she wishes she could too. Instead, she staring, fixated, at a dilapidated house across the street. Trying desperately to stop the thoughts that have been plaguing her since he left. He died, she reminds herself. He was killed a voice in her head spits forcefully. She tries and fails not to think about his body lying in an alley for hours after his murder while the police investigate. About the fact that his father’s family was so disrespectful throughout the entire funeral planning process. About how her mom has been practically comatose and hasn’t been taking her medication properly, how her nephews haven’t been to school in weeks and their moms are drinking themselves into a stupor, how nothing is okay and everything is wrong.

“Amber!” She hears the voice distantly. It is coming from her sister through the phone that’s in her hand hanging limply at her side.

“I'm here,” She replies lifting the phone back to her ear.

“Are you okay?” her sister asks worry drenching every word that comes out of her mouth. “I called for you a few times but you went silent.”

“I’m okay,” she says, and she wants to mean it. She says again more firmly, “I’m okay. I'm fine.” Her sister doesn’t believe her. She can tell even through the silence. “ Listen, I’ll call you after she takes her dinner-time pills. I'm going to cook dinner.”

“Okay talk to you later. I love you.”

“I love you too, bye.” She heads back inside past the reminders that new pictures will be added to these walls and he won't be in them. She passes her mother who is still dazed in her chair and into the kitchen where she makes a meal only she’ll eat. It’s okay. She thinks. It's okay, she thinks again as she packing up for her flight.  It’s okay. She thinks as she sorts through her mom's mail. It's okay, it's okay, it's okay. She repeats like a mantra, while she’s ignoring calls and going through the motions. She says it in the email she sends to her boss letting her know she will not be using all her bereavement leave. She repeats it to herself at night before she goes to sleep.  It’s okay. Even when it's not.