Downloading Hemingway

Downloading Hemingway

When someone dies, people bring things. Mostly, they bring food and alcohol, but even edibles and Xanax get passed around like breath-mints these days. Food you will never eat is on every surface above the waist. Personally, you’d prefer cash.

These people who hold repast in their McMansions do so for fear of being robbed should they be away for any length of time. They hire a house-sitter for the service. They do not even submit an obituary until after the fact; just a very sentimental post on Facebook the next day, often accompanied by an undead photo and a GoFundMe link. Like most of social media, you’re surrounded by so many people you’ve never met, yet you pretend to know each other.

You hear such platitudes as, “If you need anything,” then you observe them clasp the widow’s hands like a hand-sandwich, “…anything at all, just call… we’re here for you…we want to help."

So many things come to mind. For starters, the lawn needs mowing; you’ve also noticed after using it twice, that the guest bathroom toilet drips. But these people really don’t want to help, not in the slightest. They are there obligatorily. The food and drink make it more palatable, even festive, but mostly they are there for the real story.

This house feels all wrong, but then, why wouldn't it? You mill about the ridiculously overdressed strangers coming and going, all looking so out of place on a beautiful Saturday afternoon, when they’d rather be golfing or shopping. The clear blue sky and bright sun mock this somber event. You are so desperate to feel sunshine again and not shadows and darkness every waking moment of every day. You live in sepia tones now, like an old film loop.

Empty food platters are replaced by new ones like remedies brought in shifts from some invisible entity. There is so much going on, and your overall impression is that these people are actually enjoying themselves. Someone is laughing over fucking salad tongs.

You pretend to nibble on a piece of cheese on a toothpick as dozens of mourners stuff their faces and drink like it’s Superbowl Sunday. These attendees learned long ago that silence is the loudest sound on Earth, so they fill that void with incessant banter; only it’s a little too loud, too frenetic. They do not know yet that it’s more like the Last Supper.

Impromptu seats in the form of mismatched folding chairs and a large toy chest are occupied by people stabilizing full food plates while sipping from clear plastic cups. Flasks and joints are passed about. You decline. For you, this is not a time for celebration. You cannot drink or smoke knowing it will seep through cracks in your facade.

Still so fresh are your internal wounds that will never heal, acutely aware of the broken bits of glass in your gut since the news. Grief never really goes away, only shifts forms without warning and that glass that will soon turn to razors. There is only one way to stop it.

You’re wearing your black sitting Shiva dress with kitten heels. It's conservative enough to avoid notice, even though you're agnostic. The widow is doing her very best impression of Jackie Onasis with her black fitted suit, adorned with a delicate string of freshwater pearls. She’s had her hair colored and quaffed in the past 24 hours as if it’s her wedding day. Her dark Coach sunglasses are the perfect touch. That high-end accessory forces her to be chic - outdoors. From the kitchen window, you surreptitiously observe her sitting on a recliner on the back lawn, shaded by an oak tree. She is being waited on by what appear to be immediate family by the looks of their red, blotchy faces and puffy eyes. This is good.

After today, you will never see these people again. You blend, grateful not to hold any conversations with anyone for more than 30 seconds, no eye contact. Although that particular DNA is easy to alter these days. You make an expression of someone who smells something distasteful while you observe from the entrance. The front double doors with their garish knockers stay wide open for the taking. These people aren't paranoid, they're pompous.

Your car is parked a block away; you can’t see it because it’s on a side road. It's prepared; tucked discreetly amongst several other cars. No one will ever notice, should you just walk out these pretentious front doors and not look back. You have a sudden urge to run, but you can't do that. Not yet. This is the only way you can ever so slowly ebb this painful nightmare.

You are so grateful that your own doorbell rings less and less, and eventually the phone calls will cease. He was all you had, and you were all he had. You were so happy a week ago, so excited at the prospect of starting a family. There is no place left for you now, just your late-mother’s dilapidated farmhouse a couple hundred miles from here. There is no one left for you. You have nothing to lose in this moment in time. You’ve already lost everything but your own existence and that seems to slip away daily like the moon at dawn. If you have nothing worth dying for, why live?

Out the large front bay window facing the road, you see strangers carrying on with life, dog walkers, delivery vehicles, and already the occasional cars slow down and gawk as if they’ve seen Big Foot in the yard. Don’t they realize there is nothing stopping them from walking through the front doors for a quick meal? Or more.

In fact, there's a large, creamy soft, black cashmere scarf hanging on a gorgeous mahogany coatrack right next to the front door. They wouldn't even need to come entirely inside to nab it. On your way out, this scarf will be yours.

You have not stopped thinking about the neighbor’s dog in the house behind this mansion. The reason you are here. You do not know the humans’ names, but you know their dog’s name. How quickly you’d become fascinated with Hemingway, the neighboring yellow Lab. As soon as you downloaded that picture from Facebook, then enlarged it, and saw the name of the pup inscribed on his elaborate doghouse, Hemingway became your solution.

Your focus returns to the large room of dozens of people, an unfortunate train wreck you must endure. They go through the motions -the embraces, the handshakes. Tissues become accessories while words defy description of the death of a 29-year-old, handsome new father. This family's future is totally unknown. You understand but refuse to empathize. Using the death of a young man as a reason to party is such a pathetic cliche. You understand morbid curiosity, maybe even some schadenfreude, possible jealousy of the widow’s new-found freedom accompanied by a hefty life insurance settlement. Doesn’t matter. Soon enough, it will be over for you, and her.

You leave your post by the front doors along with the scarf to find solace in the upstairs master bathroom. You are exhausted, a prisoner of your own thoughts as you strategically teeter on both sides of the literal and figurative fence. There is a clear distinction between aloneness and loneliness. You exemplify both. But change is inevitable, the one constant you can count on.

Life is frighteningly unpredictable. In fact, you were more uncertain before you got the tragic news. In this moment, you’re surer than ever. Sudden death in any form - a plant - a pet - a relationship -is always an unknown.

You are startled back to reality by knuckles clattering against the door. “Hello, can I come in?” says a high-pitched, female voice.

You pray it isn’t the widow. It's her bathroom, after all. For a split second you panic, then realize you are in a bathroom, the door should be locked. You reluctantly unlatch the door open and just like that, a young woman walks in, wobbling on her knitting-needle heels. Definitely not the widow. She is blocking your exit.

“O.M.G., don’t you remember me?" She takes me by the shoulders as if she might shake me. She doesn't. "Like 5 years ago? Wendy and Jake’s wedding?” She pauses, removes her hands from your shoulders, and places them in prayer mode. “May he rest in peace," Then, without missing a beat, "But, damn girl, you haven't changed a bit! Wendy’s your cousin, right?”

You have no idea how to respond to this question because you are not a cousin of anyone. You grew up in foster care. Thankfully, it doesn't matter - it's silence needing filling and she's a pro.

"I mean, Wendy was wasted too the night of the accident, but shit! Not pass-out drunk but maybe -make it back home to the babysitter without killing a dude -kind of drunk. How she walked away from that crash? Total fucking miracle? I feel so awful for her." She sighs as if she is a widow, any widow. "I mean, she knew since we were at Penn State that Jake was the epitome of douche-baggery when he drank, even sober he was an asshole. I don’t understand why she let him drive." She shakes her head. "Then, he kills a man and Jake has no idea. No one really does because his uncle works at the DMV. And just like that, the posthumous charge disappears? And apparently it is not the first or second time. Where I come from, alive, he'd be doing 15- 20 years in jail.”

She studies you, gum cracking like some east-Jersey chick. “Hey Cuz, you okay? You don’t look so good.” She is being so sincere, and in another life, you may find her entertaining. She digs in her purse. “I got some blow – top-tier stuff. Want a bump? Wendy’s all like, I can’t, I’m still weaning, blah, blah blah. Then, she says, babies can be a real buzzkill, I mean, that’s just wrong. She should be grateful, at least she’s still got that kid. And her dead hubby gets away with murder because he dies? Whatever." She’s checking her makeup in the mirror as if prepping for a surgical procedure.

You say nothing. There is nothing to say. You feel nauseous with that last bit of info dump as you stride past her, finding your way back to the requiem reunion. You don’t concern yourself with her finding out who you are because you wonder who you even are yourself at this moment, and who you will be in a few hours.

If everything goes accordingly, you will soon be a totally different person. You glance around at all the unfamiliar faces. You were in the bathroom for nearly a half hour, but you did not once look at your own face. It’s as if you know for certain, you cannot afford to be recognized, even by yourself.

Someone offers you a slice of gluten-free bread apparently the next best thing since sliced bread, they explain. You take a seat at a side table, which is covered in crudité platters, pies, at least three lasagnas, and some gelatinous mound with colorful bits in it. Scattered everywhere, is a vast array of open bottles of alcohol which seem to replenish themselves. You attempt to eat the slice of bread, but it has no gluten. Fuck all. It's then you realize you're crying. No one notices; it’s totally appropriate.

Through the back kitchen window over the sink, you spot the widow again. She takes an amber pill bottle from her pant-suit pocket and discreetly washes a few pills down with a cup of something - not water. Her cheeks are flushed, and she smiles as people take turns pampering her. She is enjoying this attention, craving it. Soon enough she will realize your own cravings will devour her.

It was that photo, the one you found scouring online, just a day afterwards, and posted by his widow. The dead husband was holding a baby just 3 months old. The post was about the man’s fatal car crash and the people who survived him. It did not mention you, why would it? Staring at the photo, taken in this back yard, it was, at first, the baby in his arms that caught your attention but then you zoomed in on the uncanny resemblance you had to his widow. On closer observation, it was that big, rambunctious yellow Lab in the yard that backed up to this property that solidified your plan. This will be easy, you realize, like giving candy to a baby.

You find her, just three months old, with pink balloons tied to her ankles by long ribbons. She lies on her back in a playpen in a back room. You’re not fond of playpens or rubber balloons but for this day, you can tolerate, even appreciate these sorts of distractions. You cannot help but smile as she incessantly tries to grab any balloon with her chubby erratic moving arms, fist balled like asterisks. She has no visible teeth, but those little shards are just a few weeks away - the shards that have mothers weaning immediately to the bottle, shards that randomly dent mom’s shoulder skin in a hug and to her toddler’s delight, those same shards that can send a balloon particle down her throat, irremovable. You shiver. You find scissors in a nearby pencil holder on a desk, and gently, snip her free of the balloons.

This baby, with only one surviving parent, is too young to even comprehend that her body is not still connected to her mother’s. She is just a few months old and will not remember but perhaps sense a void in time. Like some part of her is now missing. You cry again, for you, not gluten, but because you can relate. You stare longingly at the beautiful infant girl, to be so innocent and unknowing can be such a blessing and curse, all at once.

How you both had tried so long for a baby of your own? Two years of needles and blood draws and quiet disappointments. You were charting temperatures and tracking moon phases, as if your body were a locked door and science could hold the key. Then, just when the specialist said a few weeks back to schedule the next round because he was convinced it would take this next time, your husband became a statistic. Hit by a drunk driver with a record, a man who kept his license because his wife's uncle works at the DMV.

The baby girl soon falls sound asleep. You lift her gently from the playpen and press her tiny, warm body to your chest. She stirs and falls back to sleep on your shoulder. You hum. You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, please don’t take my sunshine away, but it’s taut, once comforting, now suddenly creepy. You gently place her back in the playpen. Before you walk out of the room, you take care of two small, but very final loose ends.

It is late afternoon and most the mourners are now outside on the back lawn. Your dress has two discreet side pockets, and you are well aware of the heaviness of the aftermath of their contents. Meant for a cell phone or a makeup compact, these pockets have something very different inside. Entities capable of rearranging the entire world as you know it. Harmless, if left in place. It will be tough, brutally painful, but life does go on. Isn't that what the priest had said at this widow's service.

You ease your way out the sliding doors and onto the back deck. No will ever know about the past few visits you made to Hemingway at night, and the treats he’s most fond. You discreetly drop these morsels around the yard from the hole you’ve just snipped in one of your hidden pockets, then slowly sauntering towards the gate, you make a trail, breadcrumbs that will get you back home. The other pocket contains something crucial.

Glancing at all the mourners, half in the bag, cautiously and without notice you unlatch the metal gate latch leading to the neighbor's yard, freeing Hemingway. That’s all it takes. The Lab immediately spots you like a long-lost friend and charges as you empty the remaining treats from your pockets. He bounds onto the property scouring every person and bit of grass for treats, reminding you of ten kids on Easter Sunday frantically searching for hidden eggs.

Chairs are upturned and there is laughter and shouting as Hemingway eventually finds a food platter on an outdoor table. Unbeknownst to you, Hemingway’s owners are at this ‘memorial’, making the dog even more wild, obviously not wanting to be fenced in-away from all this delicious food. The commotion is chaotic, and while everyone, including the grieving widow, are trying to wrangle Hemingway, it's exactly what you had hoped for as you slip back into the house which is now completely evacuated of everyone, everyone that is except the exquisite sleeping baby girl in the back room.

You remove the fitted baklava from the other pocket and pull in over your head. No one sees you briskly walk from the backroom because even if they do, they don’t care. Mom never even noticed the baby monitor shutting off just ten minutes prior. You grab the back cashmere scarf and wrap it snuggly around your chest.

Suddenly, you are on the street headed to your vehicle. It's dusk as planned; the front doors are wide open for the taking. Including your new baby daughter.

When someone dies, people bring things but sometimes, people take things, too.