Joke Me Something Awful

It was a day like any other. I guess that’s how all these sorts of tragedies start. Surprise is one of the main elements of tragedy. Well, at least my tragedy. It was years ago now. I couldn’t talk about it for at least three years after it happened.

It was a completely normal Thursday morning. I had dressed my then nine year old Melanie in her sports uniform because she had gym that morning at school, and as per usual my sixteen year old Scott was out of the house before I’d even woken up at eight thirty. Some teenage boys are the sort to sleep in and have to be constantly shaken until they begrudgingly roll themselves out of bed and slowly get ready with tired, possibly hung-over eyes. My twin brother Jeff was always like that when we were kids. Others are the sorts who get up early no matter how much they hate it so they don’t have to bother with parents who are just trying to be there for them. That was my Scott. He was going through that whole ‘black’ phase. Some go through the ‘gangster’ phase or the ‘skater’ phase, or if you’re really lucky you’re kid will be the good, smart, dare I say it ‘nerd’ who will always be ahead of the others. Scott didn’t have the coordination for skateboarding, though he tried. Instead he wore black clothes and band t-shirts, basically lived in the pair of black converse we gave him when he was thirteen. He dyed his hair black and stole my hair straightener every morning, and eventually I succumbed to letting him get his lip pierced. If there was anything I was exceptionally proud of him for, though, it was that he always had good girlfriends. I knew that he was considered quite good-looking by most people at his school, and he was, being the splitting image of his father, but he never brought home any of those idiotic blonde girls that flocked all over him whenever he went out. Instead he’d bring back the pretty, nice, shy ones, even if they did share his obsession with the colour black. And he’d treat them well and right, which was something I always thought was scarce when I was growing up. I couldn’t get over how proud I was that he’d grown up with that respect. Melanie was quite different from her older brother. She was the good girl; straight A student, co-curricular activities, respectable clothes, glasses that suited her face. She was always jabbering on about something to prove how smart and mature she was, and although it could get on my nerves every now and then, overall I found it adorable, as most doting parents would. Melanie and Scott didn’t get along badly, but they didn’t get along well enough to be considered friends. I guess they were born too far apart, but I knew that Scott would be there to protect Melanie in a heartbeat.

***

It was all this that I was really thinking of that Thursday morning, even with the distractions of Sue Barrington stressing about the arrangements for the annual elementary school fundraising dinner on the phone jammed between my ear and my shoulder as I wiped the stone kitchen bench clean of pancake mix.

Ding Dong. Ding Dong.

My head snapped up at the unexpected sound of the doorbell, and the cordless phone dropped to the floor with the clattering of plastic on tiles.

“Shoot!” I muttered to myself, getting down on my knees to pick up the phone. Hastily brushing my long dark brown hair out of my face with the back of my hand, I put the phone back to my ear.

“Sue?” I asked and paused, but there was no reply.

“Shit,” I said to myself, rolling my eyes. Hey, the kids were at school, no need to worry about language.

Ding Dong. Ding Dong.

Reminding me of the reason I dropped the phone in the first place, the doorbell went off again. Standing up and placing the phone on the bench, I began to walk out into the hall towards the door. If I knew what awaited me on the other side of the wooden panel, I don’t know whether I would have opened it. Although in the end, I guess it wouldn’t have made much of a difference; it was too late.

Wiping my hands on my white pants, I looked down at my salmon-coloured flowy top and deemed myself representable for whoever my unexpected guest was. I flung the door open to reveal two men, probably ten years older than myself. The large balding one standing in front in the horrible brown suit was twisting a matching brown bowler hat in his hands looked nervous and the other one in the grey suit with glasses kept his head down. I was sure he was avoiding eye contact. I shot them a smile, trying my best to be hospitable.

“Can I help you?” I asked as kindly as I could.

“Mrs Jones?” Bowler hat man asked, nervousness even more apparent in his voice.

“Yes, that’s me,” I said, instantly becoming anxious also. I didn’t see how that really clarified anything; my last name is kind of common.

“I… uh, I’m David Borowman and this is Mark Oaken. We’re with the police force.” They flashed me their badges and my anxiousness turned to dread. Their faces weren’t only nervous; they were morose. This was clearly not a good thing.

“Why are you here?” I spluttered, not sure I wanted to know the answer.

“I… I dread to inform you that I’m the bearer of bad news,” David Borowman approached the subject cautiously.

“I figured as much,” I frowned. “What is it?”

He coughed, probably uneasy with my abruptness.

“Um… well…you see, the thing is…”

“Spit it out!” I panicked, unable to hold it inside. However, it was Mark Oaken that answered me, sympathy written all over his face.

“Mrs Jones, your husband is dead.”

The clocks stopped ticking. My heart stopped beating. The world stopped turning.

I blinked, and didn’t answer until they were waving hands in front of my face.

“W-what?” I asked. It couldn’t be true. It just couldn’t. They must have the wrong Jones’. This couldn’t be happening. Then again, denial is one of the steps of grieving.

“Nicholas Jacob Jones, that is your husband, am I right?”

I nodded my head numbly, void of emotion.

“There’s been a car accident on the corner of…”

I zoned it all out. I couldn’t listen even if I did want to. I wasn’t feeling anything at all; not even sadness. The only picture in my mind was my husband’s smiling face. A close up of him in the family photo taken in the park six years ago. I was thirty-four, and Nick was thirty-seven. His hair was just beginning to go grey, but you would only know that if you looked really closely at the photo, which I did often. We were all smiling and happy, and the professional photographer snapped heaps of pictures as we tried to sit on the log. The one we chose to frame, however, was one where Nick and Scott were looking directly at the camera, smiling, but I was reaching out for a three year old Melanie who was too busy chasing a pigeon to look at the camera. My mouth was in a strange shape because I had been coaxing her to come over to me at the time, but it didn’t necessarily look unattractive. Melanie’s face was in an adorable frown of confusion as to why she couldn’t catch up to the bird. Usually, I’d examine all our faces and mannerisms in my mind, just to remind myself how amazingly lucky I was. I had fallen in love, had the perfect family, the white picket fence suburban house…

Why was this happening to me?

The only thought occupying my head was my husband’s always genuine smile. And the fact that if what these strangers said was true, I’d never see him smile that smile again.

“…tried your cell phone, but you wouldn’t answer, and…”

“I need some time to be alone right now,” I whispered, my voice still managing to crack.

“Of course,” David Borowman agreed, handing me his card. I didn’t give them a chance to say anything else, closing the door in their faces, although I think they were just relieved that their heavy job was over.

I slowly turned around, still trying to comprehend the enormity of what I’d just been told. I remained in exactly that position for at least twenty minutes before Mr Oaken’s blunt words seemed to leak through my defensive, wishful barriers and into my head. I leant against the door, ignoring the pain when my head hit the wood forcefully. I slid down the door with my head in my hands, collapsing into a violent fit of tears on the floor. Distraught tears. Angry tears. Sad tears. Stinging tears. Dutiful tears. Warm tears. Wet tears. Tears for the sake of tears.

I just cried.

Hours later, I shakily picked up the cordless phone, having hauled myself along the ground into the kitchen. Dialing the number, having to restart a few times thanks to my uncontrollably twitching fingers, I spoke.

“Sue? It’s Maria.” My voice was hoarse and sounded vaguely manly, but at this point, did I really care? “I need a favor. Can Melanie go back to your house after school today? …Please don’t make me explain now. I just really need this… Thank you.”

Hanging up, I grabbed my mobile and texted Scott asking him not to come home until later tonight. He probably wouldn’t anyway. With that I fell onto the soft, burgundy coloured lounge and closed my eyes. Thinking. Thinking and remembering everything so much my head throbbed and hurt, but I didn’t have the energy to get an aspirin from the medicine cabinet. I ignored the phones every time they rang, which was quite often. I guess the news had gotten around already. Small towns.

Scott didn’t get my text. For the first time in seemingly ever, he came straight home after school. I was asleep, having constant nightmares, twitching and crying and screaming as I slept. I didn’t want Scott to see my like this. I didn’t want either of my children to see me so weak and helpless. That’s why I’d tried to get them to stay away from the house. Every time the realization dawned on me that I’d never see Nicholas again, I’d never kiss him again, he’d never hear me tell him that I love him again, I was a widow, a single mom, a heartbroken mess. Every time I thought about it I’d just have another crying fit of horror and misery. I had thrown up a few times earlier. The fact that my poor teenage boy, still going through all his own high school problems, had to be the first to see me is what I regret most of all.

“Mom? Mom. Mom!” Scott was the one to shake me awake from my dreadful sleep. “Mom, what is it? What’s wrong?”

I opened my eyes and looked up into the shocked, scared ones of my son. Realizing the state he’d just seen me in and how much that would have terrified him, I couldn’t help but feel sick and I rolled over and threw up again over the edge of the lounge. Scott carried me upstairs to the bathroom and held my hair for me as I emptied my already empty stomach in the toilet bowl. He was very strong, even if I was rather small. Once I’d finished being sick, he helped me back downstairs and to the other lounge, giving me a glass of water. I took a sip and lay down.

“Mom?” he asked tentatively.

“Mgehyfrm,” I mumbled a nonsense word.

“Mom, what happened?”

My eyes fluttered open and I saw Scott’s eyes, the same bright blue as mine and Nick’s, looking at me in fearful anticipation.

How was I supposed to tell him? Definitely not the way I’d been told. But any way I say it, the fact of the matter is Scott and Melanie’s father was dead. How was a reckless, hormonal teenager going to handle that? He might drink, or do drugs, or worse… Lord knows I had suicidal tendencies when I was his age, and I never had to face anything as life changing as this. And Melanie. Poor, innocent, sweet little Melanie. What would she do? Death has a way of sucking the innocence and naivety out of the youngest of souls.

How were my children going to cope with this if I couldn’t?

I sat up and picked up the glass of water again, but before I could gulp any more down my fingers involuntarily shook and the glass smashed on the floor. Why should I even bother to pretend I’m okay? There would be something seriously wrong with me if I remained perfectly calm and okay throughout all this.

“He’s gone, Scottie,” I gasped painfully into my hands. Somehow my saying it made it that much worse.

“What?” He panicked. “Who?”

“Y-your dad… car crash…” That was all I could mutter before falling into unconsciousness.

***

I don’t even know how to describe how I dealt with it after that first day. I tried hitting the bottle a couple of times, but regardless of what people say it didn’t numb the pain. It merely intensified it. It didn’t take long for me to slip back into my depression that I’d had when I was younger. Nick was my anti-depressant, and now my prescription was lost and the feeling was back, hitting me harder than it ever had before.

The fact that my beautiful son had inherited this weakness from me just dragged me deeper into the black smothering waters of depression. I’d seen the marks on his wrist. He wasn’t dealing with this as well as he made out to be. He stopped bringing the nice girls home. He stopped hanging out with his friends. I thought that he’d move on from the antisocialism as time passed, but then I saw the cuts on his arm and felt that stabbing pain that I’d become all too familiar with since Nicholas’ death. The stabbing pain of realizing you’ve failed. Failed life, failed yourself, failed your children. My son was self-harming himself. There was nothing I could say that would make him want to stop. I made him speak to counselors, and his pissed off screams and chilling snide comments were enough to set me off again.

Surprisingly, Melanie was the one to be strong for our family. The nine year old girl was the one who held everything together. Of course she cried, I heard her weeping in her room at night, but she wasn’t as deep in as Scott and I were. She was strong, that much she’d inherited from her father. She was always there for us, and always made sure we didn’t get left alone too much, or made sure that Scott wouldn’t miss his appointments, and made sure we still kept our lives in tact and carried on. I’d always thought her supposed maturity and intellect were just cute, but she really did have both of those things. Without her, we might not have coped. It was her – most likely with the help of her uncle Jeff – who eventually made me get counseling myself, and once I was pulled together enough we spent two years rebuilding our family and helped each other get better.

I stopped drinking, and after at least five years I had beaten the depression. My brother tried to get me to date again, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. My love was spent.

Scott stopped harming himself. He began to bring girls home again, and when he was in college he found Katie. She was the only girl for him.

Melanie stopped crying at night. Unlike Scott and myself, she always looked on the brighter side of things. She was an optimist like her father, rather than the breathing negativity that both I and her brother were. She got through school with the highest grades, and could do whatever she wanted with her life. So in control, as always. I even find myself slightly envious of that control sometimes, although my pride drowns that.

I wouldn’t say we ‘moved on’ or ‘got over it’. You can’t just forget about your husband or father. But we dealt with it. We did what we had to. We had our fair share of tragedy, but doesn’t everyone, to their own standards?

Not a day goes past where I don’t think of my husband. I refuse to take my wedding ring off for any cause. I won’t deny it still gets lonely at night. Such a big bed, such a small person. But Nicholas is somewhere. Wherever that somewhere might be, he’s waiting for me. Some day we’ll be together again. I don’t believe in any god or religion, but I do believe that death isn’t the end of it all. I used to believe that, but Melanie’s optimism rubbed off a bit, I guess.

So I swear this now; be it tomorrow or in forty years, when my time is up I will see you again, Nick. I love you as much as I did the day I saw you, and when I breathe my last breath, know that you were the one who first took it away.

Sorrow is stronger than painted smiles, but love is stronger than sorrow.

Love may have torn Joy Division apart, but it’s all that’s holding me together.