effort I’ve put into changing my life? Part of me feels like the new me is delusional. Some kind of out-of-body experience. Like I was abducted from my life for a while only to be plopped back down in the centre of it, now, here on the roof, with Ally on the phone. It’s like, “Fuck it, who was I kidding?” People can’t change everything about them just like that. Sometimes you just have to accept that you’re not going to be the perfect person everyone else seems to be.
“Nah.” The word comes out of my mouth before I even realize I’m turning her down. I can’t believe it! It’s like I’m possessed, ’cause I didn’t think it’s what I wanted to say.
“Okay. Thought I’d ask,” she says, letting me off the hook too easy. “Later.”
And then she hangs up.
I’m stunned for a second. I can’t believe I just said no. I can’t believe she just let me. And the thing is, I feel like I’m not really missing much anyway. I’m not that disappointed. I’m just as happy, for now, to go home and watch boring TV.
I jump down off the ledge, raise the letter to my mouth, and kiss it. “Goodbye, Michael,” I say. Then I tear the paper up into little pieces, open my fist to the wind, and watch them spastically flutter downward like amputated dove wings.
Sixty-One
My mom and I go to the mall on Saturday afternoon to buy her a new pair of jeans and something for me for Christmas. Even though she’s over three months, she barely shows. She refuses to go to the maternity store and get those elastic trousers, and so we search Old Navy for jeans that will fit her belly but are two sizes too big for her legs. We share a change room and we contemplate each other’s choices while posing in the mirror. It makes me feel good to see my mom fatter now. It makes me feel less clunky.
“Eric told me I had to tell you something,” I say while I’m slipping one leg into a pair of cargo pants. I’m about to tell her about our conversation about Bradley. At first I didn’t think I’d ever be saying anything, but lately I’ve been thinking more and more about it, and I think that maybe there is something eating away at the inside of me. I figure if I’ve gone this far with the truth, I might as well cross the finish line. No more Echo. Now it’s only “Melissa” with my mom.
“What’s that, Hon?” She reaches out to straighten the collar of the blouse I’m trying on. “Wait, there’s something wrong with this button. There, that’s better.”
My heart races. I don’t know why I’m so nervous. It’s just words.
Up, up, up.
“It’s kind of dumb. But he’s making me say it,” I say, which is a total lie because Eric said only if I felt up to it.
“Okay.”
“He wants me to tell you that I have some bad feelings about Bradley dying.”
She puts her hands down and steps away a bit. I realize I’m totally hitting her out of the blue with this. I regret having brought it up now, especially when we’re squeezed inside this tiny closet of a room. There is nowhere to hide.
“Oh … I can understand that. What kind of feelings?”
“Well. It’s like … I’m sad he died. For sure. And I love him. But since I was a kid, and I had kid feelings at the time, I guess I felt sort of angry.”
“At me?”
“Yeah. At you,” I agree too quickly. I was trying to tell her about Bradley, but it’s so much easier talking about being mad at her. “’Cause we had to go in a shelter. Even though I know, now, that it wasn’t your fault. It’s like the kid in me already made the memory.”
“I’m sorry, Melissa. I really tried my best. That’s why we went to the shelter—to stay together. They advised me to go to the hospital, but I insisted on outpatient care. I couldn’t leave you.”
“Yeah. Well …” I pause. I can’t say the words. My mouth is dry. I try to swallow. I don’t look at her face, but instead concentrate on the back of her head reflected in one of the angled mirrors. “… I was also mad at Bradley.”
“You were?” she asks, surprised.
“Yeah. For dying.”
“Oh …”
“Well. I didn’t think so before … I mean, it wasn’t on my mind,” I interrupt her before