HEAL YOU | JENLISA

THIRTY-EIGHT

JENNIE

* * *

AFTER HANGING UP THE PHONE, I FEEL … NOTHING. AT LEAST, it seems that way at first. I’m calm. I don’t cry. I recognize I’m thirsty, and I’m able to get myself a glass of water and drink it without inhaling liquid into my lungs. But there’s an unreal quality to everything around me. The water I drink tastes a little funny, metallic perhaps. The cup feels oddly heavy in my fingers. Was it always this solid? As I look at the glass, I notice the surface of the water is trembling very finely.

Lisa hugs me, and I sag against her as I try to make sense of everything.

It’s over. My dad isn’t suffering anymore.

I believe this is what he wanted.

But he’s really gone now.

No more secret candies in the car. No more listening to old-school music stuck in the tape deck together. No more attending my concerts. No more anything.

Loss grips me, but it’s muted, perhaps because I’ve already mourned him so many times by now. How many times in the hospital? How many times since we brought him home? My heart has traveled this path until it’s well-worn, and it’s hard to see new tracks, especially when an immense sense of failure overshadows everything.

I didn’t make it until the end. If I’d known it was only two more weeks, maybe I wouldn’t have felt such an oppressive sense of futility. Maybe I could have held it together better and been less absentminded and more functional. Maybe I could have found a way to play for him at the party, since it really was my last chance. Maybe my family would still think I’m the person I’d been pretending to be for so long—not perfect in their eyes, but still good enough.

I’m not sure if I’m welcome, but I go home to help with whatever I can. Lisa offers to drop me off and come back later to get me, but I ask her to come in with me.

We walk hand in hand to the front door of my parents’ house, and after letting myself in, I continue to hold her hand as we walk down the marble hallway. The house is colder than ever today, and the light pouring in through the windows is gray, drab.

We find Priscilla in my dad’s room, where my dad’s hospital bed is starkly vacant. This room is the master bedroom of the house, and without my dad’s presence to fill it, it now feels ten times as large. Priscilla is organizing our dad’s medications into ziplock bags and boxes, and she gives no indication that she notices our presence. She looks awful. Her eyes are puffy, her skin sallow, and I think she’s lost weight since two weeks ago. She’s skeletal. I can even see wrinkles on her face. This is the first time that she’s looked the full fifteen years older than me, and I hate that.

So I swallow my pride and my own hurt, and I approach her. “Hi, unnie.”

“There’s a box of stuff you forgot here in your room,” she says in her harsh way.

“I’ll get it, thanks.”

Instead of responding, she continues organizing the medications, content to ignore me.

“Do you … need help with that?” I ask.

She gives me a stony look and says, “No,” before returning to her work. Only now, her hands are unsteady, and she drops a pill bottle to the ground.

I pick it up and put it on the table for her. “Can you look at me? So we can talk? Please?”

She lifts her chin and gives me her attention, but she doesn’t speak. She waits.

“I’m sorry.” It’s hard for me to logically conceptualize what I did that’s so wrong. I spoke the truth. I stood up for myself. Why is that bad? But if I hurt her, I regret that and I genuinely want to do better in the future. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I just—”