The Trouble Is

Chapter 39: The Morning Of

I wake up early, and Doug is no longer in my bed. The house is full of the noise of people doing things. I hear dishes rattle and smell something that promises cinnamon and sugar. Cinnamon roll waffles are a personal fave, but this particular morning my stomach lurches at the thought of all that syrupy goodness.

Skip double-taps on my bedroom door.

"You up?" he asks, his voice pre-coffee rumbly. "There's food."

"Yeah," I answer, hoping that this will be the extent of the chitchat for the day. Skip must have received the memo on no chatting and moves on to other things. I lie there trying not to think about funerals and lost friends and flowers and sad songs. I touch my fingers to thumbs, one-two-three-four, four-three-two-one. I repeat it faster and faster, but it doesn't help. I give up and grab a spiral from the box of fresh, empty spirals underneath my bed. I don't even think; I just do. I feel strangely surprised by the fierceness of my pencil scraping against the paper.

List #130: Reasons I Am So Totally, Unbelievably Pissed at Katie

1. For going to the lake without me

2. For drinking at the lake

3. For drinking anywhere

4. For getting in a boat with stupid teenage boys

5. For riding on that damned Banana Boat thing

6. For being stupidly, crazily fearless

7.

I stop there. I leave number seven just sitting there all alone. Tears are now pouring down my face. Snot is starting to ooze toward my mouth. Just as I start to shake, rocking back and forth, Mom comes in. She rushes to my bed and swoops me up in her arms. Even in my grief, I feel some kind of strength in her. It has been months since my mother had the strength to really wrap me up in her arms. And now those weakened arms tightly wind around me, holding me as I cry.

"OK, Annabelle," she says as she pushes my hair back. "You are going to get through this.

"It won't seem like it, not one little bit. But you will. You will get through this. You have to get up now and get cleaned up. I'm here if you need my help getting ready—just yell. But it's time now. Get up, get showered. Eat something, anything—just a little will do."

I hear her, but I don't really hear her.

"I don't want to go," I say as she wipes my face with a tissue. "I can't do this. Really, I can't."

"Yes, you can, Anne," she says. Her voice is still gentle but a bit stronger now.

"It won't change anything," I say, my voice rising with each word. "Katie will still be dead. This whole service thing . . . the whole funeral, preacher, flowers thing won't help. It won't make it better. It won't make anything better."

I expect her to disagree, to point out all the ways I am wrong or inexperienced or just ignorant of the whole thing. But she does not. She sits there and is so still that I can tell our breaths are in sync. We used to do that, pre-cancer: We breathed in sync. It wasn't just the rhythm; it was the sound and the depth. I could sit beside her in a movie or on a park bench or even in the car and notice that we breathed exactly the same. We sit like that now for a while, minutes, I think, breathing together.

Then she reaches over and takes my hand in hers.

"There's no way out but through, baby girl," she says.

Her words make me think of that old Beatles song Skip likes to sing: "Mother Mary comes to me, speaking words of wisdom." She's right—there's no way out.

I get up and head to the shower.