The Tinted Sky

Chicken Parm & Sorrow

It felt like a dream when it happened. When I got the call, I was sitting in the kitchen next to the now cold chicken parm; it was supposed to be dinner for her and me. I made her favorite, chicken parm and pasta, not for any particular reason; it wasn't an anniversary or anything like that, not a birthday, I just wanted to do something nice for her because I knew she'd been stressed about work. She was a teacher, a good one too, according to her students. They all came to the funeral, said they were sorry, said she talked about me a lot. I remember being so excited for her to go home, I had the chicken parm, some candles set out and a few of her favorite DVD's it was going to be a surprise, a nice one where she'd put down her bag and smile at me, that wild, goofy smile she always gave me. I looked at the time, she was an hour late, I tried not to worry she had probably just gotten delayed by the train, the E line wasn't exactly dependable,  but by the time she didn't get home after two hours, and she still hadn't picked up the phone, that's when I started pacing. I called her best friend Mimi, she hadn't heard from her, I called her mother, and I got the same response. I knew I couldn't call the police until she'd been missing for 24 hours, so I just sat there and waited.

After three hours, I got a call, I didn't recognize the number, but I figured it was Mara calling to say she was lost or something, she had a terrible sense of direction. Once she had managed to get us both lost while we road tripped it to California, we were supposed to be going through Ohio and somehow ended up in Wyoming. When I picked up the call, it wasn't Mara it was a woman, her voice was stale and bland, it reminded me of someone who works at the DMV. 

"Is this Nathan Soto?" my saliva thickened in my mouth.

"Yes, this is him."

"I'm calling from the Mount Sinai Hospital about your wife Mara Soto" my heart dropped, and I opened my mouth to give the proper response. At first, it wouldn't come out, but I finally whispered: "Is she okay?".

"I'm sorry to inform you that she's passed away Mr. Soto you should come to the hospital right away." I don't remember what she said after that. I don't even remember leaving the house either or taking my car out of the parking lot of our building. One minute I was in the apartment and the next, I was in the waiting room of Mount Sinai with Mara's mother speaking with a doctor. I don't even remember calling her mother; I do remember watching her talk to the doctor and wondering how she was even still standing, how she was even talking right now, how many of us still existed without Mara being here with us.

Mara's mother was a small woman in her fifties, her hair was short and a deep shade of dyed red, Mara looked a lot like her, they had the same nose short and round and the same lips plump and brown. The only difference is that Mara's mother's eyes are brown and Mara's eyes are...were green.

"I want to see my daughter Doctor, when can I see mi, Nina?" Mara's mother spoke with a heavy Dominican accent, loud and fast. The Doctor looked young like he hadn't been a doctor for more than a year. I hoped that he hadn't been the one to perform the surgery on Mara's failing lung. "We can take you back now Mrs. Cortez" the Doctor looked at me "And you too if you'd like Mr. Soto" Mara's mother looked at me too, she had always been loving toward me, treating me like her son. She was a happy woman still talking, just like Mara, today however I looked into her deep brown eyes, and I saw the pain that she was doing everything she could, not to reflect in her features. I also saw one other thing pity, a pity because she just like I, knew that I was now alone.

Mara and I had met in high school when we were 16; Mara was the girl who everyone loved; she was always smiling and making jokes. When I was 16, I was the quiet boy, the one who kept to himself and didn't want anyone getting too close to me. I've been in and out of foster care since I was 7, my mother was never around much, and when she was, she was drunk. She died of alcohol poisoning when I was 11. I had no family but her, no one but a nameless, faceless father and a couple of distant relatives my mother had played so dirty they never wanted to make contact with me. And now for the first time since I was 16 years old, I was alone again. We followed the doctor to the morgue, where just like in those crime t.v. Shows he pulled out a metal slab with a corpse covered in a bleached white sheet and asked us if we were ready to see the body. The fact that Mara, Mara who laughed her way through the Notebook, Mara who watched t.v. Upside down and Mara who liked making love with the lights on could be that body on the slab so cold and so still seemed to be an impossible idea. We didn't answer the doctor; we just stared at the sheet.