“It fades,” Shirley said, when we got home. “That’s why I didn’t battle you earlier. And . . .” she paused, “ . . . I understand why this is extra hard, Eleanor. But you know I am better, right? I’m not looking to leave anytime soon. I love you. That has never wavered.”
“Yeah, I know. I love you too. If it’s okay, I’m gonna try this out.”
“Please use an old towel,” she said. “And put paper towels on the counter, in case anything drops.”
Before the bleach. Before the cranberry-fizz-colored hair dye. Before I started to mourn my dull blond curls. I grabbed the heaping pile of my hair and put it into a plastic Food Town bag. I figured next time we visit Grandma’s grave, I can bring her some. I know how much she loved it.
After the bleach. After the cranberry-fizz-colored hair dye. After I started to mourn my dull blond curls.
“Well, next time we lose each other in the mall, I’ll easily find you,” said Shirley.
“Ugh, is it awful?”
“Well, it certainly looks different from this morning, but it’s not terrible.”
I feigned a smile.
“Is your homework all done? You ready for school tomorrow?”
“Yeah. I don’t know, I . . . Shirley, can I . . . can I ask you something?”
“Eleanor, you know how I feel about you calling me that. Go ahead.”
“I feel like there must have been so many bad days. So, what turns a bad day into what you desperately hope is the last day? I mean, what makes someone decide: today I kill myself. Maybe yesterday sucked, but today is just too much.”
“I certainly can’t answer that for James, but for me . . . oh honey, I got to the point that I thought you and Greta would fare better without me.”
“You thought dying would make our lives better?”
“I know. I know how ridiculous that sounds, but I wasn’t thinking clearly.”
“And now?”
“Now, with medication and—”
“But you were on medication. That’s what you—”
“Better medication, more regulated. And going to therapy again has really helped. Brinna even mentioned me trying some group therapy. We’ve been making great headway and she feels like being around others could be really beneficial.”
“It could get you to meet people,” I said, trying to be optimistic.
“You have, right?”
“What? At the support group? Yeah, I mean, everyone is super nice, I guess. Didn’t exactly go there to make friends, but . . .”
“But it gives you the opportunity to understand a little more. To know it’s never about the survivors. To understand mental illness.”
“Yeah.”
Shirley threw her hand into my hair and tousled the tiny amount left. “I like this. Like Debbie Harry or something.”
“Who?”
* * *
“THERE IS JUST NO WAY TO prepare for something like this.” Ms. Raimondo stood in front of us, as she always does, but she looked different today, like her veins somehow wilted and all the blood inside vanished. I guess we all looked like that today.
James was dead.
“As your homeroom teacher mentioned, there are grief counselors who will be here all week into next, and you can go to them to process what’s going—”
“Like instead of going to class?”
Ms. Raimondo just stared at Harris blankly. “Like because you need to.”
“As I was driving to school today,” she said, “I had all these words for you guys, but I guess I . . . lost them.” She sort of smiled, as though part of her mouth didn’t get the memo that it was supposed to lift. “It’s difficult to know what to say when . . .” The rest of her words vanished.
I don’t know how to feel. I just know I want to feel anything else but this.
“So, here’s the thing,” she paused. “We’ve been reading and taking apart poems in this class and addressing the complications of language, the feeling of being shut out or angry or emotional. There are times that it is just so hard to make sense of it all.”
“Like Shakespeare?” Tiffany added.
“Sure,” she smiled with her whole mouth. “Listen, I want to put aside today’s lesson and introduce something else. Who here keeps a diary or journal of some sort?”
A few hands tentatively rose. I used to keep a diary many years ago and then lost interest. It was mainly just secret crushes or complaining about unfair rules. I guess not as riveting as I hoped it would be.
“Starting today, I’m going to ask you to keep a journal. I won’t look at it, I promise. But I think it would be beneficial for all of you, especially with regards to losing one of our classmates this weekend. See it as a chance to reconnect with your thoughts and react in a safe space on paper. More specifically, I want you to write to someone. Anyone. Someone you’ve never met, someone you love. Whoever you’d like. By having a focus, it feels more like a conversation, except without the interruption, of course. I’m hoping it will be meditative, a chance to be with your inner thoughts. A destination toward healing,” she paused, looking around the room. “So, uh, take out your notebook, if it’s not already out, and start writing. Begin with ‘dear’ and then whomever you are writing to. This is more generative than anything else. What I mean by that is this doesn’t need to be formal. In fact, it shouldn’t be. Just let your thoughts and words fly. Roam. Be free.”
“Are you collecting this?” Deanna asked.
“No, I’m not. Allow that to give you permission to write without edit, without judgment, without fear. And I want to encourage you to keep this going. When tragedy happens, writing can be one of the best medicines to make sense of things.”
Behind me, I heard someone say, “Which one was he? I don’t remember a James.”
“Yeah, I don’t know. I think he sat by the window? Maybe he had black hair?”
I stared at my blank page. Turquoise straight lines. I used to write letters to Dara when she went to summer camp. I loved feeling like I could say whatever I wanted without any interruption. I’ve written letters to Dad, even though he’s just thirty minutes away. I wrote to Shirley when she was in the hospital. Sometimes I write to Greta. I didn’t think I’d miss her when she went away to college, but I do. So much.
Ms. Raimondo is a newer teacher at our school, younger than the others. Sometimes I feel like I can see her thoughts grow inside her, but maybe that is just me staring way too hard because I think she’s so pretty. When she walked into the classroom on the first day of school, I couldn’t believe she was the teacher. She looked so cool, with double-pierced ears and purpley lips like she had eaten a whole bunch of pomegranate seeds before she arrived. On the first day of class, she had us write love letters to ourselves, which I thought was really strange. Then, we put them in an envelope she gave to us, which we had to address. She promised she’d mail them to us, eventually. When we forgot. After school that day, I went home and told Shirley all about her. She thought Ms. Raimondo sounded like a hippie, which I wasn’t exactly sure was a good or bad thing. Shirley can be quick to judge at times.
I peered around the room and noticed a few people already writing. In front of me sat Aggie, slightly hunched with her dark glistening braid leaning on her right shoulder. Sometimes I forget Ms. Raimondo is even talking because the back of Aggie’s