Kristy’s head shot left towards the hallway. Was that Erin? She paused. She heard more crying. Erin. What she must be feeling. Not knowing what else to do, Kristy went to the kitchen and began making coffee. Would Erin want breakfast? Probably not, but she needed to eat something. She surveyed the refrigerator and its paltry contents. A lime, a half carton of skim milk, a pound of butter, and an orange that was covered in what looked like green carpet. The sight triggered a question she’d played over and over in her mind for years now, one of Liz asking her why she even needed a refrigerator. “Ice,” Kristy had replied succinctly. Echoes of their laughter played quietly in her head.
I’ve lost a friend, she thought fighting tears as the coffeemaker gurgled out the last cloud of steam. Quickly wiping her eyes she vowed through a deep breath to grieve some other time. Today she had to be there for Erin.
At that moment, she heard the soft shuffle of slippers. Erin was easing herself into a chair at the kitchen table, eyes red-rimmed and swollen. “I smelled coffee,” she said, blowing her nose into a tissue.
Kristy poured two tall mugs and sat down next to Erin.
“There’s nothing here for breakfast,” she said plainly. “Unless you like cold limes.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“I know you’re not, but you have to eat.”
Heavy sigh. “I’m nauseous. I don’t think I can, Kristy. I just don’t.”
Silence hung. “Listen,” bending close to the table top so she could catch Erin’s eyes, “you really have to eat, Erin. Don’t make me force feed you that lime.”
Erin blew out a breath that was as close to a laugh as either would get today. “Let’s go to the Savoy then,” Erin suggested.
Kristy hesitated. The Savoy was where she and Erin always had breakfast with Liz on Saturday mornings. Wouldn’t that be too difficult?
“If you are okay with it, Erin.” And then to lighten the suggestion, “I was thinking we might try the new Jimmy’s Egg.”
Erin shrugged. “O.K.”
“Jimmy’s, then. I put out clean towels in the guest bathroom, and the things I brought from your house.”
Tears floated into Erin’s dark blue eyes and fell down her long eyelashes. “I really appreciate what you’re doing for me, Kristy.”
“No problem hon.” She placed her hand on Erin’s forearm. “I don’t want you to worry about any of the, uh, logistics. I am going to take care of everything. I just want you to do what you need to do today — feel what you need to feel.”
Erin nodded absently, staring into another dimension. Kristy disciplined herself into silence. This was going to be a long day. She wanted to comfort Erin, but everything that came to mind caught on her throat. All inadequate.
Finally, Kristy spoke. “I’ll call Liz’s pastor right away so we can get the memorial scheduled. After breakfast, I can go by the station and get Liz’s purse. We’ll go from there for the rest of it. You don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to.”
Erin said only yes. She didn’t want to be alone. Somehow putting one foot in front of the other seemed like the beginning of healing. She would go. She would do. “I want to go.” she said fighting the new wave of dread that shoved out from behind her eyes, spilling hot tears solidly down her face. It felt like her ribs were being pushed through her chest.
“It’s my fault! I never should have asked her to lunch!” Erin choked, bent over with grief, pounding a fist on the table until the coffee sloshed out of her mug onto the wooden table.
“It was not your fault! It was not your fault, Erin,” Kristy reasoned, shaking her head while clasping Erin’s fist. The sobs were from a place that Kristy was trying to ignore in her own heart; she fought her own tears again. Don’t go there. Can’t go there, she repeated internally like a mantra. Just help Erin. “You could not possibly have known what was going to happen.”
“But if I hadn’t asked her to lunch …”
“You don’t know that. If it was her time to go, then she would have died yesterday no matter what she was doing. It was just her time to go.”
Her time to go? It stung Erin, reeking of meaningless tautology. Of course, it was “her time” to die, because she had died at that time. Why was Kristy saying that? It made her angry.
“Don’t say that! It was not ‘her time to go’ because she wasn’t supposed to die like that!”
“Okay, okay, sorry … I didn’t mean anything by it.” How did those words escape her filter? They were words she’d heard in one form or another over the years. ‘Well, it was just her time to go,’ and it seemed to make sense. There was a certain amount of symmetry to the statement, although she couldn’t define exactly why, and even thoughit was as good an explanation as any as to why good people died,she certainly didn’t want to offer it up now to her best friend as a catch-all for this painful tragedy.
“Why do people think they have to explain things like that? There is no good explanation for why Liz died,” Erin continued.
“Right,” Kristy said. “There is no good explanation. The fact that you asked her to lunch isn’t a good explanation, either. That’s not what caused her to pass on. It was because of a reckless driver.”
“Well, there’s no point in arguing about it,” Erin said. “I’ll go take a shower so we can get moving.” I know it was my fault. If only I could start yesterday all over again. I would have just stayed home. I would have called Mom and told her not to get out of bed. We would have been safe.
Standing in the shower, Erin let the hot water slide over her face. The finality of it all numbed her. There are so many things I want to go back and change. Her thoughts began to race in jumbled spikes. I never spent enough time with Mother. She asked me to go to Paris with her last summer, and I didn’t go because … what was so important that made me miss that? She breathed heavily out of her mouth, expelling the grief with deep breaths while steadying herself against the wall. And when she wanted me to help her pick out new tennis shoes last week, but I had a hair appointment … she slid down the wall clutching her head, trying to press the sides of her skull into the stream of regret. Whispering through the spray she vowed to no one, if I could only go back … I would never again tell her ‘No.’ It was no use. The list raced on. Fifth grade. Mother told me to hurry or she’d be too late to catch her ride with Kristy’s mom. I didn’t and sure enough she was late. She took me to school, and nearly missed her flight to Frankfurt. Erin, leaning against the wall in the shower now, riding the steady stream of thought that rose into a crescendo until it ebbed into the turtle. She’d begged and begged for a pet turtle when she was five years old. Liz finally bought her one, after Erin had assiduously promised to take care of it. But Erin left the back door open one day, and the turtle disappeared. Liz spent her hard-earned money for that turtle, and Erin lost it the next day. This final thought made her add laughter to the crying. That turtle. Her beautiful mother trying not to be repelled as Erin placed it in her perfectly manicured hand.
She rose shakily and pushed herself through the rest of the shower. Upon finishing, Erin opened the glass door and slipped into her robe. Leaning on the vanity, she took her visage in. The mirror didn’t hide the truth. Hair hanging in strings on each side of her red eyes, the sight moved her to compassion for herself. She was allowed to be puffy and disheveled. Her mother died yesterday. And now she had to make arrangements - just like that. Here yesterday. Gone today. And now her job was to take most of the evidence of her Mother’s life, from her body to her favorite shoes, and erase it from her own everyday world. The thought was incomprehensible to Erin. People die,