Vivienne's Guilt (3 page)

Vivienne

“I’m sorry” is supposed to make everything better—not rip your fucking heart out. Those two little words are used so freely—so carelessly. Seldom do we lend them much thought. They are our free pass to forgiveness, which is most of the time undeserved. “I’m sorry” took on a whole new meaning when they fell from the lips of that emergency room doctor. “I’m sorry” just tore my world apart. Those two little words hold more power than I ever imagined.

I’ve heard those same two words countless times in the last two days. Friends and family call to give their condolences, and always, always they say “I’m so sorry” because we believe that those two words somehow make things better. That they will help to alleviate some of the pain or maybe it just helps us feel better to say it. But “I’m sorry” no longer offers me comfort. Each time I hear those words, I am taken back to that place. To the smell of ammonia and medicine. To the single most devastating moment of my existence.

“I’m sorry. We couldn’t save him. The EMTs tried to revive him on the way to the hospital, but they couldn’t bring him back.”

They couldn’t bring him back
. My husband. The love of my life. The father of my precious girl. Gone. His life dismissed with two. Little. Words. Lost at the hands of a drunk driver—an eighteen-year-old girl, who shouldn’t have been drinking in the first place. Her carelessness stole the life of the greatest man I have ever known. I don’t know how to even begin to process this—how to accept that this nightmare is actually my reality.

I’ve spent the better part of the last two days hiding from my baby, and I feel like the world’s worst mother. Who does that? Who hides from their own child? Their child who just lost her father. I feel selfish and vile. I feel unworthy, but I can’t seem to pull myself together, and I can’t let her see me fall apart.

I’m lying in our bed, my bed now, hugging his pillow and inhaling his scent. I need now more than ever to be wrapped in his strong arms. I need him to take this all away and make it better. Abbott always made everything better. I want to feel him—to taste him—and I know I will never again have that chance. I’ve replayed our last kiss over and over in my mind. It hardly seems fair that the last time our lips touched was a chaste, parting kiss. I want a do-over. I want to wrap myself around him and love him the way he deserved, to kiss him with everything in me. To leave him with a kiss that reflects how much he meant to me because, God, he meant everything to me.

The funny thing about being so young is that you think you have all of the time in the world to make important decisions, like where you will be buried. In the nine years that we’ve spent together, five of those married, Abbott and I never had this discussion. It never felt like a priority. We had the rest of our lives to worry about such things. Well, the rest of Abbott’s life came far sooner than we ever could have imagined.

I need to pull myself together. I have arrangements to make and a daughter to care for. Taking a final sniff of Abbott’s pillow, I make my way to the shower. I vow to find my inner strength and to be the rock that my daughter needs. If I can’t be Abbott’s wife any longer, I can at least be the mother he would want for our child. Tillie deserves more than this.

“Mommy!” Tillie runs across the room and jumps into my arms. “Are you all better now? Auntie Cass said you were sick and to let you sleep. But I reeeeeally wanted to wake you up because someone bringed me some new
toys!”
She hops down and pulls me over to the kitchen table and waves her hand at all of the presents that our neighbors and friends have so graciously dropped off for her.

Yesterday was her birthday. Yesterday, on May 21
st
, my girl turned three years old, only hours after her father lost his life. I spent my daughter’s birthday locked away in my room. I feel sick with guilt. I am so ashamed. I fight back tears and feign excitement for her benefit. “Oh, wow! You are a lucky girl. Look at all of this stuff!”
Lucky, hah!

“People keep stopping by with gifts for Tillie and food. The fridge is loaded. Why don’t you go grab something to eat, Viv?” Cassie begs. The irony that our roles have suddenly reversed is not lost on me.

Cassie has been here, loving my daughter, wiping her tears. She’s fed her, sang her to sleep, and even celebrated her birthday. All while I wallowed in my own misery. No more. No longer will I put my own grief above my daughter and my best friend.

“I’m not really hungry.”

“You need your strength,” she says, looking at me sternly. “Tillie needs your strength,” she adds in a whisper.

“Maybe I can eat a little something,” I concede. “Are you hungry, baby girl?”

Tillie shakes her head at me. “No, tank you, Mommy. Auntie already feeded me. We ated some zahnia. It was soooo yummy!”

“Well, then, I must have some of this amazing lasagna.” I walk over to the stainless fridge and pause to take in the photographs on the double doors. The first is of Abbott and me standing in front of our lake house. This was our dream home, and we brought it to life together. There’s another of Abbott and Tillie when she caught her first fish only a month ago. She’s beaming with that little perch dangling from her princess fishing pole. He was such a great father. I smile to myself and finally open up the fridge in search of this killer lasagna.

I prepare myself a plate, even though the last thing I feel like doing is putting food into my mouth. Then, I walk over to the breakfast table and scoot a few toys out of the way to sit opposite Tillie and Cass. They’re putting together a ballerina puzzle. Matilda loves puzzles. Her face is all scrunched up in concentration. She brings me so much joy. I could just watch her for hours.

“Are you going to call your father?” Cassie asks hesitantly.

I scoff, “Is that a serious question?”

She shrugs.

“No. Honestly, I hadn’t even thought of him ’til you asked. I doubt he even knows I’m married, and he wouldn’t give a shit anyway, Cass. I haven’t seen him since I was thirteen, and the last time I heard from him was a card on my eighteenth birthday with a check to pay for my college tuition. Even if he would care, which is highly doubtful, there’s just too much that would need to be said between us and Abbott’s funeral is not the time.”

Cassie nods. “You’re right. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“Has his mother called again?” I ask Cassie, dismissing the subject of my father, as I take another mouthful of lasagna. I could be eating cardboard and wouldn’t know the difference.

“Only a dozen times. That woman is a ruthless bitch.”

“Cassie! She just lost her son, and she’s...” I gesture my head toward Tillie and mouth
her grandmother.

“Oh, I know very well who she is. Does she?” she asks as she too motions to Tillie with her head. “His
mother
hasn’t seen him in years and thinks she has a right to dictate when the funeral is and where you bury him? You need to do what you feel is right. What Abbott would have wanted. And I can tell you that he would want to be here in the city where the two of you fell in love. Here with his daughter. Here where he was finally at peace and happy with his life. Why would you even entertain the idea of burying him back in Georgia where his grave would rot with neglect?”

“I know you’re right.”

“Damn straight I am! No one knew Abbott better than you, Viv. Even I knew him better than that shrew. I knew him enough to know that he would never want to be anywhere you’re not, even in death.”

“All right, then, I guess it’s time that I contact the funeral home. Do you think two more days is enough notice to allow time for any family members who want to come down?”

“Two days is
more
than enough time. Anyone who cares enough to be here will make it work. You can’t keep thinking of everyone else, Viv. Be considerate, sure, but we need to not drag this out any longer. It’s time to lay Abbott to rest and start figuring out how to go on without him.” Cassie bends under the table to grab a few puzzle pieces that fell and asks Tillie if she wants to go outside and swim so that I can make some phone calls.

Matilda abandons her puzzle and runs off to her room to put on her swimsuit. I hear her little feet patter up the wood stairs and down the hall to her room.

While we await Tillie’s return, Cassie pulls me into a tight hug. Through her own tears, she promises me that we will get through this. She’s here for Tillie and me. She will help me raise my daughter, and I know she will. Cassie loves my little girl as her own. Together, I know we will be okay. We have to be.

Moments later, Tillie stands before us in her blue and white seersucker tankini with her initials embroidered on the front. It was Abbott’s favorite. He loved her in anything blue because he loved the way it brought out her eyes.
His eyes.
She has his eyes. She has his face. I don’t know how I will ever look at my girl and not see her father. It’s comforting, yet it hurts at the same time.

“Mommy, will you come swimming with us?”

“That sounds like a lot of fun, baby girl. Let Mommy handle some boring business calls and then I’ll be out there to join you and Auntie, ’kay?” She nods her head, and I slather on some sunscreen and tie up the back of her suit. “See you ladies in a few.”

I make my way out back to my favorite area on the property: the pool. We really do have our own little slice of heaven out here. The goal was to feel like we were on vacation in our own backyard, and I am already feeling a little less tense. I watch Tillie climb up the rock steps to the slide, which doubles as a waterfall. She’s such a big girl. Swims like a fish already. I jump in and surprise her when I catch her at the bottom of the slide.

“Mommy!” I will never tire of hearing the excitement in her sweet little voice every time she calls out my name. “Are you done wif your phone calls?”

“I am. How about we spend the rest of the afternoon out here? No more phone calls, huh? Does that sound like a plan?” I glance over at Cassie, who smiles in agreement and then rises from the pool, wraps herself in a towel, and collects our phones.

“I’m just going to put these naughty things away and grab us some lemonade. Be right back.”

As I watch Cassie make her way back into the house, I feel Matilda’s hand on my cheek, pulling my face back toward hers. “Mommy?”

“Yes, baby?”

“When is my daddy gonna get not dead anymore?”

My breath catches in my throat.
Holy shit.

Shit! Shit! Shit!
I am so not prepared for this. Be strong for Tillie. Be strong for Tillie—my new motto.

“Well, Daddy can’t not be dead anymore, sweetie. When you die, you go to heaven with Jesus, and you don’t ever come back.”
He is never coming back...

“But I don’t want my daddy to be dead. I want him to come back home wif us.” I don’t know how I won’t die from the pain of her broken heart. I could go my entire life without ever witnessing it again.

“Oh, baby girl, Mommy does, too. I want him with us, too. He can’t come back, but we have our own angel. Daddy is up in heaven watching us now.”

“Is heaven in the sky?” she asks as she looks up.

Is there a book on how to explain these things to a three-year-old? Surely I am not qualified. I do the best I can and wing it. “Yes, Tillie. Heaven is way-way up in the sky.”

“Well...I don’t want a angel in heaven. I want my daddy to come home. I want him to be in my house, not at heaven.” She crosses her chubby little arms on her chest and releases some of the largest tears I’ve ever seen. My composure is lost. I hold my baby, and I cry with her. Because, Goddamn it, I want that, too.

So much for not letting her see me fall apart.