Days after Dad’s funeral Mom gets busy, filling the freezer with tubs of lentil soup, arrabbiata sauce, chicken curry - Dad’s favorites - labelling each with the name and date. Maybe she’s cooking for him, hoping he’ll walk through the front door.

When I come down for Saturday morning breakfast, a pyramid of diced onions already sits on the chopping board.

“Mom? Why are you making so much food? We still have the Jacksons’ lasagna.”

“It’s so you and Jane will have something to eat while I’m gone.” She shoves the mountain of onions aside to make room for a colander full of zucchini. I watch her handle the knife, the quick and sure fingers bringing the blade through the flesh of the vegetable. How can she be so calm?

Mom hasn’t broken down once, not even when Jane played Dad’s favorite, “Feelin’ Groovy” on the piano at his memorial. Not when the nice man from the cremation services delivered Dad’s ashes in person. She insisted he stay and have coffee and cookies while they chatted about Dad’s time in Thailand with the Peace Corps, his job as a prison therapist. Jane and I retreated to the kitchen, avoiding the heavy box in the velvety black bag tucked next to our guest.

“While you’re gone? Where?” Why does she always assume I know what she’s thinking? It’s worse since Dad died.

“Just for a few days. I know both you and Jane are practically grown up and can take care of yourselves. I wanted to do something nice for you.” She looks up before turning her attention back to the chopping board. “I’ll be back before you know it.”

“But where are you going?” If she had died, Dad would have taken off work and stayed home. He would never go off and leave us.

Mom laughs, a high-pitched trill. “One of those meditation retreats your father loved. He signed up for one months ago, and I decided to go for him.” She pauses, knife in hand. “It’s a way to feel close to him, you know?” she murmurs, more to herself than me.

It takes a second for her words to sink in. Mom teased Dad endlessly about being such a cliché, calling him “your average middle-aged white therapist.” Sometimes after he emerged from meditating in his study, she would ask “How long before you take up yoga?” He would smile and fire back, “It helps me survive living with three women.”

Once, during a particularly dramatic finale to RuPaul’s Drag Race, Dad turned to Mom and said, “Maybe I should take up drag? You know, to compensate for my meditation. I have the legs for it. Wouldn’t you like to see me lip sync for my life?”

She laughed. “Only if I get to choose the music.”

“‘I Will Survive’?” he smiled at me and Jane, proud to show off his musical knowledge. We rolled our eyes.

“Oh no,” Mom shook her head. “‘Got to be Real.’ The Cheryl Lynn or Patti La Belle version.”

He chuckled. “Deal. ‘Truly real’ is the best line ever.”

Even as toddlers Jane and I knew when to play quietly while Dad meditated. Curious to see for myself what this zazen was all about, I opened the door to his study on a rainy Saturday morning. He sat cross-legged on a round black cushion on the floor, facing a wall, his eyes half closed. I expected him to turn and smile as he always did when he caught sight of me, but he continued to sit very still. I watched and waited for him to look up, but the only movement was the slight rise and fall of his chest as he received and released each breath.

After Mom and I couldn’t go for a day without getting into a shouting match, I asked Dad to teach me to meditate. He warned me about monkey mind, advising me to let go of trying to “get it right.”

But angry words ping-ponged in my head, and I would get up off the floor more frustrated than when I sat down. Dad assured me, “Don’t worry, Vita. They don’t call it ‘practice’ for nothing. You can’t force it, but it only comes through sitting every day. It takes time.” After a few weeks, I gave up.

Since his death I’ve tried to meditate again, but every time I close my eyes I picture the train dangling from the bridge, fire engines and ambulances clustered beneath, smoldering passenger cars on their sides in the middle of the highway. I count each breath, getting to three before the images crowd back behind my eyes. When the train took the curve on the bridge too fast, what did Dad do? Did he close his eyes, return to his breath? How far did he count before he was lost to darkness?

“You’re going to a meditation retreat? Wow, Mom.”

I pour a glass of orange juice and sit down at the kitchen table. “All those times Dad tried to get you to go with him.”

She pulls out a heavy saucepan and turns on the stove. “I know, Vita. Wasted opportunities,” she whispers and freezes, mesmerized by the flickering blue flame.

The doorbell rings. “I’ll get it.” I head for the front door, expecting another neighbor with a platter of food.

Instead, a tall, thin young woman with faded turquoise hair stands on the porch. A battered Chevy Nova idles at the curb. She’s surprised to see me.

“Good morning,” I stall, trying to place her.

“Hi.” She looks around the street before continuing. “Is this the home of Carl McClellan?”

“Yes,” I answer. “Well, it used to be. He doesn’t live here anymore,” I say, stupidly.

“Can I help you?” Mom asks over my shoulder, joining me on the doorstep.

The young woman looks at Mom. “Are you Mrs. McClellan?”

Mom nods.

“You don’t know me. My name is Cassie. I used to work with Mr. McClellan a few years ago.”

She doesn’t look like any therapist I’ve ever met, but I take my cue from Mom, who asks warmly, “Really? At Purdy?”

Cassie nods, then blurts out, “I should have called first.”

Mom says, “Won’t you please come in?”

Cassie shakes her head. “I just came by to offer my condolences. I heard about the train accident. When I saw his picture in the paper I cried for days. He really helped me. He helped a lot of people. Such a great listener, but he pushed us too.”

The driver of the Nova honks the horn.

She looks back at the street, raising a hand. Mom reaches for her, placing her hand on Cassie’s arm.

“He was a very special person, that’s for sure.”

Cassie continues. “I got out a year ago. He made sure I was ready.”

Curious, I ask, “How?”

Cassie looks at me directly for the first time. “He taught me to meditate. To trust myself. Each breath is a reset. He called it ‘Being Truly Real.’”

I imagine Dad sitting on a hard chair in a small room surrounded by long hallways and metal doors, high walls and barbed wire, the stuff of movies. I have no idea what his work was like. Most days he left early in the morning and came home just in time for dinner. I never thought about what he did or who he worked with.

Cassie turns back to Mom, tears streaming down her cheeks.

“He’s going to be missed by everyone. And that’s saying something.”

Mom leans toward her, mouth twisted open, chest shuddering. She sucks in a big gulp of air and lets out a wail that lasts forever. Standing by me and Cassie, she seems so tiny shivering in the “World’s Best Wife” apron Dad gave her as a joke gift one Christmas. I start to cry, for Cassie, for the people we don’t know who miss Dad, for the people who will never know him. I cry for me and Jane, for Mom and the years ahead without Dad. For all our hurt and anger.

“I gotta go.” Cassie squeezes Mom’s hand then hurries to the Nova. The driver revs the engine before pulling away from the curb. Mom watches them drive down the block, shielding her eyes as if it were a sunny day. Resisting the temptation to wipe my nose on my sleeve, I breathe in the cool morning air, holding it for a count of three before exhaling. Practice. That’s all I can do. I take another deep breath, blow out. Mom turns to me and we walk into the warm house together.

=====================================

Phebe Jewell’s work appears in various journals, including Monkeybicycle, Spelk, New Flash Fiction Review, Bending Genres, and The Cabinet of Heed. Her story “¿Cómo Está Tu Madre?” was chosen for wigleaf‘s 2021 Top 50 for (very) short fiction. A teacher at Seattle Central College, she also volunteers for the Freedom Education Project Puget Sound, a nonprofit providing college courses for incarcerated women, trans-identified and gender nonconforming people in Washington State. Read her at https://phebejewellwrites.com.

Art:
Jessica Furtado
Flexibility Training
Collage, 4x6"
2020