![]() Instead, a friend helped me repaint, sand down rough surfaces. Even with newly painted walls and smooth floors, our apartment remained tawdry. I accidentally kicked at some colored wooden blocks scattered along the throw rug.ĭarkness shadowed our overstuffed and unkempt belongings, everything just like when we’d left-the metal walker still next to Diana’s desk, the schedule for the visiting nurse taped to the bedroom door. Lily was focussed on one thing, the event that Diana had been determined to stay alive for, but had missed by three scant days: party party party. Daddy’s big girl didn’t come up to my waist, wasn’t close to looking above the bathroom sink and seeing her reflection. This was going to be her first real birthday party. ![]() It would have been cruel to ruin the festivities for her. Instead, I concentrated on tasks at hand: making calls to a woman who ran a funeral home out of what seemed to be her Brooklyn apartment (for a reasonable price, she handled the cremation), following up with a Ninth Avenue bakery (confirming the color of the iced letters, as well as the message on the double-chocolate cake). Peg, who was Diana’s mother, was still in shock, numb with grief, exhausted by bearing witness to what her only child had been through after she’d been diagnosed with leukemia, two and a half years earlier. The chance to be with Lily-to help her granddaughter-was the only thing keeping her in one piece. She and Diana’s friend Susannah helped Lily into a sleeveless formal dress. It was a little too big for her, its hem grazing the floor. Lily twisted in place, swishing the tulle back and forth, giggling at the little rustling sounds. Her face glowed her eyes sizzled gray, their green flecks shining. “Your mother is in Heaven,” I began, then paused. She will always be in your heart, just like you will always be in her heart.” “She was very sick and had to go away.” I kept eye contact. My daughter’s eyes are unnaturally large, and give her face a particularly moonlike quality. For the rest of my days, I’ll be tortured by how, in these moments, those eyes grew, widening, focussing. ![]() “Mommy’s gone? Where’s Mommy? When is she coming back?”ĭecember 19th. Eleven days after Diana passed-eight days after Lily’s third birthday. ![]() The holiday season was heading into overdrive, most everyone hightailing it out of town. The little one and I faced a long stretch with just the two of us-no sitters, not a lot of help-in the frigid and tourist-packed city. It was daunting, sure, but dinner had been painless and unmemorable, and I felt good about the day just behind us, the fun part of the night about to start. In half an hour, we’d Skype with her grandma back in Memphis. Then it would be jammies, teeth-brushing, face-washing, story time all the rituals of winding down, easing toward bed. ![]()
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