Still Living

(Short Story)

It’s Friday afternoon. I’m at the French bakery across from my apartment and order the usual. Three lemon macarons with a coffee. It only takes a sip to realize my coffee lacks love. Jim, my beloved barista, has been gone for two months from cancer. My mother’s first words after I mentioned his passing were that it’s a part of life. This is the same woman who’s been grieving my sister for a decade.

I sit by the window to observe passersby. Children have finished school and walk with ice cream cones. A little girl drops her cone and cries. She and her mother go back inside the ice cream parlor. I drop a macaron on the floor and wrap it in a napkin to hide the tragedy of it being tainted. A young woman wrestles with her purse for lipstick. She puckers her lips, lets her hair down, and strides the runway. I brush my hair with my fingers, but the frizz remains.

Between the hours I leave the bakery to go window shopping and arrive home, my mother is breaking down because a photo of my sister, Lisa, is missing. It’s the one of her climbing the treehouse we built together. She’s wearing an ugly Christmas sweater and has just chopped off her waist-length hair against our mother’s wishes.

“Nicole, I can’t find it,” my mother cries over the phone.

“It’s probably in one of the boxes in the garage.”

“I already checked the boxes. Don’t you think that’d be the first place I’d check?”

“I’m just saying it’s probably not missing.”

“It is missing,” she says. I can feel her rolling her eyes.

“Do you want me to come help you look?”

“No,” she says and hangs up.

My mother had more patience with Lisa. My sister was charming, and once she apologized, you’d forget why you were upset with her. Though she enjoyed breaking rules, she was tranquil at times and wanted to be excluded from chaos. This is when we bonded, staying up all night under a blanket watching cheesy films, hysterically laughing, and discussing our dreams versus the ones mom had for us. She’d travel to sixty countries. I’d be a reporter. Lisa only got to explore ten countries, and I became a receptionist.

I get in the shower. I scrub my scalp and become flooded with uncertainties. I’ve accepted that people I love must take their final breaths. But the idea I might already be dead sinks between my lungs. I suddenly miss my sister. I remember her favorite outfit. A red flannel shirt with jeans. Her scent. Jasmine with a hint of a dewy morning. Her freckled hazel eyes. She’s back in the casket, her authenticity replaced with makeup. Relatives’ eulogies gloss over indigestible memories to mold her into someone who didn’t exist. This takes something from me.

The painting in the museum is bright yellow and red. Critics turn these colors into grey and beige. The pain of beautiful layers fading and losing their purpose lingers. New beauty has to be found. I have to see my sister as perfect. Her room has to be redecorated to make us forget. All the stories we tell of her have to be uplifting. I’ve moved on. I’m okay. Now I believe my own lies.

In the living room, I turn on the TV and cry during commercials. My mother calls again.

“Nicole, I found it,” she says.

“That’s good.”

“It was stuck in the corner of one of the boxes.”

“I figured it was there.”

“Do you have a cold?” she asks.

“No, I’m just a little chilly,” I tell her as I sniffle.

“Is your heater broken?”

“No, it’s working fine.”

“You’re too frail. It’s why you get sick so easily.”

I don’t respond.

“Well, I just wanted to let you know I’m going to start framing more of our photos so they won’t get lost.”

She already has too many framed photos.

“I’m glad,” I say.

“Make sure you keep warm and actually eat,” she says and ends the call.

She’s completed her daily checklist. Check up on me, remember Lisa, criticize me, remember Lisa. I’ve always held my tongue. Any efforts to please her backfired. Her grief converted to more frustration that was taken out on me. I resembled my sister too much, so it was painful for her to be near me. I wasn’t a parent, so I couldn’t understand her agony. I gave her space. She complained. I visited more often. She still complained. Lately, hearing my voice has been enough to keep her content while also keeping me at a distance.

A teddy bear with a heart shaped fan on its belly sits on my dresser. My sister gave it to me on Valentine’s Day, but I never liked its deadpan face. It’s moved three times. Once when I left home to attend college, then to a city three hours from my hometown, and finally back to my hometown. It has witnessed my sleepless nights, the desperation to find someone who won’t neglect me, and tears that continually touch my skin. I look over at it each night before bed. It knows me better than any human. It’s kept my secret.

Two months before my sister passed, I imagined her death. She floated in a pool with strands of her hair spread like a sunflower. An old man who seemed familiar swam toward her. They held hands as the water began to descend. A drought was coming, but Lisa wanted to stay longer. The man let go of her hand and told her she was free to choose her next destination. She submerged her head under water and came back up. She clasped the man, but he vanished. The water drained, and a crack formed in the center of the pool, widening until she fell through it.

I was there when she died. Her body was exhausted, ready to free itself. Yet we weren’t. We cried in the hospital room that had known it was the end long before we did. People gave us flowers, sorrys, and reminders that she was at peace. It was easy because it wasn’t their loss. It was ours. It was mine.

My dinner arrives. A man with oversized clothes hands me my pizza. I thank him, but he continues to stand by the door.

“Did you need something?” I ask him.

He makes the money gesture.

“I’m sorry, I forgot,” I tell him and scavenge through my drawers. I find a one-dollar and a fifty-dollar bill. I try to hand him fifty dollars, but he shakes his head.

“This is too much,” he says.

“It’s all I have,” I tell him. “It’s okay. Take it and pay it forward.”

He reaches for the money and thanks me with no eye contact.

When I open the box, I see a pizza that’s barely survived a crash. The cheese and toppings are crushed against the inner edge of the box. It’s cold, and there’s no pepperoni like I asked. I eat a slice thinking it’ll taste better than how it’s presented. It’s the second time today I’m wrong. The first was for thinking a teddy bear could keep a secret.

“Nicole,” my mother says as I pick up her call from bed. “I just found your old notes. What’s this one talking about? It says your dream told you something bad was going to happen. What was going to happen?”

“It’s probably nothing,” I tell her.

“It can’t be nothing. I mean, look at this,” she says. I can hear her flipping through the pages. “Almost every page has the word death on it. Why?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I was depressed when I wrote it,” I tell her. “I’m really tired right now.”

“I never knew you were this obsessed with death.”

“Maybe I got it from you. Goodnight,” I say and turn off my phone.

In the morning, I see five missed calls. The crippled pizza remains on the kitchen counter. I throw it out and go to the bakery for a coffee.

Outside, people walk past each other with their heads down. Leaves fall and sway toward the road. A plastic bag floats to reach a cloud. I taste my coffee. Bitter. Soulless.

Somewhere on the other side of the window is a place I haven’t explored because I’m scared to break from my routine. “It’s okay to try new things,” Lisa once told me. “It means we’re still living.”