Todestag

“Joey. Call Grandma’s house ASAP.”

Ten past ten pm in the office with hours more ahead of me when Myeshia’s message lights up the locked screen of my phone. Not the blackberry that work pays for, the iPhone I brought with me from the States to keep a US number. My family has learned how to dial all the extra numbers to reach me in Germany or France, but keeping a US number was my promise to them when I moved to England.

“It’ll be just like calling me in New York.”

They never use it. But I like that they could. If they had to.

My cousin has Messenger, and we write each other frequently enough. More and more since the baby came.

“ Hi, Joey!!! Thank you soooooooo much the card!! Can’t wait for you to meet him!!! He has an appetite just like you!!! Hahaha!! We love you!!”

Smiley face. The inside joke about how crying for more milk got my aunt, uncle and grandfather each to give me a new bottle, until more crying made grandma realize I had had too much. She retells this story every time I visit and calls me greedy. The last time I saw her she was pregnant though, and I got in a few greedy jokes of my own.

Myeshia tells me to call Grandma’s house. Grandma also has two phones and the secret US number, but there are no missed calls from her.

I call and get her voice on the other end. Grandma Dale’s.

“Lil’ Joe, it’s your father.”

“Is that Joey?”

“You know he hadn’t been to the doctor’s in five years.”

“Ma! Don’t tell him that!”

Aunt Lavern in the background. And Myeshia, too. Both of them upset at the latest thing out of Grandma’s mouth. They don’t know that this is how we talk to each other when they’re not listening. That I never ask but she tells me what I need to know. Grandpa had diabetes, too. It’s not what killed him, but he had it.

“He was real bad, Lil’ Joe. He wouldn’t stop drinking. And I told him to take care of himself, especially after they had took his leg, but he just wouldn’t listen.”

My uncle found him. The one on the 6th floor. I never thought to give him the US number.

More details, but no plan. They have to finish the autopsy first. Time. And then they have to figure out where to have the funeral. More time. They’ll let me know when everything is settled. Enough time. I probably talk to the rest of them, but I don’t remember. No one asks if I’m coming back. They never ask what they already know.

I hang up and go back to work.

The next day, business as usual. I joined this firm less than two months ago, and I’m already on my third deal. Our clients are coming from [REDACTED] to discuss [CONFIDENTIAL]. They leave at 4 pm.

“I’m sorry if I’m a little distracted today. It’s just that my dad died yesterday.”

I don’t say it because I want my team’s sympathy. I just want them to know why I didn’t bring my A-game during the meeting.

Silence.

To be expected from people who have been sitting in a conference room with you all day and hear you say this as an afterthought.

They look at me, at each other.

“Do the partners know?”

Why should they? I haven’t even told my boyfriend yet.

“I’m going to tell the partners.”

One comes immediately and hugs me. He hugs me. The other messages to say that he’s in a meeting but will come soon and find me. It’s nice of them, but they’re acting as if something terrible has happened while I just want to get back to work. My father left a long time ago. I’m fine.

But they’re not thinking of me or my father. They’re thinking of the times they couldn’t get back to their families in Greece or New Zealand. Except this isn’t an emergency, and I don’t want to go back to South Carolina. Arrangements need to be made, yes, but no one at home expects me to fly back immediately. At all? And since this deal will close by the end of July we can have the funeral in August when the market slows down. Can we please just get back to work now?

The second partner has found me. It’s late in the evening on the second day, and he opens one of the wine bottles he keeps in his office.

“I’m not going to pretend to understand why you don’t want to go, but I’m guessing it’s complicated.”

In legalese, we call that attention to detail.

He pours two glasses and, Texan, asks me about my daddy. I haven’t spoken to this man since he interviewed me, but tonight I’m telling him about how Big Joe worked as a doorman, then didn’t, then did again as a janitor. How Big Joe saw me graduate from high school but not from university. How Big Joe drank.

“Cheers.”

He listens. And pours more wine. By the end of the bottle he lawyers me with his best cost-benefit analysis.

“Let’s say you don’t go. And down the road you don’t regret it. That’s one example. Or, you do go and hate it, but it only costs you the flight and hotel. That’s another. But if you don’t go and then someday look back and wish you had? There’s nothing you can pay to change it. I’m not telling you what to do, and we’ll support you no matter what, but if you’re thinking you can’t go because of work, trust me, we’ll figure it out.”

Neither of us knows that the deal with [PRIVILEGED] will go pencils down in a few weeks, and I still don’t want to go, but I promise to think about it and get back to him for staffing purposes.

Greg and I kind of live together. He isn’t on the lease and he doesn’t pay rent, but we’ve started splitting the grocery bill and he usually sleeps at mine. I used to make the effort to sleep at his, but I haven’t in months since we had the talk. Not since the sofa fell threw the floor in his sitting room because his landlord only comes once a month from Ireland to collect the rent in cash and never makes any repairs.

It’s the weekend, and we’re having breakfast at mine with all the kitchen things he brought from his. He always makes poached eggs and avocado on toast. Still missing Australia, he eats his with marmite. Preparing for the Life in the UK Test, I eat mine with brown sauce.

After breakfast we go into the kitchen to do the washing up. I open the refrigerator door and.

I. um.

What did I want in the refrigerator? I remember. I knew I just.

It’s right. um. Right there I just. What do I? I just can’t. um. The door. Heart. Just close it. But I, um. I, um. I just. um. I can’t. Heart. remember, I. I. I. I, breathe. I, breathe. Breathe. Breathe! I can’t. um. Breathe! Heart. Breathe! Heart. I can’t breathe! I, deep breath. Heart. Breathe! Breathe! Heart. Heart. Tears. Heart. Can’t stop. Can’t breathe. Can’t move. Can’t speak. I.

Run to my room where Greg can’t see me.

And stay in bed. He lets me. Cry. Keep crying, sobbing, wailing. Everything I didn’t think I could do. I could keep working, meeting with clients and billing nonstop, but I couldn’t put away the brown sauce.

When I wake up, Greg helps me buy a black suit.