Gone

I sat in the waiting room, preparing myself to see my grandmother’s dead body. I clenched the picture I drew for her, creating wrinkles in our stick figure bodies. The doors opened and it was time for all close family members to say goodbye before she turned to grey ash. The room was silent, but you could almost hear her voice, and the memories all came flooding back to me.

I almost wanted to tug on her and say, “Wake up Grandma!”

It was the smell that made me cry. I’d never smelled death before, but being in that room I could smell her bloated body. She was lying on a board waiting to be cremated. It didn’t look like my Nana. Her face was blue and her hair was white at the roots. My Nana always had freshly dyed hair. I took the wrinkled paper that was now moist from the sweat of my hands and put it in her pocket. I turned to my older sister and cried in her arms. I could feel my mother’s arms on my shoulders and head and then she grabbed me and cried harder than I’ve ever seen her cry before. I could feel her tears come through my shirt and run like a stream down my bare back while my snot dripped onto her shoulder.

Everything leading up to this moment didn’t feel real. Her absence hadn’t sunk in yet. Being with my entire family, it still felt as if she was with us, as if she was always in the other room, busy so I couldn’t see her. Before the crematorium, I often found myself wandering through the house, looking for her. Hoping that I could walk into her bedroom and find her watching the morning news, I’d climb into her enormous bed and cuddle up in a ball next to her with her arm wrapped around me. I would walk around the limestone house, searching for her to be bent over and pulling weeds with dirt on her face and on the knees of her jeans.

I’d yell, “Nana! Look at my bruise, it’s huge and yellow and purple and green!” All while running at her with a grin plastered on my face.

She would embrace me with a hug so warm that I could melt into her chest with her fragrance of rose essential oils coated on her cotton tee-shirt. I searched for her pear shaped body and dyed brown bangs. I searched for her patience and kindness and generosity woven into a woman who deals with clients, grandchildren, neighbors, and her own kids who couldn’t get along for the life of them. She was never there and never would be. No matter how many corners I turned with my eyes wide in search of my Nana, she was never there. I found her empty room, I found her clothes hung up, I found her shampoo, and hair brush, and toothpaste, and toothbrush. I found her flower beds wilted and covered in weeds. I found her pots and pans that she wouldn’t make anything less than wonderful with, but I couldn’t find her.

I used to sit in her kitchen and watch her cook. She did everything so gracefully and made it look so easy. I’d watch her layer her lasagna with mushrooms, olives, sweet potato and spinach, handfuls of cheese on every layer, slathered on tomato sauce made from scratch, and don’t forget the ricotta. I didn’t dare ask if I could help. I knew I’d only mess up her flow, so I would sit with my head on my chin and give her compliments of how fantastic everything smelled.

“To be a good cook,” my grandmother would say, “You have to have a love of the good, a love of hard work, and a love of creating.”

A week before she died, she fell on her back. She was bent over the stove making breakfast for her grandchildren that were soon to be awake. My brother found her first. He came sprinting back up the stairs and told me to call 911.

“Nana fell. She hurt her back!” He cried and ran back down stairs.

She spent the rest of her days in bed. She was only sixty when she died. I never even thought of her coming close to death during those days.

“Your Nana’s sick with a bad back, but she’ll be better and ready to play with you in no time,” my mother would say.

She died without warning. There was no goodbye. She was there one day and then gone the next. Her skin was glowing and radiant the last time I saw her alive and then blue and rotting when I got to say my goodbye.

The Fire

The Fire

I stopped walking at the beginning of Pearl and Oak Street, red and orange flames burned through my vision, smoke circled through the windows and out the front door.

“NO!” I screamed, “FUCK!”

I dropped the bag of scotch and chips and ran to my babies. The smoke filled my lungs before I could decide who to save first. They were all upstairs in the corner bedroom. I took my baseball cap and put it over my nose and mouth, it only made my need for air worse.

“Sebastian!” I screamed, muffled, “Clover, Elliot!” I made it halfway up the stairs when someone grabbed me.

“Get off of me!” I screamed, “Please! Save my children! Sebastian! Clover! Elliot!”

But I was dragged out before I could save them.

“Calm down sir,” the paramedic said, “I need to give you oxygen.” He put the oxygen mask to my mouth. I thrashed and screamed and kicked and cried.

My kids and my wife, they were still in the house. I sat and begged for someone to pull them out, all of them. Julia, my wife was finally pulled out. She was hung unconscious over the fireman’s back.

I ran over to her, “Julia!”, I cried.

“She passed out, we need to get her stabilized”, the paramedic said while the fireman laid her down on the gurney and the paramedic strapped her down with an oxygen mask.

“My kids are sleeping on the second floor, please save them” I said.

Just then, Sebastian’s window exploded with flames. Wood and glass rained down the side of the house. Three more fireman ran out with no bodies.

“No!” I ran to the door to save them, but the firemen ran after me and grabbed me holding my arms and forcing me away from the house.

“No, oh my god, oh my fucking god I killed them.” I sunk to the ground with tears streaming down my face and watched my house burn to the ground.

I couldn’t breathe, I felt like I was choking on the stomach in my throat. I knew julia only made it out because we slept on the first floor. My kids all slept upstairs and no one could get to them. I killed them. It was my fault.

Just two hours earlier I was safe inside with my kids asleep and my wife reading in bed. I sat in the living room, sipping on the last of six beers I had just chugged down. The alcohol made me feel nice and warm on my insides. I went to the back porch and grabbed four logs from the bed of wood I had piled up during the summer. It was winter now, and our house was cold enough for me to be wearing a down jacket and two layers of socks. The alcohol made me feel warm but I threw the logs in the fireplace and added paper and kindling. I sat and watched the fire crackle and jump. Flames of blue, orange, yellow and red grew in my eyes.

I went to the refrigerator to grab another beer, I realized I had already drank the last one. I could feel my nerves tingle as I craved something stronger to get me through the night. My stomach dropped as I thought about getting fired the day before, I hadn’t told my wife, because I knew it would kill her to know that I had lost everything. She would have left me if I told her I spent half the money in our savings account on my secret gambling problem. She hated my addictions, so I always did my best to hide them from her.

Drunk, I decided to leave the fire going and walk to the grocery store five blocks down Pearl street. I picked up a bottle of Evan Williams and salt and vinegar chips. I sipped my bottle on the way back, only making me feel lighter on my feet and making me mouth go numb. I sipped it so I could forget, so I could stop feeling so pathetic about myself. I didn’t deserve my family when I couldn’t even provide for them. Turning the corner, I faced the flames.

I sat in the waiting room to hear the news about Julia. I didn’t feel like myself anymore, everything I had loved vanished me in a matter of minutes. The need to throw-up remained as my mind was consumed of the fire burning down my house and taking my children with it.

A man in scrubs walked out of a room and looked at his clipboard, “Jack Sanders?” he called.

I took a deep breath and stood up, “I’m Jack.”

He walked over to me and took another look at his clipboard. “Your wife is awake and in good condition. She has a broken rib from falling down the stairs when she passed out. Make sure she rests for at least two weeks before any sort of activeness.”

“Okay thanks”, I said and went to her room.

I opened the door and Immediately felt sick to my stomach. I didn’t know how to tell her our kids were gone forever, it didn’t feel real. I walked to the end of her bed, her head was turned away but she looked at me once she heard the door open.

“Jack, what happened?” she said.

I took a deep breath and walked to the end of her bed.

“I’m so sorry, it’s all my fault,” I began to cry.

“What do you mean?” She said, “Where are the kids?”

I put my head down in shame and began to think of my poor children trying to escape the fire that I had created.

“They didn’t make it out of the fire”, I said and covered my face with my hands, sobbing into them.

“No, that can’t be true, you’re lying. My babies, oh my god, my sweet baby’s.”

Julia screamed and cried. I went to the head of the bed to try and hold her but she just threw me off of her.

“Jack, what did you do? What the fuck did you do?”

She screamed at me and her body began to shake. Her face was bright red and covered in snot and tears, I was terrified of this moment.

“It was cold, I made up the fire and must have forgotten to put the screen over it so no logs would fall out. I’m so sorry, I was drinking…”. I tried to reach for her hand but she pulled it away.

“No, Jack, no. You need to leave, I want you gone.” She said and continued to sob.

“Julia please”, I begged, “I…” There was nothing left to say Julia only saw me as a monster now, I saw myself as a monster.