The Vacation

Cindy Grade 9

The day after William’s funeral, I stood in the hallway of the half-empty apartment, replaying the events of the day before. Replaying the last words I had said to his best friends before they got in their car, the last smile through tears I shared when I saw his sister again. The apartment felt unusually cold and the walls looked too bright without his paintings. I couldn’t recognize this alien building as the same one that I had built my family in. My heart beat slow and my breaths drew shallow. All that could be heard in the vacant apartment was the chime of the storage unit keys that the movers had given to me as my fingertips twitched. I did it because I couldn’t take seeing all of his stuff everywhere, no matter how colorful his paintings were. They remained a constant reminder of death. 

My mom would be home in ten minutes with the kids. I had her take them out during her errands so that they wouldn’t be here when the movers came. Soon they would be charging in with their loud steps and bellowing voices and she would enter feebly behind them, hushing their exploding energy. She had the softest voice that could calm a storm or encourage world peace, but they would only talk over it like they always did. Their short heads would crowd her hips as she tried to place the groceries on the kitchen counter. That stuff drives me crazy, but she’s good at it. Almost as good as William. And at that thought, I spilled onto the floor. Shutting my eyes and praying for traffic, for a family of six to cut the line at the check-out, for the kids to ask for ice cream on their way home. Just a few more minutes for me to breathe in this half-empty room. These ten minutes before things went back to normal were all I had left of William. 

“Grandma, my bag is heavy,” a distant voice whined from outside of the living room window. I clenched my jaw as I stood up. My body shakily emerged into the dimly lit hallway that connected the living room and kitchen to the bedrooms. Holding my breath, I glided past the empty master bedroom swiftly, scared that if I stood near its door frame for too long I would get lured inside. Passing the kid’s room, I ducked into the guest room across from it before I could change my mind. All of William’s clothes, paintings, and books had already been moved to the storage locker, but there was still one box left below a pile of clothes in the closet I had found while packing. It was filled with pictures we had taken on our vacation to Greece. I could feel the metal box mocking me through the walls. It’s driven me crazy these past few weeks knowing that as I kept on living inside of this apartment… making cookies for my daughter’s bake sale, setting the table, cleaning out cat litter, coming home from work, taking a shower, the girl in those pictures would be in Greece with her husband. She’d be tan and beaming from ear to ear because she loves her life. And she’d be thinking about how lucky it is that she is there and I am here, widowed with two kids to raise alone. I held my breath as the front door opened and layed down on the bed so that my mother and the kids would assume I was asleep if they came in. There in that dark guest room, hearing the voices of a dying conversation, I could almost pretend that I was about to wake up from a bad dream.

The sun bled through the thin curtains of the bedroom and onto my face. The warm light stirs me awake. My head pounds as I sit up and look towards the mirror hanging in the corner of the guest room, staring back at my tired eyes and grim expression. The desk below it is dusty, a subtle reminder that this isn’t my bedroom, and my bedroom, which I was avoiding, had one final piece of my husband that must be removed. I climb out of the bed and make my way down the hallway, peaking my head into the kid’s room to check if they were still asleep. As I rear the corner and step through the doorway of my bedroom, I flinch when I see the box I had discarded on the floor the day before. Right there I decide that I can’t have this hanging over my head forever so I drop down to the foot of my bed and reach for the box. Peeling open the metal lid slowly, my body goes cold when I see the picture of William, grinning in front of a palm tree. This isn’t too bad, I think to myself. It’s just a picture and a picture can’t hurt me. I run my finger down the sharp edges and down to the pointed end of the small polaroid. Suddenly, a wave of dizziness overcomes me and the light in the small room becomes overwhelmingly bright. A stabbing sharpness erupts from my chest accompanied by a piercing ring in both ears. My senses become paralyzed with shocking pain at the moment my fingers meet the photograph. I gasp for breath while shuffling my feet, trying to find my balance. I come crashing back down onto the floor, hitting my head onto the hardwood. 

My eyes flutter open moments later and I slowly regain control of my senses. My breath rapidly quickens as the events that took place seconds before fade back into memory. Realization floods me as I slowly become more aware of my surroundings. Foamy sea water washes against my legs and my hands brush across the ashy white sand below my panic-stricken body. A tropical breeze whips my hair away from my face to reveal my eyes to a bright blue ocean lapping at the retreating shoreline. I recognize the warm air and hot sand as the Greek island where I spent vacation last year with William. I shakily stand up, completely disoriented. My mind is racing, trying to unravel this mystery. I know I woke up this morning, I know this is real and happening. But how? Shaking my head in dismay, I unsteadily trudge through the sand, tripping as I approach a small group for help. A man in the group turns towards my heaving body and I feel my heart drop to my stomach as I recognize his face. My confusion swiftly dissolves into horror as I see my dead husband walk towards me.

“I just met these guys at the restaurant, they’re really nice. Why were you swimming with clothes on?” He says calmly. My face is frozen in disbelief and I stare at him blankly as seconds pass. He shifts and his face contorts into confusion. 

“Did I say something?” He says through a laugh. I stand still and question him with my eyes, scared to address my fear to this dead man. 

“What is this?” I demand, taking a step back.

“What? You’re being weird,” he says, puzzlement in his eyes.

I look down and think carefully about what to say next. I close my eyes for a moment, in thought, and when I reopen them I’m staring down at a pile of photos in my bedroom. The room is dark now. I peak my head behind the bed at the window to watch the last warm colors of evening sink beneath the skyline. I rest back into the familiar sound of the apartment. My eyes then snap open again as I remember the children. I swing the bedroom door open and push into the room across mine to find it empty, toys littering the floor. I step back into the dark hallway and rear into the bathroom, nothing. My heart pounds frantically as I make my way into the living room and a short body crashes into me. I look down and release a sigh of relief as I drop down to face my daughter. 

“Mommy, where were you? Toby tried making dinner and burned himself! My teacher gave me back my spelling test today. We got home and went out to the garden behind the building and you weren’t there so we went to Mr. Wilson’s apartment and you weren’t-”

“I’m so sorry,” I interrupt. Toby runs from out of the kitchen and stands beside Lily. 

“Mommy got lost on her way to work. You guys made the bus, right? I’m sorry. Let me make some dinner and get you guys into bed.” 

That night I call my mother and ask her to babysit the kids after school and she agrees. I fall asleep looking down from my bed at the spilled-open box of polaroids. I almost cleaned them up but I decided to wait until morning. As my eyes grew heavy, I thought about what this could all mean. Maybe this was God’s way of being remorseful for taking away William, and this is my chance to have a life with him again. I could tell the man I met in those pictures, whether it was really William or just a figment of my imagination, didn’t know he was dead. Telling him that might mess everything up, so I’ll keep it to myself. The following day I woke up extra early to help the kids get ready for school to make up for the day before. I thought back to last night’s conversation with my mother.

“I’m gonna be working late,” I had explained on the phone the night before, rushing through my words. I was uncomfortable with lying, especially to her.

“Seriously? For God’s sake, you’d think they’d give you a break right now. I mean, the funeral was two weeks ago! I wish you’d stand up for yourself more, you can’t just let them pile work onto you during a time like-”

“Oh my god, Mom, no. It’s fine. I asked for more work. It helps, you know, a distraction…” I interrupted. It was so hard to lie to her.

“Okay. Sorry, I just worry about you.” 

“No need to, I’m okay. So you’ll be here when their bus arrives?”

“Of course,” she promised.

My mom was going to be covering for me today, so as soon as I heard the front door slam shut and the kids’ quiet footsteps fade, I sprinted into my bedroom and looked down at the pictures. I crouched down and without hesitation picked up one. The one I had reached for was of William kneeling in the sand inspecting a seashell. It didn’t hurt as much as it did the first time, but it still was pretty painful. When I opened my eyes, I wasn’t at the beach, but on a wooden folding chair looking out at it. I jumped when I saw William on a chair beside me sipping a drink, composing myself before he looked up to smile at me. It was just two weeks ago I had seen him pale and cold in a casket.

He began talking casually about a man he’d bumped into on a walk back to the hotel when he forgot his sunglasses. I felt like an imposter beside him, like I had to pretend to be his wife. The truth is, nothing about this was normal, and it was hard to act like it was. I relaxed back into my chair and looked out at the glimmering water, silently listening to the voice of my husband and letting my memory become familiar again with the inflections of his speech that I had almost let begin to slip my mind. I spent the rest of the day there, coming back home at the same time as yesterday. I had started to pick up a routine as the days passed. The ignored emails and missed calls from my office had started to pile up. I had money saved, so I quit my job. My mother didn’t give me trouble for it because she already believed I was being overworked. Balancing being a mother and living a life that wasn’t real wasn’t easy at first but it soon became like second nature. In the mornings I would get the kids up and make breakfast, and then I’d go to my pictures. Everyday was perfect. The more I went back the less I started questioning the situation, and once I had learned to accept it as it is, enjoyment was all that was left. The kids would come home and I’d be there waiting for them. It seems I had everything under control, until I didn’t.

The last day was different from all the other days I’d spent in my pictures. When I arrived, the tropical breeze I was accustomed to greeting me had been replaced by a turbulent wind that suggested a storm. The final hours I spent with William were calm and a little solemn. Looking back, even though the version of William that lived inside of my pictures had never gotten sick or died it was almost like he had become aware. Or at least developed intuition that led him to understand that something was coming to an end for reasons beyond our control. When I left the beach for the last time, what I saw in his eyes was deep regret. At that moment, I knew something had gone wrong. I knew I had lost control.

My eyes snapped open to a scream coming from the end of the hallway. 

“Wake up! What are you doing? Wake up!” My mother said, shaking my shoulders in urgency. 

“What’s happening?” I gasped.

My heart sank as I became aware of the darkness in the room. It was well into the night by now and I had stayed inside for too long. 

“The paramedics are here! What were you doing?” 

I sprinted to the direction of the screams, tears brimming my eyes, my heart heavy with dread. 

“What have I done?” I sobbed as I entered the kitchen, tears blurring my vision.

“Ma’am, are you the mother? We’re here in response to a 911 call. Your son had an accident.” The words that left my mouth next was a string of incoherent questions that melted into sobs. The paramedic described to me the injuries. They were second degree burns from a gas stove fire. I remembered the first time I had found the pictures and Lily told me that Toby had burned himself on the stove while I was away. I should have taken the sign, I was so stupid. I rode with Toby in the ambulance, squeezing his hand firmly as I cried softly to myself.

I admit that I wished I had held on a little longer to the words that William would rush on the way out the door, or the stories about him at school he’d tell me over the phone that I can’t recall anymore. The constant pain in my chest started to subside as the months passed and the changing seasons healed each wound slowly but surely. The fire behind my eyes when I heard his name didn’t burn as hot. When I passed his old job, I would stare at the tall building and walk a little slower. When his sister called me I would slide my phone across the desk to answer it quickly. It wasn’t William, but it was tiny parts of him that I could still keep. Parts of him that wouldn’t hurt me or my family. As for my pictures, when I had gotten home from the hospital I burned each polaroid one by one.The ashes are still in the little box that I found my pictures in, in my closet beneath a pile of clothes.

I used to think that my goodbye to him was the day we found out about his illness. And then I was sure that the last goodbye was beside the hospital bed when I watched his body relax into death. But then when I saw him get lowered into the ground, that was it. It had to be, right? It’s only now that I’m realizing that I say goodbye to him in little ways everyday, and I will be saying goodbye to him for a long time. Goodbyes tend to be bittersweet, and that’s just the word for how I felt as I watched the orange flame at the corner of the photograph envelope the blue ocean.