Grief Divided
What will it be like to grow new limbs?
I emerge from my solitude at pick-up time. Her school is on a busy street — bright zips of traffic, a line of noodle shops. She always tries to run away from me. It drives me mad. Ever since I became a single parent, I’ve been waiting for the moment when she slips from my grasp.
“Come back!” her friend calls. They’re like lovers who have been separated, although they’re only in kindergarten. It’s rainy, cold, already dark. The cars are bursts of red and white. I grip her hand. “Let go of me!” she cries. I feel her knuckles compressing, her arm tearing at the shoulder. Across the street, men eat noodles and swear loudly. The air smells like fire, like something bad has already happened. I lean my weight back, dying to protect her. “Let go of me!” she cries again. The cars are too fast.
What if I hold her hand so tightly I crush her knuckles? What if I yank her arm and it divests from her body like a long, sateen glove?
For Christmas, we drive to the countryside to visit my in-laws. The entire extended family is there. Everyone has been stoic this past year. My father-in-law tells me he didn’t get me a gift, but later, after the youngest ones are asleep and the spirits are wheeled out, he hands me a paperback about the deep sea. It looks like it’s been hibernating on his bookshelf for decades. There are underlined paragraphs about the collective mind of jellyfish, about limb regeneration.
He clears his throat. “Sometimes it’s hard to speak her name.”
So I dare myself to speak it. “Aura,” I say, “Aura.”
But of course, he was referring to his daughter, not mine. “Augusta,” he corrects.
Once he finishes his drink, the older kids swarm around him, and they head to the lone bar in town, which admits minors on Christmas week, serving cider and hot cocoa. I wake Aura and carry her there in her flower PJs. The bar smells strongly of cinnamon. (Maybe Aura is allergic to cinnamon?) I set her on a stool and watch her negotiate her balance. One of my hands stays on the small of her back, never breaking contact.
On New Year’s Day, there’s a cookout. It’s a tradition my wife loved, so Aura and I stay, even though I’m eager to drive home, to be alone. The chef at the grill is a man with a beatific smile. His sweatshirt indicates he’s the chief of the volunteer fire department.
Once Aura runs off to play, his smile dims, and he anchors a hand on my shoulder. “I’m so sorry for your loss,” he says. “I can’t imagine.” His grip becomes hard, then evolves into a full embrace. Before I can ask him to let go, more arms encircle me. A dozen people coalesce, my father-in-law among them. They press my back, my head, my chest. A small set of hands coils around my knees: Aura. My tears begin to bloom. “Augusta,” I say. I sense the stirrings of infinity.
First school day of the new year. I’ve developed a habit of listening to ocean sounds on my phone. Waves breaking, dolphin calls, whalespeak. They join me everywhere. My grief counselor says it’s all part of the process. I ask him if jellyfish make any sounds, and he says, with a mordant sigh, that he hasn’t the foggiest idea.
I’m sitting across the street from Aura’s school, sipping broth at a noodle shop. The ocean drowns out the boisterous men in the room. When the sun hits the window, the glare makes it impossible to pick Aura out of the crowd. It’s like sensory deprivation, it’s lovely. I take my time. I breathe in, I breathe out. The waves crash. In the privacy of my mind, I intone I surrender control and I have no power.
When I pay and cross the street, Aura is waiting for me. “Can I see it?” she asks. We walk away from the school holding hands, fingers interlaced. “Can I see?” she says. I tell her to hold on. “Let me see!” she yells. When we’re at last on a quiet street, I open my jacket and let her look. The new arm that started growing from my abdomen last night is still there, glistening in the winter sun.